#holy shit that image has been like seared into my fucking brain

[harrowharkwife]

ooooogh wife and i have been watching PLL for the first time and we've been slowly watching it a couple episodes at a time. 'cause it's way too dramatic to just watch one! there's too many cliffhangers! especially the little A-pov clips at the end of each ep, they really suck you into the next episode. so like the secret is you GOTTA pop an edible first so that you can suspend your disbelief and ignore any plot holes, makes for a way less stressful and crazy viewing experience. however when utilizing this technique at a certain point you simply become Too high to follow the bonkers-ass plot anymore, so? 2-3 episodes at a time it is. so like it's taken us a LONG time to make our way through the show but we're like rapidly approaching the end of S5... i know Some spoilers but not everything, all i know is that we are practically knocking on the door of the dollhouse plotline and i cannot WAIT im so excited

[bitchassbucky]

.avi

Word Count: 1.2k

Warning/s: nsfw! (literally) stalkerish themes. dark!bucky x dark-ish!reader. cybercrimes being committed. f & m masturbation. sex toy (vibrator mention). this is kinda meta, tbh.

A/N: the long-awaited part two of .exe mwahaha. we're delving not-that-deep into bucky's little thingy methinks. as always, reblogs and comments are welcomed! <3

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Jesus Christ, you’re insatiable.

Bucky barely woke up when he caught you masturbating with a rabbit vibrator on your bed—laying on your stomach. The towel you thoughtfully laid on was folded halfway. He assumes that you’re a squirmer too when you come. The Friday night show was his favorite though, shame that he didn’t get any footage of it.

His dick is already hard but he’s got no time to waste just yet. Clicking open a screen recording app, he gets to work. Bucky’s already got some footage of you sleeping, cleaning up, and tidying your sheets. In his little mind palace, he’d never let you do any of these things—he’ll be the one to change the sheets, he’d tuck you in bed too.

Bucky let the program run on the desktop as he went to get his breakfast. His mind keeps drifting back to you in his office.

How do you like your coffee?

Do you even like coffee?

You look like a tea kind of person.

Maybe he’ll ask you for breakfast, as soon as he learns how your morning routine goes.

When he came back to his desk, the bed was already made up (again). He got worried for a second until your face came into the frame, your glasses fogged up with vapor.

You bring the laptop with you to the living room, along with a big mug of… something.

He’s gotta learn what you like so he can like it too.

On his side of the things, he sees that you keep your word processor running in the background. More work, perhaps? He hadn’t had the chance to check out your files just yet. He kept himself busy with your pictures and candids. Bucky had his favorites all printed out—he, of all people, knows that technology can’t be trusted, so why were you uploading these pictures of yourself?

There were ones taken in your bathroom, he presumes. On your bed. In the kitchen. By a fucking window, for crying out loud.

He wants to be the one to take these pictures, to imprint them into his memory. Seared in his brain. But not yet.

For now, he just needs to get back at making sure you’re safe in your apartment.

You’ve been staring and smiling at your phone for a while now.

What are you up to?

—

Turns out Mr. IT Guy isn’t very social-media savvy.

All his pictures are out in the open for everyone to see. You wonder what he’s like in private, then.

Maybe he likes posting candids of his new girlfriends and deleting them when it’s over? For a man who has a face of a god, you’d expect to see at least a girlfriend within the past few months.

But he doesn't. No corny pictures, no hashtags of anniversaries, no tagged photos.

You spent your morning working up yourself with your trusty vibe, the image of him fucking you by the kitchen sink fresh on your brain.

Holy shit, does he have that effect on everyone?

What if you wander into his office after a shift and you’d find him stroking his cock? Would you close the door and never speak of it? Maybe you’d smirk and walk over him, sinking down on your knees to suck him off.

God, now you’re all worked up again. Horny, hot, and bothered. That’s good though, then you’d have the energy to finish the chapter you left a week ago.

—

So you’re a writer by choice. Bucky knew that much.

What he wasn’t expecting though, is you write the most explicit things.

The all-white collar girl he met last week likes to get fucked roughly. Overstimulated. Choked. Gagged. Slapped. Spit on.

He’s gotta show you how to make love. Slow, sensual love. Preferably after the roughhousing, that is.

Oh, the things he’d do to you—how he’ll worship your body, head to the tip of your toes. Bucky wants to bury his cock between your lips and praise you for the good girl you are. He wants to let you know that you don’t need to be degraded in order to come.

You just need him.

Bucky’s cock twitches in his sweatpants, still painfully hard. The thick vein on the underside of his shaft protrudes, waiting for him to just fuck something warm.

His hand will do for now.

By the time he got his hand gripping the base of his cock, he’s got you in fullscreen. The recording app still running in the background.

You’re busy. Typing. Researching. Looking for words to replace ‘say.’ Your sleep shirt is loose on your soft frame.

Bucky focuses on you, then. Imagining you on your knees, right here in his apartment. You’d be wearing those glasses you have on. He knew he had a thing for girls with glasses.

He closes his eyes to indulge himself in his own movie.

Your tongue laying flat against his girth, drooling all over the thick base of his dick. He’d let you take your time licking, all the way from his balls to tip. Your lips would close around his leaking head, teasing and tasting his precum.

One of his ties would be around your wrists so you’d learn how to use your mouth.

Bucky swears to God that he felt your mouth closing in on his cock as he pistons his fist faster. A guttural moan spills out of his mouth as his toes curl, the carpet gripping the pads of his feet.

“God, fuck—Y/N.”

Bucky forgoes any kind of underwear last night, only dressing himself up with baggy sweatpants. It was for the better too. He doesn’t think he’d come so much from watching someone—well, not just someone—on the screen.

He sighs, wiping himself clean on the underside of his pants. He needs to do his laundry soon.

Bucky looks at your face longingly from his side of the screen; God, is this how long-distance couples feel?

Maybe he’ll shoot you a text later.

—

Unknown Number: I hope you’re doing well.

Unknown Number: How's your laptop?

Unknown Number: Shit, sorry, it’s Bucky from IT. :)

Your head spun in three different directions as the texts came in.

Hey, Bucky! I’m doing well. The laptop is too.

Was it too curt? Well, you didn’t want to come off too strong. It’s not like he’s been on your mind for the better half of your weekend morning.

Your stomach made a worrying flip as the message status turned Read 10:44 AM. But there was no typing bubble.

Whatever, you’re fine. You’re a busy girl. A strong, independent woman who—

IT Guy Bucky: Good! Just checking on you. We had some downtime due to system maintenance last night.

Oh, it’s work.

No problems on my end! You type in quickly, sending it. To be fair, all you had in common was a band.

Hey, I have a question. It’s not work-related.

—

Oh.

Oh, he fucked up, didn’t he?

Y/N: Do you know any restaurants near the office? I’m sick of eating take-out food. Other than the hipster hideyhole you told me.

Bucky breathed out a sigh of fucking relief when he read your text. He chuckles mostly at himself and composed a reply.

Yeah! I have a non-hideyhole spot a block away from the office. You wanna check it out sometime?

You already got inside jokes.

Is 11:30 good?

Yeah, Bucky types, a smile forming on his lips, 11:30 it is.

[greenninjagal-blog]

Let Me Hear You Scream pt2

Ready for more spooky vibes? If you missed the first part you can find it [here!]

Summary: Upon waking up in a forest he doesn't recognize, Roman vs a Bear Trap goes almost exactly how you would think it goes.

Words: 6374

TW: Bear traps, blood, violence,

Read on Ao3 || My General Writing Masterlist

Roman has always had an unusually high pain tolerance. He had to, being twin brothers with Remus and all that. The sheer amount of danger the two of them got into as kids delegated that if he was anything less than completely indestructible, he’d be dead the next time Remus started a conversation with “I bet you won’t…”

He remembers that summer when Remus dared him to ride his bike down the concrete stairs, and he remembers how the wheels pitched him forward and his helmet cracked on the sidewalk, his knee skidded on the concrete, and his arm went snap with pain so white hot that Roman actually thought that the whole thing had popped right off his body entirely.

He remembers lying on the ground so shocked that he couldn’t even breathe, much less cry, and he remembers Remus laughing in the background, “I didn’t think you were going to actually do it! Oh shit, Ro? Roman! ROMAN!”

He remembers it so clearly.

“REMUS!” Roman shrieks into the forest, with tears rolling down his cheeks. “THIS ISN’T FUNNY, YOU FUCKER!”

His ankle burns. He can’t feel his toes, he can’t feel his ankle, he can’t feel anything, but there’s blood all over his hands and he can’t look down in case he faints.

His hands are trembling as they blindly work over whatever the fuck he stepped on. He can feel the slushie that he last ate, swirling in his stomach, boiling and bubbling until he feels it corroding his back molars. His fingers fumble around the… the metal teeth, oh god he’s going to vomit. His ankle screams in pain when his fingers prod too close to his actual limb. His ears echo with the painful awful SNAP of the jaw mechanism like its seared right into his soul.

“Remus,” He sobs, “I’m going to fucking kill you--”

Because there was a line here; Yeah, Remus dared him into a prank war with one of his stupid “I bet you wont, you prissy goody two shoes…” and Roman poured glitter into Remus’s laundry once, then Remus replaced Roman’s toothpaste with mayo, then Roman put white hair dye in Remus’s shampoo, and Remus swore he would get some type of revenge, even though he loved that look so much that he kept a stupid white streak in his hair. At least Roman thought he did-- He did, right?

Remus wasn’t the type to keep it to himself if he was upset. Neither of them were: Roman had perfected the art of loud sighs and dramatic monologues into a microphone and Remus had set things on fire to make people pay attention.

He didn’t-- wouldn’t--

He wouldn’t drag Roman into the middle of nowhere and make him walk into a bear trap for hair dye that would come out in another few weeks.

((Wouldn’t he?))

Everyone said Remus was insane, through whispered rumors and gossip that dissipated the moment that Roman walked into the room. Roman hadn’t ever seen the insanity himself; he grew up with Remus chasing squirrels in the park and diving into dumpsters for cool treasures and it was normal. Remus had always found humor in strange and weird things and as they had grown up those things had become less real and more abstract and Roman still didn’t think it meant that Remus would do this.

The forest is dense around him, stupid, dark; Roman isn’t sure he could recognize it even if he had a map in front of him, but then again Remus was always the more environmentally aware person of the two of them. He doesn’t know where Remus went the fuck off to either-- he’s brain is fuzzy at everything more than a few seconds ago when he blinked opened his eyes and took one step forward into a metal death trap, but he… he thought Remus had been right beside him, so close that… that…. His head is singing with pain and the backs of his eyes are melting.

“Hey!” A voice calls out and Roman flinches so hard that the metal spikes dig into his ankle and his scream strangles him.

Roman blinks back his tears just in time to see a figure stumble right out the thickets nearby, with the grace of a new born fucking dear. Roman swears in every language he knows and then some he doesn’t as the person scrambles back to their feet and zeroes in on him with an expression that Roman usually associates with the memory of his science teacher right before she demonstrated how to break a frog's ribcage for their dissection.

“No,” Roman says, “No, back off--”

He tries to scoot back and agony shoots up his leg so bright and violent that his vision whites out.

“Don’t move,” the person says, holding up their palms up suddenly to show they were unarmed or something. Roman isn’t sure what that’s supposed to do when he knows that Remus himself has never needed a weapon to be a lunatic. “I’m going to try to help.”

“Do not fucking come near me,” Roman snarls. “Who are you? One of Remus’s fucking little friends--”

“I assure you I don’t know a Remus, but you are in pain and believe I am qualified to help.”

“Fuck off!”

Roman swears that the pain is getting to his head, meddling with his thoughts like alcohol except not fun and Roman would not suggest anyone repeat this experience. The stranger-- Remus’s friend or whatever-- is staring at him with a patient impatience: like his mother waiting for him to finish his story before she runs off to answer a call on her work phone. They’re older than Roman, by a year or two, with sharp cheekbones and back framed glasses of a stereotypical nerd but a height that makes it hard to even imagine anyone looking down on them. Their eyes are colder than ice, and frost wafts off their breath. They’ve got a sweater vest on, with a tie, and converse dotted with glow in the dark paint in the shape of space nebulas.

Between his teary eye lashes Roman thinks that this guy looks incredibly tame for someone who associates with Remus and he fights the urge to vomit.

Is his leg supposed to be feeling cold?

Oh god, was he going to lose his foot? His breath swells up in his lungs, like a balloon pressing against his ribs. He wouldn’t be able to walk without a foot-- He wouldn’t be able to move or leave these woods or get help-- Remus and his psycho friends could easily cut up the rest of his body and let the wolves get him and then at school when someone would ask what happened to that dumbass who used to make dumb jokes on air during the football games, everyone will be like “Who?” and “didn’t Remus used to have an annoying twin? What happened to that guy?” and no one will ever find him because no one would car--

“Please,” The Doctor Who-ever says, in a faux calm tone as Roman nearly swallows his tongue. “I have medical knowledge, and you are clearly in distress.”

Agony races up his leg and Roman whimpers again. He swears he can hear the sound of metal grinding against his ankle bones, biting in deep and forcing the marrow to crack and shatter and explode until it's just a bunch of broken glass-like fragments under his skin. His head feels light and he frantically breathes deeply because he is not going to pass out, he is not going to make it that eas--

He’s cut off by a sudden crashing from behind behind himself: snapping of branches like a wild animal is tearing through them, the crunch of dead leaves steadily getting louder and heavy and deadlier, the swearing that are all tell-tale sounds of Remus crashing directly into someone and both of them eating the dirt as they barrel through the thickets and roll to a stop a few feet away.

Nerdicus jerks back like they were expecting anything less of Remus’s spectacular grand entrance.

Roman bites down on his tongue to stop himself from outright whimpering. Remus, his twin, his mirror image, rolls back to a sitting position like a possessed doll coming to life, untangling his limbs from another crumpled, groaning form that must be some other friend of his, and snapping them back in place because what are limbs to a maniac like him? The setting sun paints him in an eerie light and Roman’s skin itches with equal parts rage and terror at him, for dragging them out there, for putting out bear traps, for doing all this as pay back for a stupid little prank in a prank war he fucking started--

Remus’s laughter is obnoxious as always and Roman tries not to flinch at the sound of it alone, holding back a white wash of fear with just his force of will.

His other friend is another person that Roman hasn’t seen before-- not that he spends a lot of time getting to know the faces of the delinquents that his brother hangs out with. They’ve got on black jeans and a black T-shirt with one of those reversible sequin designs in the shape of a skull. Their blond hair dances in the last dregs of the evening, even as they pull a leaf from their bangs and yanks their dirty yellow beanie back over their head.

“Holy shit!” Remus says, spitting out dirt from his mouth. “Is that a bear trap?”

“Remus!” Roman whimpers with a tight throat. “This isn’t funny!”

“Au contraire! I left you alone for like five seconds and now you’re in a bear trap!” There’s a glint in Remus’s eyes and Roman recognizes it from those times when Remus climbed too high in the trees back at home, when he stared at a growing flame of a match too long, when he reached across the console and yanked on the steering wheel, screaming Roman’s name--

Roman brain pulses to the point where he can feel it knock against his skull and that hurts almost as much as ankle and he swears he sees stars on the backs of his eyelids and he does not want those to be the last stars he ever sees.

Remus swoops towards him and Roman flinches back, nearly screaming when his leg jostles.

“Chill out, Prince Charmless,” his twin says, rolling his eyes. “I’m gonna get it off. What’s your range of movement?”

“Do not come any closer to me, you asshole!”

“You can’t get that thing off yourself,” Remus says.

“And whose fault is that?” Roman snaps.

Remus freezes, tilting his head slightly to the side. His rat's nest of hair creates an unearthly silhouette as he looks down at Roman, something straight out his Halloween horror films, and Roman bares his teeth in warning. He’s not thinking about how Remus’s foot can stomp down on his injured, trapped leg, he’s not thinking about how there’s no one around for miles, he’s not thinking about how there’s nothing and no one to stop him from straight out fratricide--

“Why am I suddenly getting the feeling you think I know what the flying fuck is going on here?” Remus asks.

“Don’t you?”

“No!” Remus says, delightedly, happily, cheerfully and his voice makes some distant bird caw. “I thought you snapped and took me to the woods to kill me yourself! This is much more boring now that I know I haven’t managed to break your last shreds of sanity.”

“Why would I--”

“This is ridiculous,” Glasses McGee cuts in sharply, adjusting said glasses with their index finger. “We need to remove your foot from that trap now.” They look at Remus and the other person. “Are either of you knowledgeable about the mechanics of bear traps?”

Remus throws two thumbs up, and Roman remembers vaguely a rant from a year or two ago about unethical bear hunting and steel jaw traps and how animals would step in and then lay there for days suffering as their mangled limb held them captive regardless of them trying to chew it off for freedom and oh god he’s going to be sick--

“Roman,” Remus says somewhere beyond the screaming in his head. “Oh shit.” It sounds like he’s far away and distant, or maybe underwater and Roman is drowning. He can’t seem to breathe anymore, like the teeth biting into his ankles had wrapped around his chest and was slowly crushing him.

People are moving around him, faint voices talking and then suddenly burning blinding white hot pain that shoots all the way up to the back of his eyes.

He screams and bites down only to find there’s something in his mouth-- fibers and the unmistakable taste of wool and Roman nearly gags on it. He blinks back the foggy pain and finds that he’s leaning on Remus and Webster Dick-tionary is pressing a multicolored sweatshirt to his leg delicately with the bear trap fully closed a few feet away, tethered to the ground with a heavy metal chain coated in a red paint that makes Roman’s vision sway all over again. The slushie claws back up his throat and he gags.

There’s someone new standing just behind the nerd: a very pretty person in a pretty skirt and headphones with cat ears on them around his neck. The splash of freckles and the round glasses makes them look a bit younger than the rest of them, but that could also be Roman’s brain twisting things around the moment that they wince in sympathy as the nerd prods part of his ankle.

They’re magnificent, Roman decides with a dizzying certainty. They’re the sun in the middle of this dark and dreadful forest, the stars in the night sky, the lighthouse in the storm guiding Roman back from complete devastation with just those shiny eyes behind cracked lens.

The other person, the one in the black skull shirt, Sid from Toy Story come to life, is standing just behind him and Remus, looking on distastefully from a good distance away. It takes Roman a moment to realize he’s biting down on the guy’s beanie, and gross. He spits it out at the same time as the nerd presses too close to where the trap had caught him.

“Son of a Witch!” He hisses. “A dragon witch, a fucking---”

“Oh, boo,” Remus says. “He’s alive.”

“He was not in any immediate danger of dying,” Space Case says firmly. “And isn’t he your brother?”

“Looks like someone is an only child,” Remus says. The person in black reaches out and snatches back his beanie, his entire face curling into some disgusted expression as they hold the part with Roman’s saliva away from themself.

“Wonderful,” they say in deadpan and stuff the beanie in their back pocket.

Roman blinks, struggling to sit up by himself. He scrubs his face trying to get rid of his tears, and buries that boiling humiliation being the center of attention like this. Of course, he has to be grievously injured for anyone to care about him, for anyone to take a moment to look at him, for anything--

Remus lets him go, stretching up and yawning like nothing about this is weird or strange or scary to him.

Part of Roman is reassured by that. Like, of course Remus isn’t terrified out of his mind; what is there to be scared of when he’s the most terrifying thing in a 100 mile radius? When he handcuffed himself to the doors of the city history museum to protest its demolishment even though the wrecking ball was right there, when he wore a mini skirt to school to protest the dress code even though he’d been beat up for less before, when he marched into the Governor’s office when he was refused a meeting about the rescinding of the pollution standards in the the county and laughed in the face of the armed guards that told him to leave.

Remus had an endless supply of guts and determination and Roman had wished for so long that his reckless bravery could be contained, controlled and banished, but now it kinda felt like Remus slipping a familiar jacket over Roman’s shoulders and telling him to relax.

Google.com-- Roman is seriously running out of names for them-- leans in and tears the new holes in Roman’s jeans further-- Roman grimaces at the thought of having to buy another pair to make up for this, but the nerd expertly uses the excess fabric to tie up his wound with a professional precision.

“Alright, Doc Oct,” Remus says while they work. “What is the diagnosis? Amputation? Do I need a body bag?”

“I just said that he was not in danger of dying,” they say, finishing the knot which only causes Roman to grunt a little bit. “And my name is Logan, if you must know. I am not a full medical doctor by any means, but I believe that he will recover fully; the trap broke skin and there will likely be a nasty amount of bruising deep in the muscle tissue, but he will recover in a few weeks of rest. It will probably be best to keep weight off your foot as much as possible.”

“See, drama queen?” Remus says to Roman, shoving his shoulder. “You’re fine.”

Roman gives him double middle fingers for his trouble and tries not to shake too hard with relief. He stares down at his leg, forcing a steady breath through his lungs and out his nose, and wonders with a dizzying amazement how his leg was not only in one piece but recoverable, after all the pain. He isn’t sure that it’s not just the placebo effect of someone saying that everything’s going to be okay, but he wiggles his toes and swears that the pain only wracks his limb moderately this time.

Even closed, the bear trap looked menacingly at them: Roman’s blood on the jaws that were curled into a ghoulish grin, just waiting for someone to get close enough to open and bite down on. He’s not sure how Remus and the Doctor Doolittle-- Logan-- managed to get it off him.

Logan turns and offers the sweater to the person in the skirt. “Ah, sorry, I’m afraid the blood has…”

Roman sucks in another breath at the sight of it: the bright splotchy blobs of red that bled through the pastel tye dye design that would likely never come out and eternally remain a reminder of how Roman put his foot directly in a bear trap like an idiot-- What would he have done if there was no one around? Died? His own stupidity had ruined such a nice piece of clothing and--

“It’s okay!” The angel says with a somewhat cartoonish voice. Roman blinks in surprise at the sweetness of it, tasting sugar even as the words hold over the air. He swears he can envision their I’s dotted with hearts; a soft and kind tone despite the fact that Roman had ruined their sweater. “I’m much more relieved he’s going to be okay!”

“Let’s not get too excited,” Doctor Doom says, causing Roman to stiffen and Remus to glance back curiously towards them. They’re turned away from the rest of the mismatched, miscellaneous group, looking into the trees with a gaze that makes Roman’s stomach roll over and not in any way that is even remotely good.

“What?”

They glance back at them with an expression something that Roman can only call shifty. Like a snake before it strikes, they’re poised on the balls of their feet, coiled with the power to move at a seconds decision. Untrustable, Undependable, Unkind-- and Roman squares his shoulders just to prove to himself that there isn’t actually a dagger point about to plunge into his back.

The person’s voice is silky smooth, but Roman can’t find it in himself to be jealous when the meaning of the next words hit. “I don’t suppose any of you remember just exactly how we came to be here, do you?”

The woods echo with a strange emptiness, like the trees themselves are holding their breaths. The silence is eerie-- Roman’s never been a forest this quiet. He’s never been anywhere this quiet. The hairs on the back of his neck raise up.

Logan and the shining, shimmering, lovely vision share a look and the former shrugs, occupying their hands with tying their sweater around their waist.

“It’s fuzzy,” they admit, thoughtfully. “I was leaving my dorm...and then…” They grimace, which is downright awful to witness: Roman doesn't think anyone deserves to look so uncomfortable, and certainly not a beauty like them. “...then I was here.”

Logan makes a sour face like he managed to misplace a decimal twenty seven steps back in his math equations. “I was uncharacteristically late to class, but I seem to have some form of amnesia surrounding the hours since then as well; It was just past two.”

Dr. Facilier-turned-teenager turns to Roman, their eyes asking a question they already know the answer to. And part of Roman wants to snarl at them, tell them to knock it off with the creepy aura and better-than-you-expression, explain to them exactly how they ended up all here together because there’s a logical, causal explanation.

But Remus is already laughing. “Oh come on! We were…. What were we doing again?” Remus freezes for a moment, some of the smile leaving his face. “Ro? Where were we…?”

Remus is dressed in another one of his ripped T-shirts, the Save the Turtles one that he wore to that protest a few months ago and when he volunteered to clean up beaches for the weekend. His sleeves are ripped off to show off the endangered Tiger tattoo on his shoulder up to his neck, and his jeans are the recycled ones that he bought second hand and begged Roman to repair rather than buy a new pair and “give his money to the capitalists that are trying to kill us all”.

In comparison, Roman is wearing his letterman jacket, with his name engraved on it that he got for being the announcer for the football team three years in a row. He’s wearing his announcer uniform too-- his hair is styled and his colors are coordinated to the white and red of their school, but Remus never comes to the football games anymore.

Or well, he’s not allowed to come to the games anymore after he stole the tuba from the band players and charged into the field during the game back in their freshman year.

Still he-- remembers… he thinks he remembers... They were in the car together, Remus needed to go somewhere and Roman had to drop him off and then speed off to the game, right? Remus' feet were up on his dashboard, mud flaking off into his freshly cleaned car, his air fresheners weren’t working, they were fighting over the radio, Remus’s hand reached out, latching on to the wheel and a scream--

“Fuck,” Remus says, rubbing the side of his head like Roman had slapped him. “Did you crash our car out here?”

“Me?” Roman says, incredulously.

“Yeah!” Remus says. “Did you get brain damage in the crash too? Are your brains going to fall out? You were the one driving, dumbass.”

“You grabbed my steering wheel!”

Remus snorts. “What? No, I didn’t?”

“Yes you did!”

“No way!”

“Yes way!”

“I wouldn’t get anything out of--”

“Boys!” Skeletar says, clapping to get their attention. “Less arguing, more answering the question.”

Remus looks at Roman and Roman glares right back because he did not crash the car. Between the two of them Remus was more likely to crash a car-- proven from how he totaled their green Ford Fiesta nine months ago and now even around the pounding headache he can still remember the feeling of surprise as Remus’s sporadic movement jumbled through his own, the yank that caused him to lose control, the-- the--

He doesn’t remember what happened after that, but he knows that then Roman had opened his eyes out here, taken a step forward, and nearly lost his foot to a bear trap.

“This is getting us nowhere,” Logan says. “Even if perhaps you happened to have a car around here, that does not explain how the rest of us came to be here. And likely from the events that you are describing the car is not in functional condition-- although I’m unsure how your persons would have come out of such a thing without a few visible injuries…”

“I didn’t crash the car,” Roman says firmly.

“Oh, like you didn’t step into a bear trap?” Remus asks innocently antagonistically.

“Why are there bear traps out here anyway!” Roman hisses. “Isn’t bear hunting or whatever illeg--”

Roman almost doesn’t hear it: it starts so softly and then it raises in pitch and suddenly it's ringing in the air like cracks in the fragile glass silence. He feels his breath disappear right out of his chest, his body tensing and everyone jerks towards the direction the sound comes from, like they’re expecting to see something out there.

Roman remembers hearing people yell at Remus to get out of the way of the wrecking ball, remembers hearing the teachers snap at him to go change into his gym clothes, remembers the armed guard spitting on Remus’s face, his own shouts turning to something just above an animalistic growl when he told Remus to knock it off, you’re making me look bad.

And still he doesn’t remember hearing anything sound so horrified. So desperate. So despondent.

It is the noise that causes Roman to break out in goosebumps, electricity dancing along his skin causing all of his hairs to raise, and himself to find it suddenly very hard to swallow. Roman is scrambling back before he can remember that his foot should not be moving and he bumps into Logan as he does.

It cuts off short and disappears like someone took a pair of scissors to the sound itself, snipping the scream for help away before it reaches the end.

And Roman doesn’t think anyone is breathing anymore. His heart pounds in his chest, waiting for the rest of it.

The trees cast shadows so deep and dark that not even the moonlight will touch them. Somehow without Roman noticing, the temperature had dropped until the air feels like frostbite licking his exposed skin. Roman doesn’t dare move another inch-- doesn’t like the idea of what might happen if he reminds the rest of the world that time is still passing.

“I…” the person in the skull T-shirt says, in a very low, strangled tone. “I don’t think bears are what's being hunted.”

“No,” Roman says, “No.”

“Oh god, I’m gonna be sick,” the person in the skirt says.

“No!” Roman says, throwing out his arms before his thoughts can catch up. “This is not--”

“We need to leave,” Logan says, face pale. “Now.”

“I think I saw a gate,” Remus said, no hint of his unhinged grin. He thumbs the direction that he and Kaa came from. “I pulled the switch but it didn’t open. I thought about climbing but there are no holds and barbed wire around the top--”

“It’s likely lacking a power source then,” Logan says steadily calm and Roman feels like he’s losing his whole goddamned mind. “Let me take a look at--”

“We are not being hunted right now!” Roman blurts out.

The others stare at him for a solid, endless second and Roman’s stomach threatens to crawl up his throat. He waits for them to agree with him, waits for them to laugh and call it a joke, waits for Remus to tell him he’s so easy to scare, come on Ro, did you really think there was a murderer in these woods? This is grade school level effort!

Roman gets the feeling that he’s going to be waiting a very long time.

“Guys,” Roman says, slightly more wobbly than he means it to, slightly more softer than he means it to, slightly more terrified than he means it to. “We aren’t being hunted for sport, right?”

Because-- Because he’s seen horror movies. And he remembers once how Remus poured a bag of popcorn over his head and said that if they were ever in that situation, he’d leave Roman to rot, maybe even toss him to the killer himself, laugh as Roman screamed and begged and cried.

He doesn’t look at his foot. He doesn’t look at his foot and think about how he can’t run. He doesn't look at his foot and realize that they’re going to leave him behind and no one will ever know what happened to him and no one will care--

Remus is suddenly right in front of him, offering a hand right into Romans face. Roman blinks back the burning tears on his cheeks and looks at the limb with a trembling lip.

“Come on,” Remus says. “You’re a little bitch when you ruin your mascara, Ro.”

And Roman tries to articulate the billions of insults he has in his brain, but all that comes out is a whimper as Remus latches on to his wrist and pulls him to his feet. He stumbles the moment that he tries to put weight on his foot, flickers of pain echoing in his brain although it's not nearly as bad as he was expecting. Remus pulls Roman over his shoulder with his injured leg raised between them and all of his weight on Remus’s shoulders.

“I’m not leaving you behind, dumbass,” Remus says.

((Why wouldn’t he?))

“We need to help them,” the person in the skirt, the good and just and wonderful person in a skirt, says suddenly.

“I don’t think they need our help,” Hans Gruber-minus-the-German-accent says. “In fact, I don’t think they need anything, anymore.”

“How could you say that?!”

“Easily,” they respond, shortly.

The person in the skirt is shaking, Roman realizes. They’re shaking and hugging themself and they look slightly green in the face.

“I came from over there,” they say from behind trembling hands. “I-- I didn’t hear anyone else over there but they must have been there and I-- I can’t--”

“They’re dead,” Dr. Jerkyll says clinically, like a surgeon with a knife. “Us rushing towards that area is only going to get us attacked next. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to die, thank you very much.”

“We can’t leave them!” The other argues.

The person in the skull shirt steps towards the other and grabs their upper arm to spin them back to the direction the scream came from. Then with a derisive and terrible sneer, they shove. The cutie in the skirt stumbles forward, nearly face planting on the uneven ground.

“Then you go help them,” they say, with streaks of faint and awful moonlight painting them in a pale halo. They wave back to Logan, Remus and Roman, and Roman feels very much like he doesn’t want to be included in this group all of a sudden. “Don’t drag the rest of us into it.”

“Hey, don’t be a dick!” Roman says, stepping forward and hissing when he places a slight weight on his foot. “What if it were you out there?”

They scoff. “Me? I would never let myself get caught by a psycho murderer in the woods. But if I did, the last thing I would want is my valiant savior to come charging to my rescue and then get slaughtered right beside me like an idiot!”

“I’ll keep that in mind, you slimy snake,” Roman says.

“I bet you will, Hiccup,” they shoot back. “The gate is this way. Try not to step in another bear trap, won’t you?”

“Damn!” Remus says, “You’re a bitch! What’s your opinion on plastic in the sea?”

Roman slaps Remus’s arm and gives him a glare because really? Right now? They’re in the woods, someone just screamed and probably got murdered, they don’t know how to get out, Roman’s injured, and Remus is doing one of his weird flirting attempts.

Great.

The person in the skull shirt at least looks slightly thrown by the question, narrowing their eyes and shaking their head as they turn away as if they can brush off the rest of the group. “The sea turtles are dying.” They say blandly, without a hint of actual emotion. “Oh no. Next time I see one I will give my condolences about it’s mother.”

Remus’s mouth pops open for a retort that Roman knows is going to be bad, but before he can get the words out, there’s a loud sound of cracking branches from behind them. Remus drags Roman back from the area, planting himself in front of Roman like some kind of human shield and Roman wobbles, without anything to put his injured leg on.

“Jesus Christ!” A new voice screams, as they trip over a thicket and fall into the clearing.

They move like a blur; barely more than a shadow with the ungodly amount of black they’re wearing. Roman can make out a pale face, dark bangs and terrified eyes, before the scramble back in the ground leaving… leaving smears of deep red on the ground in front of them. Their flashlight goes flying off to Logan’s feet, but they don’t seem to care as much about that as moving away from whatever is behind them.

The air tastes like metal, like copper, and Roman swears the world sways under him. His heartbeat blares in his ears almost louder than the newcomer’s hysterical sobs.

There’s a thud. And another.

And the trees themselves seem to shake and draw from the shadow that takes form. It peels away from the others, massive, hulking and distorted in all the wrong ways: at some point it must have been human, Roman thinks hysterically. It has two legs and two arms and a torso and a head, but it's elongated towering over even Logan at his ridiculous height. Its skin is covered in soot and dirt, layers upon layers to the point where Roman almost thought that it was wearing some kind of leather armor. It has rubber overalls on, strapped...strapped to its body with metal hooks that catch the thin moonlight peeking out of its bulging bare shoulders in a way that looks…looks self mutilated. The patchy ugly skin is healed around the metal, molded to it, absorbing it. In one hand is a cleaver, cobbled together from various metals with an unfinished touch and dripping scarlet all the way down the handle to its massive hands. Roman thinks that with one hand it could easily crush one of their skulls.

But worse than that, than the blood, than the stench coming from the thing, than the bloodlust that's echoing out of it: worse than all that is the mask welded to its face. A pale white skin that nearly glows in the darkness, framed with jagged sharp edges of bladed teeth in a terror inducing smile. Soulless orbs exist where eyes might have once been: now there are empty voids without a human behind them.

In a slow, almost robotic motion, it raises the cleaver in its hand. Blood rolls down the handle onto it’s hand and Roman watches the bulb of red drip down into the grass right between the newcomer’s sneakers.

Oh, Roman thinks suddenly very clearly without any room for a single doubt, This is what death looks like.

“NO!” The person in the skirt screams and suddenly they shove forward and throw themselves in front of the swing of the cleaver. Roman isn’t sure who screams louder at that: him, the person in the skirt, or the person on the ground bleeding out.

His brain is on fire, every atom in him is screaming so loud that he can’t hear his thoughts. His own breath flees his lungs with abandon that Roman’s brain somehow hadn’t gotten because instead of running away he’s running towards the monster. His blood boils in his veins and he pushes through Remus with the sort of reckless abandonment of sanity he never would have thought he’d ever make.

His vision locks onto the kid on the ground and his fingers latch on their left shoulder and he hauls them back.

The air next to his ear whistles as the cleaver misses them by centimeters and the person in the skirt screams as they fall to the side, and specks of something wet and warm and sticky flings through the air like its a water fountain; Roman feels it splatter across his face and his brain heart thuds in his chest.

Remus appears on his other side, grabbing Roman’s hostage by their other arm and they both pull them to their feet, ignoring the way they scream in pain. Their torso drips ruby into the dead grass at their feet and Roman-- Roman--

The hulking monster in front of them gives his cleaver a shake and drags it over its own arm to wipe away the blood, like it's nothing more than a hindrance. It turns its entire body towards the person in the skirt, the gorgeous selfless angel of a person that Roman hasn’t gotten the name of-- of someone he isn't going to get the same of because the abomination raises the cleaver again.

Roman screams because he does not want to watch someone die, please he doesn’t want to be in this nightmare anymore, wake up wake up wakeup--

There’s a brilliant white light that explodes at the last second. Roman himself jerks away from it, but that’s nothing compared to the inhuman howl that the creature makes as it stumbles back to the edge of the forest, covering its beady eyes with its massive hands.

Logan flicks the flashlight off and grabs the person in the skirt by their uninjured arm and looks back at them only briefly with an air of finality.

“RUN!” He says.

And Roman does.

[idlecreature]

the buried fic comment from hell (it's so long i'm SO SORRY, I GOT EXCITED)

DEL.. I WASN’T SURE IF IT WAS APPROPRIATE TO LEAVE A LONG ASS COMMENT ON UR BURIED FIC IN PUBLIC….. SO I’M DROPPING IT HERE i’m so sorry in advance this is about to be a mess,, i’m so fucking emotional right now

((the review under the cut is in response to my fic which can b read here))

okay first –

The mental image of tiny gangly Barnabas and Jonah crouched with their hands in the dirt….. is so fucking cute?? I could feel Jonah’s jealousy just burning off of him. You had me right away. Fuck. You know how to open a story and I’m deeply envious, I’ve always struggled with it. Also, you threw in that little hook:

Despite what Jonah believes, there are some things that just can’t be explained in words.

Barnabas’ voice is so fucking good… guh… you know. I didn’t much care about Barnabas in any deep way before I joined the Jonah server and you guys have all just completely GUTTED me, I can’t believe how much I care about this highly-strung bastard,, he is so GOOD. HE’S SO GOOD???? HE’S SUCH A SWEETIE. LIKE. BARNABAS FEELING GUILTY AND HORRIFIED THAT PEOPLE ARE GRATEFUL TO HIM AND WANT HIM AROUND???? AAAAAAAAAA. And the melancholy aspect, too, which I imagine is how Mordechai was able to relate to him, get attached to him… Barnabas being bitter about how useless his tears are while he’s crying anxiously at the prospect that he might not be able to help those families after all…….

All of those scraps of Barnabas’ letter to Jonah made such EXCELLENT transitions, holy hell. Again I am inspired by your storytelling prowess. I am taking notes, for whenever my ability to write longform fic returns from war. This one was my favorite, made my heart clench:

A good world starts with a good person and a few choices that are made with the heart—

He’s so earnest I’m going to weep ;_; Barny.. you can’t make Jonah a better person he’s AWFUL,,

(Side note, super digging that I can indent stuff, block quoting makes this SO much easier.)

Also really digging that Jonah doesn’t have as nice a reputation as Barnabas… Jonah is the bad influence friend lmfao. AND JONAH’S CAT… I LOVE HIM…

And then you delivered a swift blow straight to the religion kink, as promised… “There’s something undeniably old testament about Jonah; the fire and fury of creation, the self-annihilating stare of Lot’s wife.“ LOSING IT I’M LOSING IT… WHAT A WAY OF DESCRIBING HIM God, here I thought I couldn’t possibly be more attracted to this bastard man. I am aghast at myself.

LOSING IT EVEN MORE OVER BARNABAS STACKING TEACUPS ON JONAH’S HEAD???? Why must you make them so fucking cute oh NO this is going to hurt isn’t it. ((This was the note I stuck in the Word doc while I was reading it and I thought I’d leave it as was for your enjoyment))

“Taking cues from your dreams?” Barnabas replies. “You know only the desperately mad do that?” 

“Or desperately inspired—savants and prophets and visionaries.”

And then you continued to try to kill me… Jonah thinking of himself as a prophet……. hhhhh canon-typical overambitious zealotry I’m HERE FOR IT………

“Are you trying to make me angry with you by playing the devil’s advocate?” 

“Just testing you,” Jonah says in his alloyed voice, silver-and-honey-gold. 

Del I cannot stress enough… My religion kink………. It’s been SO VERY ACTIVATED.

“Your morality has only ever been a thin cover for your shame.”

OUCH, JONAH, JESUS

Every bit of their dialogue was so familiar and tinged with bittersweetness and I owe you my entire life… Sincerely. Ugh. Like, how you described Barnabas’ internal angst about it later on – when he’s thinking of Mordechai, and he refers to "his many dog-eared fantasies” about Jonah it just really vividly conjured the thought of he and Jonah having a sort of? Queer solidarity, ESPECIALLY having grown up together. And that makes Jonah’s flash of betrayal at Barnabas not wanting to be SEEN with him that much more agonizing, personally. Like. I’ve had that happen to me more than once in real life. And much as Jonah is a piece of shit who is absolutely manipulating him………. still, ouch. Ouch. (Barnabas’ thoughts on the company Jonah keeps also made me wince. You did an AMAZING job with all of the internalized shame and frantic rationalizations, hooooooboy.)

The Lukases being colorblind is such an interesting piece of lore by the way I love it????? Now I have. Some questions, about Peter. Mordechai’s characterization in this is so fascinating to me. I’m enTRANCED by how you reverse-Uno’d it so that Barnabas was the reason Mordechai lost himself to the Lonely… the power dynamics……. so tasty. Ugh. And all of the sensual descriptions, especially of that first visit Barnabas had at Moorland house?? I didn’t clip any because I would have ended up clipping the whole fucking thing. It was aching, haunting, beautiful, holyshit. Their romance is somehow more fucked up than Barnabas and Jonah’s…

Also, I was so eager to read this I skipped the tags/warnings and completely didn’t realize Mordechai was going to be an actual vampire so that was a VERY fun surprise lmfao.

Barnabas feels like he’s close to learning something about violence and desire, how close they are, how the wires can get crossed.

THIS QUOTE IS EVERYTHING TO MEEEEEE ugh I’m having an aneurysm over how Jonah managed to fashion Barnabas into a creature that could understand him by gifting him to Mordechai for a while… letting Mordechai crack him open at the points where he was already brittle and experience an influx of some of the true darkness of the world. Just a tasty taste. That way when he discovers the truth of Jonah’s occult interests he won’t run away, because he’s already got his own fingers in the mess. He’s already given himself to one horror, why not Jonah? Shave some of the shine off of his morality, make him nice and gray so he won’t contrast so much with Jonah… And satisfying his curiosity at the same time. Two birds.

Oh, also, still sobbing about this line:

he realises that he doesn’t want to wear any colours that Mordechai can’t properly see.

EVERY TIME I let my guard down for ten seconds you smacked me with more of Barnabas being the most precious bleeding heart in the universe!!!!!! He aches so much for the people he’s trying to help and he hates people like Mordechai but part of him also wants to save Mordechai, somehow… maybe recognizes the parts of him that are like these people, still. Nearly faded but not quite gone yet. And as you’ve already established, Barnabas simply cannot let things go. Can’t disappoint people… can’t leave them when he could be doing something. Anything. Augh, FEELINGS.

Of course he knew Mordechai and Jonah were friends, he’d just temporarily believed in a sane and fair universe where things like this don’t happen. 

AND YOU HAD SUCH A PERFECT BALANCE OF HUMOR… This could have been such a feelbad fic, and tbh it still would have been spectacular. But you always eased it at just the right moment to keep it from going off the rails into irretrievable deepdark territory. Fed me little soft moments so I’d still be vulnerable enough to have my HEART RIPPED OUT LATER…

I’m not super interested in the Buried canon-wise but I love how you’ve written Barnabas’ natural affiliation with it… so subtle but powerful? (Of COURSE Jonah was jealous, lmao. He had to work so hard and he’s still not on Barnabas’ level. There’s some kinda beautiful commentary on ambition versus goodwill in there somewhere but I’m too busy nursing my battered little heart right now to articulate it.) It wove its way in and out of the rest of the plot so naturally, too. For some reason it compliments Barnabas’ temperament as I read it in canon just… so well. Was there a discussion about this on the server, and if so, PLEASE tell me about it sometime I’m so fascinated.

Jonah wasn’t even present for a lot of the fic but his characterization was so INTENSE and luminous, Christ… I know I already praised it a bit but. Woof. I wasn’t expecting to get a taste of his POV at the end and I was so excited I kicked my feet (my cat was very disgruntled) like, this line!!!

Now, he thinks there’s some truth in those false statements, in the lies we tell and why we want to be believed.

GOD, YOU’RE REALLY GONNA GIVE ME FEELINGS ABOUT JONAH AND FUTURE-JONAHLIAS IN THE SAME FIC?????? EVIL… I’m so so so fucking here for it, oh my God, Jonah with an amplifying anxiety disorder, THE PRICE OF IMMORTALITY… too bad the Eye doesn’t let you see the future, Jonah, lmao… the line “immortality just made his anxiety turn nuclear” is SEARED into my brain now, I am NOT accepting canon to contradict this ever again. I’ve always wondered how Jonah’s neuroses might have worsened in two entire fucking CENTURIES and I love the way you wrote it. I am fucking. Losing my mind.

There’s so many other things I could comment on, like. The brief but glorious Jonah-grinding-himself-off-on-Barnabas’-thigh shenanigans. Was incredibly hot, and Mordechai’s poor fragile heart breaking, and Barnabas telling Isabel that it’s fine to call him Barny…….. I’m hhhhhhhhHHHH fuck, fuck, fuck. I’m just!! I am incomprehensible!!! Everyone told me this fic was amazing but it’s fucking amazing, Del, what the hell. I’m never gonna be the same after this. The end was SHOCKINGLY sweet and I have WHIPLASH.

………… So, now that I’ve made you read a novel. Hah. Sorry. My point is. I loved every bit of this. It deserved heaps more praise but my eyes are starting to cross. Thx for sharing :’) 

Love,

Tony xx

TONY. TONY THIS MEANS EVERYTHING TO ME. FIRSTLY I’M SO GLAD YOU LIKED THIS. SECOND OF ALL, THANKS TO YOU I’LL BE SCREAMING FROM THE ROOFTOPS FOREVER HAVE YOU ANY IDEA HOW THIS REVIEW HAS AFFECTED ME? IT’S THE BEST FEEDBACK I’VE EVER RECIEVED IN MY LIFE I FEEL LIKE A FIRSTGRADER GETTING THEIR FIRST GOLD STAR I FEEL ON TOP OF THE WORLD LIKE I COULD THROW THE JEWEL OF THE SEA OFF THE SHIP AND LEAN OVER THE RAILINGS BECAUSE YOUR ARMS ARE AROUND ME TONY IT’S BEEN MONTHS AND THIS REVIEW HAS BEEN A FIREPLACE KEEPING ME WARM THROUGH THE WINTER MONTHS I LOVE YOU DEARLY FOR THIS YOU ARE AN ABSOLUTE CHAMPION IF YOU WERE IN FRONT OF ME RIGHT NOW I WOULD FRENCH KISS YOU WITHOUT HESISTATION UNTIL THE BOTH OF US HAVE RUN OUT OF AIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCKING BLESS YOU TONY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

[toziers]

how about a reddie barn party?

“a barn party?”

“yeah.”

“well what is it?”

mike looks at stan. stan looks at bill. bill, wide-eyed, looks back and forth between the two of them. 

“it’s… a party. in a barn.” stan speaks slowly, though the corner of his mouth twitches like he’s trying desperately not to smile. 

“well i nuh-know that,” bill says in exasperation, and mike lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding and laughs, relieved. he knows bill is smart, he knows—the good grades and power essays will prove it—but sometimes bill’s brain cells took vacations. sometimes bill would write the coolest shit in creative writing class: the kinda shit that mike and bev and richie (so, by proxy, eddie as well) liked to read. horror stories, like the slasher films the losers stayed up to watch (ben and stan preferred anything but horror), though bill has a habit of adding corny romantic subplots that appealed more to ben than anyone else. bill would write those, would blow the whole loser’s club away with those, and then turn around and introduce himself as dilliam benbrough. 

his braincells took vacations, but they always came back. 

“i meant what is it fuh-for?” 

mike shrugs. “for fun.”

“why, do you have other plans that day, bill?” stan crosses his arms, and bill grins. 

“i’m in. on wuh-one condition.” 

* * *

“are you kidding me?” eddie scowls. “cowboy attire mandatory?”

“i don’t know why you’re complaining, eds; it’s your fantasy come true. i have two words for you, bro.” richie strikes a pose and the sound of his hand slapping against his thigh is too loud in the small space of the clubhouse. “assless. chaps.”

“take it back, bill, please.” eddie looks at bill helplessly, but bill’s too busy flipping through a Sears catalogue to see it. 

“shuh-should i get classic brown leather style boots? or should i g-go for a buh-bold black instead?” 

bev leans over his shoulder and points to an image on the sheet, her nail polish still wet. “these. they’ll match that plaid you got at the thrifty mart today.” 

eddie turns to mike, eyes desperate, but mike just shrugs. 

“i’ve been looking for a reason to wear my cowboy hat. sorry eddie.” 

richie slaps his thigh again and raises his eyebrows suggestively at eddie. “c’mon cowboy. saddle up, eddie, we’re goin’ full gay cowboy. wanna share a tent with m—.” 

eddie, red with fury (and flushed with embarrassment) punches richie’s shoulder. richie cackles, and cackles, until eddie’s pout twists like he’s holding back his own giggles; until stan turns to mike with a flat look and asks if they can be uninvited. 

“we need eight to square dance, stan.” 

eddie stops mid-tousle with richie and squawks. “we have to dance?” 

bill looks up from his magazine and sighs. “it’s a barn party eddie.” 

eddie flips him off, and this time they all laugh. 

* * *

“oh my god.” 

“wow.”

“holy shit, benny boy!” richie puts his hands on his hips and slowly turns in a circle, surveying the empty barn. “you out-fuckin’-did yourself, now!” 

“richie tozier!” calls a warning voice from the corner, and jessica hanlon gives him the stink eye from thirty feet away. “you watch your mouth while i’m around.”

richie holds up an apologetic hand, though his mouth quivers with the shadow of a smile. “you got it, mrs. h!” 

“nice, richie,” bev smirks. she turns to ben. “seriously ben, this place looks incredible.”

the lights were the hardest part: stringing them up in the rafters, wrapping them around the old wood and across the walls… ben had suffered his share of splinters and spider encounters. it’s a big barn too, and ben’s hands were sweaty from the early june heatwaves (and nerves from the spider encounters). but he’d managed, with the help of mike and his uncle, and now the whole barn was strung with fairy lights and chinese lanterns. 

“it’s dreamy,” bev says, looking ben in the eye as she does. “romantic.” 

ben goes as crimson as the barn and looks at his feet.

“thanks bev.” 

“are you guys gonna’ help set-up or just stand there like raisins on a celery stick?” jessica stands behind the group now, a sheen of sweat on her forehead. “your poor friend is struggling over there and you all are looking at the lights like a bunch of moths.” 

mike turns to where bill’s currently putting up the big banner he and bev painted. well, trying to put up the banner. actually, struggling is really the word he’s looking for. every time bill would get one side taped up he’d walk to the other, but just as he’d get that corner taped down the first side would fall again. mike bites his lip and tries not to smile too wide. 

they all stand there for another few seconds, watching bill continue to struggle, before mike shakes his head and jogs over to help. 

“oh!” bill says as mike pressed his palm to the paper to keep it up as bill fought with the tape dispenser. “th-thanks, mikey.” 

“no problem, bill.” mike watches bill attempt to rip the tape with his teeth. “are you going to the barn party with anyone?”

bill pauses, looks up at mike with the strip of tape still in his mouth. “uhh. the rest of yuh-you guys?”

“i meant as a date.” mike’s face is perfectly calm, but the cage of his rib bones shakes noisily with the thumping of his heart. “are you, you know, going with anyone?”

bill starts fighting with the tape again. “uh, n-no.”

“do you want to go with me?”

bill manages to rip off the tape he needs, and finally secures the poster. mike steps back cautiously from the wall, just in case it decides to fall again. nothing moves. mike looks back to bill, who still hasn’t answered. 

“yes. yuh-yeah.” bill smiles, a soft thing, and nods. “that’d be awesome, mikey.” 

“cool,” mike says, feeling very, very cool. “very cool.” 

* * * 

“whoa, eds, slow down—eddie, damn, what’re you running for?” richie’s keeping up pretty easily with his long legs and therefore long strides, but eddie’s practically jogging at this point and soon richie’s going to have to do the same. “what’s goin’ on, cowboy?”

“don’t cowboy me,” eddie grumbles, his boots making a little click click with every step as the fake spurs tapped against the sidewalk. 

richie stops. “eds, are you mad at me?” eddie’s still walking, albeit a little slower now. “eddie.”

“i’m not mad!” eddie says, madly, though he stops walking too. “i’m just. i’m. ugh!” eddie makes a little noise of frustration and richie tries desperately not to feel so fucking fond about it. “why didn’t you ask me to go with you to the barn party?”

if richie wasn’t already frozen to the spot, that would’ve knocked him out cold. “wh… what? whaddya mean? i’m here, with you, right— “

“but you didn’t ask. you just showed up unannounced like you always do.” 

“well yeah that’s just how it is—”

“but why didn’t you ask?” eddie turns, sparks of red on high cheekbones turned orange in the lamplight. he looks like a puppy, ears turned down and big brown eyes hiding sadness under the brow of anger that covered it. the pieces clicked together in richie’s head. 

“oh. ohhh. i get it.” richie shoves his hands in his pockets. “you wanted to be romanced.” 

“that is not what i said.” 

richie takes a few steps forward. “you wanted me to get down on one knee and lend you my kerchief as an invite to the debutante ball.” richie, playing up the western twang he’s taken on, over-pronounces every syllable in debutante. eddie scoffs to hide the beginning of a laugh. 

“shut up richie, i was just saying—“

“well, mistah edward j. kaspbrak— 

“don’t call me that.”

“— would you do me the honor of bein’ my pardner—“

“i hate you.”

“and accompanyin’ me to the hanlon barn party so i don’t haf’ta ride solo tonight?”

richie’s got his hand cupped under eddie’s chin by now, and the other arm curled loosely around eddie’s waist. in the early twilight glow, richie’s eyes shine with amusement and something else; something that’s always wrapped in every glance sent eddie’s way. love, probably, though eddie’s still scared to say it and richie’s no better. sometimes richie knows he’s in love but he also knows he was in love last year, and the year before, and the year before that one, and every year that goes by richie’s love feels deeper and stronger and real-er. richie used to think love was a peak at the top of a mountain of feelings but being with eddie has him thinking that maybe it isn’t, that maybe love is just a mountain and richie never wants to stop climbing. 

“yes, asshole, of course i want to go to the barn party with you.” eddie’s not even trying to look angry anymore. richie wants to kiss him, and he goes to do so, but the oversized rims of their cowboy hats bump together and it makes them both laugh. 

“gay cowboys sure have it rough, huh?” richie asks. “let’s try that again.” then he tilts his hat back, leans down, and kisses Eddie properly. 

* * *

the lights looked good in the day, but they look downright magical in the dark of night. there’s still a purple tint to the sky, leftover from the stretched out sunset, and though there’s no cracks in the roof to see the stars through, they cast a foggy glow on the grass outside. 

the music is loud, but not too loud, and cheerful, but not overtly so. dancing music, is what it is, and most people are inside making the most out of it. stan’s in there with patty, mike knows—he’d seen them spinning circles around everyone else. mike knows for a fact stan doesn’t take dancing lessons, but the way he and patty swing and dance with such ease and grace makes you think it was practiced. mike just thinks that true love shows in the way you move together. you can always see it in the way people dance. it’s about… well, richie and eddie have it too, and richie’s got two left feet and a tragic lack of the “being able to take things seriously” bone. 

it’s in the way they look at each other, though, the way eddie’s face pulls into a joyous adoration when richie spins him around the room obnoxiously even though he’s telling richie to put me down, put me down! it’s in the way bev brushes her fingers against ben’s when he hands her a cup of punch, and the way ben’s knee lingers when bev’s knee rests against his where they sit on the bench; like every touch is infinite, and worth every second. it’s in the way stan holds patty as they dance, like she’s something to be held, and the way patty holds him just the same. 

fuck, mike knows he’s only eighteen, but he knows what love, true love, looks like. 

“the p-party is inside,” bill says. an adjacent thought to mike’s last, suddenly here before him: bill, in all his plaid and leather fringe glory. mike’s heart, a racehorse poised at the startling line, takes off.

“i needed a break from the line dancing. your mom is kicking my ass.” it’s true. ms. denbrough sure knows how to country-shake it. 

“she was muh-more excited for this than i was,” bill jokes, and then walks the rest of the way from the barn to the edge of the field where mike is standing. 

“you look good.” it’s a bit sudden, maybe, but that thought evaporates when bill lights up with a shy smile. “the cowboy look suits you.” 

“thuh-thanks, mikey.” bill’s hand twitches, like he’s going to reach out, but it stays at his side. “your shirt. it’s a g-good shirt.” 

nice one, denbrough. bill makes a face. 

“i mean yuh-you look strong it it. i mean, handsome. and strong, tuh-too.” bill’s bright pink, and mike couldn’t think him any cuter. “yuh-you know what i mean.”

“i wear this shirt all the time,” mike says, just to see if bill will flush darker. he does.

“yuh-yeah, i know.” 

mike’s eyes flick to the barn and back. out here, the music is muffled, but mike can still tell hear andy williams crooning his familiar tune from the speakers inside. 

“do you want to dance with me, bill?” 

bill’s hand twitches again. “out here?” 

mike nods. bill nods, and mike bets his heart is knocking against his ribs just as hard as the one in mike’s chest. mike offers his hand, and bill takes it, and the next moment mike’s got bill denbrough against his chest as they sway to the easy beat of moon river.

it’s in the way bill steps on my feet, mike thinks. it’s in the way he apologizes every time, even when i just laugh and promise him it’s okay. it’s in the way he keeps apologizing, cheeks flushed and hands curled around mike’s arms, until mike kisses him quiet. 

it’s in the way that mike’s only eighteen, but he knows what love, true love, feels like. 

[bladekindeyewear]

HS^2 bloggin’ upd8 2020-01-17

Alright, morningblogging yesterday’s 2020-01-17 upd8 to Homestuck^2 let’s go!  Spoiler-free again.  I kinda don’t want even the next chapter names image-spoiled above the cut anymore so I’m going to have to figure out WHAT to put above the cut in these liveblog posts for visual reinforcement... a unique silly icon?  Going back once I’m done with the upd8 and posting something non-spoilery but weird-looking out of context?

Eh, can’t be assed.  Just know that after this I’m going to pony up for the Patreon commentary and skim it for anything plot-useful to y’all (in a separate post).  Let’s get started.

Okay, what’s next:  Any bonuses?  Oh, none!  Phew.  Unless those are coming faster too and just staggered differently, which would mean I gotta overcome my irrational pre-Homestuck-reading anxiety even MORE often.  :T

No Homestuck you don’t GET to ask how my-- ah, right.  :P

(FYI, HS^2 has been good to my emotions so far, quite a balm for the epilogues, so once I START reading I’m usually fine; but after being hurt so badly how could I possibly convince my lizard brain to trust it until it’s right in front of me?  Seriously, just hearing that the upd8 has landed messes me up a bit until I come fix it by reading w/ y’all here.)

Okay, so whose feelings?  As much as I’ve been waiting for Jade, I hope this isn’t about Jade.

> ==>

Ah fuck, we’re finally with the Pursuit Crew.  Bracing myself.  That means we get to see probably sleeping Jade ( :C ), full-swing DaveKat (approving nod), the first canon onscreen look at masculine-mode Roxy (<3), a probably pretty pissed off Kanaya (possibly either the feelings target, the one Saying How Are Your Feelings, or both), and uh... did they drag Callie along?  Or leave her back there with her meta freakout?  Probably left her back there, but... hm.

Let me turn up the brightness on this screen to sear these next pages into my retinas.  (Also, it feels odd to still be using a four-person “==>” for these, although if Jade is still asleep the numbers might fit on both ends... :c )

> ==>

I don’t think Dad is in the spacefaring business, so this is probably one of Jake’s shittier spaceship designs.

> ==>

...well that’s a touch disturbing.  Is that a Jade-occupied bed or are those just pillows?

Oh what the fresh fanfic’y heck is this command.

> i enter.

Okay that’s great.  I got a kick out of that.

JADE [in calliope red]: the prince’s power grows.

--but that’s not.  That explains the narrative command text, it’s alt!callie talking through a still conked-out Jade.  Please let her wake up between speak-throughs, please tell me you’ve learned that trick??  I already know you’re gonna pull an “oh she was asleep pretty much all of those THREE YEARS OF TRAVEL” thing on me and that’s hard fucking enough to deal with.

KARKAT: JESUS CHRIST!

He’s actually using the full curse correctly, huh?

...These commands.  Guess part of the puzzle is how much alt!Callie is being typically morbid and how much she might actually be wising up enough to get a kick out of this.

> the knight of blood falls.

DAVE: dude can you chill for like even a single fucking second DAVE: also are you ok

Has CallieJade chilled for even a single second this entire trip??  Is he asking just if Karkat’s okay or Jade too???

--yeah I’m overblowing things out of nervousness.  Just wait and see a bit, boots.

Alt!Callie has at least learned to be more of a smartass:

> karkat is characteristically appreciative of the alarm call.

Shirt trade Karkat, nice.  And uh, Jade’s dress sure is a... dress.  Hm.

(Did alt!Callie alchemize adjustments to did she just luck out to have a red-symbol’d Bec belt and accent leggings?  I’d prefer the former, because as much as it would be acceptable within Homestuck proper, using the transition between the epilogues and this new-author’d work to just HAPPEN to give her a fitting outfit without an excuse via providence is kind of lazy.)

KARKAT: OH, PARDON THE FUCK OUT OF ME FOR OVERREACTING A LITTLE WHEN MY GOOD FRIEND "POSSESSED JADE" BUSTS INTO MY RESPITEBLOCK AT 5 AM! KARKAT: NEXT TIME I’LL JUST PULL THE COVERS BACK AND LET HER CLIMB IN! JADE: i am uninterested in that scenario. KARKAT: GREAT! POSSESSED JADE ISN’T EVEN HORNY! HOW FUCKED UP IS THAT?

...please let that mean he’s not used to her being possessed all the time and she wakes up sometimes.  PLEASE.

DAVE: but im pretty sure i locked that door JADE: i unlocked it with my mind. DAVE: fuck KARKAT: FANTASTIC. JADE: the prince’s powers are growing, but so are mine.

Dave, I’m pretty sure regular-ass no-Green-Sun Space powers can flip a few lock tumblers too.  (--though, I guess from context this was a Jakeship technolock.  Confirmation on the ship’s bad taste in design.  --I think I’m foggily remembering it said in the Epilogues that they took one of Jake’s ships just like Dirk did, too... man, being depressed so much by the Epilogues sure took a lot out of my ability to recall them decently.)

KARKAT: LIKE YOU DON’T FLOAT AROUND LIKE A CREEPY PIECE OF SHIT ALL DAY AS IT IS?

God DAMN IT she’s been asleep and possessed the whole fucking time.

> sleep is abandoned, coffee sought.

More obligatory DaveKat being cute, somehow only emphasized by the embarrassing glowing-with-power observer who doesn’t really get any of it.

Ah, here we go:

> the rogue is also awake.

Oh huh.  Cool!

Hero outfit, understated...  her his choice of heart-shades color-coded to stand out from Dave more to avoid further mistaken identity cases.  Works well!  (Holy shit I only JUST remembered at the end to go back and correctly gender Roxy as him, that was close. I blame the epilogues for a lack of visual reinforcement; I shouldn’t have as much trouble soon enough.  Seriously, I don’t remember ANYTHING without visual reinforcement, I think that’s why I remember so much of Homestuck proper so clearly.)

KARKAT: OH SHIT, THERE SHE IS! I DIDN’T EVEN HEAR HER FOLLOW US! ROXY: sometimes a girls just got to get her drift on i guess ROXY: it be like that

ilu roxy.

I missed Roxy so much, you guys.  I need more of him remarking on all this crazy shit if I’m gonna stay sane though all this.  (And I need more of him and AWAKE JADE kicking ass independently or together if I’m going to continue to believe there’s justice in the world.)

> ==>

We rarely saw Rose drinking anything but the rare coffee in canon, but I think Kanaya would have gotten her plenty into tea, yes.  Or at the very least, wanting the aesthetic of drinking tea with Kanaya would have gotten Rose into tea even if it never crossed Kanaya’s mind to try the stuff.

ROXY: well i mean who knows what she drinks now ROXY: dirk probs tossed the coffee machine out the space window right away ROXY: dude doesnt "believe" in "substances" > the prince is contemplated for a moment in silence.

FUCK, Dirk can see the narrative all the way out here???  No wonder alt!Callie’s forced to have possession turned on 24/7.  That’s fucking disappointing.  How the hell are we going to get any proper Jade time with THAT hanging over our heads?  She’d only be able to do anything when Dirk’s knocked out, and maybe not even THEN!

I was virtually promised more of actual non-asleep Jade getting shit done in HS^2.  Now there’s an even longer wait on it than I expected.  This sucks.

(EDIT: BOY did I misread that link line. Thinking “is contemplated” meant is sitting contemplating, when it meant "is being contemplated by everyone here". That was dumb of me.)

*clicks that next link*

Oh my goodness, Roxy joined the Bird Hair Crew.  It makes him look like a fucking asshole but I kind of love it.

KARKAT: IS THERE MILK?

I can’t believe Karkat is okay with drinking milk.  --yes, culturally Trolls are more comfortable with animal excretions than we are, but you would’ve thought years of railing against Equius would have purged any tolerance the idea of milk from his psyche.

I guess Dave introduced him to cereal, and it was all over from there.

DAVE: this is more like a castle DAVE: a castle of idk DAVE: twenty something ennui

Sounds like a relatable mood.  Especially considering Dirk probably decided to conquer reality out of almost nothing but twenty-something ennui.

Alright.  You aren’t going to turn Kanaya into an alcoholic or anything on us are you?

> the knight of time seeks a sylph...

--this is the shittiest shipboard starship aesthetic.

> ...and finds her, momentarily.

WOW that looks fucking depressed.  :(

> ==>

...okay you know what?  Never mind.  That outfit has wrapped straight back around into Trying Too Hard and is now hilarious.

DAVE: you ever feel like our whole lives are eventually gonna end up like this DAVE: just blasting through space on a sweeps long journey to ""somewhere"" chasing after or running from some vague enemy thats sometimes a god modded pet dog and sometimes your dad DAVE: without the faintest fucking idea of whats going to happen when we get there DAVE: thats a little specific but you know what i mean

Why do you think the epilogues upset us so much?  We thought we’d won free of that bullshit.

> ==>

Oh jesus christ that’s the most depressingly sad I’ve ever seen Kanaya drawn.  :C

--Karkat got you to watch Serendipity?  That’s amazing, Dave.

KANAYA: You Arent Reminding Me Of Her As I Rarely Think Of Anything Else KANAYA: I Close My Eyes And I See Her KANAYA: I Keep Them Open And I See Her

Fuck.

Y’know how little showing these two in love and actually HAPPY together we’ve seen in this entire comic and its subworks?  Despite them having spent at least a few happy years together we only saw in tiny screenclips?  And how Candy alluded super hard that they most likely couldn’t get that in this real timeline where shit’s going down?

Seriously, FUCK.  You could at least pretend to give us some hope, here.

Oh no, don’t ask for the nursery story, Dave.  Unless it turns out to be a funny one or a Rose twist on an old story or something.  Which it probably is, I should stop worrying.

> ==>

KANAYA: Oh Its A Wriggler Story About A Young Prince And The Beloved Flower He Loved And Lost DAVE: flower DAVE: like a plant KANAYA: Its A Fairytale Dave DAVE: right KANAYA: A Singular Wild Rose He Failed To Cherish When He Had Her KANAYA: And His Journey Of Discovering What She Meant To Him All Along KANAYA: Culminating In A New Quest To Find Her And Win Her Back

Dirk you PIECE OF SHIT did you rewrite the narrative of the fucking STORIES SHE TOLD CHILDREN?!??  Does the fact that alt!Callie is only in the present mean he can rewrite ANY past event we didn’t literally SEE???  FUCK you.  Seriously fuck all of this.

Please tell me she was kidding just then, or realizes there’s fucking something wrong with what she’s saying and getting angry or.

(EDIT: shoutyourporpoise replied: "Hey, idk If you picked up on this, but the 'nursery story' Rose told to the wigglers is just The Little Prince, which is maybe a BIT early for them to read, but I don't think that's a case of Dirk changing the narrative; its just Rose being Too Adult as usual." Oh, damn, I didn't even CATCH that it was that story. That makes all of this a lot more forgivable, even if pretty unforgivably leaning into the fiction that Dirk used to brainwash and kidnap her. Maybe that's exactly why it worked -- fiction, a story so blazed into the public consciousness? Hm. Thanks, shoutyourporpoise.)

KANAYA: But In A Way I Feel As If It Is the Greater Universe Trying To Tell Me Something

Mother fuck I’m even going to have to see our protagonists warped by Dirk when they’re ostensibly FULLY SHIELDED aren’t I.  There’s only so much of that I would be able to take, you know.

KANAYA: It May Simply Stem From My Longing To See Her Again And How Much Is Indicative Of Something More Sinister KANAYA: She Is A Goddess Of Light And The Only Of Her Kind We Know Is Alive After All KANAYA: Maybe Shes Wrested Dominion Of The Entire Concept In All Its Appearances Within This Frame Of Reference

Hm.  Well, it being a product of Rose’s ascension instead of Dirk’s is possibly a more charitable take, with Ultimate Rose projecting the delusion enforced on her backward, visible to past Rose’s Sight when she isn’t paying attention and thus paving the way for Dirk to paradoxically exploit that “ideal” as something Lighty and Important and “Perfect”.  I still don’t fucking like it though.

> ==>

DAVE: sorry i know you say you got your badass monster powers but kanaya you look tired as hell DAVE: not that im tryna psyche you or whatever but youre waxing poetic in the dark which i guess is maybe on brand but still

Yyyep.

DAVE: unless terezi is lurking in the vents somewhere and now that i bring that up its actually not out of the question so im kind of gonna be thinking about that one for a while

Pffff.

DAVE: youre the only person i know whos still basically the same as when i met you

--Which is kind of going to have to change, right?  She’s got some other cosmic purpose ready to change her a little more than she changed pre-human-troll-meetup, you’d think.

> ==>

Cute as hell.

> ==>

KANAYA: How Are Your Feelings

There’s the title drop.  I’d think Dave’s doing pretty well, considering?  Still fucked over by Dirk betraying and tricking Rose away who he’s been close with all his life, but.

> ==>

DAVE: except sometimes your best friend disappears and your other best friend goes into a ghost coma and your third best friend fucks off to space with your dad DAVE: the dude youve spent the last 7 years convincing yourself isnt an egomaniacal anime villain DAVE: and who isnt actually lying in wait to completely decimate your life and your emotions and shit

Ah... yeah.  A little worse than my casual list, huh?  Forgot that Jade vanishing into a possession-coma for THREE FUCKING YEARS is going to be hard on people inside the comic too, fuck.

DAVE: maybe it was naive to think that a bunch of twenty something trauma victims could run a society

I was honestly surprised they TRIED to run society at all.  Jasp even just highlighted a big reason why not in the bonuses.

DAVE: cool how earth c existed for centuries then we show up and manage to ruin society in seven fucking years

:(

Well, the trolls got THEIR lesson on why they didn’t deserve to rule over their new universe like gods; I guess some of y’all needed that lesson too?

DAVE: every serious conversation i have inevitably falls apart into riffing on a casual acquaintances ass

True.

Dammit, Dave didn’t feel like he could just be Some Guy even on Earth C.  :(

> ==>

...don’t think I’ve forgotten that nursery story, though.  I don’t want to think that it was something that ACTUALLY past happened, especially not without manipulation.  Like maybe past Rose was foreseeing the false purpose that Dirk wrote for her or the like, a cooperative misunderstanding between the two instead of Dirk or Rose literally reaching back in time.

> meanwhile...

KARKAT: WAIT, WHY THE FUCK AM I EVEN ASKING? HE’S OBVIOUSLY NOT FINE. KARKAT: ARE ANY OF US? ARE YOU? ROXY: not rly KARKAT: EXACTLY.

:(

--Oh right.  I remember that Callie and Roxy were going reasonably steady in Meat even though it was only alluded to, she didn’t freak out and stay awol or what have you.  That’s good to remember.  But it means Roxy deliberately left her behind to go on this dangerous quest, for years.  :C

KARKAT: KANAYA BARELY EVEN TALKS, CALLIOPE WON’T LEAVE THEIR CABIN, JADE JUST FLOATS AROUND LIKE A CREEPY BALLOON THAT’S MOSTLY MADE OF HAIR.

Oh, SHIT.  I should have read one line further.  They DID bring her.  Alt!Callie being here too must really FUCK with her.  ...maybe she can actually learn to accept that alternate way her life might’ve played out, though?

KARKAT: THE REALLY FUCKED UP THING IS I MIGHT BE THE MOST OKAY OUT OF ALL OF US, WHICH IS HOW YOU KNOW SHIT HAS REALLY GONE GLOBES UP.

Quite true.

ROXY: ur kinda an intense dude anybody ever tell u that KARKAT: NO.

Pff.

> ==>

KARKAT: AGAINST PRETTY MUCH ALL ODDS, AND DESPITE ME NOT DESERVING ANY OF IT, I ENDED UP GETTING PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING I WANTED. KARKAT: OVER AND OVER AGAIN. KARKAT: SOMETIMES IT ALMOST FEELS LIKE WHATEVER SLATHERING MONSTROSITY OF A COSMIC HELLBEAST THAT PUT ALL THIS SHIT INTO MOTION...ACTUALLY LIKES ME?

Well, if you want to blame Lord English for instance... we never saw Caliborn and Karkat interact much, but the parallels between the two were drawn so severely that Caliborn was basically the idealized, multiverse-threatening Ultimate Kismesis that he’d always dreamed of.  And operated against him without him even ever quite realizing it.

If a level of “respect” went from Caliborn to Karkat, too, from his Lord-Englishy vision nigh-omnipresent, then this outcome isn’t very surprising at all.

> ==>

(I don’t quite feel I get why Roxy shifted to this exasperated-Dave expression, but I get logically that he’d been waiting for Karkat to make a breakfast choice... Homestuck proper rarely pulled a “last line said corresponds to next-panel’s expression” without either leaving the conversation blank or having the NEXT lines of the conversation reinforce it, to prevent this inelegant misunderstanding.  Andrew was really damned talented in getting his point across visually, in that regard.  Just like, that careful visual intent delivery.)

Alright, I guess that’s it for this short upd8!  Meeting the pursuit crew was both more and less difficult than I expected.  Hopefully I get desensitized a bit as the characters continue to feel semi-almost-sorta-fine.

I have NO idea how this group is gonna work as a proper crew when we get to whatever weird other-players’ session this shit is going down in, though.

[green-eyeddragonfanfiction]

Without You

Pairing: Thor x Reader Summary: A mysterious stranger runs into you in the middle of a storm and you can’t help but be smitten with him the moment you lay eyes on him. Even after the initial sparks between you, it seems like the feelings weren’t returned. Little did you know, the man was head over heels for you, too. Warnings: Language Word Count: ~4,600 A/N: This has been reposted after my original was deleted in the Great Tumblr Purge 2k18.

You stepped out of the bakery with a small paper bag clutched in your hand and squinted up at the sky. Had it been this cloudy when you’d walked in ten minutes ago? You didn’t think so.

As if aware of your thoughts and trying to prove a point, the sky lit up with a crack of lightning, searing your retinas and leaving the image of the outline of the buildings ingrained behind your eyelids. The roll of thunder shook your bones and you grimaced as the sky opened up and the rain began to fall in fat droplets that promised to soak you through your clothes the moment you stepped out from under the bakery’s awning. It’d been so nice out when you’d left the house you hadn’t brought a jacket, much less an umbrella.

You took a deep breath, steeled yourself, ducked, and began running down the sidewalk for home, bag of pastries stuffed safely under your shirt.

You made it maybe half a block before you ran face-first into someone you hadn’t been able to see in the downpour. You yelped as you were sent stumbling backwards. Your heel caught on the uneven sidewalk and, with a shriek of surprise, you fell backwards, straight onto your ass.

You swore loudly. That had really fucking hurt.

And now you were definitely soaked to the bone.

“My apologies, that was horribly clumsy of me,” came a deep voice from in front of you.

You had half a mind to cuss this person out, but the words died in your throat when you finally looked up at him.

“Holy shit, did I die?” you breathed, staring wide-eyed up at the man. His hand was held out for you to take, but you didn’t even see it. You were too focused on his face. He had to be an angel.

He frowned slightly, confused. “I don’t believe so,” he said with a tentative smile. You couldn’t place the accent, but you knew one thing for sure. It was nice. His voice was nice. His mouth was nice. No, his face. No… his entire him was nice. Were you drooling? You were probably drooling.

“Oh, that’s… that’s good,” you said distractedly.

He smiled at you and you felt your heart skip a beat. “As comfortable as I’m sure the pedestrian pathway is, surely you don’t plan on staying there all evening?” he asked, putting his hand out a few more inches towards you.

“Oh, uh, right,” you said, feeling heat rush to your cheeks as you grabbed his hand. It was huge, like the rest of him. He helped you to your feet as though you weighed nothing. “Thank you,” you mumbled, embarrassed.

“You have nothing to thank me for. It was I who knocked you down, after all,” he said, ducking down slightly so he could catch your eye.

You looked up, which happened to be a mistake, because one look at him sent your brain into overdrive and your heart threatened to beat out of your chest.

“I should, uh- I’m going to-” you took a step backwards (thankfully not catching your foot on the lip of the sidewalk again)-

And directly onto your bag of pastries.

You looked down at your foot, eyes widening in horror.

“My danishes!” you yelped, horrified. You removed your foot quickly and picked it up but it was clear from a single peek inside they were dead. Gone. Squished. Unsalvageable.

The man leaned forward slightly so he could take a peek into the bag. “Baked goods?” he asked, brows slightly furrowed.

You nodded glumly and tossed the bag into the nearby trash bin. “I had really been looking forward to those, too…”

He frowned and looked over your shoulder. “You procured them from that shop there, yes?” he asked, pointing to the bakery.

You nodded. “Yeah, they make the best danishes and gourmet bagels in the area. I can only treat myself once a week, so-”

“Allow me to replace the baked goods I had a hand in destroying,” he said, smiling radiantly at you. His big eyes (one brown, one blue, which was stunning) were practically pleading with you and you found yourself nodding without realizing it. “Wonderful. Lead the way,” he said, sweeping one of those huge arms out to gesture down the street. With a start you suddenly realized what you’d agreed to. You nodded again dumbly and began walking back towards the bakery. You supposed if it was an excuse to be around this man for even a moment longer it was worth it.

You didn’t see the way he was looking at you when your back was turned, eyes soft and curious, smile tugging up the corners of his mouth. You were so frazzled by the sudden turn of events that it didn’t occur to you that the rain had stopped the moment he looked at you until much, much later.

The bell tinkled above the door and the girl at the counter, Angela, looked up from behind the counter.

“I told you you shouldn’t have gone out in that mess! Just look at-” she froze as the man walked in behind you. Her jaw practically hit the floor. “-You,” she breathed, giving the man a not-so-subtle once over before nodding in approval.

You frowned, then quickly coached your face back into something resembling neutrality. Angela could look at him if she wanted to. You didn’t even know this guy’s name, much less have a reason to be jealous.

“I, uh, actually dropped the danishes and-”

“We’d like to procure some replacements,” the man said with a winning smile.

Angela almost swooned.

“Comin’ right up!” she said, moving to hastily grab the two nicest-looking danishes from the glass display case in front of her.

You followed the man to the counter in a daze, wondering if you were, perhaps, dreaming. It made more sense than a random [very, very hot] stranger buying pastries for you.

Angela rang them up and told him the total, her eyes glued to his face (though they occasionally wandered down to his arms). He frowned and suddenly began patting down every available pocket on his person, ruffling up his short sleeved shirt and jeans.

“Ah!” he said victoriously as he pulled out a credit card. Your eyes nearly bugged out of your head. It was a JP Morgan Chase Palladium Visa. “My friend told me you use that for currency here, yes? He told me to use it whenever I wanted to buy something.”

Angela’s eyes fell to the card he was handing her and she made a tiny squeak and looked like she was about to pass out for a second. The man looked confused, but Angela was nodding. “Yeah, that’ll work,” she said faintly.

You stared open-mouthed at the man in front of you. His accent and words were definitely odd. He was dressed kind of like a homeless man, if you were being honest (but a very hot homeless man). He was kind and offered to pay for the things you dropped after you ran into him. And he had a credit card only millionaires and billionaires had.

To top it all off he nearly walked away without getting the card back from Angela, who dashed around the counter and handed it off to him like she would have handed someone a baby.

You followed him out of the bakery, nearly sighing in relief when the sun began warming up your rain-soaked clothes. You turned to look at the mystery man, smile tugging at your lips. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do this. I didn’t even catch your name,” you said, dreading the fact that your time with the man was coming to an end.

“Thor,” he said, smiling down at you. “And what may I call you?” he asked quietly.

“(Y/N),” you said, trying your darndest to ignore the heat rising to your cheeks.

“A beautiful name. It truly fits you,” he said, smiling so sincerely at you that you had to look away. It was too radiant.

He hadn’t made any moves to leave, however, so you somehow plucked up the courage to ask, “would you like to walk me home, Thor?”

He nodded immediately. “Yes, I think I’d like that very much.”

You smiled at him, but quickly looked away, too embarrassed at how excited you were. Thor didn’t seem to mind and quickly fell in step beside you as you walked towards your home. You may have taken the longer way, but you wouldn’t ever admit it.

While you walked you offered him one of the danishes as a thank you. He only took it after you assured him it was alright with you. You chatted happily away between mouthfuls of danish. Apparently he wasn’t from around here, which you’d guessed pretty quickly. The odd thing was that he seemed to be enjoying your time together as much as you were.

Soon, much too soon, you were in front of your apartment building. It took all of your paper-thin self control to turn to say goodbye, smile plastered on your face.

You opened your mouth to say thank you, but froze when he lifted his hand up and slowly brushed his thumb across a spot just below your bottom lip. His other fingers kept your chin tilted up just enough that you were forced to stare right into his eyes… which were darting between your lips and your eyes.

The moment dragged on for what felt like a small eternity, neither of you moving, before he pulled his hand away. A small dollop of cherry filling dyed the tip of his thumb red and you watched, attention focused completely on it, as his tongue darted out and licked off the sweet, sticky treat.

Were you having a heart attack? You were sure you were having a heart attack. No, wait, it was just beating really fast.

“Is something the matter?” he asked, looking down at you with concern.

You snapped out of your daze and shook your head quickly. “No, no! Nothing. I just- it was really nice spending time with you, Thor,” you admitted quietly, unable to meet his gaze.

“Nice enough that you would be willing to do it again?” he asked, a hint of hope slipping into his voice.

Your head snapped up so quickly you nearly gave yourself whiplash. You looked for any signs of deceit or trickery but, finding none, you nodded quickly, a hopeful smile creeping onto your face. “Yeah, I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”

Thor’s answering smile was brighter than the sun. He took your hand gently in his and brought it to your lips, ghosting a kiss over your knuckles.

You were flying so high over that little brief contact that it wasn’t until you were back in your room, stripping off your wet clothes, that you realized he hadn’t asked for your number.

The rest of the night passed by in a stupor.

You’d been played. Thor didn’t want to see you again. He just wanted to be rid of a clingy hanger-on after he’d had his fun.

   Originally posted by inluvwithloki

Thor stepped onto the Observatory. Heimdall twisted Hofund and the Bifost turned off.

“Did you have a pleasant visit to earth, my king?” Heimdall asked, giving Thor a knowing smile.

Thor smiled at the other man. “Keep an eye on her, would you please? I’d like to visit her again soon.”

“Of course, my king,” Heimdall said with a kind smile and nod of his head. “You should know, Hela and Loki redesigned the throne room again.”

Thor sighed but smile fondly. “Of course they did. Did Hela’s defense of the realms from the remnants of Thanos’ forces go well?”

Heimdall nodded solemnly. “It’s good that that man attacked when he did. He did the one thing he shouldn’t have: united you and your siblings against a common enemy.”

Thor laughed gently at that. “Well I suppose we should be grateful and not dwell on what could have been.”

Heimdall inclined his head, grin sparkling in the light of the Bifrost. “Agreed. Go well, my king.”

“And you, Heimdall.”

You found yourself wishing for thunder and lightning and rain. Even though it seemed fairly obvious that Thor wanted nothing to do with you you kept wishing you could run into him by chance again, just like that first time in the pouring rain.

Days passed too slowly and too quickly at the same time. Your mind kept going back to what you could have done differently. What you could have possibly done to make him not like you. How you could have changed what happened. In a word, you were miserable.

“Leaving again so soon, little brother?” Hela asked, appearing out of the shadows. He was so used to Loki doing it that it didn’t phase him in the least.

“I have some business to take care of on Midgard,” Thor said as he continued to change into his Midgardian clothes. Hela pointedly looked away, but Loki had no such issues.

“You’ve barely been back a month!” he complained, appearing out of thin air in a greenish light. His grey eyes were glaring furious holes into his brother. “We just secured a lasting peace with the Frost Giants!” Hela rolled her eyes at that, but her brothers ignored it.

“Yes, and I trust the two of you to keep the realms from falling to chaos for the few days I’ll be gone. I think you are more than up to the task.”

Hela and Loki stared flatly at each other. Looking at them like that Thor sometimes wondered if he wasn’t the adopted one.

“Who was in charge last time?” Thor asked, looking between the two of them.

Loki crossed his arms and glared at Thor. “It was I,” he said begrudgingly the same time Hela said, “Loki.”

Thor nodded. “It’s your turn then, sister. Send for me if the need arises, but otherwise I’ll be returning in a few days.”

Hela waved him away and sauntered out of the room. “Don’t hurry back,” she snarked.

Loki glared at her back as she went, but turned his attention back to Thor after a moment. “It’s another human girl, isn’t it?” he asked shrewdly.

“Yes,” Thor admitted, not seeing the point in hiding the truth from Loki.

Loki’s frown deepened. “You really think that wise? After Jane?”

Thor smiled a little sadly at his brother, but it cleared up a bit as he thought about you. “You didn’t see her, brother.”

Loki took one look at Thor’s face and threw his hands up in exasperation. “Fine. Do whatever you want. Just don’t expect me to pick up the pieces when it doesn’t work out!” he said testily. It was clear to both of them, though, that he’d definitely be there if you broke his heart.

It was raining again. The outside looked like what your apartment’s atmosphere felt like on the inside.

A knock on your door snapped you out of your absent Netflix-bingeing stupor. You groaned and peeled yourself off the couch, slipping on the nearest pair of only slightly dirty, worn-out sweats.

“Comin’,” you grumbled half-heartedly. If you were lucky it was just the UPS guy or something and not your neighbor coming to bother you again.

You yawned loudly as you opened the door and that’s how Thor found you, mouth opened comically wide and single arm reaching towards the ceiling.

You froze, eyes widening and mouth slamming closed with an audible click of your teeth. You wanted to sink into the floor. You looked a total mess and here Thor was, standing just outside your door, looking like he stepped straight out of a modeling magazine.

“Hello,” Thor said with a smile, as though he didn’t see how completely hideous you looked. “I hope I’m not intruding…” he said, the statement tilting up to a question at the end.

You shook your head wildly for a moment then froze, panic clear on your face. “You’re not, but- uh- please just wait here a moment,” you said before you slammed the door unceremoniously in his face. You winced as the sound reverberated against the halls of your apartment, but if you turned around and opened the door to apologize you knew you’d just shove your foot in your mouth and make it worse. You practically ran to your room and dug through your drawers and closet until you found much more sensible clothes that didn’t make you look like you went dumpster diving for fun.

You scampered back to the door and prayed Thor was still there.

He was, brows furrowed slightly as he looked at you. “Is something the matter?” he asked, eyeing you with concern.

You couldn’t help but smile up at him, even as your stomach did a flip from the nerves. “No, no! I just, uh- I didn’t want you to have to look at me in my lazy clothes,” you admitted with a slightly strained smile, hoping he’d just laugh along.

Of course, he didn’t laugh. “I don’t understand. Was your previous outfit not satisfactory?” he asked, confusion lining his features.

You chuckled nervously. “No, sweats are fine, but I don’t exactly look good in them,” and I want to look good in front of you because you’re the single most attractive person I’ve ever met and for some strange reason you’re talking to me again.

“But you looked attractive in them, just as you do now,” Thor said quietly, his odd-colored eyes sparkling as he smiled fondly down at you.

His smile must have fried your brain. “I missed you,” you blurted out. You fought the urge to slap your hand over your mouth as you felt the blood drain from your face.

Thor only smiled wider and his shoulders relaxed a margin. “I missed you, too. I brought baked goods from my home in the hopes that you might wish to share them with me,” he said, holding up the small basket you hadn’t noticed until that moment.

You knew you looked like you’d been hit by a brick wall so you quickly gathered your face back into something a little more restrained. “Oh! Thank you. Would you like to come in?” you asked, thanking your lucky stars that you’d cleaned your apartment recently.

Thor stepped inside and you wondered at how he managed to fit his broad shoulders through the doorway, but then he was right in front of you, inside your home, and all higher thinking ceased.

You closed the door and walked quickly to your tiny open plan kitchen-dining room-living room area with Thor following dutifully behind. While you busied yourself grabbing plates and napkins you found your mouth wandering of its own accord as it often did when you were flustered.

“I honestly didn’t think I’d see you again. I didn’t get your number before you left so I figured you weren’t actually that interested, but here you are-”

You turned around with the plates only to freeze when you found Thor standing directly in front of you, his brows knit together in concern.

“I do not own a cellular phone. It had not occurred to me that not asking for a way to contact you using one would be seen as a sign of disinterest. I’m sorry. I can assure you that’s not the case,” he said quietly. Your breath hitched when he slowly brought his hand up and brushed a strand of hair from your face and tucked it behind your ear.

He leaned in slowly, arms purposefully not caging you in so you could move if you wanted to. His gaze dropped to your lips for a moment before they returned to your eyes. “Tell me to stop and I will,” he murmured, so close that you could see the individual flecks of color in his eyes.

“Please don’t stop,” you choked out, leaning forward to get yourself that much closer to his lips.

It was all Thor needed to bridge the last few inches between you. His lips were on yours and you couldn’t help the tiny noise in the back of your throat. You’d been thinking about this nonstop since you met him a month ago. Deep down you’d hoped this would happen even when your mind told your heart to stop dwelling on him. Your fingers buried themselves in his hair and his huge arms wrapped themselves securely but gently around your waist, pulling you flush to his chest. His beard rasped deliciously against your soft skin, a heavenly contrast to his soft, warm lips. It was entirely too much and not enough all at the same time.

All too soon you had to break away for air, heart pounding fast in your throat, your every nerve alight.

For his part, Thor looked just as awestruck as you. “That was…” he breathed, smiling down at you.

“Amazing,” you whispered, grin lighting up your face.

“And not the last, I hope?” he asked coyly, smile turning playful.

You smiled and shook your head. “I hope not. Now… about those pastries,” you said, reaching down to twine your fingers with his.

“Oh, I’d almost forgotten,” Thor said, moving over to the basket. “These were my mother’s favorite. I confess I was never any good at making them but my brother makes them better than anyone I know.”

He handed you the confection that you absolutely didn’t have a name for. You gave him a single look of playful uncertainty before taking a careful bite. You groaned low, eyes fluttering shut. It blew your danishes right out of the water, light and fluffy and sweet, its fruit filling a flavor you couldn’t quite place, though it was citrus-y.

“This is amazing!” you said excitedly once you’d swallowed. “I’ve never had anything like it!”

Thor smiled almost shyly. “Well, I’d hope not. Asgardian fruit trees would be an invasive species on your planet.”

You nodded along happily and took another bite, though you froze with the pastry in your mouth. You pulled it out slowly, staring wide-eyed at Thor.

“Asgardian? Like the old Norse mythology, Asgard?” you asked, smiling nervously at what you hoped was a joke.

Wait, his name was Thor. Was this all some clever prank? Were you on TV? Was this the punch line??

Thor nodded, seemingly undisturbed by your reaction. “Aye, Asgard. Tis where I hail from,” he said, as though he’d said he was from the next town over.

Oh my god, you’d kissed a crazy person. Was this pastry drugged? Was he going to cut your liver out and leave you in a bathtub of ice? Leave you dead in a ditch somewhere after he carved you up with a kitchen knife?

A sudden light outside the window drew your attention. It was bright and shimmering and flickered with every color of the rainbow. Thor looked at it, too, frown creasing his brow.

“Forgive me, I do believe that’s for me,” he said, walking over to the doors of your tiny balcony.

He opened the doors and, before you could say anything, stepped up onto and over the edge.

You squeaked in surprise and ran to the balcony. Surely you’d be charged for murder when they found his body smashed to goop on the street below your apartment.

Except Thor wasn’t a pile of goop. He was floating down to the ground gracefully, shirt rustling gently with the slight breeze. You gaped open-mouthed as he touched gently to the ground and began talking with a tall, lithe, black haired woman you didn’t recognize. You couldn’t discern any of their words from this high up, but the woman’s eyes flicked up to you once or twice and the sound of Thor’s disgruntled tones drifted up to you.

Eventually their conversation ended and they took a few steps away from each other. The woman’s icy blue eyes stared up at you the entire time and you could sense the deadly aura even from this far away. You had half a mind to run back inside and lock the doors, but your legs wouldn’t move.

You nearly screamed in surprise when the light came back again, almost blinding you and sending your hair flying every which way. A second later it was gone and, where the woman had been standing a moment before, was a large geometric design burned into the cement. A similar one that you hadn’t noticed before was only a few yards away. You were so engrossed in what had just happened that you didn’t realize Thor was back until he was practically hovering in front of you.

Hovering as in floating as in flying. Not touching the ground or the railings.

“I apologize. My sister and brother were quarreling and needed my input to settle their disagreement. I’ve made them promise not to bother me while I remain here with you from this point onward.”

You could have said anything. Anything intelligent, collected, or witty. Instead, you managed to eek out, “You’re flying.”

Thor’s smile was coy. “Yes, I suppose I am. Would you like to join me?”

You shook your head quickly, the thought of flying simply terrifying you at the moment. “You’re the Thor. From the Avengers,” you whispered, pieces finally falling into place in your mind.

Thor frowned, his brows knitting together in confusion. “I thought you knew,” he said quietly.

You shook your head side to side almost violently.

Thor looked nervous now, caught between wanting to give you space and not wanting to scare you by continuing to float in front of your balcony. Giving you space won out and he stayed where he was. “Had I known you were unaware I would have said something… It explains why you didn’t fall over yourself trying to get my autograph, though,” he said, an attempt to lighten the mood. “I hope… that this will not be a problem for you. My interest in you is genuine and it wasn’t my intention to blindside you in such a manner.”

You finally got your breathing under control and attempted to get your mind settled in a similar way. “No, I- I’m an idiot for not realizing it sooner,” you said, hand wiping a path down the side of your face.

Thor drifted down a few inches so he could catch your eyes, a small smile playing on his lips. “Then you care not about this new development?”

You bit your lip for a moment before a grin worked its way onto your lips. “If this is your way of asking me if I still like you, the answer is yes,” you said, grin widening as Thor’s face lit up light a Christmas tree. “Are you going to float there all day or are you going to come back inside with me so we can finish the food you so thoughtfully brought me?” you asked, facing him as you slowly backed into your apartment, hand outstretched invitingly.

Thor looked absolutely lost on you as he landed on the balcony and took your hand gently in his, following after you as though he was incapable of doing anything else. “Whatever the lady desires,” he said quietly, looking at you so adoringly at you that you felt heat creep up into your cheeks.

“And if I desire you?” you asked, unable to look him in the eye.

Thor reached down and tilted your chin gently upwards so you were forced to look at him. “Then you’ll have me.”

[kisstheburnsaway]

When Your White Count’s Getting Higher

Original post: HERE  (also there’s this HERE (and it’s gonna get a follow-up one of these days))

Anonymous asked: You think you could do a short story about what happened to Hancock right after he took the radiation drug? (Like what do you think that felt like? Do you think it involved a lot of puking? Do you think it was before or after he became mayor? Do you think at some point Hancock thought he was gonna die?) All I've gotta say is I figure ghoulification is very unpleasant and painful as all hell.

[[Just to be clear, this is based on my own monsterpost about ghoulification from a bit ago + our talks with Bagel where we were figuring out Hancock’s timeline and figured his change “to become a better man” must’ve happened all at once. Personally, I kinda don’t see Hancock becoming mayor and THEN changing into a ghoul and people just being okay with it, especially since this process would have to take two weeks minimum. It must’ve been before he overthrew Vic, but we also know he was human when he was a drifter… so that leaves only one moment in his life when this could’ve happened.]] [[And no, I don’t think he thought he was gonna die. I think he HOPED he was gonna die.]] [[But to everything else I say: yes, yes, and YES. And “enjoy” ;)]]

[[PS. And what do you mean, ‘a short story’? What is this combination of words I’ve never seen before??]]

John brushed his blonde hair away from his face, leaning on his knees over the pill he rolled about in his hands. He wiped his tear-stained face with his sleeve. The image of Tom’s head split open on the sidewalk was still freshly seared in his mind, and John could see it every time he closed his eyes. Tom wasn’t his friend. They didn’t even like each other. But no one deserved such a fate. John remembered how he’d moved towards the body, for no reason he could think of, only to stop when one of Vic’s goons, a walking monster truck called Brett, of all names, had aimed at him with his submachine gun. “Whatcha gon’ do, McDonough?” he’d said mockingly, laughing when John had taken a step back, gritting his teeth. There really was nothing he could do, was there? Just like before. Just like always. There was nothing he could do. Or, he did everything he could. Or was it just something he was telling himself to be able to sleep at night? He stifled a sob as another wave of tears flowed down his face. He wasn’t even a man anymore. He was… next to nothing. Might as well, right? The pill was round and pretty big, a perfect sphere in all regards except for one small indentation probably marking the spot where it would start… John didn’t want to think about it. He just wanted to escape the promenade of mistakes that his life was. The image of brains on cement. The bloody body parts scattered in the ruins. He exhaled sharply and swallowed the pill before he could change his mind, washing it down with a bottle of vodka as it made an impossible amount of stops down his oesophagus. Well. It’s done. No taking it back now. All he could do now was wa… The pain began so abruptly it caught him completely unprepared. He doubled down, digging his fingers into his abdomen as it pierced through him, this debilitating power tearing at him from within. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t even scream as the pain spread to every part of his body, seemingly even to his bones… and then suddenly let go and diminished into nothing but odd discomfort in the pit of his stomach.

John pulled himself from the ground and sat back on the crate between one display and another in the Old State House storeroom. He could hear steps over his head, guards shifting places, completely unaware that he’d snuck in here just to fuck with them. Just because Vic said he wasn’t supposed to. And Vic was just two floors up, he thought to himself. Every fiber of John’s being wanted only to get his hands on a gun, go up there, and shoot that fucking bastard in the face. See HIS brains on the sidewalk. But that wasn’t going to happen, was it? He gulped what was left of the vodka all at once–and in another minute, he was on all fours giving it all back to the floor. He cursed and grabbed some tarp to clean it up. Oh, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Fuck. It was hard enough to get in here under Vic’s guards’ noses; the last thing he needed was to alert them to his presence by gurgling his guts out and screaming in pain. Yet, somehow, through the mind-clouding nausea and head-splitting headache, he knew it was only going to get worse.

While he still could stand up and move around a little, he slid some display cases in to barricade the door. The last thing he needed was to be found out by someone while… Another wave of nausea sent him to his knees. He quickly latched on to a steel bucket he found in the corner, and when he raised his head, he could see there was blood mixed in with the vomit. Fuck. He could feel it pooling in his mouth, filling it with the taste of iron and… rot? Fuck. He spat it out into the bucket. Then, fever hit. His strength was diminishing fast; soon, it was an exorbitant effort to even turn to the other side as he lay on the tarp on the floor, his knees pulled up to his chin like that was supposed to help with the cramps. Ohh, he was never going to tell another woman she was overreacting. This was karma punishing his ignorance, he was sure of it. And boy, did he deserve it on so many levels. Could he just die yet? He didn’t know how long he lay there–hours? days? weeks?–shivering, no, shaking, really, barely able to breathe, pain clawing at his body as he yearned for the end… His mind barely holding on, and yet still insanely clear. It was like living through every pain of his entire life… and surviving. If he could, he would’ve shot himself in the head right now, just to stop the pain, just to finally rid the world of himself; but also, there was something there… pulling on his consciousness like a child tugging at their mother’s skirt as his brother played nearby… something that wanted him to live. Something that stroked his head and said it would all be… just fine. But how could it? Heart pounding like crazy… Fighting for every breath… like living underwater… Water… Holy fuck, he was so thirsty… Everything was pain. Burning… Even through the haze he could feel his skin… falling off. Every move hurt more than the last, but… was he even moving? Or was he swimming? What was that?… Green skies?… A child…? What…?

When he awoke, he immediately retched out a dark, thick puddle of whatever was left of his stomach, apparently. Everything was… blurry and dark… Ugh, he still wasn’t fully there. Where was he, actually? Old State House? But… Fuck, he was so out of it. Even the worst trips he’d ever had were never this… Never like this. The pain was mostly gone now, though. At least that. John pulled himself from the tarp and saw his silhouette still perfectly painted on it in what looked like watered-down blood and… pieces of him. His hair was spread like an aureola around the place where his head just lay. John wiped his face and nearly jumped out of his skin when he pulled off a good part off his nose straight off his head. He dropped in on the tarp. “What the actual fuck?” he mumbled. That was not how he expected this to go. As he pulled himself up on shaky arms, he suddenly felt how insanely hungry he was. Thankfully, he brought some food with him when he was coming down here, though tatoes were no longer an option. At least… Holy shit. His gaze fell on his blurry reflection in one of the cleaner display cases and John couldn’t help but stare at how much had changed. There was a bony ridge jutting out from where he’d just pulled his nose off. His eyes were pitch black. Every bit of hair he ever had was gone. He couldn’t help but check, but yeah, down there, too. Geez, he should grow up. For some reason, he couldn’t take his eyes off of that reflection. It still seemed surreal. But then, the world around still felt surreal, too. Was it really him? Did he really…? He stared at his hands, covered in scars and red burns. Hissed, pulling off some fingernails that still held on, even though crooked and clearly dead. God… What has he done to himself? He fell back to his knees. His heart was pounding as he buried his face in his hands. It wasn’t supposed to be like this… This was supposed to fix him… or kill him. He was supposed to be dead. He didn’t deserve to live anyway, not after everything that had…

A shiver went through him. There was a hand stroking his head. He looked up and his black gaze fell into his mother’s warm, gray eyes. “It’ll all be fine,” she said with a comforting smile. “I still love you, baby, even if you’re someone else. It wasn’t your fault. None of it.” Then John blinked and she was gone, and for a second, he felt debilitatingly alone. But he wasn’t, was he? He wasn’t the only disembodied, homeless bastard in this town, in this world. But they were all huddled up, beaten down. Even though all it would take was for one single person to just… get up. And if there was anything John ever did wrong, it was waiting for someone else to get up first. It was right there in front of him the entire time. ‘John Hancock’ written in faded, fancy letters above that silly outfit he’d laughed at before… all this. Before John Hancock. Might as well, right?

> Epilogue: “Hi, Timmy, and thanks for the help,” he said to the drunk drifter he’d paid to keep an eye out for the guards when he’d been sneaking in. “Huuh?” Timmy replied, eyeing him mistrustfully. “Who the fuck are you? Where’s McDonough?” “He’s gone,” John replied, reveling in what he was about to say. “I’m John Hancock now. And don’t worry, pal…” He patted his shoulder. “…I’m gonna fight for us.”

[atombombbagel]

You think you could do a short story about what happened to Hancock right after he took the radiation drug? (Like what do you think that felt like? Do you think it involved a lot of puking? Do you think it was before or after he became mayor? Do you think at some point Hancock thought he was gonna die?) All I've gotta say is I figure ghoulification is very unpleasant and painful as all hell.

written by @fantomofthehiddles, because they are so much better at explaining this stuff than I am 

[[Just to be clear, this is based on my own monsterpost about ghoulification from a bit ago + our talks with Bagel where we were figuring out Hancock’s timeline and figured his change “to become a better man” must’ve happened all at once. Personally, I kinda don’t see Hancock becoming mayor and THEN changing into a ghoul and people just being okay with it, especially since this process would have to take two weeks minimum. It must’ve been before he overthrew Vic, but we also know he was human when he was a drifter… so that leaves only one moment in his life when this could’ve happened.]][[And no, I don’t think he thought he was gonna die. I think he HOPED he was gonna die.]][[But to everything else I say: yes, yes, and YES. And “enjoy” ;)]]

[[PS. And what do you mean, ‘a short story’? What is this combination of words I’ve never seen before??]]

John brushed his blonde hair away from his face, leaning on his knees over the pill he rolled about in his hands. He wiped his tear-stained face with his sleeve. The image of Tom’s head split open on the sidewalk was still freshly seared in his mind, and John could see it every time he closed his eyes. Tom wasn’t his friend. They didn’t even like each other. But no one deserved such a fate. John remembered how he’d moved towards the body, for no reason he could think of, only to stop when one of Vic’s goons, a walking monster truck called Brett, of all names, had aimed at him with his submachine gun. “Whatcha gon’ do, McDonough?” he’d said mockingly, laughing when John did take a step back, gritting his teeth. There really was nothing he could do, was there? Just like before. Just like always. There was nothing he could do. Or, he did everything he could. Or was it just something he was telling himself to be able to sleep at night? He stifled a sob as another wave of tears flowed down his face. He wasn’t even a man anymore. He was… next to nothing.Might as well, right?The pill was round and pretty big, a perfect sphere in all regards except for one small indentation probably marking the spot where it would start… John didn’t want to think about it. He just wanted to escape the promenade of mistakes that his life was. The image of brains on cement. The bloody body parts scattered in the ruins. He exhaled sharply and swallowed the pill before he could change his mind, washing it down with a bottle of vodka as it made an impossible amount of stops down his oesophagus. Well. It’s done. No taking it back now. All he could do now was wa…The pain began so abruptly it caught him completely unprepared. He doubled down, digging his fingers into his abdomen as it pierced through him, this debilitating power tearing at him from within. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t even scream as the pain spread to every part of his body, seemingly even to his bones… and then suddenly let go and diminished into nothing but odd discomfort in the pit of his stomach.

John pulled himself from the ground and sat back on the crate between one display and another in the Old State House storeroom. He could hear steps over his head, guards shifting places, completely unaware that he’d snuck in here just to fuck with them. Just because Vic said he wasn’t supposed to. And Vic was just two floors up, he thought to himself. Every fiber of John’s being wanted only to get his hands on a gun, go up there, and shoot that fucking bastard in the face. See HIS brains on the sidewalk. But that wasn’t going to happen, was it?He gulped what was left of the vodka all at once–and in another minute, he was on all fours giving it all back to the floor. He cursed and grabbed some tarp to clean it up. Oh, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Fuck. It was hard enough to get in here under Vic’s guards’ noses; the last thing he needed was to alert them to his presence by gurgling his guts out and screaming in pain. Yet, somehow, through the mind-clouding nausea and head-splitting headache, he knew it was only going to get worse.

While he still could stand up and move around a little, he slid some display cases in to barricade the door. The last thing he needed was to be found out by someone while… Another wave of nausea sent him to his knees. He quickly latched on to a steel bucket he found in the corner, and when he raised his head, he could see there was blood mixed in with the vomit. Fuck. He could feel it pooling in his mouth, filling it with the taste of iron and… rot? Fuck. He spat it out into the bucket.Then, fever hit. His strength was diminishing fast; soon, it was an exorbitant effort to even turn to the other side as he lay on the tarp on the floor, his knees pulled up to his chin like that was supposed to help with the cramps. Ohh, he was never going to tell another woman she was overreacting. This was karma punishing his ignorance, he was sure of it. And boy, did he deserve it on so many levels.Could he just die yet?He didn’t know how long he lay there–hours? days? weeks?–shivering, no, shaking, really, barely able to breathe, pain clawing at his body as he yearned for the end… His mind barely holding on, and yet still insanely clear. It was like living through every pain of his entire life… and surviving. If he could, he would’ve shot himself in the head right now, just to stop the pain, just to finally rid the world of himself; but also, there was something there… pulling on his consciousness like a child tugging at their mother’s skirt as his brother played nearby… something that wanted him to live. Something that stroked his head and said it would all be… just fine. But how could it? Heart pounding like crazy… Fighting for every breath… like living underwater… Water… Holy fuck, he was so thirsty… Everything was pain. Burning… Even through the haze he could feel his skin… falling off. Every move hurt more than the last, but… was he even moving? Or was he swimming? What was that?… Green skies?… A child…? What…?

When he awoke, he immediately retched out a dark, thick puddle of whatever was left of his stomach, apparently. Everything was… blurry and dark… Ugh, he still wasn’t fully there. Where was he, actually? Old State House? But… Fuck, he was so out of it. Even the worst trips he’d ever had were never this… Never like this. The pain was mostly gone now, though. At least that. John pulled himself from the tarp and saw his silhouette still perfectly painted on it in what looked like watered-down blood and… pieces of him. His hair was spread like an aureola around the place where his head just lay.John wiped his face and nearly jumped out of his skin when he pulled off a good part off his nose straight off his head. He dropped in on the tarp. “What the actual fuck?” he mumbled. That was not how he expected this to go. As he pulled himself up on shaky arms, he suddenly felt how insanely hungry he was. Thankfully, he brought some food with him when he was coming down here, though tatoes were no longer an option. At least… Holy shit.His gaze fell on his blurry reflection in one of the cleaner display cases and John couldn’t help but stare at how much had changed. There was a bony ridge jutting out from where he’d just pulled his nose off. His eyes were pitch black. Every bit of hair he ever had was gone. He couldn’t help but check, but yeah, down there, too. Geez, he should grow up.For some reason, he couldn’t take his eyes off of that reflection. It still seemed surreal. But then, the world around still felt surreal, too. Was it really him? Did he really…? He stared at his hands, covered in scars and red burns. Hissed, pulling off some fingernails that still held on, even though crooked and clearly dead. God… What has he done to himself?He fell back to his knees. His heart was pounding as he buried his face in his hands. It wasn’t supposed to be like this… This was supposed to fix him… or kill him. He was supposed to be dead. He didn’t deserve to live anyway, not after everything that had…

A shiver went through him. There was a hand stroking his head. He looked up and his black gaze fell into his mother’s warm, gray eyes. “It’ll all be fine,” she said with a comforting smile. “I still love you, baby, even if you’re someone else. It wasn’t your fault. None of it.” Then John blinked and she was gone, and for a second, he felt debilitatingly alone. But he wasn’t, was he? He wasn’t the only disembodied, homeless bastard in this town, in this world. But they were all huddled up, beaten down. Even though all it would take was for one single person to just… get up. And if there was anything John ever did wrong, it was waiting for someone else to get up first.It was right there in front of him the entire time. 'John Hancock’ written in faded, fancy letters above that silly outfit he’d laughed at before… all this. Before John Hancock.Might as well, right?

> Epilogue:“Hi, Timmy, and thanks for the help,” he said to the drunk drifter he’d paid to keep an eye out for the guards when he’d been sneaking in.“Huuh?” Timmy replied, eyeing him mistrustfully. “Who the fuck are you? Where’s McDonough?”“He’s gone,” John replied, reveling in what he was about to say. “I’m John Hancock now. And don’t worry, pal…” He patted his shoulder. “…I’m gonna fight for us.”

[lovedaymorbid]

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

A rant about Avengers: Infinity War

___________________________________________________

THIS FUCKING SHIT I SWEAR TO GOD.

I was expecting so much from Infinity War. I was. Truly, I love this franchise and would gladly give a soul (ha!) for it but fuck me. It was so good. It gave me what I wanted (except the Stucky goodbye like in my last post about it) and so much more. I cried. Holy hell did I cry. I wore eyeliner when I saw it today and it is all gone and smudged over my face.

They did NOT need to do that to my love Gamora (yes they did but it hurts). If anyone even dares come at me with any compassion towards Thanos, I will personally through you off a cliff. That image is seared into my brain. Every time I blink it’s all I see. I felt like part of me got up and left the theater and will never come back after that scene. I actually sat up in my seat and yelled “No!” in a very quiet theater. The guy next to me was wiping tears away. 

Next, they did my son so dirty. You can not give me Spider-Man in his most epic suit and then decide to just off him. My cousin and I were fucking crying like babies because of this. I was ready for Cap to die. I was ready for Tony to die. I was fucking ready for everyone from the OG Avengers to die. Not him. Not Peter. Or any of the characters that did go because they were the ones who looked like they could fix everything. But no. We’re back with the original group. Which is fine except at the cost it took.

And finally, Bucky. Everyone knows I love James Buchanan Barnes. I’ve cosplayed him as the Winter Soldier and his original gear from First Avenger. He wasn’t in it a whole lot, just enough to satisfy, but oh my god. Everything hurts after this. I’m not saying much except this: the last thing he said in the movie was “Steve”.

To summarize, I left the theater feeling like I was just broken up with after a decade long relationship. I feel like my feelings were toyed with. My will to live is nonexistent. I’ve been crying since the hour and a half it’s been since I saw it. And I’m eating a bowl of ice cream to cry to calm down my nerves.

AND THERE IS SO MUCH MORE. SO MUCH.

My heart can’t take this.

But would I go through this again next year when part 2 comes out?

Abso-fucking-lutely.

__________________________________________________

Edit: side note, Clint wasn’t in the movie and I don’t know if that makes everything better or worse. You’ll know what I mean by the end of it.

[lightwithoutlimit]

My Bed Is A Library.

I simply do not feel like going to bed, in part because my bed is strewn with books about autism, DBT manuals, and notebooks. The notebooks, I can explain. I write all the time, sometimes until my hand cramps like it’s destined to freeze forever in the position of holding a pen, and sometimes long after. My spotty memory has taught me, the hard way, that sometimes, the memories you need just... slip between the cracks. The DBT manuals, I can also explain. They’re mine. I’m thinking about taking another crack at it, now that I’m in a better position to get something out of it.

But the autism books? Those aren’t mine. I’ve borrowed them. Some are quite engaging and informative, but none of them answer the questions I have. I’ll have to troll the web for the information I really need.

One troublesome conversation continues to plague my mind, between our somewhat-absent friend and myself. She called you “entitled,” describing your interaction with the world as a series of encounters in which you deflect constructive criticism aggressively; apologizing superficially for your faults, but never taking the initiative to correct your behavior, instead expecting those around you to constantly check you and put up with an endless stream of behavior you’ve already been told is wrong. I couldn’t argue with that assessment, which was part of the reason I got so upset when I was telling you she had called.

When you responded by assuring me that you were okay and I shouldn’t worry, my fears were confirmed. You really have no fucking clue! This is not to say that you have to know what’s going on all the time, or that you have to pick up on all the social cues someone else wouldn’t miss. I don’t expect that. I just expected you to care. I messaged you that I was upset and “insulted” by what she’d said, and you didn’t seem to give a shit. For a minute, when you told me she should never have put me in a situation to feel like I’m standing in the middle of a battlefield with her camped on one side and you forced to stand on the other, it felt like we were standing in a warm bubble together. For a minute or two, I felt vindicated; maybe you were insulted on my behalf, and maybe you were going to sweep me off my feet and we were going to ride off into the sunset on your white horse, and - nope. Being assured, without even asking, that you were fine, was like being shoved out of the bubble, onto the concrete. I didn’t know how to tell you that.

I didn’t know how to explain that the only reason I’d messaged you in the first place was that I was terrified that everything she’d told me might be true: that you just don’t care.

I know you sometimes struggle to see the world through others’ eyes. I just wish I knew, for a fact, that you really do want to see through mine, because I’m losing sleep trying to see through yours.

These burning questions are searing a hole in my brain:

How do I make myself one of the pictures in your head?

How do I explain how I feel in images instead of words?

How do I get you to tell me anything at all about how you feel?

If you loved me, would you know what to call it?

And to our friend...

We talked until 5:30 in the morning, and I was so excited to hear your voice again that I didn’t even question the vitriol with which you spoke about him. You made your point clearly: he’s entitled and you hate him. You also made your point that you don’t understand how in the world I can put up with him, and you made it offensively. I’ve never, in my life, been so insulted to be called “patient.” I want to cry when I think about how we finally got to talk on the phone all night like we used to, after months of radio silence and short responses, and the whole conversation was about how much you hate him. I never want to talk to you about him again, let alone tell you that he and I are trying for something serious and spending afternoons on my bed in various states of undress. Maybe you’ve been wrong about me the whole time - maybe I’m a sub-par excuse for a friend because I’m in love with someone you’ve never been able to forgive. Maybe I have to do what you want and take a side.

Or maybe there’s no way in HELL I’m ever going to choose one of you over the other.

Maybe you sound just like the neurotypical moms who don’t want their kids playing with people like you, because you’re “entitled,” because you “don’t care,” because they “don’t understand you.”

Maybe YOU’RE the one whose behavior nobody is checking right now (I can fix that as soon as you’re healthy enough to hear criticism again, but I’d still doubt whether or not you could handle this particular grievance, considering your massive borderline breakdown over my boyfriend.).

I thought you were above throwing someone under the bus for being “more autistic than you.”

That phone call was the holy grail of phone calls, the olive branch that let me know you didn’t hate me. That’s if the holy grail were to make me sick to my stomach.

[darkshimmeringworld-blog]

Wapping (Bollocks)

Pretty poppet, meet me by the chicken cottage. I wants the red head. I wants the red head. Pipe down. Consecrated night of illusions, secret chicken cottage mason lodges. Coven cottage dreams. Breadcrumbs. I had an arguement with my friends. They dish it out but cannot take it. I retreat to an imaginary world. I have pretentious thoughts. I have the Yves Klein Blues. Curling my lips at the moon. Soliciting false hope in the light of long dead stars. I sow language demonically. Reverse word breadcrumbs that lead into a forest. A yard with lunatics. St. George-in-the-East and McDonalds to the south. Gatekeepers of the Highway, Gog and McGog. Old King Ludd. Gunge. A deep fat fryer pariah. Roadkill in chip shops. Battered pigeons, battered hedgehogs, half a battered squirrel, the homeless Heston Blooming-fool, bargin in to boil rats in vats of searing fat. Uncharter’d meats. Pipe down. When was the last time I climbed a wall? I change the tense I write in. I changed the tense I wrote in. I change the tense I write in. I walked along the Highway. Rented out by the French Government. Fleur-de-Leases. Ghost houses. Ancient brasses. The French Disease. Surplus foreground, surplus background, surplus horizon, surplus everything. The entire fucking universe is frivolous. The River Lea is bloody marvellous. Opening ceremony. Bucks fizz, whizz kid, alco-popstar-prick. Staple diet of pork scratchings dipped in Manuka honey. Weaponised almonds. Parrot. You are my foil. My tin man. Parrot. Fake imaginary parrot. Imaginary animatronic parrot. Whatever. We need each other. You need my insane thoughts to exist. And you exist to keep my insane thoughts in check. Come in parrot. Shunned by my pretend talking parrot. Aerosol can man. Smashing a bottle of Captain Morgan over Piers Morgan’s fucking face. Polish man in pub garden telling me about munchkins mix-up. Job interview at the Leftorium. It all went horribly right. Pic-n-mix-up. Pipe down. Sky vaulting, sky vaulting, sky vaulting, sky vaulting, sky vaulting, sky vaulting, sky vaulting, sky vaulting, sky vaulting, sky vaulting, sky vaulting, sky vaulting, sky vaulting, firmament. Pipe down. Breadcrumbs.

One caveat with that cravat, it used to be the Captain’s cat. Token Somalian. Robert Mappelthorpe. Bogmanagers. immobile archaic juts. we call them things headstones. I am universal flotsam. Floating up the River Lea. Kraken! The aberration in the light was not in fact a sea monster. It was Tatlin’s titfuck revenge. An Anish Kapoor play thing. A double clef with a disability. A gigantic demented saxophone fighting itself. A roller coaster delineated by spirograph enthusiast at ayahuasca ceremony. It looked like an ampersand & ampersand one man band & ampersand one man band vomiting steel across what once was hinterland in a jaunty rude solo interlude & I ask the ampersand: Doest thou stand here to fuck time? I wandered the windswept plains. I took refuge in Zaha Hadid’s vagina stadium. I wrote: I am here in the Olympic Park. It looks like a vajazzled Chernobyl. My mind is fertile atomic logic. Objections are simple. Redundant description redundant. Redundant description redundant. Pipe down. 

(Gunge decanting weirdness in the countryside line here) 

Advert for the countryside: Get closer to nature (Get closure on nature). Jerusalem is mine. Holy fucking hell. The Pope spits out his tea. The celebrated celibate. Is an ornate monkey. Order of the Capuchin Capuchins. Cappuccino please. Alpha coffee male. Parrot: “Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen” Epic Eccie Epping Forest. Hangman’s Pill. This has been communicated to you in a blindfolded waltz. I am not in control of what I say. It unspools, from my mouth, like a yarn, which is why, we call it, a yarn. Yawn, pipe down. Lawns. Castigated dogs on the horizon of washing lines welping in ylang ylang scented beatings. Over the hills, an Auld Pub. Inside. Old man. He had a whole disorderly repertoire of falling over. Backwash of whiskey spit had cauled over his face. Grave-flirting cunt. Sir Osis of the Gelwaz. A bar-stooling throne. A crackling crown of bloody skull fragments. His Kingdom all crashing down. He dusted off his woes. He warned me of the urinals. Do not go in there. Weird piss cult. The constipated conspiracy theorist: It was an inside job! My dream shop, a list of things it sells: A conspiracy running the entire length of the Greenwich Meridian Line, the Holy Grail made out of a Christian's skin, infinite iconoclasm, magnifying glasses for midgets with ivory handles crafted from pygmy elephant tusks, new imagined noses, transformation parables sewn onto a human heart, rare cough syrup, antique ashtray from Nazi Germany, a Unabomber Schott jacket, rare CD of Jim Jones singing the greatest hits of Tom Jones, a limited edition John Wayne Gacy Island, Thunderbirds toy set, the smell of petrichor and tobacco, a cup that overfloweth with witty barm, balloon canisters sold with park bench (this included free of charge) and nineteen frosted bones. It’s very contrived. It is all set up. There was no let up, to unperceivable things. A man looking like Robert Mappelthorpe, drifted into things. From where I do not recall. He told us of the snapping turtles, and catfish of the Lea. Of dreams of being an artist, and his creosote modernist sculptures that littered the flooded gravel pits of Essex. Of his troubled youth and blazing memories of family feuds. Of running away from it all. Time wasted navel gazing in Lower Nazeing, alone but for the ghosts of Odo from Ranulf, brother of Ilger, two free men and half a fishery. The puissant king of Nazeing. Tethered to a tree. Rooted to a dying tree. He thought he broke free. He had it all once but now he is dead. Pissant. Did you see the frog?Missing posters of Gunge: Last seen kicking a Hari Krishna to death in the head shouting Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti Shanti. He fled the scene. He lined his pockets with as many jam doughnuts that would fit and waded onto the railway tracks. He was never seen again. There was no body. Could be jam, could be blood. We will never know. On the scene: A wasp, dead, burrowed into a sausage roll sarcophagus. A mystery. What did the Ninth Legion have for dinner? Mange tout, Brute?

The Cereal Vapist. Leaves a bad taste in Shoreditch.

the paranoid weird dreams i used to have of my friends flat in maryland. why is he called gunge? fatbergs. tube of genius cream cream. apply in topical area. if irritation or burning sensation shout at it tell it to pipe down! Chewing on some mugwort that grows by the velodrome. that there thing that came out of that there bigger thing kill it and that thing that came out of the thing of the bigger thing kill it too

a group of women piercing their hearts with daggers

Parrot: “Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen”

Memory palace Weatherspoons. So many doors.

If a prism, if a forest, do occur, in an image, in your mind, with trees, black and without leaves, it is winter. How do you feel? Stalactites, stalagmites, Ludd-ites. Spiralized styrofoam monsters stylised as tentacled octopi. Redundant description abundant. Synonyms and antonyms mingling in the garbage bins. I have thoughts but no words. I have words but no thoughts. I have vacant images. An industrial swearer. A Henry Ford Production Line of Fuck Lines. An absolute bell-end. Carefully reverse your vehicles over the heads of small minded men. I’m a bum note mate. I’m a dicky heart. I’m an insatiable loss. I’m a fortified wanker. Breadcrumbs. Pipe down. I am Onan the Barbarian. I am the Olympic tosser. Weaponised fucking almonds. Nuts. An EDL man. Dressed as St. George. He says it is all King Vortigern’s fault. He laments Broken Britain. Says imperialism is in, he saw it on his porcelain. I tell him: There are two dragons underground. One is red. One is white. They are fighting each other. This, is why your house is falling down. He tells me to pipe down. Crusade Crusoe! The Man Who Was an Island Mentality Nationalist. The Man Who Was a Complicated Pacifist. Says he likes shitting on Persian rugs. That’s all. I decide to leave. Up chalk streams to the Olympian Palaces of Excess. King Vortigern, leftovers, Brexit mercenaries, athlete villages. The unbecoming of a potentially good thing, now passed, the faint departing music of opportunity denied. A marching band of ideas disappearing forever into an invisible tunnel. The doldrum winds of inertia winding down. Silence, deafening silence, silence, deadening silence. The erection of the pleasure dome, damnation to the libraries, elation at the pleasure dome, death at the grass roots, cessation of the spaceship games and then stagnation of the pleasure dome, a nation full of funeral homes and a country in a come down. The Olympic mirage villages, all lullabies and alibis. Its not a pyramid scheme, its a ziggurat enterprise. My brain is sludgy. Your grotty hands are on the shiny things. Pipe down. Macaroon breadcrumbs. Fennel scented cologne from Damascus. Damaris Page wearing Damask Rose. A glaucous macaw. Chewing on Cicely with whores from Macau. Fighting for gold with gymnasts from Beijing. Born in the trench of fools. Wench for sale, wench for sale! Pieces of silver. Podiums. Ahh, many times laddy, have I sat in the afterglow of a witty remark. Filigree words sopping and charming, unspooling from the mouth in effortlessness. Never diminishing after being spoken, but saturating the past in a gilded ambience that when looked back on radiates like the long dead stars that still twinkle at night in far gone space. A crop of bubbling daisies or whatever those flowers are that pavement sprout. Cockney pagans, kicked out by new religion, that built pristine puritanical palaces atop their old school foundations. For whom the bells toll. Are thoughts real? Waiting for the gold. Waiting for the gold. This reverse solipsism hurts my brain. Phlegmatic Father Thames, spittle banks and morsels of clay. Fuelling mad thoughts, another, again, more, or less, lucid, or unreal, than that hill, that I sit on, than that gold I think up, or the gold, that wanes. Vanishes. Evaporates. That was spunked away. The Road of Excess. A sketch for tomorrow. Drawn yesterday. I was dreaming as a voice, refracted in my pint. It said: Whatever I do, I do not repent, I keep pissing against the moon. Signed, Flea. Niches for imbeciles and alcoves to waste gold. Amusements for Affluenza victims of the 21st century, a quarantine zone, a regeneration scheme, reclaimed land, Chelsea Flower Show doped up like a Russian Olympiad, an East End Genocide, Cockneys blowing bubbles, in the marshy reeds, moved out, moved back in again, a hokey cokey organised by porn barons, the erotomania of starchitect visions, the spaceship landing, soldiers on rooftops, Wind in the Willows, Bobby Moore, a Piper From the Gates of Porn, he is pissed off, Hung Up on a Team. Nine days upside down, from that tree. The cockney dildo draft. In, out, in, out, shake it all about. The Pornographers Phallacy: Iconoclasm in the club shop. Effigies of dry rot. In the board room, they rip flesh off each other, madly. And rip off Dr. Faustus, badly. The shadow of glory. Shadows and floodlit glories. The spectre of Super Sunday. Escape to China with Felix Magath, do not say his name in a stadium, it is considered bad luck, you will get fired. Allusion illusion. Allusion to illusions. Layers upon layers upon layers upon layers up layer upon . . . kaleidoscopic derision. Pipe down. Emulsified shirts, and calcified dirt, and a crucified cat and sewer rats, in a plastic six-pack beer packaging, artificial, multi-straight-jacketed rat king demise, all drowned together, floating amongst the coat hangers, a bicycle, and a myriad of used condoms. God’s bawdy house. Up in the sky, the cloud was full of nihilism. The sun, full of itself. His bad first impression, was his bad last impression. Art is new age alchemy. Transmutation, transmutation. Arthur write this: Handle conspiracy with care. Rheumatoid hands and lizard people. David Icke. Up on the vivisection fable. The garbage vans were hijacked, the LED screen were loaded up with obscene images. Information Jihad in this green and pleasant land of grey.

It looked like a vajazzled Chernobyl.

What a load of pretentious rubbish.

Pipe down.