#hubs started my car in the rain

[avenger-nerd-mom]

Happy Birthday!! I hope your day is as amazing as you and I’m so glad to know you 💕

Thank you, sweets! It's been a great day so far! Feeling the love!

[florencemtrash]

Hummingbird: Chapter Two

Miguel O'Hara x Reader

What if the Earth-1610 (Miles’s universe) version of Miguel’s wife was actually Miles’s AP Art teacher?

Masterlist

Miguel grumbled, furiously trying to rub away the oncoming headache as the newly updated Spider-Gang continued to berate him. Jessica only leaned forward on her motorcycle, smirking at the sight of his towering figure surrounded by teenagers.

Gwen prodded him with a pointed finger, “What the hell, Miguel! I can’t believe you-”

“We trusted you and-”

“So what now you’re just on our side like some-” 

Miles’s palms sparked threateningly, “You were going to let my Dad die!”

“Hold the baby, Migs.” Peter tried in vain to shove a babbling Mayday into his hands, “She’s going to make you feel so much better.”

“You and I are gonna have some serious fisticuffs you turtle-”

“You let the power get to your head like some capitalistic-”

Peni’s robot chittered angrily.

“Ok, ok, OK!” Miguel yelled, “Everyone just QUIET!” Turning on his heels so that his broad shoulders blocked out the skyline, he began to mutter, “Dios mío. ¿Qué estoy haciendo? Estos niños me van a matar. Mierda.” He took a deep breath, steeling himself for the words that were about to leave his mouth.

“I messed up.” he murmured under his breath.

Hobie propped himself up against his guitar, “Sorry bruv, don’t think I heard you ri-”

“I MESSED UP!” Miguel shouted, throwing his hands up in his air. Everyone except Hobie and Miles took a step back. This was the closest thing to an apology any of them could hope to get, and far more than they were expecting to hear from him. “Now in case you’ve forgotten, we still have an imminent multiversal collapse on our hands!” 

“Very imminent,” Lyla said, floating on her back and propping her holographic feet up on Miguel’s shoulder.

Miles stepped forward in the silence, all eyes on him. 

He still had to tilt his head up to meet Miguel’s eyes, but he didn’t feel small. No. He wasn’t small. He wasn’t weak. He was Spider-Man, and together they were going to fix this.

“I still don’t like you but,” he stuck out his hand, “Welcome to the Spider-Gang, Miguel.” 

>>>

“Lyla, take a scan of the-” Gwen spun out of a wormhole, crashing into his side.

“Sorry!” A web shot out of her wrist, pulling her towards the skylight as Miles flipped across the room in a red and black blur.

“Spot, please!” Miles’s voice bounced around the room, sound waves rippling out from a hundred spots at once, “You don’t have to do this.”

Lyla flickered to life on Miguel’s shoulder, a holographic lollipop sticking out the corner of her mouth, “I’m on it!” 

Miguel caught himself on the wall, blades screeching on metal as a dozen more spots popped into existence around him. Rain pelted him from all sides, distracting him long enough for the hub of a cop car to fly out and flatten him against the wall. 

The Spot dipped in and out of the ground, basking in the remnants of the Super-Collider and swallowing up bits and pieces of metal and granite in the process. Wormholes had already started to crop up all around New York, threatening the destruction of buildings as cars and trains suddenly found themselves hundreds of feet above the ground.

“It’s a proper mess out here mates,” Hobie’s voice called out from Miguel’s watch, followed by the shattering of glass, “How much longer is this going to take?”

“I just need fifteen more minutes,” Margo said. A crash sounded in the background along with Jessica’s colorful words, “... maybe twenty.” 

“We don’t have twenty minutes,” Miguel grunted, flinging his body across the room. He strung his webs around a battered console, whipping it around and aiming it directly at the Spot. He only chuckled, lifting his hand and opening a portal. The console smashed into Miguel’s back, sending him crashing to the ground.

Lyla pulled the lollipop out of her mouth with an audible pop! “Scan of the room’s complete. You’re in luck! You’ve got about 17 minutes before the structural integrity of the building goes kaput, starting with the northwest corner.” Her finger glitched as she pointed. 

Joder.

“Guys no. I can do this.” Miles said, his voice tight with effort as he continued to jump around the room, whipping metal at the Spot to distract him long enough to swing to safety. He could make the Spot see reason. He had to.

Margo and Jessica scrambled about the control room three stories up, Margo’s virtual reality body glitching from anxiety as she threaded wires together and fumbled around on the computers in the control room. This dimension’s technology was ancient compared to hers and she was finding it hard to make the adjustment. 

“You really think that would work?” She asked Miles. They all stood side by side atop Alchemax, staring down into the remnants of the Super-Collider where the Spot floated around aimlessly in a pool of black ether. Every so often Margo was certain she could see visions of other dimensions poking through the fabric of spacetime - A baseball game, an explosion, a thousand ships cruising past a desert planet.

“He got his powers using the Super Collider,” Miles reasoned, “Absorbed dark matter energy from countless universes. Reverse the process and we might be able to send it all back to their original dimensions.”

“Leaving him powerless.” Hobie finished, shoving his hands into his jacket and nodding, “I like it.” 

“It’ll be a large scale Go-Home-Machine.” Margo murmured, nodding in understanding as the plan fell into place.

“But you gotta let me talk to him first.” Miles narrowed a pointed glare at Miguel. “Let me make him see reason. End this before it even begins.”

“Are you joking? That’s too risky.” Miguel growled out.

“This could kill him!”

“Oh come on, Miguel, give Miles a chance!” Pavitr had to balance on the tip of his toes to sling an arm around Miguel’s shoulders. “He’s Spider-Man! This will be easy for him! Use that charm and compassion and-”

“Fine.” Miguel said, shrugging Pavitr off, “We’ll try it your way.”

The Spot walked forward menacingly, noting with pride how Miles backed away, hands lifted up in front of him, “So now you want to talk?” 

“Listen, Jonathan - it’s Jonathan, right? - We don’t have to do this. I’m sorry I made fun of you before. I’m sorry that I disregarded you after everything you’ve been through. But you have to understand what you’re doing. This is going to destroy everything. Everything. The universe, the multiverse, all of it. You’ve got the power to-”

“There’s no Jonathan anymore, only the Spot. You still think I’m joking don’t you? You still think we’re going to make up after a grand old speech - that you’re going to save me. Well it’s too late for that, kid.” 

He lifted his hand and snapped his fingers, a portal opening to his left. Someone tumbled out wearing a paint stained Brooklyn Visions Academy sweatshirt. 

Miguel’s heart stopped beating. 

He would recognize you anywhere - in any universe.

“Y/n?” he breathed out. 

“Let’s see how good you really are, Spider-Man.” He snapped his fingers again and a portal opened up beneath your feet. The last thing you heard was the Spot's laughter as you began to fall from the sky.

“NO!” Miguel sprang into action, red laser webs flinging out to the walls as he threw himself into the air. 

“Nuh uh.” The Spot shook his finger, throwing a spot at Miguel and portaling him away, “No help! That’s cheating.” 

Miles sprinted up the walls, tracking the small dot of your figure as you flailed about wildly more than two hundred feet up, desperately trying to straighten your arms and slow your fall. The wind carried your screams away.

He dove towards a spot, arms and legs tucked in straight as an arrow after seeing your sprawling form fall past the wormhole, and re-emerged just above you. With a quick flick of the wrist he caught you, throwing out webs wildly towards the neighboring buildings in a desperate bid to slow your fall. The strands held on for as long as they could, slowing your descent before finally snapping from the tension. 

“Hold on!” He yelled over the wind as the last web broke. The voice sounded familiar. 

You both hurtled through the skeleton of a window before landing and rolling onto the floor of the one of Alchemax lab rooms, the faint smell of chlorine and formaldehyde still clinging to the air.

You pushed yourself onto your knees, prepared to kiss the solid ground beneath you.

“Miss Y/l/n?!” Miles’s jaw dropped, eyes as round as dinner plates. 

You perked your head up, momentarily forgetting your near death experience.

“Miles?!” 

“Oh crap,” he cleared his throat, dropping his voice an octave, “Um, who’s Miles?” 

“What the hell are you doing here? Do your parents know about this? Is this why you’ve been skipping classes? Who let you do this without adult supervision?!” You grabbed him by the shoulder, shaking him. He was just a teenager for fuck’s sake!

“Listen, Miss Y/l/n-” Maybe it was because he was so used to unloading his thoughts in front of you that he launched into a half-baked explanation of everything that had happened, “I got bitten by a radioactive spider-” “I met all these Spiderpeople-” “-and he tried to stop me from saving my dad and-” 

Your head was spinning.

“Oh Spidermaaannnnn!” The Spot called out in a sing-song voice. “Where are you hiding, you little insect?” “I gotta go, just-” he held his hands out, “just stay here for now. Don’t move!” And just like that he was gone, leaving you more confused than ever before.

I don’t get paid enough for this. You thought, standing alone amidst the rubble.

Miguel tore through the rooms, sprinting like a madman. The reverse Super Collider was finally up and running and it was only a matter of time before the Spot would realize their plan and go berserk. The ground beneath him shook and groaned in protest as the building’s foundations began to crumble into nothing, eaten away by the dark matter that spilled out of the Spot.

“Y/N!” he roared, kicking down a door so hard it blew off its hinges.

You hopped off the bench. It seemed silly, but as a civilian caught in the middle of a multiverse-ending battle there hadn’t been anything for you to do but sit and wait for Miles to come back.

A Spider-Man variant barreled towards you, all hard cut lines of red and blue with blades protruding to his forearms that glinted in the dim light. You hadn’t made a decision about whether or not to run - whether or not it was even worth it to try - before he had you wrapped up in his arms, burying his face in your shoulder. The mask fell away like tv static to reveal a head of brown waves that smelled faintly of oranges.

“Dios mío, pensé que te perdí.” He murmured, holding you like his life depended on it. 

You stiffened under his touch before awkwardly raising a hand to pat his back. “Umm, hola. ¿Te conozco?”

Miguel froze, feeling the tension in your body. You didn’t… you didn’t know who he was. He’d just… he’d been so terrified that he’d forgotten himself - the situation they were all in. 

He took a step back, spine ram-rod straight as he suppressed the urge to hold you again. This version of you looked… different. Different, but the same. You were missing the faint scar on your temple you’d gotten from a car crash at seventeen. 

“We need to go.” he said, voice tight as he gestured to his back, “Get on and hold on tight. This building’s about to blow.”

You blinked at the sudden change in his tone, taking a moment to process what he’d just asked you. 

“You know Spider-Man?”

“Unfortunately, yes.” He said, clenching his jaw. If you didn’t jump on his back in the next ten seconds he was going to chuck you over his shoulder and start running.

The floor beneath you shifted, the building’s dying breaths echoing through the halls.

Hesitantly you climbed onto his back, wrapping your legs tightly around his waist as he started sprinting towards the broken window.

“Si me dejas caer, nunca te perdonaré,” you said, lips accidentally brushing against the curve of his ear. 

He shivered. “Jamás.” 

You were airborne again, feeling Miguel’s body twist and flex beneath you as he pulled you both towards the ceiling like it was as natural as breathing. When you dared to look towards the ground you gasped. The tangled frame of the Super Collider was whirring to life, crackling with energy and exploding with color as Miles spun his webs, keeping the machine together even as it threatened to rip itself apart. 

From within the cocoon of webs, dark matter, and multiversal energy, you could make out the Spot’s form warping and pulling apart, bits and pieces disappearing into the frenetic portal that the collider had split open.

Miles caught up to you both, matching Miguel’s rhythm as they flicked and swung from their webs.

“Hey again, Miss Y/l/n.” Flick. “I see you’ve met Miguel.” Flick. “I hope he hasn’t been too mean towards you.” He called out.

You felt Miguel grumble with displeasure. 

“He’s the guy that body slammed me into a moving train!” Flick. “But I beat him!” 

“Miguel did WHAT?!” 

“Right, Miss Y/l/n?”

“Listen kid, I already apologized for that.” 

“Yeah right.” Miles had to laugh. The day he heard Miguel say the words “I’m sorry” would be the day the multiverse tore apart, and that day was not today.

You slapped Miguel on the shoulder - it was like hitting stone, “¿Qué coño te pasa? He’s just a teenager!” 

“Cariño, can we please discuss this at a later time?” He gritted his teeth. Something was wrong with the collider. It was getting harder and harder to swing you both upwards, like the force of gravity had tripled. 

You froze. “What did you just call me?” 

Crap.

Miles’s eyes swung back and forth between you two like a pinball machine and the dots finally connected - the alternate universe where Miguel had a family, the way he kept looking at you, the way he’d demanded Miles tell him where you were.

“...Aren’t you his wife?” He asked dumbly.

Miguel’s face went white beneath his mask. Did the temperature go up, or was that just him? His hands felt clammy under his spider-suit.

“I’M HIS WIFE?!” 

The collider screeched beneath them and Miguel barely had time to flick his web out towards the remnant of a walkway before - 

One. 

Two.

Three. 

BOOM! 

The Spot burst out from the cocoon in a tornado of dark matter, sending debris flying backward towards the sucking mouth of the collider. The building walls buckled, drywall ripping out and sailing downward at the whim of the collider’s gravitational force.

“Spider-Man!” He bellowed, his voice grating and animalistic, “I’M GOING TO DESTROY YOU!” 

He might get torn apart and sent to a thousand different dimensions, but if he was going down, he was going to take Spider-Man with him.

“Get her out of here!” Miles yelled over the deafening roar. He pressed his body flat to the wall to keep from falling down into the collider.

“I can’t!” Miguel groaned. His hands had begun to slip down the bright red webbing. You were beginning to lose your grip as well, nails clawing into Miguel’s back.

Your legs gave way first, then your arms. 

“Y/N!” Miguel flicked a laser web out, catching you by your waist. 

“MISS Y/L/N!” 

You gasped, arms and legs splayed out to your sides as you dangled precariously over nothing. Miguel stared down at you, shoulder screaming in pain as he did everything he could to keep you both from getting sucked down. His mask disappeared, letting you see the way his red-brown eyes were blown open. Somewhere from below Miguel heard the Spot scream as he was finally torn to shreds, dark matter traveling back to their respective dimensions, but all he could focus on was you.

“Miguel,” you whispered, too scared to say anything else.

“Miguel?” You called out from the bottom of the stairs. 

Gabriella dribbled the football close, just like her father had taught her, before passing it cleanly between your legs.

“¡Túnel!” 

“¡Y la multitud se vuelve loca!” Miguel whooped, thundering down the stairs and twirling a screaming Gabriella through the air.

You fixed the collar of his sweater, kissing him hesitantly on the lips and smiling at the brightness in his eyes as he held your daughter. 

“I’ll see you at the game later,” You said, smoothing back a strand of your husband’s hair, “I love you.” You murmured, hoping to hear him say it back. It had been so long since he’d said those words to you.

“I’ll see you later.” Miguel promised, kissing you again with a smile so wide you felt his teeth against your lips. 

You knew something wasn’t quite right… he knew you knew… but neither of you could find the words to say anything about it. 

What’s happened? Why have you changed so much so quickly? Why don’t you remember things about me - about Gabriella - anymore? 

You wanted to ask those questions so badly.

But you didn’t ask, and he didn’t answer.

So he left without saying those words… and that was the day he lost you.

He wouldn’t lose you again. He wouldn’t lose you like he’d lost Gabriella.

With a roar he pulled you back to him, wrapping one arm tightly around you. You molded yourself into his side, shutting your eyes just in time for the collider to groan to a halt and then explode.

The noise alone knocked you both back, sound waves rattling your bones and pressing you further against Miguel. Golden light emitted from the collapsing collider, sinking into your skin until it felt like you were burning.

The laser web burned away and Miguel could do nothing more than wrap his body around you as you were both thrown up and through what remained of the roof. You landed on hard pressed glass, pain shooting up your side as you and Miguel tumbled in a flurry of tangled limbs. You rolled to a stop, Miguel bracing his arms so that you wouldn’t get crushed under his bulky frame. His suit glitched, unstable molecules traveling over his skin as it worked to repair any and all damage.

The collider stilled, light dimming as it sighed and breathed its last.

“Are you ok? Are you hurt?” He brushed your hair back, frantically scanning your body for injuries as you caught your breath. 

“I’m ok.” You gasped out, “I’m ok,” You promised, resting your hands against his chest. He felt solid and real beneath your fingertips - the most real thing you’d experienced this entire night. 

Miguel sighed in relief, pressing his forehead against yours and closing his eyes. You closed yours too, letting yourself enjoy this delicate moment of peace and quiet. 

“Woooow, you can really feel the romantic tension between the two of them, can’t you?”

“Shut up, Pavitr.” Gwen hissed.

Miguel’s eyes snapped open, suddenly aware of the audience of Spiderpeople that had congregated on the roof. It was at times like this that he envied the others for their spider-sense. 

He rolled lightly onto his feet, pulling you up with him and keeping one arm loosely wrapped around your waist. You found that you didn’t mind the contact at all. 

Sirens blared from every street corner, the flashing red, white, and blue lights of firefighters, policemen, and EMS overwhelming to the eye. 

Someone was missing. 

“Where’s Miles?!” You said, your heart leaping into your throat.

As if on cue he swung up through the hole in the roof, landing with a wince of pain as his right knee buckled under his weight. Patches of his singed suit were still smoking.

“Are you guys ok? I oof-'' Gwen tackled him in a hug, ripping off her mask in the process. You recognized her immediately from Miles’s drawings, but her hair was longer - wilder - than in the pictures.

“Miles,” her breath stuttered, “Oh my god, I-I thought-” 

He shushed her, rubbing her back as she helped hold him up on his injured leg.

“Hey it’s ok. It’s all good. I’m alright.”

“Aight’ bruv!” Hobie and Pavitr whooped, clapping Miles’s back. 

You wrapped your arms tightly around yourself as the others circled around Miles. Only Miguel stayed close, watching you out of the corner of his eye. 

Had you actually just experienced all of that? Had you lost your mind?

“Miss Y/l/n!” Miles noticed you shivering in the cold in your socks and pajamas. He tugged off his ruined mask, exposing the bruise that was beginning to blossom like a purple flower around his nose, “Are you alright?”

You blinked. Were you alright? You weren’t dead or seriously injured as far as you could tell. 

It is taking all my willpower not to pass out or vomit right now - was what you were thinking.

“I’ve been better,” you answered, uncrossing your arms. You took a deep, stabilizing breath and squared your shoulders. It was bad enough that you’d spent the majority of the evening flung around like a rag doll in front of your favorite student, but to do it in your pajamas? That was just embarrassing. 

“Miles, please tell me you haven’t been running around New York alone with no adult supervision fighting crime this past year.” 

He chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of his heck. It was like being reprimanded by his own mother, “I mean… I wasn’t always doing it alone.” 

“Yeah! And he had adult supervision - at least for the beginning part of it,” you turned towards the sandy-haired Spider-Man in the pink bathrobe and matching slippers, “I was his mentor and I think I did a pretty good job, wouldn’t you say?” He punched Miles proudly on the arm.

You gawked at him. “Is that… is that a baby strapped to your chest?” 

The baby in question babbled with happiness, chubby fingers reaching out for you. 

Peter grinned, plucking the little girl out from her carrier and mussing up her wild, red curls. “This is Mayday. She’s a wonder isn’t she?” 

He thrust May into your baffled arms where she proceeded to wriggle around like a worm on a hook. 

“You-you brought a baby to a superhero fight?” 

“Sure did! And she did fantastically. Photo time!” He snapped a picture with you and May, adding as a caption “Mayday’s first time saving the multiverse.” “This is going in the scrapbook for sure.” 

“I think… I think I need to go home now.” You said once Mayday was safely crawling around her father’s chest again.

“We should all get out of here.” Miguel said, noting the cop cars beginning to crowd around the perimeter. “Lyla?” 

An orange holographic woman popped to life, hovering in the air between you and Miguel. “You called?” 

You jolted back. Lyla fluttered her fingers in a wave.

“Is it over?” he asked wearily. 

“Hmmmmm,” she flitted around the air, checking holographic screens and typing away on a computer, “Multiverse is holding steady and there’s no sign of the Spot anywhere.” 

“And the super collider?”

Lyla made a poof sound, opening her hands and wiggling her fingers, “Destroyed. No anomalies detected.” 

“Great.” Miguel, tilting his head back and breathing deeply. Lyla blinked out of existence. 

A very pregnant Spiderwoman fiddled around with her watch, opening a portal behind her and her motorbike with only a few quick taps.

Damn, is everyone having kids these days except me? The thought came forth from your muddled brain.

“Let’s get back to HQ everyone. I want full debriefs recorded and uploaded in the next hour.” 

A chorus of protests and half-veiled insults rose up.

A tall, spindly Spider-Man, dressed like a 1920s silent film detective, tipped his hat towards you before calmly adjusting the lapels of his grey coat and stepping into the portal. He was followed by a petite Asian girl driving a robot, and… a pig? You had to blink at that one.

“I hear you teach art.” Hobie said, swinging his guitar onto his back, “That’s ace. Try this out and let me know what you think, yeah?” He tossed you a haphazardly folded zine. The cover screamed out in newsprint letters: THE DECAY OF SOCIETY IN THE FACE OF COMMERCIALIZED ART-MAKING.

“See you around,” he gave a two-fingered salute and stepped back through the portal. 

You immediately felt Miguel’s absence when he brushed past you towards Miles and Gwen. He sized up the two teenagers, grabbed Miles’s wrist, and dropped a watch into his open palm.

“Gwen will teach you how to use it. Don’t make any dumb decisions.” 

“Me?” Miles snorted, “Pfffft. Never.” 

Miguel hesitated before saying, “I’ll see you around… Spider-Man.” 

He was just about to step through the portal himself when you called out his name, voice cracking. He closed his eyes, back tense. 

He didn’t want to turn around. He wanted you to ignore him and let him leave without saying goodbye because… because if he saw you again that just might ruin him. Here was another version of you - another family - that would never be his.

But when you called his name again - this time with more force - he couldn’t deny you. He turned around and stared into your eyes - the eyes of his wife… the eyes of a stranger.

He never had the chance to live a full life with that other version of you. He hadn’t been the one to take you out on the first date, he hadn’t been the one to kiss you at the altar, he hadn’t been there when Gabriella was born. No. All those memories and experiences belonged to someone else, some other version of him that he could never be. But when he looked at you he imagined for one brief moment what it would be like to try it all over again, to be a real husband to you… to be there for you from the start.

“Thank you,” you said, “For saving my life.” 

His lips tightened into a thin, almost angry line, but whether he was angry at you or himself you couldn’t tell. He gave a curt nod, stepped into his dimension, and let the portal close in front of you.

When Gwen and Miles dropped you off at your apartment, the first words out of his mouth were, “Please don’t tell my mom and dad.” 

His phone weighed like a stone in his pocket, filled to the brim with frantic text messages and missed phone calls from Rio and Jefferson.

“Miles… this isn’t-this isn’t safe for you to do. I mean you’re just a teenager.”

“I’m not just a teenager.”  

“Do you even have a driver’s license yet?” Miles shut his mouth, thinking over his next words carefully. 

“Miss Y/l/n, this world needs Spider-Man. You know it needs Spider-Man, And I’m this universe’s Spider-Man. Me. I can’t just let that go.” 

You muttered under your breath. Were you really going to encourage a fifteen year old’s vigilantism? You pinched the bridge of your nose and sighed, hating that he was right. The answer was yes - you really were going to encourage your student to be a superhero.

“I won’t say anything to Rio or Jefferson or anyone else. Your secret is safe with me, Miles. I swear it.” 

His shoulders drooped in relief. Without warning Miles wrapped his wiry arms around you in a tight hug, “Thank you so much. You’re the best.” 

“Don’t thank me. I haven’t even done anything yet. In fact I should be thanking you for protecting the multiverse tonight.” You said, a faint smile growing on your lips despite your best efforts. You hugged him back. “If you ever need anything, just let me know. I’m going to guess even superheroes need a little help every now and then.”

“That would be the understatement of the century.” Gwen said, balancing on the balcony railing with all the grace and poise of a ballerina. 

“We should really get going, Miles. It was nice meeting you, Miss Y/l/n.” You nearly had a heart attack when Gwen fell backwards without hesitation, catching herself in a swing from an old lamppost. 

“See you around, Miss Y/l/n,” Miles said and dove after her, adding a flourish in the form of a front flip.

“See you around, Spider-Man.” You said softly, finally escaping into your apartment and sliding the balcony door shut.

<- Previous chapter Next chapter ->

>>>

Sneak peek at Chapter Three (because I want you all to know what I have planned, but I've made this chapter too long):

You awoke with a start, suffocating under the heavy blankets that you’d buried yourself in last night. You’d been dreaming again about the collider. You’d been dreaming about Miguel - this time in a feverish haze that left your mind in a puddle on the floor. 

How was it possible that a stranger could occupy so much space in your mind? It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he’d held you like you were everything and then left without saying goodbye.

Are you thinking about me too? You wondered, opening your eyes in hopes of chasing the memory of him away.

…Maybe you were still dreaming, because the last time you checked you hadn’t fallen asleep under a tree in Central Park. And even if you had, you highly doubted you could have lugged your bed frame with you all the way from Brooklyn.

Oh por el amor de Dios.

Author's note: I hope you guys are enjoying where the story is heading! To those of you who reached out and offered to help with the Spanish - thank you so much! I've been a little overwhelmed by the responses on Tumblr and haven't been good about keeping track of things, but I have a friend who will be helping me out moving forward. I'll be updating the masterlist once the next chapter is scheduled. In the meantime, have a great weekend everyone :)

[sunmontuewrites]

Okay... I have 4 days left of holidays before I have to start back at work. It's muggy and gross and pouring with rain and I'm too freaking hot. I am going to bed. Tomorrow I will do some shit.

Wash the fucking CPAP machine

Change sheets on the bed

Write 250 words x 20 (+1, 2, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)

Remove 50 weeds from the garden

Finish cutting the fucking quilt

Get Hubs to clean the fucking shower filters

Facial (+6)

Manicure (+6, 7)

Pedicure

Get car WoF (can't - just checked hours - closed until Wednesday)

Shave (+10)

Organise the kids bedrooms for student (+6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)

Go through kids clothes

Organise kids uniform from old school for selling

Do a Lego thing for side blog (+14)

Do 5 loads of washing

Email student

Tidy dresser flat surface (+17)

Clear piano

Spend 10 minutes doing a quick whip-around tidy of house (+16, 17, 18, 19)

If I have decision paralysis over the above, I am rolling a fucking D20 dice because I need to get this shit done because my brain is SOUP. So much to do and I'm not feeling the greatest about all of it.

[emdotcom]

Fucking.

Old car. Old tires. Bad traction.

Raining. Water everywhere. Puddles on puddles. Mini lakes.

Me? Late to work. In a rush. In my rush, miss my turn. Need to make a u-turn.

Go to spot. There is a car on the far side of the street i am turning on to, but not my side. Think, "If i can make this turn tight enough, i can slip by & not have to wait 5 minutes."

Make the turn too tight. I eat the curb, ≈ 3ft. Still late, "I'll check the tires after work."

8.75 hours later. I am a different person. I don't even remember this happened. Just want to go home. Start driving, tire unchecked. Car immediately goes "Ca-thunk, ca-thunk, ca-thunk." I instantly remember what happened. Ohshit.jpeg. i pull over

I know that the trunk only has a basket of misc stuff, no tire. (But do I know that?) I am looking for any way to fix this without it beign a huge affair -- "Will uber deliver me a tire?" "Will [insurance] help me?" "Can I make it to the nearest tire place -- is there even a tire place open at 11pm?"

Call [insurance]. They say they can tow me home, but can't fix it. No cost, due to how close I am to home.

The dudes are nice. I realize I don't have my ID. It has fallen out of my bag (broken zipper). They tell me that the tire is gone, & the rim looks bad. I can also see that the hub cap has busted, like somebody took a slice out of it, as if it were a pie.

Get home. "Hey, [incorrect name], what happened?" "I'll tell you in the morning."

Morning. Hire tow truck to drive me to [nearby tire place]. $99. "Shit. I hope I'll have enough in my acct to cover this."

Tow guy won't take me w/ car, whatever. I don't have my ID, so I ask [family member who owns insurance], "Can you show tow guy your ID?" "NO, WHY WOULD I DO THAT" "??" He doesn't need ID. Cool

He tows off car. I cann [nearby tire place], "hey, my car is being towed to you guys rn." "Okay, what's your number?" "[My number]." They don't recognize it, so I go to tell them [family member who owns insurance]'s number, they transfer me. "Okay, what's your number?" "[My number] (again)." "Okay. See you when you get here." "??"

Go inside. "Hey, [incorrect name], what happened?" I explain. "Well, why didn't you use the spare?" WHAT SPARE.

Turns out, the trunk had a secret compartment with a jack & a spare tire the entire time, which would have carried me 1) home, so that i didn't have to wait until midnight to be picked up, &, 2), to [nearby tire place], so I didn't have to pay $99 to get towed.

Either way, wouldn't be able to drive to work. Need to wait for a rim to be sent to [nearby tire place], which won't be cheap & will take at least a day (meaning I need people to drive me to my 10pm-6am shifts...)

[thefirewithinsblog]

A very short story I wrote about Vampires...

Philip - some random thoughts... (Rough idea draft.)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The world we live in is different from the world we think we live in…

How it all began… I was 21 years old, going to college. I was majoring in Journalism and minoring in Criminal Justice. I found it interesting and enjoyed going to my classes.

I also read the papers a lot to see what was going on. I didn’t pick up on it right away, but when I did, I began to notice something...

Stories were appearing in many of the papers, here and there, about people finding bodies, not hidden somewhere, but out in the open: on sidewalks, in apartment doorways and bedrooms, in cars and trucks, supermarket aisles, exercise gyms, football stadiums, basketball stands, suburban backyards and swimming pools, prison cells, office building hallways, meeting rooms, in public and private bathrooms, construction sites, and any place else you could think of.

And the police couldn’t figure out how the killer got away, why he killed, why the bodies were simply left where they dropped, or how they died… Just bodies being found everywhere.

The killer also didn’t seem to have a particular type of victim that he targeted. The victims appeared completely arbitrary and from all areas of society regardless of background: women and men of all ages, positions, classes, statuses, and religions -teens and children, too.

What stood out in all these murders was that the killer’s choice of who they killed was as indiscriminate as raindrops falling from the sky - and where they irrevocably landed. Anyone... everyone... was game.

The only pattern was that there was no pattern.

The police, the public, and now I was baffled—and intrigued. What was going on?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Later…

I could hear the rain getting louder on the top of my car. Damn. And it was already past two thirty in the morning, and I'd been waiting since one that afternoon. I was starving.

I was afraid to close my eyes -and doze off - afraid I'd miss something. So, I forced myself to stay alert, at least awake. Just in case...

The parking lot Mercurial told me to meet him in seemed fucking unsafe: deserted and forgotten. Anyone could quickly come up to my car, bash my head in, and take everything I got. Not money... Important stuff - stuff I use to hunt vampires.

And who would care? Or notice? Or blame them?

Only one other car is parked here, and it’s sitting about 50 yards behind me. It looked like it'd been there for the last twenty years.

The windows were filthy, no plates, the wheel hubs were visible, and small piles of old leaves were stuck under each tire – the rear ones were half flat.

At least my car doesn’t stand out, to be honest, I thought—it looks just as awful.

He told me to wait for him here no matter how long it took—and no matter what. The way he said "no matter what" seemed like an afterthought, something I could take or leave.

But I knew to take every word he said seriously. I'm beginning to wonder what he has planned...

In the last twenty-three years of doing this shit - ceaseless turmoil - and in all that time, from the dozens and dozens and dozens I've encountered, he seems to be the first sane one. I can ask him questions. And he answers.

When I met him, I could tell he wanted to bite me, but I was wearing a garlic necklace, which stopped him before he got too close.

I could see this bothered him… and a lot. It was the last thing he expected. I told him he didn't want my blood anyway. I eat garlic every day, so it wouldn’t satisfy him.

When he backed off, severely bothered by this protection I created for myself, he suddenly became civil and acted like a professional banker might when he realized his new client wasn't as rich as he supposed.

I started to think how old he might be... I had no idea. Ten-thousand years? Twenty? I could feel his power more vital than the other vampires.

He came across as far more potent than any of the others I'd met, hunting them and ultimately extinguishing them from the face of the Earth.

I didn't kill them. They were already dead. I just eliminated them using the tools and knowledge I'd gathered.

Suddenly, to my right, across the parking lot, on the other side of the street... I could not believe my eyes! —It was Mercurial… what the fuck was he doing?

... Brutally ravaging some young woman in front of her apartment building!

I could see her being mauled... She shook and convulsed like a rag doll in the mouth of some raging, rabid dog.

Her long dark hair slashed left and right in disjointed movements and furiously spinning.

Her shoes flew off her feet in a skewed trajectory, and her arms outstretched tightly, tense and flailing wildly.

Her purse strap twisted around her wrist, causing her purse to jerk fiercely away from her —then pulled into the air, spinning crazily in queer rotations from the sheer force upon her.

She was fighting for her life! But she was helpless...

I thought, NO! Not in front of me!

IN THE OPEN!

"Fuck... no!" I never even considered that this... what was he telling me...?

In the open! What a fool I was! Now, I'm involved in his shit, hardcore!...

My mind was racing… I'm now a motherfucking eye-goddamn witness to a horrific murder! With all the implications... Fuck me!

Should I immediately get the cops!? Should I stay in the fucking car!?

I was bashing my hands on the steering wheel over and over... feeling weak, tired and helpless, but more than that alone.

But Mercurial said, "Wait... no matter what…" And he meant it—regardless of how he said it.

I was so close…. And she was already dead.

What good would calling the cops do? There's no one else around.

They'd arrest me. Sometimes, the dumbest thing people do is call the cops rather than deal with things. Cops only escalate the situation.

Calling the cops is something they do in the movies. But in real life, cops are not your friends. I learned this time and again in this business.

Cops are law enforcement now, not the friendly neighborhood police officers of days of yore. Those days are long dead.

Was there anyone else around? I thought.

I whipped my head around, left, right. I opened the door and looked behind me.

I looked up at the apartment building's windows; perhaps looky-loos were sticking their heads out, noting the scene- and my vehicle.

But I saw no one. But you still never know... if someone's hiding in the background.

Her intense convulsion abruptly stopped within what seemed like the blink of an eye.

My attention excruciatingly fixed, my eyes riveted to the scene. I could see her body being tossed remorselessly onto the path leading up to the apartment building's entrance door - for anyone to see clearly.

There was no attempt at concealment—just the opposite.

I then heard the sound of the passenger-side door’s handle being pulled. The door opened, and Mercurial got into the passenger seat and, in the most ordinary of tones, told me to drive away.

He said it casually - but commandingly, much like how a patron might tell their chauffeur to drive off.

I was trying to keep two and two equals four together in my head… only barely making it….

I started the car, pulled into the street—off to my left side, I could see her body lying on the ground—and drove down the street as if I was on a Sunday drive, on my way to church perhaps.

Ironically, it was the last place Mercurial would want me to go.

I was now an accessory to murder. I had never before seen one of them actually do what they do...

I was safe... until now…

[adaleim]

ugh, didn't get too much done today. The new cap didn't make the truck so Pipi can't move until tomorrow. So... let's take off the busted power steering pump!

That is a nasty greasy mess. holy shit. On this engine, there aren't tensioners to hold the belts tight like in newer engines. That bolt right next to the pump in the photo isn't threaded into a hole, it's in a slot so you push the pump until the belt is tight, then tighten the bolt down. It fought me so bad, ugh.

Sprayed that fucker down with gel degreaser. Turns out it's not slimy black, but shiny pewter-toned.

Also unfortunately, it's in perfect working order. That means the bad pulley noise is coming from either my alternator or my water pump (both really shitty and important). Now, the car still can't start. still no cap, no spark. The alternator is the tensioner for the main drive belt, and I spent almost a whole goddamn hour trying to get my hand on that stupid bolt. Turns out YOU CANT YOU HAVE TO GO FROM UNDER IT. So... that's an 'after Pipi moves again' job. fml.

THAT'S THE FUCKING NUT.

okay fine, I'll change the main fuel filter out, it's probably nasty? Nope, lug nuts rusted to the hub. That's when I decided I'm calling it a day lmao. I used so many shop towels, I'm greasy, car is greasy. Looks like I'm working on Pipi again either tomorrow or Sunday depending on rain. At least that power steering pump isn't broken (although now I'm guessing the rack and pinion is the issue and that's harder to fix)

[beckleysbooks]

When The Party's Over

Here it is, the end of October, Halloween to be exact. Tomorrow many across the Southwestern part of the US and Mexico will celebrate Dia De Los Muertos - The day of the dead. Then, that wraps up the Summer and Fall festivals for another year. And, what a season it has been for me, it was pretty much being somewhere new each week with my inaugural book tour and promoting my historical fiction about my 3rd great grandmother, "Oh! Susannah". All good things must come to an end, so they say.

The tour started on March 4th at a Local Author's event in Canton, Ohio. That giddy beginning had me reminiscing back to my youth, when I was just a little further east on State Route 30, in Minerva, Ohio. Each early summer the "Minerva Homecoming" would occur in Brock Park, situated nicely beside the Little Sandy River; creek actually. Anyway, the rides and concessions would start to arrive late on Saturday night and on through Sunday, with an anticipated "opening" of Monday evening, after the Firemen's Parade. How did they expect kids to wait that long when you could see from the road, just along the creek, a hub of activity. I was never allowed to go onto the park grounds, only viewing from a safe distance on my bike. The anticipation! And, this similar anticipation is what had me eager to start what turned out to be, an eight-month book tour.

My wife and I were traveling to Perryville, Kentucky about three weeks ago, when while at an Ohio Interstate rest stop, I show my wife where my travels this year had taken me. My left arm extended to the middle of the state, and formed the western boundary, while my right arm lie horizontally at the southern boundary of Cadiz, Ohio. Admittedly, we were taken back by the visual of the whole of Northeast Ohio!

Yes, it's been a great tour. I've met so many interesting people who have generously shared their stories and experiences with me. I've learned so much and equally have made every effort to share my knowledge of what it was like to live as a woman in the 19th century. Then, there were all the stories about Susannah's brothers' Civil War service. My hope is that I've given to others as much as they have shared with me. And, in the process, hundreds of signed copies of "Oh! Susannah" have exchanged hands.

It seems appropriate that the last outdoor event, The Algonquin Mill Festival, was held about 5 miles west of where Susannah's story takes place. I have such fond memories of my grandmother, Wilda Beckley, dressing up as a pioneer woman and knitting with all of her other lady friends, mind you in all kinds of weather, at the Mill Festival. I sat through days of rain too as fate would have it.

From the Algonquin Festival, I met people from my hometown and was also introduced to a locally renowned historian, John Davis. Our initial meeting led to John introducing me to Ralph Brackin about a week later. Ralph, who by the way will turn 97 early next year, and John provided me with their knowledge of Union Township, which will be "the home" of my sequel, "A novelization of John Hiram Beckley".

John Davis with the help of another local author and historian, Janice Lane, had me walking through the tree-studded, land-locked property that my grandfather's grandfather, John Hiram Beckley, once owned. Looking at it today, I have no idea how John Hiram farmed this piece of land. It was John Davis' great grandfather who owned the adjacent property directly north of this plot. John told of how his family's land was swallowed up with the creation of the man-made Leesville Lake. Memories came flooding back to me as we pulled into the Leesville boat ramp, the very spot 50 + years ago I had tenuously held on to the rope that kept my grandpa's boat "tethered" while he parked the car and trailer. A quick stop for bait - minnows and maggots - as we grew our own earthworms back then, and we motored off on to the lake with gramp's 5 horse power engine for a day of fishing!

Research, writing and memories have been the foundation and success of my first publication, and now that the fair and festival season is officially over, these very things will provide me the path forward to write my next book.

If by chance you do not currently own your own copy of "Oh! Susannah", you can do so by visiting my website: www.beckleysbooks.com Til next week, when I will blog again, cheers!

[bike42]

Monday September 18, 2023

Nice morning - yoga and breakfast and we were in the library at 8:30am to pick up our lunch boxes, whatever snacks we wanted for the day, and to have our daily briefing.

Jenn described that there are 282 Munro’s (mountains over 3000 feet) in Scotland and it’s sport to “bag” them all! We’ll walk on the foothills of a few of them, but not to the top. Some people vie for bagging them in record time in a self propelled manner - cycling or paddling to reach them!

The leaders decided not to offer the 11 mile hike today due to the rain last night. They’re concerned about slippery conditions. All 17 of us opted for the eight-mile, 1000 ft gain (most of it in the beginning) option. They enlisted the Local Taxi Driver, Donald McDonald (supposedly they’re two of them in town) to help with the shuttle today.

It was a quick 15 minute drive to the trailhead. Keith had said we might meet a Stag named “Collin” at the car park, and he was there to greet us and ask for a handout. I was kind of shocked when Keith fed him a banana. Seems wrong to encourage what should be a wild animal in that manner! Jenn said the locals look after him year around and a vet even comes by to check on him. Still seemed wrong.

We climbed a bit, then as we overlooked and old homestead, Keith gave us a chat on “Highland Clearances.” Ruins like the one we were viewing, are known in Scotland as “scars on the land”. After Industrial Revolution, the land was “cleared” of original landowners - many were offered one-way tickets to US / Australia / Patagonia. If they didn’t leave, the “sheriff” tore off the roof and burned the house. The land was developed into large hunting lodges and sheep grazing. Scotland’s system of land ownership is said to be one of the world’s most inequitable: 83 percent of the land is privately owned, and about half of it is owned by just 500 families - many not from Scotland originally, or living outside of Scotland.

People in this area had a great cultural hub - exported whisky. Many sheep herders from this area did go to Patagonia, and came back. The old traditions are being reestablished, which is refreshing.

Right to Roam - runs deep with Scottish people! Before “The Clearances,” many Scottish families earned their livelihood as “sustenance farmers” on public lands. Now land ownership is concentrated in a few hands, but all are free to enter and landowners must maintain the trails.

Keith grabbed a handful of Spagham Moss. He squeezed it to show us how it retains water. Dried out, it can be used as a wound dressing. Compacted, it becomes a peat bog. Keith’s grandma told him be careful of the Bog man (precursor of the boogie man). Bogs can be used to pickle and preserve things (bog butter).

This area would have had trees in the medieval days - lumber used for building and fires. Landowners now keep it open as a heather meadow for hunting purposes.

Jenn talked a lot, or rather, wondered out loud, about the creation of this landscape - water and glaciers, sedimentary rock and sandstone. It’s clear to see the glacier involvement, but were there also volcanoes and/or earthquakes? Such lovely, yet different rock and scenery. And the power of water - so much water coming out of the mountains and making its way to the sea!

A first for us while hiking, we took a break about an hour into the hike and Keith pulled out a bottle of Whisky and small paper cups. I skipped the cup and had him add a dram to my tea flask - hit the spot. As our break time was ended, it started to rain so I put my rain pants on. Since it had also gotten a little chilly, I added my puffy jacket under my rain jacket thinking I’d take it off in a bit … I didn’t!

The group started splintering, Kelli had a busted boot and Keith tried to tape it up for her, but it slowed them down. We got behind 4 others and the ladies seemed to be having a tough time with the terrain and were taking it slow. We all stepped aside to let some crazy mountain bikers through, and Jeff and I took the opportunity to pass them and work on catching up with the others (the 4 from WI and the 3 ladies). We caught them, but then had a stop in the rain so Jeff and I decided to sit and eat some lunch. Jules was there too, having hiked up from the end.

We continued our hike, odd being all alone now, but we enjoyed the solitude and the trail was obvious so we didn’t have concerns of being lost. The rain came and went, but we were warm inside our rain suits. The river grew larger and the number of waterfalls dumping into it increased in numbers and volume - very spectacular.

We reached the parking lot and found two Backroads vans (a third had driven away just as we reached the end of the trail). John and Rhydian (the newlyweds) were there, along with the coolers full of drinks. I grabbed a Gin and Tonic and climbed in the van as the rain increased and I wanted to finish my lunch! About 15 minutes later, Jules came back and picked up the 4 of us and delivered us back to the hotel.

We went up to our room. Jeff showered, then I took a long, not bath. I could barely stand afterwards - maybe it was too hot. I laid on the bed trying to cool off enough to get dressed with JT napped. We dressed, grabbed some umbrellas and walked to another bar/restaurant on property for a wine tasting session, followed by dinner.

The wine tasting was led by Shane, originally from France. He came to The Torridon six years ago for a six month gig, but fell in love with it here. He said what he likes best is the people are so nice! He added “you know how we are in France!” We tried three difference single malts - I liked all, but preferred the non-peaty varieties. Here are some other facts we learned:

Five Types of Scotch

Single Malt

Blended Malt Scotch Wiskey

Single Grain (corn etc added to Barley)

Blended grain

Blended scotch (Johnny Walker Red)

France is the top consumer of Scotch Whiskys

The Angels Share - check out the movie

We had a nice dinner sitting with John and Rhydian, learning more about them. Afterwards, we headed back to the main building and had a nightcap (Scottish version of Bailey’s on the rocks) and chatted more with Shane.

[qocsuing]

Why did one of my car’s power window switches stop working?

Why did one of my car’s power window switches stop working?

Q. The power window switch on the passenger side of my 2014 Toyota Avalon isn’t working, but the switch on the driver’s side with all four is working fine. Is this a sensor or something else? Get more news about power window switch supplier,you can vist our website!

A. The switch communicates through a computer network to the car’s main computer. The issue could simply be a faulty switch, but it could also be a communications problem to the computer. This can be checked with a professional level bi-directional scan tool that can read the window commands and also command the window to move.

Q. Can you tell me how much it costs to replace both front wheel bearings on a 2009 Nissan Murano SL with all-wheel drive? The prices seem to vary, and I want to make sure I’m not getting taken advantage of. A. The wheel bearings are actually part of the front hub assembly. The bearing and hub have a retail cost of approximately $230 each. The labor to replace the hubs, depending on shop labor fees, is about $300 (about two hours at $150 per hour). You could save a little money with an aftermarket part, but be aware part quality can vary greatly. Once the repair is performed the vehicle should have a wheel alignment to prevent tire wear.

Q. My daughter has a 2004 Hyundai Elantra. About two months ago, the alternator was failing in heavy rain. This triggered the battery icon and the check-engine light to come on. I’ve replaced the alternator, but the check-engine light still appears. The diagnostic code is PO456, indicating a very small emission leak. I would like to know if alternator issues can create and store a false code in a car computer.

A. The most common reasons that a 2004 Hyundai Elantra has code PO456 are most of the items you have changed. The gas cap is most common, followed by the EVAP canister, vent solenoid, then the purge solenoid, then a leaking fuel filler neck, leaking evaporative emissions lines, and in a very few instances the fuel pump was the issue. At this point, the best thing to do is find a shop that can “smoke test” the evaporative emissions system to look for a leak. At nearly 20 years old it is entirely possible the fuel filler could be the source of the leak. Q. Why does AAA and other places charge to keep your old battery when they put in a new one?

A. All battery retailers have a battery “core” charge. In reality, the core charge is a recycling fee, in some cases legally required for the sale of car batteries. These recycling fees and deposit refund programs help encourage people to properly dispose of old car batteries by returning them to retailers or manufacturers who can dispose of them for you. Several years back we had a battery round up-where we asked AAA members to bring us their old batteries, and we got hundreds that were sitting in basements, garages, backyards, and fields. The core charge is built into the battery cost. The old battery is palletized and shipped back to a recycler, and about 98 percent of old battery material can be processed and reused to make new batteries, limiting the impact on natural resources. Q. I have a 2010 Toyota Camry with 142,000 miles. Two months ago, the car just shut off while underway. The local mechanic put in a new aftermarket fuel pump and it was running very well, for a while. After another month it stopped and wouldn’t start. I towed the car to another mechanic. He said the fuel pump was not good so he changed to a Toyota fuel pump. It ran well for another two weeks, and now after driving for 10 minutes it shuts off again. I am guessing that maybe it is time to change the spark plugs and ignition coil. What would you do? A. Since the fuel pump at least temporarily solved the issue, I would look in this general direction. At this point any diagnosis should start with a thorough visual inspection, followed by a complete scan of the computer system. Since the engine stops running after 10 minutes, the shop should hook up their diagnostic equipment and monitor the data, up until the engine stops running. Could it be an ignition coil? Perhaps, but to avoid guessing, some additional diagnostic time is necessary to find the actual problem.

[bearpillowmonster]

So I was invited to this event at the main hub for my workplace, it's a few hours away. They set up a hotel, said I'd get lunch and blah blah

But let's start with the hotel because that's what I started with. I never heard what was supposed to happen with that so I just figured, I'd do whatever and get reimbursed for it since they said it was all covered. (By the way, I do not recommend that, I will do just about anything to avoid asking something.) But anyway, it's the day before I leave and my manager tells me he finally got the regional manager to set it up. Now this guy is known as the kind of guy that just sort of...makes problems. Not intentionally but he does and then other people have to clean them up. So he books a hotel in a town called Alliance. Now I thought that was just the Corp name because it said "Holiday Inn Express Alliance" so you could see how that could easily fit in. I go home that night with the paperwork, getting stuff ready to be prepared and I notice something. The reservation is made IN Alliance. It has an address and everything, I've never heard of this place before, only the town that the event is at but it turns out Alliance is right next to it.

I look and it says Alliance...NE. Nebraska. Now that's on the other side of the country for me so this man made a reservation that I almost walked into for the wrong location. This is the night before, it's not like you can change that, it says to change within 72 hours which you already know I didn't even get this information until after.

Great start. Got it all ironed out though.

The actual place is like a spiral. A toilet bowl because I'd turn right then go on for a while then turn right again and it was just getting more and more frequent until finally I got a straight stretch of road to the hotel.

Taco bell next door. Some weird sights. McDonalds with only one golden arch. Lockers U Lock "Gawrsh Sora, did ya really have to ask?" Broke A** Phone. One Hot Cookie. Drive Thru and Parties. (Those are different places BTW, they never specified what exactly the drive thru was for...)

Crying baby in the room down the hall, guys in the next room over yelling when they're right next to each other...ugh. There were two sets of curtains but the outer ones were just for show, there wasn't a bar that crosses over so there was just a thin veil. I've been in other hotels, maybe nicer, but also motels, maybe worse.

Rain was pouring in the morning but I didn't get to hear the pitter patter until I was outside. Because of that, I took my time getting there and there were people working already so they were already in the building so the only seats left were up front. Uncomfortable chairs at that and I wasn't the only to say so.

I heard there was a lunch which I got really excited about because I didn't know what to expect but it was pretty simple, noodles, green beans and ham which I can't eat ham so 2/3 and I got a donut that filled me up in the morning so I barely even felt like eating. (I don't eat much, plus I didn't take my pills AND we broke for lunch early) the things I had weren't bad though.

The content wasn't bad, they did a good job but that final quarter was a new topic and new presenter so it was kind of dreadful, they even admitted they made it complicated on purpose so that not just anybody would be able to learn it...no wonder there's a shortage in this field.

Had fun though, got a shake. My job will apparently cover everything as long as I provide it so tolls, gas mileage (50 cents a mile), dinner (which I didn't have because I got to leave at 3 or so, hence the shake but the shake still counts so I can get it for free if I want) if I wanted to go to the car wash, I could've, hotel was already covered, overall pretty swell offerings.

[cidnangarlond]

had the most bizarre dream about being in a school where this infection happened and by infection I mean "a dark green goo would wash over people before exploding or dissolving them into small orbs which would then melt rather than explode causing a disgusting mixture of the green goop and blood (red) to pool everywhere" and everyone was successfully evacuated to higher ground where the goo couldn't go and the school was like 7 stories at minimum I did a lot of stair climbing and spreading evac news and once everything was presumably over we all went outside where it was 4pm cloudy and sunny but raining to get on our busses and get in our parents cars and go home before realizing oh, there's no one in these vehicles. in fact, there's no one out here AT ALL. it's completely deserted. everyone is gone but us. we survived but they... and as we all start walking off trying to figure out what to do next and ultimately deciding the nearby mall is the best place for everyone to convene (food courts, clothing shops, centralized hub) the cops show up and immediately me and the two others I'm with are like fuck this is Not good and we book it to the mall. apparently, and this is because it's dream logic, one of the store dressing rooms leads through a series of tunnels that connect to the back of one of the girl's houses which in turn leads to the back of her closet and by extension her room so we do that. it's a long dark tunnel and it was very scary btw even with a flashlight. but we Do get there unscathed and after she slams her closet door she's like SHIT MY PARENTS MIGHT STILL BE HERE. HIDE. so back into the closet I go and through some doors that go deeper and deeper into the closet that I already went through but were still nonetheless scary before hiding in a small room with a very weird undulating yellow Thing. my brain registered it as a keyboard but it would have been those child mat toys that they press and it makes noise like ones for babies and toddlers. anyway one of those. then I woke up only mildly terrified of the closet maze

[writemarcus]

HITTING NEW HEIGHTS

BY MARCUS SCOTT

ORIGINAL RENT STAR DAPHNE RUBIN-VEGA TAKES YOU INSIDE THE IN THE HEIGHTS FILM

Qué quiere decir sueñito?” The disembodied voice of a girlchild ponders. “It means ‘little dream,’” responds an unseen authoritative figure, his feathery tenor with a soft rasp and tender lilt implying there’s more to the story.

Teal waves crash against the white sand coastal lines of the Dominican Republic and a quartet of children plead with the voice to illuminate and tell a story. Usnavi de la Vega (played by Anthony Ramos), sporting his signature newsboy flat cap and full goatee, begins to narrate and weave a tall-tale from the comforts of his beachside food cart: “This is the story of a block that was disappearing. Once upon a time in a faraway land called Nueva York, en barrio called Washington Heights. Say it, so it doesn’t disappear,” he decrees.

And we’re off, this distant magic kingdom ensnared within the winding urban sprawl of farthest-uptown Manhattan, the music of the neighborhood chiming with infinite possibilities: a door-latch fastening on tempo, a ring of keys sprinkling a sweet embellishment, the splish-splash of a garden hose licking the city streets like a drumstick to a snare fill, a manhole cover rotating like vinyl on a get-down turntable, the hiss of paint cans spraying graffiti like venoms from cobras and roll-up steel doors rumbling, not unlike the ultra-fast subway cars zigzagging underground. So begins the opening moments of In the Heights, the Warner Bros. stage-to-screen adaptation of the Tony Award-winning musical by composer-lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda (Hamilton) and librettist Quiara Alegría Hudes (Water by the Spoonful) that is set to premiere in movie theatres and on HBO Max on June 11, 2021.

This stunning patchwork of visuals and reverberations combine to create a defiant and instantly memorable collage of inner-city living not seen since Walter Hill’s 1979 cult classic The Warriors or West Side Story, the iconic romantic musical tragedy directed on film by Robert Wise and original Broadway director Jerome Robbins. With Jon M. Chu at the helm, the musical feature has all the trademarks of the director’s opulent signature style: Striking spectacles full of stark colors, va-va-voom visuals, ooh-la-la hyperkinetic showstopping sequences and out-of-this-world destination locations.

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A Kind of Priestess

Joining the fray of proscenium stage vets in the film is Broadway star Daphne Rubin-Vega, who originated the role of Mimi in the Off-Broadway and Broadway original productions of Rent. She returns to major motion pictures after a decade since her last outing in Nancy Savoca’s Union Square, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2011. When we caught up with Rubin-Vega, she was hard at work, in-between rehearsals with her In the Heights co-star Jimmy Smits on Two Sisters and a Piano, the 1999 play by Miami-based playwright Nilo Cruz, a frequent collaborator. Rubin-Vega netted a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her role as the enraptured Conchita in Cruz’s Anna in the Tropics; that same year Cruz was awarded the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, making him the first Latino playwright to receive the honor. Despite significant global, social and economic disruption, especially within the arts community, Rubin-Vega has been working throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

“People around me have [contracted] COVID… My father-in-law just had it. I’m very fortunate,” Rubin-Vega said. “This collective experience, it’s funny because it’s a year now and things seem better. Last year it was, like, ‘Damn, how inconvenient!’ The one comfort was that, you know, it’s happening to every one of us. That clarity that this is a collective experience is much more humbling and tolerable to me.”

The last time Rubin-Vega graced Washington Heights on screen or stage, she acted in the interest of survival and hunger as a probationer released after a 13-year stint in prison and given a new lease on life as an unlicensed amateur masseuse in the basement of an empanada shop in Empanada Loca, The Spalding Gray-style Grand Guignol horror play by Aaron Mark at the LAByrinth Theater Company in 2015. In In the Heights she plays Daniela, an outrageously vivacious belting beautician with a flair for the dramatics, forced to battle a price-gouging real estate bubble in the wake of gentrification.

“She’s like the deputy or the priestess,” Rubin-Vega said. “Owning a salon means that you have a lot of information; you’re in a hub of community, of information, of sharing… it’s also where you go for physical grooming. It’s a place where women were empowered to create their own work and it is a place of closeness, spiritual advice, not-so-spiritual advice. Physical attention.”

She said, “Daniela also being an elder; I think she’s not so much a person that imposes order on other people. She’s there to bring out the best—she leads with love. She tells it like it is. I don’t think she sugar-coats things. What you see is what you get with Daniela. It’s refreshing; she has a candor and sure-footedness that I admire.”

With the film adaptation, Chu and Hudes promised to expand the universe of the Upper Manhattan-based musical, crafting new dimensions and nuances to two characters in particular: Daniela and hairdresser Carla, originally portrayed as business associates and gossip buddies in the stage musical. On the big screen they are reimagined as romantic life partners. Stephanie Beatriz, known to audiences for her hilarious turn as the mysterious and aloof Detective Rosa Diaz in the police procedural sitcom romp “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” co-stars as the fast-talking firecracker, Carla.

It’s been a year waiting, you know. It’s like the lid’s been on it and so we’re just so ready to explode.

Where Is Home?

“Well, Quiara and Jon really expanded on what Lin and Quiara originally created and now they’re partners—and not just work partners, right? But they’re life partners,” Beatriz said at a March press event celebrating the release of the film’s two promo trailers. “What was so gratifying to me as a person who is queer is to see this relationship in the film be part of the fabric of the community, and to be normal, and be happy and functioning, and part of the quilt they’ve all created.”

She continued, “So much of this film is about where home is and who home is to you. And for Carla, Daniela is home. Wherever Daniela is, that’s where Carla feels at home. I thought that they did such a beautiful job of guiding us to this, really, you know, it’s just a happy functioning relationship that happens to be gay and in the movie. And I love that they did that, because it is such a part of our world.”

Rubin-Vega said she had no interest in playing any trope of what one might think a lesbian Latina might look or act like, noting that the queer experience isn’t monolithic, while expressing that the role offered her a newfound freedom, especially with regard to being present in the role and in her everyday life.

“Spoiler alert! I felt like not wearing a bra was going to free me. Did I get it right? Am I saying that gay women don’t wear bras? No, it was just a way for me to be in my body and feel my breasts. To feel my femaleness and celebrate it in a more unapologetic way,” she said, laughing. “To be honest, I was really looking forward to playing a lesbian Latina. It’s something that I hadn’t really explored before. Latinos [can be] very homophobic as a culture, and I wanted to play someone who didn’t care about homophobia; I was gonna live my best life. That’s a bigger thing. It’s also like, maybe I’m bisexual. Who knows? Who cares? If you see that in the film, that’s cool too, you know?”

Stand-out performances abound, especially with regard to the supporting cast; newcomers Melissa Barrera (in a role originated by Tony Award winner Karen Olivo) and Gregory Diaz IV (replacing three-time Tony Award nominee Robin de Jesús) are noteworthy as the aspiring fashion designer Vanessa and budding activist Sonny. Olga Merediz, who earned a Tony Award nomination for originating her role as Abuela Claudia, returns to the silver screen in a captivating performance that will be a contender come award season. However, Rubin-Vega may just be the one to watch. Her performance is incandescent and full of moxie, designed to raise endorphin levels. She leads an ensemble in the rousing “Carnaval del Barrio,” a highlight in the film.

Musical Bootcamp

“We shot in June [2019]. In April, we started musical bootcamp. In May, we started to do the choreography. My big joke was that I would have to get a knee replacement in December; that was in direct relation to all that choreography. I mean, there were hundreds of A-1 dancers in the posse,” Rubin-Vega said. “The family consisted of hundreds of superlative dancers led by Chris[topher] Scott, with an amazing team of dancers like Ebony Williams, Emilio Dosal, Dana Wilson, Eddie Torres Jr. and Princess Serrano. We rehearsed a fair bit. Monday through Friday for maybe five weeks. The first day of rehearsal I met Melissa [Barrera] and Corey [Hawkins], I pretty much hadn’t known everyone yet. I hadn’t met Leslie [Grace] yet. Chris Scott, the choreographer, just went straight into ‘let’s see what you can do.’ It was the first [dance] routine of ‘In The Heights,’ the opening number. He was like, ‘OK, let’s go. Five, six, seven, eight!’”

Rubin-Vega said that she tried to bring her best game, though it had “been a minute” since she had to execute such intricate choreography, noting that they shot the opening number within a day while praising Chu’s work ethic and leadership.

“There was a balance between focus and fun and that’s rare. Everyone was there because they wanted to be there,” she said. “I think back to the day we shot ‘96,000.’ That day it wouldn’t stop raining; [it was] grey and then the sky would clear and we’d get into places and then it would be grey again and so we’d have to wait and just have to endure. But even the bad parts were kind of good, too. Even the hottest days. There were gunshots, there was a fire while we were shooting and we had to shut down, there was traffic and noise and yet every time I looked around me or went into video village and saw the faces in there, I mean…it felt like the only place to be. You want to feel like that in every place you are: The recognition. I could recognize people who look like me. For now on, you cannot say I’ve never seen a Panamanian on film before or a Columbian or a Mexican, you know?”

Another Notion of Beauty

Rubin-Vega’s professional relationship with the playwright Hudes extends to 2015, when she was tapped to [participate in the] workshop [production of]  Daphne’s Dive. Under the direction of Thomas Kail (Hamilton) and starring alongside Samira Wiley (“The Handmaid’s Tale,” “Orange Is the New Black”), the play premiered Off-Broadway at the Pershing Square Signature Center the following year. Rubin-Vega also starred in Miss You Like Hell, the cross-country road musical by Hudes and Erin McKeown, which premiered at La Jolla Playhouse in 2016 before it transferred to The Public Theater in 2018. With her participation in the production of In the Heights, she is among the few to have collaborated with all of the living Latinx playwrights to have won the Pulitzer Prize; Hudes won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Water by the Spoonful, while Miranda took home the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Hamilton. Speaking on her multiple collaborations over the years, Rubin-Vega also acknowledged having known Miranda years before they would join voices.

“Lin to me is like a little bro or legacy; he’s a direct descent to me from [Rent author] Jonathan Larson, which is a bigger sort of all-encompassing arch,” she said, though she stressed that she auditioned like everyone else, landing the role after two or three callbacks. “Quiara and I have a wonderful working and personal relationship, I think. Which isn’t to say I had dibs by any means because…it’s a business that wants the best for itself, I suppose. […] So, when I walked in, I was determined to really give it my best.”

Life During and After Rent

Rubin-Vega has built an impressive resume over the course of her career, singing along with the likes of rock stars like David Bowie and starring in a multitude of divergent roles on Broadway and off. From a harrowing Fantine in Les Misérables and a co-dependent Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire to a sinister Magenta in The Rocky Horror Show, her evolution into the atypical character actor and leading lady can be traced back 25 years to January 25, 1996, when Larson’s groundbreaking musical Rent, a retelling of Giacomo Puccini’s 19th-century opera La Bohème, premiered at the New York Theatre Workshop. On the morning of the first preview, Larson suffered an aortic dissection, likely from undiagnosed Marfan’s syndrome and died at the age of 35, just ten days shy of what would have been his 36th birthday.

On April 29, 1996, due to overwhelming popularity, Rent transferred to Nederlander Theatre on Broadway, tackling contemporary topics the Great White Way had rarely seen, such as poverty and class warfare during the AIDS epidemic in New York City’s gritty East Village at the turn of the millennium. Rubin-Vega would go on to be nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical for her role as sex kitten Mimi Márquez, an HIV-positive heroin addict and erotic dancer.

  The show became a cultural phenomenon, receiving several awards including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and four Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Rubin-Vega and members of the original Broadway cast were suddenly overnight sensations, recording “Seasons of Love” alongside music icon Stevie Wonder, receiving a photo shoot with Vanity Fair and landing the May 13, 1996 cover of Newsweek. Throughout its 12-year Broadway run, many of the show’s original cast members and subsequent replacements would go on to be stars, including Renée Elise Goldsberry, who followed in Rubin-Vega’s footsteps to play the popular character before originating the role of Angelica Schuyler in Hamilton, for which she won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical.

When the screen adaptation of Rent hit cinemas in 2005 under the direction of Chris Columbus, Rubin-Vega’s conspicuous absence came as a blow to longtime fans. The confluence of pregnancy with the casting and filming process of Rent hindered her from participating at the time. The role was subsequently given to movie star Rosario Dawson.

“First of all, if you’re meant to be in a film, you’re meant to be in it,” Rubin-Vega said. “That’s just the way it goes. It took a quarter of a century but this [In the Heights] is a film that I wanted to make, that I felt the elements sat right. I always felt that Rent was a little bit darker than all that. Rent to me is Rated R. In The Heights is not. It’s also a testament. Unless it’s sucking your soul and killing you softly or hardly, just stick with it. This is a business and I keep forgetting it’s a business because actors just want to show art. So, it’s really wonderful when you get a chance to say what you mean and mean what you say with your work. It’s a really wonderful gift.”

Rarely-Explored Themes

Like Larson’s award-winning show and the film adapted from it, In The Heights is jam-packed with hard-hitting subject matter, addressing themes of urban blight, immigration, gentrification, cultural identity, assimilation and U.S. political history. When Rubin-Vega’s character Daniela and her partner were priced out of the rent for her salon, most of her clientele moved to the Grand Concourse Historic District in the Bronx. Her salon, a bastion of the community, is met with a polar response when she announces she’s joining the mass exodus with the other victims of gentrification who were pushed out by rising rents. The news is met with negative response from long-time patrons who refuse to take the short commute to the new location. Daniela counters, “Our people survived slave ships, we survived Taino [indigenous Caribbean people] genocide, we survived conquistadores and dictators…you’re telling me we can’t survive the D train to Grand Concourse?”

The question is humorous, but also insinuates a more nuanced understanding of the AfroLatinidad experience in the Western world. The film also looks at the American Dream with a naturalistic approach. Leslie Grace, who plays Nina Rosario, a first-generation college student returning from her freshman year at Stanford University and grappling with finances and the expectations of her community, noted that while her character “finds [herself] at some point at a fork in the road,” she may not have the luxury to be indecisive because of the pressures put on by family, community and country.  

“The struggle of the first-generation Americans in the Latino community is not talked about a lot because it’s almost like a privilege,” Grace asserted. “You feel like it’s a privilege to talk about it. But there is a lot of identity crisis that comes with it and I think we explore that.” Speaking on the character, she elaborated: “Home for her is where her heart is, but also where her purpose is. So, she finds her purpose in doing something outside of herself, greater than herself and going back to Stanford for the people she loves in her community. I really relate to where she’s at, trying to find herself. And I think a lot of other people will, too.”

Worth Singing About

For Miranda, a first-generation Puerto Rican New Yorker that grew up in Inwood at the northernmost tip of Manhattan before attending Wesleyan University where he would develop the musical, this speaks to a larger issue of what defines a home.

“What does ‘home’ even mean? Every character is sort of answering it in a different way,” he said. “For some people, home is somewhere else. For some people, home is like ‘the block’ they’re on. So, that’s worth singing about. It’s worth celebrating in a movie of this size.”

Given the current zeitgeist, it’s no wonder why Chu, Hudes and Miranda decided to pivot with adapting the stage musical for the big screen, leaning in to tackle the plights and predicaments of DREAMers [children of undocumented immigrants seeking citizenship] stateside. In one scene, glimpses of posters at a protest rally read “Immigrant Rights are Human Rights” and “Refugees Are People Too.” Growing up in a multicultural household as a Latina with a Black Latina mother, a white father and a Jewish American stepfather, Rubin-Vega said she was used to being in spaces that were truly multiracial. Nevertheless, there were times when she often felt alien, especially as a du jour rock musical ingenue who looked as she did in the mid-1990s through the 2000s.

“Undocumented people come in different shapes and colors,” she noted. “To be born in a land that doesn’t recognize you, it’s a thing that holds so much horror… so much disgrace happens on the planet because human beings aren’t recognized as such sometimes.”

The film “definitely sheds light on that, but it also talks about having your dream taken away and its human violation—it’s a physical, spiritual, social, cultural violation,” Rubin-Vega said. “There’s a difference between pursuing dreams and being aware of reality. They’re not mutually exclusive. What this film does, it presents a story that is fairly grounded in reality. It’s a musical, it’s over the top… but it reflects a bigger reality, which is like an emotional reality…that people that are challenged on the daily, have incredible resolve, incredible resoluteness and lifeforce.”

She said: “Growing up, looking like me, I got to ingest the same information as everyone else except when it came time to implement my contributions, they weren’t as welcomed or as seen. The dream is to be seen and to be recognized. Maybe I could be an astronaut or an ingenue on Broadway? You can’t achieve stuff that you haven’t imagined. When it talks about DREAMers, it talks about that and it talks about how to not be passive in a culture that would have you think you are passive but to be that change and to dare to be that change.”

Dreams Come True

Dreams are coming true. Alongside the nationwide release of the much-anticipated film, Random House announced it will publish In the Heights: Finding Home, which will give a behind-the-scenes look at the beginnings of Miranda’s 2008 breakout Broadway debut and journey to the soon-to-be-released film adaptation. The table book will chronicle the show’s 20-year voyage from page to stage—from Miranda’s first drawings at the age of 19 to lyric annotations by Miranda and essays written by Hudes to never-before-seen photos from productions around the world and the 2021 movie set. It will be released to the public on June 22, eleven days after the release of the film; an audiobook will be simultaneously released by Penguin Random House Audio.

Hinting at the year-long delay due to the pandemic, Rubin-Vega said, “It’s been a year waiting, you know. It’s like the lid’s been on it and so we’re just so ready to explode.”

Bigger Dreams

“Jon [Chu], I think, dreams bigger than any of us dare to dream in terms of the size and scope of this,” Miranda said. “We spent our summer [in 2018] on 175th Street. You know, he was committed to the authenticity of being in that neighborhood we [all] grew up in, that we love, but then also when it comes to production numbers, dreaming so big. I mean, this is a big movie musical!”

Miranda continued, “We’re so used to asking for less, just to ask to occupy space, you know? As Latinos, we’re, like, ‘Please just let us make our little movie.’ And Jon, every step of the way, said, like, ‘No, these guys have big dreams. We’re allowed to go that big!’ So, I’m just thrilled with what he did ’cause I think it’s bigger than any of us ever dreamed.”

Speaking at the online press conference, Miranda said, “I’m talking to you from Washington Heights right now! I love it here. The whole [movie] is a love letter to this neighborhood. I think it’s such an incredible neighborhood. It’s the first chapter in so many stories. It’s a Latinx neighborhood [today]. It was a Dominican neighborhood when I was growing up there in the ’80s. But before that it was an Irish neighborhood and Italian. It’s always the first chapter in so many American stories.”

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

HASO, “Angel Wings.”

Setting up for some other stuff really quick, don’t worry I am going to finish the krill arc, I just needed to jump away from it really quick. Hope you enjoy today’s story :)

“I am not willing to take unnecessary risks.”

“We don’t have enough men to cover all that area.”

“We will do what has to be done.”

“With all due respect, Admiral, do you understand how big space is?” There was a silence in the room, twenty or so men and women stood around a large dark table. All around them on the walls light up star maps and ship configurations glowed blue in the dim holographic light. On the table before them a star map had been laid out casting shadows upon the faces of men and women.

Admiral Vir was sitting partially facing admiral Massie who was half standing, his heavy frame leaning palms flat against the table.

The two stared very intensely  at each other, the older man trying to dominate the younger with the sheer intensity of his presence. It was rather unfortunate for him that after two years of almost continual active service in space, Admiral vir was used to being stared down by Adaptids, Starborn, Drev warriors, and --on occasion-- space dragons, so this rather portly man in a funny hat was unlikely to get a rise out of him.

“You better watch your tone, boy.” The man hissed quietly

Admiral Vir looked back at him unblinking, “This is the 41st century Admiral, and that superiority bullshit isn’t going to stack up to experience, so I will watch my tone when you sit down and realize that what you are suggesting, not only puts our entire fleet, and all of the fleets of the GA at risk, but it's also based on outdated military naval strategy from a thousand years ago that does not take into consideration that space is, in fact, three dimensional.”

The men and women about the table shifted awkwardly in their seats, unsure how to proceed.

To some degree superiority DID fly, especially within the Office of Galactic Intelligence, where Admiral Massie was head officer, but out there, among the stars, where Admiral Vir had spent nearly 90% of his career, the ability to question your superiors could be a matter of life and death.

In the end it was Admiral Kelly, a strong political supporter of Admiral Vir, and his long time ally who leaned forward in her seat, “I think Admiral Vir does have a point. He is, after all our resident expert in galactic warfare.” She looked around the table, “I don’t see anyone else here who has been involved in a pitched space battled?”

There was murmuring and the shuffling of feet.

She Adjusted her cup of coffee lightly where it sat on the desk, “In fact the only person here who has ever flown a ship, being me, would have no idea how to go about galactic combat, so Admiral Vir, please proceed.”

Admiral Vir stood and nodded to Kelly before taking his stand at the head of the table.

“As I was saying earlier, putting warp gates too far out near the border of the system is inadvisable and extremely risky. Even if those warp gates were to be accessed through a security code on the ship itself, I wouldn’t trust that someone wouldn’t be able to hack them. Which is why I suggest keeping the warp gates towards the center of the GA system, but not near planets themselves. There are only a few ships galaxy wide that can approach a planet unknown and unseen, those being the major command vessels used with most GA species. All other ships would require access to a warp gate, or be forced to do multiple warps before reaching the system giving viewers enough time to ready for an attack. My suggestion is, instead of trying to protect the entire GA system, we make hub nexuses around the most important sites, planets, colonies, stations, and warp gates. Then we station smaller military vessels around those areas to keep enemies out. If we were trying to cover the entire area, the only people who might be able to show up in time to defend against an entire arriving fleet are myself and a select few others. If that were to happen we might be completely taken out in one fell swoop. No, better to reinforce likely areas of attack, defend and use the warp gates for what really matters, and allow ships like mine to free float and provide support when needed.”

There was silence about the room as the other men and women nodded.

Admiral Massie glowered at him from the other side of the table.

Admiral Vir ignored him.

He played politics, but only so far as not playing was playing. He wasn’t looking to move up in the ranks, and he wasn’t looking to make enemies. Everyone in UNSC command knew and understood that he had only one goal, and that was to keep his people alive and well. While his unsheathed interactions with some of the other Admirals made him unpopular, particularly within the ranks of some of the older generations, it was hard to deny that he did his job well.

Then again he and Admiral Massie had been at each other’s throats since the start of Vir’s command.

Massie was a planetary isolationist and had opposed joining the GA since the beginning, while Admiral Vir was a staunch supporter of intergalactic cooperation and alliance. Admiral Massie was under the impression that Admiral Vir had romanticised the idea of extraterrestrial life to the detriment of earth itself, and Admiral Vir thought Admiral Massie was a pompous jack-off with more interest in his political career than he was in the lives of his men.

Both of them may have been right to a certain degree.

Either way the other admirals, while being somewhere middling on the spectrum, tended to lean towards agreeing with Admiral Vir when it came to discussions about planetary defence. He was, after all, the only one with personal experience in the area, and they didn’t really have time for Massie and his superiority complex.

It was for many of these reasons, that their meeting eventually steered itself towards a discussion on isolationism versus GA involvement.

“It isn’t our job to deal with THEIR problems. We lose trillions of dollars every year to the defence of alien species, and for what? What can they do for us that we cannot do for yourself as a much lower cost.”

“If it weren’t for our intervention, Admiral, the entire GA system would be overrun with Burg, and we would be next.” Admiral Vir cut in gently pounding his fist against the table for emphasis.

“Not if we fortify our own strongholds.” The man continued to argue.

Admiral Vir felt his skin going hot under the collar, but took a deep breath to calm himself, “You forget about the over ten human colonies that exist within GA airspace. This may have been an argument two years ago, but with those colonies in existence as of now, we cannot abandon them for an isolationist principle. Furthermore, we need the cooperation of the GA in order to buy and sell the materials needed to keep the economies of those colonies running. Without them we don’t have the resources, the time or the labor to be isolationists.” He relaxed back into his seat and allowed the other Admirals to jump in with their two cents.

He would have liked to stay quiet and just listen, buthe found he was actually a poor hand at keeping his mouth shut when someone was saying things that could be potentially harmful to the good of humanity.

He was only partially paying attention when a soft voice came in over his shoulder, “Admiral.”

He turned to look, finding a smartly dressed young lieutenant waiting at his side.

“The UN President is almost done with her address, and you’re up next.”

He nodded and took to his feet quietly excusing himself from the table as he followed her down the hallway. The automated catwalk whirred to life, and the two of them stood next to each other as they were carried off down the long hallway. On either side of them rain slashed against the windows in great sheets. The sky overhead was dark and overcast,and the green of the lawn was soaked in great frothing puddles.

He reached into his uniform pocket and pulled out his note cars glancing them over once more before putting them back in his pocket.

At the end of the catwalk two marines were waiting for him.

Ramirez grinned at him and Maverick raised an eyebrow as he stepped off the catwalk, “That’s a lovely expression.:” Maverick commented, “Are the Admirals not playing nice.”

He snorted slightly, “Most of them, but there are a few who just don’t seem to understand how space works, but I guess thant can be expected when you spend your entire career behind a desk.”

The two Marines nodded and fell into step beside him as he made his way towards the outer lawn where the press conferences were being held. A massive black tent had been erected just outside on the lawn, and the sky overhead was soon to grow dark. In the distance he could see the glowing neon of advertising signs hovering over the highway. Those same bright neon lights lit up the tent itself, and projected inflated pictures of the UN President onto the walls as she spoke.

Secret Service agents milled about on the lawn in the rain their jackets soaked and spitting water in a glistening halo of white. Even from here he could see the little strips of clear white tubing that marked their earpieces.

“A shit day to give an address.” He muttered as he was led towards the back entrance, taking a seat by the door as they waited for the president to finish. Rain continued to drum loudly on the tent and the windows at his side. The door was slightly cracked open, so he could just hear the sound of her voice over the pouring rain.

Off on the other side of the room Maverick was watching the address on her implant through her eyes were glazed with boredom.

Ramirez didn’t even pretend to pay attention and was, instead playing holographic paddle ball on his device.

Admiral Vir smiled a little and shook his head at the antics of some of his favorite marines before pulling out his notecards again and giving them a once over. This was becoming more common as his position became more and more political. When he was younger he would have balked at the idea of getting involved in politics, but somehow he had found himself to be the lynchpin holding intergalactic relations together, which turned out to be a very political position to have.

As it seemed his enthusiasm for joining the GA was not shared by everyone, and if if wasn’t for his popularity, and ability to hold their enemies at bay, talks and interaction with the GA might not have gone nearly as far as they had. The thought that he might be the only thing holding intergalactic relations together was nauseating. He was sure that wasn’t entirely the case, by now people understood that in order to have colonies, they had to have cooperation, but that didn’t mean he still wasn’t an important part of all this.

It was his fault after all, and he would probably be blamed if things went south.

Outside cheering rose up, and he lifted his head and stood as the UN president was ushered back inside on a wave of applause.

Most of the secret service agents went with her, but security still stayed behind as he stepped past her and up to the lectern. WHen he had said tent earlier, he had not fully grasped the size of the place. It might as well have been an indoor auditorium with places to sit at the back and large projection screens.

A dim blue light fell over him from the side, and he tried not to look at how own awkward figure as he appeared on screen. Cameras flashed below him as reporters vied for the front seat. He set his notecards on the lectern  and began to speak.

His heart hammered and his leg wobbled nervously, but that was common for him these days.

He was a decent public speaker, or was becoming proficient, but that still didn’t stop his nerves.

“The GA has asked me to take the time and announce that they have begun peace talks with the Lumin and the alien species known as the Mikes, who contacted us through long distance laser transmission just last week. The conferences will be held on the GA hub, and life updates will be broadcast to the GA website for the duration of those talks. As someone who has been active on the intergalactic stage since the beginning, I urge you all to-” His eyes drifted over the crowd as he continued with his speech, discussing the importance of voting for their representatives as a new election period was coming up. He stressed also the importance of a couple of economic bills which might strengthen their political report with the Tesraki. He had practiced this speech hundreds of times, and so the words flowed from his mouth with no real issue as he stared down into the crowd. He scanned his eyes over their faces, some of them smiling, some of them concentrated, and others downright annoyed with the words coming from his mouth.

He would have estimated that the ratio of pleased to displeased was three to one, though that percentage was still pretty high 33.3% wasn’t nothing.

He continued to scan the crowd eyes trailing up and towards the center of the crowd where a strange sort of commotion had started. The people parted, and as they did it was like watching a dog run through a field of grass where the stocks began to bend sideways under their weight.

His eyes tracked down to the source of the disruption even as he was speaking.

And found a figure dressed in a heavy black raincoat, face covered.

His voice was just beginning to trail off as the man or woman lifted their head and raised their arm.

Water dripped from the ceramic barrel, and the screaming began just as a loud CRACK erupted in the room.

And then he was plowed into the ground by what felt to be a speeding freight train. THe wind was knocked out of him as he landed on his back. His ears erupted into squealing static which drowned out the sound of secret service men running into the crowd and people screaming. The muzzle flash had left spots in his vision.

Was he hit?

He gasped for air unable to breath for two horrible seconds as the breath came flooding back to him. When his hearing came back the chaos was almost deafening enough to leave his ears ringing again.

A figure knelt in front of him.

Someone else Dived to his side as security flooded onto the stage with them.

Maverick grabbed his shoulder, “Are you hit.”

He looked down at himself, and his pristine grey uniform looking for a spot of red.

He ran his hands over his body, “I…. I don’t think so.” But if the bullet hadn’t thrown him to the ground than what….

He looked up to see Ramirez still kneeling in front of him. He must have seen it coming and tackled Adam to the ground before the shot was fired.

But something…. Something was wrong.

Adam crawled into a kneeling position and grabbed Ramirez by the shoulders. The other man hadn’t moved.’

Frantically he began to look Ramirez over, “Ramirez! Are you hit?”

The other man raised his head and his eyes were glassy, “I….I don’t know.”

The crowd had tightened around them, and he waved security off as he looked his friend over. As he scooted forward, grabbing Ramirez by the back of his uniform, he felt something wet and sticky against his hand.

He drew back…. Only to find his hand drenched in blood.

“SHIT! SOMEONE GET A DOCTOR!”

Ramirez swayed, and Adam caught him around the shoulders gently lowering him to the ground, “Woah, just, relax alright, you’re going to be ok. HE’S BEEN SHOT!”

Ramirez grunted still staring glassily into space.

“Help me roll him.: his voice was tight and strangled, as Maverick grabbed Ramirez by the shoulder and rolled him into his side. Adam could see the blood now, a large stain on his lower mid back.

He pulled up the shirt just to see the bullet hole oozing dark red, already smearing over the other man’s tanned skin, “Shit, shit, shit, Ramirez….. ANGEL!”

Angel grunted, “If you wanted my shirt off, you could have just asked nicely.”

“Is he going into shock?”

“I dont know I’m not a fucking doctor. Just keep him awake. Keep him talking!”

Adam ripped off his uniform jacket, wadding it into a tight ball which he pressed against the oozing wound. Maverick had pulled off her jacket and rolled it under Ramirez’s head. He groaned in pain as Adam applied pressure.

“It's alright, buddy, you're going to be alright, just hang in there.”

“That looks like it went through his kidney.” Maverick muttered.

“Shut up and keep him talking!”

Maverick nodded and patted Angel on the cheek, growing annoyed he wasn’t responding and then lightly slapping him. His eyes fluttered open, “Ow.”

“Stay awake damn it.”

“Bossy.” Angel muttered.

Just then a crack medical team burst through the line shooing everyone out of their way as they did. Adam backed up hands out speared with blood and as he let the professionals take over.

He listened to them talk, heard words coming out of their mouths but didn’t understand what they were saying. He was grabbed by the shoulder and urged to go inside where it was safe, but he shook them off vision fixed on his friend lolling helplessly on the ground, covered in blood.

The men and women removed  his bloodied uniform jacket and pulled a blue cylinder from somewhere. It was shoved into the wound and a button was depressed. There was a sharp hissing noise and Angel groaned in pain, though when they withdrew the cylinder he was no longer bleeding.

Adam was dragged back as men rushed forward with a stretcher transferring his injured friend onto it and hurriedly dragging him away. Adam was waylaid by the security detail that dragged him into a safe room as everyone tried to figure out what had happened.

Angel’s blood began to dry on his hands.

The shooter hadn’t gotten far, and when detained it had been pretty clear that that bullet wasn’t just meant for the marine.

It had been meant for Adam himself.

Even though he knew that was likely the truth, that revelation still came to him as a shock, and his skin grew clammy and cold with the realization.

Angel had saved his life, and taken the bullet that was meant for him.

***

This realization still haunted him hours later as he sat in the waiting room at Mercy Core Hospital heavily guarded by a crack SWAT team and a small military garrison. He stared down at his hands, at the blood that had turned brown and was now flaking off in his hands and onto the waiting room floor. Blood stained the white shirt he wore underneath, and his tie hung loose and undone around his shoulders.

The commotion of footsteps out the door and he lifted his head towards the voices. He tried to understand what they were saying but, somehow, couldn’t. He chalked it up to his brain just not functioning correctly until the door burst inward and a short dark-haired woman burst into the room followed by a grey haired older woman, and a young girl.

They looked too much like Angel to be anyone but his family, and as they walked in Adam stood sharply nearly knocking his chair over in his haste. He realized now why he couldn't’ understand them before, they were speaking Spanish.

The middling woman’s eyes fell on him instantly and she rushed forward grabbing him by the wrists, “What, what happened, what do you know, is my son ok.”

He hadn’t truly grasped what had happened until just now, and fought hard to bite back the tears as he gave her the details, “He was shot, the doctors had to bring him into surgery about an hour ago…” Her eyes went wide with horror and shock, his throat squeezed tight causing his voice to rise in pitch though he tried to fight it down.

“He...he has the best medical care you could ask for…. Our ship doctor arrived…. Arrived on scene thirty minutes ago…. He… hes the best surgeon in the-galaxy.” He could barely speak now, his throat thick as if it was stuffed with cotton.

She put her hands over her mouth and turned in a distressed circle.

His eyes fell on the older grey haired woman and her eyes pierced into him like she could read his sole like a book.

He had heard enough stories about this woman to know who she was immediately.

Angel’s Abuela, the family matriarch.

Adam shrunk under the intensity of her gaze

Mother and, what must have been Angel’s younger sister were sitting together hugging each other for comfort. Adam stood awkwardly hands at his sides not wanting to intrude on grief that was…. Not his own, grief that was, in fact, caused by him.

It was his fault.

Angel had taken that bullet for him.

He should have been in that operating room. He bit the inside of his cheek took a deep breath and stared up at the ceiling, willing the tears to absorb back into his eye.

The older woman was still watching him, and as he watched she walked over, and touched his arm gently, “What happened.” He opened his mouth to say he already told her but the expression she gave him made it pretty clear he had not given enough details, “I was giving an address to the crowd just outside UNSC headquarters. I was about halfway through when there was a disturbance in the crowd. I saw someone pull a gun, and then Angel tackled me to the floor just as it fired. We didn’t know who had been hit at first but, he…. It looked like it got him in the lower mid back….. I I tried to stop the bleeding but I… and then the paramedics came…. And I…. I…. I’m so sorry.” his voice hitched but he bit it back with gargantuan effort, “It should be me in there not him.”

He turned to look down at his feet 

But then the hand came and touched his arm again, “It wasn’t your fault, boy. That’s just our Angel.”

And with those words he couldn’t fight it back, and warm hot tears began spilling down his face and onto his shirt. His vision blurred and he could barely see, but he felt arms wrap around him patting him on the back as the old woman’s voice came softly, “There there, he’s going to be alright, our Angel is strong. He’s going to be ok.”

He didn’t try to pull away from the old woman.

Her arms were warm and comforting, and he desperately wanted to believe her.

.

[khoicesbyk]

Dark Pleasure.

A/N: This AU is between my two all time favorite books Bloodbound and The Royal Romance! It is the crossover to end all crossovers.

A/N 2: This fanfic will be dark! And sexy! And violent! And delicious! And will quickly become your guilty pleasure.

Rated: Mature. | Contains sexual content and strong language. (You know? The usual from me. 😁) | Bolded and/or italicized words are conversations and thoughts of the characters. | Main Characters: Tristan Rys (LI) and Latisha Tucker (MC) x Adrian Raines and Tiana Reynolds-Raines | All Characters and names: (except MC and original characters created by me) are property of Pixelberry.

Current Word Count: 1,210 words. (more or less. I stop counting after editing and re-editing. 🤷🏾‍♀️)

Prompt Time! Today I’ll be using @wackydrabbles prompt #87 “No offense, but I'm not interested.”! It’ll be in bold in black.

If you’d like to be added to my tag list. Just reblog or dm me and I will gladly add you! 😁😘

Series TW: drug use, violence, murder, mentions of torture, prostitution.

This series is rated Mature. It is NOT reading material that is safe for those under 18. Reader discretion is STRONGLY advised!

(MAJOR SHOUTOUT TO @secretaryunpaid!!! SHE GAVE ME THE KICK IN THE ASS THAT I NEEDED TO START THIS SERIES! I DON’T THINK I WOULD’VE HAD THE BALLS TO WRITE THIS IF SHE HADN’T HAVE PUSHED ME IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION!)

Chapter 1.) Into The Shadows.

Tristan Rys has everything any man could ever want. Money, power, cars, girls, homes you name it, he’s more than likely got it. As President and Chairman of Rys International Group, it’s his job to provide his clients with every luxury their hearts desire. After all he’s known all around the world as The King Of Cordonia.

His late father Constantine started the company with just one small hotel and when he turned the business over to his youngest son, Tristan turned it into a powerhouse that rivals Marriott and Hilton. He has his Le Roi de Cordonie hotel group, his Lotus spas and The Underground nightclubs all over the world.

And now he’s looking to expand to the US. After scouting possible headquarter locations in California, New York, Miami, Boston and Chicago, he settled on Washington D.C. He took a liking to the busy city vibe. With D.C. being the home and hub of American politics and the potential growth of his client list, he was sold on the location. Because what better way to grow his true business than to be in a city that thrives?

What is his true business you ask?

Tristan isn’t just the owner of Rys International Group, he’s also one of the biggest drug lords in the world. No one has ever been able to touch him.

And right now he’s about to have the biggest investment meeting of his life. If he’s able to make this deal it would mean he’d truly be unstoppable.

He’s about to meet with Senator Adrian Raines.

Adrian has known Tristan since he was a kid. He and Constantine were great friends and eventually Adrian became one of Rys International’s biggest clients. After all, they hosted Adrian and Tiana’s wedding. So when Adrian heard that Rys International was coming to D.C., he had to see what brought Tristan to town. Although Adrian doesn’t run the day to day of Raines Corporation he was still willing to meet.

Both arrived to an empty Ocean Prime Steakhouse for their meeting.

“Adrian! It’s good to see you!” Tristan said as he stood to greet Adrian with a handshake.

“It’s good to see you too Tristan. It’s been a long time. I haven’t seen you since you were a kid.” Adrian replied, returning his handshake.

“Thank you for meeting with me, Senator.”

“Please you know you can always call me Adrian.”

“I know but I want to respect you and your new position.”

“Thank you. What can I get you? Scotch?” Adrian asks.

“Whiskey if you don’t mind.” Tristan replies.

Adrian signals for the waiter to bring them a couple bottles and glasses.

“Now before we get down to business, I gotta ask…how’s that spitfire wife of yours?” Tristan asks.

Adrian snickered.

“You know how she is about you. She won’t shut up about the new spa you opened up in New York. I can’t keep her out of there.” He replies.

“Yes I know. Still the best sex I’ve ever had.”

“You’re a liar but I’ll take the backhanded compliment anyway.”

The two shared a laugh as the waiter brought them two bottles of whiskey.

“I don’t know about you but I’m starving! So shall we order?” Tristan asks him.

“Of course let’s order.”

They placed their orders and while they waited for their food to be delivered, they started to discuss business.

“So let’s get down to it. Why am I here Tristan?” Adrian asked.

“I have a business proposal for you Adrian.”

“Oh? And what is this business proposal as you put it?” Adrian asks.

“Consider it a bit of a ‘you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours’. I’m new to town and I know how cutthroat D.C. can be. And I’m a small fish in this very big pond.” Tristan replies.

“Meaning?” Adrian asked with an eyebrow raised.

“Meaning you give me protection here in D.C. and I fund your entire senatorial re-election and future presidential campaign.” Tristan replies.

Adrian scoffed.

“No offense, but I'm not interested.”

“Come on Adrian! You can’t seriously be passing this up!”

That’s when their food arrived.

“Need I remind you that you are one of the biggest drug dealers in the world? You’re a danger to my campaign!”

Tristan shrugged.

“Suit yourself Senator. I was actually looking forward to working with you but I’m sure your opponent in New York will be happy to take the deal.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh no? Why not? Because you’re an old friend of both me and my father?” Tristan asks.

Adrian smirked.

“You’re an asshole. You do know that right?” Adrian asks.

“High praise!” Tristan replies.

“If I agree to this, what do I really get out of this?” Adrian asks.

“Like I said, a fully funded re-election and future presidential campaigns. On top of the perks of being a valued member of Rys International’s platinum club and a few other personal perks and favors, of course.” Tristan replied.

“All while you get to set up shop here in D.C. and run your legal and illegal business, correct?” Adrian asks.

“A win-win situation if I do say so myself.” Tristan replies before pouring himself a drink.

“And how would we go about this…business?” Adrian asks.

“Very simple. Your head of security Jax will meet with my head of security Drake Walker and coordinate.” Tristan replies.

“Jax won’t agree to that.”

“Why not?” Tristan asks.

“Jax doesn’t like working with people.” Adrian replied.

“Neither does Drake. Unless it involves sex and liquor.”

“Oh well in that case, they’ll be great together. They’re both brooding, moody and love liquor and women.”

“Now you’re getting it.”

“What about your brother Leo?” Adrian asks.

“Simple. While all that happens my brother will work with Raines Corporation on the business side of things.”

“And what about us?”

“Just two old friends working together to make sure that you are re-elected and my business flourishes here in America.”

“And no one will know about your cartel?” Adrian asks.

“Nope. Hell I’ll even throw you a cut of the profits…and a few of my finest girls.” Tristan replies.

Adrian sat back and thought about Tristan’s words.

“Come on Adrian. I know you’re considering it.”

“You’re an egomaniac!”

“And you’re the vampire who is married to the most powerful woman in the entire universe. And together you and I will become the two most unstoppable men on the planet!”

Adrian just shook his head then grinned.

“Damn you’re good…”

“That’s the nature of my business. So what do you say? Do we have a deal?” Tristan asks.

“This goes against everything I have believed in! I am better than this!” Adrian hissed. “And yet…this is too damn good for you to pass up.”

Adrian took a deep breath and Tristan rolled his eyes.

“Just say that you accept the damn deal old man!”

“Fine! You’ve got a deal! I can not believe I’ve been talked into this.”

“Wonderful! I’ll have my legal team contact yours and we’ll hammer out all the fine print.”

“You truly are ruthless, Tristan.”

“Jay-Z said it best. I’m not just a businessman, I’m a business…man.”

Adrian snickered.

“Here’s to a very lucrative partnership.”

“Finally!”

The two toasted to their new deal.

[finnxhawkins]

Richie tozier x reader - caught white handed ♡

Warnings! smut, fingering, swearing.

idea from my favourite girl @dickology64 💗

The rain hammered against the windows of Richie’s bedroom, a growing storm settling in the sky outside. It was around 10pm, and Richie was laying on his bed with a certain someone plaguing his mind. He groaned, before turning onto his side and pulling a pillow closer to his body. The hazy light from his bedside lamp reflected from his glasses and despite how cold it was outside, Richie lay shirtless.

He was thinking of her. The way she giggled at his dirty jokes and didn’t sigh and hit his shoulder like the rest of the losers. The way she let pineapple dribble down the corners of her lips that one hot day at the quarry, and didn’t bat away his hand when he went to wipe it. The way she threw her head back and pulled her hair away to expose her neck when the summer heatwave his Derry, that one summer before they all turned 16. He remembered thinking about littering purple marks on her neck, his lips trailing along her collarbones and across her jaw, his hands going lower and lower-

No. He stopped himself. He shouldn’t be thinking of her like that.

Oh but remember when you caught a glimpse of her topless when her bikini top fell off when she canon-balled into the quarry.

No no. He couldn’t. But it was too late. The image had already flashed into his mind and there was a tent pitched in his boxers. He groaned in annoyance and embarrassment. He tried to think of the girls on the hub when he let his hand slip into his underwear. But his mind kept pulling him into images of y/n, when she bent down to ruffle his hair and he got a perfect view of down her bra, when she pulled off her denim shorts revealing bikini bottoms and a very exposed ass, when she bit her lip mindlessly. His hand was pumping his cock, picking up speed with every sexual image of y/n that flooded his mind. His mind flickered for a second to the moan she made when they were awkwardly watching a sex scene together. He could feel himself become closer and closer to blowing his load, choking down the urge to moan out her name.

Y/n was running breathlessly down Richie’s street, her white dress soaked through and her well-loved converse leaking water into her socks. Her hair was dripping with water and her feet splashed in the puddles that had formed on the sidewalk.

She reached Richie’s porch, hesitating for a second before she let herself in. His parents cars weren’t on the driveway, so she knew they were away for work again. She mentally sighed. Poor Richie.

She quietly closed the door behind her, tugging off her shoes so she didn’t trudge water through his house. The words were burning inside of her throat, repeating over and over in her mind, engraved in her veins.

I love you Richie Tozier.

She yearned to say it, the realisation earlier that evening consuming her to the point she ran to his house to tell him. She didn’t care if he told her to leave. She didn’t care if she had to leave the losers group. She didn’t care if he liked bev. She just wanted to tell him, to throw up the words before they burned her inside-out.

She creeped up the stairs, hoping not to make too much noise in case his parents were in fact home, despite the little chance. As she came closer to his room, she heard quiet moans and a string of words she couldn’t quite make out.

Richie couldn’t help it. He moaned out her name, loud and clear, thankful that his parents weren’t home.

Y/n covered her mouth with her hand, her heart jumping out her chest. She couldn’t quite belive it. Was he- getting off to her?

She knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help it. She opened Richie’s bedroom door, her jaw dropping at the sight of Richie’s hand moving quickly in his underwear.

And what was even more embarrassing, was that his eyes were closed and as soon as he opened them, he blew his load.

You see the thing about white, wet dresses is that they are see-through. And Richie could see her breasts and lacy underwear. So I think it’s pretty understandable that he came at the sight of that.

Richie grabbed his pillow, pulling it on his lap and going bright red.

Y/n was frozen, her mouth open. She was shocked sure, but the heat growing in between her legs implied that other emotions were taking over. She swallowed hard.

“That was hot, you know.”

Richie was surprised. But he wasn’t complaining.

“Better in real life than in your mind, huh?” He smirked, classic Richie.

Y/n walked over to his bed, taking a seat next to him.

She was certain that she wanted this.

“Don’t you think it’s my turn to cum?”

Richie tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, leaning his lips closer to her neck.

“I won’t help you unless you beg for it.”

Y/n felt herself grow wet at his words, letting Richie settle his knees on either side of y/n.

Y/n propped herself up on her elbows.

“Please make me cum Richie. I can’t do it without you.”

Richie smiled. That’s what he wanted to hear. He dipped his face into her neck, kissing and sucking and nibbling. He left purple marks along her collarbone, making his away across her jaw. His other hand rested on her hip, but he slowly started to move it underneath her dress, along her thighs. He continued kissing her neck, pressing his hand on her core, instantly making her back arch slightly. He smirked against her skin.

“So desperate for me, right doll?”

She replied with a gasp, when he started to rub her through the thin fabric of her underwear. His lips didn’t leave her neck whilst his hand continued to rub her throbbing clit through her underwear. His lips now pink, he trailed his face down towards her breasts, kissing what the dress didn’t cover. His other hand had slipped up her dress, his thumb grazing over her nipple and rubbing her breast.

“I’m gonna- Richie- I-“

Y/n’s toes started to curl, her head thrown back. Her hands desperately tried to find something to grab, the closest thing being Richie’s mop of dark curls. He let out a deep groan.

Just as she was about to finish, Richie retracted his hand from rubbing her.

“Oh my god, Richie, please-“

“What do you want? Want to cum on my hand?”

“Y-yes.”

Richie shoved her underwear aside, pushing two fingers inside her, curling up into a ‘come-here’ motion. Her back arched, her grip tightening on his hair.

“ Make those pretty noises doll.” He managed to let out whilst pumping his two fingers in and out of her.

Y/n moaned out his name, once pretty quiet, a second time louder. Richie hit her g-spot. A third time she practically screamed it.

Richie stroked her hair from her face, kissing her breasts and flicking his tongue over each new mark he made.

“Richie, can I- can I-“

“Hm good for asking for permission doll. Yes you can. Let it go, good girl.”

As soon as he said ‘good girl’, she came all over his fingers, screaming his name.

And Richie fucking loved it.

He pulled his fingers out, licking the juices from them right in front of her face. He lay down next to her, pulling her body into his.

She looked up at him through her eyelashes.

“Richie?”

He hummed in response, nuzzling his face into her neck.

“I love you.”

Richie jumped back and looked at her, gobsmacked.

“Really?”

Y/n thought he was going to tell her the worst. That he didn’t love her back. She felt a pit of sadness growing in her stomach.

“I love you too.”

Y/n eyes lit up, her frown instantly turning into a smile. She laced her fingers into his curls, planting a kiss on his lips.

Good job Stan didn’t come round to watch a movie with him.

[oakantony]

@iaal​ oh god I have so much more. a continuation of this post, so the posts don’t get absurdly long on people’s dashes lmao

I’m just gonna continue chronologically which means nothing good happens for a while after the bike saga but. 

we get to wednesday, my third day at the job. 

in the semi-rural town I was in, there were two high schools: an all-boys “non-academic” school and an all-gender “low-academic” school. basically, none of these students were expected to go to college, because we were “just” a farming and manufacturing hub. (huge note here that these kids were all brilliant, bright, and cool as fuck even at these “less advanced” campuses.) my school was the all-gender school, not the all-boys school.

...lol.

anyway, third day on the job, my supervisor stomped over to my desk. he said in English, “are you kidding me? come on.” (that will be burned into my brain for the rest of my life, btw, because this man almost never spoke English to me, and hearing him use a semi-casual English phrase THREW me.) in Japanese, he continued: “you’re supposed to be at your other school today.”

yeah, so. I was the assistant english teacher at the all-boys school, too. 

and I was late, because I went to my low-academic school like I thought I was meant to. I was horrified. here’s a fun fact about the JET program: they tell you about your school MONTHS before you move to japan. and nowhere, not on ANY document, was this other school mentioned. nonetheless, my supervisor just started SHOUTING the other school name at me. just, repeatedly screaming it, to the point where other teachers in the work room ran over to defuse/understand the situation.

somehow I figured out what was going on; that I was meant to be at my “second school” and I was making him look bad by fucking up my schedule.

I pulled out my map, because I literally never traveled without it thanks, and found the other school. I hopped on my bike. I got there as the baseball team finished their morning routine outside and they all ran over to me like OOOHHHH NEW TEACHERRR WHERE ARE YOU FROM? PLEASE TEACH ME ENGLISH DO YOU LIKE BASEBALL? lmao it was absolutely amazing ;__;

and it was actually kind of good fortune that we collided because their coach was able to guide me straight to the secretary, rather than me wandering around half-lost on the campus, which saved me some time. I was only about 30 minutes late, all told, which wasn’t great, but not the end of the world? still, I met the secretary and she seemed really put off. like, we walked over to these lockers, she showed me my locker, and when it was empty, she did a double take. and she said since I didn’t have indoor shoes with me, I’d have to borrow the school’s designated slippers for delinquent boys who also forgot their indoor shoes.

a second fun fact for today’s story: I wear a US women’s size 5. my feet. are tiny. I shuffled around that school all day like a fuckin slapstick ass clown in the men’s-sized spare slipper and when I tell you my shins were BRUISED from falling over and over... LMFAO

anyway. when I finally left school that day, my bike. was not. where I left it. I was lowkey losing my mind because that bike was the only good thing in my life at that point. I tearfully retreated back into the school after circling the WHOLE campus looking for it, and asked the secretary if she could drive me home, and she was like, “I don’t think your bike will fit in my car” and I said “yeah...my bike’s gone.” and she was like “isn’t it in the teacher’s bike parking across the street?”

at some point, someone moved my bike from guest parking to teacher parking, in its own building across the street. she realized then, when I was just staring at her like, “tf is teacher’s parking?” that I didn’t get a tour of the campus like she thought I had during my arrival to the town a few days prior. you see, on my first day in town, my supervisor was meant to drive me to the grocery store. the bank. the bikeshop. and my two fucking campuses. he didn’t. i was supposed to have already BEEN to this campus. I should have already known about my locker, I should have left spare indoor shoes!!! we both realized the fuckup at the same time, the secretary and me.

up until that point, she thought I was just a typical selfish American moron who usually leaves bikes in the wrong place, shows up late to work, and didn’t know Japanese people wore different shoes inside schools. she apologized to me, like, really sincerely, and then offered to drive me home so I could avoid the storm outside. I could get my bike back another time. I told her I was ok; I’d honestly gotten used to being out in the rain by now.

on my way back to my apartment, I started to cry. I mean, I’d held it together pretty well the last few days, but having someone else recognize that maybe I was being set up to fail hit me at that point. I stopped to get off my bike because I legit started sobbing and couldn’t see straight. I just crouched down next to a rice field and cried in the rain.

when I stood up a few minutes later, I took a photo.

I was in the middle of nowhere, sopping wet, but man. look how pretty. and that mountain... the photo didn’t capture it quite right but I remember it exactly. I loved that mountain.