#he’s dangerous and sally is kind of scared of him in the book. she doesn’t yell at him and demand to go away and threaten his food

[sochilll]

The PJO show is definitely not BAD, it’s very fun and cool, but tbh I dislike almost every single change they’ve made from the book lol

[notsogoodangel]

Finally done: Children of Dead AU AKA an SBI Royal/Antarctic Empire AU which actually includes both Fundy and Kristin. More info under the cut

also ignore typos in the drawing, I did the text at like 2 am

The Antarctic Empire seemed to pop out of nowhere, and just as fast as it appear, it became among the most prosperous and wealthiest (and most dangerous) kingdoms in the world. The world was in shock figuring out how an adventurer, who first came into view from a pathetic death, became the ruler of such a prosperous empire. Although once meeting the royal family, one begins to understand. Emperor Philza, also known as the Angel of Death, a man later became known for his wisdom and bravery. He will always raising to the occasion, of course, if he believe in it, and destroy anything that stands in his path. The empress is Death herself, always kind to everyone who doesn’t run from her and her touch and to be feared if you ever go against her. They formed a family that almost seems too perfect for running the place the call home. The oldest son is almost perfect soldier, seemingly never loosing a battle and always knowing how to plan to their next expansion of their territory. The crown prince has a way with words that makes everyone listen, always trying to get the upper hand and his pride always seeking what’s the most optimal outcome during a meeting. The youngest of the emperor and empress children is a loud young man that is never afraid to speak his mind, fight for any occasion to protect the empire and his family, trying to improve any injustice that may ever plague the kingdom. The crown prince’s son is focused on making the empire structurally stable, always focusing on the infrastructure and improving the technology.

Secondary characters

Ranboo: 

He was taken in by Phil when he was 15, but he really seems to be adopted by Techno than by him.

Not an official prince, but under the protection of the royal family.

Still half enderman and half something else.

He is the same age as Tommy, and they get along well-enough.

Tubbo: 

He is not adopted by the royal family, but might as well be.

Even though he is a citizen of Manberg, he spends most of his time in the empire, specially hanging out with Tommy, Ranboo, and Purpled.

Son of Captain Sparklez, his uncle is Schlatt and Puffy, and Dream is his cousin.

Half goat and half sheep (that’s the couple horn).

Purpled:

An ex-child soldier, rescued and taken in by Ponk and Punz (his biological-older brother).

He was REALLY good at his job, and still continues the mercenary work, but he actually makes money out of it.

He is an alien hybrid, which is among the rarest hybrids, and has very little drawbacks.

He hangs out in the castle because he can and nobody can stop him.

Sam: 

A prince with so many brothers that is near impossible for him to become a king, so he moved to the empire and helps in the building of it with the help of Foolish.

A raccoon-creeper hybrid, and connected to Tommy very fast because of it.

He is in a relationship with Ponk, and lives with him, Purpled and Punz.

He can explode, and tries his best to control his angel... and he is scared of cats, which works out because Ponk is allergic to them.

Schlatt

Phil’s old adventure buddy (look, I love their Hexxit series, fight me)

President of Manberg, although not for long because he dies near the end of his first term. After that he haunts, Quackity, Tubbo and Phil, although mostly Quackity. 

He has the Revive Book, because his family is cursed and all males died young and he is looking for a way to stop it or extended the dying.

He is Sparklez’s and Puffy’s cousin, although he did help raise Tubbo since they travel a lot.

5up: 

Fundy’s childhood friend (and later boyfriend)

He is a nature spirit, specifically a radish. All nature spirits are connected to a plant, and this helps him to stay connect to this realm because again, he is a spirit. 

He tries to spend as much time in the empire with Fundy but the weather is hard on him, and staying in another realm can be hard.

Minor characters

Sally: A fish-hybrid that comes to the empire when the water is not frozen solid, and despite that, she is married to Wilbur and gave birth to Fundy, making her the princess of the empire.

Squid kid: A squid-hybrids that comes to the empire year-round and helps Techno keep his crops when he knows he is going away for a battle for an extended period of time. Techno only does this because he hates machines, and prefers manual labor. 

Ponk: A dreamon-hybrid (hides it) mercenary and doctor who keeps an eye in Punz and specially Purpled. Usually the middle man between any hits someone may request.

Punz: A alien-hybrid (recessive) mercenary and ex-child soldier. While he lives under Ponk and Sam’s roof, he doesn’t really listen to them as he is only there because he cares about Purpled... also he doesn’t listen to anyone unless you pay him.

Extra info: 

Tubbo, Dream, Puffy, Sparklez and Schlatt are all biologically connected. The “C” on Tubbo and Schlatt’s name stand for Captain, which is the family name. Don’t ask why is in the beginning of their names, they don’t know either. Their curse consist in that all males in the family will die young, usually tragically (Sparklez drowns in one of his travels and Schlatt dies alone from a heart attack). While the females will start to forget things if they are not consistent, for example, they will remember how to garden if they are a farmer, but they will forget they have a child if they live alone for an extended period of time.

Dream is the rules of the Greater SMP, although he hates the idea of being the face of the country since he hates people being up in his personal business, doesn’t like attention, he has personal beef with Techno and Tommy and that is not good for public relations when you hate two of the princes of one of the most powerful empires in the world; and his uncle runs a country that is not connected to his at all (aside from being to war in the past, but Schlatt wasn’t president then). So he still rules, but put Eret as a figure head as he has good personal relations with Wilbur and they actually like the attention.

There’s a small secret revolution against Wilbur going on the Antarctic Empire run by Blop and Oreli and many other of the people Wilbur used as experiment and torture during his “rebellious” phase. They mostly just want to torture and no-canonically kill him.

Hannah and George are also nature spirits. George is a mushroom spirit and Hannah is a rose one. George lives in Kinoko Kingdom with Karl (not a hybrid, but just a straight up an interdimensional being) and Sapnap, a fire-demon hybrid, and they are visited by Dream, who’s a sheep-dreamon hybrid, Quackity (a duck hybrid) and BBH (straight up demon and Sapnap’s dad). Hannah, on the other hand, lives on the Empire in a green rose, and works as a mercenary with Purpled. They sometimes work together, but most of the time they just train together.

Quackity is the vice-president during Schlatt presidency, and takes the mantle of presidency when he dies. He wants to run, but he after entering in a relationship with Karl and Sapnap he stops and moves to Kinoko. 

[percabeth4life]

I think I saw an ask game on here about what scene your readers are most excited to read about in your fics, so if that was in fact this blog, it’s Percy overpowering Akhlys with the poison in SOTFP. Like, he ripped control of poison away from a primordial, while he was already injured and on the brink of death. People have the audacity to say the most powerful demigod alive isn’t Hazel (who also did that with Gaea) or Percy; like, what books did you read, because they weren’t the ones I did; I respect y’all’s opinion, even though it’s wrong. But seriously, the Titans learning about this, after hearing about losing the war and Percy personally fighting some of them, and after learning Percy had Iapetus kill his brother, through good old-fashioned manipulation (Kronos of PJO is quaking at how much better Percy is at manipulating. The Crooked One couldn’t get an angry 12 year old on his side, and Percy got one Titan to kill another, even after telling said Titan that that was his brother. PJO Kronos is taking notes). It’ll be delightful. Also, the irony of Hazel having stated earlier that Percy was like the sea’s gentler nature, when Percy was consistently down for murder in HOH was hilarious. Tartarus brought out the worst in Percy, because what else could’ve happened? Obviously, the pit of eternal damnation, wasn’t going to bring out the best in him. Plus, the line about a glass ball in Percy shattering. Tartarus changed him irrevocably, but Rick is too much a coward to show it. Back on topic, the Titans and demigods learning about this will be awesome, especially because Percy himself only brought it up once and Annabeth only mentioned how scared she was of it (Percy only stopped for Annabeth. He’s looking at how dangerous and strong his powers are, realizing he doesn’t know the scope of it (he thought he reached a peak when he blew up Mt. Saint Helen’s, but he’s only 16. He’s still growing, and more terrifyingly, so are his powers. He shackles an uncontrollable force for Annabeth; there is nobody else, excluding Sally, that he would do this for). People finally get context for what the hell was going on, since Percy doesn’t explain things (it’s only fair). Titans look at a 16 year old with the lofty life ambition of living to 18 and graduating high school, and he’s just kicking the asses of every immortal he comes across, excluding his father. He makes a sandwich while they read this scene, and acts like him being this powerful isn’t even a big deal; he already knew this was possible, so if everyone could stop making a big deal about him defying every law of nature, he’d really appreciate it.

I do not believe I reblogged that one but I have no issue answering this anyways lol.

But yeah, SOFTP reactions are going to be really fun to write and when we reach that you can bet your ass that the Titans are gonna be going “what”. Awe and fear and fascination. Knowing this child inherited his power from his Father, who inherited from his own. Knowing that Percy, the child of the storm bringer, earth shaker, ocean God, could control the poison of a Primordial in the realm of another Primordial during a war with a third Primordial- it’s going to be stunning.

And the way that Annabeth leashes that power. The way he takes one look at Annabeth, knows she wants him to stop, and stops for her... well the Titans will recognize such devotion. Knowing that for Annabeth he would stop the tides- that’s the kind of love that ends nations. Had Annabeth instead asked him to continue, to push Akhlys to the very end of it... he would’ve.

The combination of his raw power, and the power Annabeth wields through him... is honestly terrifying.

I explore that a lot in a story I’ll never write but literally- for Annabeth Percy would drown the world. If she asked he would turn everything to ashes. And this scene is what shows it for me.

She asked him to stop when he went beyond anything he could’ve before, and he did.

[serenasoutherlyns]

Precedent

Tracey is falling in love, fast. She seeks the help of an expert.

Law & Order: Trial By Jury and Law & Order. ~1.4k words. Tracey/Kelly, Tracey & Jack friendship with a bit of Jack/Claire. Any feedback is appreciated more than you can possibly know. I wrote this quickly and didn't do much in the way of editing so forgive any errors. ao3 link.

"Jack, do you have a second?"

"For you, Tracey? I'll find ten." He's always liked how she refuses to indulge him with anything more affectionate than an eye roll (he knew how much better that was than many of her myriad expressions). And he does have time. He's finishing some notes with one hand and some noodles with the other.

"There's something I could use your perspective on," she says as she clicks his office door shut behind her. It wasn't like her to come to anybody, let alone him, for advice on cases. He figures it must be a big one, though he thinks she'd go to Arthur for that, even though he knew she hated to. The woman was mysterious, but never deadpan.

"Whatever I can do," Jack says, gesturing to the seat across from him. And he is genuinely willing to help. He likes Kibre. He thinks her spiky reputation is well-earned and well-fitting. She's damn near as good as he is and that, he'd testify to (he expressed a sentiment like this one once, to Serena, who had called him an "egotistical ass," which he guessed he deserved. He missed her sometimes).

"It's not a case, actually it's not exactly work," she says, and Jack is even more surprised. If he doesn't think she'd come to him with work problems, he really doesn't think she'd come to him with personal problems. He raises his eyebrows as if to encourage her to continue. He closes his notebook and brandishes an extra set of chopsticks towards her. Her utterly horrified look is both wounding and amusing.

"You'll have to forgive me," she says, "I despise rumors, but nobody else around here has the same ones you do. I hoped you might have some," she narrows her eyes slightly, looking for the right word, "expertise, in this matter. I've consulted the Standards and a few more popular ethics publications,"

"And there's nothing in any of them about whether or not you can sleep with your associates." Tracey looks relieved for only a second at his commiserating smile.

"Possibly 3.1-7, but,"

"That concerns relationships to defense counsel." Tracey nods. "I know. Terrible, isn't it? That there isn't something somewhere that reads '4.1.: don't do that.'"

Tracey laughs begrudgingly. "Indeed. But when you don't have a statute, you seek out precedent... I truly exhausted my other options, I hope I'm not making you uncomfortable."

"Not at all," Jack says, and he's being truthful. There are elements of him, people with whom, circumstances in which he can be an open book. Tracey is clearly in a tough position and he knows she'll keep his secrets, if only for the possibility of using them against him down the line.

"And none of this gets to Arthur."

"My lips are sealed. So," he says, trying to strike a sensitive tone. "Kelly Gaffney?"

"Yes."

"You two are,"

"Not yet."

"But you're going to. Or you wonder if you should."

"Right." Jack thoughtfully places a stickful of stirfry into his mouth and chews.

"Is there any stopping it?" He asks, knowing that the answer is no, that if there was, she wouldn't be here.

"Not as far as I can tell. I mean, I wouldn't resign, and I couldn't ask for either of us to be reassigned,"

"And you also can't take another celebration scotch or late night research session?"

"You really have been there," Tracey says, with a wistful smile fighting her furrowed forehead. Jack nods. "So, should I just prepare myself for disaster? Or push her away, or... I don't know, take the risk?"

"You're sure she likes women?" Jack says, giving her a purposefully inquisitive look.

"Oh, come on, Jack," she says. He raises his shoulders. "Yes."

"I wouldn't've asked!" he replies defensively.

"Manhattan is a small town. I knew before we started working together."

"How?" Jack asks, but the look she gives him makes him concede defeat. "Maybe you should talk to her," he says, going against everything he did."

"Did that ever work for you? I mean, what would I even say,"

"You overestimate how well any of it worked."

"Do tell," Tracey says, "that is if you're comfortable," she says. With her eyes turned down, she looks almost demure.

Jack knows he can trust her. "Well," he starts, settling in for the storytelling, "Ellen fell pregnant very shortly after we started sleeping together, and then I cheated on her with Sally Bell, who lost interest very quickly. She's a good person, you know." He shrugs. "Diana, was, eventful, from start to end, as I'm sure you know." He takes the last bite of dinner and pushes the container elegantly aside.

"Wow," is all Tracey says, and Jack thinks that he wouldn't want to be like him either.

"You asked," Jack says, weakly smiling. "It's some pattern of behavior, I know."

"I never have," Tracey says. "I've had this bureau chief position ten years, just two associates. Before Kelly I worked with Elizabeth Lynwood,"

"Lutheran Lizzie, I remember," Jack chuckles and Tracey smiles back.

"The nickname was unfair," Tracey says, "Just barely. She's doing well, by the way, in Minneapolis. And before that I always had male bosses, and I defied any of them to look at me. Besides I was usually in one relationship or another," she says. Jack wouldn't've taken her for a serial monogamist.

"So you're not a repeat offender then, Ms. Kibre," Jack says, mock-serious. "Good. After Diana was Ted Baer and, Dan Tenofsky, so I was in the clear, there." He braces himself for the next thing, because he knows it's going to hurt. And he doesn't want to scare Tracey, and he's done a good job (he thinks, hopes) of gluing the pieces together. "And then, Claire Kincaid."

The way he says her name is almost reverent. He's quiet, but more than that, soft, with his hands resting on the table. Tracey feels for him, the moments sitting across from Claire in these very chairs, the way her ghost (and Tracey doesn't believe in the spiritual) must follow him around. Tracey had been fond of Claire, though she never knew her that well. She was a kid, all of 26 when she started with Ben. She was intelligent, scarily so. Curious, passionate, all those traits with productive and dangerous sides. Jack had broken in half and the sound it made was loud enough to shut everyone up around him for as long as it was going to take.

"She was different?"

"Than anyone."

They look at each other for a moment, neither one knowing how to get back on track.

"She's," Tracey says, breaking the heavy silence. "Relentlessly moral. She's funny. Her, capacity for compassion is, superhuman. She second guesses me, but not nearly as much as she could, not as much as she does herself..." Tracey breathes into her next words, "she's pushy."

"She makes you want to be better?"

"More than anyone I've ever met."

"And,"

"Impossibly beautiful," she says, with the kind of smitten smile that makes a person look 20 years younger.

Jack leans back, her expression turning infectious, stretching his arms behind his head. "Look, Tracey, I have regrets. How I treated Ellen, getting involved with Diana in the first place... Some things I said to Claire. But I never, once, regretted falling in love with her." Tracey nods, thinking. "I tried, you know. To stop myself halfway down the cliff."

"All that happens then is you hit the rocks before you hit the water."

Jack rests his chin in his hand, elbow propped on the table. "Does that help?"

"Yeah, it does, more than the Standards, anyway."

"I beat the BAR association!" Jack says, in that boyish tone Tracey knows lots of people find charming.

"Don't get too cocky," Tracey playfully warns him. Her cell rings, and her pulse quickens when she sees it's Kelly calling. She flips it open and catches an entertained look in Jack.

"Hey," she says breathlessly, softly, and Jack knows he's given her the right advice. "Sure, I'll meet you there. 20 minutes, yeah. I'll see you." He looks at her smugly. "I meant what I said, McCoy," she says as sharply as she can manage as she stands from the chair, pulling on her coat and picking up her attache. She stops in the doorway.

"Thanks, Jack."

"Anytime."

---

taglist: @voltives (look you're special!)

[willowbleedsonpaper]

Ghost Of You (Part 5)

Draco Malfoy x Muggle!Reader

W.C. : 3200

Summary:  The war with Voldemort was over. Draco Malfoy was forced to flee for his life ending up in Muggle London where he met you, the muggle whose house he broke in looking for a place to hide. You agreed to let him hide in your house if he promised to let you live your life normally. How will your relationship work as time passes and you both realize you’re no longer just partners in crime?

A/N: Can someone expalin to me the sorcery behind feeling like I wrote an entire book and realizing is shorter than previous parts? Because I don’t get it and I’m confused. Doesn’t matter, I’m back and ready to keep posting.

Again, thank you for the 100 followers. Love you all my Skittles (Yes, I am calling you skittles).

Please, let me know what you think. I love reading your comments! Shoot me an ask or somthing if you would like to be tagged. Enjoy and happy reading!

*Not my GIF. Credits to the creator*

You were frozen staring at the man just outside your door. Visibly shaken, your grip on the doorknob turned your knuckles white. Both, Jack and Draco’s eyes landed on you after a minute of silence. both in worry and confusion.

 Jack cleared his throat, looking at you “Can I come in?” he asked in a serious tone.

 “We were actually in the middle of something.” said Draco before you could answer yourself, stepping forward his chest bumping with your back. You gave him a hard stare, wondering if he actually remembered the turn your little chat had taken. You noticed then his clenched fists at his sides, he didn’t want Jack there.

 You moved your body aside, using it to push Draco back with your steps. The door opened completely, letting Jack inside with a soft Come in from you. Waiting until Jack had made it all the way to the living room, you turned to Draco behind you “Don’t think you will get out of this so easily, Malfoy.” you hissed, poking his chest.

 You were already turning to go to Jack when a cold hand grabbed your wrist, pulling you dangerously close to him “Don’t call me Malfoy” he said lowly, marking every word. His last name practically growled with a deep burning hate.

 “Or what?” you looked straight into his eyes, his grip on your wrist tightening “You’re going to force me?” you dared, his entire face turning red.

 “I promised I wouldn’t but you are being really tempting at the moment.” he mumbled letting go of your hand and storming to the kitchen without a word.

 You watched him, wanting to feel bad but you were really worked up because of everything he said before Jack’s interruption, he clearly was holding back from using his secrets to make him leave and to make you behave, as he had called it, so you let him go turning to the living room where Jack was.

 He was sitting at the couch, reading over the few papers you had left there from your work. He had always loved to go over your work, saying he had so much to learn from you. You were tempted to let him be a little longer, unfortunately you and the man in your kitchen didn’t have the time or patience to be nice.

 “What are you doing here Jack?” you asked sharply making him jump in his seat. He quickly placed the papers back from where he took them, jumping to his feet.

 “I came to see how you were,” he said simply, giving you a nervous smile “ I saw Sally and she told me you were sick.” he explained.

 Jack, was a sweet caring guy, there was no denying it. But you felt his behavior out of place. If you still were together you would have never minded him dropping by your place unannounced claiming to be worried about you, but you weren’t and the fact that it wasn’t the first time he had done it was even more infuriating.

 “Jack, you can’t keep doing this.” you sighed in defeat, rubbing your temples with tired look in your face “You ended things, remember? Not me, you.”

 “I know but…”

“No, you can’t keep coming here just because you heard I’m sick, or because  you heard I had bad day at work or because you miss me, you just can’t.” your words came out so fast you doubted he even understood what you said but his hurt look said otherwise.

 He let a breath out turning in his place, he ran a hand through his hair “I’m sorry, okay.” he spat turning his face to you, two steps and he was in front of you holding your hands in his.

 “What?” you said loudly, shaking your hands out of his “What do you mean you’re sorry?”

 “I made a mistake,” he told you with a determined look in his face “I know I did, but I felt like you didn’t love anymore and then you said you didn’t want to get married or have a family and I got scared!”

 “And then broke up with me.” you added with a fire in your eyes “I know, I was there.”

 “But then I didn’t see you for months, you wouldn’t even look at me at the halls at work, never talk to me and I realized how important you are in my life” he said, desesperacion taking over his features.

 But you had stopped listening at some point, your body felt like a statue at the tension gathered in every single one of your muscles and you were surprised that you weren’t visible shaking. “Y/N…” he whispered, seeing you had a dead look in your eyes, remaining completely silent.

 “And all it took for you to realize that was breaking my heart.” you mumbled so low he frowned, taking a hesitant step towards you “My. Heart.” you repeated, making him stop dead in the spot.

 “I’m sorry.” he whispered shakily with glossy eyes.

 “Being sorry is not enough Jack!” you snapped, pointing at him with sharp movement of your hand “I loved you, I cried every night because it wasn’t enough for you just being with me and you are sorry?” you yelled in disbelief, a stray tear rolling down your cheek.

 He had a dead look in his face, and you thought maybe you had gone too far before he scoffed, taking you by surprise.

 “Didn’t took you too long find someone else, though” he grunted, his eyes shifting to the kitchen before returning to you.

 “What is that even supposed to mean?” you asked, cleaning your cheek with the back of your hand.

 “C’mon Y/N” he said, his arms flying in the air when he began to pace back and forth “You are the most popular teacher at school, you were at everyone’s mouth.”

 You stared at him wide-eyed, the tears falling now freely down your cheeks “What?” you stuttered, covering your mouth with your hand.

 “Please, don’t act like you don’t know. Everyone at school saw you with the mysterious blond man. ” he mocked and you turned to the kitchen, remembering the day that Draco forced himself into your work, entertaining the entire class with the made up stories of your time together at college.

 You would have smiled at the memory, being more funny now that Draco had assured you he would never do something against them, but you felt numb as you face Jack once more “You’re jealous.”

 “What?” he spat, stopping his pacing.

 “You didn’t came here because you were worried,” you said meeting his eyes “You came here because you’re jealous of Draco.” you muttered, watching his face contort into one of confusion.

 “Who the hell is Draco?” he asked, and you quickly realized your mistake stumbling back.

 The sounds of the kitchen made you look back, a couple of crashing sounds catching your attention. You were about to walk in there when Draco emerged, positively on high alert when his eyes landed on you “We need to go,” he said grabbing your hand and pulling you towards the door not even waiting for your answer.

 You let him pull you with him leaving Jack behind, you tried to talk to Draco, asking him all kind of questions that he wouldn’t answer. His face moved wearily over your car and the fence separating your house from your neighbors.

 “Hey!” Jack shouted, following you out the door “You can’t just run from this, you…”

 Draco cursed under his breath, turning momentarily back to Jack “Would you just shut up?!” he hissed, pulling you to your car.

 He place his hands on your shoulders and looked you straight in the eyes “I need you to get in your car, drive as far away as you can. I will look for you, okay?” he ordered, seeing the tears in your cheeks “Do you understand?” he asked softly, looking wildly for your eyes bringing his thumb up to your cheek, cleaning the tears there.

 You shook your head, eyes wide as you glanced from your home to him “No.” you told him, trying to sound more confident and failing getting a small smile from him.

 “Y/N,” he called you when you started to rant, making you stop “They found me.” 

 You felt the knot in your stomach tighten, shaking your head furiously at him “No, I’m not leaving you.” you cried, stepping away from him and the car “Let's’ go to the police, they can do something.” But you didn’t hear whatever he answered you, your eyes focusing over his shoulder on the cloaked figures emerging  from down the street.

 Everything around you slowed down, the masks in their faces sending chills down your spine as one of them raised their arm towards you, holding in their hand an object like the one Draco carried with him at all times. You didn’t have time to shout anything, your body acting on its own as the words coming out from the person right in front of you were muffled by the pain of your body landing over Draco’s.

 Your scream was cut short when Draco and Jack both reacted, kneeling beside your car taking cover from the sudden flashes of light being thrown in your direction. You were in a complete state of shock as you slowly turned to Draco, his back at you when he rose to his feet, shooting the same flashes of light from his wand, yelling words you couldn’t fully understand.

 Jack was yelling beside you, but you were unable to move your eyes from Draco. Everything you didn’t want to believe when you connected the ideas of him carrying a wand with the inexplicable reason as to why he could make you do his will with a whisper in your ear was becoming true right before your eyes.

 “Merlin!” he yelled, snapping you out of your trance “Silencio” he casted, pointing his wand right at Jack, who shoot his hands around his throat with a distraught look.

 The heavy breathing coming from Draco made you realize it was the only sound you could hear. You turned to him, his head poking over your car before he took your hand again “C’mon” he breathed out.

 He started running, never letting go of you. You managed to grasp your hand around Jack´s jacket, pulling him with you enough for him to follow. Draco took you out of the streets, entering the forest behind your house.

 You had ran for minutes, the lights tiny dots in the distance. Looking around you, you saw nothing but trees that looked the same, everywhere you turned looked the same. You wanted nothing but to stop. And you did.

 Draco turned to you, searching your eyes with a questioning look before he saw your shaking form “We can’t stop now, love.” he told you with a pleading look, reaching his hand for you to take again.

 Just when you were about to take it, something pulled you back, your fingers barely brushing his “No” said Jack with a hoarse voice “I don’t care who you are or who is after you, you’re not taking her with you.” he placed an arm around you, pulling you behind his body.

 Draco made a sound from deep in his throat, fighting his own body to not launch himself at Jack “You’re lucky I let you follow, if it was up to me I would’ve left you with them.” he mumbled, walking forward and you followed breaking out of Jack’s hold.

 “Draco.” you called, quickening your pace to keep up with him “Draco!” you yelled, seeing as he kept on ignoring you.

 He snapped his head at you, clenching his jaw he moved his eyes anywhere but you “What?” he muttered coldly.

 “What...How did they found you?” you stuttered, glancing back to make sure Jack followed. You jogged, taking his arm with your small hand, only managing to make him turn towards you.

 But the sounds of laughter reached your ears and you turned back, the echo making you snap your head in every direction you heard it coming from. Draco took your shaky hand in his again walking further into the woods, not really knowing how to return home, or if you ever would.

 “Draco!” someone sang, voice echoing in the air “You can’t hide forever!”  

 “No.” he muttered, looking wildly in every direction he could.

 The woods were dark, no light that came from the moon or the stars helping you as he cursed under his breath “Lumos.” he whispered, a soft light shining from the tip of his wand, making you stumble back and not falling for his tight hold in your hand.

 He gave you an apologetic look, mouthing something you couldn’t understand before a whisper behind you brought you back “There you are.”

 You both turned with a jump, a woman standing behind you with a grin in her face, her wand moving a stray piece of hair from her face. She tilted her head, eyeing your entire body before she dedicated a dark smile to Draco.

 “You’re supposed to be dead.” he said sharply, pulling you behind him.

 She laughed, walking around so she could keep an eye in both you and him “Don’t sound so sad to see me.” she said, her voice raspy “After all, we are family.”

 Your eyes looked for any reaction in Draco but he kept a stoic look at all times “I don’t know you.” he muttered, glancing swiftly at you.

 You didn’t know what to do, not understanding anything of what was being said or was happening made you even more frustrated, your eyes burning with the unshed tears you were fighting to keep at bay. You couldn’t breakdown there. The three of you had to make it alive first.

 Your heart stopped inside of you, eyes looking everywhere around you for Jack.

 “Oh, Draco” she pouted, her eyes shining with amusement “You hurt my feelings” she placed a hand over her heart before her eyes fell on you, your stomach turning inside you “Who is the mudblood, Drakey?”

 “Stay away from her,” he growled raising his wand towards her, using his body as a shield “It’s me who you want, leave her out of this.”

 She chuckled darkly, taking the same stance as Draco “Doesn’t mean I can’t make you watch as I play a little with her, your death can wait.” she said and you fisted his suit jacket in your hands.

 “Touch a single hair in her and you’ll regret the moment you came looking for me.” he threatened flicking his wrist, a red light shooting from the tip of his wand.

 She gasped, her eyes wild as the blue shield she had created dissipated from the air “You were always weak minded, just like my traitor of a sister.” she hissed and Draco didn’t need to take two look into her eyes to know what was coming.

 He ordered you to run, giving your hand a quick squeeze before he started dueling the woman again. He shouted spell after spell, moving expertly he draw his wand across his body and pushing with force towards her.

 You would have been in awe of him, but the image of the woman on the opposite side make you want to run and never return. She was enjoying herself, she had went out of her way to hurt Draco and now she had him right there at the end of her wand to her disposal. You had to do something.

 Draco was purposefully walking back, trying to get a grasp of you and where you were hiding. He knew there were more death eaters around, but he would have never imagined that his aunt herself would be leading the hunt for his head.  She knew she had been loyal, but never to want to kill him after all was lost. He should’ve have known.

 She struck one right blow at Draco, immobilizing him just enough for her to walk to where he stood still “Did you know your own mother helped find you?” she said, bringing a hand up to his face. “Not even your own mother can stand the idea of you, you blood traitor.” she spat, wrinkling her nose.

 “Go to hell.” he said through gritted teeth, staring deep into her eyes.

 She gave him a look of disgust, making a puking sound before patted his cheek “That’s no way to treat Auntie Bella. But first,” she said, clapping her hands together and looking around “Where’s that mudblood friend or yours?” she asked.

 “She has nothing to do with this!” he shouted, watching Bellatrix walk back with a grin “Leave her and I’ll go with. No fight.”

 She opened her mouth, the words getting stuck in her throat as she fell to the ground with a thud sound. Draco stared at the unconscious body of her aunt on the ground before he snapped his head at the squeaking sound coming from you.

 You let the piece of log fall from your arms, bringing your hands to cover your mouth. You glanced at her, taking the wand from her hand “Did I kill her?” you asked Draco shakily, your eyes were puffy but you had stopped crying and were more in shock. Numb.

 “No.” he told you, following your eyes “She’s still breathing, see?” he pointed to her chest, the air flowing in and out of her lungs. He clumsily took a step towards you taking your arms and pulling you to his chest in a hug. “We need to move, love.” he said, the words muffled by your hair in his face.

 You nodded, pulling away from him “I found Jack” you told him, starting to walk “He’s unconscious too” you showed him to where he lay on the dirt. Draco kneeled beside him, examining his body before he gave you a satisfactory nod.

 “There are more of them in the woods,” he told you, looking straight into your eyes “I need to get us out of here, including your git of an ex.” he mumbled pointing at him on the ground, grabbing  your hand “I can do that, but I need to know you would be fine.”

 “Why?” you whispered, wrapping your arms around yourself. He took off his jacket, placing it on your shoulders carefully.

 “I need to know you won’t get scared and run.” you took a hesitant look to Jack before turning to Draco.

 “Okay.” you whispered, hearing the sigh of relief from his lips.

 He stretched his hand at you, taking yours and lacing your fingers with his “Take Jack’s hand, please.” you did as he told you, looking at him again “Are you ready?” he asked you and you were sure you would never be ready, but you had no choice, so you gave him a weak nod. He took his wand out, giving you one last glance before the world around you spiraled away.

 Then everything turned black.

*******************************************************************************************

SURPRISE! For the purpouse of this fic Auntie Bella is alive :) 

TAGS: @fanficflaneuse​ @accio-rogers​ @gloriousrebelrunaway​ @slytherinprincess03​ @coldlilheart​ @aasthapiplani​ @nebulablakemurphy​ @strawberriesonsummer​ @l1teralegend​ @infinity1o1​  @nevermore9292  @artist-bby​ 

[liveshaunted-moved]

headcanon dump; sally jackson

sally loves her children so fucking much

most of sally’s books get published in the font Dyslexie and in fact, she uses this font when she writes on her computer, therefore making it easier for percy or annabeth or any demigod easy to read when she get’s them to preview it

sad thought of the day…. sally and percy only being able to give affection when gabe wasn’t around because he hated it, so that meant when she would drop him off to school ( bc she sent him to boarding schools to protect him from gabe you will have to pry that headcanon from my cold dead hands ), and pick him up. or at her work if she could.

and then, them still not being able to adjust to it after gabe is gone and when paul does come along, they do kind of ‘hide’ it until they realise that paul isn’t gabe. because yes they know he isn’t but there are still micro things that they do have to re/unlearn

sally is proud supporter of percy & who ever makes him happy

sally and percy are so much a like. most of his traits, he shares with her, not poseidon, for sally was the one who raised him. his stubbornness and loyalty? from her. his need to protect those he cares about, even if it means he gets hurt? that’s so from sally.

because percy is so much more then posideon’s son, he is also sally’s son.

his love of blue food is from SALLY not POSEIDON, sally loved blue and it happens to be percy’s favourite colour too. blue is a sally&percy thing

sally had a miscarriage, and she is one of the very few where it was welcomed. not because she didn’t want another child, she had always imagined herself with more then one child, but the idea of having another child under gabe’s care frightened her and she couldn’t afford / get access to an abortion. this had happened while percy was in school ( a boarding one ) so he doesn’t know about it

it should be known that sally never sought for percy’s approval of paul, she already knew off the bat that paul was a good person. there was no reason for doubt for her, unlike with gabe when there was a little bit of doubt even before she saw gabe’s true colours. the only reason percy didn’t know right away was because she was still figuring it out, she hasn’t dated since she married gabe, it’s a hard thing to navigate.

sally will never have any ill feelings towards poseidon. she took everything in stride, so he wasn’t going to raise percy with her, she didn’t care because she would do her best to give her son the best that she can with what she had.

she never accepted any of poseidon’s offers, because she learnt that you have to earn things. and she was just a ‘summer’ fling for poseidon, that hadn’t earned a place in his home under the sea. and she wouldn’t have felt right accepting it knowing that poseidon had a wife.

she just needed to know if paul and percy would get along, and it was just a matter of when she was ready to let percy know.

when hades had captured her, she was right before her death. she was meant to die, but asked thanatos to bring the mother of percy back to him, alive. it was going to be a way to get his helmet back, as that was also stolen, and believed to have been stolen along side the master bolt. sally was kidnapped for leverage for the son of poseidon.

sally was alive, and for the most part was in mobile, but she of everything going around her. she heard the whispers of hades, of the ghost and how he was accusing her son of such a crime. of how hades has a plan, that if what he thinks is going to happen, that he’d get ahead of it.

her time in the underworld was at least a month, and for a mortal being in the underworld and not being dead can be harmful and it was to sally’s mental health. but, for years, she’s always put on a brave face for her son. and honestly, this why she flinched when gabe raised a hand towards her. usually she could hide her fear of her husband from her son, but the mental toll of having been in the underworld and being made inmobile did a lot.

when she was mobile, it was when hades favoured someone else that wasn’t working for him to talk too. sally would take this time to tell him that he is mistaken. her son would never, ever do such a thing.

sally would often, after finding gabe’s true nature, take percy to her work whenever she could. this is why she sent him to boarding schools too, so he has limited exposure to gabe and his nasty ways

ever since she got her scar on her hip, she when she swims where a fullbody swimsuit & a pair of shorts because she didn’t want to let percy know how badly gabe has hurt her. this scar had happened when percy was seven and in a boarding school, and it healed just before he came home in time for their usual trip.

sally is everyone’s mother? you want a mother figure, sally offers herself up. she’ll bake you cookies and muffins and homemade meals. give you a blanket to keep you warm.

sally also totally asks, and pays for, rachel to do artwork for her books.

sally supports all her children. all demigods are now her children, i will says this until i die

this is just in, your friendly reminder that, sally jackson is in fact, by definition a murder who is getting away with that fact. she placed medusa’s head in front of gabe. she was feed up with his abuse, and feared that he would go back on his promise and actually hit percy because of everything that’s happened. she feared for her son’s safety more then ever.

sally totally uses dyslexic friendly font on her computer, and for her writing. she also, once she gets published, fights for her books to only be printed in dyslexic friendly fonts.

sally has always been able to see through the mist. very clearly. at school. was once even mistaken to be a demigod, only for the satyr to realise that sally was in fact mortal. this has also lead to a very young sally to be labelled as someone with a very creative imagination.

and that label, got her interested in reading and writing, and her want to be a writer.

the wedding was small, nothing too big. just those close to her and paul.

this was her wedding dress, it just showed up the day of the wedding - she knows it was a gift from posideon

she totally invited annabeth, tyson & thalia

this just in, sally wore blue laced wedding dress. it had blue accents in it

sally, sung often to percy when he was a baby, and when he had nightmares.

sally would have never allowed gabe to stay as long as he did if he laid a hand on percy. herself, that was a different story. that was a set rule between the two, that gabe keep his hands off of percy, and sally would stay with him.

gabe was drunk, and sally can be very petty at times. this was how the whole blue thing came about. gabe was drunk and having a fight, while sally was making a cake, with blue food colouring because percy was coming home soon from his first time at school. and somehow they were on the topic of food not being able to be blue. so, it was from then on, sally decided she will go out of her way to make sure that she will get any food blue, and when it comes to cakes and the like of homemade things, blue food dye was right at the ready. and she loved it so much. because it became an inside thing with her son.

sally and poseidon lasted longer then just the summer., bu a few months after that and that is when percy was conceived. and poisdeon had to go because sally was in more danger now that they were going to have a child. sally understood, and let him go. holding no bitterness towards the sea god. she has made it this far in life without the help of others, she can do it again, even with a child.

she absolutely HATES the idea of someone not feeling safe, or having a place to call home. maybe it came from her having a child that could be in danger, or that is just the way she is. but, after gabe was gone, she would always be willing to lend a hand out to those in need ( mainly demigods ). most of the time just for a place to sleep and crash, and a place to feel SAFE and know that they can trust her.

despite her parents dying in a plane crash, sally never truly actually feared flying. she only ever ‘feared’ it when she had percy, for zeus might want to strike her son out of the sky and THAT is what scares her the most.

SALLY WOULD DIE FOR HER CHILDREN BEFORE SHE WILLINGLY PUTS THEM IN HARMS WAY. she knows the demigod life comes with a harsh reality which is part of why she didn’t want percy to go, why she held it off for so long having known about it since percy was like 3 years old.

sally sent percy away to boarding schools, to protect him. to get him as far away from gabe as possible. it was a way she could protect him, sending him away defeated the purpose of her marrying gabe - but, she hoped and prayed that the times that percy was home, that gabe’s sent lingered on her son for just long enough to keep him safe

gabe, for the first few months of his relationship with sally was nice, to her. her tried to woo her, despite him not smelling well. that was always with him, he never knew how to shower properly and sally counted that as a plus, because it would mask her son’s scent as a demigod. they got married quickly, and that seemed to be when gabe’s behaviour would change. she would refuse things, refuses to do things in the bedroom and he would get mad at her. he started to show his true colours as a awful human being, that is wasn’t just a bad smelling person, but the smell matched the personality. gabe was a verbal & emotional abuser.

she never divorced him. because he masked percy’s scent and because he was NEVER physically abusive towards PERCY, her on the other hand. that is a different story. gabe has hit her a few times and she did her best to hide it away from percy.

she stayed with gabe purely & solely to protect percy, because in her eyes, percy’s health & safety comes way before her own.

sally will fight for her son, she HAS fought for her son. there is nothing in the world that will ever stop sally from doing her best to protect percy, even if it means putting herself in danger. her son, always came before her. his needs came before her own. if they could only afford so much food, it would go to percy before it would go to her

honestly, the moment percy had called her, sally nearly collapsed from pure relief. her son was alive, THAT was the main thing, her son being alive. she knows his life can be dangerous, she knows it may not be long, but that doesn’t take away the fear and make it any less painful knowing that his life is in the hands of the fates.

[cozycryptidcorner]

The Unlikely Alliance

This was commissioned by a user who wishes to remain anonymous. The story is about her two original characters; Sally, a budding artist, and a werewolf bodyguard that had been hired by her rich father.

The sounds of the ceramics cracking together almost send Sally into cardiac arrest, only once she looks over the plates to make sure there are no breaks or chips in the glaze does she breathe a sigh of frustrated relief. Be careful, she silently scolds herself, disgruntled at her own clumsiness but a little too angry to put in much more thought in it. Some random man is supposed to show up on her doorstep today, a person her father picked with none of her input, and her rage at the unfairness of it all seems to be clouding some of her judgment in other areas.

She almost finishes stacking the plates into the dishwasher when someone knocks on her door, loudly and suddenly enough that she nearly drops a drinking glass. With as much poise and grace as she can muster, Sally places the glass carefully in the metallic shelf, spins around, and marches calmly to the door. All that she can make out of the distorted peephole view is a splash of tan skin, and maybe a flash of bright yellow eyes? Something must be off with the hallways lighting because the only people who have that bright a color for eyes are… they are….

The door creaks loudly as it always does, the hinges almost rusted shut. While Sally kind of regrets not harassing the landlord a little more about having them fixed, the grating noise at least makes the bodyguard’s eye twitch ever so slightly, so she suddenly doesn't mind it so much. She stands there, in the doorway of her apartment, mouth in a firmly shut line as she looks this werewolf up and down, though for what exactly, she doesn’t know. It’s not as though she can sniff out any weaknesses like her father, but maybe she thinks that the ability will just show up one day for her to continuously try.

He’s an imposing figure, that’s for sure. His head barely misses the door frame as he steps inside, completely uninvited, mind you, and takes a look around, bright golden eyes dancing from one corner of the living room to the next. His hair is dark, either dark brown or black, Sally can’t tell in this lighting, an old leather jacket just barely large enough to fit those massive biceps, and a belt, decidedly free of any holsters or weapons at his waist. Something about the way he strolls in like he owns the place sends a bitter little zing up Sally’s spine.

“What, no gun?” She asks, hands on hips, a glare growing in her eyes.

“I don’t need them.” His voice is low, but not in a way that makes her nervous, or put off, the way most of her father’s ‘buddies’ tend to make her feel. In any case, Sally isn’t certain whether or not that statement is to reassure her, but there is certainly no feeling of relief.

After a pause, she says, “Well, I’m Sally.”

“I know.” He doesn’t even pretend to tolerate any brief, yet polite introductions.

Another moment of silence, during which Sally feels a ping of annoyance. “And what am I supposed to call you?”

The werewolf shrugs, but at Sally’s calm and withering stare, responds with, “Ronan.”

“Ronan,” she echoes, picking at the underside of her nails. “I can’t say that it’s nice to meet you, Ronan, but I understand that there isn’t much either of us can do about that matter.”

“No, there’s not,” he agrees, “and it would be much easier on the both of us if you don’t put up any fuss. At least until the job is over, then I guess you can complain and hiss as much as you want.”

Sally takes a sharp breath of frustration at the caricature he describes but manages to keep her cool maintained. Instead of giving him the satisfaction of arguing, she steps aside, back towards her dishwasher and begins to set it up for the cycle. “Ground rules,” she says, stacking three bowls by each other. “One, don’t touch the art. You don’t know what is drying and what is finished. In fact, just don’t touch anything.”

“I make the rules here, not you.” He stands his full height, crossing his arms, and gave her a glare just icy enough that it could save the world from global warming. “And I don’t care about you or your feelings or your friends, what I say will go. Anything short of that will have consequences.”

“Rule two,” she continues loudly, ignoring his statement, only glancing over her shoulder to make sure he is at least listening. “The last bodyguard I’ve had seemed fine with leaving messes wherever he went, and I certainly hope you won’t have the same issue.”

He makes a sound, either a laugh, or a grunt, Sally can’t tell, but at least he has temporarily ceased the protests. That counts for something, she hopes.

“Rule three.” She slams the dishwasher shut, maybe a little too hard. “You can watch me from outside of my classrooms. You don’t get to wedge yourself into my life, I don’t want any awkward conversations with my classmates or to get in trouble with my professors. And before you even say anything else,” she can already see him about to argue over it, “this is all I’m asking for you to do. Follow my rules, and I’ll make things easy as possible on you. If you don’t?” Sally shrugs. “I think you have underestimated my abilities to make your life difficult.”

“What do you plan to do, run away? There’s nowhere for you to go where I can’t find you.” Ronan says, arching a single, scared eyebrow. “And your father has given me his blessing to be as rough on you as I need to be.”

Her hands almost start shaking with the rage that floods her veins. “I am well aware, but wouldn’t it be massively inconvenient for you to tell your boss every day that your charge has managed to escape... again? How many times before he decides that you’re incompetent and need to be fired?” Sally carefully wipes her damp fingers on the towel. “I’m assuming that you aren’t new to the network good old dad has created, so I’m certain that you understand that people don’t just get to walk away after a failure.”

Ronan at least has the decency to look slightly put off by her threats, as though it had never occurred to him that a mob boss might have raised his daughter to be as ruthless as he.

“Look,” already, she can tell he is a man of few words, “I am entirely willing to be cooperative- within reason, of course. I just want my own life to continue as uninterrupted as possible. Help me out, and I’ll help you out, alright?”

It takes a long while for him to fully process her statement, but after a bit of pondering, Sally is rewarded with a single, clipped nod to signify Ronan’s agreement. She tries not to let out a sigh of relief, she needs to uphold the facade of dangerous criminal at least until it’s safe to let it down. With a wash of victory rinsing out most of the anxiety within her stomach, she walks over to where her book bag sits and places the strap over her shoulder.

“I’m assuming that my father has given you a detailed schedule of my day?” Sally asks, grabbing a tumbler full of iced coffee.

“I didn’t bother reading it, figured you’d just tell me.”

That somehow makes her feel better. “Well, school first. You can follow me, I suppose, until I get to the classroom. There are benches in the hall you can chill at until it’s over, and trust me, you’d know if something wrong is happening.”

They step out of her apartment, a cold breeze kicking up as autumn begins muscling its way into summer. The day isn’t terrible, but it’s somewhat awkward having Ronan follow her like a lapdog wherever she goes. Maybe not exactly a lap dog, because one of Sally’s classmates awkwardly asks who the hell is Ronan and if she is at all aware that this terrifying looking werewolf is trailing her. Sally’s had to repeat herself until she’s hoarse to anyone and everyone that yes, she knows that man, and no, he is not stalking her, there’s no need to worry.

But it’s fine, everything’s fine, it’s not like this is damaging her reputation at school at all.

Usually, Sally eats lunch in the cafeteria, picking from one of the many food vendors offered, but now with Ronan standing behind her like some kind of deranged murderer at all times, she’s taken to eat outside, as far away from everyone as possible, but within a reasonable distance from her next class. Several picnic tables dot the campus, so it’s not difficult to find a particular one that no one else has claimed. Ronan eats with her, sitting across from the table. Even though they've been doing this for some time, he seems reluctant to even humor her as she tries engaging in idle conversation.

“You got a girlfriend?” She asks, maybe a week into the weird symbiotic relationship the two of them have managed to develop. It was a shot in the dark, some guys just won’t shut the hell up about their girlfriends, so Sally thought this might be the master key into his life. Apparently not. At his silence, she tries again. “Boyfriend? Um… nonbinary-friend?”

He finally looks at her, eyebrow raised. Sally thinks she’s getting better at reading his moods and takes a gander that this is something akin to amusement. Then, shockingly, he says the first words of conversation that don’t have to do with his job: “No.”

“Oh,” she says, shrugging, trying to not let much of her excitement at getting him to talk show. “Neither do I.”

He grunts.

Having Ronan follow her around might not have been so awful if he wasn’t so… remarkable. To put it plainly, he has a presence, one that most people find difficult to not notice. It would, Sally thinks, be infinitely easier if her father had just assigned a bodyguard with less aggressive features, one that could blend in with just about every average guy who graces her school’s campus. What’s worse is that after most of her classmates realized that no, this man is not stalking her, they immediately got a very different idea of what is happening. One that Sally isn’t what you would call fond of. No one has said it to her face yet, but the tricky questions that dance around the topic paired with the arched eyebrows say enough.

One morning, she’s up before the crack of dawn, as per usual. Shower, check, plain clothes, check. She ties her thick blond curls back into a ponytail, adding a headband to keep any wisps from poking their way out from her scalp. Then, with a kind of serenity that she had not felt in a long time, she walks into the kitchen. Sally opens the cabinet right by the stove, retrieving a pot, then goes through a drawer for a large wooden spoon. Ronan is still dead asleep on the couch, or at least he’s pretending to be, until she smacks the flat end of the spoon against the pot, making a sound almost loud enough to make her ears ring.

Ronan curses, just once, and bolts up from the couch, haunches tense, fangs growing and pointed until they could rip into the throat of someone twice his size as easy as pie. It takes him all but a moment to realize that there is, in fact, no danger, and that Sally is acting obnoxious for the sake of annoying him.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Sally says with a tone of faux cheerfulness so convincing, even her father wouldn’t recognize that she's facetious. “I’m off to my volunteer job. You can stay if you want, but I’m walking out the door in five.”

Ronan squints at her, hair askew, mouth slightly open, and blinks once. “What time is it?”

“Before sunrise, but I'm about to leave so,” she shrugs, walking back around the counter of her kitchen and begins to fiddle with her coffee maker, “you should probably think about getting dressed.”

Though she would never let a word of complaint get to her father, it did feel a little awkward that he slept in some old, ratty shirt with plain boxers. No, not shorts over the boxers, boxers. Maybe he isn’t exactly a guest in her home, but would it kill him to behave a little less… she can’t even think of a single word. Discourteous? She picks out one of her thermoses and starts a coffee cycle, the machine gently sputtering as it heats the water to an acceptable temperature.

“Is there any way I can possibly talk you out of this?” Ronan grumbles, getting himself up and slogging over to the bathroom to get dressed.

“Not a chance.” She adds the necessary amount of sugar and cream to the liquid, the pokes in the drawer for a spoon. “Do you want coffee?”

“I guess.”

“You ‘guess,’” Sally mimics quietly while reopening one of the cabinets, looking over the different thermoses that she’s managed to collect over the years. Without thinking about it particularly much, she reaches inside and pulls out another, placing it under the coffee machine and starting the machine’s cycle over.

When he returns, hair still disheveled, eyes clearly dull with sleep-depravity and annoyance, he grabs the pastel blue and pink thermos without a word of complaint. Satisfied that he hasn’t bogged down her exit at all, Sally snags her bag from the counter and leaves, breathing in the brisk coolness of dawn as she walks towards her car. Ronan takes her keys and gets behind the wheel, insisting on driving in case they get attacked on the road. While he does have a gorgeous, shiny black Harvey motorcycle that half the men in her apartment complex drool over, her dad would just about have an aneurysm if he found out she rode on one of those, so she gets into the passenger seat without complaining.

The drive is almost completely silent, save for Sally offering directions for where they need to go. Just a simple turn right, or maybe a keep straight to make sure he knows where to go. Ten minutes before she’s scheduled, they pull up to a rickety old building with a single street light flickering over the pale gravel parking lot. A chipped sign that was probably bright blue at some time in the past reads Emmerson Shelter, though the ‘n’ in Emmerson is almost completely stripped away.

“This place looks like a dump,” Ronan mutters, hands tight on the steering wheel.

“Well, it is,” Sally says, opening the car door and swinging her legs out. “Held together only with spit and hope.”

Brow furrowed, Ronan follows her inside through the cracked glass doors. The moment he steps through the threshold, the shelter nearly explodes with sound. Dogs start barking, some high pitched yaps that will surely leave Sally’s ears ringing, others low resonating growls that shake her very bones. One of the other volunteers, Margot, comes out from the back with a bewildered look on her face until she sees him. Sally wouldn’t exactly call the look on Margot’s face fear, but there was definitely something rather negative mixed in there.

“Hey, um, I brought a new volunteer.” Sally has to shout over the dog racket.

“Yes, I’m sure.” Margot didn’t seem particularly pleased, but it might have been due to getting barked at point blank by thirty or so dogs. She reaches into the filing cabinet and pulls out some bright pink papers, setting it on the table and sliding it over with a cheap ballpoint pen. Ronan scrunches his nose as he looks at the thickness of the paperwork, which, by the way, isn’t anything particularly significant, but Sally immediately knows he has no intention of filling anything out.

“I’ll help him, don’t worry.” Knowing anything he might say would just tick Margot off, Sally takes the paperwork herself and flashes the head volunteer one of her best smiles.

Either Margot is too exhausted to put up more of a fuss for protocol and such, or she’s beyond the human comprehension of eagerness to get the absolute hell out of the noise pit because she hands Sally the keys and leaves from her night shift without another word. The paperwork goes right back into the filing cabinet, the pen into a smudged mason jar by the ancient computer. With the dogs still barking like the apocalypse has begun, Sally enters the kennel room, little balls of fur shaking almost violently with excitement.

Margot had already fed them, but what Sally has to cycle through a few of them at a time in the backyard area. Already, she begins to fiddle with the cage to her immediate right, opening the gate just to have a blur of black and white bolt from the inside, going towards Ronan at nearly the speed of sound. Before she can even think to do anything about it, Ronan has caught the dalmatian, midair, like some professional dog catcher, and holds it out from his body as it tries licking his face. And fails, certainly by accident. Apparently, all his rippling gangster muscles are no match for an overly excited puppy.

While it is usually a hassle to coax three or four dogs out to the backyard, the moment Ronan steps out through the door, they are all tripping over themselves to follow. Sally kind of wishes he was here on her first day working, back when none of the dogs really knew or respected her. She ended up having to pick up and carry some of them back inside once the outdoor time was over, but there is absolutely almost no issue with Ronan just walking back through the door. They follow him like he’s the dog jesus.

The sun has risen enough that Sally doesn’t feel the need to wear her sweatshirt, so she takes it off and sets it gently to the right of the door, on the dry cement porch. Once she looks back over to the patchy, haphazardly planted grass to make sure the dogs are all behaving, she sees Ronan, on his knees, play-wrestling with one of the bigger dogs. Sally has a sudden, odd realization as he flips the dog onto her belly and starts scratching like he has nothing to lose that Ronan… is actually kind of cute. Of course the moment he realizes that she’s watching, he straightens his spine to throw up a facade of rigidness.

Once all the dogs have had their outside time, Sally does a quick kennel check to make sure everything is up to code, and also maybe a little more than that, since ‘up to code’ isn’t exactly what she would call healthy dog living. Once she’s sure that the dogs are perfectly fine, she hangs out by the front desk, tidying up the dingy lobby as best she can. By the time the next volunteer arrives, a good couple hours into the afternoon, Sally is both exhausted from the work, but also ready to eat her weight in some greasy fast food. It doesn’t take much more than a sentence to convince Ronan to drive through one of the restaurants on the way back to her apartment.

Neither of them talks about volunteer gigs after the end of her shifts, but Sally thinks, as she sits down in the library lounge, that Ronan might have a soft side that he is hiding from her. Maybe to keep her fearing him? She puckers her lips around her pencil eraser in thought. Again, she goes through another, long, disgruntling day of studying until her eyes bleed when she gets back to the apartment complex, bookbag almost impossibly heavy on her shoulder from textbooks and notes. Why she doesn’t just get the ebooks, she barely knows at this point in the semester, but there’s something undeniably organic about the way real books feel that keeps her going the more expensive route. Besides, it’s not her money she’s spending.

Before she has a chance to walk through her door, Ronan grabs her by the shirt and yanks her back into the hallway. Sally has half a mind to let a hellish amount of frustration on him, but then she notices two details. One, his teeth are bared, sharp and pearly white fangs poking out over his lip, and two, his entire body is suddenly tense. He sniffs the air, once, and pokes the door with his foot to open it further.

The living room is trashed. The couch is overturned, cushions tossed wildly from one side to the other, a lamp knocked over and on the floor, the coffee table turned to the side. One of Sally's paintings that stood as a centerpiece for the wall has been wildly slashed to ribbons, and several little sculptures she had painstakingly put together are scattered in pieces. Sally feels the urge to vomit, not in disgust, but from the frustration that slams into her like a tsunami. She doesn’t utter a word of argument as Ronan shoves his way past her.

Sally follows, sticking close to Ronan as he checks to make sure whoever did this is long gone. As they make their way to her room, Sally can already see from the hallway that her prized vase, one that brought her victory in her school’s annual art festival, had been shattered against the faux wood floor. Her chest feels hollow, the air suddenly not nearly enough to fill it, as she kneels down, fingers reaching out for the shards, tears finally dripping down her face.

Ronan is too busy looking under her bed, through her closet, and behind her curtains to even notice until satisfied that there is no one else with them in the room. When he finally turns around, seeing her on her knees, tearfully in front of a mess of blue and green shards, he takes a single step back. But then, completely unexpectedly, he bends over and starts to help, picking up the sharper bits of the vase and setting them in the hand towel she had grabbed. After a few minutes of working in silence, Ronan asks, “Was this very expensive?”

“It’s one of a kind,” Sally chokes, certain that she’ll never make another piece quite like it again. The details she had spent days painstakingly carving, the glaze she had carefully layered to look like sea glass, Sally isn’t even in ceramics this semester, there’s no conceivable way she could do anything about it for a long while with all her other school work piling up. And then, quieter, she adds, “it was the best I did for the whole year.”

A pause. “You… made that?” His tone of voice is suddenly different, more… empathetic? “I mean, I didn’t really see it, but knowing you… it must have been… neat.”

Sally almost hiccups from grief.

Awkwardly, as though he had never touched another human being before in his life, he reaches a large, tan hand over and gives her a pat on the shoulder. “I have to make a call.”

Sally knows what that call is going to entail, and who it is going to. “I don’t want to talk to him, so when he asks, just say no.”

Ronan lets out a huff of breath. “I’ll try, but I’d like to remind you that not only is he my boss, but he also likes to cut off appendages as punishment for not following orders.”

“He still needs you and both your hands. This little show of power from his enemies proves that, at least.” Sally sticks her chin out, folding the small hand towel over the pieces of her vase. “The man is going to be scared, and he’s going to want you even more now.”

Ronan grunts at her statement. “Sounds like you’ve got him all figured out, firecracker.”

“I grew up with him,” Sally manages to keep all the shards inside the makeshift bag she made, “I should hope I do.”

While Sally brushes most of the shards into an empty shoebox, Ronan makes the call, continuously glancing at her as though a sniper pointer will light up her head at any minute. There are a lot of yes sir’s, no sir’s, of course, sir’s, she’s safe sir’s. Sally had never thought Ronan could manage to call anyone sir or ma’am without coughing up a gallon of blood beforehand from the mental pain of having to respect someone.

But her father can have that effect on people.

“I don’t think she’s going to like that,” Ronan says only a few minutes after the call, catching Sally’s attention with the subtlety of whiplash. “But I’ll tell her.”

“Tell me what?” She hisses, impatience blooming in her chest.

Only when he puts his phone down will he face her again. “We’re leaving.”

It takes her a moment to comprehend what he had just said. “We’re- what? No, we aren’t.”

“Sally,” Ronan runs his fingers through his dark hair, dark circles so much more pronounced under his eyes, “look at this place. Look at your things. If you had been in this room maybe even just ten minutes earlier, you might be the one cut up into thin strips instead of your artwork, and I would be in a locked box sinking into the Atlantic. We need to go somewhere else, just until it’s safe to come out again.”

She puffs up her cheeks in frustration but deflates. Ronan is right, and she knows it. In any case, all her father has to do is snap is his manicured nails in the right person’s direction and she’d wake up a week later in Romania. At least Ronan is somewhat more, well, not kind or gentle, but respectful of her as a person. Even after raising her, she still doesn’t think her father has the understanding that Sally is her own individual person with needs that don’t quite align with his. “Fine. Where?”

“I just need you to trust me on that, the least everyone knows, the better.”

It hurts. Sally would never be able to explain how the pain in her chest tightens when he says it. And she knows it’s not the fact that Ronan won’t talk to her about it, no, she’s used to him being gruff and distant. Having to put herself, relatively blindly, in someone for the first time since… her father, makes her feel almost dizzy. She doesn’t have to do it, though, she could whip out her phone and talk to her dad for the first time in a year… but…

“Fine.” Her teeth hurting from gritting them so tightly.

Ronan offers a tight nod, almost as if he knows how much doing so bothers her so profoundly. “Pack a bag, maybe a week’s worth of clothes. And any valuables that haven’t been broken or stolen, but only if they really matter to you. The more we have, the more we will get bogged down with if something happens.”

Sally already knows the drill, though. Surprise ‘vacations’ were far more common in her life than in others, so she’s mastered the art of packing a large amount of clothes in a small amount of time. Now, though, Ronan’s request of packing light weighs against her mind as she pulls a duffle bag from beneath her bed. Things that can easily match with just about everything goes inside, plain colored pants, conservatively patterned shirts, etcetera. Just as she zips the bag shut, a little wooden box full of watercolor supplies that she keeps on her dresser catches her eye. Without another thought, she reaches over and stuffs it on top of her clothes.

Ronan is waiting for her as she hobbles out of her room, duffle strap over one shoulder, book bag stuffed with as much homework and textbooks as can possibly fit in the other. His eyes visibly narrow at her, but he doesn’t utter a word at her attempt to bring some normalcy with her as they go. The sun is already setting as they load whatever they brought into the trunk of her car, and then they are off like a shot. Ronan drives at leave ten over the speed limit, going up to twenty the moment they exit the city limits. Even in the rapidly dimming light, Sally notices how ashenly pale his knuckles are as he grips the steering wheel like a lifeline.

She must have fallen asleep at some point, because she opens her eyes to a bright pink sunrise, a beautiful wash of colors bleeding out from the treetops. Rock plays on the car speakers, turned down so significantly she barely even notices. The road that Ronan is on is scarcely anything more than a patch of dirt, a strip of grass running through the center from the minuscule amount of traffic it sees. On either side of the car is a forest, tall, leafy trees so thick with growth that she can only see the first few rows of branches, the rest disappearing behind a mass of yellows and reds.

“Mornin’ Firecracker.” Ronan turns the speaker down all the way when he notices that she’s awake, barely, her eyelids keep trying to pull themselves back downwards, but awake nonetheless.

“Morning.” There’s nothing more she wants to do that stretch her spine out, but that will have to wait. “How much longer, do you think?”

“Not much.” Ronan reaches down to the single McDonald’s coffee cup in the holder, taking a long, savoring swig. “We are rolling up right now.”

It’s a log cabin, Sally realizes, the car slowing down to a stop. Nothing as grand or as extravagant as any of the other safehouses she’s been in, but this one somehow seems significantly better than those in most ways. It stands at only one story high, though it has a good length to it, and Sally could estimate maybe two bedrooms can fit in there. Maybe three if everything is super squished. With a childlike giddiness to explore a new area, she unbuckles her seat belt, pops the car door open, and steps out into the cold autumn air.

Pulling the sleeves of her sweater down over her hands, she resists the urge to shiver as she looks up at the foliage, her breath steaming out in tiny puffs in the air. After only a minute of looking over the scenery, she begins to help Ronan unload their luggage, placing whatever was in her trunk onto the front porch, by the rocking chair.

“Whose place is this?” She asks once they are finished, her breaths coming out in exhausted huffs.

“Mine.”

”Yours?” Sally hadn’t meant to sound so incredulous, but when she had pictured where Ronan had come from, the idea of a quaint little bungalow in the forest hadn’t crossed her mind. A ratchety tin shed, maybe, the slums of a large city, perhaps, but not… this.

“You sound surprised, firecracker.” He sounds almost smug as he unlocks the cabin's door, pushing it open with his foot.

Sally gives a shrug in response, grabbing as much as she can carry and hauling it inside, letting the door swing shut behind her. While there is an underlying scent of dust in the air, the cabin is clean as can be, which she hadn’t been expecting from a bachelor with Ronan’s rougher reputation. Arms around her chest, she looks for pictures, photo albums, anything that might show her snippets of Ronan’s life, though she ultimately finds nothing.

“You hungry?” Ronan asks.

“Always,” Sally says, still looking in case she accidentally missed anything.

The sound of the refrigerator opens as Ronan investigates their options, though there can’t be anything worth eating if he hasn’t restocked in the few months he had been working with her. Eventually, he comes to the same conclusion as she, shutting the door and letting out a sigh.

“I guess that’s my cue to go grocery shopping. And before you ask, no, you can’t come.”

The request had been on the tip of her tongue, yes. It’s not even peculiar that he can guess her moves, Sally supposes that’s just what happens when two people live with each other for a while. Swallowing down a strange wave of emotion, she tries distracting herself by balancing on the edges of her feet.

“You can’t be on any radars, and most grocery stores have security cameras.” He’s already putting his jacket back on, smoothing his hair back with a single motion over his head. “Just driving through any restaurants with you in the passenger was a risk in itself. You don’t get to be in any more unnecessary danger- what are you doing?”

Sally takes a step forward, then another, and then one more until she’s wrapping her arms around his chest and squeezing as tight as she can manage. “I don’t want you to leave me.”

“Oh,” Ronan’s voice mutes slightly. One of his hands reaches over and sits atop her hair. “I… don’t want to leave you, either. But we need to eat.”

Sally waits a good couple of moments before letting go, then gives him her world-famous puppy eyes.

Ronan gives her a single pat on the head. “Still not taking you to the grocery store.”

She gives him a face. “I’d thought to try anyway.”

Read Chapter Two Here

[fc5holidayexchange]

FAR CRY 5 HOLIDAY EXCHANGE 2019 [FIC]

‘come things only happy and whole’

Original Character/Sharky Boshaw -Pre Relationship. Deputy Rook, Sharky Boshaw, Earl Whitehorse, Original Characters

@ask-chibi-rook

This was a really fun experience with a really cool character concept! I think I scrapped like five ideas, which almost never happens. TYSM and I hope you enjoy! 

Notes: general warning for Jacob Seed who is Sir-Not-Appearing but still felt, brief non-graphic discussion of miscarriage, gentle flirting, as close as I get to fluff.

–

The circumstances are specific.

Eden’s Gate has a now unusually large population of pregnant women. The Resistance has few in the family way and explicitly no children in or around the compounds. So colour Pastor Jerome Jefferies and Father Joseph Seed surprised when they received identical messages asking them to parley a little north of Dutch in a zone they’d been habitually calling Bear Trap. Because of the bears. Twelve women who had been friends on Facebook before the Reaping started had kept to the agreement they’d made to meet up at Sally Sue’s old cabin and stay the days or weeks it took for all of them to give birth. This would have been a ridiculous thing to organise if a) every single woman involved hadn’t been previously part of a larger prepper group before making a smaller, more intimate one and b) that smaller group hadn’t been specifically for women who’d survived multiple miscarriages. 

“They’re ah, not coming down.” Some poor son of a gun has to tell Whitehorse at two am on a Thursday. They’re out in the chill, on the porch of a little house. “They’ve got four doula’s and a bunch of equipment they’d set up beforehand as well as a doctor. Marcie, that’s, uh, Walter Whit’s Marcie, says that we can shove it up out be-hinds if we want them to come down. It’s between them and God now.”

“She tell Seed that too?”

“She told Walt that.” The boy sighs. “She told Seed that he should have kept that prize winning show dog of his brother under better control as he stressed Wendy and Carlie something awful with their atonements. And that keeping any pregnant women near Faith, who she did have something unpleasant to say about as per her use of Bliss, was just about his greatest crime.”

Whitehorse snorts. “Has she seen the bodies?”

The boy holds up his fingers to make quotation marks. “That’s killing folk, not killing babies, and Seed was coming awful close to asking them to kill babies.”

“That explains the Peggies. When it came right down to it they picked their kids over the Father.” Whitehorse muses. “Would’ve been nice if they’d stood up for us. No, don’t relay that Jimmy, that’s me being an old grump. If those girls need things from us, you get it to them, alright?”

“Yessir.”

“And you,” he turns to point at Rook, tucked under a blanket on the front step with him, “go get some sleep.”

Rook points at herself, flips to the page in her small notebook that says me?

“Yeah, you. Relax Rook. Ain’t nobody around here going to need you to fix this.” 

She probably should have figured that Whitehorse would catch on. It’s been a week, maybe two, since Jess took an all terrain bike and an exhausted, largely non-responsive Rook back to the Henbane. She has marks she doesn’t remember and bigger, scarier blanks in her memory, left to white knuckle it through whatever recovery is possible. Rook spends a lot of her life kind of tired. When it’s hard to communicate you have to be quick and clear about what to say. She’s gotten it right down to essentials by now but that leaves out everything complex. There’s a lot of things sitting just behind her teeth, just behind her gums, that she’ll never have time to tell anyone. Certainly not if Joseph gets his way. 

From what she understands they are at a critical junction in Joseph’s plan. Months at most from his intended end of the world and he has been reacting with his expected fanaticism. A bunch of women trekking off into the woods should be a minor concern. All of this would be a minor concern, solved by Jacob, who had no one among the Prosperity Prepper Pregnancy Yarning Circle, but for one Miriam Lee, of John’s faithful, who led security. She’d changed the locks on any number of critical supplies and literally taken John’s secret stash of solar panels with her, leaving John to explain why he had solar panels in Joseph’s unreasonable and unlikely future, and why Miriam Lee was the only person who knew how to change all the passwords. This still wouldn’t have stopped Jacob but for Joseph, who had decided he’d had a vision and his eldest brother would be cast from paradise should he take arms against the innocent. The absurdity of that statement about that particular redhead aside it seemed the Father was dead serious. 

For all his numerous faults it seemed Joseph Seed was unwilling to harm a child. 

(Ha)

So the circumstances? Very specific.

Rook takes his advice and heads in to sleep. In her dreams places red and deadly pass and prosper, knives sharpen and music plays, a familiar voice sweet and betraying. It’s further away than usual, buffered in her dreams by smaller, stronger feelings currently unsaid. Her mind is dark, not quite unpleasant. When she wakes in the morning, just a few hours later, the Montana morning is fiercely pleasant. The weather is beginning to suggest it’s turning but it hasn’t done more than throw up some surprising afternoon wind changes. Enough that a light jacket and a scarf stashed somewhere is enough for almost any day. 

Someone knocks on the door of the small space she’s been allotted. Rook pulls on her clothes. Soft flannel, thick socks. Two shirts for those aforementioned wind changes. She makes sure she has a small notebook and pen on her. There’s a small box of blue ones under her bed here, liberated from John, so she never feels quite bad enough about how often they get snapped. The door knocks again and she rushes to open it.

On the other side Sharky Boshaw has a chipped mug of tea and a little bit of a nervous look.   

The soft feelings from her dreams return in daylight’s full glory. She waves hello, takes the mug and invites him in. Sharky takes in her messy nest of blankets, the pens scattered on the floor from her dash to answer the door and how, apart from her bed, there isn’t anywhere to sit. She can see him thinking, her own embarrassment flooding her face with colour, before Sharky kneels down and starts picking up her pens.  

“I heard from Isaiah -that prepper with all the grenades? The one the Peggies stopped going near because he set landmines attached to flamethrowers, well he’s been rehabbing a Judge. Found her ripping through Jacob’s territory baiting his people into traps. Clever as hell. He invited me up there ‘cause I brought him some beer a week or two ago and I made a bet against Hurk about it. Says she’s nearly ready to get the hell off his property on account of how she keeps activating his traps to scare the wildlife.” He pauses, glances at the ceiling while he scratches his chin. “Also I owe Hurk money.”

Rook hears all that and as usual has specific questions. She opens her book. Sharky hands her a pen. She writes: You brought a man surrounded by landmines beer?

Sharky looked faintly offended. “I ain’t afraid of fire.”

But the landmines? She asks with genuine concern.

“Landmines are fine if they’re attached to flamethrowers.” He waits a moment to see if she has anything to say to that, then adds, “Obviously I just figured out how those worked and went backwards. Easy.”

Easy, obviously.  

Sharky rubs the back of his neck. “So, wanna pet a dog?”

–

Whitehorse is a paternal combination of pleased and worried that Rook is leaving the relative safety of the Prison to pet a dog with a pyromaniac. On one hand, she’s been a mess since she came back from the Whitetails -the Whitetails that want her back pretty badly, not including Jacob- and a strong interest in doing things that involve walking outside in a relative state of peace is indicative of the good mental health she never exactly had. On the other hand Sharky Boshaw is taking her through woods not quite Resistance and not quite Peggie to pet a wolf that kills people. 

“Kills Peggies.” Sharky corrects when Whitehorse manages to stop grumbling long enough to state his problem. “And Boomer does that too.”

“Boomer is a good dog.” Someone Rook doesn’t know says from their left. “Let the girl pet a dog, Earl. It’s not the most dangerous thing she’s done for us.” 

Whitehorse makes a face she dimly recognises from her early days, when she stayed at the station all hours and didn’t so much as a glance at forming a relationship outside of work. At her one month review he’d said that he hoped that she’d one day find people here she could trust, that he hoped to be one of them, but until then he’d do his best to at least be a soft place to land. It’s months later, and there’s a war on, and his face still says that. Rook spends all her time trying to be what the Resistance needs, the person it needs. There’s not much room for being soft. 

Whitehorse relents, settles on take the shovel and gives Sharky back the rocket launcher and the nun-chucks that Whitehorse personally took out of his trailer about three months before all of this started. Sharky treats both of these gifts with a reverence that they have all learned to tolerate while living in close quarters. He also gifts Sharky with a ten minute long lecture while Rook goes and resupplies her day pack. There’s no explicit mention of her but she gets the feeling Whitehorse has been telling everyone to just be nicer, try to get her out of her shell.    

They take a car part of the way and leave it tucked in an overhang that the Peggies have yet to figure out. The way requires crossing the river and taking a circuitous route through some unallied areas. The trees are just sparse enough to let the sun bite her on the neck. The dirt is coming up off the ground at a rate that’s alarming covering them to their knees in grime and debris. The greenery sings with the sounds of small animals, cautious bird calls and absolutely no gunfire. Silence will fall all across the county for a few moments every now and then, as if the whole world is being as cautious as the birds.  

Sharky just talks and talks and talks. But he’s Sharky enough, whatever weird thing in the Drubman-Boshaw family makes them simultaneously caricatures and decent folk, to look back at her every so often and make sure she’s okay with him. Maybe it’s that he’s used to sound without answer, even if it’s from the opposite side. Maybe he’s just a guy who needs social skills and less access to nitroglycerine. 

“Whaddaya think?”

Rook hasn’t actually been listening. 

“Ah well, not important anyway.” He holds his hands out to her, baffling, before she realises he means to help her up into the knot of a tree. “Oh shit. Come look at this. Haven’t been back here in ages.” He plants himself and all but throws her up into a curvature of branches. “Man I got a twisted twunkle in this tree once.” 

Rook takes his hands. He guides her carefully among the brown bark and the sparing leaves.  

The tree itself is huge and old. It might once have been several different ones that melded together as trees sometimes do. Under her hands the bark feels warm and dry, aged away and tough. It feels alive but waiting, like it’s been here before and will be here again long after. She tries to take that feeling inside herself. Being steady and rooted instead of the constant swaying that digs deeper and deeper after every nightmare. Sharky helps, first by literally pulling her further in until they can sit on a thick branch together, and then by telling her all about the things he knows about this place. She’s not sure how much is true but it’s nice all the same. From the height, and the little raised hill the tree sits on, they can see a little bit of the space around them. The occasional smoke of a fire, or a plane flying in circles. She pulls out her radio, more habit than need, idly flicking it on and off, frequency to frequency, in case someone needs help.  

The radio speaks for a moment: -coming off the mountain-zzzt-no sign yet-zzzt-heads on a swivel A-Team, targets tricky and lean- Jacob hunting Whitetails, even in so-called peacetime.

Sharky turns it off, not soon enough to stop her sense of self crumbling at Jacob Seed’s voice, but soon enough that when he gives her a quick hug she clings to it. Sharky smells like a heavy mixture of adult male body odour, what was left of the laundry powder and wet ash. It’s pungent enough to clear her head. Sharky holds onto her for a moment or two past appropriate then slides away not quite smooth enough to be cool.   

“Hey, Rook, look at that.” He points straight out, and she assumes it’s just to change the subject, but soon enough a small dance of butterflies flies across the sky. They twirl in a circle and pass the tree close enough for Rook to see that they’re spotted with blue and bright green, creatures of the Bliss for certain. They dip down intending to take a pass right through the tree Rook and Sharky are sitting in. Sharky says oh shit just before they’re hit-

The butterflies fly around them, the whole world the colour of wings and white, before it’s the clear Montana sky again. One lands on Sharky’s nose and he pulls a face of intense disgust.

She can’t help it, she laughs at him.

He looks at her for a moment trying to figure out what the fuck she’s doing with her face. When she’s done she begins to climb down, the small bubble of mirth still sitting high, right behind her teeth. 

–

It’s just past dusk when they get there. All of the Resistance keeps odd hours. Isaiah’s house involves a hike that’s near vertical. They see signs of Peggie work as they circle closer -spray cans next to symbols on trees, a copy of Joseph’s Bible, the occasional item of clothing for some reason- but those signs thin as they get closer to the house. Instead scorch marks and gun holes pepper the land like confetti at a wedding. Rook pulls out her shovel. 

Eventually Sharky takes a sharp turn, ducks behind a thick crop of trees and leads her to a neatly kept front yard in front of a shabby barnhouse-cum-fortress. There’s even an American flag hanging from the roof of the added-on porch. Sharky whistles loud and clear across the space. After five minutes or so a man emerges.    

His thick beard and scarred hands tell a story all their own. He shuffles across the porch with a bag under his arm and a cane in his other hand. His leg acts like dead weight across the wood, scraping and scratching along. He makes an unhappy groan low in his throat. Acid burns. Isaiah never had a last name. Or if he did, he refused to give it.

“Hey, buddy.” Sharky hops over some line only he sees turns and holds out his huge hands for her small ones. Like before she hands him her trust and no small amount of affection and amusement and then they do the world’s silliest looking dance:

“Over here -that’s a trip wire, don’t hit that, good-”

“-now this’ll sound strange, two inches left with your bum or you’re gonna lose a bunch, and you’re small enough, ow, from your leg Po-Po-”

“-did you just trip? Dep, this is a real hotzone, come on-”

“-look, I know what it means when a woman makes that face at me, I’m sorry, I’m not trying to grope you, but they’re nice, so-”

“-Good, great, no, nope, that way goes Sharky’s testy festy and he needs ‘em for the Testy Festy seed swap, so come over here-

Finally they come up to the porch. Isaiah sits on his rocking chair under a blanket with ice tea next to him. His chest keeps expanding in little giggles.  Both Rook and Sharky are sweaty and breathing hard. Rook’s hair is stuck to her neck and she’s sure she’s never been this embarrassed before. No wonder the Peggies stopped trying. Sharky stops her with a solemn hand. “Okay now we’re gonna hop twice.”

She abruptly realises he’s fucking with her. Gently, with good humor, but still teasing her. She kicks a clod of dirt at him now that they’re close to the porch and reasonably unlikely to die in a fire. Isaiah makes this noise, like a cat yarking up a bird, his whole upper body moving. He’s laughing. Sharky laughs as well and proclaims he’s going to see if there’s any beer. With nothing else to do Rook climbs up onto the porch and takes a seat against the railing of his porch. Isaiah passes her a glass of the tea. He taps his own throat, the angle revealing its scars and warps, then pulls out a  pen and a board. With unpracticed fingers he writes on his own whiteboard: I heard you speak like this.

Rook nods. Isaiah nods back and returns his writing implements to their bag. Within reach but out of the way. The tea is blessedly cool against her forehead when she presses it in.   

“He-ey girl!” Sharky calls from inside the house. “Guess who found beer! You don’t have to guess, it’s me.” He sticks his head out, probably to ask if she needs something, so she holds up her half full glass. 

The Judge trots onto the porch. Her coat has been shaved down, patches still that bone terrifying white where the hair is longest, but all over are swathes of grey brindling. Her sharp blue eyes are clear as water in a face returned all the way from the Bliss. Around her foreleg a bandage is slowly turning pink from the injury beneath. She comes to rest her huge body near Isaiah but with her sightline out to the world. 

Sharky pats her cautiously then fits himself down next to Rook. “What’s her name?”

Isaiah considers. Then he opens his throat. “Boudica. Queen stayed free.” His voice isn’t clear. It’s pained and filled with the feel of disuse. He names the wolf anyway.

Boudica rolls on her back and shows her fluffy, scarred belly. 

Rook stands and shuffles closer. Her hand shakes as she brings it down, firm, on her upper chest. Boudica wriggles but stays still. Rook keeps patting. Her skin is scarred all the way up to a sharp cut right across her throat. She didn’t die. She can see it: Jacob’s knife, his music and his soldiers. Running as far and fast as you can because you can never be free but you can be away. Boudica defies that, though. Her fur is turning back from the Bliss and there’s not a hint of madness in her eyes. 

Rook returns to her seat. Isaiah gives her more tea. 

Boudica snuffles, rubs her nose with a huge paw. She picks herself up and trots through the front yard they had to dance through. Her path is noticeably straightforward. 

“What the fuck?” Sharky says.  

Isaiah laughs again. “Bad leg. Don’t have time.” He flings his hand towards Rook, the yard and possibly the entire concept of the war beyond it. 

“‘t’s not fair.” Sharky whines. “When I brought you stuff you made me strap it on my back and crawl!”

Isaiah slaps his knee, giggling again, points at Rook and then back at Sharky. “You danced.” Isaiah rubs his throat, as if it pains him. Then as if it would pain him more not to tease, “Fair.”

“I- Well-” Sharky chugs his beer instead of talking. Isaiah refills her glass to the top and bullies Sharky into pulling out Boudica’s bespoke sleeping pen, giving lie to the idea that she’d ever be coming back down with them. 

Night falls properly. They eat together. Isaiah has no room for them inside but Rook’s slept rougher and he brings out a little heater and a bottle of bourbon. Sharky unearths a pile of excellent quality sleeping bags in a shed hidden on the side. Rook watches him whine his way through the whole thing since they don’t actually know there aren’t landmines. The bourbon makes Sharky feel better, though.

He’s talking about…something, honestly she’s not sure how he transitions from topic to topic. She pulls out her notebook. She wrote it earlier in the day, never said it. Thank you, Sharky. 

He smiles, face lit by what little ambient light there is. “Ain’t no thing but a chicken wing, Rook.” 

Rook stays sober under a pile of blankets. Sharky has long since collapsed into snoring. The night is starry and silent. If she sleeps now she’ll have nightmares: falling through red rooms, black blood dripping down her mouth, her tongue returned but unable to make human noise, another layer between her and other people. Another place for someone to slide a knife. The night is starry and silent and in Hope County that will have to be enough. 

Boudica comes back in the early hours. Rook is still awake. Her muzzle is a little bloody but mostly she seems tired and pleased with herself. She comes over for a very quick pat but returns to the nest of hand sewn blankets and repurposed pillowing that she calls a bed. She tunnels in, turns and wiggles her body, huffs, sleeps.

Not his wolf, she thinks, and goes to sleep herself. She was right about the dreams. But between terror and noiseless pain is her own feet under her running like she thinks Boudica would.    

[mobius-prime]

124. Sonic the Hedgehog #71

Heeeyyy, is that a pair of green eyes I see up there? Have we finally reached the issue where Sonic's eyes become his trademark green? Guess we'll have to dive into this "strangest issue ever" to find out…

In the Beginning…

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Art Mawhinney Colors: Barry Grossman

Hey, why is the secondary story being told first? Hm…

Amy has led Tails to the same part of town she and Dulcy explored several issues ago, when they looked around the Mobotropolis Library for Kirby books. Tails is a bit nervous, but Amy excitedly leads him inside, and happily greets a Mobian dog sitting on the floor surrounded by books. But who is this person?

So yeah, no telling how this guy somehow survived ten years inside Robotnik's own city without being captured, or how he kept the library in such pristine condition since then, but as you may have guessed this is the guy who made the noises - accidentally, due to creaky doors - that scared Amy and Dulcy off the first time. But now, in the intervening time, Amy has returned and made friends with him, and has been getting access to all sorts of Kirby books to read. Tails takes the book Jeremiah is holding and discovers it to be a book of the history of Mobius, which Jeremiah claims his grandfather had been working on right up until Robotnik seized power. He doesn't bother going into the issue of, say, whether Kirby is even still alive after the war, but Tails jumps right into the book, reading it aloud for Amy to enjoy as well. In the beginning of time, life evolved after a meteor struck the planet, eventually branching off into different species. The most advanced of them all was apparently the echidna, because even when Kenders isn't working on his own pet sister series, he still has to make the echidnas, like, the best ever. One day, a squirrel named Alexander decided he wanted to unite every Mobian species to advance knowledge together and build a stronger society. The only ones who refused him were the echidnas, who went off to build their own society, and the Overlanders, who were too violent and acted with aggression when offered this choice. However, with nearly every other species agreeing, the building of a kingdom began…

This oddly seems to conflict with the history of Mobotropolis we were given just a few issues ago, where it was stated that it was built to commemorate Nate inventing ring technology and bringing the kingdom out of the medieval era. I mean, I suppose the beginning of the Acorn line could have coincided with the construction of Mobotropolis, but it seems odd, then, that Nate would have been omitted from such an important piece of history. It would also basically make King Max only the second Acorn king ever, since Nate was essentially an adopted uncle to him, which incidentally also makes the king's line about Sally being the "first female Acorn" to be immersed in the Source of All kind of silly if there were only two males before her. Even more ridiculously, this simply would not leave enough time for the echidnas, after rejecting the offer of multiculturality, to go off and found Albion, split off, build Echidnaopolis, raise the Floating Island, and go through like six hundred more years of history with the Brotherhood of Guardians before reaching the present day. Honestly, I think this is just a genuine continuity mistake, but it's not really a big deal, as one could suppose that, say, Mobotropolis was merely rebuilt to the standards of modern technology when Nate arrived. This is somewhat supported by Tails' next line, which references the beginning of the Great War with the Overlanders… dun dun duuuunnn!

And now is when I add the title, writer, penciller, and colorist for the next story, right? R-right?

Oh, we're just jumping right into it, are we? Well okay then. Sonic indeed has his green eyes now, as well as shoe buckles which are important to Sally for whatever reason, but we don't even know the story behind it. Well, we were promised a bizarre issue, and we're getting one - this entire story is told in reverse! We essentially have to follow the events backwards to figure out what caused everything we're seeing. So jump backwards twenty minutes before the above page, and everyone in Mobotropolis is celebrating that the energy beam that was about to destroy reality has vanished, with Nate crediting Sonic using his speed, along with a super emerald. Sally, in Knothole, feels woozy, but then reasons that if she's woozy, she's alive, which must mean Sonic succeeded. Uh… succeeded in what, though?

Sonic essentially starts pulling a Superman-style time reversal, running insanely fast around and around the entire globe, which begins to force him into shifts of alternate forms - first Super Sonic, then Ultra Sonic from when he fought Naugus. Then, passing through the desert near Sand-Blast City, he begins to experience never-before-seen forms, beginning with Solar Sonic, which turns him a brownish-orange. In the Southern Tundra, he becomes Polar Sonic with white-blue fur, and in the Great Rainforest he turns into Eco-Sonic. The glowing time-beam, which he is attempting to attract to him with his speed, turns and begins to follow him, and before he can get away from it, it strikes him…

Back to thirty minutes prior! Sonic is in Mobotropolis, staring at the beam from the palace along with Nate and the king. The beam is focused on Knothole, causing it to slowly shift back to its proper place within the flow of time. However, if left unchecked, the beam will eventually screw up time all over the planet, destroying it. Sonic asks Nate how they'll handle it, and he suddenly pulls out, presumably from his own anal cavity since it's never addressed where he was keeping this giant thing, a white Super Emerald.

Back up ten minutes! Sonic has just broken through the time barrier around Knothole separating it from the rest of the world, but Sally, to his surprise, isn't with him. He tries to head back in through the Great Oak Slide to find her, but the slide is glowing so brightly - three times more brightly than when he entered - that he doesn't want to risk blindness. Instead, he races off to Mobotropolis to find help.

Rewind eight minutes, and Sally and Sonic have just entered Knothole. Everything within is incredibly bizarre, and things seem to be moving backwards, even people's speech.

Just in case you have trouble reading backwards, by the way, Jules is saying "Where on Mobius is our son, Bernie? He's been avoiding us for weeks now," to which Bernie responds "I'm sure he'll communicate with us when he's ready, Jules, my darling," which is totally how people talk to each other. Sonic and Sally, realizing that time is even more messed up here than it already was before with the whole three-hours-ahead thing, try to leave the village so they can find out what's going on, but the odd glow surrounding them, somehow protecting them from the backwards flow of time, also prevents them from interacting with anything in the area, including the Great Oak Slide. Sonic gets a crazy idea of how to escape anyway - just go through the time barrier!

Well now we know why he was surprised that Sally wasn't with him before, but say, what was happening ten minutes before now? Well, Sonic and Sally were sliding down the Great Oak Slide, of course! It's filled with a blinding yellow light, which Sonic reasons must be connected to the bright light he saw a few minutes ago. What bright light? Well, going back seven minutes should give us the answer! Sally and Sonic are walking around in the forest, discussing his previous disobedience of the king's order not to go after Nate. Sally reassures him that her father wasn't actually angry, just had to keep up appearances, and after a brief discussion of Queen Alicia's static state and Dr. Quack's continued efforts to find a cure for her, the topic turns to Sonic's own parents, and how Sally thinks he hasn't been spending enough time with them as they've been worried about him. Sonic, somewhat stunned, realizes she's right, and claims he "still hasn't got this parent thing figured out yet," which is… honestly really sad. Remember, this kid, since he was five, believed that his parents were dead, and not long after that lost the only other person he could see as a parent figure when Uncle Chuck was captured and roboticized. He's been so long without real parents that now that he suddenly has both his mom and dad back, he has no idea how to really interact with them. Their conversation is suddenly interrupted, however, by a flash of light from the entrance to Knothole…

Back to fifteen minutes ago, and Sonic, Elias, and the Secret Service have just returned to Mobotropolis, bringing Nate with them safe and sound. Despite Elias and Sonic sharing a broment together over their success, the king chews them out for jumping into danger despite his orders.

Well, the only unanswered question we have now is - where did the time beam come from that almost destroyed everything? The answer comes, of course, in the form of another satellite sequence which happened fifty-nine minutes earlier, with an O-SAT unit activating, focusing on the planet's surface, and ominously firing.

Because this issue is so confusing when read backwards (although I do admit to liking the dramatic effect it creates, especially with the final page showing the satellite firing), I'll just summarize in chronological order what happened, just in case anyone's head is reeling. While Sonic, Elias, Nate and the others were on their way back from West Robotropolis, the satellite fired a time beam towards the surface. The king ordered Sally to escort Sonic back to Knothole, where they witnessed a beam of light emit from the entrance. After entering, time was running backwards, and they attempted to escape to figure out the cause, but only Sonic managed to get out. He ran to Mobotropolis for help, where Nate concocted a plan to use Sonic's speed along with a Super Emerald to attract the beam to him instead. Sonic was hit by the beam, and as Knothole resumed an ordinary flow of time, Sonic's appearance changed to include buckles on his shoes and green eyes. Somehow, no negative effects came of this, and everyone lived happily ever after including Sonic, unfazed by his new form. Funnily enough, Sonic is the only character they bothered concocting a story for to explain how his eyes changed from black to green. Every other classic-styled character from the games who started with the black eyes just randomly, without any fanfare whatsoever, starts to develop colorful eyes as the issues progress, as we've already seen happening intermittently with Tails and Knuckles. I guess since Sonic is the main character, he gets special treatment? Eh, doesn't really matter. Oh, and of course, we've forgotten one more thing - the title and credits that were missing from the beginning of the story, but appeared on the final page in keeping with the whole reverse theme! I'll just go ahead and reprint them here exactly as they're spelled out in the issue itself…

Colors: odrailgaG knarF Pencils: reltuB nevetS Writer: srelloB lraK

Retro Activity

Oh, yeah. They went there.

[augujerdeer]

🍎👠🎃🌆👂😱💬!!! Feel free to not answer any of them!

IM CRYING BECAUSE YOU ACTUALLY SENT INE THANK YOU jnsjshdjhsdjh

🍎what are yall’s favourite foods?

I think this is gonna be a long post now that I think about it, but i’m asking everyone what their favourite food would be if they could only pick one or two (not everyone answered or can but >:0)

Mine (Jamie) would be pancakes! or grilled salmon! OR SPICY TUNA SASHIMI!!!!

Kris, Chara and Matthew immediately just have chocolate as their answer dicenksfvjk but kris says “anything” and he lives up to it sometimes

Jaiden says gummy bears and gummy worms (all he eats is CANDY)

Kobe says flowers,,,,

Sal is picking between pizza and cheesecake smoothies

Peter says he doesn’t have one yet ;;

👠how difficult is it for y'all to agree on one cohesive outfit?

So this kind of depends on how many people are out, but I usually follow whoever wants to wear something if only one person is requesting something (Like when Kris would screech and ask for me/us to wear the pink hoodie or his sequins sneakers)

But if there’s multiple people, (usually Kris, Chara, or Matthew) it might take a while ksjskjskjs but generally everyone would go rock-paper-scissors or let the other person have us wear what they want! Usually because they deserve this turn or we take turns :0

🎃how many head mates could be considered scary?

HMM,,, I guess I would say Severous first. He’s a 8+ foot werewolf man, he is a BEAR

his fur is PITCH BLACK especially at night and his eyes and drool glow white (so he has no pupils, that’s his entire eyes), so if you’re in the forest in Providence in the middle of the night, you’ll just see a scary OwO face in the dark

HE DOESNT DO THE OWO FACE BUT ITS NOT LIKE I CAN COPY IT IN TEXT FORM

he always stands on two legs unless he’s SPRINTING , but honestly??? HES BABY and we all love him, Kobe calls him “PUPPY” and even drew him a few times while fronting ;;;;;;;; He’s actually a dad to one of our littles Penny and is gay and dates someone from one of my partners’ system

Also he doesn’t speak very well? He used to speak fluently but overtime and he was recovering from being a persecutor, his ability to speak was kind of, disintegrating? So he only speaks in SUPER SHORT and almost broken english sentences. if you visit him you can catch him reading children’s books and practicing to read and speak again,,, he’s baby,,,,

Chara (from undertale) could be considered scary inspace becaus ethey can go goopy- they’re not a scary person but if they want to scare you, (especially if you don’t know who they are i mean), they will be intimidating and stuff ;; when i first met them, they did spook me, and their eyes are very bright red

Sal (from Sally Face) I guess could be considered spooky because i was drawing him in class one time (prosthetic ON of course) and my friend said he looked scary ;;;? poor sal;;; he’s not scary at all

🌆what does your headspace look like?

*clasps hands together* goodness it’s a good thing i made this map. it’s VERY OLD but it’s still the same except imagine everything is WAAAAAY more spaced Out!

honestly i need to move the teleporters and mansion higher up (and the main tree closer to them) but this is it!!!

The most common places people go to is The Mansion, The Bunker, The Farmhouse, and The Picnic Ground! People when going for walks in the forest usually stick around the Picnic Grounds-Cave Pool-Farmhouse Triangle but usually can go anywhere- the forest is SO big though (alven took me flying once and it stretches to the horizon)

The Mansion is where most of us live! Here you can find Jaiden and the kids (Kobe, Aco, and Penny– and Carla (Carla is an NPC [who is aware of the outside?] but we don’t care she is family). Alven is also here with his lab, so is Joseph and Louise!! (and their dog, Troy). On the outside, you can’t see the mansion, only two giant doors (nobody ever uses kdndckdocsl we honestly just use the teleporters to go anywhere– Also, everything you see INSIDE the meadow excluding the bunker was what our headspace FIRST looked like!!! it was the start of everything ;; Jaiden made the mansion. The mansion has two main rooms- The Main Hall, and The Tall Corridor. There’s a looooot of history here

The Farmhouse is where I (Jamie) live! But i’m not inspace a lot so it’s honestly empty until i meditate there ;;

The bunker existed and is a place some people permanently moved to because we started having some Bad Refuses To Do Good Persecutors, or just bad people. They were VERY violent so half of us went to hide- and eventually the entire system actually moved to the bunker for almost a year and a half before moving out- and then some people stayed- mainly Matthew. People who live in the bunker are Matthew, Kris, Peter, Jade, Chara, Liam, and Sal! Icari should be here somewhere but i think she’s still hiding ;;

Most of the time if we have a new person, they move to the bunker right away. There’s a teleport system almost all over the frequent spots in the headspace so they can easily leave and enter! Matthew lives one the second ground below the 1st ground below because of some bad things that happened- he never leave the bunker because being outside scares him a lot- especially with the entire headspace being a forest :( you need special access to get down there

The Picnic grounds isn’t very special to me personally but Jaiden made it so people can have picnics!! It’s honestly SUPER pretty oh goodness, and no matter what time of day (unless it’s night) the sun is always shining nicely and it’s so pretty there, and people actually go there!!

The only people that don’t go there are Joseph and Louise because we had one bad person hurt them badly in that area,

Also the Ruined City i didn’t mention because– no one goes there- but we all know it exists. Basically it’s a purely grey/monotone/greyscale land? Like the moment you enter, the world transitions to black and white (not your body but the environment) and the only things that have colour are the miss and greenery in the background (mostly grass and parks, not a lot of trees). all the buildings are collapsed or destroyed in some way- so imagine a big area with degree and rubble and standing building but there’s so many destroyed parts like one building is missing an entire second floor and another has a giant gaping hole not eh side, etc.

we also don’t go there because it’s dangerous- there are giant SPIDER robots that patrol the area- we still don’t know why, but they shook lasers! (come back to this post later because I WILL add a picture of what i’m talking about!! i just don’t have my phone on me)

ANYWAY THERES MORE BUT ITS TOO MUCH TO PUT HERE

WE ALSO HAVE ANOTHER PLANET

👂What kind of music do y'all like?

Jamie - what do you mean people have favourite music? i’m just kidding uksdeijfdkj i like indie and broadway!!! pop is pretty cool but it’s not my first choice at all ;;; rock and metal hurts my ears

Chara - they have 4 playlists on spotify! One playlist is called Soft Knives for calm music (it’s usually happy but there could be some sad ones there- but no angst songs- imagine songs you can sleep to or calm down with). Blunt Knives is for angsty or apathetic moods- and Angry Knives is for ANGRY LOUD music. The have a 4th playlist called Chara’s Classical Collection. Chara can range from Classical music to indie music death metal and rock. They usually hate pop

Kris - he loves rap and r&b! though he loves a lot of music besides those! He loves tally hall and kid bloom :0 mostly chill or music that makes you go aW YEAH (his words) he also has Classic Songs in his playlist. So if you have it one shuffle, you’re listening to some sick bops and then all of a sudden Rockefeller Street Nightcore comes on and you get whiplash. doesn’t like metal or rock. He has a second playlist called “it’s Saturday Morning” for stuff like heo soul or “music you can dissociate to but not in a bad way” (Listen to Sugarcoat by Kid Bloom or Different State of Mind (some artist) for a general idea)

Matthew - rock and stuff similar to chemical romance and panic! at the disco. they like metal and rock but he says Sal’s and Chara’s are too aggressive for his taste- and hen you find out he sometimes listens to screamo

Sal - honestly i find his playlist super weird ? Some music sounds weird to me but otherwise his playlist is full over a lot of genres ! It’s kind of wack and funky- not the genre- but the amount of variety he has. And in his 2nd playlist is death/metal and rock- a bunch of loud music that can be fast sometimes too- is not afraid to head bang in public and do air guitar

Peter - We’re not sure yet but he likes music from his time- plus old music- specifically New Wave for now!his playlist is super new and he hasn’t been here a while so we’re not sure o>o

Jade - Soft calm or upbeat and happy music

Kobe and Aco - they are babies- Kobe still sings the ABC’s everyday so

😱do your headmates have any phobias?

i don’t think any of us has phobias- because it’s defined as “irrational fear” actually wikipedia says it can be CAUSED so nevermind dkjjkfd

Honestly these feel like triggers more than phobias butnit first thendescription of a phobia so;; i’m putting POSSIBLE because we’re not sure

Chara - Possible Nyctophobia (fear of the dark, but specifically extreme pitch blackness for Chara), Possible Ecclesiophobia (fear of the church -either building or what it represents])

Matthew - Agoraphobia most probably (fear of going outdoors/leaving the house, some say wide open spaces)

Sal - somewhat Cynophobia but wants to overcome it (fear of dogs) ((likes dogs but is afraid of them honestly))

Kris - Monophobia/Autophobia (Fear of isolation and abandonment) ((this is a big one))

That’s all i can think of for now

💬free space! one cool fact!

uuHHH,,,,,, i can’t think of any, but i know one thing: i love our system and i can see everyone’s trying really hard to take care of each other or are doing a lot to process their own memories and feelings ;;;

[ayearofpike]

Spooksville #20: The Dangerous Quest

Pocket Books, 1998 117 pages, 13 chapters ISBN 0-671-00268-6 LOC: not listed OCLC: 38115173 Released January 1, 1998 (per B&N)

Watch loves fantasy novels, but in Spooksville anything can become reality. His interest in one in particular has drawn a wizard to him, who has then placed a curse that is making him rapidly sicken. The only clues are the book and the Secret Path, and so the Spook Squad splits up to find a cure to Watch’s illness before it’s too late. But when they find almost identical other-dimension selves at the other end, we have to wonder if it’s ... TWO late?

Me and my big mouth. As soon as I knock on Night of the Vampire for being simple and straight-forward, we get this monstrosity (literally; it’s the longest one in a while). Magic, alternate dimensions, shapeshifting, multiple selves, and (not to scare anyone off too quickly) time travel all in one book. Let’s dig in.

Nobody knows Watch is sick until he suddenly collapses in the donut shop. He tells the story of trying to resell a book in the local bookstore the previous day when someone comes in looking for it. He invited Watch to discuss it over coffee, but before they even started talking about the story this weirdo touched Watch’s forehead with a green stone. He got dizzy long enough to not notice the guy leaving, but managed to follow him to Madeline Templeton’s tombstone. And it’s been getting worse ever since.

How long do the kids have? Probably not much. They agree to split up: Adam and Sally will retrace the Secret Path and try to find this obviously evil wizard, and Bryce and Cindy will work on finding the book and seeing what kind of connection there might be. This means starting at the bookstore, because Watch is pretty sure the dude never actually bought the book. They have to deal with the creepy bookseller, Mr. Carver, who evidently Bryce has a deal with about being allowed to keep his knives as long as he doesn’t use them on anything living? Squick. But he did sell the book after all, and gives them the name and address of the dude who bought it.

When they get to his house, though, he’s not interested in sharing the book, even after they tell him about the creepy guy who cursed their friend. He does want to see the portal that the dude jumped through, so they agree that Cindy will take him to the cemetery while Bryce runs an errand with his aunt, wink wink. Obviously the guy knows what’s up, because he takes Cindy hostage as soon as they’re at the cemetery and marches her back to his house, where Bryce is just at the door with the book under his arm. There’s a standoff — Bryce has a lighter to the book, Creepo is holding Cindy by the neck — but they agree that if Bryce gives up the book, Creepo will tell them what’s in it. Of course he doesn’t; instead he grabs both kids and chucks them in the basement. What he DOESN’T know is that Bryce has already been there and gone and back — he was RETURNING the book, after having made a photocopy of it. So he and Cindy settle down to read it.

Before I get to that, let me go back to the portal kids. They emerge in a land that is completely green, or maybe it just looks that way because the sun is green. They’re not there long before another Adam and Sally appear. Apparently they’re from a parallel dimension to our heroes, but their Watch is so sick that he couldn’t drag himself through the Secret Path. (Our Watch, of course, insisted.) They see a castle in the distance and decide there’s no better option than to try to walk to it.

(This is not too far out of line. Pike even acknowledges the Emerald City/yellow brick road trope in the text.)

But before they get too far, an armored warrior princess leaps out from the trees and demands to know who these trespassers are. They tell her the story of identical green-stone illnesses, and she concedes that the castle is the only place where they might find a cure, but there’s no way they can walk it. Instead, they’re going to have to ride pterodactyls. Well, the warrior doesn’t call them that, but that’s what they are. But they aren’t tame, of course; the gang will have to jump from above and surprise them. After a sticky moment where the Sallys miss their mount and the warrior has to save them, they get on board and manage to fly to the castle in no time.

Inside is the dude who cursed Watch. He’s like, dude, there’s nothing I can do, and Watch is all duh, I know that, I already read the story. Um, what? It turns out that the book was about a warrior princess who liked to go out hunting, only she accidentally killed a powerful witch in the guise of a boar and so his daughter cursed her with a fatal illness. The prince, her love, insisted that the young witch release the curse, but the only method to do so was to transfer it. But because the princess was royalty, it would require two brave and wise and good souls to take on the burden. Watch knew as soon as she appeared, of course, that the story was true, but he didn’t tell because he didn’t want anyone else to suffer. It’s true that our warrior princess is suddenly healed from an illness, but she is pretty pissed that the two Watches didn’t know they were taking on her curse. So they go to find the witch to see what she can do — and if it means the warrior takes back ownership of the curse, then so be it.

So they go to the dungeon, where the witch is locked up, and they demand she do something. She’s like, idiots, I already told you what needed to be done, and there’s not a whole lot you can do to change it. But suddenly the prince gets a shiver, like part of him just died. And it did! The dude back in Spooksville who was guarding the book is a kind of shadow-double of the prince, and he’s realized that it should have been him taking on the curse the whole time instead of trying to find some children who could sympathize with it. So he burns the book and dies with it, which makes the real prince realize it too. But before the witch can transfer the spell over, Watch speaks up. He wants to know if he’s worth enough that the other Watch doesn’t have to die. And this act of valor confirms it, and so when he closes his eyes and stops breathing, it’s the end of the curse.

No, seriously. Watch is dead.

They take his body back to Spooksville and bury it in the cemetery next to Madeline Templeton’s grave. Like, what else could they do? Watch had no family, probably not much money, and his only friends were this group of twelve-year-olds. Ann Templeton and Bum are there too, lots of tears, lots of mourning.

Until Watch walks into the cemetery.

Remember the time robot that sent the kids back to Colonial Spooksville and made a huge mess out of everything in the timeline? No, of course you don’t, and neither does anybody else: Watch made it so that they never found the robot in the first place. But he never went all the way away, either. He’s been paying attention to the gang’s activities, and when it transpired that he died, it made sense that maybe he could be alive again.

I don’t know, though. Things will never be the same, because the new Watch doesn’t have the experiences of the last month or so, and the others aren’t likely to forget fucking BURYING HIM any time soon. Still, I imagine that this is going to go away faster than even I expect. Much like my hopes of finally figuring out what the kid’s deal is and why his parents abandoned him in this burg.

[petals42]

Mothers’ Weekend

Hello there! Long time, no see (my bad I know) but, here: an Alicia Zimmermann-centric piece as she goes to Parents’ Weekend during Jack’s freshmen year. [focus on Alicia, Jack, and Shitty] 6k

Somewhere, deep in her heart, Alicia Zimmermann knows she is a bad mother.

It started out as a worry, as maybe it does for all new mothers, that she will be a bad mother. That she won’t know what to do with a baby or a toddler that one day she will accidentally drop him or forget to feed him or feed him something he is actually allergic to or maybe she’ll scar him emotionally somehow and she worried but she survived his childhood okay. And then, after he was five or six, she stopped worrying about it. She thought she was doing pretty good. Jack had hockey and loved hockey and, sure, they didn’t have deep emotional talks but she didn’t exactly have any basis of comparison. Television families told her she was doing okay. No teenage boy wanted to have deep talks with his mother. And, look, if Jack didn’t talk to her all that much as he turned 12 and then 13, at least he was still talking to his father. Mostly still about hockey but she… she thought that had counted. Hockey was like French, to her. Another language she could understand but couldn’t quite speak. But Bob could. He was on top of it. Jack was taken care of.

She loved Jack. That was never the problem. The problem was that her love wasn’t enough. It didn’t matter. It didn’t alert her to any of the facts and maybe it even blinded her-- She loved her son and her son loved hockey and so she loved hockey too. She loved her son and then her son seemed to love a boy named Kent and they never talked about it but she let Kent come over all the time and she figured they would discuss it at some point. She just… assumed everything was okay. Even after he was diagnosed with the anxiety disorder and given pills. It was always… well, that was a little problem but it’s handled and under control and everything is okay now.

See. Bad mother.

A good mother would have known somehow.

A good mother would have pushed and prodded or sensed it without even having to be told.

A good mother would have paid attention to how hard Jack was on himself. A good mother would have made sure her son had interests outside of hockey. A good mother would have known that Jack’s long silences after losses weren’t normal. A good mother would have preached balance and fostered friendships with different types of people and stopped the fucking hockey.

She didn’t though. Stop the hockey. No, not Alicia Zimmermann. She encouraged it. She went to the games and cheered the loudest and she even loved it a little bit because she thought it brought him joy, like his father. She bought into the vision: Jack playing hockey like Bob, the Zimmermann legacy continued throughout the ages…

God, she even used to tease Jack about how it took his father three years to win a Cup and she was sure Jack could manage it faster than his old man.

A good mother wouldn’t have done that. So, see, she’s always been a bad mother. Even now, now that she’s almost lost him, now that she’s promised to do better, now that she’s finally read all the books and online articles about anxiety and pressure and the danger of sports and hockey culture… now she’s still just as bad. Just for different reasons.

Now she is a bad mother because it’s Saturday afternoon and he’s been at Samwell for almost three months and she does not feel like mothers are supposed to feel in this moment.

She glances around. At the sea of other mothers and fathers crammed onto Samwell’s campus for Parents’ Weekend. They are not nervous. They are excited. Happy. Enthusiastic. Overjoyed to see the teenager they had left just a couple months ago again. To her right is a father almost (but not quite) breaking into a run to give his son a hug. To her left, a mother has burst into tears. Happy tears.

And then there’s her. She’s not excited to see Jack. Well, no. No, it’s not that she’s not excited. She is. She is. (She is. She repeats it once more just to remind herself). She is just…

She is nervous too. More nervous than she is excited.

It’s why she’d told Bob that it was okay for her to go alone to this. He has an event and, more than that, she doesn’t want him to see her like this. Scared. Nervous to see her own son. Besides, he’d come down for the first game of the season, to watch Jack’s debut back on the ice and a good mother would have come to that but--

“I’m so sorry, baby, I have a benefit that I really can’t get out of. I’m so sorry. Parents’ weekend, though, alright? I’ve cleared my whole schedule. I can make it for Parents’ weekend.”

And, of course, that was just another bullet point to add to her list. Because that was a lie. She is Alicia Zimmermann. She easily could have gotten out of that benefit. Sure, Sally would have had to step up to give the keynote speech but Sally has been waiting for that opportunity for ages anyway so…

She could have gone. Should have. But she wasn’t ready. To see Jack. To see Jack back on the ice.

Because, god, now she fucking hates hockey. She hates everything about it. After Jack got back from… from getting better, she had banned it in the house. No replays, no hockey news, no ESPN, no skating. It was one of the few times she had yelled at Bob in their marriage. The first time he tried to switch the channel to an old game even though Jack was still thin and exhausted and had already gone up to bed. She had yelled and thrown the remote at the TV when she couldn’t change it fast enough and then sobbed and he had listened. No hockey. Not for 5 wonderful weeks.

Of course, she couldn’t keep Jack away. His therapist specifically told her not to. He needs to reestablish his passions again-- decide for himself if he wants to go back. So for all she tried--filling up his time with silly things like seeing movies in the middle of the day and shopping and shovelling books onto him in their own rough form of a book club--eventually, Jack went back to it. Just to the ice first, skating around the stupid pond in the backyard, and then he went out with his stick and a puck and then set up a goal and then coaching and then-- and then--

“I think I’m going to try to play at the college level. I’ve reached out and some--some places seem to want me. Even with the… you know.”

Bob had nailed the booming enthusiasm they were supposed to show for Jack taking initiative and planning out his future and Alicia had managed a smile and a hug and hoped that Jack thought the tears in her eyes were tears of joy.

She isn’t sure you can be a good mother if you hate the decision your child has made.

But she does. She sits on the old wooden bench which wasn’t around when she went here and tries not to glare around her at the other mothers who are oohing and aahing at all the right places as their children talk about classes and the campus and whoever it is they are dating or not dating and all she can think about is how much she hates hockey.

She hates the sound of skates on the ice and the cold of the rink and the stupid puck and the rules that make no sense and the violence that is just allowed for no good reason and the pressure and the players and her whole life has somehow been wrapped up in this fucking sport that she cannot stand. She hates it. She hates it she hates it she hates it and she hates that Jack loves it enough that he wanted to go back. Even though it almost destroyed him.

She even hates that he’s good at it. She hates that Bob came back from that season opener and smiled at her and said “My god, Ali, he’s still got it! Gonna be better than me. Just you wait. Just you wait. Damn, those reporters are going to eat their words in a few years. He’s gonna be huge. He’s gonna be-- he’s still got it, sweetie. Right like he never even left.”

So after all that, after everything, Jack still loves it. Bob still loves it. And she… she is the mean, old, angry mother who can’t love something that makes her child happy.

She couldn’t even make herself go to his first game.

And now she doesn’t know if she can make herself go to this one. Even though she is here. Even though it is happening in less than two hours at a Stadium less than ten minutes from where she sits.

Jack had been apologetic that he couldn’t meet up with her before the game and she had smiled and said “Oh, of course, dear, don’t worry about me! I’ll go grab a coffee at Annies!” as if she isn’t terrified that this is all him falling into old habits. As if she isn’t terrified she knows where this was going. As if she isn’t terrified to see her son after a game. To see her son at all.

If she remains very still and stares off into a middle distance and doesn’t focus on any of the families around her and doesn’t let herself move too much, maybe she won’t start crying.

She thinks the problem is that for all the mothers and fathers around her, these last three months have been an anomaly. It’s not normal for them to not see their child every day and talk every day and know every intimate detail of their lives. So they come to campus and they are excited and it’s trying to cram three months of information into 2 short days and it’s easy and fun and everyone knows how they are supposed to act and, sure, maybe there are a few new things but they are all expected new things. Like your kid picked up some kind of questionable fashion sense or they grew three inches or their friends taught them to skateboard. It’s all recognizable.

She doesn’t know how to tell people, even when they ask, that she doesn’t have that. For years, Jack had been away. Away games and away tournaments and then the Q and she… she is used to the separation. She hates that about herself but it’s true. It had been strange to have him around for 14 months.

(12 and a half, her brain corrects unhelpfully, He was only home for twelve and a half of those).

She hates even more that it had been awkward. Especially at first. And the therapist she saw briefly said that that was normal, said that it was okay to not know what to say, said that after an event like this, everyone had to renegotiate their roles and she wanted to believe that that was the reason for the misplaced silences and stilted conversations and stuttering stops and starts that permeated the first few months Jack was home but…

But she knew that wasn’t it. Not all of it.

The truth was that she and Jack hadn’t interacted that much even before his overdose. She loved him, of course. She loved him more than anything but she… they… He was quiet and they both were busy and they didn’t have a pattern to fall back on.

She was positive for the first few months that she was annoying the shit out of him. She would babble endlessly and he would maybe listen, maybe just sit there and he always let her pick the TV show or movie and he would go with her to the mall just for something to do, just to get him out of the house. He would do these things when she asked but she wasn’t sure he enjoyed any of them.

They fell into a habit eventually. He started asking follow-up questions to her stories, rolling his eyes a little at some of her TV choices, ditching her at Macy’s to swing by the bookstore. He was still quiet but they were both less busy and it was working. Slowly but surely, they were building something.

And then he chose hockey again. And, yes, he’d listened to her comments about going to a school that wasn’t all about hockey, he’d chosen Samwell, her alma mater, and she was grateful--it’s not that she wasn’t--she just…

She doesn’t know what version of Jack she is going to see tonight. She doesn’t know if it is going to be Jack from the Q, serious, intense, and single-minded; or maybe, if they lost, Jack from just after, lost and defeated and sad.

Maybe she’ll get the Jack from August. The Jack who smiles with one side of his mouth and teases her about how she always buys anything children are selling at lemonade stands or Girl Scout Cookies or those awful carwashes that make your car look worse and chuckles softly sometimes to himself. Maybe she will get that one.

But that Jack was so new. She had just met him in maybe January or February and she-- she--

She doesn’t know what she’ll do if he’s gone.

*^*^*^

She makes it to the game. She doesn’t admit, even to herself, how close she came to not going because it doesn’t matter. She makes it. She slides in just before it is set to start but since she’s is only one person alone, she still gets a pretty good seat.

And then it’s a bit like muscle memory. Her eyes naturally strain a little and focus on the puck and she claps at all the right points and screams “Yeah, Jack!” when he is close enough to her side of the boards to hear her. She even manages to smile and small-talk with the people around her during the intermissions between periods who recognize her and know her son. She does the old, practiced head-bob and the polite laugh and the “Oh, yes, yes we’re so proud he decided to come back to it. Yes, he’s doing great.”

Samwell wins, 3-2. One of the goals is Jack’s. And Bob had been right, she can see that. Jack looks on the ice like he always did: fast, strong, fearless, and even in that stupid #1 Jersey that her eyes track instinctively.

And then it’s all just more familiar patterns, more worn routines that make her stomach sink with fear. Jack doesn’t look up in the stands after the game to try to find her or Bob and then he’s gone back to the locker room and the rest of the stadium drains of people while she moves to the bleachers closest to the exit that Jack will eventually come out of and sits and waits.

And waits.

And waits.

Because the other boys file out, laughing and shoving each other, high off their win and their youth but Jack doesn’t. No, not Jack. He is always the last one out of the locker room because her son has to sit and go over every minute of the game for things he could have done better even if his team fucking won and her son will come out silent and subdued and accept her congratulations with a look in his eyes that says he doesn’t believe it. That he could have done more.

After losses, she and Bob used to wait for upwards of forty minutes for their son. That’s forty minutes after everyone else had left.

It’s creeping on twenty minutes now. Twenty minutes even though they had won and Jack said he wanted this and he was still skyping his therapist at least once a week, sometimes more (she is a bad mother. She isn’t supposed to keep track of that but she looks at how much time they are billed for every week. She has to know). Twenty minutes even though it was supposed to be different this time.

This is not different. This is the same.

She’s going to say something, she promises herself even though it’s a lie. She’s going to point out that this is the same, that it’s happening again, that she won’t let it go down like this, not again. She is going to stop this. She is going to--

“Come on, man. It’s--no. Do not.”

Laughter.

That was Jack’s voice getting louder and it wasn’t Jack’s laugh, no, but that means--

Two boys suddenly tumble out of the tunnel.

Jack, her Jack, hair wet and flopping into his face in that way that made him look like a spitting image of Bob, sweatpants on with those terrible shoes, gym bag slung over one shoulder and that’s all the same, that’s what she was expecting but then.

His other hand is tangled in the sleeve of another boy, pulling him firmly along. And this other boy--he is…

His brown hair is even shaggier than Jack’s, long enough that if he were hers, she would start telling him it was time for a cut; he is shorter than Jack (his type, her mind fills in unhelpfully and she tries to squash that thought as soon as it comes because, no, they had never actually talked about Kent and--no. Not now); he is younger than Jack and he is giggling and halfheartedly struggling against Jack’s grip even though his hand, wrapped around the hem of Jack’s shirt, is another point of contact keeping them together.

“Let me do it,” this new boy says, digging his feet in a little. “No one will know. C’mon. Let me do it! Let me do it! You know you want to!”

Jack is not paying attention to him. His head is swinging up, looking for her now (finally), but he looks up to the left first so Alicia gets to watch for another few heartbeats as her son rolls his eyes (just a little) and keeps his grip secure as he spins them both around and--

“Let me, let me, let me, just a little, Jacky.”

“Hello, mom,” Jack says, the name he never calls her emphasized enough that the other boy freezes and stops trying to run back down the tunnel. Satisfied, Jack lets go of him and takes the four steps up to her and he is relaxed, she realizes as he goes to hug her. He is smiling, just a little on that one side and hugs after games aren’t new for them (she’d always insisted, he’d learned to accept the routine) but this one feels different. This one feels like all those ones she saw today looked like.

“Hi, maman,” Jack says in her ear, just for her, as they are still hugging. She closes her eyes and squeezes and lingers.

“Hi, baby.”

Jack leans away before she does and for a split second, she has forgotten all about the other boy because, honestly, why should she care about anyone else in the world but her son right now? But Jack looks back to him and her eyes find him.

He has dug his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie and is very carefully looking anywhere but at them as if not to intrude on their reunion. As she steps down, Jack’s hand on her elbow as if she needs assistance, he takes an awkward half-step away.

It’s Jack who breaks the silence.

“Maman, this is Shitty.”

She sees the other boy start at Jack’s casual use of his hockey nickname but Alicia is long used to those. She’s listened to stories of boys called Bear and Topside and Gurgle and Bonehead and she and Bob had never managed a strict “No Cursing” policy in the house so Shitty was not a big deal.

“Shitty, my mom. Alicia Zimmermann.”

Shitty steps forwards and shakes her hand and it’s as he steps back that he mutters “Dude, I know who your mom is,” in a tone meant for Jack’s ears only and Jack smiles at him as if he’d made some kind of a joke that Alicia feels that question pop into her head.

Who is this kid exactly? Who is he to Jack, who is Jack to him, what is he doing here, why are they together, what does this mean?

Why, why did it have to be another hockey player?

The silence stretches for a beat and she sees Jack tilt his head at her and she realizes that in a good-mother script she has said something by now. Not just shook hands and sort of glared at her son’s friend.

“Sorry we’re late,” Jack says, filling the silence or maybe thinking that is why she is annoyed. “The freshmen are in charge of cleaning the locker room and it was me and Shitty’s turn.”

“Oh, that’s fine!” she says, coming back into herself. (She will not be rude. She will not turn into some sort of homophobic monster just because she doesn’t want Jack falling into another relationship that it is all hockey and competition and--). “No problem, sweetie. What number are you, Shitty?”

It’s her attempt to make up for her less than warm greeting. She isn’t good at seeing past the visors on their helmets but numbers are easier. #39 got a lot of playing time, scored one of the goals she believes, though #12 was on Jack’s line and they seemed to pass a lot.

“Oh, I’m number 42,” Shitty says. “I don’t play that much. I’m actually a walk-on so I don’t rack up all the minutes like Jack over here. With that fuc-- freaking beaut of a goal!”

“He’s getting a lot better,” Jack tells her earnestly, brushing off Shitty’s compliment. “He’s gonna be on my line by next year.”

“Your line?” Shitty says. “Wow, really? Entitled. And rude. Gross. Who even wants to be on your line?”

“You do,” Jack says. “You told me just the other day. Repeatedly.”

“I did no such thing.”

“You did,” Jack replies. “It was when you were--”

Jack cuts out abruptly and Alicia watches as both boys remember that she is there. Jack’s teasing smile, which had been threatening to lift both sides of his mouth, dials back down and Shitty’s face turns an embarrassed light pink.

“Uh, well, maybe I mentioned that,” Shitty says, making a valiant effort to pretend her son wasn’t about to say “drunk” or maybe “high” and suddenly she is delighted by this. Shitty is a walk-on who gets drunk and/or high and babbles to her son how he wants to be on his line.

“Well, next game I make, I’ll watch for you,” she tells him earnestly. “I doubt it will take a whole year.” Jack sort of beams at her. Shitty looks a bit surprised by the assertion. At least he blinks at her and shuffles oh his feet.

“Oh, well, you know-- all Jack over here. With the coaching.” He calls her son, Jack. Not Zimmermann or Zimms or Z or any hockey nickname. Just Jack. His name.

“Anyway,” Shitty says, taking another one of those half-steps away and jerking one hand towards the door. “I’m gonna take off. It was really nice meeting you, Mrs. Zimmermann.”

Alicia glances at Jack’s face long enough to see it has fallen into a slight frown before she focused on Shitty.

“Oh, are you meeting your parents somewhere else?” she asks brightly.

“Oh, uh, no,” Shitty says, shaking his head. He is young, Alicia realizes. Young like Jack never quite was. “No, they couldn’t make it.”

She feels bad she made him admit that aloud but if there’s one thing she’s good at, it’s getting what she wants and now that he’s admitted he doesn’t have other plans, she can just--

“Well, then you can join Jack and I!” she says. “We’re going out for dinner.”

“No, no,” Shitty says and his parents didn’t come down for parents’ weekend but someone drilled manners into him. “That’s okay. I wouldn’t want to be a bother. You two have fun. I’m just going to swing by the cafet--”

“I insist,” Alicia says. “Let me just call and change our reservations from two to three.”

And then she pulls out her phone and starts walking, leaving him absolutely no real choice in the matter.

Because Shitty is not that good at hockey and Shitty makes her son smile and Shitty’s parents didn’t come and as Shitty ducked his head just a little at her insistence, Jack had mouthed Thank you at her as if they had some secret code that she had unlocked and in that moment, it is like she is a good mother.

*^*^*^

It quickly becomes apparent that the slightly shy, polite boy who shook her hand and offered to leave her and Jack alone is not the Real Shitty.

The Real Shitty is the one who, turns out, did not help her son clean the locker room at all because he was too busy trying to convince Jack to let him put Nair in Mark Winger’s shampoo (“he brings it from home, maman,” Jack tells her. “It is...” Jack looks to Shitty. “It’s obnoxious, Mrs. Zimmermann. Kid is a grade A tool!”) because Winger is a “jerkface” (actually a “fuckface” but Shitty had managed to switch that at the last second). The Real Shitty is the one who start tripping over his words in his haste to tell her about his Gender Studies 101 class and then in the next breath tells her that Jack is saving his ass in the history class they are taking together because “did you know your son is sort of a complete nerd?”. The Real Shitty calls her son a “fucking beaut” three times before they finish their main course and by dessert, has relaxed enough to tell her that he thinks her work in the Vogue 1983 magazine is revolutionary in terms of gender roles and--

The Real Shitty talks entirely too much and then will seem to realize it and cut off abruptly and then stay silent for a grand total of four minutes, practically vibrating with the effort until he starts up again.

But, also, the Real Shitty will go silent the moment Jack starts to speak and beam at him after as if he has done the world a personal favor. The Real Shitty makes Jack smile. The Real Shitty makes Jack laugh twice and Jack had never struck her as a tactile person, even with friends, but Shitty seems to be in almost constant physical contact with him and Jack grabs and steers Shitty away from things without thought and slugs him in the arm as they get to the restaurant and Alicia steps ahead and Shitty says “Dude, your mom is fucking hot, bro.” Alicia politely pretends not to notice.

Shitty is a little bit obnoxious but, boy, does he love her son. Alicia can already see that. And he’s good for Jack. They are just finishing up dessert and they’ve ordered coffee (even though, “Maman, that is the last thing Shitty needs.” “Hey!”).

“So, Mrs. Zimmermann, Jack was telling me that you do a lot of work with The Hunger Project.”

Alicia blinks. She doesn’t really talk to Jack too much about their charity work. This is from… this is from the useless babbling she did back when he first got home.

“He says you’ve been to the… what’s the word?”

“Epicenter,” Jack fills in easily. Like they talked about this all the time.

“Yeah, the epicenter in Ethiopia.”

It’s a prompt, she realizes, and she’s going to have to respond. Which works because good mothers don’t turn and smile in amazement and say You were listening? to their son in a public place.

“Well, one of them,” she corrects. “There are 8 now, I think, in Ethiopia alone. They are community centers designed to…”

Also, the Real Shitty is smart. She learns that too. It’s not as important as the other facts, but she thinks it still matters. Her son’s friend is smart and will remember of the details of this conversation just like Jack remembered the details and my goodness, even at the beginning, he was listening.

*^*^*^

When they get back to Samwell, Jack asks her if she wants to go for a walk around campus and this time, despite Jack’s polite invitation, Shitty does firmly bow out and Alicia doesn’t stop him.

And then it’s just the two of them. And Alicia doesn’t remember what she was so nervous about. Because they link arms and Jack… well, the sentences are short and simple but, still, Jack tells her about his dorm room and the food at the caf and the classes he doesn’t share with Shitty (and somehow it’s even more satisfying to hear him whine, like a normal kid, about how much he hates the geology class he’s taking for his science requirement).

And suddenly it matters even more that he chose to go to her alma mater because she can tell him about her least favorite class and oh my god, is that old professor still teaching? And, you know Jack, she made out with Robbie Benton under this tree right here.

“Ugh, maman,” Jack groans, trying to pull away from her even though their arms are linked. “Gross.”

“It was,” she agrees, giggling. “Way too much tongue. He went on to date Tara Petit, though, who was a much better kisser so maybe she taught him.”

“Maman,” Jack says. “You aren’t supposed to tell me this.”

“Oh, such a prude,” she teases. And then, because it’s been over a year and they are kind of on the subject and, yes, she already knows the answer but she wants him to know she knows the question, she says:

“So… Shitty?”

Jack looks at her. She blinks at him. His eyebrows scrunch in confusion.

“You two seem very close,” she tries. “He’s very cute.”

She watches as the realization hits Jack in waves. First what she is asking, then what she knows to ask and she feels him tense but she keeps her arm where it is and keeps their pace steady and walks him through it.

“You think… me and Shitty?” Jack finally manages. His voice is soft even though no one is around.

“Well, his eyes are very pretty,” she says, still willing to make this light if it needs to be. Then, she takes a breath and goes for it. “Though… not blond.”

Jack stops.

“You… you knew?”

“Yes.”

Of course she had known. Kent turned up at their house all brash attitude and confidence and competition and hard edges and then he would look at her boy and his sharp smile would soften and Jack would duck his head and smile at Kent’s teasing and all those boys wanted to do was hang out alone in the basement, never with any other teammates, never with her and Bob. It had not taken a rocket scientist to figure it out.

Kent called him everyday for the first seven weeks. Just checking in at first. Then asking to talk to Jack. Alicia would relay the message and Jack would shake his head and Alicia would tell Kent Jack was busy. That he would call him back. She’s not sure it was the kindest thing to do but she had her own son to worry about then. He’d stopped eventually.

“It wasn’t his fault,” Jack says finally. Firmly. He sounds older and she doesn’t like it. She wishes he didn’t have to sound like that sometimes.

“Of course not, baby,” she says. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault.”

Jack starts walking again and she rethreads her arm through his. They walk in silence for a while. She gives Jack time to tell her more if he wants to but when he doesn’t, she returns to the original question. Just to make this easier again. A bit of a joke.

“So, come on,” she says. “You and Shitty?”

“Hah. No,” Jack says. “Never. He’s just… He’s Shitty.”

Alicia has known Shitty for all of three hours and she knows that that is as good a description as you can get for the boy who has somehow attached himself to her son.

“I like him,” Alicia says.

“Me too,” Jack agrees. Then stops but in that way that, if you know him, you know means he will continue if you don’t interrupt. She waits it out. “He, uh, you know he really likes hockey. Like… he doesn’t like being good at hockey. He just… loves the sport. That’s the only reason he wanted to walk-on. For fun.”

Alicia nods. She doesn’t fully understand the difference but she senses it’s important to Jack. That maybe this is his first interaction with someone like that.

“He likes a lot of things, actually,” Jack continues. “Everything.”

“He seems to like you,” Alicia says, poking her son in the side with her elbow. “You know the best friends you make freshmen year are the ones you are stuck with for life.”

Jack smiles and ducks his head but doesn’t deny it.

Her boy has a best friend.

“His parents are kinda… uh. I don’t know,” Jack says after a beat. “Not the best?”

“Have you met them?” she asks.

“Well they’re divorced. His dad came down for the opener, like Papa, and he’s…” Jack makes a face. “He and Shitty don’t get along very much, I think.”

“And his mother?”

“His mom is very… She is really smart, but, you know...” Jack says and she can see his inner-polite Canadian at war with what he wants to say. She keeps quiet. “I don’t know, Shitty doesn’t hear from her very much.”

“That’s too bad,” Alicia says and tries to forget that for years, she talked to Jack maybe once or twice a week. They text more now but still.

“Yeah, that’s why…” Jack’s shoulder moves as he waves his hand between them. “You know. I figured it would be good for him to meet you.”

“Me?” Alicia repeats. She doesn’t quite understand what Jack is saying here.

“Well, not that you should… like be his mom. Obviously. Uh, um, just since you-you’re good at this.”

It’s her turn to want to stop walking but she doesn’t because she’s… she’s what? She’s not... She doesn’t say anything because how can she? She is… she is not good at this. That’s what she has been saying for forever. She isn’t-- she can’t--

“At the talking. And the hugs after games. And, you know, the mom stuff.”

It’s dark out but in the lamp-light, Alicia can see that Jack is getting red and flustered and looks about ready to never talk again and that works out because he’s so embarrassed that he’s looking away from her so he can’t see that her eyes have filled with tears and her free hand is pressing against her chest as if that will help matters and, fuck, she is going to burst into tears in a second and Jack thinks she is a good mother.

Good enough that he wants to share her with his friend.

“Okay,” she says and she means for it to come out firm but she must sound a little shaky ‘cause Jack looks down at her.

“Okay?” he repeats. “Wait, are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“No, no, dear,” she says, taking another breath that comes out smooth on the exhale. Well. Sort of smooth. “I’m fine. I’m just… I’m very happy. For you.”

“For me?” Jack repeats. He’s confused. Which makes sense. This isn’t really what he was talking about, was it?

“You seem to really like Samwell,” she says by way of explanation. “I’m glad it’s working out so well.”

“Um, yeah,” Jack says and she knows that, like his father, he is still trying to analyze what exactly is wrong with her so he can make her feel better. “Yeah, it is.”

“Perfect,” she replies. “Let’s go shopping tomorrow. You need new shoes.”

“Maman,” Jack groans. “I like these--”

“Tell Shitty he’s coming too,” she says. “He needs a haircut.”

Jack huffs a laugh, but doesn’t argue. They are almost back to his dorm now and they walk in silence for a bit and it is suddenly all perfect. She is walking arm in arm with her tall, handsome son who is alive and happy and healthy and she is going to get to mother the shit out of him and his best friend and she-- she--

For the first time in a long time, she feels good.

.

.

END

[other check please writing]

[ayearofpike]

Spooksville #11: The Deadly Past

Pocket Books, 1996 116 pages, 11 chapters + epilogue ISBN 0-671-55072-1 LOC: CPB Box no. 507 vol. 4 OCLC: 35120993 Released August 1, 1996 (per B&N)

The pterodactyl appeared out of nowhere and carried Cindy off, presumably to be devoured and digested. Now the rest of the Spook Squad has to track her down and hopefully save her, with the help of the mysterious Bryce Poole and a little advice from Ann Templeton. Can they find her? More importantly, can they figure out how the dinosaurs are getting into Spooksville, and how will they stop it?

Dammit, I already blew my joke by putting the We’re Back image on the Wishing Stone post.

I haven't mentioned that in the last couple of books Pike has given more description of the kids up front. I guess we're going on a year of Spooksville books now, right, and it's possible that people are getting into them without having read from the beginning. So we have wiry Sally, short Adam, beautiful Cindy, and mysterious Watch, who BY THE WAY still doesn't have a last name. Like, he tells people it's been so long since he's used it that he no longer remembers it. I'm worried about this twelve-year-old, you guys.

We don't learn it here either — the kids are too busy trying to rescue Cindy. She gets snatched first thing, or close to it anyway. The gang is out for a hike in the woods, and you'd think they'd know better by now, but sure enough that's where the pterodactyl attacks. It swoops in from a distant mountain peak and immediately goes after human children, like it knows they're going to be good to eat. They manage to scare it away with a big stick, but then they get trapped in a cave and the animal is coming after them. Sally lights the stick on fire and Adam shoves it down its throat, but it only stuns the bird long enough for them to get out of the cave. Not long enough to get to a better protected spot, because it snatches Cindy and flies off.

The rest of the crew is left to figure out what to do. Obviously a dinosaur grabbed our friend, she's dead, right? Watch hopes not. He's thinking that maybe the pterodactyl is a mother, and grabbed Cindy as baby food, but he recently read that flying reptiles were supposed to have slept during the heat of the day, so maybe the babies are still asleep. He steals a pickup truck to try to go after her, since he's the only one that can drive, and since Adam got a huge scratch running from the thing and needs stitches. But before they can get back to town, Bryce Poole shows up riding an apatosaurus. He's known about the breach in time for two days and is only just now coming back to warn Spooksvillians, which again makes Adam question his trustworthiness. Me too — Bryce Poole feels like one of those kids who always saw the movie before it came out and who beat all the video games before you ever got them. Did you really? I doubt it.

Meanwhile, Cindy's waking up in a giant nest, where there are four eggs as big as she is. Were pterodactyls that big? I feel like they were more like a turkey or a vulture (not able to look it up right now). Also, I believe the preferred term is "pteranodon." But whatever it is, one of them is hatching, and Cindy needs to get out. She climbs up out of the nest, which is on the side of a cliff, and to the peak of the mountain, at which point Mama Pterodactyl comes screeching back — and dives right past her at someone yelling down the bottom. It's Watch! He drove his truck through a temporal vortex and saw Cindy on the peak, and now he's taunting the monster into a cave that is too narrow for it. He takes it through a tunnel up to a higher point on the mountain, and when the 'dactyl is forced to back out, he drops a big rock on its head and knocks it out.

But now they need to figure out where they are and how to get back, and maybe along the way they can close the vortex to our world. They happen to spot a flying saucer at the base of a nearby volcano, which you know that's never good news. Behind the saucer is a tunnel going inside, and, well, it's not like Watch and Cindy have any other options. They observe some golden aliens with white hair working on some kind of computer box, but suddenly these guys get gunned down by big-headed aliens in black jumpsuits, who turn to the computer and do something else to it. While they're trying to decide what to do, Bryce and Sally show up through a magic portal. It seems that Bryce Poole apparently knows a shortcut along the Secret Path that will let them travel through time, and this very spot is where Madeline Templeton's grave lies 70 million years in the future. As smart as he is, though, he doesn't know enough about time or aliens to make a quick decision here — the big-heads capture the kids and chain them to the wall.

Where is Adam in all of this? He didn't think it was the right decision to just go blasting through space-time, and instead went to get advice from Ann Templeton, who is shooting dinosaurs with magic fire to keep them off her property. She can see what's happening with Adam's friends, and wants to help him save them from danger. But she won't give him all the answers outright — she expects him to do some of the work, because we learn better that way. She tells him that the aliens aren't actively trying to affect the time warp, but it will happen anyway. Then she shows him the shortcut to the Secret Path that Bryce and Sally just took.

He shows up in the cave with enough surprise to take down the big-heads and free his friends ... but now what? Ann Templeton's advice seems to indicate that this box was placed here to mitigate the time warp, and the big-heads have disabled it to let destiny take its course. But our heroes don't want dinosaurs in Spooksville, but they can't figure out how to restart the computer. Luckily, one of the goldies is waking up, and Watch manages to communicate to him that they want him to do what he was already doing. He resets the computer, points to the display, and then points to one of Watch's watches — like, hey kids, you have a countdown to get out.

They make their way back to the truck, because Watch would like to return it even though he broke a window and broke the ignition. But as they're driving back along the not-road, here comes that fucking pterodactyl again. It dives and screeches after the kids who have to ride in the truck bed, and Adam's shooting it with the laser he stole off an alien to no effect. So Sally has to save the day: she takes off her shoe and chucks it down the bird's throat. This stuns it long enough that they make it through the time portal just before it seals itself. And back in Spooksville, there's no sign that anything changed, because they changed the past and now the present is dinosaur-free.

So I guess Bryce is officially one of the Spook Squad now? I guess we'll find out in the next one. I'm really starting to wonder more about how the Lemuria thing and the alien thing and Bryce Poole and Mysterious Watch are going to tie up into a package. Or are they? I mean, in plowing through Pike this year I've certainly seen enough places where he just abandons a thread or tries to tie it off with a one-sentence throwaway wrapup. So maybe none of this will pay off. But I'll read the rest of the books before I sell him short. JUST LIKE ADAM OH SNAP