#getting in a bar fight with some drunk sonofabitch

[ceoofvariants]

ok but hopping mad mobius is pretty hot tho amirite? i am.

[holylulusworld]

Hit it off king of hell style

Title: Hit it off king of hell style.

Summary: You are done running after Dean, so you take Crowley’s offer and hit it of king of hell style.

Square filled for @spnquotebingo​​​​​: “Son of a bitch!” - SPN

Word Count: 1,3k+

Pairing: Demon!Dean x fem!Reader, former Dean x fem!Reader, Crowley x fem!Reader (platonic)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: angst, language, pissed reader, Y/N is just done, drunk reader, flirty Crowley, mentions of smut, cheating, jealousy, overuse of the word ‘fuck’ and sonofabitch, mentions of deaths, fingering, implied smut, kidnapping (kinda)

Divider by @firefly-graphics​​

SPN Quote Bingo masterlist

“Crowley,” you mutter under your breath, eying the demon warily while he steps closer. 

“Grasshopper,” Crowley smirks, sitting next to you to order his favorite poison. “How have you been? Did your partner in crime leave you hanging again?”

“You know exactly that Dean ran off again,” you down your next drink, hissing when the amber liquid runs down your throat, burning deliciously. “I’m just done running after that sonofabitch!”

“I see,” nodding thoughtfully Crowley orders another drink for you. “I’ll have a single malt,” he dips his head to look at you. “Do you want something better than this-“ the king of hell shoves the drink the bartender poured him away, nose scrunched up in disgust.

“Do you have better stuff?” you quip, not interested to leave your bar stool or the dingy bar in the middle of nowhere anytime soon. “Guess you only want to use me to control his demonic ass.” snickering you down your next drink. “Burns so good.”

“I know he told you to not come back,” the demon sighs, patting your shoulder. “Must be hard. Squirrel is not Squirrel any longer, Grasshopper. He’s all rage and bloodlust. Not that I would mind a little massacre here and there, but Dean is bad for business.”

You snicker at Crowley’s pained expression. “What did he do? Did he piss in your cornflakes or something?”

“Something like that,” the demon grumbles. “I tell Dean to kill an unfaithful wife, and he kills the guy signing the contract. What will happen if people hear I can’t control Dean? No one is going to sign shit any longer.”

Cradling his face in his hands Crowley huffs. “You should’ve known better, Crowley. Dean is a timebomb with black eyes. Before he was unpredictable but now – he’s just-,” you shrug, not finding the right words. “An asshole.”

“I second that,” Crowley laughs when you order another drink and a Piña Colada for him. “How about we fuck him over and have some fun, Grasshopper?”

“I don’t think so,” licking your lips you look at Crowley who tries to look taller. He stretches his neck, groaning as something cracks. “We can have a few drinks, though.”

“Deal,” holding out his hand Crowley looks at your hand. “Grasshopper, you must shake my hand. That’s how you agree to a deal.”

“I won’t sign any deals with you, king of hell,” growling the words you hop off the barstool. “Did you come here to get my soul or shit? Do you honestly think I would sell it for Dean, the guy who just railed a waitress and let me watch?”

“You watched?” you roll your eyes at Crowley’s words. “Seriously?”

“No, I did not watch. Why should I watch my ex fuck a random chick? I got better things to do, like drinking and giving a shit on his demonic ass. Just wish I gave him the boot sooner.”

“Broken heart?” Crowley carefully tries. “Come on, Grasshopper. Let’s hit it off king of hell style. We can have a few drinks and I promise to not let you sign any deals.”

“Fine, whatever. Got nothing else to do,” you grasp for your jacket and purse. “You will pay for my drinks.”

“Of course, my lady…”

“And then he went off to play house with Lisa, that yoga chick he barely knew,” you slur, giggling as Crowley tries to down the girly drink you ordered for him. “Can you believe he left my cute ass to play house?”

“I would’ve never left you, Grasshopper,” Crowley nods to himself, imagine getting you in his clutches, a collar placed around your neck, his name hanging from it. “How about you come with me, and I’ll show you a whole new world?”

“Nah, I got a nice drink, some peanuts, and a good view at the bartender’s ass when he bends to pick up shit,” you smirk. “Dean can go and fuck himself, or anyone else around.”

“He hurt you – huh?”

“Demon or not, we were still married, and he just told me,” you mutter, leaning closer to Crowley. “We ain’t married anymore, sweetheart! It says, ‘till death do us part’.”

“He did?” brows furrowed Crowley watches you throw a few peanuts into his face. “What?”

“That’s all your fault,” poking your finger into Crowley’s chest you growl at him. “It was you telling him about that fucking first blade and Cain. He got the mark because of you, Crowley. Don’t act all innocently now.”

“I didn’t know he would die,” Crowley shrugs. “At least not through Metatron’s hands and so soon.”

“But you knew about the consequences and said nothing. All of it only to howl at the moon with a feral demon called Dean Winchester. That’s pathetic for a king of hell. You should retire or get a hobby,” you grunt, ordering another drink. “Give me my poison.”

“I think she had enough,” the demon watches you slip off the chair to dance to the music in your head. “What are you doing?”

“Dancing, Crowley!” you smack the back of his head, grinning as he doesn’t fight back. “That’s for ruining my marriage, sonofabitch! If I wasn’t drunk, you’ll be dead by now. But I’ll leave this to Sam…Sammy.”

“Moose? Did you call him?”

“Nah, he would ask how it went and I am not in the mood to explain his big brother is busy fucking his way through the state of-“ blinking a few times you look at Crowley. “Where the fuck are we?”

“A bar?” Crowley smirks when you slap his cheek. He would never admit it, but he has a thing for dominant women. “Ouch, that tickled Grasshopper.”

“Stop calling me that, Crowley. You promised we would hit it off, but this is just hanging out at a bar with better drinks,” you sigh. “Maybe I should find a dick to ride for the night.”

“Oh-“ the bartender clears his throat, almost dropping the bottle of Whiskey in his hands. “Is she single?” the man whispers in Crowley’s direction. “I don’t want an angry husband to chase after me with a baseball bat, or gun again.”

“Not a chance,” Crowley growls. “If anyone gets her in his clutches, it’s me.”

“DREAM ON!” a deep voice bellows. “Did I not tell you to bring her back to my brother?” Dean grunts, watching you sway to the music in your head. “This-“ jerking his head toward you Dean narrows his eyes, “doesn’t look like bringing her home. It looks like getting her drunk to take advantage of my wife.”

“Ex-wife,” you mutter, pointing your index finger at Dean. “You said it yourself, we aren’t married anymore. You dicked down that chick and I can fuck Crowley if I want to.”

“You won’t!” Dean closes the distance between you with three longs steps before he grasps for you to throw you over his shoulder. 

“Lemme down, you sonofabitch,” you lift your head to ask Crowley for help. “You’re a fine bar buddy, Crowley. You can’t just let him take me.”

“Sorry, Grasshopper?” Crowley shrugs, laughing when you throw insults at him. “I can’t control a timebomb. You should know that.”

“What do you want?” wiggling on the bed in the messy motel room Dean brought you to, you try to break out of the ropes. “Let me go, asshole!”

“You will not speak until I’m done with you,” the demon tuts. “If you open your mouth again, I’ll gag you with my boxers.”

“What the fuck!”

“Final warning, sweetheart,” sliding his index finger over your lips Dean smirks when your breath hitches in your throat. “I think that I’ll put your mouth to better use later.”

“Hmpf…” his finger slides past your lips into your mouth, swiping over your tongue. 

“Always loved your mouth around my dick,” he muses, shoving two fingers into your mouth, slowing starting to move them in and out. He smirks, loving you look up at him, pupils lust blown.

“Do you want to say something, Y/N?” you hate he smirks down at you when he removes his fingers. “I bet,” he leans closer to lick over your cheek, “when I’m done with you sweetheart, you know how it feels to hit it off Dean Winchester style…” and just like that, he shoves his fingers into your slicked cunt, curling them. “Yeah, I think you’ll know…”

Tags in reblog.

[shih-coulda-had-it]

Heyhey,, Have you ever imagined Nana and Gran Torino suffering because the other said "you are my best friend" and they were crying internally because they wanted to be more than "best friends"? I think it happened many times in the past 👀👀

Have I ever imagined it? ABSOLUTELY. But I wanna add: I do think there’s something immeasurably valuable about a m/f platonic relationship that has been a pivotal force in shaping bnha canon. That being said.

I love, love, love me some tragic pining.

//

It’s the way Sorahiko says it that punches Nana in the gut, leaving her breathless and rattled, even though they are so very distant from a combat situation. The warm yellow lighting of this raucous bar casts his face in soft shadows, makes the pale brown of his irises flicker gold. They are tucked away in a small corner booth, sharing a platter of shrimp chips and celebrating another victorious evening patrol.

“You are my best friend,” he enunciates louder, tapping his long fingers against his glass. Sorahiko’s sincerity wraps around each syllable, and he offers her a small smile.

She fumbles for words. Is he drunk? Already? What a non-sequitur to break the comfortable silence with, and how deliberately pronounced, too.

“What, um, what’s brought this up?”

“Nothing.” His eyebrows draw together. “Why do I need an excuse to call you my best friend?”

“Eheheh,” Nana says, wisely ignoring her first response, which is, you don’t do that. Nana has never doubted Sorahiko’s friendship, or picked too closely at it, because Sorahiko is a prickly bastard. He’s like a grumpy turtle who shies away from any outspoken flattery or sentimentality. Said grumpy turtle has also stood by her side and followed her lead for more than half their lives, regardless of the trials before them.

Recovery Girl has literally denounced Gran Torino as a “ride-or-die sonofabitch” after she caught him trying to scramble back into one of Nana’s fights among the various skyscrapers of Tokyo.

And Nana’s called him her best friend before! Even Sorahiko has brushed off inquiries about their relationship with a curt, “We’re friends,” several times. No. Plenty of times!

So why is she so caught off-guard by it now?

Sorahiko’s expression grows hunted. His posture wilts, and he sinks back into the booth’s pleather seating. She’s taken too long to answer.

“I didn’t mean to be weird about it,” he mutters.

“It’s not weird,” she says automatically. He gives her an unimpressed look, complete with the disdainful lift on a silver eyebrow, and Nana breaks into a giggle. The giggle sets Sorahiko at ease; he relaxes at the sound, even though it’s high-pitched and nervous.

“It’s just - I realized - ” Sorahiko exhales, sharp, and his beaky nose wrinkles with his frustration. The words come out choppy. “I don’t think I’ve ever said it. To you, out loud. You know?”

“Oh.” Nana squirms in her seat. There is a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, wholly unrelated to period cramps or hunger. The revelation arrives: she didn’t like it. She, the most ungrateful friend in the world, did not appreciate Sorahiko affirming their friendship, because - because -

Uh oh, thinks Nana guiltily. Shimura Nana’s just fallen into a cliché, and she can’t get up.

In lieu of a substantial answer, Nana reaches out and grabs Sorahiko’s hand, his left in her right. It’s cool to the touch, and oddly delicate outside of his thickly-padded gloves. She runs her thumb over the prominent knuckles like a dare. The result is a visible shiver and his widened eyes.

It feels far too dangerous.

Nana is no stranger to risk. She gambles with herself every day, trying to even the odds for the average civilian’s life in Japan, and Sorahiko throws himself into the fray after her. For her. How the hell can she ask him to devote even more?

(Later, when everything Nana has chosen to love falls apart in her care - she will think: how could I survive losing Sorahiko too?)

“You’re my best friend too,” she tells him, firmly.

Sorahiko blinks. He searches her gaze, her face, and glances at the way she holds his hand. When he tries to curl his fingers back, Nana tightens her grip and keeps her face open and friendly. This is all they can afford to be, in an era where villains have no compunctions about killing heroes. Sorahiko has little enough friends as it is; she cannot imagine the heartbreak that might happen if she lets them fall into romance.

“Best friends,” he echoes finally, and Nana pretends her own heart doesn’t break.

[stusbunker]

Known: Bring Him Home

A DARK Supernatural Fan-fiction

Featuring: Demon!Dean, Demon!Reader, Female Vessel OC, Sam Winchester, Crowley, Castiel, Dean x Female Vessel OC

Summary: This is the first two and a half episodes of season 10. I didn’t rehash what the canon gave us, but let you in on where our reader moved through those events in order to be exactly where she is needed to be.

Warnings: Typical angst, show level violence, demonic phone calls aka blood, the ritual of purified blood aka needles, non-consensual touching, and the rest is too spoilery. Have fun kids! xoxo

Series Masterlist

*^*

September 22, 2014

Glendive, MT

         The stolen SUV stilled with the crunching of gravel, a roadside bar had caught your eye and on the whim that you hadn’t been followed, you pulled over. It was dark and dingy, something you had become intimately used to. The stale beer soaked into the ragged carpeting, a smell you would always associate with that summer, with the countless nights and bar fights the demon that Dean had become had waved off or fucked away. There was a payphone in the hallway between the bathrooms and somehow you were silently hoping he had kept the same number. The coins clunked into place, long and lean in the polished slot. The ancient deep tone of the ring peeled across the ether and then an alias and a generic voicemail continued the one-sided conversation.

You inhaled and replied chunkily, “Sam, it’s me. Or us, well not Dean, but CC. CC and I, both fine, by the way. If you’re free…we should talk.”

*^*

CC watched her hang up the heavy black phone with a satisfying clink. Her warped image looking back at her through the matte reflection of the disused amenity. She had been hiding out, she knew it and the demon at the wheel had quietly left her to it. Well, she didn’t know what Chloe did, she couldn’t, but the months trying to break through to the real Dean or subdue the demon had been exhausting for them both. Sam’s voice had stirred CC from her subterranean, dulled complacency. This wasn’t just about saving her own skin; it never had been. It was about those boys, those pig-headed jackasses that deserved better than what they had been dealt. Or scammed into. And minimizing Dean’s threat was just a finger in the dam.

She shuffled through the demon’s recent memories, stretching against the mental atrophy. She felt her leaving Dean and Crowley with some strippers, glancing thrice over her shoulder before ditching through the employee exit and into a bouncer’s ride. She hadn’t driven far, but in an odd spiral, fanning out to shake anyone tailing her. She seemed to be in the clear, CC watched her buy one drink at a time watching the door to the side hallway like a dog waiting for her human to return from war. The phone never rang.

*^*

Sam couldn’t remember the last time he had gone over 100, especially in something other than the Impala. He bit his tongue as the rickety bumper brushed the pavement after a railroad crossing. Cursing, he thanked his paranoia and hadn’t risked the bullseye that any of the vintage cars from the Bunker would have been, for any demon in his path. All those sonsofbitches that had been laying low or living on radio silence since Crowley had taken his brother from his bed. Cowards, the whole damn species. He cased the parking lot before heading into the side entrance, the bar like any other, navigable and unimpressive. There was still a dusting of sulfur on the earpiece of the payphone and not another clue in sight.

He slammed the phone back into place, loud enough to get a begrudging ‘hey’ from the bartender. Who recoiled as Sam spun to glare at her, he gathered himself carefully before ordering food and prodding for the direction CC’s demon may have headed. A half hour later Sam stared past his second beer, unsure if he wanted to crash or get back to the Bunker when a drunk at the bar got his attention, whining about his cheating wife.

*^*

September 24, 2014

Another crappy motel

         Crowley hadn’t missed how Dean intentionally never mentioned the dove’s sudden and unforeseen disappearance. Crowley was certain Dean hadn’t killed her himself, fairly certain as he didn’t seem to have lost any of the pent-up energy. Especially after the second mess in Wisconsin, when Crowley had been overly disclosing about the Abaddon supporters that Dean stopped listening. With his close watch, Dean couldn’t have done anything to her too terrible.

It still felt a bit, unceremonious, to be skipping town without her. He had grown accustomed to her banter and she had helped keep him infinitely more contained than the Mark could. Without her to help Dean take his edge off, in any number of ways, Crowley pondered what wouldn’t set him off. Ever the businessman, he secured his asset, sliding into the backseat of the car beside Dean as another minion drove them to the next neon plastered cesspool. A jolt of excitement struck a nerve within the King; now it was time for a real howl.

*^*

October 6, 2014

Colorado

You both surfaced in the days following the strip club and the subsequent unanswered phone call. You tried to ignore CC’s intrusiveness, as the memories of the summer months were sorted and filed under constant static in the back of your mind. She was still a hunter, and to her Dean was a target, despite his meatsuit and the taste of him coating every recollection. You left her to her schemes, while mindlessly driving through the mountains and enjoying the scenery you could only imagine in Hell. It was as close to therapeutic something like you could muster and it only made you frustrated with the path you had taken.

          The distance did wonders for your ability to forget the severity of his actions. Your struggling masochistic side had taken you down a steep path that fell away into the oblivion of guilt. Was it all your fault? If you hadn’t taken over CC’s body could she have stopped Dean before he let Crowley swindle him into taking on the Mark convincing him to kill Abaddon for him? If you hadn’t distracted Dean from Sam and the Angel problems, would he have ended up on the wrong end of Metatron’s blade? If you hadn’t needed him would he be better off? Had your selfish, imbalanced, twisted nature damned him? You reasoned against yourself on and off as the scenery flitted past, the lush greens soaking in their final triumphs before the autumnal cascade of color. Everything felt impossibly perfect and you worked your jaw against the need for destruction, because at least you could do that properly. You took the winding roads at whatever pace your foot found, letting the pine and the thin air fill your lungs as CC chanted at you to turn around. To go back. To demon up and bring him to justice or the end of an exorcism.

“Fuck off.”

You felt her roll her eyes at you and you stared into the rearview mirror, challenging while unimpressed. You headed back north, slowly trudging out of the pity party. You slipped around an Oldsmobile going ten under, clipping their sideview mirror off with a semi-pleasing thunk. This is what you did now: wallow in self-doubt and cost geezers their pension checks in repair bills. You slammed the gas and drove toward the only thing that made your heart race like it would stop at any moment. Back to the only being that made you feel death had been worth it.

They were gone. Not a lackey or a forwarding address in sight. You knew what to do, but it made CC nauseous as the intent sparked. It was your turn to roll your eyes. Carefully you moved to the back office and found a particularly sweaty thick necked manager to toss into a bathroom. His beady eyes bulged as best they could against his caterpillar inspired brows once you drew the knife. The generic brown towels quickly plugged the sink to allow his blood to fill the basin.  Once you felt enough of the ruby liquid had pooled below, you spoke into the depths.

“Crowley, you sonofabitch, where did you go?”

*^*

The blonde left the hotel with tears welling in her eyes, she didn’t even look at you as you blatantly watched from the fender of the latest car you had lifted. You swung your arms widely and entered without warning. He smelled of an ocean of booze, musty sheets and sulfur-tinged sweat. Once he could focus on your face an overplayed laugh erupted shallowly from his chest.

“Well shit, Crowley had that revolving door installed after all. Welcome back, uh, whoever you are. Perfect timing, cuz that one just got all sentimental and I had to let her down easy.”

“Except you didn’t.”

“Of course not, what do I look like?”

“Three sheets to the wind and still wearing your boots, must have been some night.”

Dean cocked his head, kicking his legs over the side of the bed. He tried to stand but thought better of it. You paced, picking up some of his clothes that had been left to clutter the floor. He sipped some water from the nightstand. You couldn’t remember a time he had ever drank water in his life, apparently CC could, but that had been because he had been refused a beer from his dad. Good, little shit deserves some purifying forces in his system.

Your hand brushed over the bag beside his new duffel, which had quietly been awaiting your return. You glanced over your shoulder at Dean who just waved off your touched expression. He didn’t ask where you’d been, and you didn’t offer. Slowly you helped him get naked and into the shower. He was too drunk to even try and put on the charms, but he shoved you a bit to make himself feel better about it. It was all too much: walking into the tangle of his exposed nerves, the thoughtfulness and the swift return to degradation. You needed some air, so you walked back into the night to allow him to sober up, however briefly. When you returned, he was gone, but the bags stayed behind.

*^*

October 14, 2014

The bar with the tiniest umbrellas

          The kiss-asses in suits loomed like Agent Smith wannabes, one was barely free from the Axe-body spray of his vessel’s frat boy days. You didn’t care for business and you certainly didn’t want them looking down their noses at you and how your presence was wasting “valuable” time. Instead of engaging them in soul conversion percentages, you ordered another drink and one for Crowley, for whenever he decided to show. Mending bridges was unbearably necessary now that Sam was back in the picture. You felt the mortal coil tightening around your insides, be it from CC’s impatience or the inevitability of being what you were: a demon in love with a hunter. Self-preservation was making you even more cagey than before you had ditched the dynamic duo.

          Crowley strolled in with the sound of welcome bells, a far off look in his eyes, the First Blade tight in his grasp. Heckle and Jeckle started off right away, but he ignored their pleas and took the seat next to you. “Somebody came crawling back with her tail between her legs.”

“Where is he?”

“With his brother, no thanks to you.”

“Is he--? Is everyone alright?”

Crowley raised his eyebrows and clenched his jaw, turning to play with the many pokey things in his ornate beverage. “I thought we had ironed out the kinks, once you left it was just the King and his trusty Knight. But he is no longer the brave little soldier daddy shaped him into, now he is a loose canon and, God willing, Sam is the only one who can sort that clusterfuck.”

“If he doesn’t kill him first,” you hissed into your shot glass.

“If you’re so worried about Moose, why don’t you scurry along. They’ll be home before you can find another payphone.”

You side-eyed the pair trying to interject, they each took a step back as you pushed out the stool and stood up. There was a lot you could have said in that moment, but none of it could fix what Dean had broken, especially not what was left of Crowley’s heart. Yours was all you could divine and that only left you chasing your tail. Crowley needed to move on, and Hell needed to be run, whether it by force or commerce. When the unique tingling started in your gut you smiled in gentle gratitude, his hand came up and you were gone before you even heard the snap.

*^*

‘Soul Survivor’

The Bunker’s dungeon

“Well, aint that the whore calling the kettle black,” Dean raised his eyebrows, accenting his demon pitch eyes.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sam huffed.

“You gonna tell him, or show him,” Dean stared you down until a goosebump-inducing sneer spread across his features. “Miss Collins is not home right now, can rando demon bitch take a message?”

You tried not to flinch, but the insult stacked on top of the unceremonious reveal left you feeling exposed, dirty even. “Yeah, yeah, big deal, jackass,” you snipped, jutting your chin at Dean’s restrained form. “I’d worry about my own self if I was you.”

“No, CC wouldn’t let that happen, not after all those months,” Sam gaped, he was a better liar than you thought. “She wouldn’t let something like you back in unless you forced her.” Maybe he wasn’t completely acting.

Dean started laughing. “You guys wanna take a minute? I mean it’s always a treat watching the grown ups fight, but—”

“You, shut up,” Sam growled at Dean. “And you,” he hissed over his shoulder, “stop talking, you make me sick.”

“Don’t get all self-righteous on me Sam, I mean, all of us here have fucked a demon. Or two,” you left off on a sigh. The younger Winchester recoiled; mouth pinched as if you had slapped him across the face.

“She’s got you there, don’t she?” Dean smirked now. You had grown to hate what he had become, even if he was backing you up.

“Are you working for Crowley?! Have you been--” Sam grabbed the bottle of Holy Water in his good hand, pointing the opening at you while he focused his tunnel vision.

“Not a Crowley stooge,” you held up your hands in surrender, trying not to roll your eyes as Sam’s authoritative side took over.  “I don’t have any ulterior motives, I’m not Ruby. I didn’t have an endgame.”

“Just stop bringing her up! This isn’t about who fucked whom, this is about getting my brother back. Is Chloe even alive in there?” Sam’s voice leveled, how he remained focused at all, stumped you.

You nodded. “She’s fine and she is very proud of you right now, if you must know,” you lied to continue the dramatics, ensuring Dean’s over confidence before the plan could continue.

“Awww, wittle Sammy has a cheerleader,” Dean sing-songed.

“Shut up.” Sam snapped. He started sorting through the bags of blood, grabbing a syringe before turning to you. “Are you going to help? Or do I have to exorcise you for good this time?” He spun towards Dean and squared his shoulders. “Buckle up.”

“Sammy, you know I hate shots.”

“I hate demons,” Sam said sadly before tossing holy water in Dean’s face, the demonic grunt escaping his lips as Sam sunk the needle in his brother’s arm. Dose one had been administered. “Look, we got a whole bunch more of these to go. You could make it a lot easier on yourself.”

Sam paused, the olive branch dangling between them. Then Dean shifted, the evil within him fighting the purified blood, impossible bestial cries rang from his body. You swallowed, dumbfounded and truly terrified of him for the first time since the farmhouse. Thankfully, he was restrained. You watched Sam take in Dean’s torment while you waited for the next move.

*^*

It had been hours, Sam sometimes insisting on going in alone, sometimes not bothering to even acknowledge you were tagging along. You couldn’t remember the last time you were this tired: thoughts muted, eyes floating in their sockets, fuzzy limbs kind of tired. But you didn’t dare risk sleep to leave Dean truly alone with Sam, especially an injured Sam. It was during a solo dosage when you started another pot of coffee and turned to head back toward the library when a massive hand clamped down over your mouth. Instinct kicked in and you pushed back with every physical or psychic force you could muster.

Instantly you were free, a large crash and strangled moan cut off behind you. Sam dragged himself off the floor with fire in his eyes.

“He’s out,” he whispered, pulling himself to his feet. You took him in, pale and gawky, CC’s alarm threading through your veins with every heartbeat.

“Do you have your knife?”

Sam sniffed and nodded, chewing on the thought of stabbing his brother. You silently worked out the flanking of searching the Bunker, letting Sam take the lead. CC started to buckle in, her thoughts louder than they had been in months. You reached out with your senses, trying to feel him, but what warding there was against you was enough to dull his resonance. You unsheathed CC’s knife and started moving five paces behind Sam. He grabbed the spare keys from a drawer when an unmistakable voice rattled through the halls.

“Come on, Sammy! Don’t you want to hang out with your big brother? Bring the bitch along, hell we can share her.”

Your insides froze with the menace in his voice. Then you were kicked out of the driver’s seat with a speed and finality you couldn’t comprehend.

*^*

CC had let this go on long enough; she shook out her hands and settled back into control over her body like an alumni walking the well-worn halls of their education, both foreign and familiar with an undercurrent buzzing beneath the surface. She spun her blade and tossed it to the opposite hand, a once flawless motion was now almost too easy. She snorted back a giggle at the feeling of being real and present once more, like a chest full of fresh air and warm laundry all in one go. Then reality pressed in and she leaped into action.

The instant the emergency lights flared overhead; CC bolted back the way you came knowing that Dean knew where the breakers were. Sam followed none the wiser as Dean continued to mock praise him. One second, he was an arm’s length behind her and the next he was gone. Quietly, she back tracked as Sam slammed the door to the Electrical room and locked it.

“Are you serious?!” CC gaped at Sam as he stood listening through the door, knife at the ready but still so optimistic.

“… I know you’re still in there somewhere. Just let me finish the treatments. Dean?”

The first chunk of the door flew at Sam’s face, sending him on his heels and into CC’s bubble.

“You act like I want to be cured! Personally, I like the disease.” Dean’s eyes glinted through the holes he had pounded through the door. Gaps between the boards like a toothpick prison crumbling with each swing.

“I don’t want to have to use this blade on you!” Sam was desperate, begging and it hurt CC to witness it. He was the little brother again and though she hadn’t known him as a child, she knew the real Dean would never be able to dismiss his brother’s pleas. She pulled Sam away from the line of fire, readying her own knife and bracing herself for his inevitable escape. “No, what are you doing?! You can’t use that on him!”

“Shut up, Tweedle Dumb, just let a girl work.”

“Chloe?”

She cocked her head and locked eyes on the thing bursting from the door: show time.

“Well, well, well, look who wants to play hero.” Dean swung again, punctuating his taunts with his hammer. “It’s my lucky day. I’ve been blessed, because there is just enough demon in me to kill your meatsuit, finally free you up to be all you. Can. Be. Then, I’m gonna kill my brother and you’re gonna watch.”

CC felt Sam dive behind her as Dean stepped through the remnants of the door. He glanced impatiently as she mirrored his movements, shielding Sam without giving Dean a path. “You know what, asshole? You can take your threats and shove ‘em. You wanna dance? Let’s dance, just me and whatever you are anymore.”

Sam raced back to the dungeon, searching for anything that could give them the upper hand. Sam didn’t want to risk them killing each other in his absence, but he hoped their slightly even footing would buy him the time he needed.

“Hiya, Chloe, nice to see you again. She smoke out? Couldn’t handle Sam’s bitch face?”

“Nope, got her packed away for safe keepin’, too bad you can’t say the same.” CC shifted her weight, swiping widely and slicing the edge of his shirt. Dean caught her by the wrist, twisting her knife hand above their heads.

“You’re missing my point. This? Lean, mean Dean? Here to stay, Sweetheart.” She glanced up at his grip on her and her weapon and without flinching she kicked out his knee, throwing them both against the wall she broke out of his grasp, the hammer thudded to the floor. He grasped her hair in one deft fist fall, before kneeing her in the kidney. She buckled, falling against him. Dean stepped back and kicked her once in the side until she fell, curling in on herself. Carefully he kneeled at her side, with the hand still in her hair he lifted her ear to his lips and whispered, “stay down or I’ll put you down.”

CC thrashed against him, hurling herself against him as hard as she could. She managed to rock him onto his ass, but he took her roots with him, pulling with all of his might. She screamed as he groaned in satisfaction. She jabbed him in the ribs with the handle of her blade, when he spun them both. His thick thighs pinned her beneath him, as she tried to flip him off of her chest. Dean rolled his hips, his cock rutting against her tits as he held her wrists, twisting them down. She caved on the edge of a fracture, moving the joints with his control, unwilling to risk that sort of handicap. With her knife lost in the tussle, Dean inhaled deeply and grinned down at CC in sickening triumph.

CC swallowed as she felt the rigidness in his jeans, he leaned in, crushing her with his weight, her breath pushed from her lungs like the final tuft of bubble wrap. He watched her struggle; her eyes bulged, and color left her face. Dean rocked into her soft breasts, relishing in the lethargic shift of her weight beneath him. Finally, the creak and crunch of her bones rippled from the force of his increased strength. As the light faded from her eyes an acidic cascade fell over his head and back. He howled, digging his heels into her ribcage, which granted reprieve from the pressure on her chest.

“Let her go!”

Another barrage of holy water hit Dean and he fell to the side of CC’s body, boots kicking wildly as he tried to stand. He screamed and lunged for the hammer. Sam held his knife up, terrified at what he had to do.

“Well look who decided to join us. Ready to play, Sammy?”

Sam stepped forward, trying not to be distracted with the way Chloe’s body remained unnaturally still. Dean looked him dead in the eyes and jumped forward, psyching Sam a little and then swung, landing the hammer in the plaster just behind where Sam’s face had been. The Kurdish blade kissed Dean’s throat, but he knew he hadn’t lost.

“Well, look at you. Do it,” Dean taunted. He watched Sam’s surprise melt into submission. As Sam dropped the blade and Dean let his eyes flood black, three things happened: Dean stepped toward Sam in certain victory, Chloe gasped to life in their periphery, a startling golden glow radiating over her chest and neck and Castiel’s arms caged Dean in place, the power of his stolen grace containing the demon.

“It’s over. Dean, it’s over.”

Next Chapter: The Ending You Expected

[seigephoenix]

Alcohol is the Root of Bad Ideas

Featuring @crazy-bone-lady's Nevia and my Siobhan.  Always trouble when those two get together.

Alcohol was the root of all bad ideas.  Though, this hardly ranked in the top five for them in their short spans as Guardians.  They'd blown up buildings, taken on a Hive God, and one time got Zavala trapped under some mistletoe with Executor Hideo.  He had not been amused.  Commotion outside got Sio's attention as she propped herself up below the window.  Siobhan pulled herself up to look out the barred window. “Well shit.”  She wobbled and hugged the bars in a death grip.

“What is it?” Nevia tilted her face up as she leaned next to Siobhan's dangling legs.  Neither Hunter would classify as ‘tall’.

“That Captain?”  Siobhan was listening as the eliksni spoke outside in a group.  She didn't like what he was saying.

“The half naked one that smelled like piss and ether?”  They both wrinkled their noses at the memory.  They'd been minding their own business in that bar.  Simply drinking and catching up, they didn't exactly get to hang out much.  The eliksni came in and began making trouble for them.  It resulted in an ambush as the two Hunters had headed to their ships.  Which landed them both in a Fallen prison being angry about it.

“Yeah that one.”  Siobhan stuck out her tongue as the aforementioned Captain met her glare.

“What about him?”

“Pretty sure we shouldn't have insulted his manhood.  If I'm hearing this right, they want to turn us over to the Scorn.”  Nevia snorted in laughter as Sio dropped back down to the ground.  “Or they're wanting to sell us on the black market.  I could be wrong.  Their dialect isn't like the ones on Earth.”

“Well.  They took our weapons and I dunno about you, but Chia won't let me use my blades drunk.”  Chia popped out and floated around Nevia's head.  The little Ghost bounced in annoyance.

“You almost shot Drifter last time you tried it.”  Nevia threw back her head and laughed.  That had been funny, for her anyway.  She rarely used her Light around Drifter but he'd laid down a challenge.  She never backed down from a challenge.

“Did you send that message for me Arawn?”  Arawn appeared next to Siobhan and nodded.  There was only a few people Siobhan would trust to message to get them out.  Her Fireteam or Shaxx.

“He's not happy about it.”  Siobhan snorted.  She'd endure the lecture on the way back.

“Of course he's not happy about it.  I'm drunk and got captured by Fallen.”  She giggled and sat next to Nevia.  The Hunter nudged her and snarked about newlywed troubles.

“Shaxx says to tell you that he has a thing or two to say when he gets here.”  Nevia groaned and her head fell back against the prison walls.  She didn't want to listen to a lecture from Shaxx.

“Oh no.”  The two Hunters glanced up at Chia.  “I contacted Drifter too.  I didn't know you were calling Shaxx!”  Siobhan held her stomach as she pictured the scenario.  Laughter echoed off the prison walls as Nevia joined her.  They leaned against each other.  The two men weren't hostile with each other, but they'd no doubt butt heads.

“Oh, I think they're here.”  Siobhan jumped up to look out the window again.  “Yep.  Well piss.”  She glared in the general vicinity of Shaxx and Drifter.  It wasn't pretty.

“What?”  Nevia stood on tiptoe but couldn't see over the wall.  Stupid prison windows made for fucking tall ass Fallen.

“You'd better come up here and look.”  Siobhan held out a hand to her.  Nevia hefted herself up into the window with Sio's help and sighed at the sight.  Shaxx and Drifter were arguing in the middle of a ring of dead Fallen.  The ground was scorched and they were definitely arguing with each other.  The body language was hard to deny.

“Oi!  Quit your bitching and come get us out!”  Nevia yelled out between the bars.  They didn't hear her over the approaching ketch.  “Well fuck.”

“Uh oh.”  Siobhan noticed the very large Shank headed their way.  “Watch out!”  Her warning and Nevia's went unheeded as the two men continued their bickering.  “What the hell were they even arguing about?”  Siobhan asked as they saw the Fallen run the two off.  “This would be more entertaining if we weren't stuck in here.”

“Some heroes they turned out to be.”  Nevia scoffed as she and Siobhan watched the fighting.  It was almost as if the Fallen had forgotten about them.  The Fallen couldn't get a foothold on the two thanks to Shaxx's arc and Drifter's aim.  While it kept them safe, the same couldn't be said for Siobhan and Nevia.

“They're still arguing.  And I thought Shaxx and Saladin couldn't get along.”  Siobhan propped her cheek on her fist as they watched the fighting.  She sighed and wondered how long it would take them to get into the prison.

“We don't have all day.  I'm calling in the cavalry.”  Arawn told the two Hunters.  Siobhan grinned as she knew who that was.  Her Fireteam wasn't available so Arawn would only call one other person.  When she got there, the two rescuers would be in for one hell of a lecture.

“Oh.  Well, looks like they got Drifter.  And Shaxx too?  Didn't think he'd go down so quick.”  Nevia watched as they were led into the building.  Both Ghosts disappeared as the door opened.  Siobhan and Nevia jumped down from the window to face the newest additions.

“Stay in here filthy Lightbearers.”  Siobhan snorted and couldn't let that stand.  Not about her husband.

“Better than smelling of stolen ether.”  The Vandal roared in anger and raised his hand to strike her.  Shaxx sent him flying with a single punch.  The others slammed the door shut and locked it before the Guardians could react.

“Khalon!”  Siobhan grinned and opened her arms.  He placed his hand on her face as she went to give him a hug.

“You're drunk.”  His voice lacked any bite, but it was clear he was annoyed.

“Hmm.  I am!”  She simply wrapped her arms around his waist as he glared at her through his helmet.  “I can feel you glaring at me.  It's not going to work.”  He huffed and rolled his eyes heavenward.  She was way too cheery when she was drunk.  And grabby.  He took her hand and pulled it away from his rear end.

“You okay Quickfang?”  Drifter looked over Nevia but didn't see any wounds.

“Tch.  I'm fine.  We just got into a scuffle with some Fallen.”

“I'd say this isn't quite a scuffle.”  He stood next to her as the Fallen scurried around outside.

“What is going on out there?”  Shaxx looked towards the door as Drifter spoke.

“And take that you sonofabitch!”  The all too familiar voice of Yvette reached them.  A Dreg flew by the bars of their jail cell and Siobhan cheered.  Even as Shaxx tried to shush her.

“Yvette?”  Yvette poked her head across the doorframe.  Shaxx couldn't believe it.

“Well I'll be damned.  Arawn was telling the truth.  Hey, Aine!  You gotta come see this!”  Yvette called out to her partner in crime.

“Mom!”  Siobhan cheered as Yvette snorted.

“You are good and shitfaced aren't ya?”  Siobhan nodded with a grin.  “Well that explains how you got into this situation.  But what about the two of you?”  She pointed from Shaxx to Drifter.

“They were arguing!”  Siobhan and Nevia told her in unison.

“My my.  You two are certainly in a predicament aren't you?”  Aine chuckled as she joined Yvette's side.  “When Yvette asked me to come, I was expecting only two Guardians.”

“Aine!”  Siobhan opened her arms for a hug and buried her face in Aine's hair as the older Guardian gave her the hug.

“I see we've been drinking?”  Aine patted her head while Yvette made sure the hallway was clear.

“Just me and Nevia.”

“Well, that explains quite a bit.”  Aine smiled as Siobhan turned to speak to Shaxx.

“We were doin’ just fine.”  Drifter grumbled as he leaned against the wall.

“Eli Ming, you listen to me.”  Aine held up a disapproving finger towards him.

“Ooooohhh, she used the full name.  He's in trouble.”  Siobhan whispered to Nevia who had to cover her mouth to keep the laughter in.  Both did a piss poor job of being discreet.  

“Someone sober them up please?”  Yvette grinned and shook her head.  They were stuck with them.

“Nah.  They're fine.”  Drifter pinched the bridge of his nose.  They were not fine.  And if that was how much trouble they got into together it was a wonder the Tower still stood.

“We did manage to reacquire your weapons.”  Aine had Lugh transmat them back.

“Ah!  Nightmare!”  Siobhan hugged her blade as Arawn grumbled about keeping up with it.

“Quickfang!”  Nevia strapped it to her side where it belonged.  

“Now, shall we go about breaking out of this prison?”  Yvette told them as they finished gearing up.

“YEAH!”  They were a little too enthusiastic about that.

“I don't really think.”  Shaxx started but was ignored as Siobhan and Nevia went charging out the door.

“Let them have their fun.  Besides, it'll help sober them up and who knows?  Burn off that excess energy.”  Yvette patted his shoulder and followed the two girls out with Aine at her side.  

“Is this normal for them?”  Drifter waved his hand at the door.

“When they get together?  Yes.”  Shaxx sighed.

“How many times have you rescued them?”

“I usually don't.  Her Fireteam can't so I came instead.”  Drifter ran a hand over his face.  “There would be twice the explosions if they came.”

“I figured…”  He gave up and followed behind the group with Shaxx bringing up the rear.  They followed the mad laughter and explosions to find Siobhan and Nevia.

“Where did Yvette and Aine go?”

“They went home.  Said that since we’re out they aren't needed anymore.”

“They stuck us with babysitting duty.”  Drifter stuck his hands in his pockets.  Shaxx chuckled as the girls finished up the Fallen in the room.

“Time to head back!”  Siobhan yelped when an arm wrapped around her waist and yanked her off her feet.

“Yes.  Back to the Tower with you.  So you can sleep this off.”  She tilted her head to glare at him.  She wasn't going anywhere with his arm around her like an iron vise.

“Hmph.  Spoilsport.”  She grinned at him to ease the sting of her words.

Drifter slung his arm around Nevia's neck and tugged her close.  “I've got some bounties for ya to go over back on the Derelict.  I'll tell you all about ‘em on the way back.”  

“I can fly by myself you know.”  She elbowed him in the side but a smile tugged at her lips.

“Sure you can.  But then you'd miss hearing about the glimmer.”  She wrinkled her nose but gave in.  “Alright then.  Let's head out.”  They left first in a blue shimmer.

“Are we taking your ship?”  Siobhan asked as Arawn popped out.

“No.  I merely grabbed what was convenient.  The ship doesn't have room for two.”  Shaxx informed her.  Siobhan grinned.

“You're still not piloting it.”

“Awww.”  She sighed and they disappeared in a burst of purple.

[butiaintgonnaloveem]

One for the Tropey Case

Characters: Sam, Dean, The Reader, others - just go with it

Warnings: SNARK, language

Word Count: Approx. 3k

A/N: Friends, I write this with nothing but love. I’ve been inspired by my dear friend (and Tumblr Wife - it’s legit) @seenashwrite and her Nope saga. You should also read this one. My mind just kind of went off the rails, won’t you come with me? I hope this jump starts me back into writing, I’ve been feeling pretty out of it lately. This is also hopefully acceptable for @kathaswings Lina’s Chiliad Challenge. Thanks for the bonus time. Love me some feedback and all that constructive criticism, too!

A hole would be something, but this was nothing...

“I think we’re good to hide out in here for a while. Man, I needed a break, I’m telling you all this Valentine’s Day stuff is killing me. I’ve been Mr. Right Now more than my body can handle, I’m getting dehydrated…” The deep voice echoes off the ragged rock walls.

“Dean, shut up. You hear that? Hello?”

I glance around in the near darkness trying to locate the source before I call back, “Hello?”

Footfalls tap along the damp floor, growing louder as they move closer. “Yo! Someone there?”

A gentle light illuminates the area as they move closer. I recognize them immediately, a nervous grin making my lips twitch as I lean against the car.

They glare at me, eyes scanning for anything suspicious.

“It’s not my fault,” I defend, throwing my hands up in the air. “I don’t know what this is either.”

“The Upsidedown?” Sam suggests.

“Don’t be stupid, Sam.” Dean sneers, eyes scanning the shadows around us.

“Is that...you?” I direct them to look at a rough painting on the wall.

It’s primitive, but still clear - the two of them stretched out across the seats of the Impala. Dean’s eyes dart over the details for only a moment until he’s pulled away to another part of the wall with another painting - the two of them standing before a funeral pyre. I follow his movements as he takes in all the walls around them, each covered in another painted moment from their lives, some tragic, some triumphant. It makes me spin, pointing out each memory as I recall them, stopping once I realize their eyes are focused on something behind me. Only when I hear the low growl do I finally go quiet. Sam and Dean both shrug, Dean’s face flexes between alarmed, and confused until he finally takes a chance and speaks to the creature.

“Who are you?”

Glowing eyes appear, smooth pale skin flashes in the light. “I am G’mork.” It growls back, shockingly clear for a creature that doesn’t appear to have lips.

“Um okay, well...nanu nanu? G’mork? Sorry for the interruption, but, we’re just heading on out. So, if you wanna send us in the right direction, we’ll just...go.” Dean points and spins around him.

“You cannot go.” It growls.

“The hell we can’t.” Dean growls back.

“There are no boundaries, no doorways, no portals here. There is nowhere for you to go.”

“Then how did we get here?”

“Foolish giants. Don’t you you know anything about Fanfiction? It’s the world of human fantasy. Every road, every cheap motel, every half empty bottle of whiskey in it, is a piece of the dreams and desires of fanfiction writers. Therefore, it has no boundaries.”

“So where is everything then? Where’s the cheap motel? The crappy, run-down bar? Hell, the bunker? This? This is….it’s nothing.” Dean gestures vaguely.

“Exactly.” Thunder booms in the darkness, the ground shakes beneath us.

“What’s going on?”

“The Nothing is growing stronger.”

“The Nothing? What’s that?” I ask as I step closer to stand between the broad shoulders of the towering Winchesters.

The creature inches forward slightly, revealing itself more in the light and alarming me with the lack of features on its face, “It’s the emptiness that’s left. It’s like a despair, destroying this world, and I have been trying to help it.”

“What the fuck does that even mean?” Dean asks, pleadingly, his face etched with crinkles of disbelief, “I’ve seen the shit they come up with. I’ve been there. In all of it. How I’ve not exploded from pie, I don’t know, but there’s like new shit they’re pulling us into - All. The. Time.”

“Yeah, I mean,” Sam pauses to huff a little bit, annoyed with the creature, “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve managed to graduate from law school, or tied girls to my bed to-”

He trails off at Dean’s double-chin look of ‘whatwasthatnow?’

“Point is,” he throws a hand up at Dean to tell him ‘not now’ before addressing the creature again, “there’s plenty there. What emptiness are you talking about?”

“Exactly!” G’Mork hisses, “How many times have you gone gooey from meeting your soulmate, or shown up drunk and bloody on a doorstep and comforted with sex and stitches? How many times have you hate-fucked after a fight or cried when your hunter/girlfriend died while trying to protect you and made you promise to let her go? How many times? It’s the tropes, the repetitiveness, the predictability of it all.”

We all glare at the monster, angry at it for its honesty.

“The writers - because they’ve begun to lose their creative energy, they’ve used the same tropes over and over. They’re losing their hopes, forgetting their dreams. And so, The Nothing grows stronger.”

The ground shakes and rocks crumble from the walls around us. “But why?” I cry out.

“Because people who have no hopes are easy to control, and whoever has control has the power!”

The paintings crack as another rumble shakes the ground, lightning streaks across the sky. We all lose our balance for a moment until the earth settles. I glare at the creature, anger burning through my veins.

“Who are you, really?”

It offers a sinister chuckle, then sighs as the Winchesters join in the glaring, “I am the servant of the power behind The Nothing. I am sent to kill the motivation of those who could destroy The Nothing. I lost one of them in the Inbox Full of Chain Messages, her name was Nash.”

“Nash?!” The three of us ask in unison. Sam and Dean continue with a synchronised, “Shit.” while I mumble out a “Thank Chuck.”

They both tilt their heads in a silent “Really?”

“What? If she’s not stuck in the Swamp of Eternal Writer’s Block, then we’re probably okay.”

“But...but - no. She’s not the hero, she is a pain in the-”

“Dean, she’s probably gonna find out about whatever you’re about to say, so speak carefully,” Sam reminds him.

Dean puckers his lips, biting back whatever he was about to blurt and drawing a deep breath through his nose. “Fine. Let’s deal with this douchebag and move on.”

“Douchebag? That’s the best you’ve got? No wonder no one likes you.”

“Wh - I - huh?” Dean splutters.

I narrow my eyes at the shadows around the beast. “Well, if this is the end, I’d rather go out fighting. Show yourself, stop hiding.”

“If you insist.” It groans as it crawls out from the darkness, the grotesque troll body illuminated and off-putting, but nothing quite prepares me for the stark contrast of the face, white and round - no mouth, no nose, only a pair of glasses to indicate where the actual face might be.

“Oh god, what the hell is that?” Sam turns his face away, covering his mouth and nose with his hand in disgust.

“It’s an Anon.” I answer flatly. “If we ignore it, it loses its power. Turn around.” I grab their shoulders and face them away. “Don’t talk about it, don’t respond to it, don’t look at it. Especially you, Dean, I know about that McDonald’s pie incident.”

“Are you sure? I mean, I can pretty much punch my way through anything.”

“Yeah, I mean, I’ve never even seen Lore on this thing. How do you know?”

“I just know. I’ve seen things. Now shut up.”

It goes quicker than I could have imagined. The creature tries every trick possible to regain our attention, but the attempts grow weaker with each dismissal until finally, it crawls back into the hole it came out of, withered, weak, whimpering.

“See? Toldya.”

“Nice one. Okay, so now what?”

We search around us, still not seeing any way out, any change in the scenery, nothing else appears to assist us. Instead, the ground crumbles even more and part it of falls away into a void of black.

“Sonofabitch! I thought we beat it!”

“I don’t know!” I reply, panic making my voice high and squeaky.

The walls begin to shake apart, rocks and dust falling everywhere before getting sucked away, leaving nothing but blackness. Dean’s hands reach for Baby, her paint gleaming in sourceless light. “No, not Baby. Not my car!”

He holds the door as tight as he can, but there’s nothing he can do as the paint flakes away, the metal shifts and breaks apart beneath his palms, and it disappears. He turns to me, a single tear rolling down his cheek, eyes glassy. His shoulders slump in defeat while he stares at the smears of dirt left on his skin.

“I tried. I couldn’t hold onto her. The Nothing pulled her right out of my hands. I failed.” Sam and I stare blankly at him. “They look like big, good, strong hands, don’t they?”

“Uhh, yeah, they sure do, Dean.” I turn to Sam with wide eyes, silently begging him to help his brother get a grip.

“I’ll just sit here and let it take me away too.” He whines. At that, Sam finally steps in, hugging his brother and holding him upright.

It’s all gone, blackness surrounds us except for the mysterious light the somehow illuminates us. There’s nowhere to go, nothing to work with, it’s just…

“The Void!” I shout.

“Huh?” they return with the Winsync.

“Oh, maybe you don’t know about that yet. Okay, well, it’s just what it sounds like, but we can get out of it. Sam, leave Dean alone.”

“Why? He’s my brother!” He clenches his jaw, eyes narrowed at me with anger and suspicion.

“Because, we need to annoy our way out of here, and there’s not much more annoying than a man whining and upset like a spoiled brat. I mean,” I suck in a hiss through my teeth, preparing for the backlash, “It’s just a car.”

Sam jumps away to avoid the swing of Dean’s arms as he whirls around on me. “Just a? How dare you! That car is the most important object in the history of the universe…”

He goes on and on, animated by anger and pride, his voice going deeper and louder as he details every repair he lovingly made, about all the grease stains in his clothing, about how he discovered how much he enjoyed washing her in a tiny pair of cut-offs. “...I mean, I’m pretty damn sure I was conceived in that car. The errant bodily fluids soaked in there must be-”

He gets hushed by a figure appearing from nowhere, a finger over his plump mouth, “Do NOT finish that thought,” she orders. He squints at her, but obeys.

“And you aaarre?” I ask.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m a Plot Device. What’s more important, is who you are.”

“Huh?” Our trio of voices sound out.

“What’s it matter? We failed. Even without the Anon, The Nothing still took everything,” Dean points out.

“That’s not true,” her sugar-sweet voice croons. She pulls a laptop out from behind her back, the screen blaringly bright from the open blank document. “A single blank document. This is all that remains of my vast empire.”

“So now what? We gotta write some of that fanfiction crap?” Dean whines out, an uneasy look on his face.

“Sam? I know that look - I’ve never been able to figure out how your mind works, but I know when it works.”

I can practically hear the whirring of wheels in Sam’s mind, “Okay. That’s not so bad. I remember what we learned from those high schoolers. There’s ah, Destiel, Sam-no Sastiel? I don’t know which is right. Uh..”

“No. None of that will do. You’ve had the solution with you the whole time.” Her smug little smile makes us all shift.

“What does that mean?”

“You brought her here. The Reader Insert. She was with you when you slept in the Impala. She was with you when you hustled that game of pool, just as she’s been with you this whole time.”

“But thats. Not. Possible. If there was someone else with us, we’d know it.”

I smack them both on the shoulder as I clear my throat. “Hello? What am I, invisible?”

They both scrunch up their faces in confusion, looking like they’re not sure if I’m certifiable or some kind group hallucination.

“That. That doesn’t make any sense,” Sam argues, “If she’s been with us this whole time, then why did all this happen? Why’s it all falling apart?”

“The Anon wasn’t lying. The tropes,” she rolls her eyes to display her exasperation, “I just can’t. You know? It’s like ‘Oh no. Another vampire or witch.’ Been there, done that. Things gotta get amped up a bit. So, here we are. We must rebuild Fanfiction.”

“But how? I don’t know what you need me to do!” I cry, the flood of emotion and nerves causing my voice to waver.

“You don’t need to do anything.”

“Then what? Tell us!” Sam roars at the woman emitting an ethereal, soft-lens glow.

The rumble returns, the laptop screen goes black for a split second, “Oh no, you have to hurry!”

“What do we have to do?” Sam’s voice softens again, concern lacing the low gravel sound of it.

“You have to give her a name! You’ve already chosen it, you just need to call it out!”

“But she’s the Reader Insert! For the sake of inclusiveness, we don’t know her name!”

Dean shakes his head and slices a hand through the air, “You know what? NO! None of this is real. This is all fanfiction bullshit.”

The world shakes around us again.

“Please, Dean! Sam! DO it! Do what you dream! Call. Out. My. Name!” I plead through tears.

When the laptop screen glitches again, the Empress of the Plot Device begins to beg on my behalf as well, “Call out her name, it can be anything! Call her Mary if you need to.”

“Ew! No,” Dean looks as though he’s been burned.

“Chanticlellenora!”

“What? What the fuck kind of name is that?”

“I don’t know, I’m giving you options, maybe you wanted something unique?”

Even though we’re surrounded by a void, it seems to be growing smaller around us, making panic rush through us all.

“Come on guys! Just say a fucking name!”

They turn to each other, giving the look I recognize at the “silent Winchester conversation” and a sense of relief eases my muscles. It’s clear by the look of determination they both wear as they turn to me.

“We got this.” Sam assures.

“Hell yes.” Dean agrees, a smirk picking up the corner of his mouth before he parts his lips to speak again.

“Yyuuuhhhnnnnuuhhhh.” He groans slowly, eyes wide.

“Dean! What the hell?” Sam scolds. “That’s not what we agreed on.” He pushes him out of the way.

“Yuhhnuhh.” He blurts, his shoulders twitching with shock at himself.

The Empress and I stare at them, unimpressed. “Seriously guys? You’re just vocalizing the y slash n thing.”

“Yuh-” Sam stops himself, “Look, I don’t think we can help it.”

“Try something else. Let’s loophole this.” I try to encourage them.

Sam and Dean confer, I hear them mumble places like Austin and Paris, then other spots like Brooklyn and India until they nod in agreement, Dean steps forward again.

“We got it.” He claps his hands together then opens them, palms up for the delivery. “Yyyyyyeeuhnuh.”

He rubs at his throat with a look on his face as though it betrayed him. “Why could we say it to each other, but not to her?”

“That’s because it’s not related to a place.”

“So no geographical names, I guess.”

Sam starts to call out random words Dean suggests that could pass as names - Lily, Sandy, Chandelier.

“Try Arrow!” Dean shouts.

The Empress and I do our best Winsync impression, sharing a stare of confusion. Sam tries every suggestion, but continues to spew out the same sound, just with different intonations.

“This isn’t working! What else can we do?”

I breathe out a heavy sigh, closing my eyes as I prepare myself for what I’m about to say. “You guys aren’t gonna like it.”

“Oh no. Nope nonono no.”

“But I think we should-”

“Don’t bring her into this,” Dean warns.

“-try to summon Nash.” I finish despite his warning. We end up caught in a staring contest as we will each other to give in. I suck in a breath, ready to call her, “Na-”

“Wait!” Sam interrupts.

“What now, Sam? We don’t have time for you to pore over the Lore!”

He looks to Plot Device, “What if we don’t give her a name?”

“You mean,” she gulps, “Not write it in second person?”

“Yeah,” he jumps at her like an excited puppy, “Exactly! We could give her a nickname or just be general when calling her name. It can be glossed over, can’t it?”

Plot Device scrunches her face in thought, bringing a perfectly manicured nail to tap on her lips as she does so. “I guess that could work. Is that what you wish?” She looks at me.

“Will fanfiction survive? Can it be rebuilt?”

“It can be anything you wish, though you still lack a name, you are without limits.”

“My limit does not exist,” I mumble. “That’s grool.”

“So grool,” she smiles.The ground stops shaking, the darkness begins to lighten, the gleaming paint of Baby shines in the distance and Dean swoons in relief. “Now, off with you. Go on and create new adventures. Subvert those tropes, surprise me. Surprise us all!” She waves us away like a parade float queen.

“We will,” we assure her, and turn to walk to the Impala, Dean drapes his arm over me. “Well, where do we go from here?”

“The only bar in town?” Sam suggests.

“That sounds about right. But after that...we’re changing things up.”

Dean squeezes my shoulder, “You got it. Now about that nickname, a lot of people seem to like it when I call them ‘Swee-’” I silence him with a slap to the face.

“I will call Nash, you know better.”

“Message received.” He lowers his head as he heads to open the creaky driver’s side door. “Is Yuhnnuh really that bad? It almost works…”

I death glare him. “Was the last time not enough for you? Who knows what else she could come up with. Oh, maybe you’ll willingly trade Baby for a minivan, or, no I got it, a Fiat. I should make notes…”

Random narrator that suddenly appears: The reader made many other requests and had many other amazing adventures before finally returning to the ordinary world. But that’s...another story.

Tags:

@mogaruke @feelmyroarrrr @kayteonline @notnaturalanahi @attractiverandomness @mrswhozeewhatsis @deathtonormalcy56 @kittenofdoomage @jpadjackles @supernatural-jackles @luci-in-leather @babypieandwhiskey @brewsthespirit-blog @mysaintsasinner @idreamofhazel @impala-dreamer @sis-tafics @littlegreenplasticsoldier @ultimatecin73 @mrsjohnsmith @bringmesomepie @sharingan-rasengan-chidori @mandilion76 @muliermalefici @doctorboo82 @boxywrites @essie1876 @sherrybaby14 @emmysthougts @sylverminx @someday-once @nostalgic-uncertainty @there-must-be-a-lock @carryonmyswansong @captain-amelia-bradley 

[julesdelorme]

faller

chapter 6

the man

call me faller.

what they called me.

what they call me now.

what i call myself most of the time.

i call myself faller and they call me faller because that’s what I am. that’s who i am.

the worst insult you can hear if you’re a fighter. the worst insult you you can ever hear. worse than bastard or sonofabitch or coward or cocksucker. 

mostly they don’t say it to my face. 

mostly.

not at first but they said it and i heard it. and i didn’t say nothing. and i say it myself now. because it’s what i am. 

i could fight.

i still can fight.

mostly. 

i could win most of those fights. i can’t remember when exactly i stopped knowing i could win. i can’t remember anything exactly right no more. but the first time that somebody offered me money and i took it. and then i kept taking it because taking it was easy. the money. a lot easier than not knowing how the fight was going to turn out. a lot easier after a while than saying i didn’t want to take the money no more. the thing is after a while i didn’t even need to fake it. after a while i started to fall down for real. even though i used to be able to take any punch or kick and stay stay on my feet. all of a sudden i couldn’t. and even the maybe. even the maybe of being a halfway good fighter was gone.

they used to call it punchy.

when your brain gets all scrambled from too many hits. punchy. hands started to shake. the world started to look like broken television. i couldn’t remember things even simple things. people started to sound like they were talking from another room even when they were right there.

and i started falling down all on my own.

i would be walking along. the next thing i knew somebody was looking down at me. i was looking up at them. or at the ceiling. or up at the sky. the doctors even the bad ones even the very worst ones wouldn’t pass me to fight. not even in the dive bars no more. i was washed up. the booze and the drugs that were always part of it. then that’s all there was. wasn’t even the the fighting. i wasn’t even anything like a real fighter. not even the maybe of being a real fighter. i started to steal and rob. acting crazy.. even crazier than i ever was. all the time in the joint. like i was in more than i was out. the doctors in the joint telling me about scar tissue on my brain. making me fall down. all the tests. more tests that i couldn’t even say the name of. my brain didn’t work right. maybe it it never did work right. but now it was really fucked up. all i wanted to do was get out. just get out. get wasted and drunk to forget the pain. forget i was a useless drunk. useless drugged up fuck. washed up. all washed up.

then i started to think about going back.

started to think all the time about going back to the river. 

nothing but the river. no plans. no ideas except the river and going back.

every time i got out i would do something crazy end up back in the joint. get back on the booze. get back on the drugs. crack mostly. any kind of drugs i could get my hands on. anything to make the darkness not so heavy. make the darkness not so smothering for a little while. i would need more money. so i would do something stupid. get caught. end right back in the joint again. i never was no criminal genius. just some idiot that wanted something to push the darkness back just a little bit.

sometimes i would still get a fight for money. even then. it wouldn’t take more than one good shot before i was falling down again. the money got less. even less every single time. the fights got uglier. i got uglier. uglier meaner places. i got meaner. got easier to rob some place or or break into some place. i was never smart enough to get that right. end up back inside. all i could think about was needing to get get back to the river. only way the story could end. all i wanted. the fucking story to end.

i didn’t have no more feeling about dying than i did about living. just needed to get to the river. 

to the end. it needed to fit somehow. the beginning to the end. i was born dead. the actual dying was just some word. a word that was way past the time to say it. 

just needed to stay out for even a minute. so i could make it back to the river.

but i needed money. every time i tried to get my hands on cash. just ended up back inside. social workers. bible thumpers. telling me they could get me money from the government. on account of my head being so so messed up. but i didn’t want the government’s money. just wanted my own money. all i needed some halfway decent score where i didn’t get caught. except i was never smart enough not to get caught. not even before all the head damage.

the one social worker. fat and pasty. like a slug. lizard eyes. got real pissed at me because i didn’t want the government’s money.  that i would steal it from some store owner who never did nothing to me. that fat lizard eye slob couldn’t figure that. stealing wasn’t begging or taking handouts. didn’t even bother trying to tell it to him. it would never make no sense to someone like him. taking money from the government to go around like he gave a shit. 

i got out and saw him on the street one day and and kicked his fat slug lizard face in.

kicked it in so bad he died.

the lawyer brings up my head damage. said some shit about the guy diddling prisoners. i get seven for manslaughter.

when i got out this time i just started walking. kept on walking. no money. nothing to sleep in. just clothes and shoes. shoes worn through with holes. i got to the river. to the place where the river got started. or ended. i can never remember which one. i just kept on walking. i didn’t know where exactly. to the island. to the rez. didn’t know where the house where i grew up even was. where it used to be. just hoped that if i kept on walking i might come to the place. if there was a real place that i remembered. i would know it. i would know that place. then it could all be just end. i didn’t give a shit about them coming after me anymore. i just wanted to get to get to the river. get all the fucked up shit to end. all the falling down and and all the other shit to end finally. just get to the river. to the island. where it started so i could get it to end.

i never did find the place. maybe because it was all twisted. maybe because i was all changed. maybe because i couldn’t find the memories no more. with all the getting hit in the head and the falling down. i kept walking thinking maybe i would run into some place i would know. even without remembering it. but the rez was changed. not the dead filthy stinking thing i remembered. something cleaner. almost pretty and soft. nothing i knew belonged there. i didn’t belong there. they cleaned up all the memories. scrubbed them clean. so clean they didn’t even belong to me no more. this wasn’t my world no more. i could walk forever and nothing was going to be my remembering of it. 

it was that knowing. that the island wasn’t the place from my memories. it left me all of a sudden worn out. tired. hot. dry in my mouth so i couldn’t even swallow or make spit. long time ago i would go off into the woods without food or water. i would walk without sleeping or stopping. old woman told everybody i was doing some kind of spirit walk. all i was doing was walking. getting away from the world. getting away from the old man’s fists. sometimes i think maybe i was doing some kind of spirit walk. i just didn’t know it. like the old lady was telling the truth without me knowing it was the truth. 

mostly i was just walking.

i was feeling like i couldn’t couldn’t walk no more. then i see the boy. this skinny kid standing there watching me. arms wrapped around burned out old fence post. half burned down house. old goat tied up with a rope. he felt to me like i knew him. the kid i mean. like he was something or somebody. that half burned down house and the goat. like i knew it. like i remembered  it.

i felt like i knew the kid. and like maybe he would know me.

crazy.

so i started walking to them.

i didn’t even don’t even know why i was walking. 

i didn’t even know right away i was walking. 

somehow my feet changed direction without my knowing it. i was walking to this boy that i didn’t know. his old goat i didn’t know. but i was sure i knew them.

the kid didn’t move.

just stood there.

the goat was raising a racket. but then even the goat got quiet. like it knew me.

crazy. batshit crazy.

in that place. probably still even behind all the nice houses and the shiny boats. for a kid to just stand there when a grown up especially a fucked up grown up was coming towards him wasn’t normal. i remembered that. i knew that. people in that place were dangerous. even with more money in pockets they were probably still dangerous. people in every place are dangerous. but in a different way than than in places like that. in other places you don’t know the kind of hurt they’re going to to do. they don’t mean no harm at first. but in in places like the island the rez doing bad things is all there is. always there underneath the clean and shiny outside. pretty much anybody in that place still meant hurt. normal thing to do is get out of the way or do something ugly before before they do something ugly to you.

the kid just stood there.

the goat just stood there.

he didn’t look like there was nothing wrong with him. the kid i mean. he didn’t look like a retard. like he was off his head. at least on the outside on the outside he looked normal. but it wasn’t normal in that place to to just stand there. it was not normal when you saw somebody fucked up like me. scarred up and twitchy like me. all the scars and the the gimped up walk coming towards you. but the kid just stood there and the goat just stood there. 

they just stood there. 

i kept on walking.

that’s what happened.

just that.

just that.

them standing there and and me walking to them.

that was the start.

not the end.

not the end yet.

almost maybe.

wherever i was going this was the start

i didn’t even know where i was but that was the start.

i was done walking.

for now.

for now i was done walking. 

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[ilosttrackofthings]

Biospecialist please and thank you "things you said when you were drunk"

“No, thank you,”Jemma says for the second time. The first time she was polite, ifstern. This time she’s very nearly rude and her fingers are itchingto grab her ICER. Unfortunately her purse has fallen beneath thetable.

“Come on, baby,”slurs the slobbering man who’s been hitting on her for the lastquarter hour. He fills in the gaps between them and though it sickensher to think he’ll follow her down, she considers lowering herself toreach for the purse. “Can’t wear a dress like that and not give aguy a peak, can you?”

“I most certainlycan,” she says. Nearly the moment the words are out of her mouth,she’s forced deeper into the booth seat and her assailant is sentsideways by a dark blur.

A few onlookersyell encouragements, but all keep their distance as the fight soundsto be mostly a lot of rolling around and punching. Someone nearbylets out a long oooo,spurring Jemma to swallow her shock. She eases around the edge of thebooth in time to see a flash of metal disappear into the slobberingdrunk’s throat. He stops moving a moment later. The victorrises from the floor and lets out a huff before turning to face her.The squirming disgust that set every inch of her skin crawlingfreezes to ice.

“Simmons,” Wardsays conversationally. He grabs a fresh beer from a passing drunk—whodoesn’t dare argue—and falls into the seat across from her. “Whatbrings you here? Spying for Coulson?”

She’s not,incidentally, but the odds of her choosing to drown her sorrows inthe same bar as Ward must be infinitesimal. She wouldn’t evenbelieve her own denial.

“Why did you dothat?” she asks instead.

He shrugs oneshoulder. On the table, he’s fiddling with the beer in a way thatseems terribly unlike him. “He was bugging you.”

“Why should thatmatter?”

He narrows his eyesat her, his expression going terrifyingly critical. “Because we’refriends.”

Right.That.

Hesaid the same during his very short stay in the Playground, betweenreturning with Coulson and heading off to the Arctic with the others.(Before he tortured Bobbi forthe better part of two days.)

Hetilts his head oddly. “Are you all right? Did he hurt you?” Hethrows a glare off to the side as though considering beating thedead man for good measure.

“No,I’m fine.” Aside from the very poor decision making skills she’sexhibited recently. What was she thinking coming into a place likethis?

Sheknows exactly what she was thinking: that this dingy bar with itsbars on the windows and smell of vomit on the sidewalk outside is thelast place within walking distance of the very nice, very poshrestaurant two blocks away that Fitz will expect her to have run offto.

It’snot that it was a baddinner. It could hardly be that with good food and good company. It’sjust that it was a bad date.She kept forgetting they were even on one and then Fitz would reachacross the table for her hand or the waiter would smile knowinglybetween them and she’d remember.

Sowhen she went to the loo and saw the alley door right there, she’safraid she did something unforgivable. (She tries not to think what arelief that is, that Fitz certainly won’t be able to look past herditching him.)

“Ohbloody hell,” she mutters.

Wardsits forward. “What? What’d he do?”

“Nothim,” she says sharply, feeling uncharitably angry at Ward forsaving her. “Fitz. He’s going to think you kidnapped me.” Andthen there won’t be anything to forgive. He’ll ask for anotherdate and it will go even worse than this one but she won’t be able to run off again, will she?

Ward’sface scrunches up in a way that once would’ve made Jemma’s heartswoop. (Perhaps it still does a little.) “Why would he think that?”

Shegestures around them at the dimly lit bar, the very dangerous lookingdrunks (really, what was she thinking coming in here?), the corpse onthe floor. “Because I’m herewith you instead of onour date.”

“Wait.”He points between her and said corpse. “Did that guy kidnap you?”

Shesighs, sinking down into her seat. Her foot nudges her purse. She’dforgotten about it. A madman who very recently attempted to kill oneof her friends is sitting two feet away and she forgot about herpurse and the weapon inside. She might have had too much wine withdinner.

“No,he did not kidnap me,” she says, figuring it’s too much work tolie when she’s so obviously out of sorts. Not that it’s likely towork on Ward anyway. She may be able to convince Fitz she’s havinga lovely time but the day she can pull one over on Ward is the dayhell freezes over. “I ran out on dinner.”

“Oh,Simmons.”Ward—coldblooded killer, traitor, formeragent of Hydra—sounds disappointed in her behavior. She reallycan’t blame him.

Sheconsiders stealing his pilfered beer and drinking it down, it mightmake her feel better.

“Boss?”A tall, bald man with some nasty stitching along his cheek looms overthem. Ward doesn’t seem bothered.

“Yeah?”he asks, smacking his lips in a way which finally alerts her to theobvious: Ward is even more drunk than she is. No wonder he’s beenso friendly.

“Wegot that-” the man’s eyes cut to her- “shipment you wanted.”

“Right.Gotta take care of this,” Ward says. But he doesn’t move to go.He frowns for a few seconds before pointing to her. “Watch her.Make sure nobody else bothers her.”

Thebald man looks as confused as Jemma. But he says a dutiful, “Yes,sir.”

WhenWard does make to stand, he stops with a hiss of pain.

“Sir!”

“Sonofabitchpulled a knife on me,” Ward says. Now that he’s lifting his arm,Jemma can see the shine of blood clinging to his shirt.

“Oh,honestly,” she snaps, “can’t you go five minutes withoutinjuring yourself?” She does reach for her purse now, as she has anemergency med kit inside. It isn’t much, not nearly what she wouldtake on a real mission, but between it and all the alcohol in theroom it has everything she’ll need to see to this.

“It’sokay,” Ward says to his associate’s questioning look when shemoves to examine him. To her he says, “How about we move this tothe back?”

Sheagrees before she can consider the wisdom of following Ward into aneven more isolated area.

(Ifshe ever considers the wisdom of tending to the manwho nearly killed Bobbi only last week, she justifies it by remindingherself he was injured protecting her.)

Asshe expected, once she has him seated on a table with his shirt off,he has a truly impressive puncture wound. Only his ribs have savedhim from grave injury.

“You’reimpossible,” she murmurs while she stitches the cut.

He smiles like a little boy proud of bringing home a great, fattoad.

“Andwhat will I find under there?” she asks, nodding to the gauze tapedto his forearm. “Another ill-gotten injury?”

“This,”Ward says while pointing to his side, “is from an act of chivalry.But this one’s just from Fitz.”

“Fitz?”It’s a lucky thing it took only three stitches to seal him up,otherwise she might do him further harm in her shock. “What doesFitz have to do with anything?” Other than being the entire reasonshe’s here.

“Hetried to blow me up.” Ward catches her expression and his facefalls into something approaching apology. “Oh. He didn’t tellyou? He put an explosive in my pack in the Arctic. Nearly fucked thewhole mission up.”

No.No, that isn’t right at all. Fitzwould never…

Buthe barely spoke to her after returning from the mission. And theexplosion featured in the reports. Though it was blamed on Ward, noone had any idea how he’d managed to get his hands on a bombwithout being noticed.

Oh,Fitz.

Roughfingers brush through her hair, moving a few stray strands behind herear. Ward is staring at her intently. Each beat of her heart feelslike a drum, the vibrations rolling through her.

“Sothat whole thing about Fitz thinking I kidnapped you?” he asks. Hehisses apologetically. “I’m afraid he won’t be entirely wrong.”

[bowlegsinthebatcave]

Joseph/Robert Head Canon Fic

So I bought Dream Daddy on Friday after work, sunk 17 hours into it between then and now, and decided to write my head canon for how Joseph and Robert get into a relationship that goes wrong. It relies heavily on the clues in the game and the datamined stuff, so if you don’t like that part of Dream Daddy, don’t read this. But really, it’s just pre-relationship fluff and a little bit of creep. Joseph is good!Joseph, coexisting with whatever is inside him that’s ruining his life and the lives of the other daddies, breaking down his marriage, and making him feel like he’s going crazy.

Thank you to the devs of this game for making something lighthearted and fun but also with undertones of angst and creep.

Robert is cute. <3

3 or 4 years ago, it’s difficult to remember these days, Robert arrived at Jim and Kim’s at his usual time on a Friday night. He greeted the bartender, Neil, with a nod, and before he even sat down, Neil had a double shot of whiskey and a napkin ready. The Game was playing on the beat-up, no-brand 32” tube TV hanging to the right of the top shelf of neatly arranged bottles of alcohol. It wasn’t a particularly busy night, which suited Robert fine.

Half an hour went by where Robert sat undisturbed, nursing the whiskey for longer than he meant to and more engrossed in The Game than he originally wanted to be. He didn’t hear his name when someone shouted it, not at first. He knew that his neighbors in the cul-de-sac all had a pretty low opinion of him in general, so he didn’t expect anybody to call out for him. When he bumped into one of the neighborhood dads at this place, it was purely by mistake and they would be polite, but give him the space they assumed he wanted.

He didn’t want space all the time and he didn’t know quite how to say that out loud without sounding like a charity case, so he stayed quiet and let them distance themselves from him.

“Robert!”

Robert snapped out of it and turned on the bar stool just enough to look over his shoulder towards the door, where Joseph Christiansen, the “Cool Youth Pastor” stood. He looked painfully out of place in a bar, with his perfectly coiffed blonde hair and stupid blue sweater from Abercrombie and Whoever the Fuck. The strangest part was that he was alone, not accompanied by one of the other neighborhood dads or Mary. And he was already heading in Robert’s direction.

“It’s nice to see a friendly face here,” Joseph said as he sat down, much to Robert’s bemusement, in the seat directly to the left of Robert’s.

“My face is friendly? This is breaking news.”

Robert didn’t think what he said was particularly funny, but Joseph apparently thought so. His mouth pulled into a huge grin full of pearly white teeth and then he laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. Joseph might have been the most Stepford-looking sonofabitch that Robert’s ever seen, but there was something oddly endearing about the small wrinkles at the corners of his eyes when he laughed.

“What’ll you have, Joseph?” Neil asked.

Joseph’s laughter dissolved into an amused smile. “Two shots of tequila and a beer to start.”

That peaked Robert’s interest. Joseph was the epitome of the church-going, perfect father and self-proclaimed “Cool Youth Pastor”. The last thing that he ever expected to see was that type of man ordering two shots of tequila and a beer to start. If he were honest with himself, he’d say he was impressed.

“Bad day, Bible Man?” Robert asked before taking a generous swig of whiskey. He held up two fingers for Neil to see and felt satisfied when the bartender immediately started pouring him another double.

“You could say that.” Joseph didn’t offer up any details right away after that. He watched as Neil sat two shots of tequila and an open bottle of beer on the bartop in front of him, but didn’t make any move to drink them.

Robert didn’t really want to pry, so he settled for silently observing as Joseph stared at the alcohol in front of him. The entire mood of the man sitting next to him changed, Robert could feel it, and then he was curious.

“Hey Neil, you got any cut limes and salt around?” Robert asked.

Neil shrugged his shoulders and replied, “I got some whole limes in the fridge in the back.”

“Good, cut two up and bring them with some salt.”

Joseph didn’t look like he listened to the exchange at all. His downcast eyes were still fixated on the shots of tequila, his long fingers picking one up experimentally and then setting it back down.

Neil came back a minute or two later with slices of lime on a paper plate and a shaker of salt. He sat them down in between Robert and Joseph, looking a little confused as to who wanted them.

“Thanks Neil,” Robert said with a dismissive half-smile.

When Neil got the idea and walked away to the other end of the bar, Robert licked the back of his hand and shook some salt onto it. Then in one smooth move he grabbed one of the shots in front of Joseph, lapped up the salt from his skin in one go, downed the tequila, and popped a wedge of lime into his mouth to suck on. He hated tequila, just the smell alone elicited memories of very bad decisions and monumental hangovers, but he figured he could handle one shot to break the ice.

Joseph looked up at Robert, face looking more shocked than sullen. Robert continued to suck on the lime, holding Joseph’s gaze for way too long to be comfortable.

“I got into an explosive fight with Mary,” Joseph sighed.

Robert spat out the slice of lime and sat it on the bar. He wasn’t surprised that Joseph fighting with his wife was what pushed him to come to Jim and Kim’s. He’d never seen them fight in public, but the catty way they spoke to each other at the barbecues and kids’ birthday parties was enough of a clue. Robert carefully considered his next question.

“How bad was it?”

Joseph looked like he was thinking about how to answer, then grabbed a lime wedge and the salt shaker. He looked up at Robert and smiled sheepishly. It wasn’t enough to reabsorb the tears welling up in his eyes.

“How does it go again?” Joseph asked.

Robert eyed Joseph for a moment and grumbled, “Lick the back of your hand.”

Joseph did, tongue gliding wetly across his skin. Robert watched the motion intently, feeling the warmth of tequila and whiskey settling in his chest and lower belly.

“Salt it.”

Joseph obeyed, shaking salt onto his wet hand.

“Now lick the salt up, take the shot, and suck on a lime.”

Joseph didn’t hesitate a bit. He picked up the shot and followed Robert’s instructions, making a face at the sourness of the lime or the burn of the tequila, Robert didn’t know which.

“How many of those until I feel better?” Joseph asked, looking expectantly at Robert like he must know the answer.

“Alcohol isn’t meant to make you feel better about shit. It’s to help you forget shit.”

It turned out that there was a number of shots that made Joseph open up more, at least. That number was six. Robert promised himself not to pull any deep dark secrets out of a very drunk Joseph, but he couldn’t help it if Joseph offered them up without Robert prompting him to.

“She wants a divorce,” Joseph said, voice thick with emotion, his shoulder pressed against Robert’s. He had gradually slid more and more off of his chair as they drank and talked, half sitting on it and half relying on Robert to hold him up.

“Tell me if I’m going too far here, but doesn’t your Bible… uh, code? Code or whatever. Doesn’t that frown on divorce?” Robert asked.

Joseph laughed bitterly and tipped back some of his lukewarm beer. “I live my life according to God’s word every day. I gave up many things that made me happy to become a youth pastor. I made sacrifices each day, thinking that God would reward me with a healthy, happy family and a wife who would be my partner through thick and thin. Neither of those two things are true at this moment, so trust me when I say that God being disapproving of divorce is the least of my worries.”

“Sounds like you struck out on two of your three genie wishes.” Robert didn’t mean to sound like an insensitive ass, but he couldn’t help it. He imagined that drunk-Joseph wouldn’t take it too personal.

“In a way, yes. I guess I did.”

Over the next few hours, Joseph opened up to Robert like Robert was the priest and Joseph was the sinner at confession. It was surreal. Joseph had apparently confronted Mary at home about her shitty attitude towards him at a church event earlier in the day and the encounter escalated into a screaming match. Mary threw a wine glass at Joseph’s head, beaned him pretty good from what Robert could see of the bruise peaking out at Joseph’s hairline, and told him to leave for good.

The children were in the hallway listening in when it happened, which to Robert was the worst part. Joseph came around the corner to find them looking at him with tears in their eyes. Their creepy, soulless eyes, Robert thought, but that part wasn’t important. Children should never have to hear their parents shouting insults at each other.

It was close to two in the morning when Neil finally kicked them out. They stopped buying drinks an hour before that and they were the only people left in the bar, so Robert wasn’t surprised that they got the boot.

“Can you even walk on your own?” Robert asked Joseph as they stepped out of Jim and Kim’s.

Joseph nodded his head, which he looked like he immediately regretted. “Yeah, I’m great. Fine. Super. I’ll go home and sleep in the car.”

Robert watched as Joseph stumbled in the direction of the cul-de-sac, only able to make it a few feet before he tripped over his loafers and fell hard onto the asphalt. Perfect.

“It’s all over,” Joseph mumbled, staying on the ground.

“Come on, Abercrombie, let’s go,” Robert sighed, walking over to Joseph and putting his hands under Joseph’s armpits to help pull him to a sort of standing position. He wasn’t nearly as drunk as he should be at this time of night, and not even in the same galaxy as how drunk he would have to be to even consider offering Joseph a place to stay while things cooled off with Mary, but that’s exactly what his stupid brain decided he was going to do.

It took twenty minutes to walk the short distance to Robert’s house, thanks entirely to Joseph walking like a wasted frat girl and stopping every couple feet to comment on the world spinning. Joseph wasn’t as light or easy to maneuver as a frat girl. He was surprisingly solid underneath the stupid blue sweater and muscle was heavy, even heavier when you’re drunk and trying to haul it home with you.

They took an entire five minute break when Joseph put his mouth close to Robert’s ear, breath smelling like very bad decisions, and mumbled, “You’re so warm.” Robert had to give himself time to put the kibosh on half a boner before they could start moving again.

Robert had no idea how they finally managed to do it, but they reached his house and stopped at his front door.

“Joseph, can you stand on your own for ten seconds while I get my keys?” Robert asked. They were in the pocket of his jeans, on the side of him that Joseph was leaning against.

Joseph nodded and released Robert, putting his hands on the house to steady himself. Robert fumbled with his keys, but ultimately got the correct one in hand and unlocked the door.

To say that Robert’s house was a mess would be putting it lightly, which turned out to be a big problem when trying to maneuver through it in the dark with a drunk Bible thumper latched onto him. As they moved through the house, Robert remembered the biggest obstacle of all.

“Joseph.”

“Mm?”

“There’s… stairs,” Robert said, head starting to throb. “And you’re drunk and fucking heavy.”

The couch would be much more practical, but also so much more uncomfortable than his bed. He thought about just leaving Joseph on the couch and taking himself to bed, but Joseph looked so tormented and completely gone that Robert didn’t really want him to wake up on an unknown couch in an unknown house after a night he probably wouldn’t remember. Robert knew how that felt all too well.

Finding some last bit of strength, Robert pulled Joseph close to his side and carefully helped him walk up the stairs. It seemed like it took years instead of minutes, but they finally conquered the last step and stumbled into the bedroom.

At that point, Robert had enough of carrying Joseph and just sort of leaned him back until he fell ungracefully onto the bed. He landed with his head mostly on a pillow, so Robert considered it a success.

“Your bed?” Joseph slurred, not opening his eyes.

“Yeah, my bed. And you’ve got your shoes on still.”

There was no response, so Robert took the liberty of pulling off Joseph’s loafers one after the other and throwing them to land only God knows where. He reached for the button and zipper of Joseph’s stupid khakis, intending to pull them off in one go like a tablecloth from under dishes, but a warm hand stopped him.

In the dark, he could see that Joseph’s eyes were half open and he was propped up on one elbow. He didn’t look offended or scared, just strangely intense. Were his eyes always that dark? Robert wondered. The silence stretched between them, filled with unspoken things that Robert wasn’t expecting.

“You want to sleep with your pants on?” Robert asked bluntly, not moving his hand or breaking eye contact. He wasn’t really in the mood to have the ‘I don’t fuck people that are too wasted to walk five feet alone’ talk and he definitely wasn’t in the mood to have it with a married man at whatever o’clock, but he would do whatever it took to get into bed at that point.

Whatever was possessing Joseph seemed to leave him, because he shook his head once and laid back onto the bed. Robert took that as Joseph’s consent and he made quick work of the khaki pants, leaving those at the foot of the bed.

“You’re a briefs guy. I should’ve guessed.”

Joseph snored softly in response.

Robert took this opportunity to strip off his jeans and crawl into bed, made it to where his head would hit the pillow, and flopped onto his stomach. There were so many fucked up things with sleeping in the same bed as a married Christian dad whose wife was batshit crazy, but he was suddenly too tired to care. He fell asleep within seconds.

At some point during the night or the early morning, Robert briefly woke when he felt something warm pressing against the length of his side. Judging from the smell of Light Blue and very bad decisions, his sleep-addled brain told him it was Joseph.

As he thought about it for another few moments, Robert realized it was definitely Joseph. Joseph had shifted over towards Robert’s side of the bed and his back was facing Robert, but something seemed off.

“I don’t… want… I don’t want to…”

Great, he was a sleep talker. Robert rubbed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep, but Joseph mumbled again and his back twitched.

“Please… I love… I love her, don’t…”

Robert tried to remember where he kept the earplugs, if he even had any.

He didn’t have a lot of time to think about it before Joseph’s entire body spasmed and he started shaking.

“You don’t have a choice.”

Robert froze up and waited for Joseph to say something else. There was nothing else for a while except Joseph’s labored breathing and a ticking clock somewhere that Robert was going to throw away as soon as possible.

Joseph started to shake again, but Robert knew that this was different than whatever night terrors he had been experiencing. These were sobs wracking his body, accompanied by soft, stifled crying.

Robert didn’t need much more coaxing than that to turn onto his side, facing Joseph’s back. He wrapped an arm around his waist and pressed his lips to the back of Joseph’s neck, shushing him for a long time until the crying finally stopped, his breathing evening out and his body going lax in Robert’s hold.

When he was satisfied that Joseph had fallen back asleep, Robert thought about pulling away and turning over, but decided not to. There wasn’t any harm in spooning a married Christian dad with a batshit crazy wife, he supposed, even if Joseph said some scary shit in his sleep. Whatever demons haunted Joseph, Robert knew he couldn’t chase them away entirely, but hopefully he could keep them away until the morning.

Feeling completely exhausted and ready to sleep for a week, Robert pushed his nose into the hair at the nape of Joseph’s neck and fell asleep.

[julesdelorme]

faller

chapter 6

the man

call me faller.

what they called me.

what they call me now.

what i call myself most of the time.

i call myself faller and they call me faller because that’s what I am. that’s who i am.

the worst insult you can hear if you’re a fighter. the worst insult you you can ever hear. worse than bastard or sonofabitch or coward or cocksucker. 

mostly they don’t say it to my face. 

mostly.

not at first but they said it and i heard it. and i didn’t say nothing. and i say it myself now. because it’s what i am. 

i could fight.

i still can fight.

mostly. 

i could win most of those fights. i can’t remember when exactly i stopped knowing i could win. i can’t remember anything exactly right no more. but the first time that somebody offered me money and i took it. and then i kept taking it because taking it was easy. the money. a lot easier than not knowing how the fight was going to turn out. a lot easier after a while than saying i didn’t want to take the money no more. the thing is after a while i didn’t even need to fake it. after a while i started to fall down for real. even though i used to be able to take any punch or kick and stay stay on my feet. all of a sudden i couldn’t. and even the maybe. even the maybe of being a halfway good fighter was gone.

they used to call it punchy.

when your brain gets all scrambled from too many hits. punchy. hands started to shake. the world started to look like broken television. i couldn’t remember things even simple things. people started to sound like they were talking from another room even when they were right there.

and i started falling down all on my own.

i would be walking along. the next thing i knew somebody was looking down at me. i was looking up at them. or at the ceiling. or up at the sky. the doctors even the bad ones even the very worst ones wouldn’t pass me to fight. not even in the dive bars no more. i was washed up. the booze and the drugs that were always part of it. then that’s all there was. wasn’t even the the fighting. i wasn’t even anything like a real fighter. not even the maybe of being a real fighter. i started to steal and rob. acting crazy.. even crazier than i ever was. all the time in the joint. like i was in more than i was out. the doctors in the joint telling me about scar tissue on my brain. making me fall down. all the tests. more tests that i couldn’t even say the name of. my brain didn’t work right. maybe it it never did work right. but now it was really fucked up. all i wanted to do was get out. just get out. get wasted and drunk to forget the pain. forget i was a useless drunk. useless drugged up fuck. washed up. all washed up.

then i started to think about going back.

started to think all the time about going back to the river. 

nothing but the river. no plans. no ideas except the river and going back.

every time i got out i would do something crazy end up back in the joint. get back on the booze. get back on the drugs. crack mostly. any kind of drugs i could get my hands on. anything to make the darkness not so heavy. make the darkness not so smothering for a little while. i would need more money. so i would do something stupid. get caught. end right back in the joint again. i never was no criminal genius. just some idiot that wanted something to push the darkness back just a little bit.

sometimes i would still get a fight for money. even then. it wouldn’t take more than one good shot before i was falling down again. the money got less. even less every single time. the fights got uglier. i got uglier. uglier meaner places. i got meaner. got easier to rob some place or or break into some place. i was never smart enough to get that right. end up back inside. all i could think about was needing to get get back to the river. only way the story could end. all i wanted. the fucking story to end.

i didn’t have no more feeling about dying than i did about living. just needed to get to the river. 

to the end. it needed to fit somehow. the beginning to the end. i was born dead. the actual dying was just some word. a word that was way past the time to say it. 

just needed to stay out for even a minute. so i could make it back to the river.

but i needed money. every time i tried to get my hands on cash. just ended up back inside. social workers. bible thumpers. telling me they could get me money from the government. on account of my head being so so messed up. but i didn’t want the government’s money. just wanted my own money. all i needed some halfway decent score where i didn’t get caught. except i was never smart enough not to get caught. not even before all the head damage.

the one social worker. fat and pasty. like a slug. lizard eyes. got real pissed at me because i didn’t want the government’s money.  that i would steal it from some store owner who never did nothing to me. that fat lizard eye slob couldn’t figure that. stealing wasn’t begging or taking handouts. didn’t even bother trying to tell it to him. it would never make no sense to someone like him. taking money from the government to go around like he gave a shit. 

i got out and saw him on the street one day and and kicked his fat slug lizard face in.

kicked it in so bad he died.

the lawyer brings up my head damage. said some shit about the guy diddling prisoners. i get seven for manslaughter.

when i got out this time i just started walking. kept on walking. no money. nothing to sleep in. just clothes and shoes. shoes worn through with holes. i got to the river. to the place where the river got started. or ended. i can never remember which one. i just kept on walking. i didn’t know where exactly. to the island. to the rez. didn’t know where the house where i grew up even was. where it used to be. just hoped that if i kept on walking i might come to the place. if there was a real place that i remembered. i would know it. i would know that place. then it could all be just end. i didn’t give a shit about them coming after me anymore. i just wanted to get to get to the river. get all the fucked up shit to end. all the falling down and and all the other shit to end finally. just get to the river. to the island. where it started so i could get it to end.

i never did find the place. maybe because it was all twisted. maybe because i was all changed. maybe because i couldn’t find the memories no more. with all the getting hit in the head and the falling down. i kept walking thinking maybe i would run into some place i would know. even without remembering it. but the rez was changed. not the dead filthy stinking thing i remembered. something cleaner. almost pretty and soft. nothing i knew belonged there. i didn’t belong there. they cleaned up all the memories. scrubbed them clean. so clean they didn’t even belong to me no more. this wasn’t my world no more. i could walk forever and nothing was going to be my remembering of it. 

it was that knowing. that the island wasn’t the place from my memories. it left me all of a sudden worn out. tired. hot. dry in my mouth so i couldn’t even swallow or make spit. long time ago i would go off into the woods without food or water. i would walk without sleeping or stopping. old woman told everybody i was doing some kind of spirit walk. all i was doing was walking. getting away from the world. getting away from the old man’s fists. sometimes i think maybe i was doing some kind of spirit walk. i just didn’t know it. like the old lady was telling the truth without me knowing it was the truth. 

mostly i was just walking.

i was feeling like i couldn’t couldn’t walk no more. then i see the boy. this skinny kid standing there watching me. arms wrapped around burned out old fence post. half burned down house. old goat tied up with a rope. he felt to me like i knew him. the kid i mean. like he was something or somebody. that half burned down house and the goat. like i knew it. like i remembered  it.

i felt like i knew the kid. and like maybe he would know me.

crazy.

so i started walking to them.

i didn’t even don’t even know why i was walking. 

i didn’t even know right away i was walking. 

somehow my feet changed direction without my knowing it. i was walking to this boy that i didn’t know. his old goat i didn’t know. but i was sure i knew them.

the kid didn’t move.

just stood there.

the goat was raising a racket. but then even the goat got quiet. like it knew me.

crazy. batshit crazy.

in that place. probably still even behind all the nice houses and the shiny boats. for a kid to just stand there when a grown up especially a fucked up grown up was coming towards him wasn’t normal. i remembered that. i knew that. people in that place were dangerous. even with more money in pockets they were probably still dangerous. people in every place are dangerous. but in a different way than than in places like that. in other places you don’t know the kind of hurt they’re going to to do. they don’t mean no harm at first. but in in places like the island the rez doing bad things is all there is. always there underneath the clean and shiny outside. pretty much anybody in that place still meant hurt. normal thing to do is get out of the way or do something ugly before before they do something ugly to you.

the kid just stood there.

the goat just stood there.

he didn’t look like there was nothing wrong with him. the kid i mean. he didn’t look like a retard. like he was off his head. at least on the outside on the outside he looked normal. but it wasn’t normal in that place to to just stand there. it was not normal when you saw somebody fucked up like me. scarred up and twitchy like me. all the scars and the the gimped up walk coming towards you. but the kid just stood there and the goat just stood there. 

they just stood there. 

i kept on walking.

that’s what happened.

just that.

just that.

them standing there and and me walking to them.

that was the start.

not the end.

not the end yet.

almost maybe.

wherever i was going this was the start

i didn’t even know where i was but that was the start.

i was done walking.

for now.

for now i was done walking. 

#fiction #writing #writers #authors #author #novels #novelnovels #newnovels #julesdelorme #julesfdelorme #faller #delormewriting #scarboroughwritersfightclub #story #bear #native #nativestories #metis #metisstories

[julesdelorme]

faller

chapter 6

the man

call me faller.

what they called me.

what they call me now.

what i call myself most of the time.

i call myself faller and they call me faller because that’s what I am. that’s who i am.

the worst insult you can hear if you’re a fighter. the worst insult you you can ever hear. worse than bastard or sonofabitch or coward or cocksucker.

mostly they don’t say it to my face.

mostly.

not at first but they said it and i heard it. and i didn’t say nothing. and i say it myself now. because it’s what i am.

i could fight.

i still can fight.

mostly.

i could win most of those fights. i can’t remember when exactly i stopped knowing i could win. i can’t remember anything exactly right no more. but the first time that somebody offered me money and i took it. and then i kept taking it because taking it was easy. the money. a lot easier than not knowing how the fight was going to turn out. a lot easier after a while than saying i didn’t want to take the money no more. the thing is after a while i didn’t even need to fake it. after a while i started to fall down for real. even though i used to be able to take any punch or kick and stay stay on my feet. all of a sudden i couldn’t. and even the maybe. even the maybe of being a halfway good fighter was gone.

they used to call it punchy.

when your brain gets all scrambled from too many hits. punchy. hands started to shake. the world started to look like broken television. i couldn’t remember things even simple things. people started to sound like they were talking from another room even when they were right there.

and i started falling down all on my own.

i would be walking along. the next thing i knew somebody was looking down at me. i was looking up at them. or at the ceiling. or up at the sky. the doctors even the bad ones even the very worst ones wouldn’t pass me to fight. not even in the dive bars no more. i was washed up. the booze and the drugs that were always part of it. then that’s all there was. wasn’t even the the fighting. i wasn’t even anything like a real fighter. not even the maybe of being a real fighter. i started to steal and rob. acting crazy.. even crazier than i ever was. all the time in the joint. like i was in more than i was out. the doctors in the joint telling me about scar tissue on my brain. making me fall down. all the tests. more tests that i couldn’t even say the name of. my brain didn’t work right. maybe it it never did work right. but now it was really fucked up. all i wanted to do was get out. just get out. get wasted and drunk to forget the pain. forget i was a useless drunk. useless drugged up fuck. washed up. all washed up.

then i started to think about going back.

started to think all the time about going back to the river.

nothing but the river. no plans. no ideas except the river and going back.

every time i got out i would do something crazy end up back in the joint. get back on the booze. get back on the drugs. crack mostly. any kind of drugs i could get my hands on. anything to make the darkness not so heavy. make the darkness not so smothering for a little while. i would need more money. so i would do something stupid. get caught. end right back in the joint again. i never was no criminal genius. just some idiot that wanted something to push the darkness back just a little bit.

sometimes i would still get a fight for money. even then. it wouldn’t take more than one good shot before i was falling down again. the money got less. even less every single time. the fights got uglier. i got uglier. uglier meaner places. i got meaner. got easier to rob some place or or break into some place. i was never smart enough to get that right. end up back inside. all i could think about was needing to get get back to the river. only way the story could end. all i wanted. the fucking story to end.

i didn’t have no more feeling about dying than i did about living. just needed to get to the river.

to the end. it needed to fit somehow. the beginning to the end. i was born dead. the actual dying was just some word. a word that was way past the time to say it.

just needed to stay out for even a minute. so i could make it back to the river.

but i needed money. every time i tried to get my hands on cash. just ended up back inside. social workers. bible thumpers. telling me they could get me money from the government. on account of my head being so so messed up. but i didn’t want the government’s money. just wanted my own money. all i needed some halfway decent score where i didn’t get caught. except i was never smart enough not to get caught. not even before all the head damage.

the one social worker. fat and pasty. like a slug. lizard eyes. got real pissed at me because i didn’t want the government’s money.  that i would steal it from some store owner who never did nothing to me. that fat lizard eye slob couldn’t figure that. stealing wasn’t begging or taking handouts. didn’t even bother trying to tell it to him. it would never make no sense to someone like him. taking money from the government to go around like he gave a shit.

i got out and saw him on the street one day and and kicked his fat slug lizard face in.

kicked it in so bad he died.

the lawyer brings up my head damage. said some shit about the guy diddling prisoners. i get seven for manslaughter.

when i got out this time i just started walking. kept on walking. no money. nothing to sleep in. just clothes and shoes. shoes worn through with holes. i got to the river. to the place where the river got started. or ended. i can never remember which one. i just kept on walking. i didn’t know where exactly. to the island. to the rez. didn’t know where the house where i grew up even was. where it used to be. just hoped that if i kept on walking i might come to the place. if there was a real place that i remembered. i would know it. i would know that place. then it could all be just end. i didn’t give a shit about them coming after me anymore. i just wanted to get to get to the river. get all the fucked up shit to end. all the falling down and and all the other shit to end finally. just get to the river. to the island. where it started so i could get it to end.

i never did find the place. maybe because it was all twisted. maybe because i was all changed. maybe because i couldn’t find the memories no more. with all the getting hit in the head and the falling down. i kept walking thinking maybe i would run into some place i would know. even without remembering it. but the rez was changed. not the dead filthy stinking thing i remembered. something cleaner. almost pretty and soft. nothing i knew belonged there. i didn’t belong there. they cleaned up all the memories. scrubbed them clean. so clean they didn’t even belong to me no more. this wasn’t my world no more. i could walk forever and nothing was going to be my remembering of it.

it was that knowing. that the island wasn’t the place from my memories. it left me all of a sudden worn out. tired. hot. dry in my mouth so i couldn’t even swallow or make spit. long time ago i would go off into the woods without food or water. i would walk without sleeping or stopping. old woman told everybody i was doing some kind of spirit walk. all i was doing was walking. getting away from the world. getting away from the old man’s fists. sometimes i think maybe i was doing some kind of spirit walk. i just didn’t know it. like the old lady was telling the truth without me knowing it was the truth.

mostly i was just walking.

i was feeling like i couldn’t couldn’t walk no more. then i see the boy. this skinny kid standing there watching me. arms wrapped around burned out old fence post. half burned down house. old goat tied up with a rope. he felt to me like i knew him. the kid i mean. like he was something or somebody. that half burned down house and the goat. like i knew it. like i remembered  it.

i felt like i knew the kid. and like maybe he would know me.

crazy.

so i started walking to them.

i didn’t even don’t even know why i was walking.

i didn’t even know right away i was walking.

somehow my feet changed direction without my knowing it. i was walking to this boy that i didn’t know. his old goat i didn’t know. but i was sure i knew them.

the kid didn’t move.

just stood there.

the goat was raising a racket. but then even the goat got quiet. like it knew me.

crazy. batshit crazy.

in that place. probably still even behind all the nice houses and the shiny boats. for a kid to just stand there when a grown up especially a fucked up grown up was coming towards him wasn’t normal. i remembered that. i knew that. people in that place were dangerous. even with more money in pockets they were probably still dangerous. people in every place are dangerous. but in a different way than than in places like that. in other places you don’t know the kind of hurt they’re going to to do. they don’t mean no harm at first. but in in places like the island the rez doing bad things is all there is. always there underneath the clean and shiny outside. pretty much anybody in that place still meant hurt. normal thing to do is get out of the way or do something ugly before before they do something ugly to you.

the kid just stood there.

the goat just stood there.

he didn’t look like there was nothing wrong with him. the kid i mean. he didn’t look like a retard. like he was off his head. at least on the outside on the outside he looked normal. but it wasn’t normal in that place to to just stand there. it was not normal when you saw somebody fucked up like me. scarred up and twitchy like me. all the scars and the the gimped up walk coming towards you. but the kid just stood there and the goat just stood there.

they just stood there.

i kept on walking.

that’s what happened.

just that.

just that.

them standing there and and me walking to them.

that was the start.

not the end.

not the end yet.

almost maybe.

wherever i was going this was the start

i didn’t even know where i was but that was the start.

i was done walking.

for now.

for now i was done walking.

https://www.facebook.com/delormewriting

#fiction #writing #writers #authors #author #novels #novelnovels#newnovels #julesdelorme #julesfdelorme #faller #delormewriting#scarboroughwritersfightclub #story #bear #native #nativestories #metis#metisstories

[julesdelorme]

faller

chapter 6

the man

call me faller.

what they called me.

what they call me now.

what i call myself most of the time.

i call myself faller and they call me faller because that’s what I am. that’s who i am.

the worst insult you can hear if you’re a fighter. the worst insult you you can ever hear. worse than bastard or sonofabitch or coward or cocksucker. 

mostly they don’t say it to my face. 

mostly.

not at first but they said it and i heard it. and i didn’t say nothing. and i say it myself now. because it’s what i am. 

i could fight.

i still can fight.

mostly. 

i could win most of those fights. i can’t remember when exactly i stopped knowing i could win. i can’t remember anything exactly right no more. but the first time that somebody offered me money and i took it. and then i kept taking it because taking it was easy. the money. a lot easier than not knowing how the fight was going to turn out. a lot easier after a while than saying i didn’t want to take the money no more. the thing is after a while i didn’t even need to fake it. after a while i started to fall down for real. even though i used to be able to take any punch or kick and stay stay on my feet. all of a sudden i couldn’t. and even the maybe. even the maybe of being a halfway good fighter was gone.

they used to call it punchy.

when your brain gets all scrambled from too many hits. punchy. hands started to shake. the world started to look like broken television. i couldn’t remember things even simple things. people started to sound like they were talking from another room even when they were right there.

and i started falling down all on my own.

i would be walking along. the next thing i knew somebody was looking down at me. i was looking up at them. or at the ceiling. or up at the sky. the doctors even the bad ones even the very worst ones wouldn’t pass me to fight. not even in the dive bars no more. i was washed up. the booze and the drugs that were always part of it. then that’s all there was. wasn’t even the the fighting. i wasn’t even anything like a real fighter. not even the maybe of being a real fighter. i started to steal and rob. acting crazy.. even crazier than i ever was. all the time in the joint. like i was in more than i was out. the doctors in the joint telling me about scar tissue on my brain. making me fall down. all the tests. more tests that i couldn’t even say the name of. my brain didn’t work right. maybe it it never did work right. but now it was really fucked up. all i wanted to do was get out. just get out. get wasted and drunk to forget the pain. forget i was a useless drunk. useless drugged up fuck. washed up. all washed up.

then i started to think about going back.

started to think all the time about going back to the river. 

nothing but the river. no plans. no ideas except the river and going back.

every time i got out i would do something crazy end up back in the joint. get back on the booze. get back on the drugs. crack mostly. any kind of drugs i could get my hands on. anything to make the darkness not so heavy. make the darkness not so smothering for a little while. i would need more money. so i would do something stupid. get caught. end right back in the joint again. i never was no criminal genius. just some idiot that wanted something to push the darkness back just a little bit.

sometimes i would still get a fight for money. even then. it wouldn’t take more than one good shot before i was falling down again. the money got less. even less every single time. the fights got uglier. i got uglier. uglier meaner places. i got meaner. got easier to rob some place or or break into some place. i was never smart enough to get that right. end up back inside. all i could think about was needing to get get back to the river. only way the story could end. all i wanted. the fucking story to end.

i didn’t have no more feeling about dying than i did about living. just needed to get to the river. 

to the end. it needed to fit somehow. the beginning to the end. i was born dead. the actual dying was just some word. a word that was way past the time to say it. 

just needed to stay out for even a minute. so i could make it back to the river.

but i needed money. every time i tried to get my hands on cash. just ended up back inside. social workers. bible thumpers. telling me they could get me money from the government. on account of my head being so so messed up. but i didn’t want the government’s money. just wanted my own money. all i needed some halfway decent score where i didn’t get caught. except i was never smart enough not to get caught. not even before all the head damage.

the one social worker. fat and pasty. like a slug. lizard eyes. got real pissed at me because i didn’t want the government’s money.  that i would steal it from some store owner who never did nothing to me. that fat lizard eye slob couldn’t figure that. stealing wasn’t begging or taking handouts. didn’t even bother trying to tell it to him. it would never make no sense to someone like him. taking money from the government to go around like he gave a shit. 

i got out and saw him on the street one day and and kicked his fat slug lizard face in.

kicked it in so bad he died.

the lawyer brings up my head damage. said some shit about the guy diddling prisoners. i get seven for manslaughter.

when i got out this time i just started walking. kept on walking. no money. nothing to sleep in. just clothes and shoes. shoes worn through with holes. i got to the river. to the place where the river got started. or ended. i can never remember which one. i just kept on walking. i didn’t know where exactly. to the island. to the rez. didn’t know where the house where i grew up even was. where it used to be. just hoped that if i kept on walking i might come to the place. if there was a real place that i remembered. i would know it. i would know that place. then it could all be just end. i didn’t give a shit about them coming after me anymore. i just wanted to get to get to the river. get all the fucked up shit to end. all the falling down and and all the other shit to end finally. just get to the river. to the island. where it started so i could get it to end.

i never did find the place. maybe because it was all twisted. maybe because i was all changed. maybe because i couldn’t find the memories no more. with all the getting hit in the head and the falling down. i kept walking thinking maybe i would run into some place i would know. even without remembering it. but the rez was changed. not the dead filthy stinking thing i remembered. something cleaner. almost pretty and soft. nothing i knew belonged there. i didn’t belong there. they cleaned up all the memories. scrubbed them clean. so clean they didn’t even belong to me no more. this wasn’t my world no more. i could walk forever and nothing was going to be my remembering of it. 

it was that knowing. that the island wasn’t the place from my memories. it left me all of a sudden worn out. tired. hot. dry in my mouth so i couldn’t even swallow or make spit. long time ago i would go off into the woods without food or water. i would walk without sleeping or stopping. old woman told everybody i was doing some kind of spirit walk. all i was doing was walking. getting away from the world. getting away from the old man’s fists. sometimes i think maybe i was doing some kind of spirit walk. i just didn’t know it. like the old lady was telling the truth without me knowing it was the truth. 

mostly i was just walking.

i was feeling like i couldn’t couldn’t walk no more. then i see the boy. this skinny kid standing there watching me. arms wrapped around burned out old fence post. half burned down house. old goat tied up with a rope. he felt to me like i knew him. the kid i mean. like he was something or somebody. that half burned down house and the goat. like i knew it. like i remembered  it.

i felt like i knew the kid. and like maybe he would know me.

crazy.

so i started walking to them.

i didn’t even don’t even know why i was walking. 

i didn’t even know right away i was walking. 

somehow my feet changed direction without my knowing it. i was walking to this boy that i didn’t know. his old goat i didn’t know. but i was sure i knew them.

the kid didn’t move.

just stood there.

the goat was raising a racket. but then even the goat got quiet. like it knew me.

crazy. batshit crazy.

in that place. probably still even behind all the nice houses and the shiny boats. for a kid to just stand there when a grown up especially a fucked up grown up was coming towards him wasn’t normal. i remembered that. i knew that. people in that place were dangerous. even with more money in pockets they were probably still dangerous. people in every place are dangerous. but in a different way than than in places like that. in other places you don’t know the kind of hurt they’re going to to do. they don’t mean no harm at first. but in in places like the island the rez doing bad things is all there is. always there underneath the clean and shiny outside. pretty much anybody in that place still meant hurt. normal thing to do is get out of the way or do something ugly before before they do something ugly to you.

the kid just stood there.

the goat just stood there.

he didn’t look like there was nothing wrong with him. the kid i mean. he didn’t look like a retard. like he was off his head. at least on the outside on the outside he looked normal. but it wasn’t normal in that place to to just stand there. it was not normal when you saw somebody fucked up like me. scarred up and twitchy like me. all the scars and the the gimped up walk coming towards you. but the kid just stood there and the goat just stood there. 

they just stood there. 

i kept on walking.

that’s what happened.

just that.

just that.

them standing there and and me walking to them.

that was the start.

not the end.

not the end yet.

almost maybe.

wherever i was going this was the start

i didn’t even know where i was but that was the start.

i was done walking.

for now.

for now i was done walking. 

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[julesdelorme]

faller

chapter 6

the man

call me faller.

what they called me.

what they call me now.

what i call myself most of the time.

i call myself faller and they called me faller because that’s what I am.

that’s who i am.

the worst insult you can hear if you’re a fighter. the worst insult you you can ever hear. worse than bastard or sonofabitch or coward or cocksucker.

mostly they don’t say it to my face.

mostly.

not at first but they said it and i heard it and and i didn’t say nothing and i say it myself now because it’s what i am.

i could fight.

i can still fight.

mostly.

i could win most of those fights but and i can’t remember when exactly i can’t remember anything exactly no more but the first time that somebody offered me money and i took it and then i kept taking it because taking the money was so easy easier than not knowing how the fight was going to turn out and a lot easier after a while than saying i didn’t want to take the money no more. the thing is after a while i didn’t even need to fake it. after a while i started to fall down for real even though i used to be able to take any punch or kick and stay stay on my feet all of a sudden i couldn’t and even the maybe even the maybe of being a halfway good fighter was gone.

they used to call in punchy.

when your brain gets all scrambled from too many hits. punchy. hands started to shake and the world started to look like broken television and i couldn’t remember things even simple things and people started to sound like they were talking from another room even when they were right there.

and i started falling down all on my own.

i would be walking along and the next thing i knew somebody was looking down at me and i was looking up at them or at the ceiling or up at the sky and the doctors even the bad ones even the very worst ones wouldn’t pass me to fight not even in the dive bars no more and i was washed up and the booze and the drugs that were always part of it part but then that’s all there was there wasn’t even the the fighting i wasn’t even anything like a real fighter or even the maybe of being a real fighter i started to steal and rob then and acting crazy even crazier than i ever was time all the time in the joint and it was was like i was in more than i was out and the doctors in the joint telling me about the scar tissue on my brain that was making me fall down and all the tests and more tests the more tests that i couldn’t even say the name of and my brain didn’t work right maybe it it never did but now it was really fucked up and and all i wanted to do was get out just get out and get wasted and drunk to forget the pain forget i was a useless drunk drug fuck up all washed up all washed up.

then i started to think about going back.

i stated to think all the time about going back to the river.

nothing but the river no no plans or ideas except the river and going back.

but every time i got out i would do something crazy end up back in the can. get back on the booze and drugs any kind of drugs i could get my hands on anything to make make the darkness make the darkness not so heavy so so smothering for a little while and i would need more money so i would do something stupid get caught end right back in the joint again again again cuz i never was no criminal genius just just some idiot that wanted something to push the darkness back just a little bit.

sometimes i would still get a fight for money even then even then it wouldn’t take more than one good shot before i was falling falling down again the money got less even less less the fights got uglier even uglier i got uglier even uglier meaner places i got meaner before long it was easier to rob some place or or break into some place i was never smart enough to get that right so i end up back inside all i could think about was how i needed to get get back to the river the river because that was the only way the story gets to end all i wanted the fucking story just wanted the  story to fucking end.

i didn’t have no more feeling about dying than i did about living just that i needed to go to the river to the river where i was born and get to the end.

just end.

just end.

that it needed to fit somehow the beginning the beginning to the end. i was born dead and the actual dying was just some word just some word a word that was way past the time to say it.

i just needed to stay out for even a minute so i i could make it back to the river.

but i needed money every time tried to get hands on cash ended up back inside the social workers the prayer bible thumpers telling me they could get me money from the government on account of my head being so so messed up but i didn’t want the government’s money i i just wanted my own money all i needed some halfway decent score where i didn’t get caught except i was never smart enough not to get caught even before all before all the head damage.

the one social worker fat fat and pasty like a slug fucking with lizard eyes got real mad at me because i i didn’t want the government’s money but i would steal it from some store owner who never did nothing to me because that fat lizard eye slob couldn’t figure that that stealing wasn’t begging or taking handouts at least. i i didn’t even bother trying to tell it to him because it would never make no sense to someone like him taking money from the government to go around acting like he like he gave a shit.

i got out and saw him on the street one day and and kicked his fucking lizard face in.

kicked it in so bad he died.

the lawyer brings up my head damage and said some shit about the guy diddling prisoners and i get seven for manslaughter.

when i got out this time i just started walking and kept on walking kept on walking with no money nothing to sleep in just my clothes and shoes shoes worn through till i got to the river to the place where the river got started or ended i can never i can never remember which one and i just kept on walking because i i didn’t know where exactly just to the island but i didn’t know where the house where i grew up even was where where it used to be i just hoped that if i kept on walking i might come to the place if there was a real place that i remembered and i would know that place and and then it would all be just end. i didn’t give a shit about them coming after me anymore even i just wanted to get to get to the river and get all the fucked up shit all the falling down and and all the other shit to end finally why had to get to the river to the island where it started so it i could get it to end.

but i never did i never did find the place i was looking for maybe because it was all twisted changed maybe because i was all twisted twisted and changed or maybe because i couldn’t find the memories no more with all the getting hit in the head and the falling down. i kept walking and and walking thinking maybe i would run into some place i would know even without remembering it but the rez was changed from a dead dead filthy stinking thing to to something cleaner and prettier and prettier and softer and nothing i knew belonged there i didn’t i didn’t belong there no more they cleaned up all the memories and nothing nothing was nothing i knew like they had taken all my memories all my dirty ugly memories and and scrubbed them clean so clean they didn’t even belong to me no more and this wasn’t my world no more i could walk forever and nothing nothing was going to be my remembering of it.

it was that knowing that knowing that the island wasn’t the place from my memories left me all of a sudden all of a sudden worn out and tired and hot and so dry in my mouth i i couldn’t even swallow or make spit in my mouth. long time before i would go off into the woods without food or water and and i would just walk and walk without sleeping or stopping. the old woman my grandmother told everybody i was doing some kind of spirit walk but but all i was doing was walking and getting away from the world and getting away from the old man’s fists. sometimes sometimes i think though maybe i was doing some kind of spirit walk i just didn’t know it and the old lady was telling the truth.

mostly i was just walking.

mostly i was just walking.

right about when i was feeling like i couldn’t couldn’t walk no more couldn’t walk no more ever ever i see the boy this skinny kid standing there watching me his arms wrapped around burned out old fence post in front in front of half burned down house a old goat some old goat tied up with a rope him the boy even though i didn’t know him even though there was no way i could know this kid or remember him the boy he felt to me like i knew him like he was something not somebody some some thing with that half burned down house and the and the goat that i knew and that i remembered even though he couldn’t be something i knew he felt like something i knew even the goat was something i knew.

i felt like i knew him and and maybe he would know me.

maybe he would know me.

not the boy so much something about the kid and that burned up place and the goat.

it felt like he was one thing the first thing in that place that that was like i remembered i remembered and knew even though he was just some kid complete stranger even though there wasn’t nothing about his face or or clothes or the way he stood with his arms around burned worn out old fence post was like something or somebody i could remember even a goat even a goat i could remember except it felt like i remembered them or i knew them it felt like i knew them.

so i started walking to them.

i don’t even don’t even know why i was walking.

i didn’t even know right away i was walking to them.

just somehow my feet changed direction without my knowing it i was walking to this boy that i didn’t know his old goat i didn’t know but i was sure i knew i was sure i knew them.

the kid didn’t move.

he didn’t move.

he just stood there.

the goat raising a racket but then about then even the goat got quiet and still and stood there like it knew me.

in that place in the place that i knew remembered even though it was nothing like anything i knew or remembered and and probably still even behind all the nice houses and the shiny boats for a kid to just stand there when a grown up especially a fucked up grown up was coming towards him wasn’t normal. i remembered that. i remembered that. i knew that. people in that place were dangerous even with more money in pockets they they were probably still dangerous. people in every place are dangerous but in a different way than than in places like that in other places you don’t know the kind of hurt they’re going to to do because they don’t mean no harm not at first but in in places like the island doing bad things is all there is it it always there right there underneath the clean and shiny outside pretty much anybody in that place still mean hurt so if somebody if somebody comes at you the normal thing to do is get out of the way or do something ugly before before they do something ugly to you.

but the kid just stood there.

and the goat the goat just stood there.

he didn’t look like there was nothing wrong with him. the kid i mean. he didn’t look like a retard or like he was off his head the way the way lots of kids popped out of their drunk moms at least on the outside on the outside he looked normal but it wasn’t normal in that place to to just stand there it was especially not normal when you saw somebody fucked up like me all scarred up and twitchy like me all the scars and the the gimped up walk coming towards you but the kid just stood there and the goat just stood there.

they just stood there. i kept on walking.

that’s what happened.

just that.

just that.

them standing there and and me walking to them.

me walking and the kid and the goat standing.

just standing.

that was the start.

not end.

not end yet.

almost maybe.

almost maybe the end.

wherever i was going this was the start

i i didn’t even know where i was but that was the start.

and i was done walking.

for now.

for now i was done walking.

#fiction #writing #writers #authors #author #novels #novelnovels #newnovels #julesdelorme #julesfdelorme #faller #delormewriting #scarboroughwritersfightclub #story #bear #native #nativestories #metis #metisstories

[julesdelorme]

faller

chapter 6

the man

call me faller.

what they called me.

what they call me now.

what i call myself most of the time.

i call myself faller and they called me faller because that’s what I am.

that’s who i am.

the worst insult you can hear if you’re a fighter. the worst insult you you can ever hear. worse than bastard or sonofabitch or coward or cocksucker.

mostly they don’t say it to my face.

mostly.

not at first but they said it and i heard it and and i didn’t say nothing and i say it myself now because it’s what i am.

i could fight.

i can still fight.

mostly.

i could win most of those fights but and i can’t remember when exactly i can’t remember anything exactly no more but the first time that somebody offered me money and i took it and then i kept taking it because taking the money was so easy easier than not knowing how the fight was going to turn out and a lot easier after a while than saying i didn’t want to take the money no more. the thing is after a while i didn’t even need to fake it. after a while i started to fall down for real even though i used to be able to take any punch or kick and stay stay on my feet all of a sudden i couldn’t and even the maybe even the maybe of being a halfway good fighter was gone.

they used to call in punchy.

when your brain gets all scrambled from too many hits. punchy. hands started to shake and the world started to look like broken television and i couldn’t remember things even simple things and people started to sound like they were talking from another room even when they were right there.

and i started falling down all on my own.

i would be walking along and the next thing i knew somebody was looking down at me and i was looking up at them or at the ceiling or up at the sky and the doctors even the bad ones even the very worst ones wouldn’t pass me to fight not even in the dive bars no more and i was washed up and the booze and the drugs that were always part of it part but then that’s all there was there wasn’t even the the fighting i wasn’t even anything like a real fighter or even the maybe of being a real fighter i started to steal and rob then and acting crazy even crazier than i ever was time all the time in the joint and it was was like i was in more than i was out and the doctors in the joint telling me about the scar tissue on my brain that was making me fall down and all the tests and more tests the more tests that i couldn’t even say the name of and my brain didn’t work right maybe it it never did but now it was really fucked up and and all i wanted to do was get out just get out and get wasted and drunk to forget the pain forget i was a useless drunk drug fuck up all washed up all washed up.

then i started to think about going back.

i stated to think all the time about going back to the river.

nothing but the river no no plans or ideas except the river and going back.

but every time i got out i would do something crazy end up back in the can. get back on the booze and drugs any kind of drugs i could get my hands on anything to make make the darkness make the darkness not so heavy so so smothering for a little while and i would need more money so i would do something stupid get caught end right back in the joint again again again cuz i never was no criminal genius just just some idiot that wanted something to push the darkness back just a little bit.

sometimes i would still get a fight for money even then even then it wouldn’t take more than one good shot before i was falling falling down again the money got less even less less the fights got uglier even uglier i got uglier even uglier meaner places i got meaner before long it was easier to rob some place or or break into some place i was never smart enough to get that right so i end up back inside all i could think about was how i needed to get get back to the river the river because that was the only way the story gets to end all i wanted the fucking story just wanted the  story to fucking end.

i didn’t have no more feeling about dying than i did about living just that i needed to go to the river to the river where i was born and get to the end.

just end.

just end.

that it needed to fit somehow the beginning the beginning to the end. i was born dead and the actual dying was just some word just some word a word that was way past the time to say it.

i just needed to stay out for even a minute so i i could make it back to the river.

but i needed money every time tried to get hands on cash ended up back inside the social workers the prayer bible thumpers telling me they could get me money from the government on account of my head being so so messed up but i didn’t want the government’s money i i just wanted my own money all i needed some halfway decent score where i didn’t get caught except i was never smart enough not to get caught even before all before all the head damage.

the one social worker fat fat and pasty like a slug fucking with lizard eyes got real mad at me because i i didn’t want the government’s money but i would steal it from some store owner who never did nothing to me because that fat lizard eye slob couldn’t figure that that stealing wasn’t begging or taking handouts at least. i i didn’t even bother trying to tell it to him because it would never make no sense to someone like him taking money from the government to go around acting like he like he gave a shit.

i got out and saw him on the street one day and and kicked his fucking lizard face in.

kicked it in so bad he died.

the lawyer brings up my head damage and said some shit about the guy diddling prisoners and i get seven for manslaughter.

when i got out this time i just started walking and kept on walking kept on walking with no money nothing to sleep in just my clothes and shoes shoes worn through till i got to the river to the place where the river got started or ended i can never i can never remember which one and i just kept on walking because i i didn’t know where exactly just to the island but i didn’t know where the house where i grew up even was where where it used to be i just hoped that if i kept on walking i might come to the place if there was a real place that i remembered and i would know that place and and then it would all be just end. i didn’t give a shit about them coming after me anymore even i just wanted to get to get to the river and get all the fucked up shit all the falling down and and all the other shit to end finally why had to get to the river to the island where it started so it i could get it to end.

but i never did i never did find the place i was looking for maybe because it was all twisted changed maybe because i was all twisted twisted and changed or maybe because i couldn’t find the memories no more with all the getting hit in the head and the falling down. i kept walking and and walking thinking maybe i would run into some place i would know even without remembering it but the rez was changed from a dead dead filthy stinking thing to to something cleaner and prettier and prettier and softer and nothing i knew belonged there i didn’t i didn’t belong there no more they cleaned up all the memories and nothing nothing was nothing i knew like they had taken all my memories all my dirty ugly memories and and scrubbed them clean so clean they didn’t even belong to me no more and this wasn’t my world no more i could walk forever and nothing nothing was going to be my remembering of it.

it was that knowing that knowing that the island wasn’t the place from my memories left me all of a sudden all of a sudden worn out and tired and hot and so dry in my mouth i i couldn’t even swallow or make spit in my mouth. long time before i would go off into the woods without food or water and and i would just walk and walk without sleeping or stopping. the old woman my grandmother told everybody i was doing some kind of spirit walk but but all i was doing was walking and getting away from the world and getting away from the old man’s fists. sometimes sometimes i think though maybe i was doing some kind of spirit walk i just didn’t know it and the old lady was telling the truth.

mostly i was just walking.

mostly i was just walking.

right about when i was feeling like i couldn’t couldn’t walk no more couldn’t walk no more ever ever i see the boy this skinny kid standing there watching me his arms wrapped around burned out old fence post in front in front of half burned down house a old goat some old goat tied up with a rope him the boy even though i didn’t know him even though there was no way i could know this kid or remember him the boy he felt to me like i knew him like he was something not somebody some some thing with that half burned down house and the and the goat that i knew and that i remembered even though he couldn’t be something i knew he felt like something i knew even the goat was something i knew.

i felt like i knew him and and maybe he would know me.

maybe he would know me.

not the boy so much something about the kid and that burned up place and the goat.

it felt like he was one thing the first thing in that place that that was like i remembered i remembered and knew even though he was just some kid complete stranger even though there wasn’t nothing about his face or or clothes or the way he stood with his arms around burned worn out old fence post was like something or somebody i could remember even a goat even a goat i could remember except it felt like i remembered them or i knew them it felt like i knew them.

so i started walking to them.

i don’t even don’t even know why i was walking.

i didn’t even know right away i was walking to them.

just somehow my feet changed direction without my knowing it i was walking to this boy that i didn’t know his old goat i didn’t know but i was sure i knew i was sure i knew them.

the kid didn’t move.

he didn’t move.

he just stood there.

the goat raising a racket but then about then even the goat got quiet and still and stood there like it knew me.

in that place in the place that i knew remembered even though it was nothing like anything i knew or remembered and and probably still even behind all the nice houses and the shiny boats for a kid to just stand there when a grown up especially a fucked up grown up was coming towards him wasn’t normal. i remembered that. i remembered that. i knew that. people in that place were dangerous even with more money in pockets they they were probably still dangerous. people in every place are dangerous but in a different way than than in places like that in other places you don’t know the kind of hurt they’re going to to do because they don’t mean no harm not at first but in in places like the island doing bad things is all there is it it always there right there underneath the clean and shiny outside pretty much anybody in that place still mean hurt so if somebody if somebody comes at you the normal thing to do is get out of the way or do something ugly before before they do something ugly to you.

but the kid just stood there.

and the goat the goat just stood there.

he didn’t look like there was nothing wrong with him. the kid i mean. he didn’t look like a retard or like he was off his head the way the way lots of kids popped out of their drunk moms at least on the outside on the outside he looked normal but it wasn’t normal in that place to to just stand there it was especially not normal when you saw somebody fucked up like me all scarred up and twitchy like me all the scars and the the gimped up walk coming towards you but the kid just stood there and the goat just stood there.

they just stood there. i kept on walking.

that’s what happened.

just that.

just that.

them standing there and and me walking to them.

me walking and the kid and the goat standing.

just standing.

that was the start.

not end.

not end yet.

almost maybe.

almost maybe the end.

wherever i was going this was the start

i i didn’t even know where i was but that was the start.

and i was done walking.

for now.

for now i was done walking.

#fiction #writing #writers #authors #author #novels #novelnovels #newnovels #julesdelorme #julesfdelorme #faller #delormewriting #scarboroughwritersfightclub #story #bear #native #nativestories #metis #metisstories

[julesdelorme]

faller

Chapter 3

the man

they call me faller.

it’s what they used to call me.

what they call me now.

what i call myself now.

i call myself faller and they called me faller because it was true.

because it is true.

the worst insult you can hear. the worst insult you you can ever hear. worse than bastard or sonofabitch or coward or cocksucker.

mostly they never said it to my face.

mostly.

not at first but they said it and i heard it and and i didn’t say nothing and i say it myself now because it’s true.

i could fight.

i could win most of those fights but and i can’t remember when exactly i can’t remember nothing exactly no more but the first time that somebody offered me money and i took it and then i kept taking it because taking the money was so easy easier than not knowing how the fight was going to turn out and a lot easier after a while than saying i didn’t want to take the money no more. the thing is that after a while i didn’t even need to fake it no more. after a while i started to fall down for real and even though i used to be able to take any punch or kick and stay stay on my feet but all of a sudden i couldn’t and even the maybe even the maybe of being a halfway good fighter was gone.

i started falling down all on my own.

i would be walking along and the next thing i knew somebody was looking down at me and i was looking up at them or at the ceiling or up at the sky and the doctors even the bad ones even the very worst ones wouldn’t pass me to fight not even in the dive bars no more and i was washed up and the booze and the drugs that were always part of it part of me but when there wasn’t even the the fighting when i wasn’t even anything like a real fighter or even the maybe of being a real fighter i started to steal and rob for the drugs and the booze and then and then the time all the time in the joint and it was was like i was in more than i was out and the doctors in the joint telling me about the scar tissue on my brain that was making me fall down and all the tests and the more tests the more tests that i couldn’t even say the name of and my brain didn’t work right maybe it it never did but now it was really fucked up and and all i wanted to do was get out just get out and get wasted and drunk to forget the pain forget that i was a useless drunk drug fuck up and all washed up all washed up.

then i started to think about going back.

i wanted to go back to the river.

nothing but that no no plans or ideas except the river and going back.

except that every time that i got out i would end up doing something stupid and get thrown back in the can. i would get back on the booze and the the drugs any kind of drugs that i could get my hands on anything to make make the darkness make the darkness not so heavy and so so smothering for even a little while and i would need more money so i would do something stupid and get caught and end right back in the joint again again again because i never was no criminal genius i i was just some idiot who wanted money to push the darkness back for a little while.

sometimes i could still get a fight for money but even then even then it wouldn’t take more than one good shot before i was falling down down again and the money got less and less less and the fights got uglier and uglier i got uglier and uglier and in meaner places and i i got meaner so before long it was easier to rob some place or or break into some place and i was never smart enough to get that right so i end up back inside and all i could think about was how i needed to get home get back to the river the river because that was the only way the story was ever going to get to end and i wanted the fucking story i wanted the fucking story to end.

i didn’t have no more feeling about dying than i did about living just that i needed to go to the river to the place where i was born and get it all all to end.

just that.

just that.

and that it needed to fit somehow the beginning the beginning to the end. i was born dead and the actual dying was just some word just some word and a word that was way past the time to say it.

i just needed to stay out of the pen for even a minute so i i could make it back to the river.

but i needed money and every time i tried to get my hands on any kind of cash i ended up back inside and the social workers and the prayer bible thumpers told me they could get me money from the government on account of my head being so so messed up but i didn’t want the government’s money i i just wanted my own money and all i needed was some halfway decent score where i didn’t get caught except i was never smart enough not to get caught even before all before all the head damage.

the one social worker fat fat and pasty like a slug fucking with lizard eyes got real mad at me because i i didn’t want the government’s money but i would steal it from some store owner who never did nothing to me because that fat lizard eye slob couldn’t figure that that stealing wasn’t begging or taking handouts at least. i i didn’t even bother trying to tell it to him because it would never make no sense to someone like him taking money from the government to go around acting like he like he cared about people like me.

i got out and saw him on the street one day and and kicked his fucking lizard face in.

i kicked it in so bad i killed him.

the lawyer brings up my head damage and said some shit about the guy diddling prisoners and i got seven years for manslaughter.

when i got out on parole i just started walking and kept on walking kept on walking without money or nothing to sleep in just my clothes and shoes shoes worn through till i got to the river to the place where the river started or ended i can never i can never remember which one and i just kept on walking because i i didn’t know where exactly just to the island but i didn’t know where the house where i was born even was where where it used to be i just hoped that if i kept on walking i might come to the place if there was a real place that i remembered and i would know that place and and then it would all be over. i didn’t give a shit about them coming after me anymore even i just wanted to get to get to the river and get all the fucked up shit all the falling down and and all the other shit to end finally and that was why i had to get to the river and to the island where it all started so it i could get it to end.

but i never did i never did find the place i was looking for maybe because it was all twisted changed or maybe because i was all twisted twisted and changed or maybe because i couldn’t find the memories no more with all the getting hit in the head and the falling down. i kept walking and and walking thinking maybe i would run into something i would know even without remembering it but the rez was changed from a dead dead filthy stinking thing to to something cleaner and prettier and prettier and softer and nothing i knew belonged there i didn’t i didn’t belong there no more they cleaned up all the memories and nothing nothing was nothing i knew like they had taken all my memories all my dirty ugly memories and and scrubbed them clean so they didn’t even belong to me no more and this wasn’t my world no more and i could walk forever on that island and nothing nothing was going to be my remembering of it.

it was that knowing that knowing that the island wasn’t the place from my memories left me all of a sudden all of a sudden worn out and tired and hot and so dry in my mouth i i couldn’t even swallow or make spit in my mouth. long time before i would go off into the woods without food or water and and i would just walk and walk without sleeping or stopping. the old woman my grandmother told everybody i was doing some kind of spirit walk but but all i was doing was walking and getting away from the world and getting away from the old man’s fists. sometimes sometimes i think though that maybe i was doing some kind of spirit walk and i just didn’t know it and the old lady was telling the truth.

mostly i was just walking.

mostly i was just walking.

right about when i was feeling like i was at the end of that walk maybe at the end of of all the walking ever i see the boy this boy standing there watching me with his arms wrapped around some burned out old fence post in front in front of this half burned down house and a old goat some old goat tied up on a rope him the boy even though i didn’t know him even though there was no way i could know this kid or remember him the boy he felt to me like i knew him like he was something not somebody but some some thing with that half burned down house and the and the goat that i knew and that i remembered even though he couldn’t be something i knew he felt like he was something i knew i even felt the goat was something i knew.

i felt like i knew him and maybe he knew me.

and maybe he knew me.

not the boy so much but something about the boy and that burned up place and the goat.

it felt like he was the one thing the first thing in this place that that was like i remembered i remembered and knew even though he was just some kid some complete stranger and even though there wasn’t nothing about his face or or his clothes or the way he was standing with his arms around that burned worn out old fence post that was like something or somebody that i could remember or even a goat even a goat that i could remember except it felt like i remembered them both or that i knew them it felt like i knew them.

so i started walking to them.

i don’t even don’t even know why.

i didn’t even know at first that i was walking to them.

just somehow my feet changed direction without my knowing it and i was walking to this boy that i didn’t know and his old goat that i didn’t know but i was sure i knew i was sure i knew them.

the kid didn’t move.

he didn’t move.

he just stood there.

the goat was raising a racket at first but then right about then even the goat got quiet and still and stood there like it knew me.

in that place in the place that i knew and remembered even though it was nothing like anything i knew or remembered and and probably still even behind all the nice houses and the shiny boats for a kid to just stand there when a grown up was coming towards him wasn’t normal. i remembered that. i remembered that. i knew that. people in that place were dangerous even then with more money in their pockets they they were probably still dangerous. people in every place can be dangerous but in a different way than than in places like that in other places you don’t know the kind of hurt they’re going to to do because they don’t mean no harm not at first but in in places like that doing bad things is all there ever is it it was always there right there underneath the clean and shiny outside that pretty much anybody in a place like that still meant you hurt so if somebody if somebody comes towards you the normal thing to do is to get out of the way or do something bad to them before before they do something bad to you.

but the kid just stood there.

and the goat the goat just stood there.

he didn’t look like there was nothing wrong with him. he didn’t look like a retard or like he was off his head the way the way lots of kids popped out of their drunk moms at least on the outside on the outside he looked normal but it wasn’t normal in that place to to just stand there and it was especially not normal when you saw somebody who looked like me who looked like me with all the scars and the the gimped up walk coming towards you but the kid just stood there and the goat just stood there.

they just stood there and i kept on walking.

that’s what happened.

just that.

just that.

them standing there and and me walking to them.

me walking and the kid and the goat standing.

just standing.

that was the beginning.

not the ending yet.

maybe almost.

maybe almost the end.

wherever i was going that was it.

i i didn’t even know where i was but that was the place.

i was done walking.

[julesdelorme]

faller

Chapter 3

the man

they call me faller.

it’s what they used to call me.

what they call me now.

what i call myself now.

i call myself faller and they called me faller because it was true.

because it is true.

the worst insult you can hear. the worst insult you you can ever hear. worse than bastard or sonofabitch or coward or cocksucker.

mostly they never said it to my face.

mostly.

not at first but they said it and i heard it and and i didn’t say nothing and i say it myself now because it’s true.

i could fight.

i could win most of those fights but and i can’t remember when exactly i can’t remember nothing exactly no more but the first time that somebody offered me money and i took it and then i kept taking it because taking the money was so easy easier than not knowing how the fight was going to turn out and a lot easier after a while than saying i didn’t want to take the money no more. the thing is that after a while i didn’t even need to fake it no more. after a while i started to fall down for real and even though i used to be able to take any punch or kick and stay stay on my feet but all of a sudden i couldn’t and even the maybe even the maybe of being a halfway good fighter was gone.

i started falling down all on my own.

i would be walking along and the next thing i knew somebody was looking down at me and i was looking up at them or at the ceiling or up at the sky and the doctors even the bad ones even the very worst ones wouldn’t pass me to fight not even in the dive bars no more and i was washed up and the booze and the drugs that were always part of it part of me but when there wasn’t even the the fighting when i wasn’t even anything like a real fighter or even the maybe of being a real fighter i started to steal and rob for the drugs and the booze and then and then the time all the time in the joint and it was was like i was in more than i was out and the doctors in the joint telling me about the scar tissue on my brain that was making me fall down and all the tests and the more tests the more tests that i couldn’t even say the name of and my brain didn’t work right maybe it it never did but now it was really fucked up and and all i wanted to do was get out just get out and get wasted and drunk to forget the pain forget that i was a useless drunk drug fuck up and all washed up all washed up.

then i started to think about going back.

i wanted to go back to the river.

nothing but that no no plans or ideas except the river and going back.

except that every time that i got out i would end up doing something stupid and get thrown back in the can. i would get back on the booze and the the drugs any kind of drugs that i could get my hands on anything to make make the darkness make the darkness not so heavy and so so smothering for even a little while and i would need more money so i would do something stupid and get caught and end right back in the joint again again again because i never was no criminal genius i i was just some idiot who wanted money to push the darkness back for a little while.

sometimes i could still get a fight for money but even then even then it wouldn’t take more than one good shot before i was falling down down again and the money got less and less less and the fights got uglier and uglier i got uglier and uglier and in meaner places and i i got meaner so before long it was easier to rob some place or or break into some place and i was never smart enough to get that right so i end up back inside and all i could think about was how i needed to get home get back to the river the river because that was the only way the story was ever going to get to end and i wanted the fucking story i wanted the fucking story to end.

i didn’t have no more feeling about dying than i did about living just that i needed to go to the river to the place where i was born and get it all all to end.

just that.

just that.

and that it needed to fit somehow the beginning the beginning to the end. i was born dead and the actual dying was just some word just some word and a word that was way past the time to say it.

i just needed to stay out of the pen for even a minute so i i could make it back to the river.

but i needed money and every time i tried to get my hands on any kind of cash i ended up back inside and the social workers and the prayer bible thumpers told me they could get me money from the government on account of my head being so so messed up but i didn’t want the government’s money i i just wanted my own money and all i needed was some halfway decent score where i didn’t get caught except i was never smart enough not to get caught even before all before all the head damage.

the one social worker fat fat and pasty like a slug fucking with lizard eyes got real mad at me because i i didn’t want the government’s money but i would steal it from some store owner who never did nothing to me because that fat lizard eye slob couldn’t figure that that stealing wasn’t begging or taking handouts at least. i i didn’t even bother trying to tell it to him because it would never make no sense to someone like him taking money from the government to go around acting like he like he cared about people like me.

i got out and saw him on the street one day and and kicked his fucking lizard face in.

i kicked it in so bad i killed him.

the lawyer brings up my head damage and said some shit about the guy diddling prisoners and i got seven years for manslaughter.

when i got out on parole i just started walking and kept on walking kept on walking without money or nothing to sleep in just my clothes and shoes shoes worn through till i got to the river to the place where the river started or ended i can never i can never remember which one and i just kept on walking because i i didn’t know where exactly just to the island but i didn’t know where the house where i was born even was where where it used to be i just hoped that if i kept on walking i might come to the place if there was a real place that i remembered and i would know that place and and then it would all be over. i didn’t give a shit about them coming after me anymore even i just wanted to get to get to the river and get all the fucked up shit all the falling down and and all the other shit to end finally and that was why i had to get to the river and to the island where it all started so it i could get it to end.

but i never did i never did find the place i was looking for maybe because it was all twisted changed or maybe because i was all twisted twisted and changed or maybe because i couldn’t find the memories no more with all the getting hit in the head and the falling down. i kept walking and and walking thinking maybe i would run into something i would know even without remembering it but the rez was changed from a dead dead filthy stinking thing to to something cleaner and prettier and prettier and softer and nothing i knew belonged there i didn’t i didn’t belong there no more they cleaned up all the memories and nothing nothing was nothing i knew like they had taken all my memories all my dirty ugly memories and and scrubbed them clean so they didn’t even belong to me no more and this wasn’t my world no more and i could walk forever on that island and nothing nothing was going to be my remembering of it.

it was that knowing that knowing that the island wasn’t the place from my memories left me all of a sudden all of a sudden worn out and tired and hot and so dry in my mouth i i couldn’t even swallow or make spit in my mouth. long time before i would go off into the woods without food or water and and i would just walk and walk without sleeping or stopping. the old woman my grandmother told everybody i was doing some kind of spirit walk but but all i was doing was walking and getting away from the world and getting away from the old man’s fists. sometimes sometimes i think though that maybe i was doing some kind of spirit walk and i just didn’t know it and the old lady was telling the truth.

mostly i was just walking.

mostly i was just walking.

right about when i was feeling like i was at the end of that walk maybe at the end of of all the walking ever i see the boy this boy standing there watching me with his arms wrapped around some burned out old fence post in front in front of this half burned down house and a old goat some old goat tied up on a rope him the boy even though i didn’t know him even though there was no way i could know this kid or remember him the boy he felt to me like i knew him like he was something not somebody but some some thing with that half burned down house and the and the goat that i knew and that i remembered even though he couldn’t be something i knew he felt like he was something i knew i even felt the goat was something i knew.

i felt like i knew him and maybe he knew me.

and maybe he knew me.

not the boy so much but something about the boy and that burned up place and the goat.

it felt like he was the one thing the first thing in this place that that was like i remembered i remembered and knew even though he was just some kid some complete stranger and even though there wasn’t nothing about his face or or his clothes or the way he was standing with his arms around that burned worn out old fence post that was like something or somebody that i could remember or even a goat even a goat that i could remember except it felt like i remembered them both or that i knew them it felt like i knew them.

so i started walking to them.

i don’t even don’t even know why.

i didn’t even know at first that i was walking to them.

just somehow my feet changed direction without my knowing it and i was walking to this boy that i didn’t know and his old goat that i didn’t know but i was sure i knew i was sure i knew them.

the kid didn’t move.

he didn’t move.

he just stood there.

the goat was raising a racket at first but then right about then even the goat got quiet and still and stood there like it knew me.

in that place in the place that i knew and remembered even though it was nothing like anything i knew or remembered and and probably still even behind all the nice houses and the shiny boats for a kid to just stand there when a grown up was coming towards him wasn’t normal. i remembered that. i remembered that. i knew that. people in that place were dangerous even then with more money in their pockets they they were probably still dangerous. people in every place can be dangerous but in a different way than than in places like that in other places you don’t know the kind of hurt they’re going to to do because they don’t mean no harm not at first but in in places like that doing bad things is all there ever is it it was always there right there underneath the clean and shiny outside that pretty much anybody in a place like that still meant you hurt so if somebody if somebody comes towards you the normal thing to do is to get out of the way or do something bad to them before before they do something bad to you.

but the kid just stood there.

and the goat the goat just stood there.

he didn’t look like there was nothing wrong with him. he didn’t look like a retard or like he was off his head the way the way lots of kids popped out of their drunk moms at least on the outside on the outside he looked normal but it wasn’t normal in that place to to just stand there and it was especially not normal when you saw somebody who looked like me who looked like me with all the scars and the the gimped up walk coming towards you but the kid just stood there and the goat just stood there.

they just stood there and i kept on walking.

that’s what happened.

just that.

just that.

them standing there and and me walking to them.

me walking and the kid and the goat standing.

just standing.

that was the beginning.

not the ending yet.

maybe almost.

maybe almost the end.

wherever i was going that was it.

i i didn’t even know where i was but that was the place.

i was done walking.