#hell i think maybe the days i spent in her hospital room while she was unconscious might be more than how much i spent with her pre-sickness

[cannibalisticskittles]

one of my coworkers asked if i had ever considered getting a tattoo of amity today and. for a moment i considered it, lmao.

but i am picky and also fickle. anything i get would need to be the absolute most perfect design that i am satisfied with forever or i would obsess over whatever i turned out to not like, and the lines and color would need to stay sharp and perfect forever and the moment that stopped being the case, i would start gnawing my skin off, i just know it. and those aren't really realistic expectations.

[sapphireufo]

My thoughts about the finale's timeline based on the stills.

We will start with the Buck & Tommy date. (Whether there will be scenes about Bobby (and Athena) before that, just to hurt us more, I don't know.) It looks like night time, and the fire happened at night. A call will interrupt their date. (Who will call Buck? The hospital? Is he Bobby's emergency contact after Athena? Will he call the others? So many burning questions.)

They all rush to the hospital. Hence the same clothes. I would love if Tommy would be there with Buck, but he's not in any of these photos or the promo. Although a girl can dream...

Bobby has to be in the hospital for days. So the team comes and goes, because Athena investigates, and she had to be at the hospital for some time, while the doctors made sure she's okay.

So I think while they are there (next day / morning maybe) Hen gets a call and I don't even know what the hell happens with them, but Mara deserves a great family so they better fight for her and win. So go Henren! We support you! We love you! ❤️ (And so does Chim. Hopefully, he and Maddie could help them.)

I suppose the same happens with Eddie. They are wearing the same clothes, but it's daytime, so probably they spent the night at the hospital and the next day after the fire, Eddie gets a call. Go home, where he speaks with Buck, his parents. I don't know what will happen but I know it will be messy and we have all the feels, all the drama and heartbreak.

I reckon in this scene he tells Buck about what happened with Kim and Christopher and Marisol, then he will talk with his parents (When will they arrive? Are they in the other room, or with Chris or not there yet?)

Will Buck be present and just went out when the phone rung or was he in the other room during this talk? Will he talk to Eddie's parents at all, or he's just there as moral support. I think they get a call about Bobby. So they go to the hospital again (where all this time, there was always somebody to keep Bobby company, and Bobby will be fine, everyone will be fine and happy and the problems magically go away. 🤡)

I think this will be the last scene, a couple days later (different clothes), where Chris goes with his grandparents, while he forgives Eddie and Eddie goes to therapy and gets better. 😭

Cue the tears, the tissue and a very long wait till season 8. (I hope they will start at the end of September. 🤞)

PS. I like that they got renewed sooner, but it also means cliffhangers. They know they don't need to close every story line and frankly they can't do it to all 3 major character arcs in 44 minutes.

[expecto-kedavra]

HL Girls react to smelling M!MC in their Amortentia

Professor Sharp’s potion lesson has the class brewing the love potion, Amortentia, and writing their thoughts.

Including Poppy, Natty, Imelda, Samantha, and Anne.

Poppy Sweeting

She recognizes the smell immediately, however the fact that it’s in her potion, a bit more surprising. She’d know the earthy tones, the sandalwood, the soft smell of clean forest breeze anywhere. It was….him. But why? She didn’t have romantic feelings for him. All the nights they spent huddled together in a hollow log, pressed against each other to avoid poachers, that was just platonic. The way she felt when he’d smile at her after clearing a poacher camp, and brush her hair out of her face and wipe the smudged dirt and grime off of her forehead and cheeks. The way he would always hold her close when she’d get worked up about all the creatures she couldn’t save. The way she would always get sad when he’d leave….oh. Oh shit.

Natsai Onai

She smiles to herself, and breathes in the deep, comforting scent. She’d been considering the way she feels about him for a while, yet hadn’t known if it was real yet. This only confirms what her heart has told her. She writes down what she smells. A clean, aromatic smell, like cinnamon and vanilla. The way he would always smell. The smell she breathed in when she was sitting in the hospital wing after taking down Harlow, enveloped in a deep hug.

“What do you smell Natty?”

She’s snapped out of her trance by her table mate, Cressida Blume. She smiles.

“I smell home.”

Imelda Reyes

Nope. Nope nope. She brewed it wrong. She must have. She must have brewed the potion that makes you smell what you despise. No way. Her face grows hot as she internally searches for why the hell this damn cauldron smells like that. Why does it smell like….like mint…like freshly washed clothes, like lemon zest, a pie cooling on a windowsill on a hot day. Why does it smell like him??? She thinks hard, realizing how many times she’d sit behind him in History of Magic, breathing in the comforting scent. The times she could just focus on him without his smart ass knowing. Without HER smart ass knowing. How far buried in her subconscious was this?

“Well, what do you smell?”

Violet McDowell breaks her concentration, and the forehead vein retreats back into her face.

“Uh, oh, um, broom polish, and uh, the smell of the grass in the quidditch pitch.” She lied.

Violet raises an eyebrow. “Why are you sweating?”

Samantha Dale

She frowns at her cauldron. She was expecting the smell of fresh soil, maybe the smells that blow through on a hot summers day as she works in the garden. Not….this. What is this? It smelled of fresh parchment, and lavender. Slight tones of…what broom polish? She doesn’t even fly! She barely cares about flying and doesn’t even know anyone who does. Except…oh. Except for him. He flies. He’s really good at it. He looks really good when does it. He also always offers her spare parchment when she forgets it in charms class. And he always…smells like..lavender. She looks up and sees him across the room, working on his own potion while chatting and laughing with Sebastian Sallow. She feels her face grow red and a slight giggle come from her throat. She’ll explore this later. She needs to write down what to say to him, and how to say it. It’ll take a while. At least 21 rough drafts.

Anne Sallow

Potions has been hard. Since MC cured her, catching up in class has been a lot. But she’s always despised potions. She sits at her cauldron, pondering what it is she’s smelling. She smells green tea, honey, and a tiny bit of a more earthy undertone, like soil. Then like eucalyptus? She recognized the smell, but why is it here? It’s the room of requirement to be sure. But why? It doesn’t smell bad but it definitely isn’t attracting her. He showed her the room once she returned to school, saying it helped him get caught up. He showed her around, made her a cup of tea, and told her to brew as many potions and grow as many plants as she wants. Then he hugged her. He hugged her and she breathed in the smell of his robes. He smelled like…eucalyptus. She frowns. She’d always dismissed the thoughts of him as simply gratitude for removing her of the pain. Maybe it was more? She looked up, and found his table. He was just finishing his potion. She found herself admiring him, the contour of his jaw, his thick hair, muscular broad shoulders. She felt her face heating up, her mouth forming a hard line. As she watched him work, it melted into a smile, ignoring Sebastian as he poked her. “Why are you staring at him?” She shoved him off, and began to write down her thoughts on her parchment.

Him

He smelled roast chicken.

[sailorsenshishitposter]

Mechamaru x Reader

Warning for inappropriate/inaccurate use of drugs I guess? He steal morphine and gets high from it. Also evangelion and depression

Muta Kokichi:

You are a massive Evangelion fan, enjoy playing with puppets or just lay in bed all day.

First Date:

Your grandmother had fallen ill and had to be hospitalized a few months ago so you spent every weekend visiting her. You were so tired from studying that you failed to notice the room number. You walked in and were shocked to see a boy covered in bandages instead of your dear grandma. "Huh?"

You then noticed your mistake. "Shit. My bad, sorry. I thought this was nana's room. So... what are you in here for?" The boy looked at you but his expression screamed "dead inside". "I was born with glass bones and paper skin. It's so fragile that even moonlight burns it. Every morning, I break my upper legs, and every afternoon I break my left arm. At night, I lie awake in agony while it feels like needles are stabbing every pore in my body." 'This guy sounds like he's fun a parties'.

You sniffed the air and almost gagged. "You smell like mold. Why don't you take a bath?" He looked at you like the answer was obvious. "I was born without a right arm or anything below my knees. I have no sensation from the waist down. How can I possibly wash myself?" The boy appeared to be bathing in his own blood. "I think I'm just gonna call the nurse and tell her to give you a sponge bath." You then ran out of the room. "Well that was awkward!"

It was now a week later and you went to visit your elderly grandmother again. "I hope the old folks will enjoy the show I'm putting on!" You went through your bag and checked to see if it was there. You then held on to a small wooden puppet. "All right, everything's good. Let's go!" You walked in and noticed your dear grandmother in the audience. "I hope she likes this over playing bingo all the time..."

You then noticed a familiar face. It was that boy again. It seems that a nurse had propped him up in a wheelchair and forced him to "enjoy" something for once. He was glaring daggers at you. You gulped. This was going to be a long day.

Finally your show came to an end and you wiped the sweat from your brow. "He's creeping me out but at least he doesn't stink anymore!" You breathed a sigh of relief and went to exit when your grandmother surprised you. "Oh, hi nana. Did you like the show?" The two of you chatted and she eventually asked if the puppet could stay at the hospital. You agreed since you thought it would help their morale.

Over the next few weeks you began to notice some changes. Maybe it was just your imagination but we're things being moved out of place? Your grandmother told you stories about how the hospital staff believed that there was a ghost. It turns out items were frequently going missing and a culprit was yet to be caught.

"########, be a dear and ask if I can have some pain killers." You called a nurse but it turns out that their supply was low due to a shortage so you would just have to wait. Grandma only had a migraine so there wasn't any need to give her something insanely strong. You were just going to have to buy some Advil.

"Man, this sucks-" you were cut off as you soon fell over. "What the-?" It turns out that you had tripped on an empty syringe. You saw some scattered pills and followed them like this was some sort of insane trail and the source led to one room. "No fucking way! It can't be him!" You opened the door and were greeted by the sight of the boy getting high on morphine.

"So you're the thief!" It was then that he noticed you. "Huh?" He was smoking a fat blunt and eating Doritos. How the hell did he get all of this? It was then that you noticed your puppet in his lap. "How are you controlling it!?" He looked towards you and then the puppet. "You mean Mechamaru?" Did this guy seriously just name a doll after some sort of robot cartoon?

"Yes, that!" The boy sighed. "Okay but you have to promise not to tell anyone..." It turns out that his name was Kokichi and that he had some sort of strange ability that let him be able to control puppets? You two quickly became friends and you gave him your tablet just to show him the puppet master franchise.

"Those were awful. I'm never letting you pick again!" He then noticed a certain anime. "Hey, let's watch this next." Kokichi was now hooked on Neon Genesis Evangelion. He was a Rei stan, probably due to the fact that she's usually in the infirmary or her body is falling apart. "########, one day we'll pilot a giant eva and fly to the moon!" You laughed and ruffled his hair. "That's just the weed talking." You didn't know it but he really was working on creating a giant mech.

It was a week later and you still didn't show up. Kokichi looked around and called for a doctor. "Have you seen ########!?" The doctor was confused. "Who?" He groaned. " ########! They visit every weekend!" The doctor put his hand on his shoulder. "Mr. Muta, you need to relax. You're only going to make your injuries worse!"

"To hell with that! Where is ########!?" The doctor sighed. "No one with that name has visited the hospital. I know this must be upsetting but you just recently came out of a coma. I'm sorry. You must have dreamt it. I'll give you some time to yourself." Kokichi was now sobbing. "It all returns to nothing.. It just keeps tumbling down, TUMBLING DOWN, TUMBLING DOOOOOOOWWWWWWNNNN!!!"

The heart monitor kept skipping until there was a flatline. The boy died of a broken heart. In came a very happy Mahito. It turns out that he had blackmailed the doctor into gaslighting his patient. "I should do this more often!" He then transformed into the girl Kokichi had fallen in love with. In this form, Mahito began to sing.

"You can sail the seven seas and find love is a place you'll never see. Passing you like a summer breeze, you feel life has no other reason to be. You can wait a million years and find that heavens too far away from you. Love's just a thing others do. What is love til it comes home to you?"

[gallawitchxx]

caught in the act by gallawitch | rated: M | 2K

Mickey's had a shitty day. The cure? A beer at home with his husband and their teenage kid. But he never expected that his daughter would have a house guest...

a sweet anon popped into my inbox asking "if [i] could write something about if maybe mick and ian had a daughter and one day they left her home alone and came back to her fooling around on the couch with a boy? or a girl." why they think i'm the person to write galladads, i'll never know... but i tried anon! i really tried! especially because my sweet precious goblin king nosho's (@creepkinginc) birthday prompts were: fluff with slice of life. SO. here are some fluffy dads! i love you nosho! i love you anon! xx

- - - - -

It's been a fucking shitty day.

Mickey throws open the front door with all of the force he can muster, ignoring the flare of pain in his bad shoulder. Stupid thing’s been acting up again since the weather’s turned cold. 

The metal of the doorknob cracks against the plaster of the wall in their entryway, and Ian winces. “Mick—“

“Not now, Ian,” Mickey barks. 

[ read the rest below the cut or here on ao3]

What he wants to say is, Fuck off, Gallagher, but they’ve spent over two decades together, and can at least be on a first name basis. Plus, he’s been trying to work on his reactions to things. Be less hot-headed and more thoughtful, or whatever the fuck. But he’s almost at the end of his rope, his fuse already lit and rapidly burning down thanks to a frustrating combination of idiot clients and useless new hires. 

It’s days like today that have him wondering why exactly he thought he wanted to run a business. Be somebody’s boss. Be responsible for keeping the lights on and the customers happy. Even though he's been doing this for years, he can't help but think that it was a lot easier when he was running drugs and whores.

Louder, though, and he's become accustomed to the quiet.

He needs a fucking beer. 

Two maybe, he thinks as he toes off his boots. Shoves them in his designated cubby in the hall closet like the little domestic bitch he is. Even steps out of the way so that Ian can come up beside him and drop his own shoes off. 

Mickey’s not mad at him. No reason to be, they don't even work together anymore. Haven't in years. But Ian'd offered to pick him up after his shift at the new hospital downtown, and he'd stepped right into the crosshairs of an already terrible mood. Mickey just needs a minute to unwind.

Before either of them can say anything further, a slight whimper, of all things, wafts towards them.

Mickey cranes his neck to see further into the house, his rage quickly finding a new target. He feels Ian’s chest close to his back, and lifts a finger to his lips.

Other sounds follow—a hitched breath, the shifting of bodies against the soft, leather of their new couch (a splurge purchase made when all kids and dogs had been sufficiently trained up and housebroken), a small, wet pop that makes Mickey's spine curl.

He catches Ian’s curious stare, their shoulders raising as they make their way to the living room. It all feels familiar, yet odd. Been a while since either of them had their shackles up. The Southside even feels somewhat safe these days, thanks to a new generation of kids and a bunch of gentrifying motherfuckers. 

So it comes as a surprise to see someone strange in their house, making slick noises on their furniture, sticking their tongue down their daughter’s—

“Oh, hell no! You gotta be shitting me!” Mickey yells, Ian right at his heels.

The kid leaps to his feet, his shoulder-length hair as disheveled as his button-down; his eyes and his boner bulging in tandem. He looks to Mickey, horror-stricken, then glances at Ian before looking down towards the girl on the couch: sixteen-year-old Josephine Gallagher-Milkovich, bright red hair sprawled out beneath her wide, green eyes.

“Hey Dad…” she says, shrugging just slightly.

Mickey’s blood boils. “Hey Dad?! Jo, what the fuck?”

She scrambles to sit up, grabbing the blanket at the end of the couch to cover herself, despite being fully clothed. 

Thank Christ.

“I think you should probably leave,” Ian chimes in, pulling Mickey’s attention back to the kid wilting silently to his left. “Door’s just that way.”

“That’s a good fucking idea,” Mickey yells. He takes a step forward and crosses his arms, settling into a wide stance. “Better yet, let’s make sure I never see you again. Got it, Pimple Puss?”

“Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir,” the kid mumbles, shoving on his shoes at lightening speed. He stands, looking at them both. “Uh, Sirs.”

“Yeah, yeah, get the fuck outta here!” Mickey reiterates as the kid runs past him. Mickey swings back around towards his daughter, who has dared to stand up while his back was turned. “Not so fast! You better stay right where you are.”

She freezes, her eyes wandering to Ian. The door slams shut behind them, and he jumps a bit. Shrugs. Shakes off her stare. He wants to be the one to come through for her, soften the blow of what’s about to happen, but he can’t. His hands are tied. Instead, he reaches for Mickey’s wrist, turning him slightly. 

Warm green eyes catch his ice-cold stare.

“Mickey, think about this,” he whispers. His gaze is sweet, and he rubs a little circle with his thumb across Mickey’s pulse-point. It’s soothing, and it brings Mickey back into his body for a moment. Back to the present. Back from another day, in another house, when it was them getting caught. 

Fuck, he hadn’t visited that memory in a while. Didn’t even realize he’d slipped there now until Ian’s breath ghosted his temple, his words evoking yet another day with the same captor. The gun in his hand that time. His eyes wild. Mick, pause.

Mickey sniffs. Gives Ian a curt nod, sucking his lip between his teeth, and preparing to face his dumbass daughter again. “Give us a minute?”

Ian squeezes his wrist, “Course.”

Jo opens her mouth in protest, but closes it again off of Ian’s look. She’s sure he’ll have his own shit to say about the state she’s been discovered in—the rules, and the trust that she knows she’s broken—but that’s sure to be a calmer conversation. Less at stake, and everybody knows it.

“Gonna order us a pizza, I’m starving,” Ian calls behind him as he leaves his two most cherished people to hash it out.

It’s instantly uncomfortable. 

Jo picks at the skin on her lip, her ticks always more Mickey than Ian. Nurture kicking nature’s ass. But Mickey’s never been able to hold steady around a Gallagher pout, so when he finally exhales and meets her eyes, he knows he’s full of nothing but hot air.

"I ain't mad," he says, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and pointer finger–a move that absolutely doesn't say everything's cool.

"You're not?" Jo asks, her eyebrows crinkling.

He drops his hands and takes in her expression, now dancing between terrified and confused. Shakes his head and says, ”Course not. I was banging your pops all over this neighborhood way younger than you are now.”

"Ugh, Dad.”

Mickey chuckles, briefly lost again in different, more pleasant memories; of stock rooms and refrigerators. ”Got caught a lot, too.”

Jo’s shocked. ”You did?”

“‘Course we did. We were dumb fucking kids! Got caught by his pervert boss, by fucking Frank... Another time, too…” He shifts his weight, and thumbs at his nose. “Let's just say that if you're gonna follow in our footsteps and fuck around in the open, you're goddamn lucky that it's us walking in that door.”

Jo nods. She doesn’t know the ins and outs of her fathers’s lives before her. Neither of them have spilled all of their secrets, and some things might never be relayed. But she knows enough to know it was way different from how she's grown up, and she knows that she can always ask. They’ll be honest with her. They’ve made a point to share what’s important, and tell it to her straight. 

She’s a good kid. 

They raised her up pretty damn well, despite all of the fear, and the doubts.

Mickey clicks his teeth, making his way to sit beside her on the couch."A guy though? Really? I mean, I get it.” He pops her one on the shoulder, playfully. “But I was always kinda hoping you'd be smarter than me.”

Jo goes beet red, her arms folding cross her chest. "Uh, yeah, about that..." She takes a deep breath and says, “I’m… queer. I think. I like, uh, both. All? People. I like people.”

“Oh,” Mickey says, his eyebrows shooting up his forehead.

“Yeah."

“Cool."

She squints at him. “Cool?”

"Never really liked anyone 'sides that alien-lookin' motherfucker listening in from the kitchen" – there's a rustling from the room in question as Ian backs away from the doorway – "But yeah, that's cool. Thanks for telling me.”

She nods. "Thanks for listening.”

"Look, I may not be the easiest to talk to or the most in touch with my feelings or whatever, but I'm always gonna listen." He puts a tattooed hand on her knee. "I love you, kid.”

"I love you too, Dad.”

He pulls her in, tight to his chest. Her hands ball into little fists against his back as she wraps around him, and he remembers those same fists grabbing tight to his pointer finger the day she came home from the hospital.

A new surge of possessiveness swoops through him. 

"You being safe?”

“Dad…”

He can hear the eye roll, so he pulls back, taking her by the shoulders trying to catch it in action. Knows she’s embarrassed, but he ain’t done yet. Even as a dad, he can be a little shit. 

"I can tell ya about condoms and lube, though that might not be such a thing for you? I don't know fuck all about a woman's body. Already seen way more than I ever wanted to… And it seems like you're past whatever I woulda told you before…"

She shudders at the outpouring of information, but she’s intrigued. "What would you have told me before?”

He settles back on the couch, spreading his legs just slightly, a mischievous smirk on his face. 

"Aight, I got yer cheap birth control right here. Only costs a penny. You put the penny on the inside of your knee—doesn’t matter which—and then you hold it in place with the other knee.”

He demonstrates, closing his knees together and holding it tight, his hands now raised high in the air.

Jo groans, “Oh my god.” 

Ian plops down on the couch next to Mickey, tired of being relegated to the kitchen. ”You’re a dumbass.”

"'Ey, I think it's a great option,” Mickey balks. “Affordable, ya know?”

"You heard?” Jo asks Ian, her cheeks pinking up.

"I heard,” he confirms, his arm stretching past Mickey to tenderly touch her cheek. “We love you.”

“Love you too,” she says. “And I'm being safe… Haven't really done much yet.”

"Take your time,” Ian says simply. “There’s no rush.”

“He’s right,” Mickey adds, “especially because you’ll be grounded for the next month.”

“A month?! For kissing? That’s not fair!” Jo complains.

“Tough.”

“But you said it yourself I’m not doing anything you two weren’t doing!”

“Fine, two weeks,” Ian says, earning him a “yes!” from Jo, and a scowl from his husband.

“Did you even order dinner in there or were you just listening in the whole time?"

Ian flushes. Grumbles something as he pulls out his phone.

“Fucking figures,” Mickey says. Turns back to Jo. “And we’re your parents, kid. Thing’s ain’t always going to be fair. So, fine, two weeks because your old man’s a pushover, but I better not catch you hooking up on my couch again, capisce?”

“Capisce,” she smiles.

Young, bare knuckles bump against older, inked ones.

“Now, I’ve had a crap day. Make yourself useful and get me a beer, would you?”

[polaroidcats]

Here are some characters for you:

Sirius, Regulus, Molly, Barty Sr., Lucius, Fleur, Poppy P. and Marlene

hii bat!! that is a beautiful list, here we go:

Marlene/Molly - since we don't know Marlene's canonical age I think maybe she went to school with Molly, maybe they even shared a dorm room, had many late night study sessions and deep talks about their lives and their futures and everything else. Molly is the "straight" best friend Marlene never really got over, they practised kissing "for boys", made out a few times when they were drunk, maybe even went a bit further than that. Molly loved sleeping in Marlene's bed and cuddling with her platonic bff, and was always the first to fight anyone who suggested either of them were gay, which made Marlene's coming out to her so much harder for Marlene because she was so scared of Molly's reaction. Molly's reaction was nice, of course, when Marlene burst out crying and told her she was gay one evening, but something had changed between them over the years of Marlene feeling like she had to hide her sexuality and Molly not admitting that there was anything but platonic love between them. Even when Marlene comes out to her, Molly doesn't realise that Marlene might be in love with her and talks about having to find Marlene a gf, which breaks Marlene's heart a little. And when Molly falls in love with Arthur, Marlene finally understands she needs to let go of her unrequited love for Molly, she starts noticing a hot butch slytherin who keeps staring at her in classes...

Regulus/Barty Sr - I just think Regulus definitely needs an outlet to work through his daddy issues, and why not do so with the father of one of his friends?

Sirius/Poppy - ok so I think Sirius "I don't have mommy issues" Black definitely flirted with Poppy Pomfrey while he was at school, both because he thought it was fun and she was hot and also to see Remus's reaction. That boy spent so much time in the hospital wing, sitting next to Remus, he had to occupy his time with something and he chose to do so by flirting with Pomfrey. She was a young nurse, and thought it was really annoying that this stupid teenager kept flirting with her, and redirected his attempts at flirting to more appropriate conversation which led to them being sort of friends/friendly eventually. When Sirius escapes from Azkaban he knows he can't trust many people but he trusts Poppy, and his health is really bad from being in torture prison for 12 years, so he takes the risk and goes to see her when he breaks into Hogwarts. She has witnessed what a loyal friend he was to Remus and James and believes in his innocence, and hides him for a few days, taking care of him, nurturing him back to health after the hell he's been through. It's like he's a completely different man now, compared to the confident teenager that used to annoy her as a young nurse, but now they are both older, life has changed them, and they find comfort in each other's arms, Sirius deserves someone to take care of him and Poppy knows she can give him what he needs.

Fleur/Lucius - they meet at a modeling gig for magical hair shampoo for natural blondes and bond over their shared love for that shampoo.

[woonietune]

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated, for I was only wiping countertops with my left hand and weeping into my collagen supplements, not being dissected by first-years at the medical school

Lots of catching up to do. I haven’t posted in a while. I got sick. I mean, I know I’m always getting sick, but this time I got so sick that I lost a lot of the use of my right hand. I couldn’t pick up one of my fluffy chickens without the owies--and I have a high pain threshold. I thought maybe I was having a stroke--or a bad case of hypochodria but once those things were ruled out, no one knew what it was. It wasn’t Covid. It wasn’t some weird autoimmune thingie (as of yet--I suspected that--but it wouldn’t be that). Maybe my allergies had evolved into some Godzilla version? I couldn’t sweep a broom across the porch. The inflammation was so bad I couldn’t wear my rings, and worst of all, I couldn’t type. 

I couldn’t get an appt with my PCP for three months (because this is the way things are in the USA in a state where Bobby Fuck U Jindal let five private insurers compete for Medicaid clients and basically set into motion the now standard Republican model of Let Disabled People Die Who Needs Them). Anyway, I did see a nurse practitioner who sent me to get x-rays in one hospital and to get bloodwork in another--and the results came back that there was nothing wrong with me. I was reporting pain 8/10 but was told to take Tylenol and that the doctor would see me in three months.

That was back in December? I don’t think I’ve gone ever without writing for 3 months. I paid out of pocket for some acupuncture (never had it before--it was cool beans) and got some relief; I adjusted my diet, already vegetarian to as sanctimonious a vegan, anti-inflammatory diet as I could manage, and I felt a little better. I used Google Voice to chat with fandom friends. Google Voice told of the adventures of Dog Food, the great warrior, and Wound, the former assassin of Cooks Up a Wrong, and I was miserable. I wanted to write. Writing was my only real down time. Without it, my brain was in the wilderness.

During my no-writing period, I had two ear infections, my therapist gave leave, the family got mild Covid infections (during which time my arm felt oddly better), and I knew instinctively I had to rest. I picked up a heavy detergent bottle and got the owies bad the next day, so I let the house go to hell. I spent a lot of time lying in a dusty room I couldn’t clean (this was before the maid from Hell--I’d never hired a maid before in my life, but when I did, whoever hexed me made it so I got one that made already made beds and put the flat sheets under the fitted sheets, didn’t wash the cleaning foam out of the bath-tub, left large swaths of rug unvacuumed, broke several little minatures--I superglued them back but STILL--and left the kitchen floors grimy and put an envelope marked IMPORTANT on the kitchen in a super secret place among a bunch of bookshelves), and I let my mind wander the way it had when I was twelve or so....

Why am I trapped in this consciousness? Why can’t I be in the mind of that person or that other person? Or why can’t assume the presence of a tree or a cloud? Why am I me? And did I choose to be me? And where am I going? 

Agnosticism on any issue was the default, and if I wasn’t writing, it wasn’t only my right hand that was hurting, it was my brain. It hurt from awareness.

The maid from Hell cleared away some of the dust in the house (not much), but mostly she kicked my head out of its dusty sophomoric philosophizing. I was so mad over her bad house-keeping that I got up and started to clean my own house with one hand. I didn’t do a bad job, and my disabled family helped, even if they did turn some white clothes pink in the wash. Nobody died. The house never had a chance to grow black mold. 

When the PCP appt finally rolled around, the doctor examined my arm this way and that and guess what? I had a torn bicep! She recommended physical therapy but there was a waiting list (of course). I went on YouTube to get some practice videos, and there were all these muscle guys who lifted weights there who’d torn their biceps. I don’t know how I’d injured myself, but I’m always doing things I’m not supposed to. I mean, besides picking up 40 lbs dogs. I overestimate my strength and think I’m stretchier and younger than I am. I haven’t done yoga since before the Pandemic, so I must’ve just thought my arm was a squeegee pole or something and strained to clean a cobweb in ceiling corner, who knows.

I was prescribed super antihistamines for my allergies, given meloxicam for pain (lol), and told to rest (lol lol lol). Eventually I could type a little; then I could type a little more; before I knew it I had written more than 100K words in less than a month in a little fandom mini-arc, and my fandom wife was busy whipping my crazy manuscripts into shape because my writing was as out of shape as I was. I’d lost 10 lbs when I’d caught that nasty stomach flu everyone was getting (and I mask and take hazmat-like protocols nearly everywhere because my greatest fear is infecting someone high risk--I’m only moderate-high--and killing that person--I know all kinds of very sick people). My wife was sick too, and I don’t know how she does it, but apparently she can find a backwards quotation mark with a fever 101 and point out a paragraph that needs “more” even if she’s been puking for days and can’t stand up in the shower.

Fandom people are crazy. But we love what we love.

And we love writing for our historically inaccurate historical dramas.

I’ve actually been typing too long already.

This was supposed to be a master post of fics I haven’t uploaded in the past few months.

I’m back in bed, not sick so much this time as overwhelmed by all things overwhelming, and I want to write, but at the same time I want to just lie here and cry.

This world is a terrible place. It’s been blasted with meteors and nuked several times over, and the blood of a million wars have seeped into it, and the Ice Age has come and gone, and here I am, wondering if I’ll get a chance to swim in the ocean again before I die or maybe catch a coffee with a friend or see my dad who can’t fly here because of his bad lungs. Does it matter if I have words? Or are words the greatest illusion of meaningfulness--they’re just blabbity, and they disintegrate into cyberspace just like that stuff--remember paper?--paper used to fall apart when we picked up hundred-year-old books that had gone untouched. 

Actions matter. What we model for our children matters. Decency and kindness, compassion and persistence. Charity and hope, all those things that sound like dull bells until they are live faces with stories in front on your own.

But I don’t get out much anymore. I’m scared of the outside. I don’t march anymore, and my family needs me at home. The animals need me to refresh their water, and the old cat needs me to cut his pills twice a day, and oh, some people need to get over this “don’t enable disabled people.” It’s not enabling a disabled person who has broken legs if you hold his crutches while he sits in a car to go to a doctor’s appointment. You don’t know all the circumstances. Parents of disabled children--well, many of them, research hard and try many things, advocate hard, make phonecalls every day and we thank you for your judgement very much. We live in fear every day that our children will die in the system when we’re gone. 

Some days I feel all I have are my words. These words that are nothing. These words that are my playing around. I was diagnosed with cataracts not long ago. I am afraid of going blind now. But some surgery in a few years, they say--I’ll be fine. I hope so. I may not be fine in other ways. I knew there was something wrong with my eyes. I have optical migraines. My fingers don’t move they way they used to. My brain feels young--younger than ever, maybe twelve, the age I was wondering why I couldn’t share consciousness with a fish in a pond. Later, maybe when the bipolar was kicking in, I felt that I did share consciousness with it. And who will tell me I am wrong? The world’s great religions--not just my own with it’s Sh’ma Yisrael, the World is One, but so many others, speak of the great inter-connectedness of things.

Are the words in the way, or are they little stepping stones? Or are they both?

I don’t like to touch or hug people very much because of childhood traumas. I save my hugs for my dearest ones and my animal companions, but I throw words around freely, like chicken feed. C’mon and get it... or let it settle and rot in the earth, along with the blood and paper and other forgotten things.

My time isn’t over. This blog will last until... there are new technologies. I thought Tik Tokers would be the new talkers, but it doesn’t seem to be the place. Novelists haven’t disappeared; neither have poets. And despite Elon, Disabled Twitter is still going strong. There’s no telling.

So I’ll keep telling. I still have secrets and untold things. And many pockets full of untold stories. More later. The little fictions (oh this last one is 12k... sorry. Whoever reads it gets a cookie. A pretty Korean one from the palace).

[vancilocs]

joe and lyssa? for the parenting stuff

mom n dad

How many children does your OC have?

Three, aimed for two and overshot it a little

Probably one, two wouldn't be impossible but as an only child herself one is fine

Which child tends to receive the most attention? Why?

Probably Sam because of her being sporty like dad, but no special treatment, they just have the most to talk about

One kid

What personal trait would your OC prefer their child/ children to develop? (kindness, sense of humor, independence, assertiveness, etc)

Bravery and self-worth mainly, but also kindness

Kindness, being humble, curiosity of the world

What is your OC’s greatest area of weakness as a parent? Their greatest strength?

He's not very openly loving and emotional, but you can always talk to him about anything and he will keep a secret

Weakness would be her working so much and also being very ill sometimes, hard to be at home helping kid with homework when you're at the hospital bc your heart doesn't work. But she's kind, very smart, attentive and understanding, has solutions to every grievance

What  negative events from your OC’s childhood are important for your OC to shield their own child/children from? 

Feeling like they're not enough or a replacement or just not right somehow

Lyssa loves her parent and credits them for making her a doctor as well but maybe in hindsight little children shouldn't be helping with removing knives out of patients

What is your OC’s parenting style? Strict? Permissive? Absent?

After retiring he spent a long time as a stay-at-home dad so he's very much there and available, and kinda permissive. Though his kids never really asked for too much, he trusted them to be smart.

Stricter than Izkiel, but reasonable about it. Works pretty long days and sometimes just has to go and help someone out so a bit flakey

If your OC is raising children with a partner, how well do they work as a team in their parenting?

After the hiccups in the beginning they work really well together and figure out how to raise them kids, no use to ask dad if mom said no bc you knowww he will say no bc mom said so too

I imagine some hitches will happen, Izkiel is too cool for school sometimes and him and Lyssa need to figure out how to work in tandem so this thing works out

Where does your OC want their child/children to grow? (City, suburbs, countryside, van life, etc?) Why?

Suburb with schools nearby but also parks and activities (also Joe doesn't like cities either so)

No other option than city where they live at, but do make sure there's a proper school and maybe some kind of playpark nearby

How often does your OC’s child/children get to see/meet their extended family? 

Joe's side of the family visits fairly often, Mae's side a bit less but it's not a long distance from 'Straya to Japan so they will visit multiple times a year I think

Lyssa's parent is very present, Izkiel's side lives far away but Lyssa wants them to see the kid too as much as they can

What does your OC want their child/children to have that they never had?

Honestly Joe had it really well when he was little

While Lyssa doesn't miss her mom and doesn't mind being raised by a single parent, it really helps to have someone else to look after the kid too. So much easier that way

What does your OC think about feeding their child/children junk food? (Rarely, on occasion, every day etc)

Rarely/special occasions, Sam gets a big win in rugby or Lou gets good grades or Dami shares that he won 50 bucks in a video game tournament and Joe is like hell yeah and gets him chicken nuggets

Lyssa? Never. Izkiel, sometimes.

What is your OC’s pocket money/ spending allowance philosophy?

Has no issue handing out a tenner when they ask, or if it's something bigger, agree on the kid handling some extra chores and they'll get extra cash

Regular allowance, extras if they put in some work

Would your OC put a TV in their child/children’s room?

Damien would get one when he's older at least

Not likely

Does you OC believe children should take part in household chores?

Absolutely, though he handles the majority

Yes

What is your OC’s brand name buying philosophy for their child/children? 

If it needs to be good quality then get some name brands, like sports shoes. Just for fashion and flexing? Nah

Not necessary

How far apart did your OC space their children? Why?

There's 4 years between Damien and the girls, figured he was grown enough to not need as much attention

One of them

How does your OC feel about drinking alcohol or smoking in front of their child/children?

Doesn't do that other than maybe a beer or two sometimes

She doesn't do that in general

Does your OC believe in eating together as a family every night?

It's nice, but not necessary

It's fun sometimes but not realistic

Does your OC have any special traditions they would want to pass along to their child/children?

Not really?

Some valoidian ones probably, and from Izkiel's side

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

Hi i just need to put this into words and possibly get an outside perspective that isnt from my friends and such

I dont know if i can call what i went through as a teen neglect.

This is pretty long sorry, just skip to the end if necessary

TW: Alcoholism, Neglect? Sorry if i missed anything

To explain fully, i was taken out of school in 7th grade due to mental health issues and one very abusive and ableist teacher. That left me alone at home for 80% of the week, which was fine i had plenty of food and such to eat and i preferred being alone to recover from everything. I never went back even once i was "recovered"

But then when i was about 16, my mother's mental took a nosedive. She started having hospital level panic attacks. It wasnt that bad at first, cuz despite everything i still atleast had food and such for when she had to spent a day or maybe two at the hospital, which was rare. I could survive on my own with the limited help i got.

It sucked, my quality of life went from "meh could be better" to "okay uh we're surviving in decent comfort atleast?" In the span of a few months. But it wasnt the worse

Then the new year rolled over and it became worse. My mother took up drinking to cope and that spiralled fast

To the point her hospital visits became weekly almost daily, my life went from "okay i can life like this but i rather not" to "haha, im gonna end up in the hospital too-" in less then a month

I basically lived with my grandmother for a month and, she barely had any food there because they always went out to eat, food wasnt allow upstairs unless you were sick, beds felt worse then wood floors, and she didnt respect my issues

I was pushed aside, i didnt eat more then a mini bag of chips most nights because the only things to eat where expired, take out from places i didnt like, or things i literally cant eat either cuz textures or allergies.

When everything went back to almost normal, there was barely any food at home, i slept in my mother's closet because my old stalker tried breaking into my room while we were gone (also bugs overtook my room because the window was jammed for the rest of the time before we came home because of that) and my mother didnt want us to share her huge bed because i apparently violently slapped and kicked her awake till 3am when we tried (i didnt go to bed till 5am the one week when we tried, and she always woke up at 6am for her meds and such especially during this also we both slept on the very edges)

My mother would sleep all day, only waking up to take her meds and eat and stuff.

Dinner went from a "happens most of the week" thing to "you'll be luckly if you found a warm thing to make and eat"

Basically, i kinda starved often till things calmed down later in the year. I think a broke college student ate and slept better then me that year.

When i was 18 it happened again but i had a job so it wasnt as bad.

I dont blame her for like 40% of that hell, her and my father where going through the 5th messiest divorce of our closeish family has witnessed (tho it was actually kinda tame compared to the top 4 so idk the actual severity), and her mental health was already on decline for reasons that are not mine to tell

But like can i call what happened neglect?? It sounds like it but idk i actually can call it that.

Like yeah i starved most of my time as a 17 year old, slept in a cramped closet during said time, developed back issues cuz of that, was barely able to care for myself due to depression, was subjected to to smell of weed and the smoke from it often despite the fact it makes me extremely sick, was very suicidal, was told i was a burden and was making the situation worse cuz im autistic and was basically the new family afterthought

But like, does it really qualify as neglect and can i call it that if it is? Most adults i talked to at the time, even my old therapist said no because i was "17 and should already know how to care for myself on my own. And shouldnt take the words said in a probably drunken state to heart" but like there no way i could care for myself?? Atleast not without taking less then ideal options. Also that doesnt excuse the extremely hateful things yelled at me???

So im really conflicted here, was it neglect or am i just being overdramatic??? Every therapist ive been able to go to says im just being dramatic but my friends says im not so ????

Hi anon,

I'm so sorry about what you've been through. You can most certainly call these experiences neglect if that is a term you would like to use.

Neglect by definition is to fail to care for properly, and by legal definition it's "the failure of a parent or other person with responsibility, for the child to provide needed food, clothing, shelter, medical care, or supervision to." Not only were you not provided sufficient food, but it seems likely that your emotional needs may not have been taken care of either, with an unavailable mother and a disrespectful grandmother. It also sounds like you were not given adequate shelter and medical care, considering where you slept, the bug infestation, and how that affected your development. So yes, in many ways, your experience aligns with neglect.

I think it's important to remember that it's common for trauma survivors to feel like they're being dramatic when they validate the severity of their trauma, and that it makes sense to be in some level of disbelief that it's worse than you initially thought. Please know that you are valid as a trauma survivor, and remember to be patient and gentile with yourself as you explore what this means for you.

Ultimately, it may be helpful to work with a mental health professional such as a therapist, if you can access or afford it. A therapist, especially one who specialized in trauma, can mediate your healing journey and help you find ways to make sense of, process, and cope with your experiences.

If anyone has any comments or suggestions, feel free to add on. Otherwise, I hope I could help, and please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

[indigolover97]

We Started It

Chapter 8: Dawn

Taehyung wakes up to the gentle murmur of voices around him and the feeling of hand gently running though his hair. He grunts as he turns his head away from the harsh light, burying his head deeper into the soft pillow his head is laid on.

“Aw hyungie, you’ve gone soft,” Hobi’s voice coos, a laugh bubbling from his mouth as he speaks.

“Shut up Hoseok, before I throw something at your sunshine face.” Yoongi grumbles, the hand in Taehyung’s hair tugs a slight knot out as it brushes through.

“With what hand,” Hobi scoffs. “Both of yours are occupied.”

Taehyung lifts his head and pouts at Hobi, “Can’t you be quiet, I’m trying to sleep.”

Hobi rolls his eyes as he stares down at him with his arms crossed over his chest, “Are you done using hyung’s thigh as a pillow, Taehyungie? We need to get to work on those computers Joon brought back from the base.”

Taehyung groans and sits back in his chair, yawning widely as he scrubs his face. “How are you even awake so early?”

“It's the middle of the afternoon, Taehyung.” Hobi corrects, chuckling at his confused expression. “Even hyung woke up before you and he’s the one in the hospital bed.”

Taehyung blinks, a frown forming on his face as he glances over at Yoongi, “I’ve never slept that long before.”

Yoongi’s one eye looks at him sympathetically, “I don’t think you had any nightmares either.” He says softly, a smile creeping up on his face.

Taehyung barely has a moment to process this before Namjoon bursts through the door. They stare at him as he pants from running, clutching the side of the door to stay standing up.

“Who died?” Yoongi asks dryly, staring as Namjoon huffs labored breaths as he sinks into a nearby chair.

“Nobody,” Namjoon pants, taking a cup of water from Hobi and downs it in one gulp. “I just got off the phone with my father. Wouldn’t even let me get a word in until my mother took the phone from him. She sends her well wishes to Yoongi-hyung and hopes you make a fast recovery.”

“Send her my love,” Yoongi says with a nod, then glares his one eye at Namjoon. “Why the hell were you running here then? That’s no reason to be running across the house.”

Namjoon blinked at him then smiled widely, his dimples popping out in his cheeks, “I just missed you hyung.”

“You literally saw me this morning,” Yoongi grumbled, but Taehyung could see the pleased smile growing on his face.

Hobi chuckled, “Did mama ask after me, Joonie?”

“Of course, she still expects her Saturday call every week even if we do take over all of Korea.” Namjoon scoffed teasingly, lightly punching Hobi’s side.

Taehyung chuckled as he watched the brothers tease each other, a wistful pang ached in his chest at the easy family bond they had. He looked over at Yoongi who watched the brothers with a fond eye, before turning over to Taehyung.

“Hobi tells me that I have you to thank for getting me and Seokjin out of there,” Yoongi says with a soft smile, reaching over to take Taehyung’s hand into his. “So thank you.”

Taehyung squeezed Yoongi’s hand, “I couldn’t exactly leave you there, who would make my morning tea for me?”

Yoongi’s smile turned wide and gummy as he laughed, “You’re going to have to wait a little while longer, I need two eyes to make your Jasmine brew the way you like.”

“It’ll be worth the wait,” Taehyung whispered and reached a hand to touch delicately at the gauze on Yoongi’s cheek. “Who knows, maybe you’ll get a sexy facial scar out of this.”

Yoongi raised a brow at him, “Body horror kink, noted.”

“If you two are done flirting,” Hobi cut in, smiling wide with his heart shaped mouth at Taehyung and Yoongi’s twin glares. “I really do need Taehyung to come and get started on the computers. We still have that assassin to find.”

Taehyung sighed and rose from his chair, gently pulling his hand out from Yoongi’s and followed Hobi out of the room.

Taehyung spent the next few days within the Voyage House going between hacking into the encrypted computers they took from the Seoul Empire and Yoongi’s hospital room. Though Yoongi staying in the hospital room for more than three days was out of the question.

“It’s just my face that needs to heal! My body is fine! Now let me go back to work Namjoon!” Yoongi had shouted, while throwing one of his many pillows at Namjoon’s face as he yelled for him to get Doctor Wook to release him.

Hobi had taken a video of the scene and would send random gifs of it to Taheyung when he was bored in a meeting. It never failed to send Taehyung into a laughing fit when he saw them.

“What have you done to keep Seokjin in place this time?” Taehyung asked, chuckling as Hobi grumbled into his new office, throwing himself onto a chair next to Taheyung to complain about Seokjin’s daily escape attempt.

“You’d think after the man got kidnapped and has his leg in a full cast, he’d stay still. But nope,” Hobi whined, slouching in his chair. “I’ve changed five different locks on his door, chained him to the bed three times and if I hear the word kinky come out of his mouth one more time I’m going to give him a concussion.”

Taehyung giggled as he typed away on his keyboard, before sliding down to another one. “How many times has he escaped the dungeons now? Thirteen? Twenty?”

“Far too many, I will give him this though. At least I’m learning this damn house like the back of my hand. I’ve found so many new spots to put cameras in, it’s crazy.” Hobi mused, always one to try and find something positive about an awful situation. “How’s things on your end going?”

“I think I’ll have their systems cracked soon, I just need to make sure to avoid the failsafes they have in place. Otherwise we’ll lose everything.” Taehyung said, sliding back to his first screen. “I also got Yoongi-hyung to take his antibiotic this morning.”

“Oh, what did you threaten this time?” Hobi asked, giving Taehyung an impressed look.

“That he’d have to go an extra week without his coffee.” Taehyung stated, smiling at Hobi’s low whistle.

“That’s cold, Tae.” He chuckles as Taehyung hums happily in reply. “How’s the manhunt going?”

Taehyung sighed and glanced over at the facial recognition scanner at the corner of the desk, a picture of a smirking man sits in the corner of the screen. They had found him in the list of files that weren’t encrypted on the Seoul Empire’s computers. Finally they were able to put a face to the man they had been searching for this whole time.

“It still hasn’t found him, I’ve adjusted it I don’t know how many times. I’ve moved it all over Seoul, but it still hasn’t found the bastard.” Taehyung muttered, watching as the scanner flickered over the faces of men on the streets of Seoul.

“We’ll get him though,” Hobi assured him, glaring at the picture of the man. “We have his face. We’ll get him eventually.”

“By the time we do, Peakboy won’t be letting me out of his sight for a long time.” Taehyung muttered with a sigh.

“I wish you didn’t have to go back to him,” Hobi muttered quietly, looking at Taehyung with sad eyes. “I wish you could stay with us, you fit in so well it’s like you’ve always been with us.”

“Thanks for saying that Hobi, it means a lot.” Taehyung says softly, looking over at the man with a small smile. “I wish I didn’t have to leave either.”

Yoongi cleared his throat behind them, breaking the somber air around them as they turned to look at him. The gauze over his right eye was still present, but the paleness of his skin had returned to a healthy color.

“Need something hyungie?” Hobi asks sweetly, but is already standing from his seat as he heads for the door. “You don’t even have to tell me, I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone.”

Yoongi scoffed as Hobi cackled out of the room and he sat down in his vacated seat.

“Has Doctor Wook checked your stitches today?” Taehyung asks, glancing briefly as Yoongi rolls his one eye before fiddling with one of his instruments.

“Yes,” Yoongi grumbled, leaning back in his chair. “He says they’re healing well and that I’ll probably be able to take the gauze off in a few days to let the skin breathe. I’ll still need to be on antibiotics until the stitches can come out and he says I can have my coffee back.”

Taehyung hums doubtfully, “We’ll see.”

Yoongi grumbled under his breath as he crossed his arms over his chest. Taehyung heard something of ‘I’m a grown ass man, I can have my damn coffee’ in his muttering but chose not to comment as he continued to work on the line of code that would eventually gain him access to the encrypted computers. The work was a bit slower than he liked, having only one hand, but he kept his arm in a sling so he wasn't bumping into the table all the time.

If Yoongi could take his antibiotics everyday, then Taehyung could keep his arm in the sling.

“Joon says his men have taken down another one of the outposts in Seoul,” Yoongi says after a moment. “That’s thirteen already and that’s just in the inner city alone, how many more could there be?”

Taehyung shrugged, “When I finally get into this damn computer system of theirs, I’ll be able to find them all. Then we’ll take them out all at once.”

“Do we even have enough men for that?” Yoongi questions incredulously.

“I was thinking we’d send a mass message to them, surrender now or you’ll face the same fate as your other bases.” Taehyung states easily. “Namjoonie-hyung sure does love his bonfires.”

“He says the clean up is easier,” Yoongi scoffs, moving to scratch at his gauze only for his hand to be smacked away by Taehyung. “He’s starting to make a new name for himself in Seoul, calling himself RM. I guess he’ll add that to his list of titles.”

Taehyung hums, “It suits him. It’ll work well when the Bulletproof Company takes the Seoul Empire’s place.”

Yoongi nods, “I never thought we’d end up here. And all because we were looking for an assassin.”

“Funny how somethings just fall into your lap like that,” Taehyung chuckles as Yoongi hums in agreement. They sit in comfortable silence as Taehyung continues to type away on his keyboard and Yoongi leans against his chair with his eye closed.

“How did Joon and Hobi end up following you to that house? I don’t think I asked that.” Yoongi drawls after a moment.

“I had a tracker in my shoes,” Taehyung admits with a chuckle. “They never remove the shoes when they pat someone down in the Hwarang Boys. I figured it would be a safe bet for them not to either, it paid off.”

Yoongi hummed in interest, “I’ll have to add that as a protocol then, that’s useful to know.”

“I don't think most people will think like I do, there’s not much you can hide inside your shoes.” Taehyung tries to dismiss.

“It only takes one bastard to do it to us and we’ll end up just like the Seoul Empire. We need to be smarter than them.” Yoongi says gruffly, kicking Taehyung’s shin lightly. “Don’t dismiss good ideas like that, it could save us a lot of trouble in the future.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, hyung.” Taehyung promises, smiling widely at Yoongi as he kicks back at Yoongi’s shin playfully.

A beeping cuts off any remark Yoongi was about to make, the pair glance over to see the facial recognition scanner blinking green as it tracks a man through a crowded street. Taehyung slides over to it and quickly focuses some cameras in the area. As soon as he has a precise location he sends it to Namjoon.

“He’s sending Hobi to bring him here,” he whispers to Yoongi before refocusing on the coding screens again.

“Taehyung,” Yoongi says softly, placing a hand to stop Taehyung’s frantic fingers on the keyboard.

Taehyung takes a shaky breath as he pulls away from the desk, Yoongi’s hand clutching his. “I don’t want to go back, hyung. I don’t want to go back to him.”

“You have no idea how much I wish I could ask you to stay, but our hands are tied on this.” Yoongi whispers, squeezing Taehyung’s shaking fingers.

Taehyung nods as his head hangs, staring down at their connected fingers as the tears threaten to wreck through his shoulders. Yoongi tugs him forward to have Taehyung lean against his chest, his arms going around his shoulders. Taehyung wraps his arm around Yoongi’s waist.

In Yoongi’s arms, Taehyung allows himself to cry quietly until the tears stop falling and the lonely ache in his chest grows.

[pacinosgf]

❝ we were in austria, which is a very depressing country, with all due respect, though i think barbara would have really enjoyed the place if she wasn’t catatonic during our stay there. when she got a bit better, i made her take walks with me all through vienna so she could tire herself out before getting back to the hotel. one day she asked if we could rent bikes for our walks. and then another day she left the room, alone and in her own will, for the first time, without saying anything. i was sleeping and when i woke up, she wasn’t there. i was still hiding any sharp objects from her at that point, mind you. i was almost calling the police, but she came back with a huge map of the countryside, telling me that we should visit it. i thought, well, this has changed her forever. but maybe we can learn how to live after this. ❞

❝ we spent a few months in greece, but ultimately settled down in italy. i didn’t want to come home. coming home meant facing everything again, finding a new way to live. i got an abortion in another country so i could deal with it privately, but somehow it got leaked to the american press. i didn’t want to mope anymore, either. i felt sick of myself. i got tired of jim being all careful around me. i didn’t want to be this fragile little thing for the rest of my life, though i learned to let myself be taken care of after that. i learned how to slow down. i can’t always do and be everything for everyone.

i bought a leather bound notebook so i could write in a brand new diary. many of my first entries were just describing my day. we went to the beach. we ate ice cream. saw a woman dressed like brooke in the street. i cut my hair. in venice, we stayed at the house of a family for a while and i sang for them so i could thank their hospitality. i did my best to have myself back, little by little. now that i’m telling it after so much time it seems it wasn’t that big of a deal, but i know it was. i spent months out of myself. you can recover from that, but there will always be a little part of you that wants to give in to that dark place, those dark thoughts. when i got back home from brooke’s funeral, i found myself lying on the cold floor at this old age of mine, same thoughts as i had back then. see what i mean?

then, after two years, we got back home. i had missed my house, missed my huge garden, missed my instruments. i cried out of relief when i found out i could still play. i found myself trying to get used to this new reality, producing and only producing, but still coming up with random lyrics. still coming up with bass lines. i still loved the music. that part of me hadn’t gone anywhere, but now i had to learn again how to deal with it.

i listened to brooke’s album, of course. someone sent it to us and it was right there, waiting for me when i got home. seeing the words brooke wellington’s first solo album hurt like hell. but it was good. she had always wanted to rely into this heavy rock sound. i felt happy for her. she didn’t seem to be alright, but that’s how brooke is. i didn’t have a say in it anymore. i wanted to kill myself when i heard my bones and dope, but it wasn’t my business.

i lived. i worked. i took care of myself. didn’t get out of the house much. all that fire i had to do things had been lost. i felt a bit of it again when i was organizing contemplations and ramblings, and then i was reminded people would see it and try to find hidden meanings in my lyrics, i was reminded brooke would know that i had been fucking miserable. but it was good to write again. our solo work was so different. most of my songs were ballads, i’ve always loved a folk sound. my voice sounded so much older for some reason, when only two years earlier i thought of it to sound so ingenue. my plan was to release the album as an exorcism, you know? this is the last you will see of me, take good care.

and it worked. people didn’t care much about contemplations, which i still love and feel proud of, but i did. i kept writing and singing many songs, but i kept them all to myself. the spell they had put on me was over. i can’t say much about it, but when we had the reunion, though i felt immensely good for being on stage, i felt immensely good for being able to get back home. salting the wound for one night had been enough.

i had a few girlfriends here and there, but i knew i couldn’t love again. not how i loved brooke. i had more faith than ever in my love for jim after all the drama, but i couldn’t be the same anymore. i felt terrible about him. had damned him to this life. i told him, in the sweetest way i could, baby, if you ever want to, you know, actually have a family, go for it. i won’t blame you. i hoped he did it. i wanted to see him far away, happy with his family, and then brooke far away, not so happy with dash, and be sure that i was the problem of all of us. i would never give jim the divorce, but i could do that for him. we discussed the women he was seeing, i thought it was no big deal.

and then jim did the most stupid thing in the world, because he can think properly when he wants to. i thought he’d find a model, you know? an actress. maybe a normal girl who wanted a good life. he looked nice, and i knew he was loyal like a dog. i remember thinking they’re going to take my husband away from me.

but he went back to venus. i hadn’t gone back there since my failed visit, but he had. he spent months there, talking about how he is so miserable and his wife hates him and he just wanted a bit of love to whoever would listen. and of course, some slut listened to him, because there will always be a woman who will see a failed man, ignore the reasons that he might have been failed for, and think i can be good to him. i had grown up with her, though we weren’t exactly friends. jim stayed at her house, played house with that woman just like he did with me, would occasionally visit me so i would mind my business. he got her pregnant.

i punched him right in the eye when he told me who he got pregnant, how he wanted to be there for her, and that we needed to divorce. he wanted his part of our money so he could raise the child. mind you, jim wouldn’t raise no fucking child. that’s a man who was raised to drink while his children cried. that’s a man who got used to the good tour life, where he could have a different woman every hour and he’d leave soon, no need to think if she had gotten pregnant or what. he humiliated me in front of everyone that once knew me, people who already didn’t like me, by doing that.

i went to venus to see the bitch. didn’t beat her up because she was pregnant, but beat up everyone who tried to take me out of there. called her a whore, a homewrecker, a gold digger, screamed to the point my throat closed down. if she thought she would get that money so easily, she’d have to go to court or kill me.

she went to court, against jim. that was an easy fix, he had to pay for child support anyway. and then jim went to court against me, asking for a divorce and separation of property. can you believe? i made him what he is, and that’s how he thanked me.

it took us years. the little girl was born, i visited her every two months so i could take some things, you know? i loved babies. i love the idea of raising something of my own. i hoped jim would have some with a nice woman, so i could be around and pamper them like they were mine. i got cute dresses and toys for her, but then she would get out of my arms and i’d go back to screaming at her father and her mother, those fucking idiots.

the girl was three or four when jim realized he couldn’t be a father. big fucking surprise. if he was meant to be a father, god would have made me pregnant in a better moment that the one he did, you know? not to to fucking punish me. we didn’t divorce, but we got to a deal about our shared property. he came back home, spent months apologizing. i didn’t mind much. i hired a nanny i could trust and would send the woman to venus so she could come back with the girl every three months. i made him call the baby, sent pictures, would play for her. when she got older, this phase every girl goes through, she didn’t want anything to do with us anymore. couldn’t blame her, but we had nice times together. after the teenage turmoil was over, she slowly came back again. mostly talks to me. i adore her. it’s just a shame her parents are such idiots.

we had some nice, tranquil, boring years after that. jim had girlfriends, another child. this one turned 18 a few years ago. isn’t it weird how men can always have children, don’t matter the age? at least he didn’t have as many as dash.

i had girlfriends too. nowadays i date this beautiful tall woman, she is british, all grace and poise, named adeline. blonde, obviously, that’s my type. she has showed up before, she is the only helping me making those collages since brooke died, so i won’t forget history. i will die soon, so i won’t take much more of her life. she is sweet, but can be very feisty. she was born after the reunion happened, so it’s funny to me to tell her how things were, remember things in the process and see how shocked she is by everything. she’s such a sweetheart. adeline gave me some good last years.

that’s where we end. it was a pleasure to mayhem with you. hopefully, for the last time. ❞

@gllianowens

[upthetracks]

1/1/24

I think maybe this is a diary for myself. Not a good or useful one. I never write here and I never remember to read these a second time. But I did just now, and everything is coming back bitter, and I'm standing in my kitchen not eating with an old familiar feeling in my chest and I don't want to write in a useful or good way I just want to talk to someone and I can't. So I come crawling back to this time capsule. A whole year since the last time, a year and change. And I have things to grieve that I haven't let myself, lonely things so I'm sorry for the length.

I'm not calling myself Isaac. But recently I mustered the will to start letting people call me by a new name, instead of calling to myself quiet in phone notes and a hidden tumblr. When new people ask my name I tell them I'm Ira. Ira. I think for now I like it. It felt really stupid the first few times. It did feel forced like I expected. But I was sick of caring whether it felt stupid. It is a name that sounds a bit like my first name. It's a name that I feel could belong to a man or a woman. I like how it sounds, I am taking a liking to being Ira.

I spent about a year loving, and half-loving, and trapped with, and happily bound up with one of the dearest friends I've ever had. In the spring when it was still cold, we left thesis early. We met later on our apartment balcony in the dark, smoked. It is so distant now, but she asked if she could kiss me. It was a moment of honesty and it felt surreal. Still, she is gorgeous and enigmatic and I could hardly believe her when she told me how she felt. She kissed me so gentle and sweet. I wasn't scared, she held me and went slow. It was soft, my first kiss. And then it was hard and hungry. We had been joined at the hip all the last year of school. One day she cut herself too deep and I dropped everything and rushed home. I called a medic friend who helped patch her up. We went to the hospital together and sat through the doctor's questions, silent and refusing to tell him the truth. I took a leap of faith. I thought, I love her already, I've loved her at her worst days, I'll always be there. I'm ready for us to be us together. That year was hard for her. Often she was sunk into depression. She flayed herself with her own words. I wish I could say I was only loving, but it made me angry to watch. Time expanded around me. I worked. I drifted through weeks and months and months. I was aimless, I fell apart from friends, I did not read, I did not create, I did not set out into the world. I distracted myself, I grew numb, the days grew monotonous, I didn't have words, I felt dull and half awake. I starved myself and then forgot how to even feel hungry. I can barely remember that year. I remember a smothering closeness that was heaven and hell, not so dramatic as that I suppose. But she became the only sweetness in my life, and I watched her hate herself so loudly, and I didn't love her well because I didn't know how, or I was scared, or I was too numb. We lost the closeness we used to have, the passion. When the next spring came, she told me she had fallen out of love. I was still clinging.

June was hard. I watched her laugh on the balcony with new flings, new friends, and then fall in love while I still had flashes of seeing her and being bowled over by affection. I got a call someday that month that a friend had been found lying dead somewhere on the south side. Mell. If anyone finds this, you didn't know him. My friends didn't know him. Now I am the only one in my life who did, and what do I do to honor his memory except be haunted by his name now and then at work, at the bus stop, in the stairwell, looking up at the old window to his room on the corner. When I met him, it was the spring of 22 I think. I was wearing a new shirt and shoes, and he was outside of Koppa's asking for ten bucks. I told him I'd run home since I live so close, never done that for someone before. Kept seeing him around, then he moved into the white house on the corner. Used to be a squat house and subsidized living way back then, before they flipped it and kicked everyone poor and struggling back on the streets. That whole forgotten year, that whole span of numbness and barely living I'd sit on his porch and talk a while, or he'd invite me over. Used to make me nervous because who was I to be there in folks' space. Grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth, who was I. It's ugly and it kills me now but I'd avoid him. Walk away from being roped into conversation, take a different street. His requests for cash would grate on me. But when he had me over, it was always warm, and I always warmed up. He could make anyone laugh, could crack a smile on anyone' s face. He was living ok there, had his bed and some food and a stove to cook on. Made me fried steak once, spaghetti another time. We'd walk sometimes. Once in the summer he stopped me from running into a pole, and then stopped me from walking in front of a car - he said watching me walk I'd always be looking up in the trees, everywhere I didn't need to. Now I try to walk and keep my eyes around me, be a little less airheaded. I can't help but think I coulda saved him if I did more, gave more, actually cared enough to do what needed doing and really sacrifice something for once. The last time we talked, it was sunny out. We sat on the bench outside, the painted-blue one. I ran him some deodorant I had in my bathroom. He showed me a flyer for a place he might be able to get, asked if I could help with part of the down payment I said yeah I think so. Never crossed my mind there'd be a last time I saw him. I always saw him, he always came around. I think it was a comfort to him to have something of a friend in me. He was a balm in all that lonely emptiness too. He was life itself, endless energy, endless jokes. I told myself after his funeral, remember that. Keep him alive by being some sunlight for whoever around you needs some. I don't know if I been practicing that. I mostly been trying to avoid the grief, but maybe that can be part of this new year.

[catalogercas]

Whumptober 2023

Strike for Love, Strike for Fear, There's Beauty and There's Danger Here

Day 5 Prompt:

"You better pray I don't get up this time around"

Debris| Pinned Down | It's Broken

---

Jamie pushes Phoebe out of the way of a falling tree branch.

One moment, Roy is standing on Ruth's back patio, holding steaming mugs of hot chocolate in each hand, filled with the marshmallows Phoebe insisted on, ready to call Phoebe and Jamie in from the snowman they've spent the last hour building, and the next, he hears a sickening crack of ice snapping and Jamie screaming Phoebe's name followed by Phoebe screaming Jamie's.

He drops the mugs, chocolate melting the snow as tiny pastel colored marshmallows run through the river of chocolate at his feet, as Ruth runs past him, where he's frozen in place.

He shakes something loose in his head before moving forward, as quickly as he can, cursing his knee for that not being quick enough.

It's obvious, almost immediately, what had happened, and Roy's heart stutters at it.

Jamie had pushed Phoebe out of the way, and now he was really, probably, severely hurt. And it would have been Phoebe.

Phoebe is sobbing in Ruth's arms, a long gash running down her cheek, bleeding freely, from where part of the heavy branch had still struck her face. "It was going to fall on me, and Uncle Jamie..."

Phoebe breaks off with continued sobs.

He and Ruth both look at where Jamie is lying prone, his legs completely pinned beneath the branch, his head lolling, concerningly to the side.

He looks up, blinking dazedly at Roy, "Pheebs okay?"

"She's got a scratch, you muppet," Roy says as he kneels down next to Jamie. "You're the one you should be worried about."

"Just hurts," Jamie slurs, still blinking rapidly. "Hurts a lot."

"Yeah," Roy agrees, because he's sure it does, as he rests a hand on Jamie's shoulder. "You've got to stay with me here. No passing out until the professionals get here."

Jamie nods. "I'll do me best."

And that's really all Roy can ask.

Ruth looks down at them as she pulls her phone out of her pocket to call 999. "Roy, whatever you do, do not try to move the branch off of him."

Roy nods. He knows better. He's heard too many stories from Ruth about that instruction not being followed, and the last thing he wants is to make this even worse for Jamie.

It's an agonizing wait for the EMTs, who make Roy stay out of the way as they assess the best way to get Jamie freed without exacerbating any injuries he'd sustained, followed by an agonizing wait in the hospital's waiting room while they examine Jamie.

Roy couldn't be more relieved when he's at Jamie's bedside, hours later, with the news that, while Jamie was scratched and bruised to all hell, the worst of it was a broken left leg, and, by some miracle, it was a clean break, no surgery or pins or screws needed. Just a plaster cast that Roy bets will be signed by the whole team by the end of tomorrow.

It could have been so much worse. He could have ended his career, saving Phoebe from a fucking falling tree branch, and he knows Jamie wasn't thinking about that at all. Hadn't thought twice about it. Just fucking did it.

God, he loves Jamie.

Jamie seems to know what he's thinking, "Yeah, it would have been shit if I couldn't play, but it was, Pheebs, mate."

He says like that's all that matters.

"Family, innit?" Jamie says.

And, maybe, it is.

[tinyluminaryzombie]

I Couldn't Lose You

(What if it was Ryan instead of Carson at the hospital???)

Read on ao3

Everything’s a bit fuzzy when Nancy wakes up. The chair to her side seems to shake as much as her hands. So her first thought (after where the hell am I) wills her vision to still. 

She stops breathing at her second thought. 

“Ace. Where’s Ace?” If she’s in a hospital bed and wasn’t even the one cursed, then where the hell is he?

She hears a bit of shuffling and turns her head to see Ryan walking toward her. 

“Nancy, thank god. Are you okay?” he asks, pauses, and then decided to not wait for an answer. “Of course, you’re not okay. What happened? Bess said it was a ritual gone wrong?” 

Whatever the truth was, she needed to know. “Dad. Ace–is he okay?” 

When Ryan reaches for her hand, Nancy wants to change her mind. She wants to scream, to violently and loudly chose to live in any delusion where Ace is safe. Ryan brushes his thumb against her palm. Ace has to be alive. She can’t do this again. 

“Nancy, it’s okay. He’s okay. He’s in the waiting room. He’s okay,” Ryan said, pulling her into a hug, tears landing on his cheeks. “You know, it was bad for a while, Nancy. Thank god you’re awake.” 

Ryan pulled away to look at her directly in the eyes. “What happened Nancy? What did Bess mean?” 

Nancy took a deep breath. “We tried to break the love curse. We had all the answers and all the ingredients. I guess it was too easy.” She let out a ragged, low laugh. “We spent the day preparing for the ritual. He’d pause as we were chopping some mystical herb and ask if I was still scared. Of course, I was. But at some point, I started believing it would work. He told me when he first liked me and we were planning vacations and I was trying to figure out how we’d afford it. But Temperance sabotaged the ritual.” 

Ryan continued holding her hand. “Wait, you were planning a trip?” 

“Yes…and I know it was stupid and reckless and—”

“—No, I mean maybe but that wasn’t why I asked. So you and Ace talked about taking a romantic trip while the curse was still intact? And his romantic feelings for you?” 

She nodded. Why was Ryan fixating on this? They needed a solution, not to focus on the unfulfilled promises they made to each other. 

“So discussing your feelings doesn’t activate the curse?” 

Oh. And she’d been so scared to even tell him about the curse, but apparently, she could monologue for hours on her love and their hearts would keep beating. But they can’t touch each other. And after that kiss, after losing him and getting him for real, she needs to be able to. To drag her fingers through his hair. To place her hands on his arms. To hold him by the waist as he kisses her again and again and again. 

“I guess only physical manifestations of our feelings count?” she said, not really understanding Ryan’s point. “Which is why we need to talk to Bess and find a different way. We have to try again.”

“Nancy, you’re going to need to take a break. I’m not telling you to stop, and despite my fear, I don’t want you to stop altogether. I know I wouldn’t. But you need to rest. And then when you’re back, we have to be smart. You can’t do rituals you found less than 24 hours before. We have to have safeguards and contingency plans so something like this,” he pauses, his eyes dragging across the hospital room, “never happens again.”

“Ace is my person. I can’t just give up! Pretend to move on and be totally cool being just friends.” 

“Nancy, I don’t think you understand. I’m not staying to give up. And not saying you should walk away from Ace. I’m saying we need to use Temperance’s blind spots against her. She only thought of love as physical.” Ryan stops, looking awkwardly at his hands. Standing up, he speaks again “there are many ways to love, she only made one deadly.” 

“Nancy, maybe I’m overstepping but if I could even just exchange emails again with Lucy I’d be happy. I miss excitingly checking my inbox and hiding my notifications from the people around me. I miss our written declarations and confessions. If I got the choice—to be able to be with her again but only like that?—I’d take it.” 

“Dad.” Nancy doesn’t know what to say. Her throat seems too sharp and she knows if she moves, she’ll be bawling. 

“Just think about it. I’ll send Ace in.” 

[jackrrabbit]

Adversary /// Overhaul x f!Reader (18+)

Summary: You make a deal with the devil to save your life, but it turns out Overhaul’s not interested in your soul.

A/N: Remember when I said I was going to do a fantasy collab and then dipped for like 9 months? Hahaha…anyway…

@pleasantanathema @ present-mel @shadowworks—if it’s not too late, here’s my part for the Pleasant & Strider Fantasy AU Writing Collab from a million years ago. Go check out the masterlist and gorge yourself on these amazing pieces!!

Tags/Warnings: dubcon, demon fuckery & occult things, big heresy/sacrilege/perversion of religion, sex in a church ft. Catholic sex guilt, other than that it’s not that bad lol, inexperienced reader, mild degradation, shameless camp and demon-fucking clichés, Overhaul calls you “little girl” 👉👈

He doesn’t look like a demon.

Not that you really know what demons are supposed to look like. But…red skin, right? Fangs and claws and swirling masses of bad energy. Maybe cloven hooves for feet. Yes, that’s the Disney version—but even if you didn’t expect a cartoon personification of evil, you didn’t expect this.

He looks like a doctor, you think. Lab coat hanging open, surgery mask pushed down under his jaw, stethoscope draped over his shoulders. No, he’s a little young to really look like a doctor…an intern, you amend, shifting back in your hospital bed. He looks like he fits right in here, not a hair out of place. Except for, you know, the polished black horns curling out of the sides of his skull.

Overhaul. It was written in the book. That’s the only thing you have to call him in your head.

He’s standing in the center of the sigil you drew at the foot of your bed before midnight, surveying the room critically without meeting your gaze. He looks annoyed—that’s not a good sign, is it?—but then again, of course he’s annoyed. You’d be annoyed too if you got summoned out of your cozy hell dimension in the middle of the night. According to the book, you’re lucky he even showed up…although ‘lucky’ isn’t really how you’d describe yourself most days.

“So,” Overhaul says after a long moment of silence in which you question every choice you’ve made in your relatively short life. “You’re dying.”

You nod.

“And you don’t want to be.”

You nod again, wondering if you’re supposed to be contributing more to this conversation. It’s a bit difficult when your mouth is so dry it feels like you’ve been eating dirt, but you suppose being in the presence of an unholy servant of Satan will do that to a person.

“Fine.” He sighs, frowns, and then finally lowers his gaze onto yours—and you shiver.

Those eyes. No human has eyes like that.

“Make me an offer,” Overhaul tells you, and through his open mouth you catch a flash of sharp white teeth.

Okay. Okay. The chirping of the heart monitor speeds up (as if it weren’t obvious enough that you’re terrified) and you fold your knees up to your chest and fidget with your ring and think. He’s giving you a chance to establish parameters. You’re supposed to start with his end of the deal, the thing you want from him. That’s what it said to do in the grimoire, aka the 19th century demonology volume your creepy cousin brought back from her pagan anthropology research trip in rural France. The one you keep hidden under your bed because your mother would burn it if she knew you were reading about summoning demons.

Offer nothing to a hell creature without first telling him your price. You know the words by heart, both the winding calligraphy of the original French from the grimoire and the rushed scrawl of the English translation your cousin left for you in sheets of lined paper layered between the pages of the book for you to read. Really, this is her fault. She was the one who slipped you the book, who told you that it worked, who snuck you the ingredients for the summoning. She was the one who left a bookmark at the chapter on this particular demon, one that specializes in ‘Contrat pour Remédier au Déséquilibre des Quatre Humeurs’, which she said meant a contract to cure any illness. Even his ‘name’ is translated in her hand, practically an afterthought in the margins of the page.

‘Le Malin qui Ravage et Rebâtit’— Overhaul?

You looked up the literal meaning of this phrase on your own. It did not reassure you.

“Girl.” His voice is cold, irate. Your eyes snap back up to his and it feels like that burning gaze is laser-beaming into your skull. “Do not test me. My time is limited…as is yours.”

You swallow. “How long do I have left?”

“Less than a single human year,” he tells you without a trace of sympathy. “Seven months, twelve days, three hours. Or so. You’ll be too exhausted to leave this bed in four months, and the pain will become intolerable in six… By the end, you’ll wish—“

“Stop,” you breathe out. The heart monitor is beeping wildly and you squeeze your knees into your chest, trying to calm down your breathing. “Stop, I—I want to live.”

“Of course you do.” Overhaul’s lip curls. “How very predictable.”

Be specific, you remind yourself, doing your best to ignore the stifling disapproval from the man—the demon—in front of you. Something about him (maybe how clean-cut he looks, maybe the indisputable authority in his demeanor) makes you want to impress him. But you didn’t turn your back on your religion—you didn’t draw pagan symbols on the floor in chalk, fill silver cups with various questionable substances (including your own virgin blood), and turn the crucifix your mother hung over your bed upside-down so you could let a demon make you feel guilty for wanting to survive. “I want to be cured. I’m okay with whatever natural death I have instead when I’m older, I just don’t want to die of this illness. I want you to make me healthy.”

“Simple enough. What else?”

‘Simple’? Your heart surges with something you’ve felt very little of since your initial diagnosis—hope. “T-That’s it. Just the cure.”

Overhaul glares at you. “Humans… Every vice in the world available to you, and you limit yourselves to the basest priority of survival.”

“But you can do it? You can cure me?” you persist.

Overhaul steps forward (quiet, so quiet you wonder if he really moved) and holds a hand out to you past the foot of your bed—you hesitate, and a second later you can see the muscles in his hand flex, stretching the latex of his plastic gloves tight over his knuckles.

Just do it. You give him your hand. Carefully. Like you’re scared the contact will burn you. It doesn’t (although his skin feels warmer than yours), but after a moment his grip tightens, sliding down past your hand to circle the fragile bones of your wrist and squeeze.

“Ow?” You wince.

The demon’s eyes flicker closed for a second, lips moving silently like he’s talking to himself—and then he drops your hand unceremoniously back onto your lap. “You could be cured before the sun rises this morning. I doubt your stay in the hospital will extend past the end of the week.”

He sounds bored, voice as flat and passionless as it was earlier, but your heart is soaring. Cured. You’ve lived with this illness for so many years, you can’t remember the last time someone told you you could be cured. And getting out of the hospital that soon? You can just imagine taking down all the decorations from the walls of your room here and setting them up in your old bedroom at home. You could see friends on the weekend and not take an oxygen bag, you could get a job or—or apply to college, you could have a life—

“That is…assuming you have something to offer me in exchange for the cure.”

Your stomach drops. You’d almost forgotten about the other half of the deal.

“Don’t tell me I came all this way for nothing.” Overhaul steps back, and the orange light of the candles you set sends strange shadows over his arrogant face. The fires look brighter now, and you find yourself tracing the lines of those shining black horns. In an odd way, they look natural—so organically framing his temples that you can’t imagine him without them.

“N-No, of course not. I have some money—I mean, my mom has some, and I can get it for you…” Which is half the truth. If you know anything, it’s that your mother’s spent most of her savings on your treatment and care. You probably have more debt than you have money in the bank right now—you’d try to get rid of that, too, if you hadn’t read in the book how important it is to keep your request as simple and straightforward as possible.

…Although it’s apparently not enough. Overhaul’s eyes narrow, molten gold irises carved into slits. “Even if I had a use for human money, do you really believe your life is worth so little?”

“No—no,” you say quickly. “I just thought—in case you were interested—”

The air crackles with energy, the candle flames spark bright blood-red, and the hair on your arms stands straight up. “I am not.”

“Okay! I get it.” You wave your hands back and forth, pulling your IV line from side to side with the motion. The book was very clear about staying calm and rational while you work out the terms of the deal, but that’s easier said than done when you have a real live (live?) hell creature in front of you. You always knew this was going to be the hard part—all the stories say there’s only one thing that a demon would be interested in, and no matter how inviting the prospect of living past this illness is, you know you’d rather die than sell your immortal soul to the devil. “I’ll give you anything except my soul! And—and don’t hurt anyone I care about, or— just don’t hurt anyone, okay? Other than that, if there’s anything I can give you, I will.”

Overhaul’s lip curls, baring a thin strip of those unnaturally sharp canines. “And is your soul really so valuable?”

This throws you for a loop. Isn’t that the standard deal? A soul for a wish? That’s how it’s supposed to work—at least in this twisted version of reality where you can summon a demon to perform unholy miracles for you. But if you think about it, it doesn’t really make sense, does it? Why would your soul be valuable to him? You can’t form an argument, especially since you’re not willing to barter it away in the first place.

Your mouth is pursed open as you search for a response, but Overhaul doesn’t seem willing to wait. A gloved hand wraps its way around the railing at the side of your bed, and he leans in closer. “Little girl…what makes you think you possess anything I desire?”

Little girl. You’re not a little girl, you’re a grown woman—and yet there’s no untruth in the statement. In front of him you feel insignificant, immature, weak. You have nothing real to offer, and something tells you that you’re not going to get rid of the demon you summoned without a sacrifice you’re not willing to make.

You twist your ring around your finger—the nervous habit you haven’t bothered to break because you’ve always had more important things to worry about—and the glint of silver in the candlelight must catch Overhaul’s eye because before you even notice him moving, your delicate hand is trapped in his larger one to give him a better view of the tiny piece of jewelry. “What is this?”

“It’s—um, a ring. A purity ring.” Has he never seen one before? Well…actually, that makes sense.

Overhaul turns your hand over in his without touching the band of silver. He’s looking at it closely, inspecting the lovingly engraved cross in the design and the inscription on the other side. “Matthew 5:8,” he reads out.

“…Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,” you recite cautiously. It feels wrong to speak the words in front of him, but somehow you can’t help yourself.

Overhaul’s hand doesn’t leave yours. “This ring is important to you.”

“It’s a symbol of a—a promise I made to God. To save myself for my future husband.”

“To ‘save yourself’? To save what?”

You can’t believe you’re explaining this to a literal demon. You close your eyes and inhale slowly and taste smoke. “My…virginity. It’s a promise that I won’t have sex until I enter into a biblical marriage.”

At this, Overhaul is quiet. You give him a moment to answer, half expecting him to question why you think God cares about your sexual status (honestly, you’d be lying if you said you haven’t wondered this yourself), but he stays quiet until you peek up at him to try and gauge the look on his coldly handsome face.

He’s still staring at the ring. He hasn’t touched it—maybe he can’t, because of the cross?—and through the latex, his skin feels hotter than a human’s is supposed to be.

“Is there…” you start, but you trail off when you realize you have nothing to ask. You give a little tug to try and take your hand away and you’re surprised when your wrist actually slides out of his grip to fall back on the nest of sheets in your lap. You didn’t think he’d let you go so easily.

Overhaul turns his head to the side, eyes drilling into you so you feel like you should lower your gaze. The candlelight flickers in strange shadows over his horns. “This will do,” he says quietly.

“What?”

“In exchange for your cure.” The demon taps his own left ring finger, the place where the purity ring sits on your hand, and your heart soars. He actually wants that? It’s just a simple silver band, not worth much, but you’re not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe it has some special significance because of the religious connotation. Your mother will be angry you’ve lost it, but you’re happy to cope with that if it means living to actually get married!

“Yes!” you blurt out before he has a chance to rethink his offer. Sure, you’ll miss the purity ring—you’ve had it since you were a kid, after all—but there’s no question you’re getting the better end of this deal. At least in your opinion.

Something flashes through his yellow eyes, something you don’t even want to try and identify. “The contract, then.”

You barely have time to notice that his voice has gentled, that it’s practically silken in comparison to before, when the candlelight flickers again and suddenly the contract is everywhere. Everywhere. Writing appears on every surface in the room, covering the walls, stretching over the ceiling, coiling around the sides of the hospital equipment and decorating your bedsheets until you and Overhaul are the only untouched surfaces in sight. The characters are inscribed in red, dark red like—don’t think about that, you tell yourself squeamishly. You can make out some of the letters, even a word here or there—French, you recognize, mixed with what looks like Latin and interspersed with what you can only guess are runes.

“I can’t read this,” you tell him, fidgeting with your ring for what you now realize will be the last time.

“I only need your name,” he purrs, and then you feel a fragile weight in your hand: a feather, pearl-black and glossy and too large to belong to any bird you can think of, its angled tip glistening with wet ink. There’s an empty space in the writing before you, and Overhaul’s gloved hand comes to yours again to guide you into place.

This feels wrong…then again, of course it does. Even if you’re getting off relatively easy and just losing your ring rather than your soul, you’re still making a deal with a demon. You sign your name, forcing yourself to think about the future you have ahead of you rather than a disapproving white-bearded caricature of The Man Upstairs wagging his finger at you for haggling with a literal servant of Satan. People have done worse things to survive, haven’t they? It’s just a ring.

You set the feather down and Overhaul sighs, thick black eyelashes obscuring his intense gaze for a moment—and then the contract is gone, leaving your hospital room as blank and sterile as it’s supposed to be (well, aside from the candles and all the other ritual stuff you threw together to summon a demon in the first place).

“Are you going to cure—heal me now?” you ask.

“…Patience, little girl.” He’s pulling his glove off, peeling it down his fingers to bare the pale skin of his hand. You catch your breath and wonder what this is going to feel like, and then the tips of his fingers meet your cheek and—

you stop breathing.

It doesn’t hurt.

Or if it does, you don’t remember the pain a second later when breath floods back into your lungs. What you do feel is energy. Strength in your muscles, blood pumping through your veins, every inhale and exhale as light as a bird and freer. You feel healthy. You’re surprised you even remember what health feels like but you do: it’s like you’ve only been half alive, and now life is surging into you and through you and around you, bubbling up in your core like a spring overflowing. You blink rapidly, thinking you might cry from the sheer pleasure of it, but when you open your mouth it’s laughter that comes out. You’re healthy. You’re alive. You barely notice the IV line literally falling off of your skin because the hole where it entered your vein is sealed shut and healed perfectly.

No more needles. No more hospitals. Even without all the monitors beeping out your heart rate and measuring your vitals, there’s not a shred of doubt in your mind that you’re cured.

“Thank you!” you laugh, looking up at Overhaul and for the first time, not caring that he’s evil incarnate. “I feel—I’m okay! It worked!”

“Of course it did.” His expression is inscrutable, but he lets you have a few moments to enjoy your newfound health.

You roll your shoulders back, flex each muscle you can isolate one by one to test, make fists with your fingers and then run them over your hair, which is already thicker and shinier than it was a moment ago. Your body thrums with energy—you want to run, to feel the ground against your bare feet and the cold night air on your face, and you think you could do it! Your legs are already swinging over the side of your cot, ready to run barefoot out of the hospital if that’s what it takes, but before you can stand up Overhaul’s pushing you back down onto the bed.

“Have you forgotten your end of the bargain already?”

Honestly you did forget, but only for a second, only because you were so excited to just be outside again. “Oh, yeah. Of course.” Your hand goes to your left ring finger, ready to slip the ring off and hand it over, but Overhaul shakes his head.

“Not here.”

“What—?”

You’re falling. Your hospital room is disappearing, the image of your walls and your window and your bed disintegrating into yawning black, and you’re falling through it into nothing, into emptiness, and Overhaul’s still-bare hand in yours is the only anchor you have so you clutch onto it and squeeze your eyes shut. You want to scream—that’s the sane thing to do when you’re falling through miles and miles of empty space, right?—but when you open your throat the sound is swallowed up just like the light was…

Overhaul’s hand burns into yours, an improbable lifeline that you pull closer more out of terror than conscious thought. The slick, empty air rushes around you and you think I am going to die like this and then, incredibly, as soon as you’ve accepted your imminent demise, you feel your back mold onto a chilled, flat surface, vertebra by vertebra up to the back of your head, as if you’ve been lain down onto it.

Your heart thuds in your ears and you brace for an impact because your body hasn’t quite accepted yet that it’s not falling anymore—but at the same time, you know you’re lying down on something. You pry your fingers away from their vice-grip on Overhaul’s arm and feel around blindly for what’s underneath you, and when it seems reasonably tangible you let yourself open your eyes.

Way above, vaulted dozens of feet over your head, is a ceiling studded with gilt-edged frescoes and stained glass. It’s raining (even though it wasn’t in the hospital, you think) but through the massive panes of colored glass there’s enough oily blue light to make out that you’re in a church.

You’re in a church, with a demon. Isn’t that against the rules?

You sit up stiffly and look over at Overhaul, who’s standing at your side and looking down at you…which is how you realize the soft, cold surface you’ve been deposited onto is the blanket on top of the altar in the sanctuary. “Where...did you take me?”

“You should know this place.”

And you do, when you look around. It’s empty now and you’ve never been here at night, but this is a church your mother would bring you to when you were little, back before the disease got so bad you couldn’t risk traveling to it anymore. This is where you took your purity vow…the ring feels heavy on your hand. “Why—why—“

“I can’t stand human hospitals. Filthy places… How that reek of illness and death doesn’t bother your kind, I’ll never understand.” Overhaul pulls his latex glove back on. He’s dressed differently now, no longer impersonating a doctor—black shirt, black pants, and a…bird mask in red leather and gold. So are you, as a matter of fact. Instead of your hospital gown, you’re in a gauzy white dress that’s already been pushed up to pool around the tops of your thighs.

The slip is too thin for the cold, and you can feel your nipples standing up under the cloth so you fold your arms over your chest and hug yourself. “Why did you take me here?” The sound of your voice echoes off the walls eerily and you wish you hadn’t spoken so loudly. The reflection of your words sounds girlish, nervous.

“I told you. Your side of our contract.” Even in this dark, the angular features of his face are clearly concentrating—on you. “Are you already having second thoughts? Such a fickle little thing…”

“You mean the ring?” You reach for it again, ready to tear it off and throw it at him if that’s what it takes to see your deal through, but Overhaul snatches your hand away, pinning it above you.

“Not the ring,” he says. “The promise.”

The…promise?

A chill makes its way down your spine despite the heat radiating off the demon’s body and onto yours. “I don’t understand.”

“The promise,” Overhaul repeats—and you hear a sound almost like wings flapping and then he’s on the altar with you, knees straddling your hips as a single hand holds both your wrists above your head. “To remain a virgin until marriage. Your promise to God.”

A streak of lightning cracks down on the other side of the stained glass window behind the altar, illuminating the room briefly in spectacular pits of red and orange and yellow…and then it’s dark again, and the only color you can make out is the gold in Overhaul’s eyes.

“I’m going to break it,” he murmurs, lowering his head toward your ear right as the answering thunder rolls through the sanctuary, up through the altar, up into you.

///

Méfiez-vous de son piège, the grimoire said. Beware of the catch.

Of course it wasn’t just a ring.

Overhaul’s fingers are in—inside you, his middle and ring finger pumping through the length of your cunt like they belong there, like you were made to be touched this way. A mixture of your juices and your own spit cling to the latex because he made you suck his fingers before he put them in you and he hasn’t bothered to take his gloves off—not that you asked. You’ve been too busy biting your lip to try and muffle the moans that he keeps forcing out of you. He’s bracing himself on top of you with one hand and fingering you with the other, so your own hands are free to push into your eyes and hide your face…until he yanks your arm back and stops.

“Look at me.”

Your eyes are screwed shut and you shake your head back and forth, the movement shuddering your whole body right down to your pussy wrapped around Overhaul’s fingers. He slows the movement and kneels back, pushing one of your thighs up into your chest as he does it.

“Look at me.”

And you’re not sure whether it’s some unearthly power he has over you or the plain old deterioration of your willpower, but you can’t refuse him. You crack your eyes open and he’s glaring down at you, skin pale as ice in the blue light. Once he’s satisfied that you’re watching, the demon leans back in to fuck your cunt with his fingers, slowly at first and then quicker when he hits something inside of you—a spot, a place on the inner wall of your pussy that makes you feel like you’ve been shocked— heat blooms through you like blood in water and you gasp and he curls his fingers up to pet over that spot again.

“Wait—wait, that’s—it feels—weird!” You’ve never felt like this before. You’re not supposed to feel like this, it’s wrong.

“I understand you’ve never touched yourself, but don’t pretend you don’t like it.” Overhaul says, voice as indifferent and calm as ever even though your cunt is dripping clear sticky liquid over the plastic of his glove.

He pushes back in and grinds his palm over the little button on the top of your pussy—your clit?—and you want to scream. “No, I—I don’t—nnhh...”

Do you like it? The demon’s body is so hot next to yours, like he’s running a fever except you’re the one going out of your mind… You’ve heard metaphors for sexual pleasure before (that it’s like having something to drink when you’re dying of thirst; or that it’s the ultimate act of intimacy, love in physical form) but all of that’s a fucking lie. There’s nothing to compare it to, no reference that makes sense, because it doesn’t make sense—you don’t even want him to keep going, do you? You’re only doing this because you signed your name on a devil’s contract, because you don’t want to die and there’s no alternative…but that doesn’t explain why you feel so warm from the inside out, why you’re squirming and your hips are rocking involuntarily no matter how much you try to keep still. This isn’t right. You feel like you’ve been lied to.

A good girl wouldn’t like this.

Overhaul isn’t going to let you close your eyes, so you don’t—but the sounds coming out of your mouth are so…indecent (and how can you think these things about yourself? the word feels like someone else is saying it when you hear it in your head) that your hand is drifting up to your mouth before you can stop yourself, trying to stifle all of it…

“Let your voice out. I want you to hear yourself moan.”

Long fingers slide their way out of your pussy and then move up to rub quick little circles around your clit and you moan, like a whore, like a girl getting her cunt rubbed by a demon— “Oh, uhhhn—something, it’s—coming—“ There’s something building up in your core—a peak, a climax, something that makes you fist your hands in the nightgown he put you in (so tight you’re surprised the thin fabric hasn’t torn) and tilt your hips up into him, begging without words because you don’t have any to express what your body is asking for…

But he doesn’t give it to you. Overhaul takes his hand away from your pussy and the shock of the cool air after his too-hot touch is almost enough to send you over that edge—almost. Not quite. And without it, you’re left shivering and quaking, thighs twitching as your baser instincts beg you to just put your hand between your legs for once and hump your fingers to completion if the demon won’t do it.

You’re not going to risk that, though. Not when Overhaul’s dragging your body closer, bunching up the blanket on the altar under your spine, so your pelvis is angled to his… He’s already shirtless and you hear him unzipping his pants but you can’t bring yourself to actually look at him, even when you feel something hard and hot nudging up against your inner thigh and then aligning to your sticky wet slit.

“This will hurt a bit, but I want you to look,” he says, and you don’t even understand at first until you make yourself feel it—his cock, pushing up against your tight cunt to finish this, this perversion of what your first time was supposed to be…

And what was it supposed to be? Roses and candles and soft kisses? A nameless, faceless husband unzipping your wedding dress and making love to you with the lights off? The way the demon touches you should be cruel in comparison but it isn’t, it’s lighting fires under your skin and turning your brains to mush, so how is your body supposed to tell the difference?

It’ll hurt, you know that, you’ve heard enough about sex to know that it always hurts the first time for girls…women. It was already a stretch to fit his fingers in your virgin pussy, so of course his cock is going to hurt. You turn your head toward the window at your side and try on look out at the rain drawing rivulets like veins over the glass, something to focus on instead of him.

“I said look,” the demon hisses, and his hips push forward a bit and you bite off a whimper of pain. “Watch me take your virginity…look at your tight little cunt swallowing me up just like it was made to.”

“N-No—“ you whine, even though it’s not like you can ignore it. “Don’t make me, don’t make me look, I can’t—“

“Then look at me.”

It’s what he wants, some kind of wicked satisfaction he gets off on, but you’re lucky enough to even get an option so you choose that one, shifting your gaze up into his face instead of the place where his cock is pressing deeper and deeper inside you. Overhaul’s eyes are half-lidded and it’s hard to tell from behind the mask but the look on his face is…pleasure? No, that would be too human. Restraint, at least. He could just thrust up into your body in one stroke, but he wants you to feel it for some reason.

Maybe because it’s a worse betrayal of your chastity if you want to get fucked.

Lucky for you, though, you can barely feel anything aside from the pain. The heat you felt building earlier is draining out of you even as Overhaul tilts deeper, layering his chest over yours. You’re almost grateful for the modest barrier the dress provides between your torso and the solid muscle of his abdomen. His cock in your pussy feels like it’s too big too deep too much and it’s the first time you’ve felt like your body wasn’t created specifically for this purpose so you hold it tight.

“Does it hurt?”

A second of clarity makes you want to snarl (of course it fucking hurts, I’m losing my virginity to a demon I summoned from hell) and you dig your fingernails into your palms to stop yourself from saying it out loud. Overhaul pulls out a fraction of an inch and then pushes back in and you feel like the breath’s being pushed out of your lungs. “Yes! Yes, it—it hurts—“

“I can make you enjoy it…for a price,” he sighs, settling into a slow rocking motion of his hips pushing into yours.

And you want to, every sore muscle in your cunt is telling you to give in and give up, give him what he wants so you can enjoy it like he says—but you’d rather hate every second of this than make another deal. You shake your head quickly and because you’re still too afraid to look away from him, you don’t miss the look of surprise that flits across his face before he tamps it down. “I don’t—I don’t want to—like it,” you gasp out between thrusts. “It’s better if—if it h-hurts…”

This time it’s obvious—his eyes really do widen, and you feel some petty triumph at having caught him off guard like this. Who’s predictable now? you think—and then he’s lifting one hand off the altar at the side of your head and tugging his glove off with his teeth, and you don’t even have time to be afraid of what he’s going to do to you because it’s too late, his bare fingers are already stroking over your mound and onto your core, massaging into the flesh of your stomach so he can feel his own cock sliding in and out of you—

and it doesn’t hurt anymore?

You only have a second to try and understand—he cured you, he healed the pain from your first time just like he healed your illness?—before he hooks his grip under your thigh and folds your legs into your chest so he can fuck into you harder than before. His cock slaps into your pussy and you can hear it, hear how wet your filthy little cunt is, smeared through with your juices. It’s sick—the sound of skin against skin, and the moaning you can’t hold back, you sound like a woman in a porno and you wish the pain would come back just so you could keep hating what he’s doing to you. “What—what did you do—“

The demon ignores you. “It feels good, doesn’t it.”

“Nn—“ It’s deeper like this…deeper and rougher and you can feel it. Now that the pain’s been reduced to the dull ache of a stretched muscle, you can feel everything—his cock sliding against that same spot in your cunt that makes you want to squeal, the friction of his body moving against your clit, all of it, everything you wanted to block out— he pumps into you and you hear your breath sobbing out a moan a second out of rhythm, the sounds of you bouncing on demon cock echoing over the walls. “Please—ah, ahhh…”

“‘Please?’ Are you begging—me, little girl?” Overhaul pushes your thigh up and drags his cock through you, excruciatingly slow, forcing you to feel the thick head slide over every gummy wall in your slick pussy.

You shake your head, mewl, try to force your hips to stop rocking back into his and grinding your clit against him. But you can’t. You’re a—you were a virgin, for fuck’s sake! Overhaul’s immortal. Probably thousands of years of experience on how to make you feel like you want this, like you’re only alive in the places he touches you… You’re at his mercy, if he has any. You never stood a chance.

“Then are you begging your god?” His body lowers directly onto yours and like you’re being controlled by puppet strings your arms fold around him and rake your fingernails uselessly into the smooth skin of his back. You can feel the vibration of his mirthless laughter through his chest. “It must hurt terribly…to know he isn’t listening.”

“Don’t—stop, please,” you sob. “Don’t say—don’t stop—please!”

“Listen to yourself, girl—“ Overhaul’s breath is faster now, but you don’t have time to question it because you feel your peak coming again, the tension rising up through your cunt and your abdomen, harsher and crueler than when his fingers were in you but you want it just as much. More. “Has he ever answered your prayers? Has he...ahh, fuck—who’s the one giving you what you need?”

“No— please, please just let me let me, please—“ You’re talking nonsense now, begging for the release—at least then it’ll be over, and you need it, you need it so badly you feel your muscles locking up, cramping, your ankles crossing each other behind Overhaul’s back.

“Good girl,” the demon breathes, and then he lifts off you so he’s kneeling upright with the two of you still connected, his thick, heavy cock still speared in your pussy, and his fingers come down again to rub at your clit. Everything’s so wet you can hear the motion of his fingers slicking themselves through your juices, sliding up and down the little button over and over and it feels so good that a tiny part of you almost wants to drag it out, to savor it, but the rest of your body is going to die, is going to go crazy if the demon doesn’t let you cum right now, right now, right now!

And he does. Praise the Lord. The pads of Overhaul’s fingers pass over your clit one last time and your head rolls back, your throat moves but you can’t even make a sound, your legs shake and you cum.

You didn’t know it was like this.

Your cunt squeezes down on his cock, throbbing and pulsing and your toes literally curl (you didn’t think that was a real thing!) and your vision goes black for a moment and—oh fuck oh fuck i want this i want more how is it possible that i’ve never felt like this—you understand, more intimately than ever, why sex is wrong:

because nothing that makes you feel this good could possibly come without a cost, could it?

///

It must take longer than you thought for you to come back to your senses, because when you regain awareness of your body you’re in your hospital bed. You’re clean, too, and you wonder for a second if Overhaul bothered to clean you up? Or no…he probably just snapped his fingers and transported you back to your room. You’re not really sure how it works.

What you are sure of, however, is that you just got fucked by a demon. You’re sore in places that you didn’t know it was possible to be sore, and there are already bruises forming on the flesh of your thighs from how tight he was holding you. You don’t really have time to inspect these, though, because apparently your…ordeal (if you can call it that) isn’t over.

Overhaul’s still here.

He’s facing the hints of sunrise through the east window, dressed again in the immaculate lab coat and surgeon’s mask. “You’re awake,” he says without looking at you.

You nod hesitantly. You’re not really sure what the protocol is in this situation, but at least you’ve finally held up your side of the contract, right? And so has he. Despite having been up all night doing sinful things, you’re still itching to get out of this bed and test the limits of your healthy body. “You’re…going to leave, right?”

“Yes—”

At that, you sigh in relief and settle back into your starched bedsheets.

“But there’s one more thing you owe me.”

“Goddamnit,” you swear for the very first time in your life. After what you just did, taking the Lord’s name in vain seems like a relatively minor sin.

Overhaul’s mildly irritated expression doesn’t change, but he holds his hand out to you, palm up, the way you imagine someone would if they were helping you out of a car or requesting a dance at an old-fashioned ball. And really, you want all of this to be over—you want to get out of this hospital, you want to taste what the air outside is like, you want to distract yourself from what you just gave up in exchange for a future. At this point you’re just going to have to hope God isn’t as picky about the whole premarital sex thing as you grew up believing.

So you put your hand in Overhaul’s.

Slowly, carefully, like he’s afraid it’ll burn him, he slides your purity ring down your finger and balances it in the palm of his bare hand. It sizzles when he touches it, glowing orange until it eventually burns down into a ash-black circle in the center of his palm. Once he’s satisfied that your pretty little ring has been reduced to nothing more than a scorch mark, he closes his hand around yours and you feel something sharp, painfully hot, etching onto your finger.

It’s over in a second, but you still yelp and yank your hand away from him as soon as he lets you. “Ah—ow, what was that?”

He burned you, he literally burned you! He’s already healed it, but there’s still a thin, pale scar, an intentional one left wrapping around the skin at the base of your left ring finger. Like a wedding ring.

When you look close, you can make out a symbol on the back of your finger where the cross used to sit—and even though your conscious mind doesn’t recognize it, the sight of it rings out something inside your ribcage, deeper and truer than flesh and blood. It’s the devil’s mark, you think. It’s his.

“…A promise,” Overhaul says softly, and even though it’s a chilly morning, you can feel the heat of his hands on yours a long time after he vanishes back into the dark.

[lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks]

Grabbing Smoke

As much time as Sam spent with her best friends, sometimes she enjoyed a little bit of time alone.

Tucker was helping his mother bake cookies for some kind of fundraiser for the hospital, and Danny was busy visiting Pandora for fighting lessons. Apparently they were using swords today.

As fun as it sounded, Sam opted to stay behind, it had been a while since she'd been down to the park to feed the ducks. She didn't get quiet moments like that very often any more.

There was an uncharacteristic skip to her gait as she walked to the park, a canvas tote bag swinging from her arm.

Living in Amity Park, and especially hanging around with Danny, gave her an eerie sense to when something was amiss. Nothing quite like Danny's ghost sense, but she'd learned to detect a particular chill to the air, a prickling at the back of her neck. It could easily be mistaken for a chilly breeze, but Sam knew better. The crunch of gravel under Sam's boots was the only sound permeating the still air, not even the trees were rustling.

She continued her walk through the park, past the wishing fountain and through a trail where the trees grew slightly more dense.

The trail opened up to a large pond, it wasn't anything especially picturesque, the reeds were a little overgrown, the ground was muddy, but there were a few simple weather worn benches by the path that looped around the water.

Sam took a seat, pulling out a bag of frozen peas. She opened it, tipped a few into her hand and tossed them into the water.

The ducks immediately sped across the pond toward her, fighting for the peas that the turtles hadn't already gotten to.

Instead of grabbing another handful, she held the bag out to the empty seat to her left, waiting for a moment before shaking the bag impatiently.

A green hand slipped into the bag, pulling out a handful of peas before tossing them into the water.

"How'd you know I was here?" Kitty asked, now sitting visibly on the other end of the bench as Sam poured out more peas for both of them.

"I have my ways." Sam smirked. "What I want to know is why you've been following me all week."

"You knew for that long and you didn't say nothin'?" Kitty huffed. "Damn, I gotta up my game."

A duck waddled up and nibbled on her boot.

"Alright alright, ya hungry little doofus." Kitty lowered a hand full of peas and cooed as the duck happily ate from her palm. "Aww these guys aren't shy at all, do you come here a lot?"

"When I can." Sam tossed a few more peas into the water for the turtles. "So why are you following me?"

Kitty sat back and pressed her lips together, thinking.

"Look it's just... I don't remember much from when I was livin', you know? It's all sorta grey and fuzzy, I can't remember what anyone looked like, except Johnny." she tossed some peas to a smaller duck at the back of the group. "But as soon as I showed up here in town and I saw your face, I thought I felt... I dunno, somethin'. Like I'd seen you before, or maybe you just reminded me of someone, but I can't remember who, it's like grabbing smoke."

She lobbed a few peas a little harder than was necessary at the water. The turtles sucked them up greedily.

"So you've just been following me hoping you might remember something else?" Sam asked.

"Yeah," Kitty sighed. "But it's not working."

Sam swung her foot idly between a pair of scuffling ducks, splitting them up before tossing out some more peas.

"Maybe I'm related to someone you knew. Where did you grow up?"

Kitty frowned down at the water.

"I... I don't know." she said, deflating somewhat. "I didn't even realise I forgot that."

Sam couldn't help but feel for her, Danny had told her that ghosts would often forget things from their past, especially once they'd been dead for longer than they'd been alive. Somehow she had never really considered how terrifying that must be.

"You know..." Sam started carefully. "I could show you some old family photos. Maybe you'll recognise someone?"

Kitty looked up, eyes shining brightly.

"Really? You'd do that for me?"

"Why not?" Sam shrugged. "If you were here to cause trouble you would have done it by now."

"Aw, I never thought you'd wanna do something like that for me." said Kitty, smiling brightly. "You always seemed like such a bitch."

Sam laughed.

"If you'd spent a week being someone that wasn't Paulina, I would probably have seemed like less of a bitch."

"So you guys are big rivals or somethin'?" Kitty asked, grabbing some more peas and giggling as three ducks tried to eat from her hand at once.

"It's more that we have... conflicting ideologies. She thinks that appearances and reputation are the most important things in life, just like my parents." Sam lobbed some more peas into the water, they both watched them disappear as the turtles quickly snapped them up. "It's shallow and stupid, and I don't get why they have to push that shit on everyone. I don't care what people think, I just want to be whoever the hell I wanna be without having to fight for it all the time."

Kitty's face turned contemplative as she tapped her nails on the back of the bench.

"I think... I was like that." she said, slowly. "I wanted to feel fun and exciting, but my parents..."

She trailed off, frowning.

"My parents... I didn't like them. They didn't like me bein' the way I was, I can't really remember why."

Sam emptied out the last of the peas and scattered them over the ground, she scrunched up the empty packet and shoved it back into her tote bag.

"You know, if we went to school together we would probably have gotten along." said Sam as she stood up, gesturing toward the path. "Let's go check out those photos."

Instead of floating invisibly behind, Kitty walked by Sam's side as they headed back to her house. She idly waved at people as they drove past, grinning when someone stared a little too long and almost ran a red light.

"You know, it's nice bein' able to walk around in the day." Kitty said, skipping a little. "Wish I could do it more often."

"What's stopping you?"

"What do you think?" Kitty's lip pulled up in disgust. "Any time I show up your dumb friend sucks me up in his stupid thermos. Only reason I can walk around right now is because I got you as my get out of jail free card."

"Danny doesn't care if you just want to walk around." Sam scoffed. "He lets ghosts wander around town all the time, he only gets involved when you start breaking things."

"Uggghhh but just walking around is so boring." Kitty pouted. "I mean yeah it's nice and I like it but it gets old real quick."

"Then you'll have to get used to getting tossed back in the ghost zone. Do not pass go, do not collect $200."

"Don't you ever get sick of his goody goody attitude?" Kitty asked. "I mean you and I aren't so different right? You're all about the rebel gig, don't you ever feel like keyin' some asshole's car, or takin' a baseball bat to some mail boxes?"

"Only if they deserve it." said Sam with a smirk. "But I feel like you aren't especially picky about whose stuff you're breaking."

They approached the door to the Manson mansion, Sam hopped up the steps and stuck the key in the lock. She touched the mezuzah on the doorpost without a second thought before opening the door and standing aside to invite Kitty in.

The ghost stared up at her warily.

"I can't get past it."

"Past what?" Sam asked.

"The mezuzah, it keeps me out."

"What?" Sam frowned. "It hasn't stopped other ghosts from getting in."

"Well it stops me." Kitty insisted. "I think it's got somethin' to do with what we believed in when we were alive. I haven't got a problem with churches but when Johnny tried to ride his bike through one he couldn't get in. His mom raised him Catholic, he says he doesn't believe in any of that stuff, but I think he still does, deep down."

"So does that mean you were Jewish?" Sam asked, smiling curiously.

"I AM Jewish." Kitty crossed her arms. "Bein' a ghost hasn't changed that, it just... means that we got a few things a little wrong."

Sam thought about that for a moment, before stepping aside and gesturing toward the door again.

"Well, if you've been invited and you're not going to cause any trouble, then I don't see why you shouldn't be able to come in."

Kitty climbed the steps slowly, fingers reaching out and cautiously brushing over the mezuzah, she didn't feel anything unusual, no zap or burn or pain. She took a step through the doorway and passed the threshold without issue, no invisible force or barrier like the last time she tried to follow Sam inside.

"Well, what do you know." she said, grinning.

Sam lead her into a large, open planned kitchen and dining area, the tiles were bright white save for the specks of mud Sam's boots tracked through the room. The decor was minimalist, the atmosphere bland and sterile, she could smell some kind of citrus surface cleaner.

The back wall was all windows, leading to a patio surrounded by perfectly trimmed grass. As they approached, Sam turned, heading towards a door to their right.

The next room felt a lot more friendly, it was full of bookshelves and red tones. The lounges looked soft and inviting, a fireplace sat cold and empty against the back wall, but Kitty didn't have to try hard to imagine it roaring to life, filling the room with its warm glow.

"This is basically my Grandma's part of the house." Sam informed her, voice low. "Her bedroom is just through there, she's usually napping around this time of day so try not to make too much noise."

Kitty slipped off her jacket and laid it over the back of the lounge, already feeling at home in the cosy little room. She looked over the books as Sam fussed around some kind of large ornate chest.

"Here it is." She hefted a large photo album from the chest, carefully closing and latching it again. "Let's see if you recognise anyone in here."

Kitty sat down beside Sam as she opened up the pristine book, the outer cover was beige with the name Manson inscribed in golden cursive on the front. The first page was full of old faded photos, in greyscale or sepia tones.

"Ugh, I'm not that old." said Kitty, flicking ahead a few pages.

The pictures were colourful now, but still grainy, there was a young blonde boy in seventies style jeans leaning casually against a Chevrolet.

"Wait hold up," Kitty pointed at the boy. "Him, I feel like I've seen him before."

"That's my dad." said Sam, surprised. "His name is Jeremy, did you know him?"

Kitty hummed a little, gently tracing a finger over the picture.

"Jeremy... Jeremy, I'm not sure," she frowned. "But he definitely looks familiar."

They continued through the book, when suddenly Kitty slapped her hand down roughly on a photo of a pair of young women.

"Her! I know her! She was a mega bitch!"

"Shhh keep it down." Sam hissed.

"Sorry," Kitty pointed to the blonde girl in the photo. "That one! I don't know how I knew her, but I definitely knew her. She was a total brat."

Sam slipped the photo out of its sleeve and read the neat cursive on the back.

"This is... my Aunt Caroline, in 1985. She's my dad's sister." Sam looked up at Kitty, amused. "I can't believe you had beef with my family."

"Your family are snobs." Kitty sniffed. "Carrie was such a ditz, she thought she was sooo bitchin' because her daddy bought her a Mercedes."

"Yeah, that sounds about right." Sam grimaced. "Did you guys go to school together or something?"

"Maybe..." Kitty took the photo from Sam's hand, staring intently. "I'm pretty sure I skipped school a lot, I hated it there. It was a private school, we had to wear uniforms, barf."

"I would never have guessed you were a private school kid." Sam shook her head. "But most people would say that about me so it's not like I can judge."

"You went to private school?" Kitty asked, "How'd you end up in that Casper High dump?"

"Got myself expelled." said Sam, voice thick with pride. "Elementary, middle and high school, got kicked out of all three."

"Damn, you're good."

Sam grinned, slipping the photo back in its sleeve and continuing to the next page.

Kitty pointed to a few other photos, remarking on their familiarity, but not quite able to grasp how she knew them, the memories only flickered in her periphery.

"Wait," Kitty whispered, fingers brushing over a polaroid containing three people. "This is..."

The picture looked as though it were taken at some kind of party, a man and a woman faced the camera, each with a glass of champagne raised in their hands. The woman's other hand rested on the shoulder of a teenage girl with auburn hair, pulled into a tidy braid. She stared glumly at the camera.

"That's Katherine." Sam said, pointing to the girl. "She was my dad's cousin, but she got hit by a car when she was-"

Sam paused, looking over at Kitty's wide eyes and then back to the photo.

"Noooo way." Sam pulled the photo out of the sleeve. "Is this you?"

Kitty took the photo in trembling hands.

"I... I forgot I used to look like that." she fiddled with a lock of her green, teased hair. "I remember this party, I didn't want to go but mom and dad threatened to take away all my records and cassettes if I didn't."

Sam stared at Kitty, mouth agape.

"You're Car Crash Katherine?! My dad talks about you all the time! He always told me about the shit you used to get up to, he'd tell me that any kind of 'rebellious behaviour' was a slippery slope to 'dying on the back of some delinquent's motorcycle'." Sam put a hand on Kitty's shoulder. "You were my bad influence role model."

Kitty's red eyes shone with tears, photo still in hand, she wrapped her arms around Sam.

"This is majorly wicked! My legacy lives on! Corrupting the youth from beyond the grave!" Kitty laughed. "My parents would go totally mental."

She stopped laughing, her face turning forlorn as she drew back from Sam and stared down at the picture.

"Are they still alive?" she asked, a tremble in her voice.

"Yeah..." said Sam. "They live in a retirement home in Florida. They don't come around very often."

Kitty traced a finger over their faces.

"I wonder if they miss me." she said quietly. "Or if they were glad to be rid of the family embarrassment."

Sam didn't answer, she had wondered the same thing herself, if her parents would even care if she died. They hadn't given her a lot of reason to think they would.

She rested a sympathetic hand on Kitty's arm.

"Oh, you have a friend over bubbeleh?" a croaky voice spoke from the bedroom doorway.

Sam and Kitty both turned to see Ida Manson shuffling into the room, cleaning her glasses with her sleeve.

"Sorry Grandma, we didn't mean to be too loud." Sam apologised. "This is my... um, friend, Kitty. Kitty this is my Grandma Ida-"

"Ida?!" Kitty shot to her feet, staring in shock at the old woman. "Aunt Ida?!"

Ida squinted at Kitty, before quickly setting her glasses back on her face.

"Well as I live and breath, is that you Kathy?"

"Oh my god this is getting super weird." Sam whispered.

Kitty leapt over the ottoman to wrap Ida up in a tight hug, the old woman was surprised for a moment, but held her warmly in return.

"It's me Aunt Ida! Not really living or breathing but it's me!" Kitty laughed breathlessly.

"Oh my goodness, when all the ghosts started showing up all over town I wondered if I would ever see someone I knew." She rubbed comforting circles on Kitty's back as the ghost choked on a few sobs. "It's good to see you again Kathy."

Ida pulled away and wiped a tear from Kitty's face.

"And I'm so glad you aren't stuck wearing what your parents buried you in."

Kitty couldn't help but laugh through her tears.

"Let me guess, it was that putrid blue dress, wasn't it?"

"The dress wasn't nearly as bad as what they did to your hair." Ida snickered, patting Kitty's hand. "It had little ribbons in it and everything."

"I almost forgot you." Kitty placed her palm gently against Ida's face. "You were the only one in the family who ever loved me for being me, and I almost forgot you. I'm so sorry, I should have come to find you sooner but I just-"

"Shhhh, it's okay bubbeleh." Ida grasped her hand tight. "I think being dead is a pretty good excuse for forgetting a few things."

Sam stood beside the lounge, watching the two in shock, she wasn't entirely certain whether or not to intrude. Whatever she had been expecting to discover with Kitty today, it certainly hadn't been this.

Though in hindsight, it did explain Kitty's familiarity with Sam, people always said she had taken after her Grandma.

Ida let go of Kitty and hobbled over to the photo album still sitting on the lounge.

"Oh you don't want to look at that album." she said, as she shoved it onto the coffee table. She wandered to the other side of the room and began rummaging around in a small cupboard. "You want this one."

She pulled out a book with well worn, peeling edges. Pieces of the plastic sleeves had cracked off and crumbled away. It was old, and weatherbeaten, it was obvious that Ida had looked through it many many times.

"Here we go." she sat down in the middle of the lounge, gesturing for the two girls to come sit beside her. "These are the forbidden photos."

She opened the pages, the photos inside were entirely different from the 'official' album, there were no perfectly poised, prim and proper photos of people in nice, presentable clothes. They were all candid shots, people in the middle of eating or laughing, some were stumbling around blind drunk, a few were smoking joints. There were pictures from parties and protest rallies, in backyards and drive ins.

There was a picture of Jeremy as a young boy, grinning with one of his front teeth missing and grass in his hair.

"Only in this family would losing your baby teeth make a photo 'unsavoury'." Ida grizzled as she continued through the album. "I saved so many pictures that my husband would have thrown out otherwise."

"Ugh, Uncle Peter was such a prude, he wouldn't even let me in the house if I didn't have my shoulders covered up." Kitty rolled her eyes.

"He used to be so much more relaxed when we were young." Ida sighed. "He changed when he inherited his father's business, he forgot how to have fun."

A few pages later Kitty squealed in excitement.

"Oh my god! That's Frankie! She was my best friend, we used to do everything together!"

The Kitty in the photo looked far more like the Kitty Sam knew. Her hair was teased up, and she was wearing a crop top and a miniskirt. The other girl, Frankie, had short curled hair and a leather jacket. They each had an arm around the others' shoulder and grinned wildly.

"I love this one." Ida smiled as she pulled the picture out of the sleeve. "That was the night I gave you a lift to that concert."

"Oh that show was sooo good! I got my nose pierced there! It got so infected, Mom grounded me for a month." Kitty laughed.

"Man, and I thought I was cool for skipping school to go see Circus Gothica." Sam grinned. "I'm gonna have to come home with a tattoo next time."

"I can't believe I forgot about Frankie, I can't believe I forgot about all of this." Kitty held the photo close to her chest, a few tears running down her face. "I'm so glad it's not gone for good."

She kept the photo in hand as they looked through the rest of the album. There were many pictures of Ida, all of them with other people of all walks of life.

"Oh this was when you took us to that pride parade!" Kitty smiled. "You made Frankie so happy, and you knew a lot of the drag queens there, like a LOT."

"Grandma took me to a drag show when I was 10," said Sam. "Even took me backstage to meet them all, my parents thought we went to the theatre to see Romeo and Juliet."

"Oh I have photos from that." Ida flipped through the pages, getting closer to the end of the album. "Here we are, oh Evelyn just LOVED you."

Sam looked at the picture of Evelyn, frowning slightly.

"Oh weird, she kinda looks like Mr Lancer's sister, he keeps her photo on his desk..." Sam paused as she processed what she just said. "That's not his sister is it?"

"You probably shouldn't bring it up." said Ida gently. "Teachers can get in trouble for associating with this sort of thing."

"That's so bogus!" Kitty cried. "I really thought this kinda stuff would be better in the future!"

"It is," Ida assured her. "But we're a long way from perfect."

Ida flipped back through the album, searching for more pictures of Kitty and Frankie. There were a good few of them, each one Ida pulled out and passed over for Kitty to look at and hold onto.

"Oh woah, is that Johnny?" Sam pointed to a picture of Kitty sitting on the back of a motorcycle with a blonde boy. "He looks exactly the same, just a little less pale."

"Oh, did Johnny come back as a ghost too?" Ida asked.

"Yeah! We've been together all this time, in sickness and in death." Kitty beamed. "Mom and dad blamed him for everything I did, even if he wasn't around when I did it. They said him and Frankie were 'corrupting' me."

She rolled her eyes.

"I bet they blamed him for my death too. They'd be so mad if they knew we were still together."

"Just goes to show they had no chance of keeping you two apart." Ida said. "Not even death could do that."

Kitty held the photo tight in both hands, her shoulders began to shake slightly.

"It was my fault you know." she said with a trembling little giggle. "Funny huh? My parents always blamed him for everything, but in the end it was my fault we got hit. We were havin' a fight over somethin' stupid and I distracted him-"

Ida wrapped an arm around Kitty, patting her head comfortingly as she laid it against the old woman's shoulder.

"I think you're being too hard on yourself bubbeleh." Ida whispered gently into her hair. "It was raining, the truck that hit you was running a red light, the driver was charged for both your deaths. Even if you did distract him, you weren't the only card at play that night."

She gave Kitty a light shake.

"And don't think I didn't see the way Johnny used to drive that thing, he was reckless. I have no doubt that he wasn't paying as much attention as he should have been." She placed a kiss on the girl's forehead and squeezed her tight. "It's not fair to hold all of that responsibility on yourself, even if you both did everything right, that truck still would have run that red light, it still would have been raining. It was just pure rotten luck."

Sam had never heard a ghost talk about their death before, even Danny didn't like talking about his accident, and asking about it was incredibly taboo. Sam had been pushing her luck earlier just by mentioning the car crash.

It said a lot about Kitty's love for Ida that she chose to open up about it. Sam couldn't say she was surprised, her Grandma had always been like that. Never anything but an endless well of love and support, and the occasional kick in the pants if you needed it.

"Johnny's always had rotten luck." Kitty sniffed. "Follows him like a shadow."

"Literally." Sam snorted.

After a few more moments, Ida pulled herself away from Kitty, she got up and began rooting through the cupboards, muttering to herself.

"Aha, here it is."

She brought over an empty photo album, it was roughly the size of a small pocketbook, containing only one photo sleeve per page.

"I meant to fill this with photos for Sam to keep." Ida admitted as she shuffled back over to the girls. "But I don't think she'll mind donating it to a good cause."

She winked at Sam, who nodded back.

"Here," Ida pressed the little album into Kitty's hands. "Memories are a fickle thing, but photos are forever."

"I can't take these!" Kitty insisted, pushing the album back. "They're your memories too!"

"Oh my god you're both so old." Sam laughed, "Dad has a printer/scanner. I can make copies."

As Sam took the polaroids to her dad's office, Ida and Kitty pored over the rest of the album, Kitty picking out more photos to copy. She chose a few of Ida and Sam, and even one of Carrie.

"She was a total loser and I hated her but I don't hate remembering her, you know? I want to remember everything, even the bad stuff."

She took a photo of her parents, just one.

When Sam came back with the last batch of photos, Ida finished slipping them into the little album.

"There's still a few sleeves left." Sam pointed out, holding up her phone with a smile. "We've got room for a couple of family reunion pics."

The two girls squished up against Ida as Sam snapped as many shots as she could. Ones where they smiled, ones where they laughed, ones where they laid haphazardly across the lounge together.

Then Sam took a few candids of just Kitty and Ida, as they looked through the new album they'd just made together. Capturing Kitty laughing at something as Ida looked at her with a soft, loving smile.

Kitty clutched the album to her chest as she gave Ida a long, drawn out hug.

"Thank you so much." she said, her voice thick with gratitude. "It's like I can see my life in colour again."

She left the house with the assurance that she would always be welcome back, at any time, and a promise that she would always be looking out for her 'new favourite cousin'.

Sam flicked through the photos she took on her phone, she would have to make sure to have copies printed by the time Kitty returned to visit.

She knew Kitty coming over regularly was going to make things complicated, her apparent newfound protectiveness over Sam could potentially backfire in many spectacular ways, she was petty and troublesome when in the right mood.

But then again, so was Ida, and so was Sam.

At least she had better things to do now than beat up strangers' mail boxes, Danny was certainly going to be glad to hear that.