#huh. might employ that lense there

[starpros-sunshine]

I don't know if I ever talked about this on here before but it's been on my mind from time to time and that is the idea that Wataru one time catches a really bad cold so he just avoids Eichi for the time being (Because Hey. Maybe. If you're sick with a bacterial disease that spreads really easily. Maybe try not to pass it on to the guy with the autoimmune disorder. Just a thought.) But he doesn't tell anyone about it because he's The Hibiki Wataru he doesn't get sick.

So the only ones who know about this are his roommates because it's kind of hard to hide this from people you share a room with especially if you stay cooped up in your room a lot to try not to infect others with your cold and also a runny red nose and a sore throat aren't really a good look on someone that's not the biggest fan of open vulnerability. (If you ask yourself why he would stay in his dorm I have no idea either my guess is the guy just doesn't have anywhere else to go on short notice it's not like he has a flat outside of ES or something so as long as I don't have that figured out he'll have to stay in the dorms)

And yeah no back to point do the gist of the thing is Eichi notices that Wataru tries to stay away from him and he does not know why and it makes him sad and kind of angry and because he's Eichi of course he wonders if it was something he did or if it was just Wataru finally realising that Eichi just isn't what he deserves or whatever else self depreciating things could cross your mind in a situation like this.

So basically then he goes to the first person he would think of to know if he did anything wrong in regards to Wataru: Rei. Rei is mildly confused but reassures him Wataru didn't say anything in that regard.

And this entire scenario just boils down to Eichi wondering why Wataru is avoiding him and thinking it's his fault so he goes around asking everyone he could expect a proper answer from without thinking to ask Wataru himself because a) he's avoiding him. Why would he risk making things worse? And b) it's stupider and funnier this way and this entire scenario is just me laughing at their communication or lack thereof completely ignoring the underlying issues that would've caused it. And I know this is dumb and stupid because everyone else in ensquare would need to be an idiot for this to work so I'm ignoring that bit as well and just regarding it as something that would be funny in theory but would never happen. Or actually youcan set this entire scenario at Yumenosaki and then it could make perfect sense this seems exactly like the kind of stuff to happen to dramatic highschoolers

[hydrojenperoxide]

To Look Like Your Lover - 1/?

Summary: Tom Bennett, a guarded yet cocksure prisoner of war, just wants to get the fuck out of France. Willia Ward, a student at the American University of Paris by day, whore by night, is part of the web of Nazi resisters that work to smuggle allied soldiers to safety. Willia has been assigned to help Tom escape, but Tom has always had trouble taking orders.

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

Aunt Gertrude’s voice wavered back to me over the phone all warped and wrong sounding. “You need to leave, Willa," she garbled. "France isn’t safe anymore for girls like you! Come home. Come back to New York where the Germans-” 

It was hard to hear her over the pound of the frantic drums and the squeal of the trumpets in the neighboring mainstage room. It was even harder to imagine her sitting in her stuffy living room on Long Island, surrounded by plump cats and ancient, deflated pillows. New York seemed such a long way away from where I was—Paris. 

Paris. City of love. City of dreams. Paris, where I’d gone to find one and fulfill another. Pais, where I’d failed on both accounts—love and dreams. 

“Girls like me, huh?” I shouted back into the receiver, smiling at the red lacquered wallpaper behind the phone box. “Girls like me are safe everywhere, Aunt G! Nobody wants to hurt a harmless tart. Besides, I’ve only a few months to go until my degree is complete. I can’t just…just come home!”

Feeling eyes on my back, I turned, keeping the phone pressed to my ear. The room in which I stood was dark, lit only by the red, tiny lamps and reflective chandeliers. Glittering men and women were standing about in clumps, clutching their drinks. Couples were dancing beside the dark bar. Naked women were kissing uniformed soldiers on the lounge chairs. Nazi flags fluttered over everything, looming like red rain clouds.  

Full of blood.

“Harmless? Is that what you’re calling yourself these days, Willa?” Aunt G sniffed over the phone. 

Finally, I caught the eyes of the man that had been staring at me. He had a pinched, pale face and watery eyes that were as dark as his suit. When I blinked at him, he blinked back. When I smiled at him, he did not smile. Instead, he touched his left knee with two fingers. 

Thumb and pinkie. 

My skin went cold, despite the heat of the room. I recognized the sign instantly. 

He wants a meeting with me. Not the erotic kind. The other kind.  

“Shit, sorry, the line is breaking up Aunt G,” I invented. “I have…I…oh goodness…I won’t be able to call back today. There it goes…no more connection!” 

Still smirking, I slammed the receiver down and danced away from the phone, towards my observer. I swiveled my hips, parting the dancers like a knife might cut through butter. Nobody looked twice at me. 

I worked at the underground club Le Flamant most nights as a dancer and fille de joie. Indeed, I’d been employed by the place for the past three years. A linguistics degree from the American University of Paris wasn’t going to pay for itself, after all. Still, after a while, the regulars only looked at the new girls, and I was not a shiny new toy anymore. I didn’t mind. The work was simple: look pretty, show up, lie. 

Men liked lies. They liked to hear how handsome they were or how pleasurable their company was, or how big their willies were. And there were always men willing to pay for the pleasure of my lies. Big men, small men, handsome men, ugly men. 

Still, I liked my second job better. 

When I sidled up to the man he looked me up and down. “What are you drinking?” 

He spoke in English with a Meridional French accent. Nasal on the vowels. Which meant he was probably from the south. He also had a pair of false eyeglasses on. I knew they were fake because the lenses didn’t glint in the light. There was no glint because his glasses had no lenses at all. 

Idiot.

“Whiskey on the rocks. On pebbles, preferably. I don’t like my liquor watery,” I cooed, sliding into the seat beside him. As I sat, I touched my pinkie and thumb to my knee, the same way he had. 

The sign of one Nazi resistor to another. 

At last, the gentleman smiled. “Isn’t that a man’s drink?” 

I raised a brow. “Do I look like a man to you?” 

“I suppose not.” 

I heaved an exasperated sigh. “Aw, shucks. Don’t make me blush. Another compliment that good and I may faint.” 

The man laughed humorlessly and looked at his shoes. “I’m sorry, it has just been a while since I’ve been around such a…uh…such a beautiful woman.” 

There was a fine sheen of sweat on his upper lip. A muscle was jumping in his neck and a bit of neatly folded paper was peeking out of his jacket pocket. 

He doesn’t do this often.  

I considered him, estimating him at about thirty years old. Posture of someone who sat behind a desk most days. Nervous enough that this could have been his first assignment from our organization. 

The organization that smuggled allied soldiers out of France.  

Usually, the men that came to give me my assignments from the organization were less sweaty. 

“Oh, I understand,” I purred, reaching out to touch his chin. “Why don’t you order me that whiskey, huh? Then come meet me in room four, just down the hall. That’s my room. I’ll wait for you in there.” 

I dropped my hand and stood, aiming for room four. I didn’t wait to watch the man order and shuffle along after me. I knew he would follow. 

Still, when I shut the bedroom door behind me, I took a deep breath. It wasn’t my room really. Just the room I fucked men in. Still the music was muffled and I was surrounded by my things. My glittery gold costumes, my makeup, my fur coats. All the familiar things that made up this strange, second life of mine—the life where I wasn't bent over old books, studying myself cross-eyed.

I moved to the long mirror propped against the wardrobe and watched the door in the reflection. I tried not to make eye contact with myself. I didn’t like looking at myself when I was all done up. My lips, redded with rogue, looked too big. My eyes, lined with kohl, looked too blue. My straw color hair, pinned to perfection, made me look doll-like and fragile. Even the way I looked was a lie, designed to please. 

To settle my nerves, I reached for the fur coat hanging off the edge of the mirror and groped into the deep pocket. My fingers brushed against cold steel. 

The barrel of my gun. 

When I saw the door knob turning in the mirror, I turned. My companion from the bar stepped inside, and locked the door shut behind him. In each hand was a tumbler full of whiskey. Even though he held out the one with more ice in it to me, I didn’t make a fuss about it. Instead, I gestured to the papers hanging out of his pocket, forgoing the need to flirt, to smile. 

He wasn’t here for all that anyway. 

“Are you blind? The file has been hanging out of your pocket the whole time,” I snapped, taking the whiskey and sipping it. 

Amber and smoke.  

The man paused, brow crinkling. “Moi ? I am not blind.” 

“Good. Because your glasses have no lenses in them either. If you ever get sent out on an assignment again, there is no need to dress up like a cartoon detective. You’re more likely to get caught, looking like that. And if you’re caught, I’m at risk too.” 

The man just blinked at me, nervous and bemused by the shift in my demeanor. Hilariously, he took off his fake glasses and shoved them in his breast pocket, guilty as a schoolboy. 

Taking another sip of my whiskey, I held out a hand. “Forget it. Just tell me what the assignment is.”  

My informer looked insulted for a moment, then he reached into his pocket and thrust the mess of papers at me.

“The boss said it’s your usual run. Take him across the Pyrenees. Deliver the individual to the Spanish border, then come back.”

I palmed the file open. It was a mess of small type, and a black and white photograph of a handsome man with bowed lips, an imposing jawline, and a flush of sepia hair.  He’d angled his chin arrogantly at the camera as if he’d been flirting with whoever had photographed him. He was smirking, but there were dark, joyless shadows beneath his eyes. 

“Is this my man?” I whispered, squinting at the name. “Tom Bennett?” 

“That’s him, alright.” 

“Pretty boy,” I mused, flicking to the second page of his file. “This says he was in the Navy.” 

My informer sipped his drink and shuddered. “Oui . He was a sailor on the Exeter. He fell on the shores of Dunkirk. Bullet through the shoulder. He’s still healing from some sort of infection. He was brought to one of our hospitals. There’s a doctor there that offered him an escape with us. That’s all we know. Apparently, he is the only fellow that agreed to work with us. Must be desperate to get home.” 

“Must be,” I agreed, running my eyes along the text at the bottom of his file. 

Tom H Bennett. P.O.W. English national. Roughly between twenty-four and twenty-six years of age. Currently a patient in American Hospital-Paris. Reports of poor attitude in treatment. Reports of negative interactions with other patients. Reports of attempted aggravated assaults to nurses and doctors. 

I ran my hand over the last sentence. “Sounds like a lovely chap. How much will I make for this run, huh?” 

The man went to take another sip of his drink, then seemed to think better of it. “On your return, you’ll get ten American dollars.” 

I looked up. “Ten? His file says he’s a piece of work! I should at least get twenty.” 

“Ten is all we can promise you.” 

I gaped at the man. 

Ten was not enough. The cost of tuition had risen to four hundred US dollars. Just a few days ago, I’d forwarded the last of my savings, all two hundred and eighty dollars of it, to the college. In return, I’d received a nasty little letter asking where the rest was. The letter also clarified that I’d be put on temporary academic leave until the money came through. 

Ten bucks was not even close to enough. 

Naturally, I couldn’t call Aunt G and beg her to bail me out. Every time I considered doing so, I could hear the echo of the last smug words she’d said to me before I’d boarded the boat from New York to France three years ago: You’ll come crawling back to me on bended knee. You always do. You've always had your Father’s follow-through.

Which, in layman's terms, was none at all. 

But ten dollars was hardly enough for me to make rent, all while retaining a vaguely healthy body weight. Yes, I was paid for my shifts at Le Flamant, but that was hardly more than forty cents a night. And with the war, prices had been rising. Food was expensive, so was coal, bus tickets and… and I was drowning. 

And I needed, more than anything, to finish the damn degree. If only so that I could return home, smack it down in front of Aunt G, and tell her to kiss my foot.

I closed Tom’s file and pressed it back towards the man. “Fine. So, when and where do I get the pleasure of meeting Tom ?”

My informer had the decency to look guilty. “Tonight. After your shift, in the hospital lobby. He’ll be waiting for you.” 

“What does he know about me?” 

“Nothing. He has just been told to wait for someone. You’ll have to make yourself known to him.” 

I sucked my teeth. “Lovely. You know these soldiers always expect a man to come collect them? Half of them don’t want to come with me because they don’t believe a woman could be part of our little operation.” 

The man rolled his eyes, then kept them averted. “I apologize that we could not give you more time to prepare for this assignment. I came as quickly as I could. Do you think you can still manage-”

“This is my job. This is what I’m good at. I think I’ll be fine,” I snapped.  

He turned to leave again, but I reached out and grabbed his sleeve. “You know you’ll have to pay me for our time in this room too. If Madame Claude, my other boss, finds out I took a bloke into my room with nothing to show for it, my pay will be docked...” 

I held out a hand. “So, cough up. S'il vous plaît .” 

***

When my shift ended, it was raining. Not pretty, glittering rain. The rain was ugly and grey and frantic as if it was determined to sweep me off the sidewalk and into The Seine. 

As I walked, I mopped the makeup off my face and kept my head down. Still, my heart was beating hard in my chest. Soaked Nazi flags dripped water onto my head and the leafless trees seemed to shake their fists at me as I passed. The curfew began at nine at night and lifted again at five in the morning—still thirty minutes away. The only people allowed on the streets were the German officers in their grey suits with the red party pins stuck plainly upon their swollen chests. 

They frightened me, those men with their proud guns and invincible belief in their own righteousness. The tanks, the flags, the Wehrmacht’s obsession with gaining more territory within which the Aryan race might expand—all of it frightened me. And fear made me feel weak. Weakness was embarrassing, and embarrassment made me angry. 

Despite the fact that I was clearly not an S.S. officer, none of them really looked my way. Their tanks trundled by. Officers gathered beneath streetlamps to smoke, peeked at me. Some of the men called out to me in slurred German. I only turned my collar up against them and sunk my hands into my pockets. Within my fur coat, I gripped my gun. My heart beat harder.

Just get through this part. Just get through, I urged myself. 

When the American Hospital-Paris loomed into sight, I paused, blinking up at the pale building. The windows were still bright, despite the hour. Medic vans were parked in front of the rain-splashed stairs leading to the large wooden doors, one of which was wide open. Gold light spilled forward, inviting as a department store during Christmas. Only, I suspected that my life was not at risk when entering a department store. Going into a hospital to retrieve a malcontent (and possibly shell-shocked) prisoner of war was another matter. 

I straightened my back, smoothed the worry from my face, and hurried up the steps. 

This is always the worst part, I told myself. Once I have him, I can go home, collect what I need, and get on the road. 

The hospital lobby was warm and stinking of dry gauze. The yellow walls danced with the shadows of the nurses rushing about. Massive white pillars crowded the grand room.

Breathing thinly, I ducked behind the pillar that was closest to the front door and peered around. A doctor walked by, white robe whispering in his wake. A man with his arm in a sling shouted something at an attendant. A black-haired nurse caught my eye and quickly looked away. 

A shiver ran through me. If my heart had been beating hard before, now it was racing. 

“Come on, Tom,” I whispered to myself. “Where are you?”

I checked my watch. When I looked up, a movement caught my eye. A man was walking down the main steps, hands tucked away in his pockets. I recognized him instantly from the photo in his file, even though he wasn’t smirking anymore. 

Tom Bennett. 

His sandy hair flopped across his forehead as he stepped down the stairs. His blue eyes were sharper than they’d looked in the photo—smarter too. He was taller than I’d imagined, broader. There was a scuffed scab beneath his left eye that he hadn’t had in the image. Still, it was unmistakably him.

Tom had a way of walking that was all shoulders. They swung in tandem with each stride of his long legs. 

Cocky. Self-assured. Tricky. I knew the type. 

Briefly, his gaze caught mine. Instead of looking away, I stepped forward, and held out my hand to him, as if we were familiar. Lovers, even. 

Tom blinked, lips parting slightly. I saw a chord in his pale neck twitch. 

He really was pretty.

When Tom approached me, he took my hand, which was a good sign. Sometimes, they didn’t. Those ones were harder to travel with. 

He smelled like strong tea and blood. His hand was warm and dry and rough with old callouses. Strong fingers. Big knuckles. 

I tugged at Tom's hand and looked down at my feet. Together, silently, we stepped forward, straight out the front door. As we descended the front steps, a distant bell began to toll. 

Five in the morning. Curfew had lifted.

It didn’t mean we were safe. Officers were still everywhere. We wouldn’t be safe until we were outside of the city, well into the wild. And even then, safety was more of a state of mind than an actual place. Spies were everywhere. Germans were everywhere. Traitors and rogues and informants were everywhere.  

With my hand in his, I could feel Tom’s pulse beating madly in his wrist. I could see his breath coming out from between his lips in long streams of steam, as if he was breathing deeply.

When he glanced at me, his pert mouth lifted in a half-smirk. I dragged us along the sidewalk and didn’t return the furtive glance.  

“I was expecting a man,” Tom sniggered under his breath. 

He had a rasping, velvety voice that was at odds with his twangy Manchester accent.  

“That's what they all say,” I sighed, glancing over my shoulder. 

A slender shadow shifted behind us. Someone was following us at a distance. My heart dipped down into my stomach.  

“Security in that place is mad. It’s a miracle I only died once,” Tom added, glancing over his shoulder too. “Do you smoke? I’m dying for a fag. Haven't had one for days.” 

I tightened my grip on him and hurried my pace. “I-” 

“Nah, I can already tell," Tom interrupted. "Little thing like you? You don’t smoke. Too posh for that, ain't ya?” 

“Would you just shut up and walk," I grit out, squeezing his hand as hard as I could. "Smile at me. Laugh. It'll look like we're lovers. We'll be less likely to attract attention." 

Tom's half-smirk evolved into a true, shameless smirk. He looked at the false jewels in my hair, my smudged lipstick. “Are you a whore?” 

I'm your only hope of escaping this city alive, I thought sourly. 

I had to try very hard not to glower at him. “Are you, huh?” 

Tom laughed, just like I'd told him to. “I could be. Depends how badly you want me.”

"Nevermind. Let's not talk. Just hold my hand," I grimaced.

Once again, I glanced over my shoulder. The dark shadow was still following us. I could make out the silhouette of his shape. He was tall, dressed in a dark coat and a bowler hat. 

Not good.

"If there's anything else you'd like me to do to look like your lover, ya know, just say," Tom shrugged. 

"Come this way," I muttered, turning suddenly to guide him down a dark, narrow side street. 

As if sensing my fear, Tom glanced over his shoulder. I heard his breath catch. I heard our footsteps echo down the alley. Behind us, the footsteps of our pursuer echoed even more loudly.  

"Has that skinny bloke been trailing us?" Tom breathed, leaning close to my ear.

His hot breath made the hairs on the back of my neck rise. 

"Took you long enough to notice," I hissed back. 

"Christ," Tom swore, hastening his footsteps. "And you're my protector? I should have just died in the fucking hospital." 

"I can bring you back, if you'd like," I snarled, breaking out into a jog. 

Behind us, our shadow gave chase. 

My life had been a string of disappointments and disasters and narrow escapes from one thing or another. But I'd never run for my life holding a stranger's hand.

[limitless-shadows]

Picking up gofushi crumbs from the manga pt. 4

Disclaimer: Beware of anime/manga/fanbook spoilers. This is just me commenting on the manga with the lenses of a gofushi fan (’-’)/

This segment contains manga panels from chapter 82 to chapter 138.

About loneliness, limitless and six eyes vs ten shadows, Zen’in deal, and others.

[Chapter 82]

The life of an exorcist is rough.

Nanami was certainly right when he said that being a sorcerer is shit. They put their life on the line for people who don’t know about curses or that sorcerers exist, they may even die alone and gruesomely, shamans are probably overworked due to a shortage of sorcerers, etc.

And how many close bonds do they get to make?

Yet Gojou gave Yuuji the room next to Megumi so it could be more livelier and fun...

[Chapter 84]

^ referring to Gojou

Due to the nature of his power and how strong he is, I guess that Satoru often does solo missions. Even during fights, it’s better if he’s alone. That’s even more sad?! dang and here I had hopes to see gofushi taking on missions together unless-

[Chapter 85]

Heh it was Megumi who noticed Hanami’s weak spot.

[Chapter 91]

For the strongest to be able to trust others does say quite a lot for their current situation. Trust in the first years, trust in Megumi ;-;

[Chapter 92]

Megumi’s shocked/worried face upon hearing that Gojou has been sealed. I’m glad that we get to see it drawn!

[Chapter 93]

So... what I learnt from this is that Satoru has some pressure since he solo carries the Gojou family. What sort of childhood did he have while growing up if the family put all of their expectations on him??

...that he has saved many a sorcerer!!

Toji’s deal with the Zen’in ;-;

[Chapter 96]

The smol Gojou that pops up when Megumi thinks of a plan hehe

Gojou also mentioned Fushiguro back when he tested Itadori in chapter 3.

Using each other to bluff and employing a different naming. I guess they think alike www

[Chapter 109]

What a character development :D after Gojou’s talk to him back in chapter 58.

[Chapter 117]

Gofushi got even better after chapter 117-

It’s another moment where they are alone! When they animate this, is it going to be during a sunset too? XD

If they are at the college, then that’s one chair upgrade.

Their families being on bad terms hrmm hrrmm

Gofushi truly has a lot of potential for writing prompts. Romeo and Juliet? Reincarnation?

Also makes me think if there will be a fight between Satoru and Megumi in the future o_o;;

Moreover, it’s not known how they exactly died. They could’ve been weakened from before their fight and/or someone delivered the final blow? While Megumi thinks it’s probably due to Makora, I don’t think it’s only that. There must have been something else? We haven’t seen Megumi’s true potential yet aaaaah next chapter is when Tengen might drop some information on the group, and I hope he knows and shares some secrets about the Ten Shadows technique (will it be the reviving theories? or maybe being able to enter some sort of shadow realm?). Heh mission impossible to retrieve Satoru.

The Edo period was between the 17th and 19th century, while the Keicho period was around the 17th century. According to the fanbook, it’s been 400 years since someone with Limitless + 6 eyes was born. So Satoru was most likely the next Gojou to be born with those abilities after the fight between the past clan heads... it really makes me think. huh, for there to be a Ten Shadows user during this era too.

Then Megumi goes and says

whyyyy

belieeve

[Chapter 126]

This scene in chapter 126 when Nobara spilled coffee on Gojou’s shirt which caught me off guard by surprise.

Since they didn’t have much time to think about what to do. Their panicked reaction was to slip the shirt inside Megumi lolol

Leave it to Akutami-sensei to draw the funniest scenes haha. Sacrificial lamb Megumi lolol although Satoru might have been able to tell with the six eyes.

[Chapter 138]

Head of the Zen’in clan Megumi--

I assume the 3 parts from the speech bubbles are independent things with the agreement being carried out first. When they found out that Megumi inherited the Ten Shadows technique, it was decided that he would become the next clan head. But only if Satoru is dead or incapacitated. Why make him the leader without knowing what he thinks about the Zen'in clan tho? Is that just because he has the Ten Shadows technique? Is it much more appreciated than the Projection Sorcery technique which Naobito and Naoya have? Because it can rival Limitless and Six eyes?

Naobito really hates the Gojou’s. According to the fanbook, his stress source is the Gojou family, and he doesn’t get along with them which is why he didn’t do much during the Shibuya incident. I wonder why :D definitely doesn’t have to do with them stealing (?) Megumi from them, right?

Now I’m curious how the deal went through. I want to see Satoru and Megumi’s trip to Kyoto D:

Part 5 will probably be done after the manga releases more content... whiiich might take months. But aay ヾ(≧ ▽ ≦)ゝ there was actually a bunch of things to talk about! I started shipping them maybe after chapter 79? I was surprised at chapter 58 which dropped more interactions between them. Then 59 showed their first meeting and 79 made it more clear (/≧▽≦)/

[unsettlingshortstories]

Quitters, Inc.

Stephen King (1978)

Morrison was waiting for someone who was hung up in the air traffic jam over Kennedy International when he saw a familiar face at the end of the bar and walked down.

'Jimmy? Jimmy McCann?'

It was. A little heavier than when Morrison had seen him at the Atlanta Exhibition the year before, but otherwise he looked awesomely fit. In college he had been a thin, pallid chain smoker buried behind huge horn-rimmed glasses. He had apparently switched to contact lenses.

'Dick Morrison?'

'Yeah. You look great.' He extended his hand and they shook.

'So do you,' McCann said, but Morrison knew it was a lie. He had been overworking, overeating, and smoking too much. 'What are you drinking?'

'Bourbon and bitters,' Morrison said. He hooked his feet around a bar stool and lighted a cigarette. 'Meeting someone, Jimmy?'

'No. Going to Miami for a conference. A heavy client. Bills six million. I'm supposed to hold his hand because we lost out on a big special next spring.'

'Are you still with Crager and Barton?'

'Executive veep now.'

'Fantastic! Congratulations! When did all this happen?' He tried to tell himself that the little worm of jealousy in his stomach was just acid indigestion. He pulled out a roll of antacid pills and crunched one in his mouth.

'Last August. Something happened that changed my life.' He looked speculatively at Morrison and sipped his drink. 'You might be interested.'

My God, Morrison thought with an inner wince. Jimmy McCann's got religion.

'Sure,' he said, and gulped at his drink when it came. 'I wasn't in very good shape,' McCann said. 'Personal problems with Sharon, my.dad died - heart attack - and I'd developed this hacking cough. Bobby Crager dropped by my office one day and gave me a fatherly little pep talk. Do you remember what those are like?'

'Yeah.' He had worked at Crager and Barton for eighteen months before joining the Morton Agency. 'Get your butt in gear or get your butt out.'

McCann laughed. 'You know it. Well, to put the capper on it, the doc told me I had an incipient ulcer. He told me to quit smoking.'

McCann grimaced. 'Might as well tell me to quit breathing.'

Morrison nodded in perfect understanding. Non-smokers could afford to be smug. He looked at his own cigarette with distaste and stubbed it out, knowing he would be lighting another in five minutes.

'Did you quit?' He asked.

'Yes, I did. At first I didn't think I'd be able to - I was cheating like hell. Then I met a guy who told me about an outfit over on

Fortysixth Street. Specialists. I said what do I have to lose and went over. I haven't smoked since.'

Morrison's eyes widened. 'What did they do? Fill you full of some drug?'

'No.' He had taken out his wallet and was rummaging through it. 'Here it is. I knew I had one kicking around.' He laid a plain white business card on the bar between them.

Stop Going Up in Smoke!

237 East 46th Street

Treatments by Appointment

'Keep it, if you want,' McCann said. 'They'll cure you. Guaranteed.'

'How?'

'I can't tell you,' McCann said.

'Huh? Why not?'

'It's part of the contract they make you sign. Anyway, they tell you how it works when they interview you.' 'You signed a contract?' McCann nodded.

'And on the basis of that -'

'Yep.' He smiled at Morrison, who thought: Well, it's happened. Jim McCann has joined the smug bastards.

'Why the great secrecy if this outfit is so fantastic? How come I've never seen any spots on TV, billboards, magazine ads -'

'They get all the clients they can handle by word of mouth.'

'You're an advertising man, Jimmy. You can't believe that.'

'I do,' McCann said. 'They have a ninety-eight per cent cure rate.'

'Wait a second,' Morrison said. He motioned for another drink and lit a cigarette. 'Do these guys strap you down and make you smoke until you throw up?'

'No.'

'Give you something so that you get sick every time you light -'

'No, it's nothing like that. Go and see for yourself.' He gestured at Morrison's cigarette. 'You don't really like that, do you?'

'Nooo, but -'

'Stopping really changed things for me,' McCann said. 'I don't suppose it's the same for everyone, but with me it was just like dominoes falling over. I felt better and my relationship with Sharon improved. I had more energy, and my job performance picked up.'

'Look, you've got my curiosity aroused. Can't you just -' 'I'm sorry, Dick. I really can't talk about it.' His voice was firm.

'Did you put on any weight?'

For a moment he thought Jimmy McCann looked almost grim. 'Yes. A little too much, in fact. But I took it off again. I'm about right now. I was skinny before.'

'Flight 206 now boarding at Gate 9,' the loudspeaker announced.

'That's me,' McCann said, getting up. He tossed a five on the bar. 'Have another, if you like. And think about what I said, Dick.

Really.' And then he was gone, making his way through the crowd to the escalators. Morrison picked up the card, looked at it thoughtfully, then tucked it away in his wallet and forgot it.

The card fell out of his wallet and on to another bar a month later. He had left the office early and had come here to drink the afternoon away. Things had not been going so well at the Morton Agency. In fact, things were bloody horrible.

He gave Henry a ten to pay for his drink, then picked up the small card and reread it - 237 East Forty-sixth Street was only two blocks over; it was a cool, sunny October day outside, and maybe, just for chuckles -When Henry brought his change, he finished his drink and then went for a walk.

Quitters, Inc., was in a new building where the monthly rent on office space was probably close to Morrison's yearly salary. From the directory in the lobby, it looked to him like their offices took up one whole floor, and that spelled money. Lots of it.

He took the elevator up and stepped off into a lushly carpeted foyer and from there into a gracefully appointed reception room with a wide window that looked out on the scurrying bugs below. Three men and one woman sat in the chairs along the walls, reading magazines. Business types, all of them. Morrison went to the desk.

'A friend gave me this,' he said, passing the card to the receptionist. 'I guess you'd say he's an alumnus.'

She smiled and rolled a form into her typewriter. 'What is your name, sir?'

'Richard Morrison.'

Clack-clackety-clack. But very muted clacks; the typewriter was an IBM.

'Your address?'

'Twenty-nine Maple Lane, Clinton, New York.'

'Married?'

'Yes.'

'Children?'

'One.' He thought of Alvin and frowned slightly. 'One' was the wrong word. 'A half' might be better. His son was mentally retarded and lived at a special school in New Jersey.

'Who recommended us to you, Mr Morrison?'

'An old school friend. James McCann.'

'Very good. Will you have a seat? It's been a very busy day.'

'All right.'

He sat between the woman, who was wearing a severe blue suit, and a young executive type wearing a herring-bone jacket and modish sideburns. He took out his pack of cigarettes, looked around, and saw there were no ashtrays.

He put the pack away again. That was all right. He would see this little game through and then light up while he was leaving. He might even tap some ashes on their maroon shag rug if they made him wait long enough. He picked up a copy of Time and began to leaf through it.

He was called a quarter of an hour later, after the woman in the blue suit. His nicotine centre was speaking quite loudly now. A man who had come in after him took out a cigarette case, snapped it open, saw there were no ashtrays, and put it away looking a little guilty, Morrison thought. It made him feel better.

At last the receptionist gave him a sunny smile and said, 'Go right in, Mr Morrison.'

Morrison walked through the door beyond her desk and found himself in an indirectly lit hallway. A heavy-set man with white hair that looked phoney shook his hand, smiled affably, and said, 'Follow me, Mr Morrison.'

He led Morrison past a number of closed, unmarked doors and then opened one of them about halfway down the hall with a key.

Beyond the door was an austere little room walled with drilled white cork panels. The only furnishings were a desk with a chair on either side. There was what appeared to be a small oblong window in the wall behind the desk, but it was covered with a short green curtain. There was a picture on the wall to Morrison's left -a tall man with iron-grey hair. He was holding a sheet of paper in one hand.

He looked vaguely familiar.

'I'm Vic Donatti,' the heavy-set man said. 'If you decide to go ahead with our programme, I'll be in charge of your case.' 'Pleased to know you,' Morrison said. He wanted a cigarette very badly.

'Have a seat.'

Donatti put the receptionist's form on the desk, and then drew another form from the desk drawer. He looked directly into Morrison's eyes. 'Do you want to quit smoking?'

Morrison cleared his throat, crossed his legs, and tried to think of a way to equivocate. He couldn't. 'Yes,' he said.

'Will you sign this?' He gave Morrison the form. He scanned it quickly. The undersigned agrees not to divulge the methods or techniques or et cetera, et cetera.

'Sure,' he said, and Donatti put a pen in his hand. He scratched his name, and Donatti signed below it. A moment later the paper disappeared back into the desk drawer. Well, he thought ironically, I've taken the pledge.

He had taken it before. Once it had lasted for two whole days.

'Good,' Donatti said. 'We don't bother with propaganda here, Mr Morrison. Questions of health or expense or social grace. We have no interest in why you want to stop smoking. We are pragmatists.' 'Good,' Morrison said blankly.

'We employ no drugs. We employ no Dale Carnegie people to sermonize you. We recommend no special diet. And we accept no payment until you have stopped smoking for one year.' 'My God,' Morrison said.

'Mr McCann didn't tell you that?'

'No.'

'How is Mr McCann, by the way? Is he well?'

'He's fine.'

'Wonderful. Excellent. Now . . . just a few questions, Mr Morrison. These are somewhat personal, but I assure you that your answers will be held in strictest confidence.'

'Yes?' Morrison asked noncommittally.

'What is your wife's name?'

'Lucinda Morrison. Her maiden name was Ramsey.'

'Do you love her?'

Morrison looked up sharply, but Donatti was looking at him blandly. 'Yes, of course,' he said.

'Have you ever had marital problems? A separation, perhaps?'

'What has that got to do with kicking the habit?' Morrison asked. He sounded a little angrier than he had intended, but he wanted - hell, he needed - a cigarette.

'A great deal,' Donatti said. 'Just bear with me.'

'No. Nothing like that.' Although things had been a little tense just lately.

'You just have the one child?'

'Yes. Alvin. He's in a private school.'

'And which school is it?'

'That,' Morrison said grimly, 'I'm not going to tell you.'

'All right,' Donatti said agreeably. He smiled disarmingly at Morrison. 'All your q~estions will be answered tomorrow at your first treatment.'

'How nice,' Morrison said, and stood.

'One final question,' Donatti said. 'You haven't had a cigarette for over an hour. How do you feel?'

'Fine,' Morrison lied. 'Just fine.'

'Good for you!' Donatti exclaimed. He stepped around the desk and opened the door. 'Enjoy them tonight. After tomorrow, you'll never smoke again.'

'Is that right?'

'Mr Morrison,' Donatti said solemnly, 'we guarantee it.'

He was sitting in the outer office of Quitters, Inc. ,the next day promptly at three. He had spent most of the day swinging between skipping the appointment the receptionist had made for him on the way out and going in a spirit of mulish co-operation - Throw your best pitch at me, buster.

In the end, something Jimmy McCann had said convinced him to keep the appointment - It changed my whole fife. God knew his own life could do with some changing. And then there was his own curiosity. Before going up in the elevator, he smoked a cigarette down to the filter. Too damn bad if it's the last one, he thought. It tasted horrible.

The wait in the outer office was shorter this time. When the receptionist told him to go in, Donatti was waiting. He offered his hand and smiled, and to Morrison the smile looked almost predatory. He began to feel a little tense, and that made him wa~t a

cigarette.

'Come with me,' Donatti said, and led the way down to the small room. He sat behind the desk again, and Morrison took the other chair.

'I'm very glad you came,' Donatti said. 'A great many prospective clients never show up again after the initial interview. They discover they don't want to quit as badly as they thought. It's going to be a pleasure to work with you on this.'

'When does the treatment start?' Hypnosis, he was thinking. It must be hypnosis.

'Oh, it already has. It started when we shook hands in the hall. Do you have cigarettes with you, Mr Morrison?'

'Yes.'

'May I have them, please?'

Shrugging, Morrison handed Donatti his pack. There were only two or three left in it, anyway.

Donatti put the pack on the desk. Then, smiling into Morrison's eyes, he curled his right hand into a fist and began to hammer it down on the pack of cigarettes, which twisted and flattened. A broken cigarette end flew out. Tobacco crumbs spilled. The sound of Donatti's fist was very loud in the closed room. The smile remained on his face in spite of the force of the blows, and Morrison was chilled by it. Probably just the effect they want to inspire, he thought.

At last Donatti ceased pounding. He picked up the pack, a twisted and battered ruin. 'You wouldn't believe the pleasure that gives me,' he said, and dropped the pack into the wastebasket. 'Even after three years in the business, it still pleases me.'

'As a treatment, it leaves something to be desired. Morrison said mildly. 'There's a news-stand in the lobby of this very building.

And they sell all brands.'

'As you say,' Donatti said. He folded his hands. 'Your son, Alvin Dawes Morrison, is in the Paterson School for Handicapped Children. Born with cranial brain damage. Tested IQ of 46. Not quite in the educable retarded category. Your wife -, 'How did you find that out?' Morrison barked. He was startled and angry. 'You've got no goddamn right to go poking around my -' 'We know a lot about you,' Donatti said smoothly. 'But, as I said, it will all be held in strictest confidence.' 'I'm getting out of here,' Morrison said thinly. He stood up.

'Stay a bit longer.'

Morrison looked at him closely. Donatti wasn't upset. In fact, he looked a little amused. The face of a man who has seen this reaction scores of times - maybe hundreds.

'All right. But it better be good.'

'Oh, it is.' Donatti leaned back. 'I told you we were pragmatists here. As pragmatists, we have to start by realizing how difficult it is to cure an addiction to tobacco. The relapse rate is almost eight-five per cent. The relapse rate for heroin addicts is lower than that. It is an extraordinary problem. Extraordinary.'

Morrison glanced into the wastebasket. One of the cigarettes, although twisted, still looked smokeable.

Donatti laughed good-naturedly, reached into the wastebasket, and broke it between his fingers.

'State legislatures sometimes hear a request that the prison systems do away with the weekly cigarette ration. Such proposals are invariably defeated. In a few cases where they have passed, there have been fierce prison riots. Riots, Mr Morrison. Imagine it.' 'I,' Morrison said, 'am not surprised.'

'But consider the implications. When you put a man in prison you take away any normal sex life, you take away his liquor, his politics, his freedom of movement. No riots - or few in comparison to the number of prisons. But when you take away his cigarettes - wham! bam!' He slammed his fist on the desk for emphasis.

'During World War I, when no one on the German home front could get cigarettes, the sight of German aristocrats picking butts out of the gutter was a common one. During World War II, many American women turned to pipes when they were unable to obtain cigarettes. A fascinating problem for the true pragmatist, Mr Morrison.'

'Could we get to the treatment?'

'Momentarily. Step over here, please.' Donatti had risen and was standing by the green curtains Morrison had noticed yesterday.

Donatti drew the curtains, discovering a rectangular window that looked into a bare room. No, not quite bare. There was a rabbit on the floor, eating pellets out of a dish.

'Pretty bunny,' Morrison commented.

'Indeed. Watch him.' Donatti pressed a button by the window-sill. The rabbit stopped eating and began to hop about crazily. It seemed to leap higher each time its feet struck the floor. Its fur stood out spikily in all directions. Its eyes were wild.

'Stop that! You're electrocuting him!'

Donatti released the button. 'Far from it. There's a very low-yield charge in the floor. Watch the rabbit, Mr Morrison!'

The rabbit was crouched about ten feet away from the dish of pellets. His nose wriggled. All at once he hopped away into a corner.

'If the rabbit gets a jolt often enough while he's eating,' Donatti said, 'he makes the association very quickly. Eating causes pain. Therefore, he won't eat. A few more shocks, and the rabbit will starve to death in front of his food. It's called aversion training.' Light dawned in Morrison's head.

'No, thanks.' He started for the door.

'Wait, please, Morrison.'

Morrison didn't pause. He grasped the doorknob . and felt it slip solidly through his hand. 'Unlock this.' 'Mr Morrison, if you'll just sit down -'

'Unlock this door or I'll have the cops on you before you can say Marlboro Man.' 'Sit down.' The voice was as cold as shaved ice.

Morrison looked at Donatti. His brown eyes were muddy and frightening. My God, he thought, I'm locked in here with a psycho. He licked his lips. He wanted a cigarette more than he ever had in his life.

'Let me explain the treatment in more detail,' Donatti said.

'You don't understand,' Morrison said with counterfeit patience. 'I don't want the treatment. I've decided against it.'

'No, Mr Morrison. You're the one who doesn't understand. You don't have any choice. When I told you the treatment had already begun, I was speaking the literal truth. I would have thought you'd tipped to that by now.' 'You're crazy,' Morrison said wonderingly.

'No. Only a pragmatist. Let me tell you all about the treatment.'

'Sure,' Morrison said. 'As long as you understand that as soon as I get out of here I'm going to buy five packs of cigarettes and smoke them all on the way to the police station.' He suddenly realized he was biting his thumb-nail, sucking on it, and made himself stop.

'As you wish. But I think you'll change your mind when you see the whole picture.' Morrison said nothing. He sat down again and folded his hands.

'For the first month of the treatment, our operatives will have you under constant supervision,' Donatti said. 'You'll be able to spot some of them. Not all. But they'll always be with you. Always. If they see you smoke a cigarette, I get a call.'

'And I suppose you bring me here and do the old rabbit trick,' Morrison said. He tried to sound cold and sarcastic, but he suddenly felt horribly frightened. This was a nightmare.

'Oh, no,' Donatti said. 'Your wife gets the rabbit trick, not you.' Morrison looked at him dumbly.

Donatti smiled. 'You,' he said, 'get to watch.'

After Donatti let him out, Morrison walked for over two hours in a complete daze. It was another fine day, but he didn't notice. The monstrousness of Donatti's smiling face blotted out all else.

'You see,' he had said, 'a pragmatic problem demands pragmatic solutions. You must realize we have your best interests at heart.

Quitters, Inc., according to Donatti, was a sort of foundation - a non-profit organization begun by the man in the wall portrait. The gentleman had been extremely successful in several family businesses - including slot machines, massage parlours, numbers, and a brisk (although clandestine) trade between New York and Turkey. Mort 'Three-Fingers' Minelli had been a heavy smoker - up in the three-pack-a-day range. The paper he was holding in the picture was a doctor's diagnosis: lung cancer. Mort had died in 1970, after endowing Quitters, Inc., with family funds.

'We try to keep as close to breaking even as possible,' Donatti had said. 'But we're more interested in helping our fellow man. And of course, it's a great tax angle.'

The treatment was chillingly simple. A first offence and Cindy would be brought to what Donatti called 'the rabbit room'. A second offence, and Morrison would get the dose. On a third offence, both of them would be brought in together. A fourth offence would show grave co-operation problems and would require sterner measures. An operative would be sent to Alvin's school to work the boy over.

'Imagine,' Donatti said, smiling, 'how horrible it will be for the boy. He wouldn't understand it even jf someone explained. He'll only know someone is hurting him because Daddy was bad. He'll be very frightened.'

'You bastard,' Morrison said helplessly. He felt close to tears. 'You dirty, filthy bastard.'

'Don't misunderstand,' Donatti said. He was smiling sympathetically. 'I'm sure it won't happen. Forty per cent of our clients never have to be disciplined at all - and only ten per cent have more than three falls from grace. Those are reassuring figures, aren't they?'

Morrison didn't find them reassuring. He found them terrifying.

'Of course, if you transgress a fifth time -'

'What do you mean?'

Donatti beamed. 'The room for you and your wife, a second beating for your son, and a beating for your wife.'

Morrison, driven beyond the point of rational consideration, lunged over the desk at Donatti. Donatti moved with amazing speed for a man who had apparently been completely relaxed. He shoved the chair backwards and drove both of his feet over the desk and into Morrison's belly. Gagging and coughing, Morrison staggered backward.

'Sit down, Mr Morrison,' Donatti said benignly. 'Let's talk this over like rational men.'

When he could get his breath, Morrison did as he was told. Nightmares had to end some time, didn't they?

Quitters, Inc., Donatti had explained further, operated on a ten-step punishment scale. Steps six, seven, and eight consisted of further trips to the rabbit room (and increased voltage) and more serious beatings. The ninth step would be the breaking of his son's arms.

'And the tenth?' Morrison asked, his mouth dry.

Donatti shook his head sadly. 'Then we give up, Mr Morrison. You become part of the unregenerate two per cent.'

'You really give up?'

'In a manner of speaking.' He opened one of the desk drawers and laid a silenced .45 on the desk. He smiled into Morrison's eyes. 'But even the unregenerate two per cent never smoke again. We guarantee it.'

The Friday Night Movie was Bullitt, one of Cindy's favourites, but after an hour of Morrison's mutterings and fidgetings, her concentration was broken.

'What's the matter with you?' she asked during station identification.

'Nothing . . . everything,' he growled. 'I'm giving up smoking.'

She laughed. 'Since when? Five minutes ago?'

'Since three o'clock this afternoon.'

'You really haven't had a cigarette since then?'

'No,' he said, and began to gnaw his thumb-nail. It was ragged, down to the quick.

'That's wonderful! What ever made you decide to quit?'

'You,' he said. 'And. . . and Alvin.'

Her eyes widened, and when the movie came back on, she didn't notice. Dick rarely mentioned their retarded son. She came over, looked at the empty ashtray by his right hand, and then into his eyes: 'Are you really trying to quit, Dick?'

'Really.' And if I go to the cops, he added mentally, the local goon squad will be around to rearrange your face, Cindy.

'I'm glad. Even if you don't make it, we both thank you for the thought, Dick.'

'Oh, I think I'll make it,' he said, thinking of the muddy, homicidal look that had come into Donatti's eyes when he kicked him in the stomach.

He slept badly that night, dozing in and out of sleep. Around three o'clock he woke up completely. His craving for a cigarette was like a low-grade fever. He went downstairs and to his study. The room was in the middle of the house. No windows. He slid open the top drawer of his desk and looked in, fascinated by the cigarette box. He looked around and licked his lips.

Constant supervision during the first month, Donatti had said. Eighteen hours a day during the next two - but he would never know which eighteen. During the fourth month, the month when most clients backslid, the 'service' would return to twenty-four hours a day.

Then twelve hours of broken surveillance each day for the rest of the year. After that? Random surveillance for the rest of the client's life.

For the rest of his life.

'We may audit you every other month,' Donatti said. 'Or every other day. Or constantly for one week two years from now. The point is, you won't know. If you smoke, you'll be gambling with loaded dice. Are they watching? Are they picking up my wife or sending a man after my son right now? Beautiful, isn't it? And if you do sneak a smoke, it'll taste awful. It will taste like your son's blood.'

But they couldn't be watching now, in the dead of night, in his own study. The house was grave-quiet.

He looked at the cigarettes in the box for almost two minutes, unable to tear his gaze away. Then he went to the study door, peered out into the empty hall, and went back to look at the cigarettes some more. A horrible picture came: his life stretching before him and not a cigarette to be found. How in the name of God was he ever going to be able to make another tough presentation to a wary client, without that cigarette burning nonchalantly between his fingers as he approached the charts and layouts? How would he be able to endure Cindy's endless garden shows without a cigarette? How could he even get up in the morning and face the day without a cigarette to smoke as he drank his coffee and read the paper?

He cursed himself for getting into this. He cursed Donatti. And most of all, he cursed Jimmy McCann. How could he have done it?

The son of a bitch had known. His hands trembled in their desire to get hold of Jimmy Judas McCann.

Stealthily, he glanced around the study again. He reached into the drawer and brought out a cigarette. He caressed it, fondled it. What was that old slogan? So round, so firm, so fully packed. Truer words had never been spoken. He put the cigarette in his mouth and then paused, cocking his head.

Had there been the slightest noise from the closet? A faint shifting? Surely not. But -Another mental image - that rabbit hopping crazily in the grip of electricity. The thought of Cindy in that room -He listened desperately and heard nothing. He told himself that all he had to do was go to the closet door and yank it open. But he was too afraid of what he might find. He went back to bed but didn't sleep for a long time.

In spite of how lousy he felt in the morning, breakfast tasted good. After a moment's hesitation, he followed his customary bowl of cornflakes with scrambled eggs. He was grumpily washing out the pan when Cindy came downstairs in her robe.

'Richard Morrison! You haven't eaten an egg for break-fast since Hector was a pup.

Morrison grunted. He considered since Hector was a pup to be one of Cindy's stupider sayings, on a par with I should smile and kiss a pig.

'Have you smoked yet?' she asked, pouring orange juice.

'No.'

'You'll be back on them by noon,' she proclaimed airily. 'Lot of goddamn help you are!' he rasped, rounding on her. 'You and anyone else who doesn't smoke, you all think ah, never mind.'

He expected her to be angry, but she was looking at him F with something like wonder. 'You're really serious,' she said. 'You really are.'

'You bet I am.' You'll never know how serious. I hope.

'Poor baby,' she said, going to him. 'You look like death warmed over. But I'm very proud.' Morrison held her tightly.

Scenes from the life of Richard Morrison, October-November:

Morrison and a crony from Larkin Studios at Jack Dempsey's bar. Crony offers a cigarette. Morrison grips his glass a little more tightly and says: I'm quitting. Crony laughs and says: I give you a week.

Morrison waiting for the morning train, looking over the top of the Times at a young man in a blue suit. He sees the young man almost every morning now, and sometimes at other places. At Onde's, where he is meeting a client. Looking at 45s in Sam Goody's, where Morrison is looking for a Sam Cooke album. Once in a foursome behind Morrison's group at the local golf course.

Morrison getting drunk at a party, wanting a cigarette -but not quite drunk enough to take one.

Morrison visiting his son, bringing him a large ball that squeaked when you squeezed it. His son's slobbering, delighted kiss.

Somehow not as repulsive as before. Hugging his son tightly, realizing what Donatti and his colleagues had so cynically realized before him: love is the most pernicious drug of all. Let the romantics debate its existence. Pragmatists accept it and use it.

Morrison losing the physical compulsion to smoke little by little, but never quite losing the psychological craving, or the need to have something in his mouth - cough drops, Life Savers, a tooth-pick. Poor substitutes, all of them.

And finally, Morrison hung up in a colossal traffic jam in the Midtown Tunnel. Darkness. Horns blaring. Air stinking. Traffic hopelessly snarled. And suddenly, thumbing open the glove compartment and seeing the half-open pack of cigarettes in there. He looked at them for a moment, then snatched one and lit it with the dashboard lighter. If anything happens, it's Cindy's fault, he told himself defiantly. I told her to get rid of all the damn cigarettes.

The first drag made him cough smoke out furiously. The second made his eyes water. The third made him feel light-headed and swoony. It tastes awful, he thought.

And on the heels of that: My God, what am I doing?

Horns blatted impatiently behind him. Ahead, the traffic had begun to move again. He stubbed the cigarette out in the ashtray, opened both front windows, opened the vents, and then fanned the air helplessly like a kid who has just flushed his first butt down the john.

He joined the traffic flow jerkily and. drove home.

'Cindy?' he called. 'I'm home.' No answer.

'Cindy? Where are you, hon?'

The phone rang, and he pounced on it. 'Hello? Cindy?'

'Hello, Mr Morrison,' Donatti said. He sounded pleasantly brisk and businesslike. 'It seems we have a small business matter to attend to. Would five o'clock be convenient?'

'Have you got my wife?'

'Yes, indeed.' Donatti chuckled indulgently.

'Look, let her go,' Morrison babbled. 'It won't happen again. It was a slip, just a slip, that's all. I only had three drags and for God's sake it didn't even taste good!'

'That's a shame. I'll count on you for five then, shall I?'

'Please,' Morrison said, close to tears. 'Please -He was speaking to a dead line.

At 5p.m. the reception room was empty except for the secretary, who gave him a twinkly smile that ignored Morrison's pallor and dishevelled appearance. 'Mr Donatti?' she said into the intercom. 'Mr Morrison to see you.' She nodded to Morrison. 'Go right in.'

Donatti was waiting outside the unmarked room with a man who was wearing a SMILE sweatshirt and carrying a .38. He was built like an ape.

'Listen,' Morrison said to Donatti. 'We can work something out, can't we? I'll pay you. I'll-' 'Shaddap,' the man in the SMILE sweatshirt said.

'It's good to see you,' Donatti said. 'Sorry it has to be under such adverse circumstances. Will you come with me? We'll make this as brief as possible. I can assure you your wife won't be hurt. . . this time.' Morrison tensed himself to leap at Donatti.

'Come, come,' Donatti said, looking annoyed. 'If you do that, Junk here is going to pistol-whip you and your wife is still going to get it. Now where's the percentage in that?'

'I hope you rot in hell,' he told Donatti.

Donatti sighed. 'If I had a nickel for every time someone expressed a similar sentiment, I could retire. Let it be a lesson to you, Mr Morrison. When a romantic tries to do a good thing and fails, they give him a medal. When a pragmatist succeeds, they wish him in hell. Shall we go?'

Junk motioned with the pistol.

Morrison preceded them into the room. He felt numb.

The small green curtain had been pulled. Junk prodded him with the gun. This is what being a witness at the gas chamber must have been like, he thought.

He looked in. Cindy was there, looking around bewilderedly.

'Cindy!' Morrison called miserably. 'Cindy, they -'

'She can't hear or see you,' Donatti said. 'One-way glass. Well, let's get it over with. It really was a very small slip. I believe thirty seconds should be enough. Junk?'

Junk pressed the button with one hand and kept the pistol jammed firmly into Morrison's back with the other.

It was the longest thirty seconds of his life.

When it was over, Donatti put a hand on Morrison's shoulder and said, 'Are you going to throw up?'

'No,' Morrison said weakly. His forehead was against the glass. His legs were jelly. 'I don't think so.' He turned around and saw that

Junk was gone.

'Come with me,' Donatti said.

'Where?' Morrison asked apathetically.

'I think you have a few things to explain, don't you?'

'How can I face her? How can I tell her that I. . .I . . 'I think you're going to be surprised,' Donatti said.

The room was empty except for a sofa. Cindy was on it, sobbing helplessly.

'Cindy?' he said gently.

She looked up, her eyes magnified by tears. 'Dick?' she whispered. 'Dick? Oh . . . Oh God . . .' He held her tightly. 'Two men,' she said against his chest. 'In the house and at first I thought they were burglars and then I thought they were going to rape me and then they took me someplace with a blindfold over my eyes and. . . and. . . oh it was h-horrible -' 'Shhh,' he said. 'Shhh.'

'But why?' she asked, looking up at him. 'Why would they -'

'Because of me,' he said 'I have to tell you a story, Cindy -'

When he had finished he was silent a moment and then said, 'I suppose you hate me. I wouldn't blame you.'

He was looking at the floor, and she took his face in both hands and turned it to hers. 'No,' she said. 'I don't hate you.' He looked at her in mute surprise.

'It was worth it,' she said. 'God bless these people. They've let you out of prison.'

'Do you mean that?'

'Yes,' she said, and kissed him. 'Can we go home now? I feel much better. Ever so much.'

The phone rang one evening a week later, and when Morrison recognized Donatti's voice, he said, 'Your boys have got it wrong. I haven't even been near a cigarette.'

'We know that. We have a final matter to talk over. Can you stop by tomorrow afternoon?'

'Is it -,

'No, nothing serious. Book-keeping really. By the way, congratulations on your promotion.'

'How did you know about that?'

'We're keeping tabs,' Donatti said noncommittally, and hungup.

When they entered the small room, Donatti said, 'Don't look so nervous. No one's going to bite you. Step over here, please.'

Morrison saw an ordinary bathroom scale. 'Listen, I've gained a little weight, but -'

'Yes, seventy-three per cent of our clients do. Step up, please.' Morrison did, and tipped the scales at one seventy-four.

'Okay, fine. You can step off. How tall are you, Mr Morrison?'

'Five-eleven.'

'Okay, let's see.' He pulled a small card laminated in plastic from his breast pocket. 'Well, that's not too bad. I'm going to write you a prescrip for some highly illegal diet pills. Use them sparingly and according to directions. And I'm going to set your maximum weight at. . . let's see . .

He consulted the card again. 'One eighty-two, how does that sound? And since this is December first, I'll expect you the first of every month for a weigh-in. No problem if you can't make it, as long as you call in advance.'

'And what happens if I go over one-eighty-two?'

Donatti smiled. 'We'll send someone out to your house to cut off your wife's little finger,' he said. 'You can leave through this door, Mr Morrison. Have a nice day.' Eight months later:

Morrison runs into the crony from the Larkin Studios at Dempsey's bar. Morrison is down to what Cindy proudly calls his fighting weight: one sixty-seven. He works out three times a week and looks as fit as whipcord. The crony from Larkin, by comparison, looks like something the cat dragged in.

Crony: Lord, how'd you ever stop? I'm locked into this damn habit tighter than Tillie. The crony stubs his cigarette out with real revulsion and drains his scotch.

Morrison looks at him speculatively and then takes a small white business card out of his wallet. He puts it on the bar between them.

You know, he says, these guys changed my life.

Twelve months later:

Morrison receives a bill in the mail. The bill says:

QUITTERS, INC.

237 East 46th Street

New York, N.Y. 10017

1 Treatment $2500.00

Counsellor (Victor Donatti) $2500.00

Electricity $ .50

TOTAL (Please pay this amount) $5000.50

Those sons of bitches! he explodes. They charged me for the electricity they used to. . . to Just pay it, she says, and kisses him.

Twenty months later:

Quite by accident, Morrison and his wife meet the Jimmy McCanns at the Helen Hayes Theatre. Introductions are made all around.

Jimmy looks as good, if not better than he did on that day in the airport terminal so long ago. Morrison has never met his wife. She is pretty in the radiant way plain girls sometimes have when they are very, very happy.

She offers her hand and Morrison shakes it. There is something odd about her grip, and halfway through the second act, he realizes what it was. The little finger on her right hand is missing.

[grifalinas]

Testing out Battlescars as an original work. The scene below was written for the revamp, but I never got that far in posting, so no one will have read the original to compare to it (hence why I chose it). Enjoy.

-/-

Buck has never particularly been a fan of his birthday: having been born on Valentine’s Day, his life has been a series of being ignored by those preferring to celebrate their love over his birth. Even his own birth was overshadowed by the holiday; it’s hard to enjoy a day knowing his father chose being with his wife over attending the birth of his son. Affair or not, he feels as the man’s firstborn he should have warranted a look-in.

Still, a boy doesn’t turn sixteen every day, and turning sixteen means getting his license. He wakes up early in the morning and bangs on his dad’s door for ten minutes before dad finally answers, squinting sleepily down at his son. His glasses are askew and his hair is mussed, and Buck has a moment of being glad that it looks like he’s finally been sleeping again before he gets back to his purpose.

“You said you’d take me to get my license,” he says, by way of explanation.

“What time is it?”

“I don’t know, like five? Ish?”

“What time does the DMV open?”

“...eight.”

Dad looks disgruntled for a moment, and turns to look longingly at his bed. Buck glances over as well, and looks away before he’s forced to register the large, human-shaped lump in the covers. He sighs. Of course his dad would be more interested in staying in bed with his lover than actually acknowledging his son’s birthday.

“One hour,” dad says finally, taking his glasses off to rub sleepily at his eyes. “We’ll stop somewhere for breakfast while we wait for the DMV to open.”

“Yeah?” Buck gives him a surprised look. “No kidding?”

“Am I in the habit of kidding?”

“Well, no, but…” He trails off, and takes a step back. “I’m gonna go get dressed!” he calls, turning to hurry back to his room.

-/-

Destiny gets back from her morning run just as Buck is getting out of the shower. She sits on his bathroom counter and watches him while he brushes his hair.

“So how does it feel to be sixteen?” she asks. “And what are you doing up so early? I thought you were allergic to the idea of two six o’clocks in one day.”

“Normally I am. Dad’s taking me to get my license.”

“The DMV doesn’t open till eight.”

“He’s taking me for breakfast first.”

“Ah.” She gives him a knowing look: she’s been in his position enough not to offer comment. “So what have you got planned for today? Apart from your license, I mean.”

“I dunno. Thought I’d borrow the car and take the guys up to Valhalla to catch a movie.”

This time the look she gives him is secretive and mischievous. He frowns, and turns to finish dressing rather than think about what it could mean.

-/-

After he finishes dressing, Buck heads downstairs, and finds dad drinking coffee while Victoria fries herself an egg. Dad is looking more put together now, but his collar isn’t quite high enough to hide the fresh bruise on his neck, the one that wasn’t there less than an hour ago. Buck suppresses a grumble and turns to making his own coffee rather than think too hard about it.

“Happy birthday,” Victoria says, moving out of the way so Buck can reach the coffee maker. “Are you looking forward to getting your license?”

“I mean.” Buck shrugs. “I just think it’ll be nice not to have to wait around for someone else to take me places, you know? By the way.” He turns his attention to his dad. “Do you mind if I borrow the car this evening? I want to take the guys up to the city for a movie.”

“Hmm…” Dad considers this, and exchanges a secretive look with Victoria. “...We’ll see,” he says. “I may need it, it is Valentine’s Day, after all.”

Buck fights down a scowl. “Gross,” he says, and stalks off to his room to wait till time to go.

-/-

The DMV is in Spiral, which is a bit of a drive that dad lets Buck handle; once they’re in the city, dad leaves it to Buck to decide where they’re going for breakfast. They end up going out for French toast, and after a breakfast that is only a little bit awkward, they head to the DMV, and make it not long after it’s opened.

There’s already a line formed, so they take their number and have a seat. Dad brought his computer and decides to get some work done, while Buck fills out the form he needs for his license.

“It’s a good thing I’m not legally blind yet,” he says, scratching his head with his pencil and staring at the part where he says he needs corrective lenses. “Think my eyesight is gonna end up as shitty as yours?”

“Probably,” dad says. “But I’m not quite bad enough to count as legally blind yet, so you shouldn’t need to worry, not for awhile.”

“At least Victoria is willing to do most of your driving for you,” Buck says, glancing at dad in his periphery. He’s starting to wonder about their relationship; he’d assumed they were just bennies, but now he’s not so sure.

“I do employ a driver, you know. Though it is fortunate that Victoria is willing to drive when we’d prefer our privacy, even from a driver.”

“Yeah, super fortunate.” Buck glances down at his form, only half completed. “So you guys really planning to do shit for Valentine’s, huh?”

Dad sighs. “Buck, do you truly want to have this conversation at the DMV, on your birthday? I would think you’d prefer to leave it for a later time.”

“So there is a conversation to be had.”

Another sigh, and dad turns his attention back to his computer. Buck scowls and goes back to filling out his form. After a moment, dad takes his glasses off and rubs his eyes.

“This is new territory for both of us,” he says finally. “I have been with no one else since- since she died, and Oliver is a wound still fresh and raw for Victoria. Neither of us is sure what we are or even what we want.” He adds, as an afterthought, “It was Victoria’s idea to spend Valentine’s together, not mine.”

“Big fucking shock,” Buck grumbles. He finishes filling out his form, and sets it aside in favor of taking out his phone.

“I don’t understand the problem,” dad says. He sounds frustrated. Buck scoffs.

“Of course you wouldn’t. Look, it- it doesn’t matter, okay? Let’s just drop it. I don’t get many good birthdays, let’s not ruin this one before it even gets off the ground.”

“Very well.”

From there, the wait for Buck’s test is silent, with dad working and Buck playing Mathlibs on his phone. It’s a relief when his number is called and he can head out, keeping to a walk just in case dad wants to wish him luck or something before his test.

Dad is silent. Buck isn’t sure what he was expecting, if he’s honest.

-/-

Buck passes his test- he messes up on parallel parking, but the instructor decides to let him by on the grounds of everything else being fine- and goes to wait in line to get his picture taken and his license made. Once he has it, he heads back over to dad, who is packing up his computer so they can go.

“How did your picture turn out?” dad asks.

“Not great.” Buck squints at it. He’d at least had the foresight to take his ponytail out, so his head isn’t shaped weird. He hands it to dad to look at.

“You look so unimpressed,” dad observes, handing it back. Buck snorts.

“Yeah, well, I mean. If I get pulled over, I’m gonna be unimpressed.”

“Fair enough. It’s not a particularly flattering photo, but license photos never are.”

“It didn’t exactly have much to work with. Puberty is not doing me any favors over here.”

Dad gives him a sidelong look, and looks amused. “I think you look very handsome, Buck.”

“That’s because I look like you and you’re full of yourself.”

“Perhaps.” They stop near the car, and dad hands him the keys. “Care to drive?”

“Hell yeah!” He takes the keys and slides into the driver’s seat. “You need to stop anywhere on the way home?”

“I was actually thinking we might go to the mall, so you can be allowed to pick out your birthday present.”

“Whoa.” Buck turns and raises an eyebrow at him. “Who are you, and what have you done with my dad?”

“Very funny.”

“No seriously! You’re doing all this nice shit for me today. You never do that.”

“It’s not every day my son turns sixteen.” He mirrors Buck’s expression. “Am I not allowed to dote a bit?”

“I mean- I guess you are- I just-” He trails off, and distracts himself by focusing on getting the car out of the parking lot and into traffic. “Look, it doesn’t matter. Let’s just go to the mall so you can buy me that limited edition Luna Brothers Gamebuddy that just came out.”

“Don’t you already have a Gamebuddy?”

“Well, yeah, but this one is embossed with a picture of Max on the cover. That makes it better.”

“What is Luna Brothers?”

“Just this dumb show about monsters that my friends watch. I only want the Gamebuddy so they’ll all be jealous.”

“That so?” Dad doesn’t look like he believes him, but he doesn’t reply in favor of checking the text his phone just alerted him to. He turns to look out the window, and Buck sees a secretive smile reflected in the window. He winces and turns his attention back to the road, trying to find some way to get dad’s attention away from- no doubt- Victoria.

“Uh, yeah, it’s about these brothers who were orphaned as kids and then this really shady dude took them in. And the younger brother babysits for his classmate’s little brother, that’s Max… uh… my friends all say that Max reminds them of me, actually, which is kinda cool, cause he’s really funny and gets all the best lines.”

Dad looks interested, so Buck launches into an explanation of The Luna Brothers, pleased when he puts his phone down in the seat for awhile. Buck doesn’t often have his dad’s undivided attention, and he’s going to enjoy it while he does.

He’s able to keep the conversation going the whole time they’re at the mall shopping- dad gets him the new Gamebuddy, and several new games and a Mud Mummies t-shirt as well- and then they go out for lunch. On the drive home, they play Mathlibs, with dad running the board and Buck supplying the equations, and it’s honestly one of the best birthdays Buck has ever had.

He spends the whole time waiting for the other shoe to drop.

When they get home, Victoria’s car is there in the drive, and Victoria comes out to meet them before Buck has even got the car into the garage. She looks smug. Granted, she always looks smug, but this seems situationally specific. Buck resists the urge to groan. There’s that other shoe, it seems.

Buck slams the car door a little more than he meant to and heads for the door, but dad catches his shoulder with one hand to stop him.

“Where are you going?”

“Inside,” Buck says. “I gotta call the guys and see if we had any homework from today.”

“In a moment. I want you to see something in the backyard.”

“Fine.”

Buck follows them out of the garage to the backyard, hanging back and watching the way they walk together. He doesn’t really see anything different- there’s a good foot or so of space between them, and they’ve got their hands behind their backs while they walk. But they also keep glancing at each other and speaking quietly.

He’s so busy watching them he doesn’t quite realize they’ve stopped until he nearly barrels into them. They’re both looking at him expectantly, so he looks around, wondering what it was they brought him back here to see-

“That’s a car,” he says. There’s a Scorpion in the yard, cornflower blue and brand new. He looks up at his dad. “Is that mine?”

“You knew you were getting it.” Dad looks smug.

“Yeah, but I thought-” He thought he’d have to wait for dad to get around to it. “-I didn’t know it was coming today.”

“It did. Do you still want to borrow the car tonight?”

Buck rolls his eyes, unable to disguise how pleased he looks. “Whatever.” He moves over to the car, wanting to look at it but not quite daring to. He’ll be the first of his friends to have his own vehicle- not counting Manny, who has a truck but is Destiny’s friend more than his anyway. Mano and Lys have both had their licenses for ages but they’re still using the family vehicles.

“Unfortunately it wasn’t available in green,” dad says, moving to join him. “But we can easily have it painted if you’d prefer it.”

Since when does his dad actually know his favorite color? Buck shakes his head. “No, blue is fine, the shade of green I like doesn’t look right on cars.” He gives dad a hopeful look. “Can I drive it?”

“It’s yours, isn’t it?”

“Right. Mine. Keys?”

Victoria passes them over, and Buck slides into the car. He hadn’t wanted a scorpion, and had complained when dad told him that’s what he was getting, but he doesn’t mind so much now that he’s sitting it in. True, it’s big and clunky and made to be sturdy more than anything, but it’s more than any of his friends have. He cranks up, and lets the window down so he can lean out of it.

“I think I’ll go up to the school and show it off,” he says. “See you later.”

He drives off, leaving dad and Victoria standing in the yard.

-/-

Once he’s gone, they head inside.

“Did you enjoy your day out?” Victoria asks. Cyrus nods.

“Have you ever heard of The Luna Brothers?”

Victoria hums an affirmative. “It’s very popular right now. Manny and Donut watch it together sometimes. I believe it is universally agreed among their friends that Max is a toddler, cartoon version of Buck.”

“How do you even know that?”

“I pay attention.”

Cyrus shakes his head. He hasn’t missed the jab. “Do you think I’ve made up last month to him with that?”

“I think it will take more than one good birthday and a car to make up for…” She hesitates. “...last month.” Victoria touches Cyrus’s hand, levels on him a pointed look. “Some indication that there will not be a repeat of last month would go a long way.”

Cyrus shoots him a look, then turns and heads back to his study. “What did you have in mind for tonight?” he asks.

Behind him, Victoria sighs and follows. “Nothing fancy. Dinner would be nice.”

-/-

[sazandorable]

ooh another prompt: times flare staff were super confuddled seeing manon rollering around the hq halls

((i wasn’t sure you meant literally on roller skates, but chose to trust that you did.

1. The noise is deafening, between the whirr of the wheels on the concrete floors, the fracas of the collision and various gadgets clattering to the floor, the sheer pitch of Xerosic’s shrill scream, and Manon’s laughter.

Fleurdelys considers hunting down the person responsible for giving her those blasted things, but the whole sequence of event is somewhat entertaining.

2. Bara and Correa avoid an actual crash — although only by way of throwing themselves into each other’s arms and against the wall — but they are even louder and angrier.

“What is that hideous brat even doing here?!”

“And why is she not wearing a uniform?!”

They’re still clutching each other, Fleurdelys notices, numbly.

3. Pachira is not surprised about the girl being there, nor about the roller skates. What five minutes she has seen of the kid were enough to figure out roller skates don’t clash with her image.

What she’s more curious about is that the kid is hollering down the halls in roller skates, laughing. Currently.

Brushing her index finger to her chin, she pops her head into Fleurdelys’ office to confirm: “Wasn’t her Pokémon dying?”

He throws her a tired almost-glare. “Not dying, Pachira. It is comatose.”

“Right, right.”

She leans back out to watch as the brat comes back the other way, wearing Flare-patented sunglasses and pursued by a yelling glasses-less grunt.

Aah, now she sees it: the little strain around the kid’s mouth from forcing that grin, the emptiness in the sparkling irises behind the lenses, the bags under those wide-open eyes.

She waits for the comedy duo to pass and for the ruckus to die down before commenting: “Sure fucked up how human nature feels the need to make it look as though everything is fine when it clearly isn’t, huh?”

Fleurdelys smiles.

“Keeping up appearances,” he says. “Beauty before anything.”

4. The novelty passes, mostly. Bara and Correa still seethe between gritted teeth, but within a few weeks, even the admin have internalized a reflex to stick to the wall whenever the sound of wheels is heard, and since she does not have much else to do, Manon quickly becomes good enough that there is no crashing anymore.

That is, until the professor Platane drops by to check up on her and test a few things on her Harimaron.

And it’s not even that surprising to anyone in the Fleurdelys labs that the kid has acquired a pair of skates and pulled him along with her within an hour; neither is the fact that the man is bad at it. The surprises are:

1) exactly how much of a clutz that man is;

2) considering their relative heights and weights, how he managed to make the director fall and end up on top.

Pachira is startled, but too much of a pro for that to stop her from whipping out her Holo Caster and immortalizing the scene. Fleurdelys’s venomous glare tells her she would be fired if she were actually in his employ, but hey, lucky her.

5. Well, she didn’t have roller skates that time she broke into the lab with the professor, the Hoenn Champion, and a bunch of other rude kids, but the amount of surprise and chaos caused amongst the staff was comparable.

(bonus prequel to this just to be mean)

1. The next time they meet, she is not wearing roller skates anymore, and Xerosic is not surprised to see her.

“I thought you might come,” he muses, checking all the equipment for the first test. “Brave girl.”

“I’m not brave,” she mumbles as she puts on the small helmet. “I just need this.”

[severalbakuras]

FIRST THREE EPISODES OF S4 LETS GO

long post so apologies to mobile users. salt warning.

voltron season 4 spoilers (although i understand it’s technically still three the season just got split in two so the content drought wasn’t as long). please don’t give me spoilers for the rest of the season!! i don’t want them!!

(on the subject of content drought is steven universe still on hiatus?)

(still better than berserk’s hiatuses though)

episode 1:

still no new intro you COWARDS

second impact!!! oh no just a ship.

i wonder if galra have unions those two sound like they need one

BLADES

“do not engage” HMMM

oooh lizard blade

the blade up top could’ve totally seen that patrol coming tbh???

KEITH I KNEW IT!!!!

30 SECONDS TO SAVE LIZARD BLADE

holy shit he actually did it

sassy keith talking back to kolivan like that. hell yeah he saved their friend and the mission.

firo uh why are you acting like bridge boss? that was allura’s job and then coran’s job when she became the blue pilot. Back The Fuckéth Down.

there’s something ominous about those temples i can’t place it.

oh hey what’s up firo being a jackass as usual? k? k. keith can you employ the blade sass here too please it’s kinda sad watching this fake shiro stomp all your fire out.

pidge i hope that’s superficial damage bc cracks are probably not what you want in an outer space vessel.

wow rude. heith cancelled i’m not liking that.

i’m not trusting a DAMN THING from firo, especially when the music got super deep for a second.

i’m not in the military or remotely connected to it in any way but this is like... actually there’s no ‘like’ about it, they’re taking the most powerful and skilled soldiers out of combat in the middle of a war just so they can show them off, when voltron is already enshrined in the galactic mythos and by now it’s well known as being active and wrecking galra shit.

i can’t!! believe!! this!! is even!!! a debate?? parade which has already stated to have already happened very recently before or a galra supply ship going to for all that they know a secret galra base that they need to track down.

Y’ALL ARE FREEDOM FIGHTERS. IN AN ACTIVE WAR ZONE. THE FUCK.

god shut up lance he could be dead or captured and you’re more worried about the show.

i’m pretty sure you’ve only ~tried~ like what, three times? and like only one of those even made any impression on keith and i don’t even think it was the right one.

AND YOU SHOULD STILL TRY BECAUSE HE’S YOUR GODDAMN FRIEND.

NO LIZARD BLADE

so they’re off giving them the ol’ razzle dazzle and keith is running out of oxygen in the wreckage of a bomb explosion with no allies in sight floating adrift in space. fun times.

this parade is basically just an ad for toys LBR.

this is embarrassingly unfunny. like not even in a schadenfreude way.

so like y’all seriously have never thought about an alternative way for these parades to go just in case one of the lions needed repairs or was late back from a mission or a paladin was sick?

allura like i get what you’re trying to say here but like... do you know keith.

he’s not choosing the blades over voltron he’s choosing the fucking war over a parade.

ahh there he is, my terrible space prince. cleanse me of my salt.

god he has no respect for haggar at all ahhaha. i know some spoilers re honerva thanks to that one clip so it’s interesting he either doesn’t recognize her or doesn’t want to or that haggar either still doesn’t remember him or also doesn’t want to.

and y’all seriously never had a contingency plan for any situation that could mean voltron wasn’t around hhhhh.

hunk you’re the tank just AOE the spawned adds and let the DPS pick them off while you pop a defensive cooldown god you’d wipe the group in ragefire chasm even in full heirlooms wouldn’t you. (although there isn’t a healer lion and he’s clearly more protection warrior than the far superior blood death knight so lol no self heals)

huh. well the black lion historically isn’t a great judge of character so you’re still firo to me. like objectively, the black lion has no investment in her paladin’s life as seen on the bone planet when they were all separated, or even the continued existence of voltron. compare to the red lion, who will wreck entire bases and cross the galaxy to get to hers if she senses they’re in peril.

i wonder if voltron or the lions are conscious. like not like a person but like an EVA unit. a unit 1 vs zeruel style fight where voltron or one of the lions goes beast mode would be AMAZING

(spoiler warning for a 90s anime lol have i linked this before? i think i might have.)

now i want to watch original NGE again boo

(i wonder if we’ll ever get a real lion-on-lion fight. like either with the paladins involved or without. or like the lions deciding ‘fuck the pilot’ and disobeying them god that makes me want to watch NGE EVEN MORE)

holy shit you can all fuck off. 

god keith your voice.

HOLY SHIT YOU CAN ALL FUCK OFF THAT’S THE MOST HOLLOW ~FRIENDSHIP~ MOMENT TO DATE.

welp OT4 cancelled, i guess that means i have no nice ships in this fandom and only have crack ships like keitor and zethura. i think that’s the fastest i’ve ever gone from loving a ship to dumping it. wait no i was a puzzleshipper for all of a day before i got bored of it when i rewatched yugioh. hunk/allura/shay/keith lasted a few weeks between S3.1 and S3.2.

(it’s ok shay i still love you. i can still ship you and keith but that too is a crack ship ♥)

episode 2:

UH WELL THANKS FOR THAT SPOILER THUMBNAIL NETFLIX.

BABY PIDGE

it’s amazing how a single word has made me detest this boy more than any of the galra except that one shitty one who sucked. go to hell.

actually teacher can go to hell too you’re just gonna let the entire class laugh at her and not even try to maintain order? are you that petty about being corrected?

i like these watercolour-y style backgrounds, i hope other earth flashbacks get this kind of style. it’s a nice change from how clean and sharp everything else is.

aww he’s a good bro

NERDBABIES ♥

OH WELL I HOPE YOU GUYS HAVE A BACK UP PLAN IN CASE THE GALRA ATTACK WHILE SHE’S GONE :)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

like he’s contacting her midflight which makes it seem like she just took off at the first hint of matt??? meanwhile kolivan contacts the ship and explains the situation and asks politely? but keith’s the bad guy for splitting up the team ok.

do i sound salty? i feel it.

that’s our hunk, he sure likes to eat! -hysterical crowd noises-

this city looks like a neo-tokyo sonic level in a good way.

the lamest spider man.

who are you sharktooth tail man.

the whole PLANET looks like a neo-tokyo sonic level in a good way. approve. the coolest planet. can that be the new hub planet and not that weird techno-ahn’qiraj thing?

so the green lion takes no steps to defend itself under attack without a paladin.

did she just bloodbend that ship?

I LOVE HER. SHE’S ABOUT TO DIE (pidge bloodbend her wound shut) BUT I LOVE HER.

“so here’s your supplies and a body cheers.”

so why all the secrets here? i feel like the garrison’s up to shady shit, like he was just a space tube driller right? is space geology really that cutthroat?

that shot of the graveyard, holy shit.

i wonder how pidge’s mother’s doing. probably not well.

now see this would be tense and tragic if not for the FUCKING THUMBNAIL NETFLIX.

physics? physics.

i love rusty space tech!!!!!!!!

aww ♥

so where’s mr. holt then.

oh so he’s not galra he’s a space dinosaur.

“looks to me like you’re made of meat, just like everyone else!” ok that was an amazing line. i’m stealing that for my blood death knight, it’s perfect for her. i like you bloody bounty huntersaurus. you’re so dead but i like you.

nerd squad!

was that shiro and keith in the back?

so matt’s eyesight couldn’t have been that bad for pidge to just put them on like that, unless he switched the lenses out and made them purely cosmetic. people have to sit down when they wear my glasses or they feel sick.

episode 3:

yknow show i already feel bad enough for haggar/honerva you don’t need to twist that knife anymore.

are they STILL torturing that guy? i mean dude’s so strong in his convictions and his loyalty that he’s not tried making up a fake or even letting his brain conjure up an answer that he believes is true y’all should consider promoting him instead maybe??? because he’s the most hardcore person in that room???

firo why does ‘refugee’ instantly translate to ‘soldier’ with you.

oh he’s lance but more anime around pretty girls. boy that sure was an interesting and appealing character trait the first time around!!!!!!1111!!!1!!

HE’S NOT SHIRO DON’T TRUST HIM MATT.

cyber zarkon. i hope his AI acts up and he has to use urban dictionary as his speech system.

interesting that her first act is to drop lotor in it.

they both hate lotor so much why’d you even have him in the first place huh?

SHE’S SO EXCITED also the formatting’s getting weird bc of the length i think so sorry if this starts looking weird.

there he is again!! space prince!!

nobody who worked on this scene has ever been close to a cow. where’s the intrinsic judgement of your soul, the innate suspicion at your mere presence?

also she needs a herd she’s gonna be lonely ;_;

lotor we all know you’re lying

well apparently they don’t so i guess that kind of behaviour is what they expect from him. huh. i wonder when the switch between that being true and that being a well rehearsed act happened.

haggar what did you just do to narti. that’s not a good high pitched noise or whispering. i feel like i’ve heard it before.

how do you miss a tracker that makes an explosion that large the first time around? and wouldn’t the scan be standard procedure at this point?

hunk why are you acting like this. it’s weird i don’t like it.

git gud lance.

that whole bit went on way too long.

OH NO NARTI I KNEW HAGGAR DID SOMETHING.

so lotor’s officially the enemy now. like public enemy number 1.

VLD IF YOU TAKE ZETHRID AWAY FROM ME LIKE SU DID WITH JASPER...

so it

was

narti oh no :( i’d kinda hoped it was the cat.

that’s pretty graphic too slicing the view in half like that. a very creative censor.

and they don’t react at all? huh.

ok ok now they have the chance to. god they all look miserable.

did they leave the cat behind?

wonder what keith’s up to.

[newidaho]

5.  The Government Building

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20 December 2054 // 1400h.

  On the north side of Idaho Park, the width of an entire block, is an eight-story building known by such monikers as “The Terrible Tower,” “The Beige House,” and, in more recent years, “Krispy Kreme”.

The real name of this building was, simply, The Government Building, and it was likely this title’s blandness that made the place so ripe for nicknames.

As with any government, certain citizens found plenty to complain about.  Some called the giant building an eyesore.  Others considered it a towering monument of oppression lording over the town.  In reality, the GB was as big as it was because it was the only building in town that housed Government Offices.  The lawmakers and courts were there, as were the departments of resources and infrastructure, as was the treasury, as was the police force.

Another common, and obvious, complaint dealt with the taxes it must have taken to build this structure and support what must be a robust government operation.  In fact, taxes in New Idaho were lower than anywhere else in the country.  This was due to some forward-thinking for-profit operations run by the Mayor’s Department of Recreation.  A membership gym occupied the second floor, and a penthouse cafe on the eighth floor was wildly popular.

In addition to its for-profit services, the Government Building also gave extensive, entertaining tours of its inner-workings for a modest fee.  The greatest source of revenue, however, was the IdahoCam, a Virtual Reality system that allowed anyone from anywhere in the world to take a virtual stroll around the Government Building of New Idaho whenever they liked for only $7 a month.  Surprisingly, this service was in high demand, especially for curious Americans outside of Idaho, and the Mayor always made sure to include surprise performances and Easter Eggs for the subscribers.

Some areas of the building, however, were confidential, and could not be entered virtually.  One of these areas was the party-planning office on the north-eastern wing of the fourth floor.  The Government of New Idaho was known to throw some of the best block parties in the country, and they didn’t want their secret to get out.  Though anyone was welcome to try, few could legitimately compete with the Official New Idaho Party Planning Committee.  Add a reasonable admissions charge, and the Government made a decent amount of money on these events about four times a year.

All this amounted to a civil society with very low taxes.  New Idaho was founded by entrepreneurs on the progressive idea that a government should make their own profit, and these systems evolved as the city was established.  None, however, had taken the city to such low taxes and high profits as the current mayor, Kiyoshi Krispyman.

Krispyman was elected in 2050, and had just been elected for two more years this past November.  He had spent the last four years revamping the IdahoCam program, improving the seasonal Government Parties, and improving the structure of New Idaho’s basic income by introducing programs such as New Idaho’s “Museum of Oddities”.  These programs both lowered taxes and allowed most people to make a livable wage in the Museum or any of its partner programs.  Kiyoshi was considered, by most, to be a business mastermind, and an excellent example for local governments everywhere.

Kiyoshi’s office was located on the seventh floor of the building, with a South-facing window that allowed a great view all the wildlife of the Jungle and a small bit of the University beyond.

This afternoon he was sitting across from his main advisor, Vice Mayor Jessica Jordan.

‘Listen to this.’  Kiyoshi was reading a memo through his Lenses as he looked out onto the Jungle.  ‘“Dear Mr. Krispyman, I hope you are doing well.  I have always appreciated your hands-off approach to government… yada yada… I understand and respect the government’s final say in projects of infrastructure.  The privatization of roadways is a tough nut to crack, and I appreciate you doing well to keep the infrastructure of New Idaho solid.

‘“It is with the utmost respect, then, that I ask you to consider allowing Lucid Labs to build a Hume-Tube system around the town.”  Any guesses what a Hume-Tube is, Jessica?’

‘It sounds like it removes bad smells or something.  But I guess that would be a “Fume-Tube”.’

Kiyoshi Continued.  ’“The Hume-Tube is a new technology, patent-pending, from Lucid Labs.  The Hume-Tube transports humans quickly, without bikes, from one section of town to another.”  He goes on.  He explains the logistics… blah, blah, blah… I’ll forward you the email, you can read the rest.  It seems that Lucid-San wants to create a new hyper-tube system that lets him transport his employees from areas of the city to the Labs.’

‘And what do you think of that?’

‘My guess—he’s just planting a seed.  The patent hasn’t even gone through.  Seems like a lot of big ideas.  But he has to let us know that it is in the works.’

‘So are we going to let him do it?’

‘Regulation has never been my style, has it?’

‘You don’t think it might be a bit of an eye-sore?’

‘Who am I to say?  We will make sure it doesn't get in the way of everyone else’s operations.  After that, might as well let Lucid-San do what he thinks is best.  It is basically his city, after all.’

‘Well, his and Aubrey’s.’

‘Well put.’

‘I imagine he wants to get some sort of official okay before another mayor is elected, as well.’

‘Well then I guess he has two more years to butter my belt.  Guess that’s why he waited for December, huh?’

‘Guess so.’

Kiyoshi sat down behind his desk, then spun his chair around so he faced out toward the Jungle again.  He was 55 years old, but could have been in his thirties:  Short, jet-black hair, lean, muscular build, and less wrinkles on his face than on the suit of a サラリーマン.  His parents had worked hard to successfully emigrate from Japan in the ‘90s, and he inherited their strong will and good genetics.  It had taken him 51 years, but he finally got a gig he was truly proud of—Mayor of the City of the Century.  And a damn good one, too.  He loved his view of the Jungle, the campus beyond, and the mountain peaks beyond that.  He never had to travel anywhere else in America, or the world for that matter—he was fine right here.

‘Spuck is coming in soon, yeah?’  he asked Jessica.

‘In fact, he just buzzed in.’

‘Send him up!  Thank you!’

‘Do you want me in this meeting?’

‘Sure, that could be a good idea.  You have to be my witness.  Make sure he doesn’t bribe me with gold or anything.’

Jarek Spuck was the CEO of MineShaft, and one of the youngest business magnates in New Idaho.  At only 26-years-old, he was valued at $25 Million.  Though he wasn’t the brains behind MineShaft, once his father had left it to him and showed him around, he was a whiz at keeping the business moving and profitable.

‘Jarek!’  Kiyoshi said, bowing to his acquaintance across the table.  ‘Have a seat!’

Jarek sat down and shook Kiyoshi’s hand.  ‘Krispy-San.  久しぶり!’

‘Ahh, I think you misuse the expression!  We had lunch two weeks ago!’

‘I guess a week seems a bit longer at my age.’

‘You calling me old?’

‘No, sir.  Though you are twice as old as me.’

‘More!  Sadly, it is so.  So, Jarek, what are we talking about today?’

‘The MineShaft Program.’

‘Yes?’

‘Well first, I must thank you for the program at all.  Who would have thought that at 2054 humans would still be more effective than AI?’

‘I am quite surprised by the lag in AI.  Self-driving bikes all around, but the androids still aren’t dreaming of electric sheep.’

‘Exactly.  Certainly not robots as small as those in MineShaft.’

‘And your issue?’

‘Hm?’

‘I’m sure you aren’t here just to thank me.  What’s wrong?’

‘Yes.  Of course.  The issue.  Well, we’ve been getting some pushback.  I thought you should know.’

‘Pushback?  From who?’

‘Well, parents mostly.  Some college students.  And I think the latter’s interest in the topic is poised to grow—you know how these things can spread once the student body gets wind of it.  And the parents seem to be organizing to make sure they do.’

‘My guess.  They want you to pay minimum wage.’

‘The parents are asking for even more than that.’

Kiyoshi sighed.  This was expected, but such a hassle.  ‘They realize that you are employing anyone who asks for a job?  Is guaranteed work not a fair trade for a lower wage?’

‘Apparently they don’t see it that way.’

The federal government saw it that way—for now.  If there was a big enough stink about it, of course, the plug could easily be pulled on the whole operation.  It had been a huge success when Kiyoshi first unveiled the partnership, three years ago.  People were happy.  But people get too comfortable.  Then they want more.

‘And if you were forced to pay them the federal minimum wage?’

‘You know the federal wage doesn’t make any sense New Idaho.  the taxes are so low and our farms are so efficient, our quality of life per dollar spent is unheard of.’

‘Yes, but if you were forced to?’

‘Well, that would either mean the end of our deal or some extreme renegotiations.  I can’t guarantee everyone in New Idaho a job at the federal minimum wage.  At half that, it works out.  Otherwise, it just doesn’t make any business sense.’

‘And that, my greedy friend, is why people will hate you.  Jarek Spuck, dirty, deplorable capitalist.’

Jarek laughed.  ‘You know I don’t care about that.  Look, I like to employ as many people as I do.  It makes life easier for me, and anyone can get paid to play video games.  Everybody wins.’

‘Again—not the way they see it.’

‘No.  And I haven’t even gotten to the worst of it.  The trump card.’

‘And that is?’

‘The parents are complaining about trauma.’

‘Trauma?’

‘Yes.  Trauma from “poor working conditions”.  Like having to kill the occasional rat.  They say that it’s cruel to pay their children by simulating murder.  They worry about the future implications.’

‘Weren’t war simulators some of the first playable games on the VR market?’

‘I guess it’s different when you bring money into the picture.’

‘How?’

‘Well, I guess because they feel coerced to play this game.  Therefore, in their minds, we are coercing their children to murder.  It no longer feels like a choice to them.’

‘But it is a choice!’

‘They… Don’t see it that way.’

Kiyoshi stood up and stared at the back of his hands as he rested his palms on his desk.

‘They are using this argument to bargain for a raise,’ Jarek said.

‘And if they keep playing this up, the Fed may just step in and outlaw the game altogether.’

‘My thoughts exactly.  Then we are looking at much more than halving the work force.’

‘Let kids play the game if they want to!  If they don’t like it, they can always play Mapper.’

‘Of course they would rather fly drones over the countryside.  But Mapper pays less.’

‘So I imagine I’ll be having a meeting with Rachel soon, too.’

‘It’s quite possible.’

‘Well, thank you for bringing it to my attention, Spuck-San.’

‘Spuck-San sounds pretty horrible.’

‘I didn’t choose your last name,’ Kiyoshi said with a smile.

‘じゃまた.’  Jarek shook Kiyoshi's hand, bowed, and left the room.

Kiyoshi began packing to walk home.  That was enough drama for one day, and he needed time to think.  If they were forced to play by the federal minimum wage, it would have implications that could potentially topple the Guaranteed Basic Income he had worked so hard to negotiate.  There would be unemployment, an issue that hadn’t existed by anything other than choice since the introduction of the Programs.  There would be demands for welfare.  Which would mean higher taxes.  Which would mean…

What a headache.  Politics really suck sometimes.  Well, Kiyoshi thought, he could think about all of that on his walk.  For now, everything was fine.  He packed his bag and said goodbye to Jessica, who knew better than to re-open the topic so soon.  He exited the Government Building and walked toward the Jungle.