#gerald gruff

[anominous-user]

edits of a bunch of honkai stuff into whatever this is (sticks)

og pics

[eunchancorner]

Revenged and Rescued (Part 8)

I will admit. Initially this was going to be much longer, but I cut it where I was initially going to put a timeskip. This one feels like a lotta filler but dw, I got something big planned ;3

-

“I'm not going to pull you up…”

“Without you, I become leader of the Toppat Clan…”

“Just wanted to look you in the eyes as I took it all back…”

“Goodbye…”

Plummeting into the freezing sea, it wasn't that face of calm superiority that Henry remembered. It was the anger, the pain driven by fear that he'd seen in the beginning. When Reginald demanded he fixed his Right Hand Man. When Reginald had blamed Henry for everything. Those last words uttered from Reginald's mouth weren't what echoed in his mind as he felt his own body shutting down on him. It was the first ones.

“FIX HIM!”

He gasped sharply as he woke up, staring up at the dark green fabric fluttering above him. He was still in the tent, still laying in that cot.

“Hey, Henry, you're finally up!” he suddenly heard from the tent entrance, sitting up to see Charles, dressed like he'd been going about his day for quite some time now.

“I'm surprised you slept through the general's call, I never can, but you! I have to admit Henry, it's weirdly impressive. But you can't sleep all day! You still haven't met everyone yet! Lucky for you, General just likes to have us run drills in the mornings and then we can hang out the rest of the day if we don't have important tasks to do. Eel and Andrew are gonna be busy a while, but Quentin and Madd said they'd help show you around! The Bukowski twins wanted to come, but Vicky's taking them over to target practice- Oh, you still need to meet Vicky! Oh, by the way, tomorrow you've got some acclimation practices with Phlex. Hopefully to make him less… violent around you.”

Henry let himself relax as Charles rambled, letting the friendly sound help push away the dream.

It's over… it's over…

“Uh, you ok over there, Henry?” the pilot suddenly cut into his thoughts, and he nodded, standing.

“Yeah, I-I'm fine. Just… getting used to waking up normally again. Give me a sec,” he assured him.

“Alright, just, be quick getting ready, Quentin is not very patient,” the pilot advised before popping back out of the tent. Henry sighed as he looked at his clothes. Let's get it going, then.

After getting ready, Henry walked out of the tent, looking out at the base, buzzing with activity. He looked up at the overcast sky as a single helicopter took off, gripping the strap of his bag tightly.

“Heyyy, Henry, you're finally ready! I grabbed you something from the mess hall for breakfast, you like apples, right?” the pilot asked as he ran up, gently tossing one into Henry's hands, not waiting for an answer. “Quentin and Madd should be over soon, they're talking to General Galeforce about a tent change, y'know, because of the whole Phlex and Mac situation. Oh! And we're gonna have visitors in a couple of days! I hope it's Major Panzer's section, I'd love for you to meet them, too! Oh!” Suddenly his gaze turned behind Henry, and he followed his gaze to see two of Charles's squadmates. “Quentin, Madd, we're over here!”

“Stickmin, you are up! I thought Charlie was bullshitting us,” Madd greeted as him and the older pilot approached. Henry nodded a bit, and Madd put a hand on his shoulder as they reached the two.

“So, ready for the grand tour, Henry? Charlie says you like the place so far, so I've got a feeling you're gonna like the rest of it!”

“That, and we have several other people here we need to introduce you to,” Quentin added as he began to lead the small group. “Who's first, boys?”

“How about Anthony? Heard he's hanging out with Smokah and Turtle. Might wanna meet the new guy,” Madd suggested, giving Quentin a knowing look as he stopped dead in his tracks, before turning back to Madd.

“I know what you're doing. No.”

“C'mon! It's a perfect opportunity! Besides, he has to meet them sometime,” the sniper argued, and the oldest sighed.

“If we're going to introduce Henry to Anthony, that's the only thing we're doing. Understood?”

“Check, now c'mon! I still remember where they are!” Madd announced as he took the lead, bringing them over a jeep where three soldiers were smoking. Or more accurately, two were smoking, one was pacing and rambling endlessly about some kind of explosive device idea.

“Henry, meet Anthony Lee, Smokah Tyeson, and-”

“Codename Turtle, pleased to meet ya!” she cut off Madd's introduction, taking Henry's hand and shaking it quickly. “I'm the demowoman, the boom behind the bounty hunters division! Heard you met Eel already, that's good, but you still need to meet Frog, right? Hey Frog, get over here!” her words came out rushed and energetic, something Henry remembered Eel had warned him about. Another soldier came over, dressed similarly to Turtle, and Henry assumed this was Frog.

“Hey there, Henry, I’ve heard a lot,” he greeted, shaking Henry’s hand in a far more calm fashion. “I’m Frog, as you might have heard Turtle screaming. You’ve got quite the reputation, but we’re glad to have you on our side. Quent, Madd, Charlie,” he nodded to the other three.

“Frog,” they chorused behind Henry, before Charles stepped forward.

“It’s nice to see you guys, and to introduce Henry. We’re giving him a little tour and meet-and-greet with everyone!” the pilot announced, and one of the other soldiers coughed in response. Smokah, if Henry had the names right.

“Well, kid, hope you like overcast and gas fumes, ‘cause that’s what you’re in for,” he remarked in a gruff, almost pained voice.

“You sure that’s not just the cloud of smoke that follows you everywhere?” the other one, Anthony, remarked, earning a pointed glare from Smokah. He turned to Henry. “Don’t take any of that too literally, half of us have money on him dying from lung cancer before anywhere out there.”

“Fuck you, these things make me stronger and you know it,” he grumbled, snuffing out a butt and lighting a new one.

“I will admit to that, these things do seem to give him some kinda power. But you smell and sound awful, and frankly we’re worried about you,” Anthony noted as he turned back to the chainsmoker, who just huffed in response. Or possibly coughed, Henry couldn’t tell.

“At least I’ve got something going for me. I’m the character in the movie you can’t help but get attached to, you’re the nameless soldier who gets shot in the face in the first scene.”

“God, why is that always what you go to? Besides, I’m more like the soldier who’s got a few interesting stories and the audience finds him relatable.”

“Yeah, these two idiots have a habit of comparing each other to movie tropes. It seems silly now, but wait until you’ve spent months around them, you’ll see how quickly it get soooooo annoyingggg,” Turtle complained, leaning on Henry. He was surprised by how he almost felt uncomfortable with the proximity. Thankfully, Charles stepped in before Henry had to say anything.

“Turtle, careful, he’s still getting used to the augmentations! You might break him!” he warned, pulling her off him gently, but her eyes visibly lit up before she grabbed Henry’s arm.

“Ohhh, I’m such an oblivious bitch, how didn’t I see this? It’s so cool! Can your arm transform? Do you have any weapons? Is it just a normal arm?” she began rambling, looking at Henry as she tapped along the sensors.

“It’s got a couple of different options. I’m hoping they haven’t taken anything away, though I’m not sure I could bear it if they added more upgrades. But if I do have some pretty cool weapons. You guys mind if I show you the minigun?”

“You have a minigun?!” Charles asked in response, his eyes wide.

“Hell yeah, let’s see it!” Madd answered excitedly.

“We don’t have time for that! Maybe tomorrow, but right now, we’re in the middle of something,” Quentin cut in, earning ‘boo’s from the younger squad members.

“As bad as I wanna see the minigun, Quent’s right. We can see it tomorrow, after that thing that Galeforce wanted to do with him,” Anthony added. “But right now, you guys are busy. He’s still gotta meet everyone else.”

“I- Y-yeah, so, c’mon, Drake and Hank are over by the choppers, and I’ve got a Blackhawk to make sure those newbies in engineering didn’t fuck up. C’mon,” the bearded pilot ordered as he led the others away, though Henry was able to catch him blushing as they departed.

As they approached the helicopter pads, they were greeted by another soldier, who stopped Quentin in his path.

“Ain’t ya gonna introduce me to the newbie, here?” he asked in a surprisingly deep voice, pointing to Henry

“Oh shit, yeah, Gruff, this is Henry. He’s the guy that Charles saved in the Jungle mission,” Quentin informed him, motioning to Henry, who waved a bit awkwardly.

“Ah, yeah, I remember now. Should’ve seen the arm, that’s on me. Welcome to base, Henry, hope you like it here,” he said, shaking Henry’s hand. Henry nodded a bit.

“Glad to say I do so far. You guys have just been so… welcoming, I’m honestly surprised.”

“Are you kidding? You took out the whole Toppat Clan, the very same Toppat Clan that’s been pissing off the general for years. He’s so much nicer to be around now, it’s amazing.”

“Right, well, if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got other people to meet up with and not a lot of time to get it done. It was good seeing you, though,” Quentin told him, and Gruff nodded.

“Right, I gotta meet up with Josh anyway, I’m taking him down to Captain Grit’s target practice she’s running. You guys should pop over once you’re done, though, I think she’d like Henry!”

“That’s the plan. Seeya later, Gruff!” Madd said as Gruff left, and the four continued on.

[egg-emperor]

something I love about Eggman's English voices in the games is that he really sounds like his age range. it's always been reflected well in his voice, they always pick the actors right thanks to the age specs in the casting set in place. (from what I've heard, the other languages do too- but Eng is my expertise thus my focus here)

Deem was in his 50s when he started voicing Eggman and his take immediately sounded like it was in the 50s-60 range that the character is. I can't find a better way to describe other than you can just hear the age in the voice and it's fantastic for him, it fits so well. it was literally the perfect first canon game English casting for Eggman

Mike was much younger when first voicing Eggman at 38. I never felt there was a time his take didn't work, it always did- the unique type of gruffness he gives Eggman's voice made him sound a lot older because he has the talent to transform his voice like that (Gerald, hello). but he naturally sounded quite a bit younger for Eggman than Deem then

but of course over the years, it's become even more suited for Eggman's voice with time and age. which is of course mostly his talent and experience voicing the character, all due credit. but part of it is the age in his voice too. he sounded brilliant in X/Shadow 05 already but compare to any recent release like Dream Team, the evolution in all areas is great

I saw someone saying you could hear the age in the voice intending it as a criticism back when people were debating the quality of the all of the Dream Team cast performances. and I was like you're joking, it's good that you can hear the age in the voice for Eggman, the 50-60 year old character. that way Mike's voice actually fits for him more than ever lol

Mike actually said something along the lines of this himself in an interview a few months ago. paraphrasing heavily as I'd have to go back but it was something like- as he's approaching Eggman's age (he sees Eggman as around 60, he'd said it before that too) the voice falls more naturally in his range. which was cool as I thought so before that interview happened!

it now suits Eggman so well in the same way I always felt with Deem too, so that's nothing but an improvement. when Eggman audibly has that gruffness and age in his voice it's the best 💜

[theawkwardanglophile]

Similarities between Tim/Lucy (The Rookie) and Luke/Lorelai (Gilmore Girls)

I've been meaning to do this for a while, especially after I recently did a Gilmore Girls rewatch and found that two of my fave couples of all time have quite a few things in common.

Let's start with the guys and girls, then the similarities between the couples.

Tim & Luke

Gruff exterior with a heart of gold

Kind of a loner

Parents have passed away

Will do anything to make his girl happy

Easily jealous

But also doesn't think any other guy good enough for Lucy or Lorelai (pre-relationship)

A show-you kind of guy

Both have a younger sister

Both date a Rachel

Both date someone annoying (Nicole & Ashley) (sorry, I HAD to. They both drive me nuts.)

Very protective of those he loves

Both secretly like "nerdy" stuff (Luke-Star Trek, Tim-Dr. Who)

Lucy & Lorelai

Sunshine chatterbox

Only child

Difficult relationship with parents

Harsh parental expectations, but she forges her own path anyway

Can get their guy to do anything

Explains pop culture references to the guys

Both date a Chris

Loves messing with her guy (Lucy-pranks, Lorelai-getting Luke ranting)

Loves making things special for her people (Lucy-gift baskets, sending food, Lorelai-special events, movie nights, etc.)

Hasn't really been fully in love before

Both couples

Perfect example of Grumpy x Sunshine

Flirty banter

Everyone else thinks there's something going on

They become best friends

First dance in S4, shortly before first kiss episode

First kiss in 4x22

"Look at Bradford's moves"/"Luke can waltz"

Lucy & Lorelai both call Tim & Luke Sleeping Beauty

Both couples have a goat (Luke/Lorelai-Gilbert on the chuppah, Tim/Lucy-Gerald)

Lorelai tells Luke a cruise a good place to propose/ Lucy says Hawaii is where you propose

Pre-relationship, Lucy stayed over at Tim's/Lorelai stayed over at Luke's

If anyone has something else to add to the list, please let me know! I'd love to hear it!

[parfumieren]

1740: Marquis de Sade (Histoires de Parfums)

My maternal grandfather, a gruff London-born Irishman with a deadpan sense of humor, preferred for his teatime a particular sweet known as the Garibaldi biscuit-- or as he called them to our delighted disgust, "fly sandwiches".

A direct descendent of Dublin gur cake, the fly sandwich consists of a layer of sticky, sweet filling between two layers of rather dry glazed pastry, which is scored before baking so as to be easily broken into pieces. Without hot liquid to soften it, the "fly" part of the sandwich adheres to teeth like cement, so one must subject it to a lengthy soaking in tea or coffee before cramming the whole delicious shebang in one's mouth. Indelicate, yes-- but one of life's minor pleasures.

The traditional filling for fly sandwiches is a puree of dried fruit-- currants, dates, figs, apricots, raisins, or sultanas. The fruit is soaked in water, mixed with spices, and cooked down until it compacts itself into a sweet, tarry sludge. Were you to analyze its scent molecules and base a perfume on them, you'd end up with Histoires de Parfums' 1740.

The first time I wore 1740, I couldn't keep my wrists away from my nose all day. Rare is the perfume that divests you of shame to the point where you're compulsively sniffing yourself in public. I actually rushed home from work to reapply it just so that I could experience it all over again from the top. Not that I really needed to-- 1740 possesses formidable staying power -- but each stage of its development held so much of my attention and interest, it was impossible not to want to prolong our time together.

1740's dried-fruit aspect -- dark, sticky, almost chocolatey in its intensity -- may come across as a little high-calorie on paper, but the welcome addition of astringent wormwood and burnt-bitter immortelle save it from Sugarplum Fairy territory. The heart of 1740 is all lush suede and coffee notes, and the drydown bears enough of an odd resemblance to the opening chords of Muscs Koublaï Khän to make me think that some experimental layering might be in order.

Still, just as with 1805: George Sand, I find myself groping to imagine a plausible explanation for Gerald Ghislain's choice of perfume mascot. The Father of Sadism is the absolute last person this ultra-homey, cozy-kitchen perfume summons to mind. Leather? The fruit kind, sure. Cruel? Not even close. Addictive? Absolutely.

Scent Elements: Immortelle, bergamot, artemisia, patchouli, cardamom, cedar, elemi, leather, labdanum

[hedgehog-university-au]

Sonic: I don't have a ton of family, but I have my Uncle Chuck! He's really great and I go visit him whenever I get the chance.

Tails: I haven't really talked to my birth parents since I was pretty young. And I don't think any of my foster families count, since they never really wanted me, so.... But it's okay, I'm doing fine by myself!

Amy: I love my parents! They're... busy, most of the time, so they don't spend too much time with me or call very often, but that's just because they're working so hard! And they promised to come up for my graduation!

Knuckles: My family is pretty great. Uncle Pachacamac is a bit... difficult, but I love my cousin Tikal. She's always here for me and gives me good advice.

Tikal: Aww, right back at you, cousin 🧡. And yeah, my dad can be a bit much. I still love him, but...

Espio: My relationship with my family is rather... strained. Particularly after the, uh, The Incident ™.

Vector: I got my Ma! She's awesome, and she lives here in town so I get to take the guys over to her house sometimes. And all the guys on my floor are like my family!

Shadow: I have my sister Maria. She means the world to me. Besides her, I'm... okay with most of my family. Our grandfather, Gerald, is pretty good... Oh. If we're talking about biological family, then I guess I am required to mention Black Doom. He is my biological father. That is all he is to me. And I've recently found out that he has another son, Eclipse, who is also on campus. I do not have any particular interest in him.

Maria: You should get to know Eclipse better, Shadow! But as far as me, I also really love Shadow! He's the best little brother a girl could ask for! And I love the rest of our family too, especially Grandpa. Our cousin, Ivo, is pretty gruff, but I believe he has a soft side. And I'm having fun getting to know his kids, Metal, Sage, and Belle better!

Belle: My dad and I aren't very close anymore. It's also been pretty hard trying to connect with my half-siblings. Sage is pretty nice, and we've gotten a chance to get to know one another a bit better, but Metal still isn't super friendly towards me. It's getting a bit better, though. And I've enjoyed getting to know my cousin Maria. She's super sweet, although Shadow still intimidates me a bit...

For characters!

If any of you have family, what's your family relationship like?

More character questions!!

[chicojimj]

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the diplomat with the thick glasses and gravelly voice who dominated foreign policy as the United States extricated itself from Vietnam and broke down barriers with China, died Wednesday, his consulting firm said. He was 100.

With his gruff yet commanding presence and behind-the-scenes manipulation of power, Kissinger exerted uncommon influence on global affairs under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, earning both vilification and the Nobel Peace Prize. Decades later, his name still provoked impassioned debate over foreign policy landmarks long past.

[peachys-archived-posts]

Broken Moral

Summary: cornered and with no where to go, Lupin surrenders, but America isn't messing around, they want him dead on the spot.

Warning: angst, violence, death, dead body mentioned, murder.

You tapped your foot, eyes trained on the men in front of Lupin, Goemon, Jigen, and you.

They crouched behind the open doors of their cars, guns trained at the gang, and RPGs ready to fire.

"Who knew America was so violent?" You spoke up.

Jigen gritted his teeth. "Yeah. Who knew?" He retorted.

You looked to Lupin for some sort of signal to do something, he stood there without movement, eyes scanning the group of military and policemen. Lupin must have noticed something, the way his eyebrows knitted tightly together and he clenched his hand, showing that he was in slight distress.

"No use in trying to get away Lupin! Inspector Zenigata isn't here to baby you anymore!" A gruff voice crackled over a speaker in amusement.

Jigen's eyes scanned the crowd erratically for the voice behind the speaker, the source seemingly being a tall, broad shouldered man, in a long black coat.

"Oh yeah. And who are you supposed to be?" Goemon addressed the man over the speaker, just loud enough that he could hear.

"Inspector Gerald, of the Arizona police department! And you're under arrest!" Inspector Gerald announced.

The rockets hissed as they fired, panic set in and you leapt behind the nearest object, covering your ears and screwing your eyes shut. Lupin's hand came to rest at your side, pulling you into him, protecting you from the blast.

Jigen clenched his jaw, leaping out of the way and firing at the rocket. The rocket exploded upon impact with the bullet, sending Jigen tumbling after Goemon for cover.

With only the chance of shooting one, the other made impact with the ground, erecting a shout from you.

"Y/n! Are you okay?" Lupin asked. You opened your eyes and looked up at him with a nod.

"Good,"

Lupin reached into his jacket, pulling his pistol out, he pulled the slide back with his teeth and aimed.

"What about you? Did you get hurt?" You inquired. Lupin smiled back at you, for just a brief moment, winking before moving his hand from your waist to the small of your back.

"Just fine." He mused.

The rain of bullets had started before the rockets were reloaded, you were last to fire in retaliation against the ones who fired first. You had them falling man after man, but the bullets just wouldn't stop.

Dropping back behind the rock to reload, Lupin followed, his hand pulled your head to his chest.

"Goemon, the rockets! I'll cover you!" Jigen urged his samurai friend.

In the wake of hissing, the rockets fired. Goemon pulled his blade from it's stationary rest, slicing directly through the middle of each rocket.

Jigen, just a few feet away, behind Goemon, ran across the way towards you and Lupin, Goemon joined him.

"Lupin!" Jigen shouted.

Lupin and you sat up just in time for Jigen and Goemon to slide to a stop, hiding with you behind the rock. Clearly out of breath, Jigen took a moment to speak.

"The plan?" Jigen spoke everyone's mind when he said that, bringing the attention to Lupin.

Lupin knew if they kept going at the pace they were, ammo would run out in only a few hours, and Goemon would tire out, leaving them defenceless. He bit his lip in distress, "We-"

That loud hiss filtered through the air, making most of the group duck. Your heart leapt out if your chest, frozen, your world was rocked, sending you tumbling down the side of the hill you were on. Your heart pounded in your ears as endless sticks and sharp rocks collided with your skin, you shouted.

"Y/n!" Lupin cried out, lunging forward.

"Lupin, you dumbass!" Jigen yelled after Lupin.

Stumbling down the hill, Lupin kneeled at your side, his hands carefully wrapping their way around you. Turning his head, Lupin shouted back up to Jigen and Goemon.

"Take them and leave!" He yelled.

Jigen and Goemon rushed to Lupin's side, careful not to slip or fall on the way down.

"What!?" Jigen exclaimed.

The footsteps of the police making their way over struck Lupin in a panic, forcefully, he shoved you into Goemon's arms, erecting a groan from you.

“Are you about to do something stupid like stay behind to make sure we all get away safely?” Jigen retorted.

Lupin looked his friend directly in the eyes, his eyes dim, and his mouth in a thin line, he spoke firmly.

"They want me. If I go with you guys, they fire at you too. Just take them and get out of here safely." Lupin pointed at Jigen's chest accusingly, knitting his brows tightly together, and moving over to where he had placed you in Goemon's arms. "Be careful," He said.

As painful as it was to look at him, you turns your neck to gaze at him. He couldn't just turn himself in, not yet.

"Lupin, you're coming with me." You fixated your eyes on his.

"No, I'm not. You'll see me sometime tomorrow when you wake, don't worry." Lupin smiled at you brightly with his eyes closed, waving you off dismissively.

"Love you. Take care of the boys for me!" Lupin yelled back to you.

You knew the Americans weren't playing around, this wasn't just another round of escaping the jail cell, they wanted him dead on the spot.

The police silhouetted the top of the hill, you could vaguely see Lupin's hands rising from his pockets in surrender, his gun falling to the ground and sliding to the ground near Goemon.

"Let me go!" You yelled.

Struggling against Goemon's grasp, you wriggled free, falling to your knees at Goemon's feet. Jigen lurched forward to grab you, but you scrambled just out of his reach, your shaking hands grasping the handle of Lupin's p38.

"Lupin!" You screamed.

Lupin's head turned in your direction, eyes wide, mouth agape, he didn't expect you to do anything. You could see the Inspectors gun pointed at Lupin's head. Your heart skipped a beat, a rush of adrenaline shooting through you, you pulled the trigger just before Jigen grasped your shoulder, snatching you back.

The Inspectors body fell limp to the ground, everybody froze, all eyes on the dead body before them. The silence covered the air like a thick cloud, the tension only building.

Lupin looked back to you, making his way down as quickly as possible. Pulling his gun from your hands he scooped you up bridal style and began to run.

Jigen and Goemon followed quickly behind, Losing sight of the police fast.

There was no time to rest once they reached the hideout, Zenigata had them surrounded the moment they walked through the door.

"There you are Lupin! The day has finally come where I put you behind bars." The inspector smiles brightly, his hand coming up to his mouth as he giggled.

Lupin raised a brow at the dangling handcuffs in Zenigata's hand.

"Sorry pops, but this isn't the best time." Lupin claimed.

Lupin looked back at you, Zenigata's eyes followed, seeing that you were being held up by Goemon. Zenigata pieced together what happened quickly, his mouth leveled out into a firm line.

"That's murder!" He exclaimed.

"We know. Why do you think he said, wrong time?!" Jigen retorted.

Zenigata grumbled to himself, pacing around the small space, his hand resting under his chin.

It was a personal matter that he knew Lupin would like to take up with his crew, alone.

Zenigata stopped, sliding his hands into his pockets, he looked up at Lupin and spoke.

"I'll give you five minutes to get out of my sight, before I slap these cuffs on ya and call it a day." He offered.

"Thanks, pops." Lupin said, motioning for Jigen and Goemon to leave, they stepped out the door and hit the road.

The drive lasted till nightfall, the goal, nobody had one. They stopped at a small motel for the night, each person getting separate rooms, here you sat on the edge of your bed cleaning your cuts up. It was hard to even do that, the thoughts of killing that man only made you shame yourself to the point of giving up.

There was a knock on your door, snapping you from your trance.

"Coming," You said.

Before opening the door, you looked out the window to see Lupin standing outside with his hands in his pockets. You unlocked the door and opened it for him to come in.

"Come to finally do something about me?" You mused.

Lupin let the door fall shut behind him, making his way to the edge of your bed, plopping down.

"No," he said.

"Then what are you here for?" You asked. You crossed your arms, your feet suddenly more interesting to look at than his face.

"To forgive you," He started. "Jigen and Goemon weren't as open to the idea at first, but I managed to get them to agree. They might hold a grudge though."

You looked up at him. "It's understandable, really."

You could feel the judgement on their behalf already, the disappointment was harsh.

"No, it's my fault. If I hadn't given in, you would never have felt the need to pull that trigger." Lupin explained. His shoulders dropped and he lowered his gaze.

Mildly angered by that, you stomped up to him, slapping him upside the head.

"Are you that insane?!" You exclaimed.

"What?" He asked, rubbing the back of his head where you had hit him. He looked up at you with puppy eyes, you crossed your arms over your chest, a frown coming over your features.

"You. Saying it's your fault, you're not the one who killed a man today. I'm lucky you're even talking to me." You fussed.

Lupin frowned at that, he really did feel like the whole thing was his fault, given that it was his idea. You'd never seen Lupin look so let down before this, if anything it must have been because of what you said.

"I'm sorry," you mumbled. You let your arms fall back to your side, gently shaking your head, a flash of shame in your eyes before your gaze dropped.

Lupin looked up to you, the words very clearly not registered until he stood.

"What? No." Lupin placed his hands on your shoulders.

"Don't be sorry, you were only acting upon initial instinct, you thought I was going to die. I can respect that, but please don't beat yourself down because of it!" He begged.

Looking up at him, you sighed. If Lupin was right, Goemon and Jigen would be holding one hell of a grudge when you woke the next morning. They probably wouldn't even consider you their friend.

"Okay, just don't let me get murdered by Jigen or Goemon." You leaned forward, pressing your face into his chest for comfort.

"Of course," Lupin mumbled. Pulling your body closer to his, he wrapped his arms around you, laying his head on top of yours.

If Jigen and Goemon decided to forgive you, you would be beyond happy. That was their whole moral after all. 'No killing'

The fact that Lupin even decided to give you a second chance in the first place, surprised you.

Note

Hey, before you do I'd just like you to know that I post these a day early on my AO3 account, you can find the link at the pinned post. Hope you enjoyed!

[spideyspeaches]

Pretty lies (ugly truths)

A/N: This was something I wrote as soon as I heard Clean also that was 2019 and @peterspideysstuff​ made me do it smh. I’m proud of it so don’t let this flop 🙂

WC: 3.3k+

Warnings: Please read these before going ahead- mentions of CSA (Skip Wescott), brief description of dissociation.

Pairing: Peter Parker x Stark!Reader

Masterlist || Taglist

It was the little things that you noticed in Peter. He was your closest friend ever, the best person to have ever entered your life next to Tony Stark, the man who had adopted you the moment he laid his eyes on you. 

You always noticed when it came to Peter, the way he jumped around when he was in a happy mood, or when he scored a hundred in chemistry and he would flail his hands in the air and hug you as tightly as he could without crushing your bones with his super strength. You had met him when you were both eight- he had come with his uncle Ben to tour Stark Industries, and you both had snuck out to eat some pizza while the adults talked. 

You would never forget that day, because it was the day the two of you became inseparable. He would often visit you since then, in Pepper’s penthouse, and you always cherished those visits. He shared everything in his life with you, he was an open book to you, a dog eared page that you could open with a flick of your fingers.                                      

Coming back from the dead post blip was the final straw. No one could separate you two, and when May and Peter had finally agreed to live in the Lake House (only during the weekends though, since it was far from his school), it was the life of a party for You.

"And you three, don't wreck the house and if I found out that the kitchen is on fire-" Pepper said, fixing Peter's shirt and Morgan's hair at the same time, giving you a stern look. 

May was out and it was only the three of you- You, Morgan and Peter, while Tony and Pepper went out for a vacation for the weekend. 

They had trusted you to babysit Morgan, well You more than Peter. 

“We will be fine Pep! Don’t worry I won’t let them burn down the kitchen, or let Gerald eat the goji berries. Now shoo!” You snickered, pushing Pepper with your hands on her shoulder, before she gave you one more look over her shoulder.

“Oh and if you need anything, Kyle will be here soon, you can ask him anything okay?” She said, making you stop in your tracks.

“Kyle? Who’s that?” Peter asked, shuffling to adjust Morgan, who was perched on his shoulder with her head buried in his neck, her soft snores barely audible.

“He’s Morgan’s babysitter, we can trust him honey, he’s been babysitting her since she was one.” Pepper said calmly, her eyes stiff as she wearily looked at Peter, her eyes flitting to You for a moment. They had all been weary of introducing you to change when you first came back, afraid what the change around you would cause you to break further. It ultimately lead to a heart to heart with Doctor Tumnus and You and Peter, one breakdown from each of you, and lots of cuddles.

“I thought he was in college?” You smiled, lifting your brows.

“You know about him?” He asked, his voice small. You didn’t answer him, choosing to nod your head instead. 

Looking at Peter, you felt him stiffen, his shoulders tensing like the way they would whenever he was stressed or overthinking, his grip on Morgan tightening as if to protect her from whatever danger was about to come their way. Your heart sped at his look of frustration, his lip forming a thin line as he pursed them, your own confusion growing.

“Wh-why do we need him? I mean, Y/n/n and I can look after each other right?” He gulped, not meeting Pepper’s or your eyes. Morgan took that moment to wake up sniffing under her breath as she lifted her small head from his shoulder.

“Mommy is Kyle coming over?” She asked innocently, not noticing Peter as he gulped. You gripped his biceps, silently asking why he was acting the way he was. 

Peter had always been shy when it came to strangers, choosing to stay in the circle of his own people. Heck he had taken almost months to warm up to you. 

“Yes honey, he will be here soon, now, be nice for Peter and Y/N okay?” She cooed, kissing Morgan’s forehead and smiling at the little girl, grimacing as your dad honked from behind, shouting to make it fast.

“Okay mommy, have fun!” Morgan smiled sleepily, going back to her position on Peter’s neck, lifting her thumb to suck on. Holding her small hand, Peter softly brought it down to stop her from sucking on her finger. You smiled at how gentle he was with her, momentarily forgetting his ambiguous behavior at the mention of Morgan’s babysitter.

“So, wanna wreck the house?” You joked in an effort to dissipate the growing tension, watching the retreating figure of Pepper as she waved from the car. You waved back, smiling as you leant against the door jamb.

“Sure.” He said absentmindedly, holding his palm against Morgan’s head, tucking her in more firmly. 

“Are you okay Pete?” You asked, scrunching your brows when he clenched his teeth, looking at you with seething eyes. You understood at that moment, why criminals feared him as your own heart clenched. He may be a doe eyed shy boy, but he could be angry when he wanted to.

“Can everyone stop fucking asking me that!?” He bellowed, looking at Morgan to make sure she hadn’t woken up. Walking to her bedroom, he tucked her in before keeping the door to her bedroom ajar, turning towards you,

“What’s crawled and died up your ass Parker?” You clenched, folding your hands as if in defence. You were getting worried, his behavior was not him. He was a naturally cheerful and chatty person, talking the ears off of the person who happened to be in his vicinity, now he was just, closed off.

“It’s nothing okay, it’s- it’s nothing. None of your business.” He said, walking away, leaving you with your jaw dropped and hands up in the air. 

“Damn straight it’s my business! Why have you been acting weird ever since Pepper mentioned Morgan’s babysitter?” You snarled, shoulders sagging when you saw him tense up once more. 

“Just, leave it alright?” He said, cursing your observation and not meeting your eyes before he turned the kitchen lights off, strutting to his bedroom. It was late at night and Pepper had wanted to have an early start, so they had decided to lodge at the tower before leaving for the trip.

“Alright, you don’t wanna talk am I right? See if I care next time!” You shouted pettily, huffing and moving to your bedroom, shuffling inside the covers, tears of frustration brimming your eyes as you tried to wash away the look Peter had given you from your brain. 

***

Sleep didn’t come easy to Peter. 

It wasn’t anything new for him, Ben had always said that his mind was like a whirlpool of thoughts- they churned at a very high speed and impared him from sleeping. But his insomnia had been causing problems as of late. Ever since he was little and his parents died, he had been prone to nightmares. Back then, Uncle Ben and Aunt May would do everything in their power to soothe him each time he had a bad dream. 

Back then, when he was just a little boy, his uncle and aunt would snuggle up on either side of him and hold him until he fell asleep. Ben would sing with his gruff, slightly out of pitch but soothing voice, while aunt May would scratch the back of his ears, a sweet spot. It was the little gestures that reminded him of his childhood. The good parts of his childhood.

He tossed around in the bed, rolling his eyes to do a once over of his bedroom- the one that Pepper had designed when he had- when he had blipped along with You and three and a half million others. The word felt foreign on his tongue- why was such a catastrophic event named something as insignificant and fickle as “the blip”? 

Scrunching his eyes shut, he groaned, tossing and turning around his bed. Heaving a frustrated sigh, he pulled at the bedsheets, kicking the covers off his feet as if he were five. 

Peter was raised a city boy, living in the heart of New York, where nothing was really silent. Even before he gained his spidey powers, New York was never silent for him- the nightly noises of sirens and noisy neighbours was a constant in his life, so the sudden silence of living in the woods- where the only source of noise was Morgan and Tony in the morning and crickets chirping in the night was alarming.

Finally giving up, he decided to heave himself off the bed, shuffling his foot until he found the bunny slippers you had given him as a gag gift. Hovering his hands on the doorknob, he twisted it as slightly as he could, wincing when he heard the screeching noise of it twisting, as if it wanted to be as loud as it could just to piss him off.

Walking into the kitchen, he looked at the digital clock on his way, the red numbers glaring that it was well past three am into his retinas.

The room was dark, only illuminated by the small LED light in the garden. Picking up a glass, he looked over his shoulder to see if he had woken You or Morgan. Sighing when he heard your and Morgan’s minuscule snores (perks of having enhanced hearing), he opened the tap, filling the water in the glass before chugging it all up in one go. 

“Fuck.” He muttered, slamming the glass down and wished the helpless feeling would go away. Ever since he heard the words come out of Pepper’s mouth, he couldn't think straight, all his thoughts strayed to him. He who had hurt Peter, he who was out of his life. 

 But who was he kidding? It was as if the universe was laughing at him by tossing another fuckery at his face, the ghost of his past lingering in his brain enough to cover the memories in a thin sheen of dust.

"Pete?" Your voice startled him, making him nearly drop the glass in his hand had it not been for his reflexes, "is that you?" 

Your voice was heavy with sleep, fatigue evident as you appeared in his line of sight. Looking at him with squinting eyes as you flicked the light switch on.

"Yeah, just uh… thirsty. Wanted water." 

“You have a water bottle on your bedside.” 

He stayed silent, clenching his jaw as he looked at you. Biting his lips, he suppressed a chuckle as you failed to suppress a yawn, scrunching your eyes. You had a bad case of bed head, the strands of your hair all over your face. You were wearing your infamous strawberry pajamas, the shirt hanging off your shoulders. His eyes softened, you looked so young, all he wanted to do was smother you in a blanket and protect you from everything.

His gut twisted at the thought of protecting. He was supposed to be protecting Peter too.

“I can hear you thinking.” You said, your hands folded under your chest.

“So this Kyle guy, you know him?”

“Peter, you haven’t even met him, why do you hate him so much?” You sighed, rolling your eyes and wrapping your hands around his waist, laying your head against his shoulder blades.

“I- I don’t hate him! I just want to make sure-”

“Make sure what Peter?” You asked softly. 

He gasped as memories flashed in front of him- that night when He had introduced himself to little Peter when He had come to babysit him.

Eight year old Peter had just wanted a friend. And Skip Wescott was a friend to him. He was cool and played games with Peter, showed him cool new science tricks and watched cartoons.

Aunt May and Uncle Ben were not home, they were late for work. Skip had been sending him small smiles the whole time. 

“You want to see the big boy stuff now Einstein? I know you’re old enough.” Skip said, shifting uncomfortably close to Peter. 

Peter’s smile fell off as he saw Skip’s eyes flash dangerously. And at that moment, he didn’t want Skip. He didn’t want to be friends with him any more and he wanted Aunt May. 

“Nothing, go back to sleep.” He said, a lump forming in his throat, clutching the glass hard enough for cracks to appear on it. You left him be that night.

***

He didn’t notice when he fell asleep after that, the fear creeping up his spine in spite of knowing that Skip won’t be able to hurt him anymore- he was in jail, Ben had made sure of it. Yet he kept flashing back to his lowest points, when he had cried so loud, yet no one heard a thing. 

In the end, he had won the case, yet the scars had remained fresh. His win felt futile, a defeat in spite of winning.

The smell of blueberry waffles invaded his senses first, his eyelids cracking open against the force of sleep. Scrunching his eyes, he let the world slowly come into motion, the walls coming into focus one by one.

He was startled into complete wakefulness by the sudden flurry of mass that had jumped on him, panic settling before noticing that it was just Morgan, her excited rambling bringing him back.

“H-hey Momo! You seem excited huh? Good morning to you too.” He laughed, inhaling as she jumped on his stomach.

“Petey you have to brush your teeth! Come down fast because I have a surprise for you.” She giggled, snuggling into his chest and getting up just as fast, pulling him with her tiny hand.

“I see you have a handy alarm clock.” You said from the doorway, smirking when you saw him

“A very cute alarm clock.” Peter cooed, pinching Morgan’s cheeks and leaving a big sloppy kiss on her cheek, making the little girl giggle, “Wait if you’re both here then who’s in the kitchen? Did May come back? Or is it Happy?”

“No May will be in Cali for a little longer, Happy visited her there so they’re having an impromptu vacation.” You smirked, knowing how much it irked Peter whenever you told him about May and Happy’s escapades. He rolled his eyes, scrunching his nose in disgust, just as you had expected him to. 

“I didn’t need to know that, but whatever, who is it though?” 

“Kyle’s here! He’s cooking waffles cause I told him Petey likes them very much! It was supposed to be a surprise but Y/n/n ruined it.” The little girl pouted, glaring at you with her adorable brown eyes. She looked exactly like Tony when she did that.

He felt a pang in his chest, an unearthed nervousness taking residence as he felt his stomach drop. He pulled Morgan closer, feeling your eyes on him as you tried to gauge his expression.

“Yeah.” You said simply, urging Morgan to come to you as he got up from the bed. 

Walking downstairs after cleaning up, he stiffly sat on the table, watching as a short but lean Blond man cooked waffles. 

“Hey kiddo! You must be Peter, Morgan and Y/N talk about you all the time!” The guy- Kyle probably, said chirpily. Peter clenched his fists under the table, noticing the look you were giving him.

“Hi.” He said shyly, ducking his head so he won’t have to see him.

“Well they told me you’re shy too.” He said, a smile evident in his voice. 

“Y-Yeah.” 

“Aw Pete don’t be rude! At least look at his face.” You joked, hitting him slightly in the ribs. 

“Sorry I just, that smells delicious.” He smiled, finally looking up to blue eyes staring at him. He shifted nervously, sitting up straight.

“Thank you.” 

He felt uneasy under his gaze, bringing the glass of water to his lips to avoid making eye contact.

“How long is he gonna stay here?” Peter whispered to you, avoiding to look inside the kitchen where he was cooking lunch with Morgan- the girl was perched on the countertop with her legs dangling and swinging.

You and Peter had retreated to the AV room after breakfast, opting to watch a movie instead of doing homework. Well it was You who had dragged Peter, because you knew he had already done it before coming.

“He’ll make dinner and go, again, why?” You asked him, fisting some popcorn and throwing them in your mouth.

“It’s nothing.”

You let it go again.

Dinner was an awkward affair. He couldn’t help but let his gaze linger onto him, how he interacted with Morgan. She seemed genuinely happy, jumping around the house till she was tired, enjoying as he lifted her up and played airplane with her.

He really didn’t want to think about it, but his spidey sense kept buzzing a headache in the bottom of his skull. He tried to distract himself, opening his chemistry text book to read ahead of class, but the worlds kept floating around as he saw you and Morgan laugh at something Kyle had said. 

“Come on Einstein! It won’t hurt for you to keep that textbook and play with us eh?” Kyle said, winking at him as Morgan laughed, making grabby hands at him so he would come.

You want to see the big boy stuff now Einstein?

No, this wasn’t Skip. This was Kyle, Morgan’s babysitter.

He knew the comment was noncommittal, but he felt his heart race, the world zooming in and out of focus as it got harder to breathe, his book swimming in his hands. He felt floaty, the tingling in his hands intensifying as he felt someone’s hands on his back, dizzily startling him into reality.

“Hey, hey take a breath kid, it’s alright. Deep breaths.” A soothing voice said, cold sweat breaking as he dropped his textbooks. Tears ran down his face without meaning to as he pursed his lips. Instead of saying anything, he sat up and ran into his room.

He could hear you running after him, Kyle asking “Is he okay” as you reassured him. Tears were running freely now as he slammed the door, flopping on the bed and burying himself in the pillows, wishing that the bed would swallow him whole.

He didn’t know why he was reacting the way he did, Kyle was a good person, he saw the way he interacted with Morgan. He was gentle and loving, then why is it that he kept seeing him.

He heard the door creek, your footsteps echoing in his ears, drums rattling against his brain.

“Are you ready to talk now?” You asked softly, wafting your hands through his hair as he felt the bed dip with your weight.

“I had a babysitter, when I was eight. His name was Skip.” He croaked, breathing through his nose. He felt you stiffen as you seemed to connect the dots. Nudging him to move so you could insert yourself in the space.

“Did he hurt you Pete?” You whispered, rubbing his back.

“He did bad things to me, I just, I don’t want anyone to go through it again. Please. He may be in jail but- but sometimes I still feel like he’s here and I hate how I feel! I want him gone. I just want him gone and I want the memories to be erased.”

You remained silent, rubbing his back through his sweatshirt, unbidding tears appearing in your eyes. Someone had hurt Peter. You felt anger boiling inside you, swirling in a dangerous tornado at the thought of someone hurting the best person in your life, 

You promised yourself that day that You would protect him at all costs. You couldn't do it in the past, but you would in the future.

“I’m glad you told me about this Pete.” You said, clenching your teeth as he met your eyes.

[latexb0n3z]

Unrequited Love, A Little Bit Of Stalking, and Days With No Sleep

Wade is an insane bastard. He has no life anymore so he watches Logan through his window and talks to himself for months on end.

Here’s the mess!

It had been three days since Wade Wilson—Deadpool, the Merc with a Mouth, Master of Meltdowns—had stationed himself outside Logan’s apartment.

Three. Days.

Not that Logan knew. Yet.

Wade was perched on the fire escape like a gargoyle in leather, crouched low and completely still, his wide white eyes staring through Logan’s third-floor window. Well, not completely still—he did occasionally fidget, drumming his fingers against the metal railing or shifting his weight to avoid cramping up. But for the most part, he stayed eerily quiet, watching. Waiting.

Logan was inside, oblivious to the stalker on his fire escape. He moved about the apartment in his typical gruff way: cooking something in a cast-iron skillet, sharpening a knife at the kitchen counter, or occasionally sitting down with a book in his hand, his brows furrowed in concentration.

Wade didn’t move.

“You’re a fascinating little beastie,” Wade whispered to himself, tilting his head as he watched Logan flip through the pages of his book. “What are you reading, huh? Little Women? Oh, wait, no—Old Man and the Sea. So rugged, so literary. Makes me want to rip my clothes off and swoon dramatically. Except I’d probably scare the pigeons.”

A pigeon cooed nearby, as if offended by the implication.

Wade shushed it. “Quiet, Gerald. I’m working.”

Gerald the pigeon flapped away in a flurry of feathers, and Wade’s attention snapped back to the window.

“God, you’re beautiful when you’re brooding,” Wade murmured, his voice low and manic. “Just sitting there, scowling like the weight of the world’s on your sexy little shoulders. Do you know how much it hurts, Logan? To be this far away from you? To know that you’re in there, probably thinking about that girl, and not me? Me!”

Wade leaned closer to the window, his breath fogging up the glass. “But that’s okay. I forgive you. I always forgive you. Because I’m a giver. I give, and I give, and I—”

Logan looked up suddenly, his sharp eyes scanning the room as if sensing something.

Wade froze, ducking down and pressing himself flat against the fire escape. “Shit, shit, shit!” he hissed under his breath.

Inside, Logan frowned and sniffed the air. His keen senses were tingling, but after a moment, he shook his head and went back to his book.

Wade peeked over the edge of the window again, exhaling in relief.

“That was close,” he whispered. “Almost blew my cover. But you didn’t catch me, did you, Logan? No, because you’re too busy with your normal life. Your normal books and your normal cooking.” He sniffed theatrically, his voice cracking with emotion. “I could cook for you, you know. I could cook so hard. You want pancakes? Boom. Pancakes. You want steak? I’ll carve it out of my own—oh, wait. Never mind. That got weird.” He snorted, a laughed a little to himself.

He shook his head, slapping his own cheek lightly to refocus.

“Stay on task, Wilson. You’re here for recon. Gotta gather intel. Find the perfect moment to sweep him off his big, hairy feet.”

Wade adjusted his position, his legs dangling off the fire escape as he continued his vigil.

Hours passed. Logan ate dinner. Logan cleaned up. Logan watched TV for a while. And all the while, Wade stayed outside, watching, whispering to himself, and occasionally humming creepy little tunes under his breath.

By the time night fell, Wade was still there, shivering slightly in the cold but unwilling to leave his post.

“You’re worth it, bub,” he muttered, mimicking Logan’s gruff voice. “See? I’m even quoting you now. That’s love, right? Right?”

His eyes twitched wide as he caught sight of Logan standing up and heading toward the bedroom.

“Where are you going?” Wade whispered. “Don’t leave me out here all alone! What if I get lonely? What if I freeze to death? What if—”

Logan flipped the lights off, leaving the apartment in darkness.

Wade let out a long, dramatic sigh. “Fine. Go to bed. Leave me out here with nothing but my thoughts and Gerald the pigeon—oh, wait, Gerald left me too. Story of my life.”

He adjusted his position again, curling up on the fire escape and pulling a crumpled blanket out of his bag.

“I’ll just stay here. Keep an eye on you. Make sure you’re safe. Not creepy. Totally normal. Right?”

No one answered.

“Right,” Wade said, laughing to himself.

The sound of Logan snoring drifted faintly through the window, and Wade smiled.

“Goodnight, Logan,” he whispered. “Sweet dreams, you magnificent bastard.”

—

Wade’s fingers tightened on the edge of the fire escape railing as he stared through the window. His breaths came faster, fogging up the glass in tiny, erratic puffs.

Day ten. He hadn’t consumed any food or water in ten days. Had emptied his bladder off the side of the building a couple times, and that was it. He didn’t leave for anything. Not discomfort, boredom, or hunger.

Inside, the scene was almost too much for him to handle. Logan, lying in bed, shirtless, his broad chest rising and falling with slow, steady breaths. The lighting was dim, warm, casting golden highlights over his skin. And then she appeared—Annie.

Strawberry blonde hair spilled down her back as she padded into the room, wearing a simple tank top and shorts. She had that softness to her, that curvy, feminine figure that Wade had to admit suited her well—though the jealous rage boiling in his chest made it hard to think kindly about her.

Wade watched, unblinking, as Annie slid into bed beside Logan, curling up against him like she belonged there. Like it was her right. Logan wrapped an arm around her without hesitation, pulling her closer, and she rested her head on his chest, her brown eyes fluttering shut as she smiled contentedly.

It was like a punch to the gut.

Wade’s head tilted, his mask’s white eyes narrowing as he muttered under his breath. “What’s she got that I don’t? Huh? Soft curves? A pretty smile? A complete lack of disfiguring scars? Please. Overrated.”

But even as he said it, he couldn’t tear his gaze away. He leaned closer, his manic energy crackling through him like static. His gloved hand pressed against the window, fingertips twitching.

Then Logan kissed her. A soft, slow kiss on her forehead, like it was the easiest thing in the world.

Wade felt his stomach flip. His heart clenched painfully.

And then something darker stirred.

He imagined, just for a second, that it wasn’t Annie lying there. That it was him.

He imagined Logan’s hand on his back, rough fingers tracing gentle circles. He imagined that kiss—soft, tender, meant just for him. He imagined Logan whispering his name, that gravelly voice melting into something softer, something just for Wade.

His breathing hitched. He gripped the railing tighter, the metal groaning under his fingers.

“Lucky little thing, aren’t you, Annie?” Wade whispered, his voice trembling. “Getting to touch him. Feel him. Smell him. I bet he smells like bourbon and pine trees and bad decisions.”

His gaze darkened, jealousy twisting his face under the mask. “But you don’t deserve him. Not like I do. You don’t get it. You don’t know what he’s been through. What we’ve been through. You’re just… just boring. Heh… we saved the world together you know.”

And yet, as he watched Logan shift closer to Annie, their bodies fitting together in a way that seemed so easy, so natural, Wade felt something else bloom in his chest.

Longing.

He imagined sliding into that bed, pressing himself against Logan’s warmth, feeling the safety and weight of that arm around him. He imagined Logan holding him like that, whispering to him, kissing him, making him feel like something more than a walking pile of broken pieces.

He let out a soft, shaky laugh. “God, I’m a mess,” he murmured to himself. “But can you blame me? Look at him. How could anyone not want him?”

The laughter turned bitter, his voice breaking as he clenched his fists. “But he’d never look at me like that. Not really. Not when he’s got her. Sweet, perfect Annie. You’re the dream, aren’t you? And I’m just… the nightmare.”

He stayed there for hours, watching as they drifted off to sleep, their bodies tangled together. His heart ached in ways he didn’t even have the words for, his mind racing with thoughts he couldn’t control.

When the first light of dawn began to creep over the city, Wade waited excitedly for Logan to wake up, watch his stretch his muscular arms above his beautiful head.

He even watched as their morning started with morning sex, slow, sheet-gripping missionary. He even got a little hard watching Logan’s O face. This was the closest he’d ever get to seeing his naked body, so he savored it.

—

Day twenty-five.

The snow had started sometime in the early hours, drifting softly at first, like powdered sugar over the city. Now it came down in thick, heavy flakes, blanketing the fire escape where Wade crouched, his red suit dusted white like some unholy holiday decoration.

Twenty-five days.

Twenty-five days of sitting here, watching through Logan’s window, trying to convince himself this was normal. That this was fine. That this wasn’t the most pathetic thing he’d ever done.

His body, usually so resilient, had begun to show signs of wear. His healing factor was still working—of course it was—but it didn’t seem to care about everything else. His skin, perpetually scarred and twisted, had taken on a sickly, pallid hue, frostbitten patches creeping along his fingers and toes. His lips, cracked and bloody, tugged upward in a manic grin that didn’t reach his eyes.

Not that it mattered. None of it mattered. He couldn’t feel the cold anymore.

Or maybe he could, but it was buried under the avalanche of everything else.

His thoughts were jagged, shards of broken glass stabbing into his brain one after another. Each one was about Logan. About her. About the way they moved together, so comfortable, so easy. About the way Logan’s gruffness softened whenever Annie was near. About the way he smiled at her—a smile Wade had never seen before.

And that smile… it haunted him.

“Day twenty-five,” Wade muttered to himself, his voice hoarse and raw from the cold. “The subject remains unaware of my presence. Or, more likely, he knows and just doesn’t care. Classic Logan.”

He let out a weak laugh, his body shaking from the effort.

The snow piled up around him, settling on his shoulders, his mask, his legs. He hadn’t moved in hours, hadn’t even flinched when the wind picked up and blew snow straight into his face.

Inside, Logan was cooking breakfast.

The warm light of the kitchen spilled through the window, bathing Logan in a golden glow that made him look… perfect. He was shirtless again, naturally, standing over the stove and flipping something in a pan. The steam rose around him, and for a moment, Wade imagined what it must smell like in there—bacon, coffee, maybe something sweet like pancakes.

His stomach growled, but he ignored it. He hadn’t eaten in… a while. Days, probably. Maybe longer.

“You don’t need food,” Wade mumbled, his voice slurring slightly. “You’ve got love. Or the crushing weight of its absence. Same thing, really.”

Then she appeared. Annie.

She wandered into the kitchen wearing one of Logan’s flannel shirts, the sleeves rolled up and the hem brushing against her thighs. Her hair was a mess of soft waves, her cheeks flushed from sleep. She walked up behind Logan, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her cheek against his back.

Wade’s fingers twitched.

“God, I hate you,” he whispered, though he wasn’t sure who he meant.

Logan turned, a rare smile tugging at his lips as he kissed the top of her head. She laughed, soft and sweet, and Wade’s heart twisted painfully in his chest.

It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair that she got to have this. That she got to be this. The one who made Logan smile. The one he let in.

Wade pressed a hand to his chest, his breaths coming faster, frosting the inside of his mask. The snow around him shifted as his body trembled, but he didn’t move to brush it off.

“What does she have that I don’t?” he muttered, the same question and mantra everyday. “Soft curves? A normal face? A personality that doesn’t scream ‘walking mental breakdown?’”

He laughed, high and sharp, the sound echoing into the empty alley below.

Inside, Logan and Annie sat down at the table, their chairs close together. She was talking, her hands moving as she animatedly told some story, and Logan watched her with an expression that made Wade feel like someone had ripped his heart out of his chest and stomped on it.

“God, I want to be her,” Wade whispered, his voice barely audible over the sound of the wind.

He leaned forward, his forehead pressing against the icy glass of the window. His body felt heavy, like the weight of his longing had finally taken its toll.

He imagined crawling through that window, stepping into the warmth of that apartment, sitting down at that table. He imagined Logan turning to him, smiling at him, looking at him the way he looked at her.

The thought made his chest ache, and for the first time in years, he felt tears pricking at his eyes.

“I could make you happy,” he said, his voice cracking. “I could. If you just… gave me a chance.” God. He was insane, wasn’t he? What was he? He didn’t know he was even existing anymore. He was just living vicariously through watching them.

But Logan couldn’t hear him. Logan didn’t even know he was there.

The snow continued to fall, the cold biting deeper into Wade’s skin. He stayed where he was, watching, waiting, hoping for something he knew would never come.

-

Day Forty-five

It was Christmas.

Snow fell heavily, coating the fire escape in a layer of white that sparkled under the faint glow of holiday lights strung on the buildings below. Wade sat slumped against the railing, his body nearly motionless except for the occasional twitch of his fingers.

Forty-five days. 1082 hours of watching, waiting, and wanting.

His healing factor, strained under the weight of his mental spiral, was failing to keep up. The frostbite on his fingers had eaten through the flesh, exposing bone at the tips. His face, always a wreck, now looked like something out of a horror movie, patches of grayish skin peeling away to reveal the stark white of his skull underneath.

It hurt, in a distant sort of way, but he couldn’t bring himself to care, or feel.

Inside the apartment, Logan was wrapping his arms around Annie by the Christmas tree. The tree was small, but it was decorated with lights and ornaments that cast a warm glow around the room. Logan handed her a mug—probably cocoa, Wade thought, though it could’ve been coffee—and she laughed, her head tilting back, her smile lighting up the entire space.

Wade watched them, his mask frozen in place on his face, though the fabric had frayed at the edges from the constant exposure to the elements. The suit hung loose on his frame, his body having wasted away under the stress of sitting out here for weeks.

He blinked slowly, the movement sluggish, as he whispered to himself. “Merry Christmas, Logan. Hope it’s a good one. Sure looks like it is. Warm and cozy and perfect, just like you.”

He let out a soft, rasping laugh that sounded more like a cough.

“You know, I got you a present,” he continued, his voice shaking as the snow clung to his lips. “But, uh, it’s out here. With me. Spoiler: it’s me. I’m the gift. You’re welcome.”

Annie leaned against Logan, resting her head on his shoulder. He kissed her temple, his lips lingering as his hand gently rubbed her back. Wade watched the scene unfold like it was some cruel, cosmic joke.

“Lucky girl,” he muttered, his voice weak. His head lolled back against the cold, rusting metal of the fire escape. “I bet you don’t even realize what you’ve got. You probably think it’s normal to have someone like Logan. Like it’s no big deal. But it is. It’s the biggest deal. And you…” He trailed off, his voice cracking. “You don’t deserve him.”

Tears froze on his cheeks as they fell, thin, fragile trails that reflected the faint light from inside.

He tried to sit up, but his body protested. His muscles, what little was left of them, refused to cooperate. His chest heaved with effort as he forced himself to shift, pressing his skeletal fingers against the window for balance.

Inside, Logan and Annie moved to the couch, sitting close together. Logan picked up a small box from the coffee table and handed it to her. She gasped softly, her hands flying to her mouth, and then threw her arms around him, kissing him in a way that made Wade’s stomach twist painfully.

“Oh, great,” Wade croaked, his voice barely audible. “Jewelry. Bet it’s something sentimental. Real classy, Logan. Meanwhile, I’m out here turning into a Christmas skeleton for you. No big deal.”

He laughed again, the sound rattling in his throat.

“Maybe I should go in,” he mused, though his body barely twitched in response. “Just… knock on the window. Say, ‘Hey, remember me? Your friendly neighborhood dumpster fire? Thought I’d swing by for the holidays.’”

But he didn’t move.

He stayed there, watching, his bones aching with the cold, his mind swirling with a mix of bitterness, jealousy, and that relentless, hopeless longing.

Inside, Annie unwrapped her gift—a delicate bracelet with a charm shaped like a wolf. She laughed again, leaning into Logan, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her close.

Wade’s vision blurred, the scene dissolving into a haze of warm light and soft laughter.

“Merry Christmas,” he whispered again, his voice trembling as the snow continued to fall, burying him deeper.

—

Day one-hundred

The apartment was silent, save for the hum of the refrigerator and the occasional creak of the old building settling. Annie had stepped out, leaving Logan alone with his thoughts. He was on the couch, legs stretched out, flicking through a magazine, trying to relax. It wasn’t much of a day—just another evening of the same dull routine—but it was enough to give his mind some space.

Except it didn’t.

He felt it before he saw it—the weight of a presence outside the window, a prickling sense of being watched that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Logan stiffened, his eyes darting toward the glass, his muscles tensing. There was no logical reason for it. But it was there.

Something was wrong.

Logan stood up quickly, his boots hitting the floor with a soft thud, and made his way to the window. The chill from outside seeped in through the cracks, the glass cold beneath his fingertips as he peeled the curtains back.

At first, he saw nothing. Just the empty fire escape, the streets below blanketed in wet, cold rain, the distant glow of streetlights flickering through the haze of fog.

Then his eyes narrowed.

Wade.

It was him, sitting slumped against the metal railing of the fire escape like a twisted sculpture of flesh and bone, his body nearly blending into the darkness, but unmistakably there. He was just sitting there. Watching.

Logan’s breath hitched in his throat. He felt his chest tighten. He’d seen Wade before—hell, he was Wade—but this was different. This wasn’t the usual broken clownish figure, the guy who cracked wise to cover up the pain. This was something far worse.

Wade looked… wrong.

He was soaked with rainwater, bird shit and dirt coated his tattered suit and exposed skin, but it wasn’t just the cold that made him look inhuman. It was his body—thin, emaciated, like a corpse left too long in the elements. His bones were visible under the torn patches of fabric, sharp and jagged like he’d been starved for weeks. His arms, once muscular, were now skeletal and withered, the skin pulled taut across them like old leather. Some things even a healing factor couldn’t fix.

Logan’s stomach turned. The sight of Wade made him nauseous.

His face, once covered in scars, was worse—more raw, like a melted wax figure. The skin had started to peel away from the sides of his face, leaving patches of exposed muscle and bone underneath. The texture of the skin was almost translucent in places, a sickly yellowish hue, marred with bruising and open, frostbitten sores. A few strands of his hair clung to his skull, brittle and broken. His lips were cracked and dry, barely holding together, and the faint trail of blood from the corners of his mouth suggested that they’d split again.

But it wasn’t even that.

It was his eyes.

They were wide and glassy, unfocused in the way a person’s eyes go when they’ve been starved or deprived of sleep for far too long. But there was something deeper in them—something manic, something hollow. He didn’t look like Wade anymore. He looked like a ghost trapped in a body that had long stopped caring about the rules of life and death.

Logan’s hand gripped the window frame, his nails scraping against the glass as his mind raced. He’d seen Wade on the edge before—crazy, unpredictable, reckless—but this… this was something else.

Wade lifted his head slowly, his gaze catching Logan’s, and for a moment, there was a flicker of something behind the madness—something desperate, something broken. It was like he was begging for something, anything, but he didn’t know how to ask for it.

Logan’s breath caught. He wanted to say something, anything, but the sight of Wade—the sight of him like this—was too much to process. This wasn’t just a cry for attention. This wasn’t the Wade he’d known, the one who cracked jokes to hide his pain. This was something darker. Something far more broken. He knew Wade wasn’t of sound mind- he couldn’t be… If the circumstances weren’t so extreme he would’ve stabbed the hell out of him for being perched on his fire escape watching for so long.

Logan’s chest tightened painfully.

“Wade?…” His voice was strained, barely above a whisper.

Wade’s lips twitched upward, a crooked, almost smile spreading across his face. The skin on his face pulled taut with the expression, the jagged edges of his skull visible under the decaying flesh. It was an unsettling, almost demonic smile, filled with all the wrongness of a man who had been left too long alone in his mind.

“Hi, Logan,” Wade rasped, his voice weak and rough, like it was too dry to form coherent sounds. It was like gravel, like a fifty-years-strong smoker that needs a voice box. “Long time no see… huh?”

The words felt out of place, as if they didn’t belong to him anymore, as if they were the last thread of something human still trying to hold onto the wreckage of Wade’s mind.

Logan’s breath caught. He reached out, not caring about the freezing wind and sideways rain biting at his skin. He didn’t know what the hell he was doing—didn’t know if he could even help Wade at this point—but he knew he couldn’t leave him out there.

“Wade, come inside,” he said, his voice tight with emotion.

But Wade just tilted his head, that eerie, broken smile never leaving his face. “Why? You miss me?” He coughed, a wet, rattling sound, like his lungs were struggling to work.

“How long have you been out here?” He knew the answer was gonna make him sick either way.

“Too long to count, peanut.”

Logan flinched, the words hitting him like a slap. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. What could he say? What could he do?

Wade’s hand twitched, and he reached out slowly, his fingers skeletal and trembling as they brushed against the window frame. “You know, Logan… I’ve been watching you. Been watching everything. Seen you with her. Seen everything. You two look so good together. So happy.”

The words were a desperate, rambling mess, but Logan heard the underlying ache in them. Wade wasn’t just sick. He wasn’t just unstable. He was crumbling.

“Wade,” Logan started again, but his voice was raw, his chest heavy with guilt and confusion.

“I don’t need your pity,”

Logan’s heart sank. He reached for Wade, but the figure sitting in front of him was too far gone, too lost in his own madness. And for the first time, Logan understood that Wade wasn’t just hurting anymore. Wade was slipping away completely.

Logan’s heart pounded in his chest as he reached for Wade, the impulse to help overwhelming him. But his hand hovered just inches from Wade’s shoulder. What could he do?

Wade’s body trembled, his skin barely clinging to his bones, and Logan could feel the weight of it all—the time Wade had spent alone, broken, and fading. This wasn’t the Wade who used to fight and joke and survive against the odds. This was something else entirely. This was a man who had been holding on to life by the thinnest of threads, and now, even that thread was beginning to unravel.

Logan’s throat tightened as he studied Wade. The lack of color in his skin, the way the bones seemed to jut out more with every shallow breath, the way his eyes fluttered as though he was barely able to stay conscious… This wasn’t just some crazy stunt Wade had pulled. This wasn’t him pushing his limits just to see how far he could go.

This was it.

“Wade…” Logan’s voice was a whisper now, a jagged edge of disbelief cutting through his words. “Your healing factor… it’s not healing you anymore, is it?”

Wade’s eyes flickered, glazed over with exhaustion. He opened his mouth to speak but just exhaled a wheeze instead. His lips parted into that weak, broken grin, the one that made Logan’s stomach churn with a mix of sorrow and guilt.

Wade rasped, his words slurring as if the effort to speak drained him further, but nothing coherent. His hand twitched, barely lifting as if he was reaching for something, but he couldn’t make it past the sheer weight of his own body. “I guess not.”

Logan crouched down, his gut twisting as he knelt beside Wade. He reached out slowly, carefully, as if afraid that the fragile figure before him might shatter entirely if touched too roughly. “Wade, what did you do?” Logan’s voice cracked as he said it, the helplessness in his tone matching the sick feeling in his chest. “You’ve got a healing factor. You should be fine. You shouldn’t… not heal. What did you do?”

Wade’s eyes met Logan’s, that hollow, haunted gaze sending a chill through Logan’s bones. His lips barely moved, but the words still came out in a strained, pained whisper. “Nothing.”

Wade closed his eyes, his breath coming out slow, like each exhale was a battle he couldn’t win. “ I thought this ol’ body could handle anything… guess not.”

Logan’s chest tightened as Wade’s words sank in. He should’ve known. He should’ve seen this coming. He’d watched Wade push himself to the limit time and again, playing with his own life like it was some kind of joke. He had never realized it had gone so far. Never realized that the cracks, the holes, the pieces of himself Wade had discarded had finally caught up to him.

Logan swallowed hard, his voice barely more than a whisper now, as if speaking louder would somehow make this all real. “What the hell, Wade?”

Wade coughed weakly, his body jerking with the effort. He winced, gasping for breath before continuing, “I wanted to see how long it would take.”

Logan could see it now—he could see the way Wade’s body had deteriorated, not just from the outside but from the inside too. The way his bones stuck out, his skin hanging loosely like fabric over a skeleton. His healing factor wasn’t just slowing down; it was failing him, irrevocably. He wasn’t regenerating. He wasn’t healing. He wasn’t coming back from this. And deep down, Logan knew it.

“You’re dying,” Logan muttered, his eyes narrowing in horror at the realization. “This… this isn’t just your healing factor giving out. This is you fading away.”

Wade nodded weakly, his breath ragged and shallow. “Told you, Logan,” he said, his voice faint but laced with that same broken humor that had always been part of him. “You always did think I was invincible. Guess I’m not, after all.”

Logan’s chest clenched painfully, the weight of the situation crashing down on him all at once. He wanted to do something, but there was nothing to be done. Wade had pushed himself too far, and now the one thing that had kept him alive, that had allowed him to regenerate through all the impossible injuries, was gone. The healing factor was broken. And without it, Wade was a living and dying corpse.

Logan looked at Wade—at the man he had fought beside and befriended against everything, even though he’d long accepted he thought he’d never come back at a certain point. He wanted to tell him that he could just forget about the last time they spoke- that it was fine just so he could slip past some of the insanity and help him a little.

Wade was beyond that now.

Logan’s voice cracked again, quieter now, as if speaking louder would break the fragile moment. “I’m sorry,” he said, the words tasting bitter in his mouth.

Wade’s expression softened, his eyes losing some of their vacant emptiness.

Logan’s chest tightened further, and without thinking, he reached down, gently cupping Wade’s face in his hand. His touch was soft, careful, like Wade was made of glass, fragile and cracked. Wade closed his eyes at the contact, exhaling a quiet, almost peaceful sigh. He could feel the dry, dead texture of his cold, wet skin- barely alive if he ever truly was to begin with.

“I’m sorry,” Logan repeated, his voice strained. He didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t know how to fix this. “I don’t know how to help you.”

Wade managed a weak grin, the kind that didn’t reach his eyes but still held some semblance of his old self. “Nothing left to help. I’m just… done.”

For a moment, they both sat there in the silence, the weight of of all the missed chances and broken pieces, hanging between them. Wade’s breathing had slowed to be near undetectable, his body barely moving beneath Logan’s hand.

Logan stayed with him, knowing there was nothing he could do. And Logan had no idea how to say goodbye. This was so random. He knew Wade had to have been on the fire escape for longer than Logan could even fathom. He supposed if you were at Wade’s level of insanity that was light work… but still.

So this is what it feels like? Mortality? Being close again? Will I see God or will it just be darkness? Will I see my Mother again? I feel warm… Breathing hurts. This is the closest I’ve felt to human in forever.

“Wade?”

His eyes were still open, but Wade wasn’t there anymore. Logan sniffed him out, and a lump in his throat formed.

The front door opened and closed all in the same moment.

“Logan? Honey, what’s—“

Unrequited Love, Lots Of Blow, and a Visit From Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man

CW; self-harm, sexual mentions, drug use, mental illness yadayadayada.

This was kind of a vent in some weird way. Crashed out earlier and had to write something to cope.

Logan woke up to the sound of something(s) shattering. Again.

“Goddammit, Wade,” he muttered, dragging himself off the couch. It wasn’t even 8 AM, and his roommate was already tearing through the place like a tornado.

Roommate. Logan still wasn’t sure how the hell that had happened. Wade had been crashing at his place “just for a few days” six months ago, and somehow, he’d never left. Logan had considered kicking him out more times than he could count, but something about the mercenary’s manic energy—and the raw, broken humanity underneath it—kept him from following through.

Logan pushed open the door to Wade’s bedroom, which looked like a war zone. Clothes, weapons, and takeout containers were scattered everywhere, and Wade stood in the middle of it, panting, holding the remnants of a lamp in his hand.

“Morning, sunshine,” Logan grunted. “What’s this about?”

Wade didn’t look at him. His face was bare, his scars catching the dim morning light. “It was an ugly lamp anyway.” The more Logan looked, the more was wrong. There was blood, literally everywhere. The bathroom mirror was broken, glass and MORE blood everywhere— the living room was a disheveled mess, a broken bottle of Jack, and a shattered cup like Wade had just grabbed the first thing that was near.

Logan crossed his arms. “You gonna tell me what’s really going on, or should I start charging you for broken furniture?”

Wade flinched, then dropped the lamp base to the floor with a clatter. “What’s the point, huh? You don’t care.”

Logan frowned. “You think I’d let you live here if I didn’t care?”

Wade laughed, sharp and bitter. “Let’s not kid ourselves, Logan. You let me stay because you feel sorry for me. Big, bad Wolverine, taking pity on the ugly stray.” He gestured to himself. “Well, guess what? I don’t need your charity! I’ll leave— and like you said, it’s ‘God’s best joke that I can’t die’ and it’s on all of us!” Even though dying is all he wished he could do.

Logan stepped forward, his voice low and steady. “This about the girl?”

That did it. Wade’s head snapped up, his eyes blazing. “Oh, so you did notice. Good for you, Sherlock.” He took a shaky breath, his words spilling out in a torrent. “Yeah, it’s about her- and everything else- and- and, It’s about how you’ve been all smiles and soft eyes around her. How you go out on these little dates, come home smelling like flowers and happiness or whatever the hell normal people do!”

Logan raised an eyebrow. “You jealous?”

Wade barked out a laugh, but it sounded more like a sob. “Oh, I’m so jealous, Logan. Not because I want her or anything—God, no. I’m jealous because she’s… she’s normal. She’s pretty, and soft, and someone you could actually care about.”

His voice cracked, and his hands clenched into fists. “Not like me. Not like this.” He gestured to his scarred face, his mismatched, worn-down body. “You could never like something like me, right, Logan?”

Logan stared at him, his expression unreadable. For a moment, the room was silent except for Wade’s heavy breathing, his manic pacing, his sniffles.

“You done?” Logan finally asked.

Wade blinked, caught off guard. “What?”

“I said, are you done?” Logan stepped closer, his voice gruff but calm. “Because if you’re waiting for me to tell you you’re wrong, I’m not gonna do it.”

Wade’s face crumpled, but Logan kept going.

“You’re a pain in the ass, Wade. You’re loud, and messy, and half the time, I don’t know whether to strangle you or buy you a drink.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “But you’re wrong about one thing. I don’t let you stay here because I feel sorry for you. I let you stay because you’re worth putting up with.”

Wade looked up, his eyes glassy. “You’re just saying that to make me stop crying and breaking things!”

Logan snorted. “Trust me, I’m not the type to say things I don’t mean. And I don’t give a damn what you look like.”

Wade swallowed hard, his hands shaking. “I don’t believe you.”

Logan grabbed him by the shoulders, his grip firm but not unkind. “Then believe this: If I didn’t want you here, you wouldn’t be here. Got it?”

Wade nodded slowly, his breath hitching.

“Good,” Logan said, letting go and stepping back. “Now clean this mess up before I start charging you for rent.”

But Wade didn’t move and inch. He just looked down at the floor, and cried and cried. He just stood there, vulnerable, without any quips or witty comments to defend himself. Logan thought it was a pain in the ass, but he was still himself— empathetic no matter just how much he wanted to just tell the son of a bitch to get out.

“Wade?” He was sort of at a loss for words. Wade having outbursts wasn’t anything new— but just… standing there, crying. That was a sight to behold. His expression dropped,

“You have no idea, Logan.”

“You think you’re special, bub? I’ve been alive for two-hundred fucking years. I saw the invention of machine guns for one. You have no fucking clue what ideas I have, Wade.”

Wade finally looked up at him, his milky, yellowed eyes glazed over.

“Do you think I’m hideous?”

“What? I just said I don’t give a shit what you look like.”

“That wasn’t my question. I didn’t ask if you cared- I asked if I’m hideous.”

Logan gave him a once over. Wade already had the answer made up in his mind regardless of what Logan said.

He didn’t think Wade was hideous, but he wasn’t in attracted to him by any means.

“Okay, Wade! Yes, fine, you’re hideous— that’s what you wanna hear right?! Seems like you’ve already made up your damn mind about the answer.”

Wade gave a half smile, and then just turned on his heel and left, slamming the door so hard it made the whole apartment vibrate.

—

And then weeks passed, and Wade never returned. He’d left all his things there, and Logan considered throwing them out after a while. He’d even left his mask on the couch, which Wade never left without.

Annie was her name, the girl. Soft, brown eyes and strawberry blonde hair, and a round face full of freckles. She wore blouses and skirts, and wedges with white little bows on top.

And Logan liked her. Loved her even. Fell for her harder than he’d wanted to. At first their relationship was casual— cute little dates that made Logan feel normal. And the best part— she was a mutant too. It was nothing impressive, mild telekinetic abilities. She could lift small objects from across the room and shut doors without touching them.

She was peaceful, and domestic and a soft body to lay on. He felt safe with her. She’d spend nights at his place since Wade had left- cooked food for him and let him rest his head on her lap while he stroked his head. Things had gotten serious between them in the weeks Wade had been gone.

They had hot, passionate, electrifying sex- made each other laugh so hard they cried and kissed- and then had more sex. Logan would take her against the counter, in the bathroom, on the couch, in the bedroom. Parts of their lives mingled together. Some of his stuff stayed at her place, and parts of her lived at Logan’s. It was unlike anything he’d had in a long long time.

Meanwhile Wade had been doing as much blow as possible and fucking off. Logan wasn’t the only one who hadn’t heard from him. Nobody had. He was torturing himself. He knew he couldn’t die, but he could feel pain. One night he’d played Russian roulette with himself off so much coke it would kill a normal human. He savored what intoxication he could get from alcohol for a couple minutes before the joy was killed by his healing factor.

He’d shoot himself in the head, blow his brains out only to come right back with only half the memories. He’d slit his own throat to choke and watch his ever replenishing blood gush out. He’d cut his fingers off one by one after each line, only to watch them grow back after a couple of hours.

He hadn’t showered in weeks, and smelled like death, blood and straight ass. He didn’t change his clothes, didn’t speak to anyone. Just restarted the same routine he did when Vanessa died. Trying to kill himself but never really dying.

Oh how he missed her. He wondered what she would say to him now, what she would think of who he was. He wondered if she’d be horrified seeing him, or if she’d have loved him anyway. He’d escaped the Weapon X program only to find out from Weasel that she’d been shot and robbed while hooking after he’d disappeared.

He’d had a couple years to reconcile with that… only to fall in love with Logan. What a fucking idiot he was, right?

Unrequited— though he knew Logan had considered him… sort of a friend.

Wade knew he was a pain in the ass, and pissed himself off too most of the time.

It didn’t matter though. He was hundreds of miles away from his life now, taking his shit show all the way to New York City, in the good old United States of America.

—

The New York alley smelled like garbage and rain, a mixture Wade found oddly comforting. The dumpster beneath him was cold and sticky in a way he didn’t want to think too hard about, but it didn’t matter. He was home. Or something like it.

He lay flat on his back, arms spread out like he was trying to make a snow angel on the grimy metal surface. His mask was half-pulled up, just enough to let him belt out an off-key rendition of Total Eclipse of the Heart.

“There’s nothing I can dooooo… a total eclipppse of the heaaaart!” he howled, his voice echoing through the narrow alley.

Somewhere nearby, a rat squeaked in protest.

“You’ve got an audience,” came a voice from above.

Wade froze mid-note, craning his neck back to see a familiar figure hanging upside down by a thin strand of webbing. The bright red-and-blue suit was unmistakable.

“Spidey!” Wade gasped, sitting up so fast he nearly fell off the dumpster. He was hopped up on cocaine, meth, angel dust, anything he’d managed to get his hands on tonight. “My second-favorite insect-themed hero! What brings you to my garbage palace?”

Spider-Man tilted his head, his mask’s lenses narrowing. “You’re laying on a dumpster and singing power ballads. Should I be concerned, or is this just a Tuesday for you?”

“Wednesday, actually,” Wade corrected, wagging a finger. “And I’m celebrating my triumphant return to the Big Apple! Came here with nothing but a bag of cash and a dream. And maybe some mild emotional baggage. But mostly the cash.”

Spider-Man flipped down to the ground, landing lightly. “I’m pretty sure that was illegal cash.”

“What isn’t, these days?” Wade said, waving him off. “Besides, it’s not like I’m hurting anyone. Unless you count your ears.”

Spider-Man crossed his arms. “You’re avoiding the question. Why are you really here, Wade?”

Wade leaned back against the dumpster, sighing dramatically. “You wouldn’t understand. It’s a tale as old as time. Boy meets mutant, mutant moves in, mutant gets jealous of said boy’s weirdly functional romantic life and flees to New York to sulk in an alley and reevaluate his choices.”

Spider-Man blinked. “Okay, wow. That’s… more personal than I expected.”

“Yeah, well, welcome to the Deadpool Show.” Wade gestured broadly at himself. “We like to keep things raw and unscripted. Keeps the audience engaged.”

Spider-Man crouched down, resting his elbows on his knees. “Look, I know we don’t… vibe exactly, but you seem like you’re going through something. Do you need help?”

Wade laughed, a sharp, hollow sound. “Oh, Spidey, my sweet, built like a gymnast summer child. I’m beyond help. I’m like a car that’s been totaled, set on fire, and then run over by a tank. But thanks for asking.”

“You’re not that bad,” Spider-Man said, though his tone was hesitant.

“Aw, you think I’m redeemable,” Wade said, clutching his chest. “You’re adorable! Like a little web-slinging therapist.”

“Seriously, Wade. You don’t have to do… this,” Spider-Man said, gesturing to the dumpster and the alley. “Whatever’s going on, there’s got to be a better way to deal with it than running away and singing ‘80s ballads in the rain.”

“It wasn’t raining when I got here,” Wade pointed out. “But, fine, I’ll bite. What do you suggest, Dr. Spidey?”

Spider-Man hummed, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t know. Maybe talk to the person you’re running from instead of hiding out here. Have an actual conversation.”

Wade snorted. “You think I’m the ‘talking about my feelings’ type? Adorable. Really, top marks for optimism. I already tried- got blood all over the poor guys’ apartment and broke his mirror… Oh- you know Wolverine- Wolvie- Logan? Yeah he’s alive again and I haaaave itttt bad, Spidey.”

Spider-Man sighed. “Wolverine… like? Like… The X-men’s Wolverine? He died! How the hell is he alive again?— wait, don’t tell me he came from a different universe or something.”

Wade tilted his head, clicked his tongue and made finger guns, “Ding Ding Ding! That’s exactly right.” He dropped his hands but remained looking up, studying Spider-Man for a long moment. “You’re way too good for this city, you know that? It’s like watching a Disney protagonist in Gotham.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Spider-Man said dryly.

Wade slid off the dumpster, landing with a flourish. “Fine. You win. I absolutely cannot go back to Canada anytime soon but— I will try to stop doing massive amounts of narcotics and cutting off my limbs are even though they just regrow.”

“You’re really a strange guy, you know that, Wade?”

“Yes— quite intimately actually. Very large part of the reason I’m torturing myself out here in the good old United States of America.”

Spider-Man rolled his eyes. “Quit your sulking, grab my hand.”

Wade raised a… well… what would be his eyebrow if he had any, but said, “Fuck it,” and took his hand.

Suddenly, he was suspended in the air, wind whipping past his ears as they swung through the towering skyline of New York. Wade let out a loud, exaggerated scream. “OH MY FUCK, SPIDEY, THIS IS THE CLOSEST I’VE BEEN TO FLYING SINCE THAT TIME I STRAPPED FIREWORKS TO MY BACKPACK!”

“Why does that not surprise me?” Spider-Man shouted back, his voice barely audible over the rush of the wind.

“BECAUSE I’M AN ICON OF CHAOS!” Wade cackled, twisting his body mid-swing to strike a pose, one hand outstretched dramatically. “LOOK AT ME! I’M PETER PAN BUT WITH MORE TRAUMA!”

Spider-Man groaned. “Do you ever stop talking?!”

“Do you ever stop being an uptight boy scout?” Wade shot back.

Spider-Man didn’t dignify that with an answer, instead twisting midair and flinging a web to the next building. The sudden shift sent Wade swinging wildly, his legs flailing.

“Whoa, whoa, WHOA!” Wade yelled, clutching Spider-Man’s arm like a terrified cat. “Careful there, Spandex Man! Some of us are delicate flowers who bruise easily!”

“You literally can’t die,” Spider-Man said, exasperated.

“Emotionally, Spidey!” Wade quipped. “Emotionally!”

Spider-Man sighed, expertly landing on a rooftop and depositing Wade less-than-gently on the gravel.

Wade sprawled out on his back, catching his breath. “That was either the most fun I’ve ever had, or I’m having a stroke. Maybe both.”

Spider-Man stood over him, hands on his hips. “You’re impossible.”

“Ha! Logan says that too!” Wade sat up, pulling his mask back down. “So, what’s the plan, boss? You didn’t just web-nap me for a heart-to-heart, did you?”

Spider-Man crossed his arms. “I didn’t exactly plan this. But you’re clearly in a mood, and I figured some fresh air might knock some sense into you.”

“Aw,” Wade cooed, “you do care about me! Admit it. I’m growing on you, like a sexy barnacle.”

“Don’t push it.”

Wade leaned back on his hands, glancing out at the city below. The lights of New York twinkled like stars, and for a rare moment, he was quiet.

“…It’s kind of nice up here,” he said after a beat.

Spider-Man sat down beside him, still keeping a cautious distance. “Yeah. It is.”

They sat in companionable silence for a while, the noise of the city far below fading into the background.

Finally, Wade broke the silence. “You ever feel like you’re just… too much? Like you’re this big, messy disaster that everyone tolerates but no one really wants around?”

Spider-Man glanced at him, surprised by the sudden vulnerability. “I think a lot of people feel like that sometimes., and trust me, you’re definitely a disaster. But… you don’t have to be.”

Wade turned to him, his tone light but his voice just a little too tight. “Wow, Spidey, you’re really laying on the compliments tonight. If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were trying to seduce me.” He said, sarcastically.

Spider-Man rolled his eyes. “Okay, and we’re back to that.” He blushed under his mask, a bit bashful. Everything was an innuendo to Wade somehow.

“Hey,” Wade said, nudging him with his elbow. “Thanks for this. The swing, the chat, the unsolicited life advice… it’s nice to know someone’s got my back, even if you are a dork in pajamas.”

Spider-Man smirked under his mask. “Anytime, Wade. Just… try not to end up sulking on a dumpster again, okay?”

“What a sweetie pie you are, Peter.”

“How the hell do you know my name? It’s not like yours is a secret… but I thought I was doing a good job at this secret identity thing…”

“I’m a mercenary, I know everything even if I don’t want to.”

Peter huffed. “That’s not an answer but… okay, Wade.”

Wade huffed and then tried to push his luck.

“I don’t suppose your kindness extends past swinging… like- a place to-“

“Absolutely not.”

“Oh come onnnnn! I thought you were all about being helpful.”

“Hey- I’m all for giving a little support but how do I know you won’t just break my stuff too?”

“One night?”

Peter bit his bottom lip under his mask in thought.

“Ugh, you’re such an ass. Give you an inch and it turns into a mile.”

Wade just stared at him, expecting.

“Fine! One night and then you’re back to whatever you have been doing.”

[first-and-last-neocount]

Whumptober Day 25

This is the one, guys. This is the prompt that spawned this massive month-devouring AU. This is the genesis of the Escape!AU – or at least, the prompt that made me say “Wait, what if I took that AU I've spent ten years thinking about and wrote a bit of it into Whumptober?”. Ironically, it ended up playing to the 'hiding' prompt as much as the 'escape' prompt, but I'm not changing the name now God damn it, so the Escape!AU it stays. XD

Day 25 - Theme Chosen: Escape

Ciani had stayed in the rakhlands for some time, living with the plains tribe and delving ever deeper into their culture, but her work would be of little value if she failed to record it for others to build on. A little over three years after the destruction of the House of Storms, she traversed the Canopy into human lands once more, intent on returning to Satin long enough to pick up some essential supplies and find a safe place to keep the research she had completed so far before returning to the rakhlands. When she arrived in the city, though, it only took a few casual conversations with some of the workers at the docks for her to learn a piece of news that – while months-old to those who gave her the information – shook her to her core.

While she was isolated in the rakhlands, there had been a war. Calesta, the demon behind the conflict, was dead... but so was the Hunter. The Forest was fallen, and a new age had dawned on Erna.

At first, Ciani simply couldn't believe it. She knew, both from shared memories and first-hand experience, just how much Gerald Tarrant had survived over the course of nine centuries; the idea that he could be dead seemed ludicrous. The dock worker who first mentioned it to her was a young boy, his face dappled with spots and his voice pitching and cracking, and she thought it was simply a joke in very poor taste – but the passing sailor who overhead her disbelief was a grizzled veteran, and he confirmed the tale, gruff but sympathetic in the face of Ciani's obvious dismay. Everyone she questioned from then on only further reinforced what she could barely bring herself to accept; the stories were true. Gerald Tarrant was no more.

During that first bewildered half-hour, her shock kept her from thinking the situation through. The moment that her mind started to accept the facts, though, a new thoughts occurred to her – one that chilled her blood to ice.

Damien.

When last they'd spoken, the Knight had told her that he was sailing east to root out the origin of the corruption in the rakh – and that he'd invited the Hunter to sail with him. Ciani had thought at the time that it was a waste of time and effort to have done so, that Gerald would never take him up on it... but she knew the name Calesta. She knew that was the same demon that had been working with the Master of Lema. If he had been behind the war that had nearly consumed the continent, and Gerald had been fighting him, then it was likely he and Damien had stayed allies after all – and that raised an immediate question, one that terrified Ciani with its implications.

Where the hell was Damien now?

Her first stop that night was to book herself accommodations in a local hotel, then she started asking questions. The business that had actually brought her back to human lands was set aside; it could wait, but her frantic need to know could not. She asked at every inn and hotel, every tavern where the sailors gathered, every shop where the traders plied their wares – every place that information filtered into a city, well-known haunts to a loremaster who knew their craft. Everywhere she asked, though, she was given the same answers. No one had heard the name of Damien Vryce. Far too few of the Crusaders had come home.

Of those who served the Forest, none had ever been seen after the Hunter's Keep was taken.

By the end of the week, even Ciani's resourcefulness was nearing exhaustion, and she was staring down a realization she had never wanted to come to; as impossible as it felt that Gerald was dead, it was starting to look even more unlikely that Damien had survived. The more she learned, the bleaker it seemed – when she learned that the Hunter had never even returned from the final confrontation with Calesta at Mount Shaitan, her heart sank like a stone. Damien wouldn't have shied away from that showdown, she knew that in her bones, and if he'd been with Gerald at Shaitan...

It was with that growing certainty weighing on her heart that she approached the last establishment on her list; a classy, more prestigious pub at the heart of the city, its outdoor dining balcony actually overlooking the churning waters of the Serpent. Its price range put it out of reach for most of the city's traders and workers, which is why she hadn't tried it sooner, but it had a reputation as a favoured hub of journalists and researchers who passed through the city, and it was Ciani's last hope for more information. If no one here had answers for her, she would have to leave Satin to continue the search – or reach out to less human resources. She hadn't seen Karril since entering the Canopy the first time, and he hadn't answered her gentle call earlier in the week, but she might have to focus more effort on a Summoning if she didn't turn up some kind of lead tonight.

Ciani refused to admit defeat. Even though she had by now acknowledged how unlikely it was that Damien had survived, she couldn't just let it go. She had broken things off with Damien because she knew that their priorities were too different for the relationship to work long-term – the very fact that he had sailed east to pursue their enemy's origin, while Ciani had immediately refocused on her lifelong passion for rakhene culture, spoke clearly enough to that – but she still cared deeply for him. Their romance had been brief compared to the span of her life, but it had been warm and joyful, and Ciani had hoped that Damien would be able to simply move on and find happiness with someone else. To think that he'd carried on the fight without her, only to eventually have to give his life for the cause, made her sick with the injustice of it all. She'd long ago accepted that there was no inherent fairness in the world, but that still felt like too much to swallow.

The pub was half-full when Ciani entered, the early drinkers mingling with the remnants of the dinner crowd, but the atmosphere was relatively quiet and relaxed; a pleasant change, after the raucous sailor taverns she'd spent the earlier part of the week in. She made her way up the bar, where a dark-haired older woman with heavily tattooed arms was polishing the glasses in preparation for the evening rush; at the sight of Ciani, the woman smiled.

“You look like someone who's here for information, not alcohol.”

Ciani smiled back at her, a little impressed. “Is it that obvious, or have you just gotten a sense for that over time?”

“A little of both,” the bartender said, swapping to a new glass. “Half our customers on any given day are some kind of gossip columnist or self-proclaimed scientist, chasing their latest story or theory – half of them about the damn Canopy. Which one are you after?”

“A little of both, I suppose,” Ciani said, her smile taking on a melancholy twist. “I've been... out of touch for a while, and I'm looking for news of a very dear friend. He's a priest of the One God, and I'm afraid he might have been caught up in the fight against Calesta...”

The bartender's face softened into a look of deep sympathy, and she stopped what she was doing, setting both rag and glass on the counter. Ciani felt dread settle over her, heavy as a sodden wool cloak, as the  woman braced her hands on the bar and gazed at Ciani with compassion brimming in her dark eyes.

“We're not your first stop, are we? You've heard what everyone else in town had to say already.”

Ciani's throat tightened, and she nodded. The older woman sighed, shaking her head slowly.

“I'm sorry, dear. I've had to give this news to too many people already, but... if he rode off with the Crusaders, and you haven't heard from him since, he's probably gone. When they tried to breach the Hunter's Keep, it was a massacre.”

“I don't think he was with the Crusade,” Ciani said. She leaned forward a little, dropping her voice, and the bartender leaned in herself to hear her better. “It's a complicated story, but... we had encountered – a servant of the Hunter, prior to the war's start. I think my friend might actually have been trying to help the Hunter take down Calesta.”

“Really?” The bartender looked surprised, but after a moment she shrugged, her expression turning back to regret. “I'm sorry, Mes. I've heard nothing of any such person – the tales I've heard say that the Hunter faced Calesta alone on Shaitan, and neither walked away. If your friend was involved, as much as I hate to say it, I doubt he lasted long enough to see the final showdown.” She picked up her rag and glass again, moving them off the bar and tucking them into their proper spots. “I'm sorry I couldn't give you better news. First drink's on the house, alright? Sit down for a while, and I'll have one of the boys bring you some food in a bit. You look like you could use the rest.”

Too numb to formulate any other kind of plan, Ciani took the offered drink and drifted over to a booth in a quieter part of the pub. Sinking into the plush seat, she stared down into her glass, a roiling nausea growing in her stomach. Out of force of habit, she had ordered the sweet white wine that had been her favourite when she lived in Jaggonath, but now all she could think of was how many times she had stayed up into the small hours of the morning, sipping at a glass of this wine while she and Senzei worked on a project. When Zen had died in the rakhlands, it had gutted her, but the success of their campaign against the Master of Lema had felt like closure – Zen hadn't died in vain, and the quest was finished. They had won, and they wouldn't have to lose anyone else.

She had never thought that she would have to mourn the rest of her companions from that journey as well.

She had already known that Hesseth was gone. One of the things that set the tidal fae apart from the earth fae is that it wasn't impeded by oceans; nearly two years ago, one of the tribe elders had bolted awake from a sound sleep, declaring with keening grief that a khrast was lost. Ciani had learned, then, of a tradition that she had not known before – that upon their impending death, every khrast would reach out to the tidal fae, warning their tribe-mates of their death and the manner of it. According to the elder who received the message, Hesseth had died in battle, defending a friend from a pack of predators. Ciani had grieved her rakhene friend, and she had fretted over what that implied for Damien's own well-being, but in the end she'd convinced herself that it was proof that Damien was alive and well – he'd been travelling with Hesseth and Gerald, after all, and Hesseth would never have given her life to protect the Hunter. It must have been Damien that she was defending. Ciani had done such a thorough job of convincing herself that she'd let herself settle into that belief as reality; that Damien was alive, and that he had come back from the east, and that he was probably back in Jaggonath safe and sound.

Now, she had to wonder. Had he even made it back from the east? Or had he died before he ever saw his home continent again? He could have died in whatever land they found across the Novatlantic, or he could have died in the crossing itself; Ciani knew how much he feared the ocean, and the thought of his bones now lying under the cold waves was painfully bitter. She was also horribly aware, though, that she'd probably never know the truth.

If Karril continued to ignore her summons, or if he didn't know what had happened, then there was nowhere left for her to turn. Ciani didn't know what ship Damien had chartered for the journey, and she had heard about the damage that Faraday had suffered from the tsunami last spring – finding the crew who had made the voyage would be difficult, and she didn't even know if any of them had survived either. The only person who would have known for certain was Gerald Tarrant, and he'd taken those answers with him to his death when he faced off against Calesta.

There was a quieter, bittersweet grief in her soul for Gerald as well. What they had shared had been even briefer, more mixed with pain and darkness, than what she'd had with Damien... but she'd cared for him too, and for all that she acknowledged the evil he had done, the world felt lesser for his passing. The loremaster in her grieved for the knowledge and power that had been lost with his death, and the softer parts of her heart remembered the fear and pain that she'd felt in his soul, the aching loneliness that underlay his icy facade. Even if the rest of the world could see only justice in him giving his life to stop Calesta, Ciani couldn't help but wish that things had ended differently.

She didn't know how long she had sat there, staring into her wine and feeling utterly hollowed out inside, when quiet footsteps approached her booth. She assumed it was one of the servers with the promised food, and was ready to mumble a polite refusal – she'd never felt less hungry in her life – when a hauntingly familiar voice reached her ears.

“Is this seat taken?”

Ciani snapped her head up so fast that her neck cricked painfully, but she couldn't even care – because standing in front of her, smiling that lopsided smile that had always been so infuriatingly charming even when she didn't want to be charmed by it, was Damien Vryce.

For a moment, Ciani couldn't believe it; wildly, she thought that the pub must not have been Warded properly, that it must be a wraith standing before her that had taken on the form of the one person she most desperately wanted to see – but Damien's chestnut hair was longer than when she'd seen him last, and there was a new scar visible at the corner of his jaw, which was clean-shaven instead of the short beard he'd sported when he left the rakhlands. He was a little leaner than Ciani remembered him – no doubt he'd lost weight during his long and gruelling journey – but he looked less careworn, the stress lines that had surrounded his eyes when they'd been on the road smoothed away, and he was wearing well-tailored trousers and a shirt of what looked like dark green silk instead of his travel clothes. He looked good, and as her brain finally comprehended what she was seeing, she found her voice.

“Damien! You're -”

“Very much not dead.” He sat down across from her, smiling broadly, his hazel eyes just as warm and kind as she remembered. “It's good to see you again, Cee, though I was a little surprised to hear you were on this side of the Canopy again.”

“Needed to back up my research notes,” Ciani said dazedly, staring at him in wonder. “How did you know I was looking for you?”

Damien grinned. “We've been keeping our ears open – we've been half expecting somebody to come looking sooner or later, our getaway was just a little too clean and convenient. The official line is that we're dead, though, and we'd prefer to keep it that way.”

A sudden, wild hope burgeoned in Ciani's chest. “And by we, you mean...”

Damien arched one eyebrow at her, his grin turning wry. “You didn't think Gerald was actually dead, did you?”

The sheer upwelling of relief was so strong that Ciani started to laugh; she clapped a hand over her own mouth, trying to muffle it, but she couldn't quite stop herself from breaking down into slightly hysterical giggles. Damien looked amused but also sympathetic, waiting patiently until she'd gotten herself mostly under control. Wiping tears of laughter from her eyes, Ciani finally managed to gasp out a coherent sentence.

“Every person I've met since coming back through the Canopy has been happy to tell me about the Hunter's dramatic last stand and the absolute bloodbath that the Crusade ran into in the Forest, so yes, I actually did.” The reminder of her recent despondency finally sobered Ciani, and she shook her head. “I thought you both were.”

“We cut it pretty close a few times, but we're both still here,” Damien said easily, but a shadow passed over his expression a moment later. “I should tell you, though. Hesseth...”

“I know.” Ciani cut him off quickly, seeing the flicker of old pain in his eyes. “She sent out a warning, of sorts, right before the end. The elders told the rest of the tribe.”

“So that's what that was,” Damien murmured. “I thought I saw her Work, right at the last minute, but it didn't seem to have done much.” He sighed heavily, then shook his head, a more reserved but still warm smile returning to his face. “It's good to know that you're okay, though. We didn't know for sure if Calesta had tried anything else in the rakhlands, but I'm guessing it's been pretty peaceful there.”

“I didn't even know there had been a war until I made it back into Satin,” Ciani said ruefully. She finally took a sip of her wine, enjoying the tangy sweetness as she leaned back against the booth's padded back, the tension she'd been carrying all week finally starting to drain away. “It sounds like you've had a hell of a time; much as I'd love to start prying for details, I suspect that's more than a one-evening kind of tale. You and Gerald are still travelling together, though?”

“Yeah.” Damien rested his elbows on the table, his expression fond. “It is way too long of a story to get into right now, but suffice it to say we've got a new mission. More research-oriented, this time, and a hell of a lot less deadly. It's a noble goal though, which is nice – it's good to still have a sense of purpose, given that I'm not with the Church anymore.”

Ciani almost choked on her wine. “You're what?”

“Oh.” Damien's face turned a little sheepish. “I forgot just how much you missed... yeah, I'm not a priest anymore.”

“Why the hell not?” Ciani couldn't believe what she was hearing – Damien's faith had been such a major part of his identity that it had factored heavily in her decision to break it off with him, since she'd been sure that in the end, her own paganism and his conflicted loyalties would prove to be a source of serious friction in their relationship. Damien didn't even look all that upset at the topic, though, shrugging casually as he explained.

“Gerald was the only one with a real shot at taking down Calesta, but the Patriarch wasn't exactly happy about my association with him. My own field reports made it pretty obvious that I was already emotionally compromised; his Holiness didn't want to outright denounce me, it would have weakened our already shaky front against Calesta, but he also couldn't endorse the choices I'd made in working with Gerald. He sent me off with a considerable amount of funds to make sure that we had the best possible chance against Calesta, then quietly sent the notice of excommunication once I'd left Jaggonath; neither of us expected that I'd survive, so he never even thought I'd actually have to read it.”

“You seem... shockingly okay with that,” Ciani said carefully. Damien snorted.

“Oh, I wasn't for a while. Trust me, I was a mess when I got the damn thing.” That warm, fond smile tugged at his lips again. “I've moved on, though, and I've made my peace with it. I'm not the only one who had to let some things go, and on the whole I'd say I'm happier for it.”

“You seem happy.” Ciani agreed. She studied Damien for a moment more, then shook her head. “I'll admit, I'm a little confused at how happy. I didn't think you'd sound so... content, talking about continuing to work with Gerald. Last time we spoke, you had accepted that you needed his help to face whatever had corrupted the rakh, but as far as I know you were still planning on killing him when the alliance was over.”

Damien chuckled a little; Ciani was shocked to see a faint flush spreading over his cheeks. “That, uh – that's where we left off, yes,” he said, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. “Things have changed considerably since then, to put it mildly. Spending years fighting at someone's side, with a link between your souls that can't help but give you insight into their point of view... it's hard to keep hating someone when you understand them on that kind of level. Harder, when they're the only one who seems to understand you as well.”

Ciani blinked. Blinked again. Then said, very carefully, “I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, Damien, but you should know that the way you said that almost makes it sound like...”

Damien spared her the awkwardness of trying to phrase it delicately. “Like we're more than just allies?” Aside from the deepening flush, he didn't look particularly perturbed – and his next sentence explained why. “We are, Cee. Took us a while to get there, since I was busy having an early mid-life sexuality crisis, but we're a couple now.”

This time, Ciani did actually choke on her wine. She spluttered, eyes tearing up, her windpipe stinging fiercely from the alcohol; Damien just watched her, looking just the tiniest bit smug. When she finally stopped coughing, Ciani just stared at him for a moment, lost for words for the second time that evening.

Finally, she managed a tentative, “Congratulations?” that sent Damien into a fit of laughter of his own. Grinning, Ciani held her hands up helplessly. “I have no idea what else to say to that. It's about the last thing I would ever have expected, but I'm delighted for you both. I assume Gerald's here in town as well, then?”

“He's on his way here, actually,” Damien replied. “Daylight's not fatal for him anymore, but he's still not overly fond of it, so when we got wind of someone asking after us around town I offered to come check it out first. If you really want that whole story of the last two years, or at least the start of it, you're welcome to join us for dinner.”

Ciani beamed at him. “I'd love to.”

Even if she'd known that she would find Damien alive and well upon her return from the rakhlands, this was nowhere near any of the scenarios Ciani would have envisioned, but she couldn't be upset about that. After all, her fundamental wish had been for Damien to move on and find the grand love story he wanted with someone who could return the sentiment without reservation, and for Gerald to find some kind of happiness after all his centuries alone.

It seemed like, in spite of all the odds, that was exactly what had happened.

[marybethsjournal]

The Past was Hell

Summary: The story of Abigail joining the gang and subsequently bonding with John. This is a divergence of canon fic where she left an ab*sive family, most characters are in canon besides Jenny, who in this fic has been with the gang since she was very young and Grimshaw, who has 4 sons and is in a relationship with Dutch. Also took some liberties with Arthur and Eliza’s relationship.  Enjoy :) 

Warnings: mentions of abuse, rape, and incest (obviously not in a condoning way). Vague talk about being a prostitute under the age of 18, but none of that actually takes place in the confines of the story. Just like in canon, Abigail in underage at the start of her relationship with John. Lastly, in this fic, Abigail is religious so religion is vaguely mentioned several times throughout the story, so skip if that isn’t your jam. Overall a very heavy story so keep that in mind before reading.

Word Count: 6488

Here’s the fic on ao3 for your reading pleasure if you prefer consuming content on there. https://archiveofourown.org/works/29766132

Abigail opened her bedroom door quietly and staggered to the kitchen. She saw her brother, but not her mother or father. Good.

“Where is father?” she whispered. He could be in the house and who knows the wrath he would force upon her if he found out she was out of her room and worse, talking about him.

“Passed out in the parlor. I don’t know what mama gave him but he’s sure to be mad about it when he wakes up” Rick, her brother, told her.

“I’m going to make biscuits then. Haven’t eaten in three days. I hope he won’t wake up before I finish ‘em.” Abigail turned her back from him and started towards the drawer with the bowls in it, but Rick grabbed her arm and turned her around quickly.

“Abigail,” the gravely serious tone of his voice frightened her, “You need to get out.”

“Why?” she asked, laughing lightly. “I haven’t offended you, have I?”

“I’m being serious. It’s gotten worse and worse with father and you. He takes you multiple times a day now, don’t think I haven’t noticed. Besides, he beats you so badly you can hardly walk anymore. You can’t keep saying you’re waiting until your wounds heal. He’ll kill you before then. Now’s your chance. Leave.” 

Abigail knew Rick was right. She wouldn’t have another chance like this. She wondered if him and her mother had conspired together and she had purposefully put something in their father’s dinner. It would have been the most considerate thing she had done for Abigail for a while.

“Come with me then.” Abigail grabbed Rick’s hands.

 Rick shook his head.

“No I have to stay here and look after mama. I’m not a target like you are. Here, I’ll prepare a basket of food for you. You go get some stuff packed and then leave immediately.”

Suddenly the two teenagers heard the sound of a head hitting a wall and a gruff “Fuck!” come from the parlor. Abigail froze in terror. Their father was awake. 

“Go. Now!”  Rick practically shooed Abigail out the door and proceeded to throw her shoes out the door behind her. Great, these had heels on them. Between that and the great pain in her side from where her father had beat her earlier, she was not going to get far. She was determined to try, though. If her father caught her attempting to escape, there’d be Hell to pay. Besides, the thought of never being taken advantage of again was a big enough motivator of its own. So Abigail ran as fast as she could, the splintering feeling in her side disregarded, praying every step of the way. She was going to need it. 

It was dusk of the second day that Abigail had left her home that she had decided she needed food. She had walked into a little town and she swore that she was getting so hungry that she could smell the food that was inside the townsfolk’s houses. Abigail pulled a bobby pin out of her hair without thinking and walked towards one of the houses swiftly before stopping in her tracks. What was she doing? Was she really about to rob somebody’s home? Was she going to walk in and invade someone's privacy like that? Abigail’s father, when he wasn’t spending time being an abusive bastard sent straight from the fiery pits of Hell itself, was a very successful businessman and she never ever had to even think about robbing a house before. But I’m hungry, she thought, before putting the bobby pin into the lock and working to get the damn door to open.

Abigail realized she had enormously miscalculated her criminal abilities when she opened the door and was greeted by a man holding a shotgun to her face. Of course these people were still awake! It couldn’t have been past 7pm, not that Abigail had been completely sure of the time since she had left her home. She would have scolded herself for being so utterly foolish if she wasn’t focused on the immediate danger the man and his shotgun posed.

“Who the Hell are you?” The man yelled. Abigail flinched. She was more than used to being yelled at, but not by men that weren’t in her bloodline.

“I said” the man repeated “Who the Hell are you? Answer me now, girl!” he waved the gun in her face.

“I’m sorry sir, I’ll just leave. I really am sorry.” is all Abigail could make out before the man was dragging her in the house.

“Oh no you don’t. You don’t just break into my house and then get to leave Scott free.”

A woman who Abigail presumed must have been his wife walked into the room cautiously. It was clear she had been hiding and was listening to the heated exchange.

“Honey, she’s just a kid. Look at ‘er.” the woman reasoned with the man.

The man did not lower his gun.

 “Oh fantastic, a delinquent is trying to rob me, that’s SOOO much better!” 

The woman rolled her eyes. 

“Gerald, honey, show some compassion. Let me just talk to her.”

“Compassion,” Gerald emphasized, “runs in your family and look where it got ‘em. Your Gran Gran died from armed robbers just two weeks ago.”

“Why were you coming in here?” The lady addressed Abigail directly.

“Because,” Abigail sniffled, “I’m hungry and I don’t have any money. I don’t know where to get any food. I wasn’t going to hurt you, I swear”.

The woman noticed Abigail kept holding on to her side and upon further inspection, her face looked pretty bruised up, although the bruises seemed to be fading slightly.

“Are you hurt?”

Abigail nodded.

“Who hurt you, sweetheart?”

“My father.” Abigail was crying by this point and continued to issue apologizes for entering the home uninvited.

The lady looked at Gerald as if to say “I told you so” and started guiding Abigail up the stairs.

“Come. We have an extra bedroom. You look exhausted. I have some soup left from dinner, I’ll bring it up. I’m so sorry all this happened angel. We can talk about this in the morning. For now, rest. No one can hurt you here.” 

It had been several hours since then. The lady’s name had turned out to be Betty and she was true to her word and brought Abigail a bowl of potato soup and then another after she had finished the first bowl. Betty was one of the kindest souls Abigail had ever met, she felt safe with her. Gerald wasn’t all so bad either. He just had his guard up, rightfully so. Before Abigail had gone to bed, they had told her that she could stay with them as long as she liked. However, after about 3 hours of sleep, Abigail awoke and realized that if she stayed here, she’d have to tell them exactly what her father had done and worse, she’d have to say who he was. Despite all the horrible things he had put her through, she still had a sense of loyalty to him. She could never do that to him. His whole career, Hell, his whole life would be over. Besides, she couldn’t just leech off these people. Abigail decided around 4am that she had to leave. She tiptoed down the stairs and went through the kitchen, stuffing as many rolls as she could in her dress before sneaking out the back door. She didn’t know where she was heading, only that she couldn’t stay where she was.

It was pitch black outside and although Abigail’s eyes adjusted rather quickly, it was still hard to make out exactly where she was going. Before she had completely exited the town, Abigail’s feet crunched on something. She looked down to see it was a newspaper. The Western Times, it read in big letters. Abigail picked up the dirty newspaper and thought that maybe this could be her out. Her father read the local newspaper every day and she knew there were always people putting out ads in there for job listings. Maybe somebody needed a nanny or a housekeeper or someone to sew for them or- well she’d see later when the sun came up and she could see better. Yet again, Abigail found herself praying that things went her way.

As luck would have it, someone actually had put out an ad for a housekeeper! Some man named Mr. Greensboro. She hadn’t heard of him before but he apparently lived a short way away from the town she had passed earlier and if she was fortunate enough, she could get there before he hired someone else. Abigail was aware she looked ragged and dirty, something one wouldn’t like to see in a housekeeper, but perhaps the man would take pity on her. Abigail needed money and a place to live in order to survive. She really needed this job.

Things were going Abigail’s way yet again! She had met with the man and after about an hour and a half interview, he hired her. She was ecstatic. Mr. Greensboro was a kind man, although his selection process was kind of odd. He had asked her if she knew her bust size and if she was a virgin.His face contorted in an odd way when she regretfully told him that while she had never engaged in consensual sex, she had been taken against her will more times than she could count. He apologized to her for asking, saying he only asked just to know if she was married or would have an unexpected pregnancy while working for him. Seemed a bit of an odd way to ask, but she let it go. Beggars could not be choosers and she most assuredly was a beggar now.

Abigail had just shut the door to Mr. Greensboro’s sizable cottage when she heard some women calling to her from the side of the house.

“You there!” Abigail turned her head and saw a woman with a Nigerian accent calling to her. She was beautiful, with short black hair and soft brown eyes. “You came here for the job, didn’t you?”

Abigail glanced between the woman speaking and the two girls behind her. One had pale, freckled skin and strawberry-blonde hair and the other looked a little older than the other women and seemed more worn by life as well. She had skin weathered from the sun and wispy brown hair pulled into a braid. 

“Uh yes, I came for the job. I need the money.”

“How old are you?” The speaker of the group came closer.

“Sixteen but I can work hard.”

“Not like he wants you to. He’s a bad man, does bad things to us. We have people that we have to take care of. We all have kids to feed and we’re already in too deep. Trust me, you’d be better off being a working girl on your own terms.” 

After several more moments speaking with the women, Abigail was convinced. She left with her head hung down low, disheartened. Why were all the men in this world such creeps? It was heartbreaking to know that she would most likely have to make a profession from having to do the thing she was running away from: being touched by men she didn’t want to touch her. It wasn’t fair. All the girls in the town she came from were going to be housewives and socialites and she was going to be Abigail the Whore. Abigail never hated prostitutes, she just always thought herself to be above them. That’s what privilege does, she supposed, makes you so far removed from poverty that you can’t imagine that people are doing what they have to do to survive and that doesn’t make anyone better or worse than anyone else.

Abigail was contemplating all of this several days later as she hid behind a tree near a path running through the forest. She was thinking how wrong this was. She was only 16, but she was hungry, she had no choice. Her thoughts subsided instantaneously when she heard hooves gallop across the path. She was sure what she was about to do was a very shady way to pick someone up, but there weren’t any prostitute hangouts nearby that she knew of. She had no idea how to do this. It didn’t matter how she did it, she decided, as long as she got it done.

Abigail peeked out from behind the tree she was hiding and saw the person that was riding through was a man. That was great for her, she was getting fed tonight. If all went well, that is. The man was handsome enough, with greasy, rather long black hair, brown eyes, a mustache and stubble, and whatever Abigail referred to as “angry brows”. He was riding a small white Arabian.She took a deep breath and stumbled onto the road. 

“Mister! Mister!” she waved him down, not that it was hard to get his attention when she was blocking the path.

“Yes?” he asked impatiently, cocking his brow.

Abigail froze. She hadn’t gotten to this part in her mind yet.

“Do you need company for the night?” It all spilled out of her mouth so quickly that she wasn’t even sure what she was saying.

The “angry brow” man laughed. “Y’all are getting a bit desperate, aren’t you? Advertising out in the forest? That or you ain’t a real lady of the night.”

Was she really that bad at this?

“I’m not one yet, you would’ve been my first, errr, client. I’m just hungry, you know?” Abigail admitted.

She could tell the angry brow man was sizing her up. She tried to look more tall and confident and he chuckled at her yet again.

“Sorry ma’am, I got me an old lady. I do have some boys, though. They’re sloppy as all Hell and have no manners, the lot of them. Tell you what, you come back to camp with me and I might have a business proposition for you.”

It took a lot of convincing for Abigail to get on the man’s horse and leave with him. What if he was a murderer or something? But in the end, she was hungry.

Angry brow man chuckled when Abigail hesitated. “Some whore you are.”

     The words stung. It was silly at this point, really. She knew she would have to get used to it but that didn’t make it easier and it certainly didn’t make her feel like it was right. Despite everything that happened to her, she still felt like a child. Probably because she was; plain and simple. 

“Here, you can hold my gun. That way, I try anything you don’t like, you can shoot me.”

Abigail took the shotgun gingerly. “I don’t know how to shoot a gun, never held one.”

Angry eyebrow man chuckled again. “Probably not the best thing to tell someone you’re afraid of, for future reference.” he paused as he helped her up onto the horse. “You don’t come from the streets, do you?”

“I told you that I’ve never been a working woman before.”

“Yes I know, but I meant that you aren’t poor.”

Abigail laughed. “Look at me, do I look like I have any money? If I did, I wouldn’t be out here.”

“Usually how it goes. You weren’t poor before, though.”

“Sure. this horse is rather aggressive.” the white Arabian, despite having been calm with just its owner on it, was trying to buck Abigail off. It was quite a strange thing for Abigail, she had seen a horse become upset when a person besides their owner rode them alone, but never had she seen a horse be so aggressive when it was carrying both its owner and an outsider.

“Ah well, The Count doesn’t take kindly to strangers. He won’t even let my boys ride him. It’s nothing personal, trust me.”

“Your horse has a name?”

“Of course. All of our horses at camp have names. Do you rich people not name your horses?”

“I don’t know about rich people, but no, I’ve never met a horse with a name. We just call them by their breed and color where I’m from.”

“Seems a bit barbaric.” The angry brow man told her, huffing. She couldn’t quite tell if he was offended because of the way they treated their horses or that he wasn’t assimilated with he presumed to be “rich folks” culture. It wasn’t exactly a secret, just by looking at him, that he wanted to have an austerity look about him. He wore a velvet vest with gold chains hanging from his sides and steel boots Abigail had sworn she had seen at a speciality store for almost $60. And then there was the fact that he had this White Arabian, which was about $2000 for the horse itself, not including any equipment. He sure did have equipment for the horse, too. Gold saddle and everything: the works. Yet, he spoke of the rich as if he was far removed. It was odd but she didn’t have much time to figure the man out before he started talking again.

“My name is Dutch, Dutch Van Der Linde. And yours?”

“Uhhh, Abigail Roberts. Your name sounds like royalty.” Abigail was yet again taken aback by the contrast between the way this man presented himself to who he really seemed to be.

Dutch laughed. “I wish. If I was any sort of royalty, people wouldn’t live like you. We’d all be a huge family, this nation. Everybody would earn their keep, but nobody would ever go hungry.”

“You’ve got dreams, Mister Dutch. You sound more like a cult leader, though, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“You know, strangely enough, you’re not the first person to tell me that. I don’t mind. America is one big cult that makes you think the difference between the good guys and the bad guys is clear cut. Well let me tell you, the answer isn’t as clear as people would like it to be. Lines get blurred among all people.”

Abigail didn’t care much for this philosophical talk. She had never been to school or learned how to read, philosophy went right over her head. And she didn’t quite appreciate being talked to about things that made her feel dumb.

“So, you said you have boys?” Abigail changed the subject, partially to be spared of looking like a fool and partially because she was both interested and worried about what she was getting into. “How many?”

“Uh I can’t give you a count straight off the top of my head. I don’t know, maybe a dozen? At least?”

Abigail was extremely taken aback. This man had 12 kids? Abigail had never heard of a man that had both 12 kids, wore ostentatious clothing, and still talked about the US like it wasn’t doing them justice. Nothing about this man made sense so far.

“You have 12 sons? And you’re just going to give me to them? I’ve never heard of a father that does things like this.”

Dutch lit a cigar, balancing it in his mouth while he kept his hands on the reins of The Count.

“Well, I’m not exactly a ‘by the book’ type man. And besides, I fear I might have led you astray. I have four sons, but my gang is a sort of a found family sort of thing.”

Abigail's mind went fuzzy in terror when she heard the word “gang”. A gang? Oh God, what had she gotten herself into?

“What do you mean, gang? Do y’all go around and kill people?” Abigail thought of jumping off the horse at that point. Either they were to kill her when she got there or she’d be party to murdering others. Abigail didn’t care how hungry or hurt she was: she was not going to go around and start killing people for sport. This life felt like Hell, but she surely was not going to sign her spot in everlasting Hell. It simply was not worth it and besides, the thought of looking someone in the eyes and killing them made her sick, even despite her religious convictions.

“Sort of, but only bad men.” Dutch retorted, sensing she was getting worried and trying to calm her.

“Didn’t you just say the line between good and bad people is not clean cut?”

Dutch laughed nervously. Abigail could already tell he didn’t like to be questioned.

“You’re a good listener, aren’t ya? I’m not used to that. But not to worry, these people really deserve it. And we don’t usually let the women do the killing. Besides, it’s not mainly about the killing. More about taking from the rich and giving to the poor. Like Robin Hood. Do you know Robin Hood?”

Abigail nodded. She wasn’t so sure about his overall sentiment, however. Nothing should give someone the right to take another’s life. That was God’s job and to an extent, the law. “And so who are the poor, hmm?” Abigail was pretty sure that she already knew the answer to that one. 

“Well us, mostly.” Dutch admitted nervously.

Abigail scoffed. This man sure was a prize. He felt bad for his lady. She probably had to listen to this all day.

“Mister Dutch, I understand I’m not in a position to be making demands, but with all due respect, I’m not sure I’m gonna want to service these boys. What if they hold a knife to my throat or something?”

“They’re not like that. Look at how society has caused you to judge. You don’t even know my boys and you are already thinking bad things about them. Now-”.

Abigail didn’t fancy hearing any more of this man’s straw man spiel. She could tell that he had a silver tongue, but it wasn’t working on her. “Is it that big of a stretch when these men have murdered people?”

Dutch tutted her impatiently. “Killed, not murdered. There’s a difference. Besides, they treat ladies real nice. They don’t hurt ‘em. Especially a doll like you.”

The last sentence made Abigail uncomfortable to no end. “If they treat ladies so nice, why don’t they have women already?”

Dutch seemed to not have a response to that. The trip continued largely in silence. Abigail kept trying to decide if she wanted to jump ship or not, but ultimately decided against it.

Eventually, they made their way to a clearing behind a forest. Abigail could see at least a dozen tents and lean-tos. It was lively with music and laughter. But it was not lost on her that she could smell a stench from dozens of meters away.

“This is our place, Abigail. You will be safe here. No one will hurt you.” Abigail remembered hearing those same words from Betty and suddenly wished that she had just stayed there.

Dutch helped her off the Count and practically dragged her to a soap box to the side of the camp. It was a bit overwhelming for Abigail, she was trying to take everything in. It was rather hard, however, when several pairs of eyes were on her. 

“Everybody, listen here!” Dutch yelled. It didn’t take much, however, there was already a crowd gathering to catch a glimpse at her. Abigail guessed they didn’t have outsiders in their camp often. Abigail looked through the group of what she assumed would be leering faces. To her surprise, no one looked especially mean or murderous. The face looked curious, some even looked concerned, but none looked particularly dangerous. Abigail found herself wondering if Dutch had overstated the harm that his “gang” had done. There were several women with kind expressions, some even seeming to be younger than her, and this made her feel at ease. Not that women had stopped what had happened to her in the past.

“This is Abigail. Poor thing, I found her off the side of the road on my way back here from my meeting with Colm. Update on that: it did not go too well and for the time being, I think we should post at least two people on guard duty at all times. Nothing to be concerned about, though, we will pull through no problem. But I digress. Abigail here has been a victim to the ruthlessness of American capitalists. The ‘rich man’ raised her and then tossed her aside, poor and defenseless. And they think we’re the ones needing our throats sliced-” Dutch droned on and on and Abigail tuned him out, silently thanking herself for not sharing all her life details with him, for her surely would have repeated it all to everyone to prove his point. Abigail snapped back to reality when she heard Dutch order the boys to “meet their new lady”. Again, being referred to that way made her very uncomfortable.

A gaggle of men stepped towards her before a scowling woman with graying hair stepped forward, clanked two bowls together and yelled, “Dutch Van Der Linde, what the Hell do you think you’re doing? She must be scared out of her mind and you want her to meet the boys already? You’re insane.” The group of men laughed at the sight of the woman scolding Dutch.

The woman with the scowl walked towards Abigail and her expression softened as she held out her hand to Abigail “I’m Susan. Guess I’m the mother of sorts to all these fools. Let’s go set you up an area for you to live and be comfortable. Trust is important in a space like this and you can’t trust us if you don’t feel safe with us.” Abigail took Susan’s hand and walked with her towards the north side of the camp.

“These men are idiots, don’t understand feelings. But don’t mind them, they don’t bite, and it’s okay to yell at them if they overstep their boundaries.” Abigail nodded, knowing full well that she would never be comfortable yelling at those burly men. “Here’s where the girls sleep. There’s Jenny’s tent, Tilly’s tent, Mary Beth’s tent. Bessie sleeps in her tent with Hosea and I sleep in my tent with Dutch. I’ll send Uncle into town as soon as I can to get you a proper tent, but I’m sure any of the girls wouldn’t mind sharing in the meantime.”

Abigail’s head was spinning. All these names and information was a lot to take in at once.

“Uncle? Who’s Uncle is he?” she asked

“Oh that’s just his name.” Susan answered, matter-of-fact, as if men named Uncle were a normal occurrence.”

Susan spent the next few hours introducing Abigail to the women. First she met Bessie, a sweet woman who appeared to be quite a few years older than Susan. Bessie was kinder than Abigail remembered any woman ever being towards her, offering her candy and giving her constant words of assurance. Abigail immediately felt a daughterly sort of bond to Bessie, feeling that Bessie would never let any harm come to Abigail. After speaking with Bessie, Susan brought Abigail to speak with Mary Beth, Tilly, and Jenny.  Mary Beth and Tilly seemed to be around her age, maybe slightly younger, but still had a youthful joy that Abigail had lost long ago. Jenny was clearly several years older than the other two but still seemed young enough to be Susan or Bessie’s daughter. All three girls were very kind to Abigail, but Mary Beth seemed to warm to her the quickest. She quickly invited Abigail for a “sleepover” in her tent, showed her all the books she had, her new journal that she worked in daily, and pointed out all the men in the gang that she had a crush on. Susan scolded Mary Beth for “overwhelming” Abigail, but Abigail felt herself smiling and being grateful for her friendliness. Tilly was sweet but cautious, telling her some of the camp rules and showing her where they washed clothes and did other camp chores. In what seemed to be an attempt to relate to Abigail and make her feel at ease, Tilly told her the story of how she had been rescued by Hosea from a nasty gang. A part of Abigail wanted to tell Tilly her own story, but felt it was too soon and that she wasn’t ready just yet. Jenny smiled at Abigail a lot but didn’t say much besides introducing herself. All in all, the ladies seemed very nice and Abigail enjoyed their company.

At nightfall, Dutch approached Susan gingerly, as if she was a dangerous animal, and asked if Abigail could meet the boys now. Susan agreed as long as Abigail was okay with it. Abigail, still feeling terrified of the gang members of the opposite sex but not wanting to anger Dutch, nodded and went with Dutch to the camp fire where all the men were huddled together singing some song with vagina euphemisms. 

Most of the boys stood up when they saw Abigail and Dutch walking towards them. Two men, however, an old man who was very clearly drunk, and a lean man with extremely greasy hair, stayed sat down. Dutch went through all the men and introduced them all. The names spun around in her mind. Reverend, Davey and Mac Callender, Bill, Pearson, Dutch’s sons Henry, Frank, Robert, and Thomas. The list of names went on and on until there seemed to be only two more people to introduce. The old man, who Abigail was told was “Uncle”, had passed out, and the other man who had been sat at the camp fire had slunk away to his tent. The last two men introduced themselves as Arthur and Hosea.

“Don’t worry about these two, Abigail. They’ve both got women.” Dutch informed her.

The man called Hosea rolled his eyes and told Dutch in a strict voice that there was more towards this gang than an orgy house and Abigail was allowed to have friendly relationships. With the way Dutch seemed to almost cower at Hosea’s words, Abigail wondered if Hosea was the true leader here. Abigail would be very happy if that was the case, Hosea both looked and sounded more kind and sensible than Dutch. 

The other man spoke up, trying to dissipate the escalating tension between the two men before him. “Hello miss Abigail, I’m Arthur. Like Dutch said, I have a girl and a son, actually, his name is Isaac and he’s the best little boy anyone could ask for. I bring him to camp sometimes and you’ll see he’s the cutest buckaroo in the world.” Arthur beamed while talking about his son. Abigail knew far too well that being a father didn’t automatically make you a good person but she couldn’t help but feel safe with Arthur. He was big and muscular, but spoke with such kindness.

The four of them sat down at the campfire and talked for an hour or two. Abigail enjoyed herself more than she had in a long time, listening to Hosea recount his heists in his youth and embarrassing stories about his three “kids”, Arthur, John, and Jenny, who had been with the gang the longest. Her sides hurt from laughing when she heard the story of Arthur trying to teach John to swim.

“Speaking of John, where is he? He didn’t introduce himself to you tonight. That’s not like him, to be shy.”

Arthur scoffed, “he’s not shy, just a bastard. Thinks he’s too good to have to introduce himself like everyone else. He thinks that way because you treat him special, Dutch.” Arthur’s brows furrowed as he focused on crushing the cigarette butt beneath his shoes.

Dutch opened his mouth, presumably to argue, but Abigail was too tired to hear any more arguments. 

“I’m sorry, y’all, I better go to bed. Mary Beth is waiting on me.”

Abigail walked to Mary Beth’s tent and was greeted excitedly by the girl. Mary Beth wanted to share stories and gossip all night long; Abigail politely obliged. However, the excitement seemed to be all too much for Mary Beth and she collapsed of exhaustion within the half hour. Abigail didn’t have the same luck falling asleep, not at all. She gave up on the idea entirely after a few hours and crawled out the tent silently to get some fresh air. Abigail assumed no one would be up at this hour but as she was pacing around, she saw John sharpening a knife at the second camp fire at the back of the camp. She didn’t want to disturb him, he clearly hadn’t wanted to introduce himself to her in the first place, so she started walking back to the tent. Her attempts to go unnoticed failed when she got too close to one of horse and spooked it, causing it to winnie loudly. John turned around to see the commotion and noticed Abigail.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I’m heading back to Mary Beth’s tent, just needed to clear my head for a moment.” Abigail apologized. John stared at her blankly and she awkwardly began to step backwards towards the tent.

“Come sit.” he said flatly, as if he was reciting a line to himself.

Abigail was taken aback and unsure of what to do. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to talk to John, especially alone. But, acutely aware that she was alone with this man and knowing what men in her life did when they were angry, she walked over to the campfire and sat next to him on a log.

Abigail hadn’t seen John’s features properly until now, but seeing him in the light from the fire, he took her breath away. He was beautiful. Rough and tumble, sure, but still beautiful. He had deep brown eyes that had a softness to them, giving away that he wasn’t all so tough as maybe he wanted to be. He was clean shaven and had a slight smirk that didn’t seem to drop. He had various scars on his face and Abigail wondered exactly what trouble this man had gotten into.

  “Uhhh hi.” John greeted, bringing Abigail to reality and making her realize that he knew she was staring.

“Oh, yes, hi. Sorry about that.” Abigail was thoroughly embarrassed.

“It’s fine. Used to it. I’ve always been ugly.” he told her solemnly.

“No no no, that’s not it at all. I- well, I don’t know.” Abigail cursed herself when she started to blush, knowing that she had a habit of turning tomato red.

John noticed that she was blushing, it was hard not to, and seemed to realize why she was actually staring. His smirk grew a bit and he sat up a bit more. The smirk, however, didn’t last very long when he started to speak again.

“I think it’s fucked what Dutch is doing. Making you be a whore just for you to survive and all,” he said seriously before quickly addinh, “Not that I care who you fuck. Fuck everyone for all I care.” John’s eyes darted to Abigail nervously.

Abigail laughed despite the overall sentiment of his original comment. “ I didn’t think you cared, John.”

John seemed satisfied in her answer and continued with what he had been saying. “You know, I heard you telling some of the guys what had happened to you with your dad in all and well, don’t tell anyone this, but I understand. I went through it too, being exploited before my dad died. And Dutch picked me up and ain’t never made me do what he’s making you do. And it’s just like, how are you supposed to heal when this is your life now?” John struggled to get his words out; it was clear that he was having a hard time being vulnerable.  

Abigail nodded, not knowing what else to say. She knew what he was saying and she agreed. She also appreciated his words, she knew it was hard speaking about trauma with total strangers. They sat in comfortable silence for a while before John blurted out, “You know, it’s a shame. You’re so pretty, you could be an actress instead.”

Abigail giggled at the words that came out of nowhere. Was this flirting? She wasn’t quite sure, she had never been allowed to speak to men outside of her family.

“I- well thank you. That means a lot.”

John seemed frustrated with the response he was getting, so he continued. 

“No, I’m serious. They should put your name up in lights in those fancy cities with the picture shows.”

“You’re real sweet, John Marston. You don’t seem to be the type that should be running with a gang.”

John scoffed. “You don’t know me like that, Miss. I’m a bad man. Maybe an evil man. Although Arthur says I’m too stupid to be evil.”

“You are no such thing!” Abigail gasped.

John’s smirk had now grown to a full grown smile. He was basking in the attention he was getting from Abigail.

The two of them spent a few moments playfully arguing over whether John was stupid in which John told her of some stories that were compelling to his argument that he was, in fact, stupid. After the laughter dissipated, John started digging in his pocket nervously. His face lit up when he found it. He pulled out a pearl necklace.

“Hey, I was wondering if maybe you’d like this. I’d usually sell it but I noticed that you’re not wearing any jewelry and I think you would look nice in jewelry so maybe you could take this and put it on your neck.” John rambled, scared to death of being laughed at for the gesture.

“Yes, I know how necklaces work, John. Maybe you are stupid.” Abigail smirked. When she saw John’s face fall, she added, “I would love the necklace. Thank you for thinking of me.” She took the necklace from John and gave him a chaste kiss on the cheek, causing to duck his head so Abigail couldn’t see that he was the one blushing now.

“Well then, since we’re friends now, I was wondering if you’d want to go to a saloon and get something to eat sometime. It’s better than Pearson’s cooking, at least.” John fumbled through the sentence.

“I think if we’re going to go on a date, we should do something a bit more romantic than going to a saloon. Maybe we can have a picnic on one of those hills down the way. I saw them on the ride up here.”

“Well I didn’t mean it like that. But I guess if you want to…” John shrugged and tried to seem nonchalant but couldn’t contain his smile.

The past was Hell, but Abigail was starting to think that maybe the future wouldn’t be so bad.

[kadarirat]

1, 18, 20, 36, 38

Holy shit prepare for a MEGA infodump/pos

Ty SO MUCH for this ask Vio, I LOVE these questions!

1. Favorite characters to write for?

Besides Sonic? Honestly all of them are really fun, but when it comes to figuring out dialogue and behavior, Infinite and Shadow, tbh.

Infinite is eloquent and pompous. Shadow is snarky but also intense and bitter.

Both of them are so fun to write because they have dialogue styles unique just to them. Figuring out fancy/flowery sentences for Infinite and gruff language plus nautical phrases for Shadow is neat! Plus Shadow is great because writing mean, unpredictable characters and coming up with insults for them to say is a fun challenge lol

18. Do you prefer editing as you write, or waiting until it's finished?

I PREFER to edit when I'm finished, but I tend to edit as I write. It's a bad habit and really slows me down 😔

20. What feedback makes you the happiest to hear?

Honestly I LIVE for comments about world building, the real world research I integrate into it, and the characters. When someone tells me that a scene or character or phrase connected with them in some way, I cry /pos. Also I LOVE when people make predictions about what happens next or about what a character might be thinking. Every time I hinted at Shadow's appearance, I got comments from people saying they were dreading and also anticipating him showing up and those comments fueled my motivation for weeks lmao. Keeping people guessing and hearing their ideas is the best!

36. What fanfic of yours has the symbolism you're proudest of?

Unfortunately I can't reveal too much regarding Fair Winds and Following Seas, as a lot of the symbolism there actually drives the story. There's a lot of it in there, even the title has an important meaning(folks who know the actual meaning behind the phrase get brownie points!). I WILL say that Sonic's yearning for the horizon on the sea, fear of water, and hatred toward pirates are very important ^^

38. What story are you surprised that people liked as much as they did?

I only currently have 2 done lol. But like, both of them tbh? I didn't expect either to be as well received as they were lol. "Lab Notes of Gerald Robotnik" was something I scribbled out in a matter of like, five hours I think. I just wanted to try my hand at writing horror for the first time since high school lmao. As for FWAFS, I did not at all expect it to get as much of a reaction from readers as it's getting. People are actually making connections with the characters and are drawn into the story and I am both surprised and honored by every comment I get 😭

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 7, Number 4

Axel Ruley x Verbo Flow

A little bit of optimism is creeping into the air as Dusted writers start to get their shots. We’re all starting to think about live music, maybe outside, maybe this summer. But as the spate of freak snow storms demonstrates, summer’s not here yet, and in the meantime, piles of records and gigs of MP3s beckon. This early spring version of Dust covers the map, literally, with artists representing Pakistan, Australia, Canada, Sweden, the UK and the USA, and stylistically with jazz, rock, punk, rap, improv and many other genres in play. Contributors include Jennifer Kelly, Justin Cober-Lake, Bill Meyer, Ray Garraty, Patrick Masterson, Tim Clarke and Bryon Hayes.

Arooj Aftab — Vulture Prince (New Amsterdam)

Vulture Prince by Arooj Aftab

Arooj Aftab is a classical composer originally from Pakistan but now living in Brooklyn. Vulture Prince, her third full-length album, blends the bright clarity of new age music with the fluid, non-Western vocal tones of her Central Asian roots. “Last Night,” from an old Rumi poem but sung mostly in English, lilts in dub-scented syncopation, the thump and pop of stand-up bass underlining its bittersweet melody. An interlude in some other language shifts the song entirely, pitting vintage reggae reverberation against an exotic melisma. “Mohabbat” (which is apparently Urdu for sex) soothes in the pristine instrumentals, lucid guitars, a horn, scattered drumbeats, but smolders and beckons in the vocals. None of these tracks feel wholly traditional or wholly Western and modern day, but sit somewhere in a well-lit, idealized space. Timeless and placeless, Vulture Prince is nonetheless very beautiful.

Jennifer Kelly

 Assertion — Intermission (Spartan)

Intermission comes from an alternate timeline. Founding drummer William Goldsmith started his musical career in Sunny Day Real Estate and had a notable stint with Foo Fighters. To cut the biography short, Goldsmith took a decade off from the music industry. He's returned now with Assertion, joined by guitarist/vocalist Justin Tamminga and bassist Bryan Gorder (both of Blind Guides, among other acts). This band picks up in the late 1990s, imagining a new path for post-hardcore/post-grunge music. The trio's name suits, as the songs' energy and the lyrical assertiveness develops the intensity of the release. The group works carefully with dynamics, neither parroting the loud-quiet tradition nor simply pushing their emo leanings toward 11.

“The Lamb to the Slaughter Pulls a Knife” epitomizes the album. The track sounds like Foo Fighters decided to get dirtier rather than more arena-friendly, while the lyrics mix violence with emotional persistence. First single “Supervised Suffering” finds triumph in endurance, turning the aggressive chorus into something of a victory. “Set Fire” closes the album with something more delicate, but it's just the gauze over a seething anger. Goldsmith's time off seems to have served him well, as does collaborating with some new partners. Assertion makes its case clearly and effectively, and if the intermission's over for Goldsmith, the second half sounds promising.

Justin Cober-Lake  

 Michael Beach — Dream Violence (Goner/Poison City)

Dream Violence by Michael Beach

“De Facto Blues,” from Michael Beach’s fourth solo album, is a barn-burner of a song, rough and messy and passionate, the kind of song that makes you want to take a stand on something, who cares what as long as it matters to you. It snarls like Radio Birdman, slashes like the Wipers and follows its muse through chaos to righteousness like an off-cut from Crazy Horse, just back from rockin’ the free world. It’s got Matt Ford and Inez Tulloch from Thigh Master on guitar and bass, respectively, Utrillo Kushner from Colossal Yes (and Comets on Fire) on drums, and Kelley Stoltz at the boards, and it’s a killer. The rest of the album is varied and, honestly, not uniformly astounding, but there’s a nice Summer of Love-style psych dream in “Metaphysical Dice,” a slow-burning post-rocker in the title track and a driving, pounding punk anthem in the opener “Irregardless.” Beach has been splitting his time between San Francisco and Melbourne, Australia, and lately settled on Melbourne, where he will fit like a native into their thriving punk-garage scene.

Jennifer Kelly

 Bloop — Proof (Lumo)

Proof by BLOOP (Lina Allemano / Mike Smith)

The trumpet is already a catalog of sound effects waiting to happen, and Lina Allemano knows the table of contents by heart. So, to shake things up, she has paired up with electronic musician Mike Smith, who contributes live processing and effects to Allemano’s improvisations. A blind listen to Proof might leave you with the impression that you’re hearing a horn player jamming with some outer space cats, and we’re not talking about hip, lingo-slinging jazz dudes. In fact, everything on these eight tracks happened in real time. Smith’s a strategic intervener, aware that too much sauce can spoil the stew, so he mixes up precise layering and pitch-shifting with more disorienting transformations. It’s hard to say how much Allemano responds to the simulacra that surround her brass voice, but there’s no denying the persuasiveness of her melodic and timbral ideas.

Bill Meyer

 Bris — Tricky Dance Moves (TrueStory Entertainment)

Bris left some music behind when he died in 2020, but it took almost a year to shape these recordings into a proper CD. The label CEO Mac J (a fine artist himself) could easily capitalize on his friend’s death, stacking Tricky Dance Moves with features from the artists Bris never would have worked with. Yet the album was prepared with the utmost care, not giving an ugly Frankenstein monster feel. Bris’s references to his possible early death are scattered throughout the whole tape: “Heard they wanna pop Bris cause they mad I’m poppin.” Almost every song could be easily turned into a prophetic tale (a cheap move one wants to avoid at all costs). Nonetheless, something is missing here. Or maybe it is just an image of death that disturbs the whole picture, making us realize that this is the last we’d hear from Bris.

Ray Garraty

 Dreamwell — Modern Grotesque (self-released)

Modern Grotesque by Dreamwell

I recently read an interview with Providence’s Dreamwell breaking down in almost excruciating detail the influences that led to the quintet’s sophomore full-length Modern Grotesque. I kept scrolling past Daughters and Deftones and Deafheaven and increasingly disconnected influences like The Mountain Goats and Nina Simone. I went back to the top and looked again. I typed Ctrl+F and put in “Thursday.” Nothing. This is preposterous. I may not be in the post-hardcore trenches the way I once was, but even I’d know a good Full Collapse homage if it swung a mic right into my face the way this one did; hell, just listen to “The Lost Ballad of Dominic Anneghi” and tell me singer Keziah Staska doesn’t know every single word of “Paris in Flames.” That may not look like flattery on a first read, but too often, bands striding the emo/pop divide have chased the latter into sub-Taking Back Sunday oblivion; what Thursday did was much harder, and Dreamwell has ably taken up the torch here. That they did it unintentionally is a curious, bewildering footnote.

Patrick Masterson

  Paul Dunmall / Matthew Shipp / Joe Morris / Gerald Cleaver — The Bright Awakening (Rogue Art)

It’s a bit perplexing that reeds player Paul Dunmall hasn’t spent more time playing with American musicians. He’s firmly situated within the English improvisation community, where he’s perhaps best known for his longer tenure with the quartet Mujician, and his ability to double on bagpipes has allowed him to establish links between improvised and folk music. But

his jazz-rooted approach makes him a natural to work in settings such as this one. When Dunmall toted his tenor to the Vision Festival in 2012 (even then, it could be costly to lug multiple horns on a plane), he found three sympatico partners in Fest regulars pianist Matthew Shipp, double bassist Joe Morris and drummer Gerald Cleaver. They all hit the ground running, generating a barrage of pulsing, roiling sound for over 20 minutes before the piano and drums peel off, leaving Morris to sustain momentum alone. Dunmall’s gruff, spiraling lines find common cause with each of his fellows, and the gradual addition and subtraction of players from that point makes it easier to hear the exchange of ideas, which often seem to take place between dyads operating within the larger flow.

Bill Meyer 

 Editrix — Tell Me I’m Bad (Exploding in Sound)

Tell Me I'm Bad by Editrix

Wendy Eisenberg’s rock band is like her solo output in that it snarls delicate, self-aware, mini-short stories in complex tangles of guitar, hemming in high, sing-song-y verses with riffs and licks of daunting difficulty. The main differences are speed, volume and aggression (i.e. it rocks.) and a certain communal energy. That’s down to two collaborators who can more than keep up, Josh Daniel on surging, rattling, break-it-all-down percussion and Steve Cameron, equally anarchic and fast on bass. The title track is an all-out rager, thrusting jagged arena riffs of guitar and bass forward, then clearing space for off-kilter verses and time-shifting, irregular instrumental interplay. “Chelsea” follows a similar chaotic pattern, setting up a teeth-shaking cadence of rock instruments, with Eisenberg keening over the top of it. “I know, perfectly well, that we’re not safe, safe from the men in power,” she croons, engaged in the knotting difficulties of the world as we know it, but winning.

Jennifer Kelly

Elephant Micah — Vague Tidings (Western Vinyl)

Vague Tidings by Elephant Micah

The new Elephant Micah album, the follow-up to 2018’s excellent Genericana, has an apposite title. Vague Tidings conveys an atmosphere of feeling conscious of something carried on the wind, a story passed on that may have shifted through various iterations, leaving only a sense of its original meaning. All that can be sure is that this is sad, sober music, unafraid to brace against the chill of mortality and speak of all that is felt. The instruments — guitar, piano, percussion, violin and woodwinds — move around Joseph O’Connell’s voice in stiff yet graceful arcs, distanced by an unspoken etiquette. Repetitive melodic figures, stark yet steady, gradually accumulate weight as they roll along like tumbleweeds. It’s a crisp, forlorn country-blues, in no hurry to get nowhere, carrying ancient wisdom that seems to acknowledge the empty resonance of its own import.

Tim Clarke

 Fraufraulein — Solum (Notice Recordings)

Fraufraulein’s music is immersive. Anne Guthrie and Billy Gomberg beam themselves, and us along with them, Quantum Leap-style directly into multiple environments in medias res. Through the clever employment of field recordings, they transport us to a hurricane-addled beach, performing a voice/piano duet as driftwood missiles careen through the air. In another “episode,” the manipulation of small objects conjures up the intimacy of a water garden filled with windchimes. Partners in both life and art, Guthrie and Gomberg are also consummate solo artists. He is a master of spike-textured drones, while she explores the intimate properties of physical entities. Like a child tends to resemble one parent while borrowing subtle traits from the other, Solum identifies more with Guthrie’s electroacoustic tendencies than it does with Gomberg’s electronics. This is in stark contrast to 2015’s Extinguishment, which felt a little more balanced between those two modes. Both approaches work, yet Solum feels more meticulously crafted and nuanced. Careful listening unveils multiple subtle tones and textures, and each piece is an adventure for the ears.

Bryon Hayes

 Gerrit Hatcher / Rob Magill / Patrick Shiroishi — Triplet Fawns (Kettle Hole)

Triplet Fawns by Gerrit Hatcher / Rob Magill / Patrick Shiroishi

The album’s title implies a crew you wouldn’t want on your yard; while those adolescent ungulate appetites do a number on your bushes, the hooves are hacking up your grass. But if they knocked on your door, saxophone cases in their respective hands, you could do worse than invite them around the back for some blowing. Hatcher, Magill and Shiroishi present with sufficient lung power to be heard fine without the reflective assistance of walls, even when they aren’t making like Sonore (that was Gustafsson, Vandermark, and Brötzmann, about a dozen years back). This album, which was released in a micro-edition of 100 CD-Rs on Hatcher’s Kettle Hole imprint, builds gradually from restrained melancholy to pointillistic jousting to a climactic blow-out, and the assured development of each piece suggests that each player was listening not only to what each of the others was doing, but where the music was headed.

Bill Meyer

A.Karperyd — GND (Novoton)

GND by A.Karperyd

On his second solo release, GND, Swedish artist Andreas Karperyd broodingly ruminates on snatches of musical ideas that have been percolating in his consciousness over extended periods. Anyone familiar with his 2015 debut, Woodwork, will find these 55 minutes similarly immersive, as Karperyd manipulates live instruments such as piano and strings into shimmering, alien tapestries. Opener “The Well-Defined Rules of Certainty” appears to take Fennesz’s Venice as its blueprint, issuing forth cascading, percolating tones that tickle the ears. “The Desire to Invoke Balance with Our Eyes Closed” and “Failures and Small Observations” have a Satie-esque elegance to their piano lines, albeit refracted via a hall of mirrors. The 12-minute “Reminiscence of Tar” sounds like a slow-motion pan across the hulking mass of a shadowy space station. And closing track “Mummification of an Empire” slowly fries its piano in static, then unfurls wistful melodica and throbbing synth across the wreckage.

Tim Clarke

  Kiwi Jr. — Cooler Returns (Subpop)

Cooler Returns by Kiwi jr

Kiwi Jr.’s brash, brainy indie pop punk vibrates with nervy energy, like the first Feelies album or Violent Femmes’ 1983 debut or that one great S-T from the Soft Pack. Those are all opening salvos for their respective bands, but this one is a second outing, suffering not a bit from sophomore slackening. Instead, Cooler Returns tightens up everything that was already stinging on the Toronto band’s debut and adds a giddy careening glee. An oddball thread of Robin Hood-ness runs through the disc, with Sherwood forest getting a nod in the title track and “Maid Marian’s Toast” tipping the love interest, but these songs are anything but archaic. “Undecided Voters,” the single jangles harder than anything I’ve heard since Woolen Men, slyly upending creative pretensions in a verse that goes: “You take a photo of the CN tower/you take another of the Honest Ed sign/Well, I take photos of your photos/and they really move people.” Has it been done before? Maybe. Does it move us. Yes indeed.

Jennifer Kelly

 Kool John — Get Rich, Die $moppin ($moplife Entertainment)

A year ago, Kool John was shot six times. Yet you wouldn’t know about it from the general mood of Get Rich, Die $moppin, his first tape since then. He does name one song “6 Shots” and explicitly mentions the shooting accident a few times on other songs, but his bouncy music says he wasn’t hurt bad after all. The beats perfectly match the rhymes, playfully ignorant and ignorantly playful. Kool John still doesn’t mix with broke people, doesn’t return calls if it’s not about money and “doesn’t get stressed out.” Instead, he gets high. His new tape is nothing groundbreaking, even though he’s pretending that is: “If I had no legs I’d still be outstanding.”

Ray Garraty

Nick Mazzarella / Quin Kirchner — See or Seem: Live at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival (Out Of Your Head)

See or Seem: Live at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival by Nick Mazzarella / Quin Kirchner

 Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this recording is that the titular festival happened at all. While most festivals either canceled or went on line, Chicago’s Hyde Park Jazz Festival dealt with COVID by spreading out. Instead of big stages and indoor shows, last September it staged little pop-up events on sidewalks and in parks. So, if the sound of See or Seem feels a bit diffuse, it’s because it was recorded with a device propped in front of two guys playing on a grassy median. There are moments when the buzz of bugs rises up for a second behind Nick Mazzarella’s darting alto sax and Quin Kirchner’s brisk, mercurial beats. But the thrill of actually playing in front of some people (or actually being surrounded by them; when there’s no stage and social distancing is in effect, it makes sense to walk slow circles around the performers) infuses this music, extracting an extra ounce of joyousness from Mazzarella’s free, boppish lines, and adding a restlessness charge to the drumming, as though Kirchner really wanted to squeeze as much music as possible into this 31-minute set. This release is part of Out Of Your Head Records’ Untamed series of download-only albums recorded under less than pristine conditions. A portion of each title’s income is directed to a charity of the artists’ choice; the duo selected St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.

Bill Meyer

 Dean McPhee — Witch’s Ladder (Hood Faire)

Witch's Ladder by Dean McPhee

Finger-picked melodies cut through haunted landscapes of echo and hum on this fourth LP from the British guitarist Dean McPhee. Track titles like “The Alchemist” and “Witch’s Ladder” evoke the supernatural, as does the spectral ambient tone, reminiscent of Chuck Johnson’s recent Cinder Grove or Mark Nelson’s last Pan•American album. Yet while an e-bow traces ghostly chills through “The Alder Tree,” there’s also a grounding in lovely, well-rooted folk forms; it’s like seeing a familiar landscape in moonlight, well-known landmarks suddenly turned unearthly and strange. The long closing title track has an introspective air. Pensive, jazz-infused runs flower into bright bursts of notes, not quite blues, not quite folk, not quite jazz, not quite anything but gorgeous.

Jennifer Kelly

 Moontype — Bodies of Water (Born Yesterday)

Bodies of Water by Moontype

Margaret McCarthy’s voice swims across your headphones like being on an innertube drifting languidly downstream. Typically, saying someone’s vocals are like water indicates a degree of timidity or laziness, obscured in reverb or simply buried by the mix, but on Moontype’s debut LP, it’s a compliment: McCarthy floats across the different styles of music she makes with guitarist Ben Cruz and drummer Emerson Hunton. You notice it not just because she often sings of water or because it’s right there in the title, but also because the Chicago trio hasn’t settled on any particular style yet — just listen to the three-song stretch at the heart of the record where achingly beautiful alt-country ballad “3 Weeks” leads into “When You Say Yes,” a sub-three-minute power-pop number Weezer ought to be jealous of, followed immediately by crunching alt-rock swoon and first single “Ferry.” All the while, McCarthy lets her melodies drift to the will of the songs. I’m reminded of recent efforts from Great Grandpa, Squirrel Flower and Lucy Dacus, but the brief, jazzy curveball of “Alpha” is a peek into whole other possibilities. Bodies of Water is a fine record, but perhaps its most exciting aspect is how much ground you can see Moontype has already conquered. One can’t help but wonder what sonic worlds awash in water await.

Patrick Masterson   

 Rob Noyes / Joseph Allred — Avoidance Language (Feeding Tube)

Avoidance Language by Rob Noyes and Joseph Allred

The 12-string guitar can emit such a prodigious amount of sound, and there are two of them on Avoidance Language. If Joseph Allred and Rob Noyes had planned things out in order to avoid canceling each other out, they might never have picked their instruments up, so they just started playing and listening. The result is not so much a summing of two broad spectrums of sound, but an instinctual blending of similar textures that ends up sounding significantly different from what either musician does on their own. Even when Allred switches to harmonium or banjo, as he does on the album’s two shorter tracks, the music rushes in torrential fashion. Their collaboration is so compatible that it often seems more like a recital for one big stringed thing played by one four-handed musician than a doubled instrumental duet.

Bill Meyer

NRCSSSST — S-T (Slimstyle)

NRCSSST by NRCSSST

There’s no “I” in NRCSSSST but there’s plenty of swagger. The Atlanta-based synth pop band, formed around Coathangers drummer and singer Stephanie Luke and Dropsonic’s Dan Dixon, taunts and teases in its opening salvo “All I Ever Wanted.” Luke rasps appealingly atop Spoon-style piano banging, and big shout along choruses erupt from sudden flares of synths. It’s all hedonism, but done with conviction. You haven’t heard a big rock song kick up this much fun in ages. “Love Suicide” bangs just as hard, its bass line muttering like a crazy person, unstable and ready to explode (and yet it doesn’t, it maintains its restraint even when the rest of the cut goes deliriously off the rails). Dixon can really sing, too, holding the long vibrating notes that lift these prickly jams into anthemry. It’s been a while since a band reminded me of INXS and U2 without sucking, but here we are. Sometimes guilty pleasures are just pleasures.

Jennifer Kelly

 Zeena Parkins / Mette Rasmussen /Ryan Sawyer — Glass Triangle (Relative Pitch)

Glass Triangle by Zeena Parkins, Mette Rasmussen, Ryan Sawyer

Harpist Zeena Parkins and Ryan Sawyer have a long-standing partnership in the trio substitutes Moss Garden, a chamber improv ensemble with pianist Ryan Ross. But swapping in Danish alto saxophonist Mette Rasmussen brings about a change, not just in instrumentation, but attitude. She plays free jazz like a punk, impatient and aggressive, and Parkins and Sawyer are up for the challenge. This music often plays out like a battle between two titans, one blowing and the other pummeling, while Parkins seeks to liquify the ground upon which they stand. She sticks exclusively to an electric harp whose effects-laden tone is disorientingly alien, blinking beacon-like one moment, low as a backhoe engage in earth removal the next. The combination of new and old relationships promotes a combination of instability and trust that yields splendid results.

Bill Meyer

 claire rousay — A Softer Focus (American Dreams)

a softer focus by claire rousay

In film, soft focus is a technique of contrast reduction that lends a scene a dreamlike quality. With A Softer Focus, claire rousay imbues her already intimate compositions with a noctilucent aura. She has created a dreamworld with sound. One glimpse at the glowing flowers that grace the cover art created by visual artist Dani Toral, with whom rousay closely collaborated on this release, and the illusory nature of the record is revealed. The reds, oranges, blues and purples of deep twilight are reflected in both the textures rousay weaves into her soundscapes and the visual themes that Toral conjures. Violin, cello, piano and synth are the musical origins of this warmth, which rousay wraps around environments crafted from the sounds of everyday life. She recorded herself moving about her apartment, visiting a farmer’s market, observing kids playing and just existing. These field recordings of the mundane, when coupled with the radiance of the musical elements, are magical. Snatches of conversation become incantations; auto-tuned vocals are the whisperings of spirits; fireworks explode into brilliant shards of crystal. With A Softer Focus, rousay takes a glimpse into the beauty of the everyday, showing us just how precious our most humdrum moments can be.

Bryon Hayes

Axel Rulay x Verbo Flow — Si Es Trucho Es Trucho / Axel Rulay (La Granja)

Axel Rulay must be kicking himself right now. With more than three million plays on the original version and more than five million on the remix that adds verses from Farruko and El Alfa into the fray, the Dominican is cruising into our second pandemic summer with an unbeatable poolside anthem — and to think, after years of clawing his way up through the industry dregs, working to get his name out there, all he had to do was make himself the chorus over Venezuelan producer Manybeat’s 2019 tropical house trip “El Tiempo.” Presto: Massive visibility in the Spanish-speaking world and a song that ought to transcend any linguistic barriers unlocked even if the best I can manage is a title that translates as “If It’s Trout It’s Trout.” Expect that long-desired Daddy Yankee collabo to follow any day now.

Patrick Masterson

  Rx Nephew — Listen Here Are You Here to Hear Me (NewBreedTrapper)

Rochester rapper Rx Nephew trailed brother-turned-archrival-turned-back Rx Papi’s coming out party 100 Miles and Walk’in by just a few weeks with the 53-minute all-in proposition Listen Here Are You Here to Hear Me. Unlike Papi’s Max B-ish smoothness, Nephew is all rough n’ tumble through these 17 tracks, provocative pump action with narrative bursts of violence and street hustling delivered with a verve most akin to DaBaby or, in some of his more elastic enunciations, peak Ludacris. A recent Creative Hustle interview provides some insight: The first time he went into the booth, “I didn’t write anything. I just started talking about selling crack and robbing people.” The stories haven’t stopped since. If he can keep putting out music as engaging as Listen Here…, Rx Nephew is destined for more than just the margins; until then, we have one of the year’s densest rap records to hold the line.

Patrick Masterson

 Nick Schofield — Glass Gallery (Backward Music)

Glass Gallery by Nick Schofield

Nick Schoefield, out of Montreal, composed these 13 tracks entirely on a vintage Prophet 600, the first synthesizer to designed to employ the then-new MIDI standard established by the instrument’s inventor Dave Smith and Roland’s Ikutaru Kakahashi. The instrument has a lovely, crystalline quality, floating effortless arpeggios through vaulting sonic spaces. Though clearly synthesized, these pieces of music resonate in serene and peaceful ways, evoking light, water, air and contemplation with a simplicity that evokes Japan. “Water Court” drips notes of startling purity into deep pools of tone-washed whoosh and hum. “Snow Blue Square” flutters an oboe-like melody over eddying gusts of keyboard motifs. The pieces fit together with calm precision, leading from one beautiful space to the next like a stroll through a museum.

Jennifer Kelly

  Archie Shepp — Blasé And Yasmina Revisited (Ezz-thetics)

The Ezz-thetics campaign to keep the best of mid-20th century free jazz on CD shelves (yes, CD, not streaming or LP) breaches the walls of the BYG catalog with a disc that issues one and a half albums from Archie Shepp’s busy week in August 1969. Blasé is a stand-out for the participation of singer Jeanne Lee, whose indomitable and flexible delivery as equal to the demands of material that’s be turns pungently earthy and steeped in antiquity. But the rest of the band, which includes Philly Joe Jones, Dave Burrell, some harmonica players, and a couple members of the Art Ensemble, is also more than equal to the task of filtering the blues and Ellingtonia through the gestures of the then-contemporary avant-garde. “Yasmina,” which originally occupied one side of another LP, makes sense here as an extension of the raw, rippling “Touareg,” the last tune on Blasé, into exultantly African territory.

Bill Meyer

 Juanita Stein — Snapshot (Handwritten)

Juanita Stein was the cool, serene, Mazzy Star-evoking vocal presence in the Aussie dream-gaze outfit Howling Bells, and she plays more or less the same role on her third solo album. Yet she is also the source of mayhem here, kicking up an angst of guitar-freaked turmoil on “1,2,3,4,5,6” then soothing it away with singing, hanging long threads of feedback from the thump-thump-thumping blues-rock architecture of “L.O.T.F.” and crooning dulcetly, but with a little yip, in the trance-y title track. This latter cut reflects on the death of her father, a kindred soul who wrote a couple of Howling Bells songs for her and passed away recently. It distills a palpable ache into pure, distanced poetry, finding a cool, dispassionate way to consider the mysteries of human loss.

Jennifer Kelly

 The Tiptons Sax Quartet & Drums — Wabi Sabi (Sowiesound)

Wabi Sabi by Tiptons Sax Quartet & Drums

Over its 30 years together, the Tiptons Sax Quartet has done less to hone its sound and more to figure out how many styles to embrace. The group (typically a soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone sax joined by percussion and even including some vocals) can dig into trad jazz but sounds more at home in exploration, adapting world music or other traditional American styles. The title of their latest album, Wabi Sabi refers to the Japanese concept of finding beauty in and accepting imperfection. The Tiptons, despite that sentiment, don't approach their play with a sloppy sound; in fact, they're as tight as ever. The understanding of impermanence and imperfection does help contextualize their risk-taking. When they turn to odd yodeling on “Moadl Joadl,” they find joy in an odd vocal moment that highlights expression and discovery over formal rigor. When they tap in New Orleans energy for “Jouissance,” we can connect the dots between parades and funerals, celebrating all the while. The whole album serves as a tour of styles and moods, always with an energetic potency. If it's more of the same from the Tiptons, that just means continuance of difference.

Justin Cober-Lake

[talentedliarloki]

Exulansis: The tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it. - gerald (never letting that go)

Obscure Feelings Drabble Prompt

Exulansis: The tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it.

"Look, I was there. I saw it with my own-"

Theatric to the end, in walked the White Wolf, coated from hackles to heel in selkiemore guts. More like the Crimson Wolf, if you asked the trickster.

Which no one had. He leaned against the bar opposite the crowd of eager rubberneckers who strained to get a good look at the Witcher where he stood. Reeking to the rafters and dripping on the floor, Loki watched as Jaskier sidled up to Geralt’s side at the bartop to sing his praises, their praises, and then ask a teeny, teeny weeny little favor.

"Fuck off, bard."

"Food, women, and wine, Geralt!"

And that catches the Witcher's attention enough to make him turn and, in doing so, lay eyes on Loki who hadn't moved a muscle save for the slow lift of his flagon to his lips and then back down to the countertop against which he was still relaxing, never once taking his eyes off of Geralt.

"Why men throw their lives away attacking selkiemore from the outside, I may never know." Loki smiled, slow and sharp, as Geralt approached, his boots squelching with blood and viscera with each step. The odor was tangible; the patrons had parted ways, bowing outward toward the walls to be closer to any open window in order to escape the stench, but it was likely sinking into the tavern's pillars and floorboards, doomed to linger long after Geralt and his company had gone.

But Loki was more pleased than he had any right to be by having the Witcher right there in front of him, stinking and stoic as ever.

"You said ice would slow it down." Geralt's tone was accusatory, but there was nothing truly in it. More than anything, he sounded tired.

Loki blinked dramatically, feigning offense. "And it did." He underscores the affirmation by reaching with thin, dexterous fingers to flick a ring of cartilage from Geralt's shoulder. "You were only swallowed, not digested. I call that slow." That half-scoff, half-snort made Loki's grin broaden.

"Good riddance." The gruff comment was a cleaver in their dialogue and Geralt fixed the barkeep with a level look for interrupting. The man huffed and then added, "To the selkiemore. We're in no need of any more threats to the village than already lurk at our gates."

It was Loki's turn to laugh, the sound stolid and scarcely concealing his spoiling irritation. "Selkiemore eat mollusks."

"And other bottom feeders." Geralt's contribution is contrastively humored and paired with a deadpan look toward Loki, which the latter did not miss, but Geralt continued, "But villagers do love their bedtime stories, don’t they?"

The barkeep made a low, brusque sound. "You got your coin, didn't you?"

"And you, your peace of mind." The trickster’s tone bears an edge akin to the knife he’d begun twirling on its tip on the bar. His low-lit emerald eyes pinned the man in place. "Perhaps think twice before looking a gift Witcher in the mouth, lest you wish to be plagued by something worse than a selkiemore."

Neither the bartender nor Geralt weighed in on whether that was a threat or a promise. The barkeep returned to his business with a sheepish glance toward the Witcher, and then a molten golden gaze swung to Loki.

"Always such a way with words."

The trickster nearly glowed with satisfaction. "Need I join you then in repaying dear Dandelion's teeny, tiny favor?" Geralt tensed at that and Loki offered clarification with a slight smirk. "I mean the bard no harm; I want only your company, Geralt. Is that so wrong?"

A hum instead of a grunt, pensive. "It's different."

"Different doesn’t have to mean bad." And when the Witcher's veneer remained unchanged, Loki breathed a low laugh. "The vanity and pride of being different is only useful for so long. Villains and heroes have their commonalities, the same as you and I."

"That right?" Geralt was incredulous now, brows raised and expression anticipatory. "And what are they, pray tell?"

Loki grins at him briefly and makes a great show of finishing his drink, stepping away from the bar and drawing in just close enough to feel Geralt's gravity. "A person is neither good nor bad; a person just is."

Loki doesn't wait for Geralt to digest that; instead, he sheathes his dagger with a flourish and pushes away from the bar, dragging a slender finger across the muscular plane of the Witcher's shoulders as he makes for the tavern exit. "If you change your mind about the princess' betrothal party," Loki extends as he departs, savagely pleases by the exasperated look Geralt cast him. "You know where to find me."

And with that, the two would part. For how long? Only time and destiny could tell.

[betweenthesinnersandthesaints]

Teen Helga Verse Info

Family: Helga still doesn’t have a good relationship with her parents, since they still forget her name and constantly compare her to Olga, who is now married with a daughter of her own. She does get along better with Olga though, even babysitting her niece on occasion. 

Friends: Her best friend is still Phoebe, and with Pheobe comes Gerald, since those two are still completely crazy about each other. And shockingly enough, she’s friendly with Lila, now that she doesn’t see the redhead as a rival.

Relationships: After Arnold moved away with his parents, Helga did try to move on. She gave Brainy a chance, but broke up with him when she realized that no matter what she did, she couldn’t get Arnold out of her head. She felt so guilty about it that she decided she wouldn’t date until she was one-hundred percent sure she was over him, which hasn’t happened yet.

Extracurricular Activities: She is captain of the softball team, since the school’s baseball team won’t allow girls on it. She also writes for the High School literary magazine. Not so much poetry as her muse for that is gone, but she writes short stories in her free time.

Personality: She’s still gruff and sarcastic, but she does let her softer side out more than she used to. She no longer cares what the others think about her, so she’s freer to be herself.