#he just came out of the washing machine at max spin

[hmsdoodlin]

(82) He’s going through the horrors

[tatooedlaura-blog]

The Warmest Thing I Own

Feeling good enough for the time being to attempt herding Mulder in a grocery store ... 

Our Moments: Chapter 1: Five Words (post-Leonard Betts) Chapter 2: Sidebar Nonsense (post-Memento Mori) Chapter 3: Interim (floating somewhere around Unrequited) Chapter 4: Max 2.0 (post-Tempus Fugit/Max) Chapter 5: Shadowed Grey Eyes Chapter 6: The Warmest Thing I Own @today-in-fic

&&&&&&&&&&

The following morning, she woke him up, stretching beside him, humming as her muscles flexed and moved, liquid twist of spine and limb. He felt her and opened his eyes, finding the room grey but light, “what time is it?”

Her voice scratched out an, ‘I don’t care’ before burying her head back in the pillow.

“Are we not caring today? ‘Cause I can get behind not caring today.” Reaching out to poke her side, “how are you feeling?”

Rolling in his direction, she gave him a smile that could have lit the city had she come with plug and adaptor, “I actually feel okay. I don’t think I’ve slept like that in weeks.”

“No nightmares?”

“No. Only dreams of farmhouses and men in kilts.”

Mulder laughed, “more than one?”

“Maybe.” Sighing deep, “it’s Saturday, right? Now, I know we’d normally share the worry today but I think I’d rather ignore it completely and go grocery shopping and maybe make dinner and eat a gallon of ice cream.”

“It’s actually Friday but I’m good with all that anyway.” Finally able to see the clock on her nightstand, “it’s 8:27 so I vote you call Skinner while I go shower, then we commence.”

Booping his nose, “you’ve got five minutes or I’m coming in.”

Good God.

He knew she was joking. Had to be joking. But he found himself washing a little slower than usual, wanted to see what she would do at the five-minute mark.

She stood outside the bathroom door at 4 minute, 45 seconds, hand on knob. She felt giddy and free and happy and relatively well and the thought of opening the door made her stomach tighten but would it be all kinds of stupid?

Five minutes.

She felt her hand turning the damn handle.

Just as Mulder pulled the door open.

She stumbled forward into wet flesh, towel around waist holding fast as Mulder took a step back, catching her in his arms, “hi there.”

Both knew she had been opening the door.

“Hi.”

“Almost didn’t make it.” Eyes sparking down at her, given he now knew she had been opening the door, “damn slow water heater.”

She was red.

It amused him.

“Were you coming in for something?”

Something, at the moment, in her mind, was removing his towel and taking him back into the shower but instead, she pointed around him, “toothbrush.”

His grin made her shake her head, slip under his arm, brush her teeth, and keep taking deep breaths.

They were both crazy.

&&&&&&&&&&&

Grocery shopping with Mulder was akin to herding cats. She looked left at something, he threw three things from the right into the cart. She questioned two of them and winning, turned right to replace them on the shelf while Mulder, pouting, turned left, tossing in two other things, plus a box of Twinkies.

Finally, she threated to make him sit in the cart and while he looked her square in the eye, evaluating life and limb, he reached up, tipping a box of CocoPuffs from the top shelf into the cart, never breaking eye contact.

By the end, they had at least remembered the juice boxes.

Steaks were the order of the day, Mulder waving away her cheap-ass $6.00 on sale frugal fingers in favor of the New York strips, thick, red, mouth-watering, and definitely not $6.00. Mistaking her longing look for hunger, he gently turned her away, “we need to cook them first.”

Swallowing, “I know.”

Mashed potatoes followed, “yes, I’m getting the box of potato flakes because real potatoes are too damn much work.”

“Fine by me.” Then came the three pounds of mushrooms, “who the hell is washing all these dishes?”

Mulder smiled, tossing a bulb of garlic in the cart, “dishwasher. You have one but you never use it. I’ll teach you how tonight.”

She just kept stealing glances at the steaks.

Ice cream came last, small tubs of chocolate, cherry, orange sherbet, mint, dark fudge, and peanut butter swirl, “I like variety. Don’t look at me like that.”

“I’m just wondering if either of us will be able to fit through the front door by the time we’re done.”

“You could stand to gain twenty pounds.”

He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, bring reality into their fun but glancing at her, he saw understanding in her eyes, her hand finding its way into his for a moment, “I’d rather not do it all in one night, if that’s okay?”

She got a long hug for that, shoppers steering around the odd couple embracing in the freezer section but smiling at them regardless because, really, there’s nothing wrong with a little love in frozen foods.

Mulder paid the bill and Scully didn’t fight it, especially after she saw the amount of items he’d stashed in the basket under her radar, “how did I not see any of this?”

“Once you caught sight of the steaks, I could have jammed an elephant in here and you’d have never noticed.” Handing the cashier his credit card, “little woman’s got an appetite.”

Swatting him on the arm, “Mulder! Did you see how many things of ice cream you got? I don’t know how we’re going to fit all that in the freezer.”

The cashier grinned, handing him his card back, “you can always buy her a bigger freezer.”

“This is very true. Freezer shopping next.”

Scully gave up, “that’ll be tomorrow’s trip. We’ll just have to eat all this tonight.”

“Challenge accepted.”

&&&&&&&&&&&

Back at the apartment, groceries spread from one end of the counter to the other, Scully was mid-ice cream put away when she stopped, hand shaking, head spinning. After a second, she turned to Mulder, his back to her, “I’m, um, if you don’t mind, I’m going to go lay down.” Her hand was already rubbing her forehead, “are you okay putting everything away?”

Turning, his stomach sank at how pasty pale she’d become in the last two minutes, “yeah. I’m fine. Go take a nap.”

She was already moving, one hand on the wall of the hall to steady herself as she headed to the bedroom. Once alone, he slowly, methodically, put the groceries in their proper places, shutting cupboards quietly, trying not to rattle pasta or click jars. Five minutes and a fully stocked kitchen later, he realized it was only a little after one. She’d made it four hours. It had been a good four hours but …

If he dwelled on that, he’d scream at the top of his lungs, cursing the sky, fist shaking in the air. Instead, he pulled the mushrooms back out, deciding some manual cooking labor would keep his mind occupied.

That and trying not to cut the tips of his fingers off.

Three pounds of mushrooms, a stick of butter, six cloves of garlic, a teaspoon of salt, and ½ that of pepper later, and small, diced onion to boot, he set her crockpot to warm, snapped the lid tight, and wondered what next.

Sheets.

Put the sheets in the dryer.

Checking that the stains were gone, he hit the button to set the machine humming.

Clean up.

Last night’s Chinese cartons and chopsticks were still on the coffee table. Trash. Check.

Take out the trash. It smelled. He killed five minutes tying the bag, walking it to the garbage chute. Coming back inside and locking the door.

Then he stood there. Tight circle rotating, trying to find something else.

He knew what he wanted to do but felt he shouldn’t. She was fine. She would yell for him if need be.

Bu something kept pulling him in the direction of her bedroom.

“Fuck it.”

He made his way to her door to find her curled on the bed, small lump under thick covers. Stealing to the other side, he carefully lay down, sliding under the quilt in silence. If she wanted to, she could hit him later for arriving in her bed unannounced.

He would love it if she had the strength to hit him hard enough for it to make an impact.

Then again, she’d hit him before and it never made an impact.

It mostly just made him more stubborn and annoying.

He couldn’t help a small smile as he thought about how irritating he could be but she just kept coming back anyways.

She’d come back from this, too. She had to.

She had no choice.

He could see the tension in her face, even while asleep, forehead wrinkled, eyebrows tight. Reaching out, he began massaging between her eyes, imaging that fucking tumor only an inch below his thumb. How the hell could they not take the damn thing out? It was right there.

Right.

There.

Another thought he had to banish from his mind or screaming would ensue, he kept rubbing, watching her face slowly relax, pinched look disappearing, “mmmhmm.”

Soft sound in the back of her throat told him to keep going, small circles, occasionally venturing to the round bones surrounding her eyes, the bridge of her nose, up to her hairline. Another ‘hhmmmm’ later, then a deep sigh, she rolled to her back, making his task a little harder, arms more awkward in their reach.

Shifting slightly, arm now across her chest, he continued. Feeling himself drifting off, his thumb movements lighter and slower, he felt her turn her head, face him, “Mulder?”

“Hi.” Rolling towards him once again, her hands slipped under his arm and one palm to his face, she moved forward, kissing him. Shocked, he pulled back after a moment, “are you awake or asleep?”

He saw her suddenly blink, head shake, both signs she was just waking up, “what? Mulder?”

Knowing she didn’t recall anything because there was no embarrassment turning her red, no heat in her cheeks, eyes innocently confused, “nothing. You said something and I thought … I just wasn’t sure if you were awake. Go back to sleep.”

Caught in limbo of dreams and Mulder, she didn’t care, and scooted closer, into his arms, “you are the warmest thing I own.” Snuggling into him, about as up close and personal as they could get fully clothed on a Friday afternoon, “I like it.”

She so totally did own him and he would be perfectly fine declaring that by billboard, sky writer, or booming voice from the sky. Lips to her forehead, he left them there as he agreed, “I do, too.”

&&&&&&&&&

[platypanthewriter]

The Prince and the Pauper (Who Drives An Uber) Ch. 5

(Prince Steve flees his wedding, and asks his Uber driver to take him bowling...and on a date.  WIP)  Part One | Two | Three | Four | Five

Billy stumbled into his room, wishing he'd drunk a little less, and flopped onto his bed—then slapped around beside him for where he could hear Steve’s muffled laughter, and found his phone.  “Steve,” he mumbled.

“You sound sleepy,” Steve told him, and Billy growled.  

“My dick isn’t,” he muttered, and Steve laughed again.  “It’s not,” Billy snarled, yanking his jeans open.  “Heard your voice.”

“Ohhh,” Steve said.  “...that happens to me, too.”

“Your dick likes me?” Billy asked, feeling kind of fuzzily like it was a weird question to ask, but Steve sounded like he was smiling when he said “Yeah, Billy, it does.”  

“What about your hands,” Billy asked, sliding his shirt up to his chest.  “They like touching me?”

Steve muttered something that sounded like vlakoss, or vlakas, maybe, and Billy mouthed it to himself, so he’d remember.  “All of me likes you,” Steve said softly, and Billy rolled sideways into his blankets, laughing into his pillow as he flushed.  

“...lemme put you on video,” he whispered, feeling kind of like they were hiding, together in his bed. 

His face warmed further as Steve whispered back, “Show me.”

Billy’s fingers were clumsy, but finally he could see his prince, leaning back on a shiny green overstuffed chair kind of thing, in a soft yellowy robe, his skin lit with warm morning light.  He was smiling, his hair bed-ruffled.  

“...oh,” Billy said, biting his lips together, and hoping Steve couldn’t really see the taco stains on his shirt, or the Thomas the Tank Engine twin-size sheets Max had picked up as a joke at Value Village.  

“Want to turn another light on?” Steve asked, and Billy snorted a laugh, shaking his head.  

“You can see more than enough,” he said, grimacing, and Steve frowned.  

“I can barely—”

“Shut up, it’s fine,” Billy sighed, suddenly exhausted.  “Look, I’m—I’m going to bed, actually.  I’ll—I’ll call you tomorrow.”

Steve blinked back at him, wide-eyed, and Billy hung up, yanking the pillow over his head with a groan.  

His text alert—it was the treasure chest noise from one of Max’s Zelda games—made its ting ting ting noise, and he lifted the pillow to look.  Sleep well, Steve had sent.  I miss you.  

Billy nearly called him back, staring at the words, and then sat up and yanked his stained t-shirt off.  He flung it into the corner with the other dirty laundry, and then sighed, and stumbled out of bed to gather it all up and stomp downstairs to the laundry room.  When he got there, he had no quarters, and he sat heavily against a washer, wiping his eyes, until the door creaked open, and it was Max, carrying the box of detergent.

“What gives,” she said suspiciously, and he shrugged.

“...just thought I’d do some laundry, y’know,” he said, laughing.  “I’m such a fucking slob.”

“Did he say something,” she bit out, shooting him a glare as she fed quarters into the machine.  

“...he didn’t,” Billy sighed, rolling his shoulders, and frowning around the laundry room.  “Stinks in here.”

“It’s apartment 312,” Max growled.  “She washes and lets it rot.  All the time.”

“Once I have my degree I’ll get us somewhere better,” Billy promised, wincing.  “Once I get a real job.”

“It’s not so bad,” Max told him, grabbing his wrist and hauling him back out.  “Come on, you don’t need to watch, that washer knows what it’s doing.”

“...didn’t look all that smart to me,” Billy told her as she drug him back upstairs, not because he desperately wanted to stick around smelling the sour, heavy funk of rotting laundry, but because Max was handling him again, like she was the adult.  “I bet I’m smarter than that washer.”

“I sure hope so,” Max told him, shoving him inside their apartment.  “You, uh…” she said, glancing up at him, and then frowning, and Billy tried to stop being an asshole.

“I’m fine, Max, play your game,” he told her, and she narrowed her eyes at him.  He opened his mouth to try and argue with her cutting look—proving he was actually not smarter than a washing machine, really—and his texts chimed again.  It was just a red heart emoticon, but Billy’s whole body warmed again at the thought of Steve sitting there for so long, typing and then deleting.  He started to send back a kissy face, and then realized it’d be obvious he wasn’t asleep, and Steve would call, and Billy groaned, mashing his face against his phone.  

“...is he being a dipshit?” Max asked, reaching up to grab his phone, and Billy stuck it in his pocket.  

“Get one out we can both play,” he told her, waving at the Xbox and dropping on the couch.  She grinned, delighted and a little evil, before rummaging around and returning with a selection of five.  They looked like little kid games, he thought, all bright colors, but it wasn’t like he needed to murder zombies, so he decided to let Max cheer him up.  He hummed thoughtfully, and let her lean in and advise—ruffling her hair to make her yell—before sitting elbow-to-elbow with her until nearly midnight, yelling insults at each other and at the screen.  

 Over the next few weeks, his most royal prince-ness kept texting, sending pictures of everything from a frog he found in a downspout licking its own eyeball to pictures of plasticine-covered dead people in a museum exhibit.  There were rows and rows of people posed like they were playing tennis, or crouching, their skin peeled back to show musculature.  

I’m in Germany…said the text, with a picture of Steve posing with a horse whose skin and muscles rippled out like its mane.  “#notaserialkiller” he sent, immediately after.  

tell that to the horse judge, Billy sent back, grinning.

“Who is this guy,” Max asked, leaning her sharp little chin on his shoulder as Billy flipped his phone so she couldn’t see the screen.  He tried to tuck it into his Trig textbook, and it slid out.  “Your Uber fare?”

“He’s, uh, he’s not the kind of guy I usually date,” Billy said, swallowing, and thinking about his last ‘date’ before Steve, who he’d never seen in daylight.  Billy’d awoken—hungover, late to class, on the floor, with his head pillowed on the remains of a half-eaten six-foot Subway sandwich, and a used condom stuck to his thigh—to Max’s unimpressed glower.  He tried to imagine Steve’s clothes on his apartment floor.  A crown on his bedside table.  “He, uh.  He’s a good tipper.”

“That’s a good sign,” Max told him, blowing into his hair as she sighed, her weight against his back, watching the microwave rattle its way through heating her Hot Pocket.  She leaned to flip the phone over—My Prince, it proclaimed.  Three missed calls.

“He’s a nice guy,” Billy told her, trying to grab his phone back.  “He’s too nice, probably.  Calls me his bad idea.”

“If he calls you a bad idea,” she enunciated carefully, through gritted teeth, “—he’s not nice.”

“No, he’s—it’s not—” Billy groaned, then scrambled to try and snatch the phone back from his sister as she hit redial.  “Give it back,” he growled, and she raised her eyebrows, knowing he wouldn’t so much as step towards her angry, since—since they’d written everything down, how much he’d drink, and when, and how often he’d see his therapist, and came up with rules about when he was angry.  “Max,” he hissed, through his teeth, and she smiled her widest fake smile and turned away to talk on the phone.

“Yeah, hey, it’s Billy’s sister,” she said.  “Oh, gee, did I wake you up?”

“No, no, no,” Billy muttered, trying to block her in around the table, so he could grab the phone, but she paced away, keeping the table between them.

“Your bad idea has a sister, didja know?  Oh?  Huh.  Yeah, shut the hell up now.  How come you’re giving my brother shit when he calls you his prince, huh?”

It sounded like Steve just said “Uhhhh,” and Max growled just like her brother.  

“You got money?” she asked sweetly, and Billy slid across the table and grabbed for the phone.  She grabbed his little finger and bent it, making him spin in place to face the wall, cursing the self-defense he’d taught her.  “Yeah?  Okay, how come you’re snogging my brother in bowling alley bathrooms?  How come he’s secret, huh?  You in the closet?”

“Max, stop,” Billy hissed, but she’d frozen in place, and dropped Billy’s hand to grab the phone with both of hers.  

“...I don’t know!” she sort of whisper-yelled, and he started laughing.

“What,” she whispered, and Billy started to snicker.  “What are you—what?!”

“Give him back!”  Billy whispered.  “He’s a prince, right?!”

“I don’t know where he wants to go!” she hissed into the phone, waving Billy off.  “But you should ask him!”

“Give him back,” Billy begged.  “Max!”

“Fine!” she yelled, slapping the phone into Billy’s hand.  

He could hear Steve laughing.  Billy took a relieved breath, and held it to his ear.  “Glad you’re still there.”

“Your sister loves you so much,” Steve told him, and Billy glared after her.

“Loves making fun of me, maybe—”

“She’s right, no, she’s right, pick somewhere you’d like to go, okay?  I should take you someplace nice.”

“I don’t give a shit,” Billy told him, with a snort.  “I seriously don’t care.”

“No, no, look, I found this restaurant, it’s like.  There are knights.  They fight each other.  On horses.  We could bring her?”

“...what,” Billy mumbled, blinking.

“It’s, um, it’s a medieval...kind of thing.  Would she like it?”

“Death-match dining?  Fuck yeah.”

“Okay,” Steve took a slow breath.  “Okay.”

“...why you so worried, Prince Harrington?” Billy laughed.  “You want my little sister to like a restaurant, Mister Royal?  My Stevie Wonder?” Billy asked, feeling over-warm again, even next to the air conditioner.

“What?!” Steve laughed.  “She’s important to you,” he said, sounding a litle confused, and Billy started laughing, not even because anything was funny, just his stupid feelings leaking out everywhere.  

“Okay,” he whispered.  “Okay, yeah.”

“I, uh,” Steve said, and cleared his throat.  “Um.  So.  Nancy and Barb are having their honeymoon later, next—next year, they wanted to know if, uh.  Uh, um.”

“Want me to suggest words?” Billy laughed.  “I can just say words, tell me when I hit the right one.  ‘Chickadee’ is a word, is that any help?”

“Shut up, dickhead,” Steve said, but it sounded like he was smiling.  “Darn you.  They wanted to know if we want to...drive and meet them.  Road trip.  Thought I’d be your Uber fare again.”

“...you...what?” Billy mumbled.  “You want me to…”

“We can fix it so you don’t miss too much class,” Steve wheedled.  “They just need to know your schedule.  Max could come.”  There was a pause, and then he talked really fast, all in one breath.  “Lot of Uber fare, there.  I mean, if you’re—if you’re afraid of missing work.  You don’t have to come though, it’s okay—”

“No, I—” Billy swallowed, dry-mouthed, imagining—how long?!  At least a week?!  Of sharing hotel rooms with his prince.  “I—yes.  Yeah.  I wanna go, yeah—”

“Hey,” Steve said, and stopped, and Billy shut his eyes.

“—if you want me to,” he said quickly, wiping his suddenly-sweaty hand on his jeans.  “—if you’re not just—you don’t have to—” he tried to take a silent deep breath.  “Don’t have to see me if you don’t want to—”

“Babe, babe, no,” Steve told him.  “Come on, take a breath, okay?”

“Yeah,” Billy nodded, and did, holding his phone with both hands so it wouldn’t shake.

“Billy Hargrove,” Steve said, “—you know you’re not a bad idea, right?”

“I’m your bad idea,” Billy told him, laughing, and wiping his nose.  

“No, no, no—no, I didn’t—I never meant—you’re a good idea.  Billy.  You’re such a good idea.”

“Bullshit,” Billy whispered, laughing.

“Shit,” Steve muttered, and the phone went kind of staticky, like he took it away from his ear.  Billy could hear his voice speaking...some language.  He’d have to see whether they offered Greek or Danish classes at the college, he thought, listening.  When Steve’s voice came back, he was still mumbling in definitely-not-English.

“Need to call me back?” Billy asked.

“What?!  No!  I need to—I just didn’t—augh,” Steve groaned.  “Look.  Puttemus.  You are a good idea.  Leaving my wedding to go bowling without calling anyone was a bad idea.  Taking a stranger to my hotel for sex was a bad idea.  I—ag—argh, Billy.  I did—I did that because I was upset, and—”

“Are you...swearing at me?” Billy asked, fascinated.  

Steve’s end of the call went staticy again, and Billy heard him roar—kind of pathetically, like a baby predator at the zoo.  “No!  You aren’t listening!”

“Oh, I’m listening,” Billy told him.  

“I’m so glad I met you,” Steve said hurriedly.  “Not someone, you.  I’m so—thank you for being there.  You made me feel better, I—” he started mumbling again, incomprehensibly, and Billy listened, smiling.  

“Need to learn more languages, don’t I?”

“...how will I mutter about how stupid I am if you can hear me,” Steve huffed.  “I’ll have to make up words.”

“...speak English,” Billy told him.  “I can’t tell you if you’re being a dumbass right now if I don’t understand.”

Steve took a deep breath.  “I—I think about you all the time.  Not just—not just you naked, I—I want to take you on a boat.  I want to watch you out on the water, let you relax.  In—in the sun.  I want—” he stopped, taking a shaky breath.  “—I want you with me.  I want you here, I know that isn’t—possible always, but I want that—”

Billy was doing his breathing exercises, holding it in for a few seconds, letting it out, not because he felt bad, but he was feeling a lot.

“I’m yours,” he laughed.  “I-I mean, as much as you want me.  I need to be here for Max, but…”

Steve groaned.  “I want to see you.  Damn it.”

Billy trotted to his room, and hit video call as he dropped to lie back across his bed.  “Hey,” he whispered as Steve answered, frowning intently at his phone in a flurry of feedback noises.  

The tall white arches around him blurred as he walked quickly down a hall, then sat against the wall under some huge portrait with a gold frame.  He sighed.  “No, this is worse, look at you.”

“I can’t see my own face, my eyeballs don’t work like that,” Billy said, licking his lips—he could try to be sexy, he thought, running his fingers slowly down his face to try and look seductive while checking for mustard—and Steve leaned out of frame, muttering in a language Billy didn’t understand.

“I want to see you, not just...see you,” Steve muttered, and Billy snorted a laugh.

“Well, I can’t fly to Europe,” Billy told him, “—so this is what you get.”

“I can’t kiss you like this,” Steve huffed, and Billy laughed, punching the pillow up behind his head.

“I could put on a show,” he offered.�� “Probably nothing that great—”

“Holy shit,” Steve breathed, then bit his lips, and frowned away.  “Uh.  Do—do you want to?”

“I got a couple hours,” Billy told him, trying not to squirm as his dick woke up in his jeans, and started feeling squished.  “You wanna watch me get off?”

“So much,” Steve groaned.  “Um, just a second, okay, I—I gotta make something up, I’ll be right back.”

“Wait, Steve—” Billy shouted, but the line was dead, and Billy had the sinking suspicion he always got with Steve Harrington, that Billy’s overeager dick was causing a war someplace.

The phone rang again, and Billy answered with “Don’t bail on your job just because I’m horny, christ—”

Steve laughed, his face lit mostly by the phone.  “Lynn’s covering for me,” he said, as Billy squinted.

“Are...are you in a storage closet, or something?”

“No, I am not in the closet, I told public relations about you, and they’re figuring out what to say,” Steve said cheerfully, as Billy stared at him.

“...what...what did you tell them,” he whispered.

“I told them I had a boyfriend, and they should be prepared for somebody taking pictures, or something,” Steve said.  “Why?  

The idea of being the boyfriend was new to Billy, and he stared back.  “...you tell people about me?” he asked softly, and Steve bit back a weird little spluttered laugh, grinning at him.  

“I tell everyone about you,” he whispered.  “I pick up my phone and everyone laughs and rolls their eyes, because I’m checking how long until I can call you, and if you’ve sent a text, everything stops until I send you hearts back.”

Billy, who’d been feeling a little dismissed when he’d ask a question, get a string of hearts, and no answer for five hours, groaned, smacking his hand over his face.  “Kinda thought you were telling me to fuck off,” he mumbled into his hand.

“Wha—no, I—why?!” Steve yelped, waving his hands, one of which contained his phone, so everything whirled.  

“You didn’t actually answer, I dunno, I just—”

“I can answer faster!  I’ll answer faster,” Steve told him, grimacing.  “I’m sorry—”

“No!”  Billy laughed.  “No, now I know what the hearts mean, I mean—you’re just busy.”

“I’m busy and I l-like you,” Steve told him, a little clumsy over his words, for somebody who probably had a speech coach.  “And I wish I wasn’t busy.  But I’m checking my phone, because if you need me I’m not busy, not for you, I just don’t know whether—”

“Relax, your highness,” Billy told him, grinning.  “It’s cute.”

“I’m never ignoring you, you’re too distracting,” Steve said, his eyes narrowed, and Billy laughed.

“You still wanna see me strip down?” he asked, cocking his head against the pillow, and Steve laughed.  

“More than almost anything, I just wish I could touch—” 

“Mmmm,” Billy said, taking the zipper of his hoodie between two fingers, and dragging it slowly down his body, his hand flat.  “Maybe you better hurry back and do that, then.”

“God, I wish I could,” Steve whispered, as Billy reached back up to slowly pull one side of his open sweatshirt off his chest, revealing his grotty t-shirt, washed until it was the greyish color all t-shirts eventually ended up.  “...you look so soft,” Steve whispered.  “Is that t-shirt as soft as it looks?”

“...what,” Billy said, having frozen at the word soft, because he’d been drinking less beer, and he’d thought he’d prevented his developing beer gut, but then Steve looked at his stomach—“My...t-shirt?”

“Your t-shirt,” Steve breathed, “—and your hoodie.  You look so soft, I want to squeeze you.”

“Soft,” Billy repeated, unimpressed.  “Soft?!”

“Oh, he thinks he’s hard,” Steve laughed.  “Only your dick, babe.”

“The man who was that disappointed he couldn’t get a buffalo wings plushie does not get to lecture me about being soft—” Billy told him, growling, but Steve laughed.

“I just wanted a souvenir.  I kept a coaster.”

“...you what,” Billy muttered, disbelieving.

“I kept a coaster,” Steve said cheerfully.  “From our first date.  At the bowling alley.”

“You what...took it back home with you?” Billy asked, sneering a little, but he could feel how wide his eyes were.  

“If I can’t drink my Billy, I’ll at least—” Steve began, slyly, but Billy started laughing so hard he stopped.  

“If you’re so thirsty, how come you’re telling me I’m soft instead of seeing the evidence otherwise,” Billy asked, still snickering.  He held the phone out to show the lump of his dick in his jeans.

Steve shut up quite respectfully after that, and Billy got to finally tease him with the slow zipper reveal.  “Put your hands everywhere,” Steve whispered.  “Pretend they’re mine.”

“You’re gonna have to be more specific,” Billy told him, waggling his fingers.  “Where d’you want to touch me...your highness?”

“...everywhere,” Steve said again, his brain taking a second to catch up, and then, “Oh, ah, touch—push your jeans down, I can’t see.”

Billy snorted softly, thinking maybe he needed to try and get...something sexier, to have on already, when this kind of thing happened.  He couldn’t always be wearing stained, stretched-out cotton.  He sat the phone aside—Steve yelped—and shimmied out of his old saggy jeans, and then grimaced down at the holes along the elastic waistband of his briefs, and yanked those off too.  The threadbare t-shirt went next, he pulled it off over his head, and then ran his fingers through his hair, wishing cologne worked through the phone, or that he’d shaved.  “Prince tames wild jungle beast,” he muttered, glaring into the mirror over his dresser in the dim light.  “—suspected to be time traveling caveman.”

“Billy?!” came Steve’s voice, laughing, and Billy groaned, scooping it up, and dropping back to lie on the bed.  

“Should I get like a...g-string, or something,” Billy blurted out, angling the phone so Steve could see his hard dick, which was looking stellar, he thought, surrounded by the red marks from his jeans, on a body that hadn’t gone tanning in recorded history.  

Steve bit back a laugh.  “A  what?” he asked.

“You know, those stripper wedgies,” Billy said, frowning.  “Instead of my stretched-out gray cotton undies…”

“Are they comfortable?” Steve kind of wheezed, and Billy rolled his eyes.  

“I feel like I need to up my game, what with all your...everything,” he said, waving at his prince’s gleaming medals.  “Look, my dick’s sprung a leak,” he growled, pointing at it smearing pre-come over his belly, and feeling his face flush as Steve made a weird swallowed moaning noise.  

“I’m honored,” Steve said, in a strangled voice, and Billy couldn’t help it, he started cackling.  “Billy,” Steve said, softly, and Billy’s dick bounced.  Billy smacked his hand down over it, blushing hotter.  “...you don’t need a G-strip,” Steve said, and Billy laughed harder.  “Billy,” Steve whispered again, and Billy’s cock jerked again, and Billy curled onto his side he was laughing so hard.  “Billy,” Steve groaned, but he was laughing too.  “I love your clothes,” he said, and Billy tried to shut up and listen, shaking with snickers, and wiping his eyes.  “You feel good.  My clothes are scratchy—”

“Your clothes are fucking silk,” Billy told him, grinning.  “Don’t try and tell me you’re always in that stupid uniform, highness.”

“Every time I see you in your soft shirts I want to hold you,” Steve breathed, and Billy swallowed back a soft grunt at the thought of the crown prince of anywhere wanting to put hands on him.  “I want to slide my hands up underneath.”

“Now you’re talking,” Billy said, grinning, rubbing his thumb over the wetness at the tip of his dick.  

“I can’t touch you from here,” Steve said, softly, and Billy sighed, then, reluctantly, took his hand off his cock, and scraped his fingernails down his chest, and up his abs.  Steve sounded like he choked.  

His big brown eyes looked deeper in the shadowy light of the storage closet, and Billy watched him stare, licking his lips.  Billy rolled back onto his back, smoothing the flat of his hand up his thigh, and over his belly to grip himself on the ribs in a one-armed hug, and Steve made a soft noise in his throat.  “Cristos,” he muttered.  

“You’re so easy,” Billy laughed.  

“Only for you, malaka,” Steve laughed, and he sounded so fond Billy flushed hot, staring at his face, and repeating the word in his head, wondering what he’d just been called.  “...with only the light from your mobile, it looks like candlelight.”

Billy laughed, feeling a little gooey, like one of those chocolate cakes that were melted inside.  He tried not to squirm, panting as Steve’s eyes narrowed.  “Yeah, sure, blue candlelight—”

“I wish I could kiss you,” Steve said softly.  “Lean over you, slide my hand down to thumb over your cock.”

“Jesus,” Billy panted, gripping himself as instructed, his dick hard as a rock in his hands.  

“If I was actually there I’d put my mouth over it,” Steve huffed, and Billy groaned, licking his hand so he could jack himself.  His feet started to cramp, he was clenching them so hard, trying not to just jizz all over himself at the sound of his prince’s voice, and he shifted, trying to take deep breaths.  “Suck you down,” Steve whispered.

Billy came over his fingers, panting, and Steve sighed.  

“...I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said.  “Sorry I had to leave, I mean, I’d...I’d just met you, and—thanks for waiting for me, Billy.”

“...there’s not really a long line of people beating down my door,” Billy mumbled, curling up, and pulling the blanket over himself as the breeze from the fan over his sweat made him shiver.

“Thank you for waiting,” Steve said again, softly.  “I want to kiss you as soon as I can.”

 Two months later, Billy was paying bills, while Max hovered around saying things like “I don’t really have to go on school trips, they can’t make me,” and “These sneakers are fine.”  When he was done, there was just enough money to pay rent, the water bill, and send Max on the trip with some food money, and Billy folded forward on the table, dropping his face with a thud among the envelopes.  His heart was pounding.  “...maybe some new shoes next time,” he mumbled, and Max kicked his chair.  

“These are fine,” she said stoutly, and he eyed the frayed, greying converses where they sat next to the duct tape.  She’d started just wrapping the whole shoe every couple of weeks, and they smelled horrible in the summer heat.  “It’s so hot the tape kinda sticks to the sidewalks,” she said, like that wasn’t depressing, and then, “—and I know they’ve got no traction now, so I’m more careful on the stairs,” which was worse.

“...yeah,” he sighed.  

“...this prince of yours,” she said, and he smiled automatically.

“Yeah?”

“...you trust him, right?”

Billy opened his eyes, frowning at her, and she shrugged, biting her lips.  “...yeah, I trust him,” he said, feeling his stomach twist a little—he trusted Steve to act like Steve, but Billy couldn’t help wondering at what point his life would wear Steve to the end of his patience.  “What d’you mean, Max?”

She stared back for a long moment, then bit her lips.  “...nothing.”

“Why are you asking?” Billy asked, trying to think of what she could have seen, passing through while he and Steve played League of Legends.  

“Nothing, moron, shut up, he’s so into you, stop freaking out.”

“O-okay,” he said, burying his face in his arms to hide his grin.  

“God, stop,” she sighed, but she was gentle as she punched his shoulder on the way by. 

My other Harringrove stuff

[marypsue]

Having an extraordinarily real one lately for no apparent reason, so here’s a more-than-usually self-indulgent ficlet. Enjoy. Or don’t, I’m not the boss of you.

...

The next thing he remembers, somebody’s giving him a sharp poke in the shoulder. “Hey. Are you alive?”

He tries to roll over and go back to sleep, but the prodding continues. And every inch of him’s screaming in protest, so lying here and taking it suddenly seems like the better part of valour. “No. ‘m dead. G’way.”

The weirdly familiar voice – a woman, one he knows, but can’t place – sounds amused at that, for some reason. Like it’s funny that he’s dead. He’s pretty sure it’s not. Sad, sure. Tragic. Bittersweet, a little. Ironic, even. But funny? That’s just rude. “All right, dead guy. Well, while you’re still talking, feel like telling me who you are and how you ended up in a secret Russian lab?”

Now that rings a bell. He bothers to crack an eye, and immediately squeezes it shut again. Neon and flashing emergency lights are a bad combination in an already-pounding head.

“Wh- happened?” he manages. He should ask about the kid, too, Joyce, the others, make sure they’re safe, but those are a lot of thoughts to form into words. And this feels like a good place to start.

The weirdly familiar voice has a weirdly familiar laugh, too. “I was kind of hoping you could tell me that. You just came stumbling out of that crack in the wall, cold-cocked the thug who was trying to stick my head in that big spinning blender, and then passed out all over the walkway.” Her voice goes a little subdued as she goes on, “You…probably saved my life.”

He’s not sure how to respond to that, so he defaults to sarcasm. “ ‘s what I do.”

She snorts out another laugh.

“Listen,” she says, after a beat or two of weirdly companionable quiet. The sounds of distant yelling and helicopter blades fill the silence, but they sound pleasantly like somebody else’s problem. And – they’ve gotta have given him something for the pain, because it’s starting to recede pleasantly too, behind a thick, insulating layer of pink cotton fluff. “You showed up with no ID, in a Russian uniform, in a secret Russian lab. None of us know you. The government’s here to clean this all up and sweep it under the rug, and unless you can tell me something really convincing about why they shouldn’t, they’re gonna sweep you right under that rug too. I don’t want that to happen. You really came through for us back there, I don’t think you’re a Russian operative.”

“ ‘m not,” he manages, around a tongue that seems to be trying to fall asleep in his mouth.

She sounds entirely too chipper as she says, “Great! Now can you tell me who you are?”

He manages to force both eyes open a sliver, turning to face her as he enunciates, as clearly as he can, “Jim Hopper. Hawkins, Indiana chief of police.”

Her face is a blur at first, cast purple in the flashing red and blue lights. But it quickly resolves into wide, stunned blue eyes, a sharp chin and cheekbones, a few dark curls escaping a tight braid. A face that’s familiar. Or would be, if it didn’t look a handful of decades too old.

He squints, but her face doesn’t change any more than her stunned expression does. “Nancy Wheeler?”

Her big eyes get, if it’s possible, even bigger at that. The twist of smile that crosses that foxy face as she nods is entirely unamused.

It’s what she says next, though, that really throws him for a loop.

“Yeah. Nancy Wheeler.” Her smile gets wider and whiter but no less disbelieving as she says, “Hawkins, Indiana chief of police.”

 …

 The stranger doesn’t stay conscious for long after that, whatever painkillers the paramedics pumped him full of finally kicking in. Nancy leaves him in the back of the ambulance and goes looking for that doctor. He’s around here somewhere.

She finds him at the mall’s service entrance, watching with a frown as the military guys he’d brought with him empty boxes and boxes full of tubes of glowing green…stuff out of the hidden elevator. Nancy hopes, vaguely, that it isn’t radioactive. That would’ve been the first thing they’d have tested. Right?

The doctor looks up as she walks up beside him, and lets out a little aggrieved sigh when he sees who it is. Nancy decides she’s taking that as a compliment. “Any word from our mystery man?”

“According to him, he’s dead.”

The doctor huffs a laugh, not taking his eyes off the elevator.

Nancy examines her fingernails. There’s blood dried in the beds. She’s not sure when that happened. “Also, according to him, he’s Jim Hopper. Hawkins, Indiana chief of police.”

She feels the doctor’s eyes on her, looks up, and smiles. “And you want to know the really weird part? I believe him.”

The doctor’s expression is inscrutable. All he says is, “You do?”

Nancy glances down at herself again, at the ill-fitting Russian uniform she’s still wearing. She can’t wait to get out of this stupid thing. She can’t wait to go home and sleep for about a month. The absolute last thing she wants right now is more supernatural weirdness to deal with.

But –

“He recognised me,” she says, slowly, putting her thoughts together as she speaks. “He knew my name. He – if you told me he was related to our Hopper, I’d believe it, the resemblance is that strong. He doesn’t sound Russian. And that – Gate, the place it goes to – that’s an alternate dimension, right? The kids’ ‘Upside Down’. It’s like here…but not.”

The doctor’s kind of smiling at her. Nancy bulls determinedly forward. “That’s one other Hawkins out there that we know about for sure. Couldn’t there be more?”

The doctor’s still giving her that smile. Nancy catches his eye and stares him down, and he sort of chuckles and shakes his head. “Sounds like we’ll make a theoretical physicist of you yet.”

“I don’t want you packing him off to some – secret bunker or lab or whatever,” Nancy says, like there’s anything she could do to stop it if the doctor did. If it comes to that, she’ll figure it out. She’s already starting to work on a few plans. But for now, she’ll give the doctor the benefit of the doubt that he’s actually trying to help, and use her words. “If the uniform’s anything to go by, he’s just had the same night from hell that we all have. Whoever he left on the other side must be missing him.”

“You’re forgetting, Chief Wheeler,” the doctor says, still sounding just a little too amused. “You and your…small army blew that machine down there to smithereens. There’s no way back into the – uh – ‘Upside Down’.”

Nancy glares back into that too-knowing look. Maybe the doctor does know Terry Ives still has the power to rip open worlds. If he doesn’t, and this is a good bluff, then no way in hell is Nancy going to be the one to tell him and start the Ives’ nightmare all over again.

“Well, if he ended up here, maybe things didn’t go so smoothly on the other end,” is all she says. “I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”

The doctor’s smile gets a little wider. But all he says is, “I’m sure. You’re a resourceful woman, Nancy Wheeler.”

Nancy watches his face, carefully, for any sign that it’s meant to be an insult. She doesn’t find one.

She leaves him to poke through the Russians’ stuff and heads back around the front of the mall. Partly because she wants to see the others – and one specific other in particular – again, make sure they’re all all right. Partly because she doesn’t want that ambulance driving off with the stranger in the back and disappearing forever.

He saved her life. The least she can do is get him home.

Jonathan’s sitting with Steve and the kids, when Nancy picks her way back through the parking lot. He looks up through his bangs, and a slow smile dawns across his face at that sight of her. Nancy feels something in her chest constrict warmly, and realises she’s smiling, too. And for once, it’s entirely real.

Yeah. If the stranger’s night’s been anything like hers – they’ve got to get him home.

Mike’s sitting in the ambulance, on one side of El, holding her hand as a paramedic washes out the nasty wound in her leg. Will, standing on her other side, has her other hand. Based on the faces all three of them are making, she’s probably grinding the bones in the boys’ hands together, but neither of them looks like they’ll be letting go any time soon. 

Karen’s perched on the ambulance’s tailgate with Joyce, sharing a shock blanket. Maxine Mayfield’s got a blanket, too, even in the hot July night, and Lucas Sinclair’s arm around her. She’s got her head on his shoulder and her arm wrapped around his waist, but her other hand is loosely holding Dustin Henderson’s, like she’s forgotten it’s there. And, even though he barely seems to notice and has gotten into some kind of good-natured argument with the crowd of kids Karen hangs around with these days, Dustin doesn’t let go of her hand either.

Everybody seems to be slowly coming down off the night’s adrenaline, still a little giggly and punchy but starting to sober up. Especially Max and Dustin, who are literally starting to sober up from whatever the Russians shot them full of. Little Phil Callahan’s nodding off against Nancy’s old college friend Kali’s knee, and Kali’s even tolerating it, though Nancy knows the eyebrow she quirks in Nancy’s direction is a clear command to get the kid off her before she stops tolerating it. Jill Stephenson also seems to be nodding off, but since she’s doing it against Benny Hammond’s muscular arm, Nancy has a sneaking suspicion it’s a put-on.

And Jim Hopper – thirteen-going-on-fourteen Jim Hopper, somehow-now-Karen’s-other-best-friend Jim Hopper, definitely-not-Hawkins-Indiana-chief-of-police Jim Hopper, is sitting with his back against Joyce Byers’ knees, listening to Joyce and Karen’s animated conversation with a half-smile that, Nancy thinks, looks an awful lot like contentment.

Nancy must have been staring, trying to mentally compare the kid in front of her to the stranger in the back of the ambulance, because he twists to shoot a scowl in her direction. “What?”

“Did you find anything out?” Jonathan asks, and Nancy can’t help another smile in his direction. Good grief, she’s going soft. “About -” He bobs his head in the direction of the other ambulance. “Him.”

Nancy looks the assembled crowd over, and settles on the truth. “He says he’s you.”

It very obviously takes Hopper a second or two to work out that everybody’s looking at him. “Wh- me?”

Nancy nods. “Jim Hopper. Hawkins, Indiana chief of police.”

There’s a moment of silence while everybody processes this, before Dustin Henderson pipes up. “What – there’s another alternate dimension out there? Other than the Upside Down?”

“Like in The Magician’s Nephew,” Will says, unexpectedly. “The Upside Down’s the wood between the worlds.”

Nancy shoots him a blank look. Karen rolls her eyes. “Mom. Narnia?”

“I thought that was about a wardrobe?”

Apparently this question is just too stupid to dignify with an answer.

Dustin, thankfully, steps in, picking up Will’s train of thought. “So you can only get into the Upside Down from any version of Hawkins -”

“But you can get into any version of Hawkins from the Upside Down,” Will agrees, nodding. He catches El’s confused squint, and shrugs. “It’s a theory.”

“Worth testing,” Nancy agrees. She goes to settle her hands on her belt, and is once again forcibly reminded that she’s still wearing the stupid Russian uniform. “Ugh! That’s it. Screw the government, I’m going back in there and looting the Gap.”

She’s not sure if Jonathan’s joking, at first, when he catches her eye and says, “Oh, but I do so love a woman in uniform.”

Joyce rolls her eyes, and Mike makes an exaggerated gagging noise. Steve shuts his eyes, giving his head a tiny shake, but he’s kind of smiling. Nancy considers flipping them all off, but she quickly decides on something else. Something better.

She crosses the distance between her and where Jonathan’s sitting on the asphalt in two big strides, and bends down to catch Jonathan’s chin in one hand. He turns his face up towards hers without her guidance, though, and when she presses her lips against his, they part with no resistance.

Nancy only holds the kiss for a moment before pulling back, but when she does, Jonathan’s red from the tips of his ears to the collar of his shirt. She allows herself a little satisfaction at that. Still got it, Wheeler. “There. Now, if you hyenas are satisfied, I’m going to go make sure the government doesn’t make our new friend vanish before we get a chance to learn anything more than his name.”

With that said, she turns and walks pointedly across the parking lot toward the other ambulance, not looking back.

She deliberately ignores the hoots, her children’s noises of disgust, and Kali’s sigh of “Finally!”

[the-beskar-alchemist]

Billy’s Baby

Buckle up buttercups, because I have a lot of feelings and I can't seem to control my brain's obsessiveness with Billy and his relationship with/mentality towards his little mean machine, so here's a bit of a "Character Analysis" starring a certain Camaro and its mullet-wearing human.

(I want to include some of the other characters, besides immediate family, but I think I'll save that for a headcanon post. More specifically I want to elaborate on Billy/Neil vs Billy/Hop/Joyce in terms of how he is with the car).

Here are some somethings I've noticed:

1) Billy doesn't appear to want to put too much money into anything cosmetic. Basically he's not eager to "pimp" his ride, only maintain the upkeep.  Granted he's probably working on a budget, and that's absolutely my headcanon....but only HALF of it. Do you know what costs more money than parts? Cigarettes.  If he's buying a pack or more a day, that money adds up, he could be spending hundreds of dollars a year, maybe more depending on the brand. I get the feeling that he's not interested in making his car look like a starlet, but he does value its appearance enough to keep it clean.

2) While he's not interested in a Fast and Furious worthy look, he's not eager to do damage on any cosmetic/mechanical level.  Yes in S2 he threatens to run over the boys, but honestly that felt like a bluff to test Max's loyalty to Hawkins (and the boys by default). Repairs (on the surface or below) cost money, which Billy is struggling to get.  He'll keep the fluids check/changed, the tank as full as financially possible, and the car washed, but he's not going to bust his ass to prove a point.  The engine is running, it gets him from A to B, and that's his main goal.

3) This car is a personal thing for him, it's his safe-space, fuck how anyone else feels about it. It's a point of focus for him, or at least one of the top 5 things that gives his life meaning.  It's not THE most important thing, honestly he could live without it if necessary, but he's not eager to part with his baby.  It's something that's JUST his, and no one else's. It's something he can claim that wasn't touched by Neil and has no connection with that deadbeat WHATSOEVER. Basically it's not TAINTED, and he loves that.  While he may bear a few scars from his life with his father, the car is unscathed, and that matters to him.

4) Why yes it is a chick-magnet, why do you ask? It has a V-8 engine that'll scare anyone standing too close when he gives it a nice rev before taking off.  He's done a few burn-outs, donuts, he's street-raced a few times hoping to win so he can get some serious cash, but a wheelie? He's afraid to try, he's heard stories, but the idea of raising up off the ground and feeling the roar of the engine beneath him? Makes his heart race.  When he first got the car people started to notice him, he wasn't "just Billy" anymore, he was Bad Boy Billy with the cool car.  The girls would flock to him just before he climbed inside and gave the engine a spin, they were drawn to the power of that engine more than Billy, but he didn't mind.  It's only when Max climbs into the car that he's reminded why he got the car in the first place, less than a year before they moved.  The girls are a nice bonus, but you can't put a price on freedom.

5) He's a teenager so obviously he enjoys having the option to leave the house if he needs to.  That's always the dream right, once you get your license? The car was only ever meant to be a way to escape, but it inevitably became a moving hotel room during those dark times.  When Neil would lose his shit and put his hands on Billy, forcing him out the door because he "was getting sick of his shit", and Billy had nowhere to go......his baby was the one to give him a place to rest.  Hell if he ever made it out of this shithole he just might live in the car for a while until he got back on his feet. But leaving Max would be the hardest part, because without Billy in the house Neil had to turn to SOMEONE to vent his anger.  But those nights when he curled up in the backseat (the front seat just wasn't that comfortable to lay on), usually with only his jacket to keep him warm, Billy couldn't help but think about the open road that would lead to a place far, far away from Hawkins.

6) While Billy is capable as a self-taught (ish) mechanic, he's not AS incline as he could be. It's not that he doesn't care to learn, he truly does, enough that he's snuck books out of the local library just so he could figure out what the hell was making that racket that one time he couldn't get the car to start. His lack of a teacher is the issue, and Billy sure as HELL won't go to his dad asking for help.  The one time he did, Neil scoffed and snapped back with an "It's your fucking car, you fix it", before shoving past Billy to leave the house.  Billy didn't ask again.  What he's learned was "on the go", purely a trial-and-error situation, he doesn't stop until he figures it out. He once spent HOURS trying to fix the car (there was a blockage in the fuel-line and the car wouldn't stay cranked), by the end of it all he was very tired. But knowing he'd taken care of the problem HIMSELF only fueled his confidence, and elevated him to a kind of high no woman or drug could ascend him. He slept like a baby that night.

7) Where did he get this car anyway? If he's strapped for cash how did he afford it? Well in my personal opinion Billy "earned" the car by working for the previous owner.  When he was still living in California, he went for a walk on the beach, a little further than he usually did.  He came across a beach house, and the Camaro was parked in a shed. He only noticed it because the breeze had caused a corner of the tarp covering it to flap, kind of like it was waving, and underneath a singular headlight caught the light from the sunset and nearly blinded him.  The man that owned it said it was his son's car before, but he died in Vietnam, and he didn't have the heart to drive it.  Long story short Billy worked out a deal to pay off the car little by little.  During this time the old man told him a thing or two about how to take care of it, what oil to use, what wax worked the best, etc.  By the time Billy had the car in his possession, they had to move to Indiana.  His biggest fear was the car breaking down before he could make it there.  He'd enjoyed his time with the old man, even bonded a little, it still hurts to this day knowing he had to leave it all behind.  He had started to really like the guy.

8) Obviously Neil isn't too fond of his son's car, he's complained about it leaving oil stains in the driveway, how Billy parks it at the house, when it's blocked the other cars (it wasn't even close to being in the way, Neil just sucks at backing up).  Neil once backed into the Camaro while leaving the house, and Billy flipped his shit, but Neil wasn't having that. He threatened to have the car towed away if Billy didn't start parking where he "was supposed to". Billy didn't argue at that point, he wasn't sure if Neil would follow-through or not, but a tow was expensive so it wasn't worth the risk.  Of course Neil DOES shut up for the most part, resorting to saving his complaints for his most "unfavorable" moments, why? Because of Max. As long as Billy has a car, Max has a chauffeur, so she's out of Neil's and Susan's hair at least THAT much.  As long as Billy has a car, Max is not their problem, so he'll shut up about it enough to avoid losing that loophole.

This turned out a LOT longer than I'd originally planned, sorry for the length, but I have so many thoughts popping into my head so I'm trying to get them all out or I'll get restless lol.

[staticscreenwriting]

thinking only autumn thoughts - Billy Hargrove

Synopsis: Autumn is magic. Billy is soft. 

A/N: I don’t even know what this is I just liked writing it. Please let me know what you think. Thanks :)

“October Country . . . that country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and mid-nights stay [...]

That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain. . . . “

Hawkins Indiana isn’t a spectacular town by all means. It’s small and old and boring. It’s not particularly pretty to look at either with it’s peeling paint and rusty nails and dirty shop windows.

But there’s a certain time of year, just a few days almost over by the time you realize it, where things change. It’s a feeling in the air. A whisper in the wind. A scent that reminds you of childhood memories you thought long forgotten.

It’s when all is painted in the last hues of reds and orange but fall knows it’s time to go and let winter take over. The air is cold a crips and nips at your nose and blushes your cheeks but it’s still warm enough to take walks along the fields.

That’s when he met her. He was new in town and angry. Always angry. And sad. And she was — alive. Even now, years later, he’s not sure what he ever did right for things to fall into place the way they did that night.

He was hanging out at yet another party of yet another classmate he didn’t give a shit about. And he was miserable and bored and filled with teenage angst and repressed emotions. And there she was, in the middle of a crowd, ripped jeans and a madonna shirt and bright pink lipstick. Her hair was permed to the max and she wore the ugliest hoop earrings he’d ever seen. It wasn’t like he fell in love with her then, but there was something about her that intrigued him. She looked like a downright mess. Like she was the physical embodiment of how he felt inside. Hell, she was drinking one of those disgusting wine coolers. If that doesn’t scream misery to you, what does ?

He saw her again, a few days later. Sitting on the front porch of her house, just a few down from his. She looked sad again. Still beautiful. And when she caught his eye, she started to smile. Her hair was flowing in the wind and her cheeks were flushed and the tip of her nose was red from the cold and Billy, for the first time in his life, thought that maybe he was falling in love.

Things changed that day, when they started talking. About the weather and school and Hawkins and their shared hatred of the town and how all they wanted was to get out.

They spent that night together, at the playground behind their houses. Just talking. About the misery of a lost childhood and a fuck up youth. About their families and how messed up they were. About mother and the absence of those. About heartbreak and life. And love.

And since that night things were never the same again.

Every year for all the years he’s spent in Hawkins Indiana that was his favorite time. Because she seemed to come alive then. With her hair flowing in the wind and Halloween gone and forgotten and Christmas still a month away she was — almost weightless.

And every Thanksgiving, when the nuclear families stepped up a notch in pretending to be perfect, they’d suffer through a fake display of familiar love and comfort waiting for the right moment to slip away and meet up.

The diner was almost deserted that night, obviously. Families had better things to do than have their Thanksgiving meal at the local diner with the soggy fries and the burned burger patties. But to them it was good. It was everything.

He told her he loved her there. With the pink neon lights lighting up her face like she was a character in the Blade Runner movie.

And she told him she loved him back.

It was a good time in Hawkins, the bridge between fall and winter. Where things are cold but they felt so warm inside.

Only winter inevitably came. And it came with cold and fury and heartbreak.

It’s years later that he gets to witness another Thanksgiving in Hawkins. Another magical moment between fall and winter. Only it doesn’t seem to magical when he arrives.

The occasion isn’t a happy one to begin with. It’s not the long awaited bonding of his patchwork family. No. He’s not being welcomed with open arms.

He’s welcomed by a frail looking Neil in a hospital bed hooked to machines, connected by tubes.

His dad is dying. That’s the inevitable truth of it all and Billy has no idea how to feel about this. This situation is so strangely familiar but so very different.

When it was his mom, he was a kid and he didn’t know shit about life and death and mortality. He just knew that his mom was there one day and the next she was in the hospital and then she was dead and he was sad and angry.

This time he knows so much more but his head is still kind of empty. As is his heart. His mother’s passing hit him deeply. She was this wonderful woman who held nothing but kindness and love in her heart. Neil is an abusive asshole.

But he’s still his dad and no matter how much Billy tries to deny it, he’s still just a broken boy asking for a sign of approval, a hint of pride, a tiny sliver of love from his dad.

All he gets is a snarky remark about his new haircut and a snort when he tells Neil about his job at a center for troubled youth.

So he bids Max and Susann goodbye and goes to the one place that holds good memories for him.

Only when he enters the diner it’s not a good feeling that washes over him. There’s the nostalgia of what this place holds sure, but it all feels less magical and way more sad when he has to face it alone.

He asks for a piece of pumpkin pie, which he doesn’t even particularly like but (Y/N) always loved it and some stupid ass part of his brain thinks that maybe that can bring them closer even if she’s not here.

“ You look like you could use some company “ Clarice, the waitress says but Billy declines. Not because he doesn’t like her, in fact she’s always treated him nicely when im and (Y/N) came around, no he’s just really shit at small talk. And that’s what she’s gonna expect from him.

So she walks off and for a moment he’s left alone with his soggy fries and a U2 song playing over the stereo.

Then the clicking of heels catches his attention and it’s just ridiculous how fast his heart starts to beat when he looks up and is greeted by (Y/N) walking towards him. Like it hasn’t been years since they have last seen each other. Like they haven’t broken up a long time ago. Like their last meeting wasn’t yelling and tears and heartbreak and throwing clothes out of windows.

But it all feels like a lifetimes ago. Like it happened to two completely different people. And all that’s there right now is this immense warmth spreading through his body and consuming him.

“ Hi “ she says and smiles and suddenly the diner isn’t so sad anymore.

She looks so different. Her hair isn’t permed anymore and the lipstick is now red instead of hot pink and she’s wearing gold studs instead of pink hopps but there’s still that shimmer of wonder and passion in her eyes and she’s still smiling like the girl she used to be. She’s a different person now but she’s still everything good in the world. At least to Billy.

“ Hi “

“ Can I sit down ? “

What a question.

“ Of course “

They’re quiet for a moment but there’s a tension building. Like the air before a thunderstorm. Electric.

“ I like the haircut. It suits you, I always told you. “

She had. But the mullet was his thing. The physical rebellion against his dad’s stupid rules and restrictions. Also he looked fucking cool and anyone who says differently is clearly wrong.

“ Thanks. You look — “ Billy knows he’s biased.This girl is part of all his happy memories of the last few years. She could be wearing a paper bag and shave her head and dye her eyebrows green and he’d still think she is gorgeous.

“ — good “

That’s fucking lame, honestly. But his heart is beating way too fast to come up with a proper answer.

“ Clarice called me, thought you looked sad. Like you could use some company “

They just fall back into conversation, like nothing has happened. Like they’re old friends who don’t have a shit ton of baggage. Who don’t have a backstory. Who didn’t love too fast, too hard, too much.

“ … and he’s dying. We know it. He knows it. I just — I feel like I should be sad, you know ? Like I should feel something. But I don’t. I don’t even feel relieved I just feel indifferent “

By the time they get to his father’s condition they’ve shared 3 milkshakes and (Y/N) has finished his piece of pumpkin pie.

“ Does that make me a bad person ? A bad son ? “

When she places her hand on his in comfort, Billy thinks he might die of a heart attack. Also he thinks he’s being fucking ridiculous. What is this ? A stupid John Hughes movie ? Fuck no.

“ Absolutely not ! This man has been making your life a living hell, Billy. You don’t have to be sad about him dying. I mean I get why you’re not happy, he’s still your dad. But you don’t owe him sadness. You don’t “

He hasn’t realized until now but she’s right, he felt like he might be owing Neil a certain kind of reaction. Sadness or pity or a hint of gratitude for — well for what exactly ?

“ He might be your father but he never stepped up to actually do his job as a dad. You’re allowed to feel the way you feel about it. “

Life gets overwhelming for Billy a lot of times. It moves too fast and sometimes he feels like it’s all spinning out of control. Like the world is turning and he’s gonna fall off. And then his breathing gets fast and his heart starts beating and his palms get clammy.

A girl from the youth center, Emma, she feels like that too, she told him. She’s 7 and she’s smart and she’s dealing with a family so much like his own, it breaks his heart. “ But then I think of my sister and my friends and my favorite song and the feeling in my tummy when I ride the teacup ride at the carnival and things don’t seem so bad no more “.

Billy looks up at (Y/N) and thinks of what they’ve been through and kissing her for the first time and them dancing to time after time at the prom he didn’t even want to go to but did anyway and had a good time and about the feeling of holding her in his arms during those magical fall nights. And then things don’t seem so bad no more, indeed.

“ Why did we break up ? “

If he’s being quite honest with himself, he knows why. It’s not one specific reason but an amalgamation of so many things. They just seem so pointless and trivial in the grand scheme of things now that he looks at it all as an adult.

“ Because we sucked “

“ We didn’t “

“ Yeah we kinda did. Billy we were both so caught in our own teenage angst and felt so miserable all the time. We were toxic for each other “.

“ What are you talking about ? You were the only thing in my life that wasn’t toxic. You were the only good thing ! “

“ See ? That’s the problem. We were so dependent on each other. I was waiting for you to fix me and trying to fix you at the same time. That’s not healthy, Billy. “

It’s the truth now that he thinks about it. While they were together, Billy hasn’t really made a move on bettering himself, not really. Yeah he’d calmed down considerably but none of those positive changes he’d ever given himself credit for. It was her that changed him and her he changed for.

And maybe his love wasn’t what made her life better either. Maybe that was all her doing. Maybe it was just growing up.

“ Do you really think we were that bad ? “ he asks and he’s scared of the answer. He doesn’t for one minute think about her regretting their time together.

“ If you’re asking me if I would do it all again, knowing what I know now. Then yes. Because I loved you Billy and when we were good we were spectacular. “

A silence settles upon them again as Billy ponders about their relationship. He’s glad she doesn’t regret giving him a chance. He doesn’t think he could live another day knowing the one person that showed him love in the last decade regrets just that.

“ So I told you why I’m back, why are you back ? “

If there’s one person that hates Hawkins just as much as he doesn, it’s (Y/N). Seeing her back here all grown up and mature, really surprises him.

“ I felt homesick. I know my family isn’t perfect but ya know, distance makes the heart grow fonder and all that shit. “

He might’ve not seen her in years but Billy can still tell she’s lying. Some things never change.

“ That’s bullshit. You hated Hawkins, what changed ? “

(Y/N) cracks a grin because of course he could tell that she wasn’t honest. It’s Billy.

“ I don’t think I hated Hawkins as much as I hated myself in it. It was just easy to blame everything on the town and the people except of taking a look at myself, you know ? “

“ Sure, doesn’t answer the question though “

“ Well, remember after prom when we sat by the quarry and you asked me what I wanted to do after school and I told you I wanted to write a book and you told me you wanted to help kids who are going through what you went through ? “

“ I do “

It was the first night Billy ever told anyone about his plans for the future. He wasn’t really one to spill his guts to people, still isn’t. So this meant a great deal. Especially since he didn’t really believe his plan was ever going to come true anyway. But she had been so honest and vulnerable with him then, it only felt fair to give something back.

“ I have been trying to write this stupid book for years and I just feel blank whenever I start a new idea. So I really started thinking about what it is that I want to write about, what makes me feel. Sad, angry, happy — just anything, really. And it all came back to Hawkins. Hawkins and you “.

Billy doesn’t think he’s the kind of guy people write books about. He’s not special or intriguing or even particularly funny. But this is (Y/N) and she’s always seen him differently.

“ So I came back here, for Thanksgiving. For the red leaves and the cold wind and that short time a year where things seem — lighter”

So it isn’t just his nostalgia clouded imagination that makes that time of year look magical to him, if she feels it to it must mean something. Anything.

“ You were always happier that time of the year and I could never figure out what it was “

“ It’s when I met you “

It’s like a thunderstorm rolling through his body. Lighting strike to the heart. He’s played this scenario over in his head for so many times but never has he thought he was the reason for her happiness. That he made such a difference.

“ I still love you “

That’s the fundamental truth of it all, really. He loves her and he’s never stopped. Not saying it out loud seems like a disservice to both of them.

He’s not become a better man for her, he did that for himself. But the better man he is now, he’s deserving of her love. He’s someone that’s good enough for the woman she is now.

“ Do you think we still stand a chance ? “

She softly takes his hand in hers again, her hands still so much smaller than his and way softer, way warmer.

“ The kids we used to be ? Absolutely not. We can’t go back to that. But the people were are now ? I don’t see why not. I like who you are now. I like that you went out and did what you always wanted to do. That you’re so soft on the inside and loving and that you put so much effort into helping kids. I like that you still show up here when your dad is sick even if you have every reason not to. I could love you now. “

Really that’s enough for him.

“ Can I kiss you “

She nods and leans towards him. And she feels warm and tastes like pie and cigarettes and her.

And suddenly the magic was back, full force. And no winter and no cold and no frost would take it from him this time.

It’s another late fall a year or two later when they sit on a swing set much like the one behind their houses when they were younger and more bitter.

Her hair is still flowing in the wind the way it always did and he cheeks have not lost the subtle blush brought on by the cold.

One gloved hand holds on to the chain of the swing while the other grabs tightly to the book she’s reading from. Aloud and with so much passion and love in her voice, it makes Billy’s heart grow 3 sizes at least.

It’s a special time of the year for a different reason now. All of the year is magic now that they’re together again with no underlying anger no repressed sadness, no misery. Just them.

It’s special now for it’s when she holds the finished product of many sleepless night in her hands. Of tears and frustration and more love and passion and longing that she could ever properly describe.

And Billy, he holds the other special thing in his arms. The one that graced them just a few weeks earlier when the air was still warm. She’s tiny and perfect and she’s all Billy and (Y/N) ever wanted in life. It’s her first fall, her first time on a swing, softly rocking in her father’s arms. Her first spark of magic.

“ … and as they sit on the porch, coated in the golden glow of a setting october sun, all is well and warm in their hearts. For maybe obstacles had to be overcome and mountains had to be climbed in order to end up here. Sometimes people meet at the wrong time in life when things are cold and bitter and filled with a sadness that is too much for two people to contain. But sometimes, and they both know how rare these are, sometimes there’s a right time. A second chance. For people who are meant to be together. They were granted such a chance and so they took it, reaching out and grabbing it and never letting go, ever.

So that october evening, with the red sun setting upon the horizon they were both so very aware that with all odds against them, they still managed to come out just fine in the end. Like boats against the current they managed to reach the shore, not unharmed but alive. Maybe more alive than ever before.

And with the waves it washed away the hurt and the bitterness and all that was left was them and love and magic. “

When she finishes reading she looks up at him with a shy glance. She’s nervous. This is the most vulnerable she’s ever felt. This is years of work and dreams she’s been harboring for a lifetime.

“ Do you like it ? “

“ You wrote a book about us “ Billy says and smiles.

“ No “ (Y/N) replies “ I wrote a book about love, we just happen to have a lot of that in our lives. “

Hawkins Indiana isn’t a spectacular town by all means. It’s small and old and boring. It’s not particularly pretty to look at either with it’s peeling paint and rusty nails and dirty shop windows.

But there’s people here that can change things, that make it worth it. It’s a feeling in the air. A whisper in the wind. A scent that reminds you of childhood memories you thought long forgotten. It’s the smile on her face when she looks at Billy and the sound of his daughter’s heartbeat and the love that surrounds them. Always. He knows it sounds cheesy but there’s no denying that it’s all a little magical.

[samanthasroberts]

5 Balls-Out Insane Competitions You Won’t Believe Are Real

Sports were born when a subset of humanity became obsessed with the question: “Who among us is the best at doing this arbitrary physical thing?” Extreme sports came to be when an even smaller, crazier sect asked: “How could we make this arbitrary physical thing as dangerous as possible so that some of us can finally be granted the sweet release of death?” Follow that path to its logical conclusion, and you get this shit:

#5. There Are People Who Drown Themselves For Fun

“Freediving” sounds like the kind of carefree sport the whole family could enjoy during a vacation to Hawaii. “Free” makes it sound like there’s not a lot of rules, so maybe it just involves flopping around in a pool? And the “winner” is whoever has the most fun? But we suppose they had to go with that name rather than the more accurate “competitive drowning.”

Motto: “If at first you don’t GLUB GLUB BLUB.”

Freedivers are all about diving as far down as they can, ever trying to beat the last great attempt. They don’t wear oxygen tanks — they voluntarily deal in apnea, the cessation of breath. They dive down either with their own power, aided by weights, or strapping themselves into a machine known as “no limits,” and come up at the last second with a balloon-style flotation device — basically an Opposite Day parachute.

These are people who have painstakingly taught themselves to survive up to 9 minutes, 24 seconds without air, and it is precisely as dangerous as it sounds: There are around 5,000 freedivers in the world, and an estimated 100 of them die every year. That’s 2 percent of your entire sport just up and dying on an annual basis, and the people who perish are not just overconfident rookies: In 2015, Natalia Molchanova, the greatest superstar of the sport, never surfaced from a freedive that she was doing just for shits and giggles.

At that depth, shits and giggles are both fatal.

“Now, hold on,” you’re surely saying. “If it’s just a contest to see who can hold their breath the longest, why not do it in a small tank of water, where they can easily sit up if they exceed their limits?” Oh, you naive fool. You’re still not getting it: It’s because freedivers are fucking crazy. Understand, the body changes in many ways when you go hundreds of feet deep with no air but what you hold in your body. In some competitions, half of the divers come up unconscious. A study of 57 freedivers in an eight-day competition saw a whopping 35 of them suffer from some “adverse event” or another due to the body freaking out because of the lack of air.

Which makes sense, as their body is all but completely failing on these dives. Like a robot running out of battery, the typical freediver’s heart slows down to just 14 beats per minute, as opposed to the normal human heartbeat of 60 to 100 beats per minute. People in a coma have a faster beat. You shouldn’t be able to maintain consciousness, let alone operate at that level. In fact, experts reportedly have little idea how 100 percent of the divers don’t wind up unconscious on these dives.

Yet they push on, despite — or because of — the insanely high mortality rate and the fact that science has no idea how they’re doing their thing.

#4. You Can Take A 30-Mile Swim In Some Of The Most Shark-Infested Waters In The World

If you’re a world-class swimmer wishing to join some elite company, you could try doing something difficult but boring, like swimming the English Channel. Just keep in mind that over the years more than 2,000 people have actually done it. But there’s another swim out there, less known but far more perilous. How perilous? Try “only five people have ever done it.”

And that’s five more than would have in a sane world.

The 30-mile swim between the Farallon Islands and San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge is 10 miles longer than the English Channel route, but that’s just part of its terrorizing charm. The course goes straight through an area called the Red Triangle, a fun area of the ocean with the greatest number of great white shark attacks on humans. Shockingly, this means that anyone stupid/courageous enough to attempt the Farallon-Golden Gate route risks having to cut their swim short for little things like, oh, suddenly noticing that a great white shark has started circling them.

Sharks are banned from all but the most exciting Olympic events.

But the sharks aren’t your real enemy — you’re far more likely to succumb to water that can get as chilly as 48 degrees, and if that doesn’t sound very cold to you, it’s because you’ve never been submerged in 48-degree water for hours. It’s cold enough to suck the heat out of the body so fast that you’ll go into shock and won’t be able to control your breathing. One early attempter’s body temperature got so low that, when his support ship fished him out, the nurse on scene initially declared him dead.

And then there’s the weather. The route has a portion nicknamed the Potato Patch, known for its unpredictable, huge swells. Riding the waves on the Potato Patch can be like getting tossed off a 10-story building (80 to 100 feet at their peak), and its many currents, shifts, and whirlpools can be like you’ve fallen into God’s washing machine during the spin cycle. That is what the Farallon-Golden Gate swimmers are trying to swim through … after already swimming for hours, after already having seen all of their limbs go numb from the freezing cold.

Actual frost zombies have refused to compete.

But hey, screw sharks, cold, and waves, right? Surely modern technology has plenty of wetsuit with cold repellents, shark repellents, and wave … repellents that enable a strong swimmer to power through the route? Well, they might … if it wasn’t for the fact that whatever maniac set the rules for the swim declared that to officially complete this route, you aren’t even allowed a wetsuit. You’ll be jumping in the freezing, watery sharknado wearing just a bathing suit, goggles, and a swimming cap. We’re kind of surprised they even allow that.

#3. There’s A 3,100-Mile Foot Race … All Around The Same Block

Really, this had to happen. Marathons and ultra-marathons are a thing, so of course someone keeps adding more and more “ultras” in there until you wind up with a 3,100-mile race some sad-sack sports addict is actually prepared to try to finish. That much is no surprise. What is surprising, however, is the precise nature of this race. You’d think that the longest foot race on the planet would be an epic course over several varied, marvelous countries, or at least a Forrest Gump-style, winding, coast-to-coast trek across America.

The scenery: spectacular. The food situation: complicated.

What you wouldn’t expect is a mind-numbing hamster wheel race around a single city block in New York. But that’s what the Self-Transcendence 3,100 Mile Race is all about, and that’s what the few dedicated super-runners willing to take part in the competition face: endless laps around a single block in a boring cityscape, on a ruthless concrete surface. For 52 days, their day starts at 6 a.m. They run (or walk) until midnight, trying their best to complete all the required miles before the time limit is up. Do the math, and that’s basically two marathons a day, every day, for almost two months.

So unless they’re willing to cut down on their daily six-hour break, there’s no fun with friends, no TV, no shopping, no video games, just monotonous running on the same stretch of dreary New York streets. And yeah, this isn’t even the interesting streets — the block is a boring-ass one in Jamaica, Queens, creating a course of a little under .55 miles. It’s like purgatory for runners.

Purgajoggy.

Some of the runners are in it just because they like to run. Most of them are disciples of the Bengali Guru Sri Chinmoy, and believe that part of spirituality is taking on seemingly impossible physical challenges. Regardless of their motivation, this race might not make headlines with crazy injuries or deaths, but it’s still pretty hard on the feet … literally. Runners go through a dozen pairs of shoes during the race, and because no shoe feels good for long on a two-marathons-per-day pace, they generally just give up and cut the toe area away, letting their toes enjoy the sunshine. As for the ones who don’t, well … one runner had to have all of his toenails removed, because it was either that or the toes as well. He took a little two-hour break, and then resumed his race.

Then there’s the matter of diet. The runners estimate they burn through 10,000 calories per day, so they need intensely calorie-rich foods to keep from withering away, so they pretty much need to be snacking all the time. Said snacks, by the way, range from simple apples and glasses of (non-alcoholic) beer to freaking sticks of butter.

“No time to stop and chew, just give it to me as a suppository.”

Still, with their shoes giving up under them and nourished by things that would down a lesser person, the runners blaze on. The race has taken place regardless of the conditions; one year, New York was suffering such an insane heat wave that the mayor declared a “heat emergency” and estimated there would be 140 heat-related deaths in the city. The race went on as planned, though presumably the participants had to ingest their butter from a cup.

#2. In One Desert Rally, Mad Max Comes To Life

The universe of Mad Max is one of those gloriously madcap fictional worlds that are gorgeous to look at but might be somewhat unpleasant to actually live in. Real-life limitations and common sense render it borderline impossible to re-create Fury Road-style massive, deadly car chases where crazy people ride awesome custom vehicles through never-ending deserts. That is, unless you count the Dakar Rally, which just so happens to be that exact thing.

Dakar is Senegal’s word for “vulture chow.”

The 3,000-mile Dakar Rally used to be between Paris and Dakar, Senegal, but had to be moved to South America in 2009 because of terrorism threats. You can take part with pretty much any land vehicle you fancy, from trucks and normal cars to motorcycles and quads. It’s a two-week off-road race with speeds averaging 100 miles per hour, and unholy insanity is pretty much its status quo. Since its inception in 1978, the Dakar Rally has claimed over 50 lives.

The ways it can kill your ass are varied and plentiful: People have died of heat stroke, heart attacks, and thirst, or a combination of all three plus terror caused by simply getting lost. Spectators aren’t any safer: In this year’s rally, 10 people were injured right off the bat when an out-of-control car went careening into the stands. That’s right: This is a race that isn’t even safe to watch.

The photographer is this picture’s only confirmed survivor.

#1. You Can Spend A Week Running Through The Deadliest Jungle In The World

It’s called the Jungle Marathon, which is a much more descriptive name than “freediving” but still undersells exactly what madness is taking place. For one thing, a marathon is 26.2 miles — this one is a seven-day, 137-mile trek. So, more than five of those. The “jungle” part is accurate, though — you’re doing the whole jaunt through the Amazon, the long-reigning champion in the “green hell” weight class of geographical hellholes.

The knee-high swamp wins in the “brown-hell” class.

So, in this particular competition, your race is not so much for the prize as it is for getting to the goal in one piece, and your most dangerous opponent is Mother Nature herself. Participants face challenges like the Jaguar Alley, a portion of the race that goes through known jaguar territory, where runners are advised to avoid running too far away from each other and armed guards stand watch at night (yes, of course they stay overnight in the area. How else could the jaguars get a sporting chance?) To date, no one has been eaten by a jaguar (as far as we know), but multiple people have seen them, and more than one competitor has reported being stalked by them.

The race directors do their best to make sure the journey is safe-ish, but as shitty as humanly possible; after all, this is an extreme sports event, so things tend to — and are meant to — leave sports competition territory and veer screaming into disaster-movie land. Not that they have to try too hard. The most recurring attacks from the local fauna come from wasps, which pretty much attack every single runner in the race. It’s not unheard of for a runner to limp on with 18 stingers sticking out of them.

Other wildlife that takes little to no shit from human passersby include supersized ants, ticks, snakes, and venomous scorpions. There have even been multiple reports of freaking stingray attacks (yes, you’re splashing through water in many parts of the race). Or maybe nothing will sting or bite you, and you just have to escape an angry wild pig by climbing up a tree. Did we mention that many trees in the Amazon are poisonous and can cause numbness just from touching them? Good luck running with a body you can no longer feel, buster! On the other hand, not feeling your legs might be a good thing, because the jungle does a person’s body absolutely no favors.

“Why, peeling and discarding excess toes doesn’t hurt at all!”

And then there’s the heat and humidity, which by itself would make the run a nightmare even if all other conditions were ideal. You don’t get help, either — competitors have to haul their own gear throughout the race. As such, the completion rate of the Jungle Marathon is predictably low: In 2012, 60 people started the race. Only 11 managed to finish it in full. And that’s picking from a group of people already willing to travel around the world to compete in such an event in the first place — the craziest of the crazy, in other words.

We like to imagine the other 49 people took two steps into the jungle, stopped, blinked, and said, “Wait, what the fuck am I doing?”

For as long as competitions have been a thing, there have been those who just need to make them infinitely more painful to perform. See what we mean in The 6 Most Terrifying Historical Car Races and 5 Bizarrely Masochistic Races People Run For ‘Fun’.

Source: http://allofbeer.com/5-balls-out-insane-competitions-you-wont-believe-are-real/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/10/27/5-balls-out-insane-competitions-you-wont-believe-are-real/

[mysteryshelf]

BLOG TOUR - Last Puffs

Welcome to

THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF!

DISCLAIMER: This content has been provided to THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF by Pump Up Your Book Tours. No compensation was received. This information required by the Federal Trade Commission.

LAST PUFFS by Harley Mazuk, Mystery/Crime, 293 pp., $14.95 (Paperback) $4.99 (Kindle edition)

  Title: LAST PUFFS Author: Harley Mazuk Publisher: New Pulp Press Pages: 293 Genre: Mystery/Crime/Private Eye

Frank Swiver and his college pal, Max Rabinowitz, both fall in love with Amanda Zingaro, courageous Republican guerilla, in the Spanish civil war. But the local fascists murder her and her father.Eleven years later in San Francisco in 1949, Frank, traumatized by the violence in Spain, has become a pacifist and makes a marginal living as a private eye. Max who lost an eye in Spain but owes his life to Frank, has pledged Frank eternal loyalty. He’s a loyal communist party member and successful criminal attorney.

Frank takes on a case for Joan Spring, half-Chinese wife of a wealthy banker. Joan seduces Frank to ensure his loyalty. But Frank busts up a prostitution/white slavery ring at the Lotus House a brothel in Chinatown, where Joan was keeping refugees from Nanking prisoners.

Then Max sees a woman working in a Fresno cigar factory, who is a dead ringer for Amanda, and brings in Frank, who learns it is Amanda. She has tracked the fascists who killed her father and left her for dead from her village in Spain to California. Amanda wants Frank to help her take revenge. And by the way, she says the ten-year-old boy with her is Frank’s son.

Joan Spring turns out to be a Red Chinese secret agent, and she’s drawn a line through Max’s name with a pencil. Can Frank save Max again? Can he help Amanda avenge her father when he’s sworn off violence? Can he protect her from her target’s daughter, the sadistic Veronica Rios-Ortega? Join Frank Swiver in the swift-moving story, Last Puffs.

Praise:

.5 out of 5 stars Wonderful Read – Easy and Fun February 10, 2018 Format: Kindle Edition| Verified Purchase Frank Swiver is a detective. Murder investigations are his specialty. He likes wine, loose women and fast cars. Not necessarily in that order. Swiver inhabits an earlier world that is archaic and, without doubt, politically incorrect by today’s standards. Harley Mazuk recreates in Swiver a character from another era whose story is fun and entertaining. Mazuk has an impressive knowledge of wines and cars which permeate his narrative. As to his knowledge of women, I am not competent to judge. I do know that the geography and time period portrayed is well researched. There are many twists and turns to the plot as well as an injection of espionage that keeps the reader guessing. Fans of old fashion detective novels will enjoy this book. I know, I did. — Amazon Reviewer

Order Your Copy!

  Aragón, Spain, March 1938

There’d been a dusting of fresh snow in the high ground during the night, and the captain wanted our squad, which was nine men, to relieve an outpost on the crest of a hill, just up above the tree line. Max Rabinowitz took point, and I followed, climbing steadily. It was a cold, quiet morning, and we talked between ourselves about the ’38 baseball season, and whether we’d be back in the States to see any games.

“I would like to see Hank Greenberg and the Tigers play DiMaggio and the Yanks,” said Max. Max was dark-haired and rangy, and I always thought he looked a bit like Cary Grant, though now after a year in the field, there was nothing suave nor dapper in his appearance.

“How about Ted Williams?” I said. “We’ve already seen DiMaggio play in San Francisco with the Seals.”

“We saw Williams play with the Padres. Besides, he isn’t in the big leagues yet,” said Max.

“Yeah, but the Red Sox signed him.” I walked along just off Max’s shoulder. I was about the same height as Max, six feet, six-one, a little thinner, and looked at least as scruffy that morning. I wore a burgundy scarf around my head and ears, under a dirty and battered grey fedora. I scanned the virgin snow ahead of us with heavy-lidded eyes. The wind was faint, just enough to pick up a feathery wisp of snow in spots and spin it around. 

“He’s only about 19. I think they’ll keep him down on the farm for ’38.”

“I would like to see Bob Feller pitch to your boy Greenberg,” I told Max.

Smitty came up between us. “Feller throws 100 miles an hour, and he strikes out more than one per inning.”

“They say,” said Max, “he walks almost one an inning,”

“Keeps ‘em loose up there,” said Smitty, who was from Cleveland. “Hundred mile an hour heat and nobody knows where it’s going.”

As the three of us stepped out of the cover of the tree line, Smitty kind of hopped up on one leg and threw his arms out. I wondered what sort of a weird little dance that was; then I heard the automatic weapons fire coming down at us off the hill. It was a mechanical chatter, rather than gunpowder explosions, and the wind had blown the sound around the hills so that the bullets cut Smitty down before it had reached us. Branches near us started to snap off and tumble earthwards. Max hit the snow on his belly and rolled downhill to his right to get to cover behind a rock. I motioned for the others to get back into the trees, and dove into a low spot in the ground.

When we could look up, we saw that the fascists had overrun the outpost we’d been climbing up to the ridge to relieve, and the firing was coming from there. We returned fire. I heard cries in Spanish from behind me, a curse in a low voice, then a high-pitched prayer.

A potato-masher grenade came flipping end-over-end down the hill toward me. It seemed like slow motion. It hit a rock and bounced up. I could say a Hail Mary in about four seconds flat in those days, and I said one then. The grenade sailed over my head; I heard it explode, and felt a shower of dirt on my back. In front of me, Max was popping up and firing one round with his Springfield, then dropping behind the rock. I popped up and fired when he dropped down. I thought we were doing pretty well taking turns, but grenades kept arcing over our heads and bullets pinged into Max’s rock and raked the dirt beside me. Max tried lobbing one of his grenades towards the machine gun, but his throw was uphill, and he didn’t have an arm like DiMaggio.

After a few minutes of this, I tried to aim and squeeze the trigger instead of popping off quick shots. Then I didn’t hear anyone behind us firing anymore. I looked around and saw Rocco and Pete sprawled in the grass. I called to a couple of the others.

“Comrades…anyone…sound off.” Nada.

“Frank, this is bad,” Max yelled to me.

“I’d rather be facing Feller’s fastballs,” I told him. “Maybe it’s time for us to dust.” Then we heard an airplane motor. It grew louder, and the first plane, a Heinkel, zoomed over the ridge seconds later. Max had risen to his feet and was scrambling down the slope. He looked back over his shoulder at the plane just as a cannon shot from the aircraft hit the rock he’d been behind. The explosion flipped Max in mid-air and tossed him towards me. The ground under him ripped up and clods of dirt flew towards us.

The scene faded to black, but for how long, I don’t know. When I opened my eyes, I was facing the sky but I smelled the forest floor, earth and leaves. Truffles, perhaps? Max was on top of me, limp, and it was quiet. No planes, no shooting. “Max,” I said, “we gotta get up. Get off me.” I felt my voice in my head, but couldn’t hear it in my ears. Max didn’t get up. I rolled him over next to me, and saw that his hat was gone.  The top of his head and the right side of his face were a collage of blood and dirt. I shook him, and he gasped for breath, earth falling out of his nostrils. He was still alive.

“Frank, Frank. I can’t see. I can’t see.” It didn’t sound like Max, but there was no one else there.

“Easy, Max.” I tried to rinse some of the dirt, debris and blood off Max’s head with my canteen, then I ripped open a compress from my pack and put it over his forehead and eyes. I wrapped more dressing around his head to keep the bandage in place “Hold this on your face, man. Don’t try to open your eyes.” I was afraid his right eyeball was going to fall out. “Hold it tight.” Using the slope, I maneuvered him across my shoulder, head down in front of me, and struggled to my feet. I took off at a trot along the tree line.

Our lines were behind us to the east but it looked like the whole damned fascist army was charging down from the outpost, headed that way, so I ran south. It was downhill and my momentum carried us. The going was easy, but I felt panic building in my gut so I tried to slow down. I slid on the snow, fell on my butt, and slammed into a tree and dropped Max.

“Frank, where are you? Am I dyin’?”

“I got you, Max. You caught some shrapnel in the head from that plane. Say an act of contrition or something.”

“I’m a Jew, you idiot.”

“Say it anyway.” I lifted the gauze off his forehead and looked under it. His wound didn’t appear to be deep, but the right eye was very bad, all blood and pulp, and the bone around it may have been shattered. “Press on this, Max.” I pressed the bandage back against his face and put his hand on it. 

I hoisted him over my shoulder again, and stepped off, forcing myself to keep my pace steady and not too fast. We went on till the sun was high in the sky. I didn’t fall again, but my ankles were burning, and my toes were pinched in my boots from going downhill. I stopped twice, and opened our bota. I washed my mouth out with the wine, a rustic red from Calatayud, then I cradled Max’s head and opened his mouth. I squirted the wine in, squeezing the leather skin, the way I’d squeezed the trigger of my rifle. Max coughed. He seemed only half-conscious.

I carried Max down the hill and to the south, parallel to our lines, until we were deep in some woods. I was scared and it wasn’t easy, but I would have done anything for Max. We had been roommates and run around together at Berkeley. We fell out of touch when he went to law school, and I started drinking, trying to forget Cicilia. When Max re-connected with me in ’36, he tried to help me sober up and get back on my feet. I’d come around for a while, but always, I’d slip back into the abyss.

Max was a red, even back in our student days. I hadn’t been serious about my politics then. One evening to keep me from drowning my demons, Max took me to a meeting about the Spanish Civil War and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Before the night was over, we’d signed up to fight in Spain. Max didn’t have to. I think he did it to save me. Now I was going to save him.

When the sun dropped behind the hills, the woods quickly grew dark. There was a smell of pines, and the footing was better—no snow or ice on the ground, which was hard and covered with dry pine needles. Under the background din of war, the roar of artillery and airplanes, I heard water down to my left. I turned towards it and a few minutes later, came to a stream, probably flowing south to the Ebro. It wasn’t night yet, but it was so dark under the tall trees, I would have walked into the stream without seeing it if not for the sound of the water rushing over the rocks. I put Max down on his back, head and shoulders downhill toward the stream. The blood had dried; the gauze was stuck to his head. I scooped up water with my hat and poured it on his face. The icy cold shocked him into consciousness—and panic and pain.

“Morphine, Frank,” he moaned. “Gimme the morphine.” But I had used our morphine one night weeks ago on guard duty on a cold hillside. We did have a flask of Cardenal Mendoza Spanish Brandy, and I gave him some, then I drank. I rinsed his wound good and put a new bandage on it using Max’s kit this time. My legs felt weak and started to shake with cold or exhaustion. I don’t know if I could have stood up then if the Generalissimo had come down the hill waving his pistoles. We were down low, and there were some bare shrubs and young trees sheltering us on the uphill slope. I fought my exhaustion and tried to keep watch as long as I could. I had another swallow of brandy and pulled close to Max. My eyes closed, and I fell asleep.

Interview with the Author

What initially got you interested in writing?

One of the earliest tugs in the direction of writing that I can remember was from Mad Magazine. I liked their parodies and thought perhaps I could write good humor. I put together my own Mad-like newsletters for my grade school friends. Some years later, as an adult, I saw Walter Mosley at a book signing. There was a line out the door and around the front of the store, and a most of the folks in that line were young women. Mosley didn’t look like he was working too hard, and there were all these cute young gals lining up to see him. If that’s what writing was, that appealed to me.

What genres do you write in?

I have written primarily detective fiction—private eye sub-genre. Both my novels have been noir. Last Puffs is pulp fiction Sometimes I’m hard-boiled but mostly, I’m medium-boiled.

What drew you to writing these specific genres?

Reading. I loved Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain. I wanted to write stories that they might feel were familiar in some way.

How did you break into the field?

I had been working for some time on my first novel, White with Fish, Red with Murder, and I needed a change, something fresh. Around that same time, I was going on a beach vacation with my family, and I thought I’d try to do a short story about Frank Swiver, the same p.i. who stars in my novel. It was my first serious short story attempt, “The Tall Blonde with the Hot Boiler,” and I sold it to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, where it appeared in the “Black Mask” section (just where I wanted to see it). I was thrilled, and it was very encouraging for a new writer. I’m sure the experience helped me finish the novels and see them through publishing.

What do you want readers to take away from reading your works?

Well, I intend them to be entertaining, fun reads, so I hope readers derive some pleasure from my stories. I introduce as themes a number of ideas that I think are relevant to life today and look at them through the lens of 1948-’49. Violence, non-violence; violence against women; fascism, socialism; the voice of the working class, America as a nation of immigrants.

What do you find most rewarding about writing?

Hearing from people who like my stories. Especially if they go on to specify some detail they particularly enjoyed, or some detail I got right for them. I do put things in my books and stories that I think might be meaningful only to me, and sometimes I learn that some of them resonate with others, too.

What do you find most challenging about writing?

Finding a good market for your work. Ellery Queen declined one of my stories last week, and that can be tough to cope with sometimes. I’m a big boy and I can take rejection, but it’s challenging as to, what do I do next? There are not too many outlets for private eye stories. Do I send it somewhere else? Do I change it? Or do I put it aside and start something new?

What advice would you give to people wanting to enter the field?

Write what you like, as opposed to trying to write what you think the market wants. As I just said above, finding a home for your work can be the most challenging thing about writing, but it’s good to believe in what you wrote.

What type of books do you enjoy reading?

I like early-to-mid-20th-century fiction. Not just Hammett, Chandler, and Cain, but also people like Ernest Hemingway, F.Scott Fitzgerald, Ian Fleming, Flannery O’Connor, Graham Greene, Somerset Maugham, John O’Hara, Eric Ambler. Among contemporary authors, I enjoy Michael Connelly. I just read Walter Mosley’s Rose Gold, and I thought it was his best since Devil in a Blue Dress, so he’s still got it.

Is there anything else besides writing you think people would find interesting about you?

Oh, sure—I could swap travel stories with some people, wine stories with others. I think what happens when you’re a writer is that many of the most interesting things about you find their way into your work—thinly disguised.

What are the best ways to connect with you, or find out more about your work?

Leave a review if you read something of mine that you like. Comment on a blog post and I’ll get back to you. Or send me an e-mail if you have a question. Harley.c.mazuk@gmail.com. I love to discuss my work. And you can always find out about me at my website, http://www.harleymazuk.com/.

  Harley Mazuk was born in Cleveland, the last year that the Indians won the World Series. He majored in English literature at Hiram College in Ohio, and Elphinstone College, Bombay, India. Harley worked as a record salesman (vinyl) and later served the U.S. Government in Information Technology and in communications, where he honed his writing style as an editor and content provider for official web sites.Retired now, he likes to write pulp fiction, mostly private eye stories, several of which have appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. His first full length novel, White with Fish, Red with Murder, was released in 2017, and his newest, Last Puffs, just came out in January 2018.

Harley’s other passions are his wife Anastasia, their two children, reading, running, Italian cars, California wine and peace.

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      BLOG TOUR – Last Puffs was originally published on the Wordpress version of The Pulp and Mystery Shelf with Shannon Muir