#i have a unicorn i made in build a bear when i was maybe four that my dad helped me make

[mysticfemme]

I wish they would do jellycat build-a-bears. I hate how they look and feel whereas jellycats are cute and fluffy and I just wanna put a stupid scented heart with a wish on it in my jellycat 😭

[ashintheairlikesnow]

The Get Ready Game

CW: Young children of rescued whumpee, referenced past child abuse, referenced past emotional abuse. CW for child’s trauma response/PTSD, Overcompetent Emotional and Logistical Support Oldest Daughter X 100, unhealthy coping mechanisms

@comfy-whumpee‘s Jax Gallagher successfully saved his children (and himself) from Savannah Marcoset. But Izzy, now nearly seven, remembers her mother very well still, and knows that if her father doesn’t yet feel safe, she shouldn’t either.

So she makes a plan.

---

Izzy finds her brother playing blocks in the living room, half-heartedly building a tower while his eyes are on the cartoon show playing on the telly. She glances side to side - Dad's at therapy, only left a little bit ago. There's ages of time before he comes back, and he’ll be all in his head and distracted but probably he’ll want to lay down, so if she wants to do this, she’d better do it while he’s gone.

“Jamie?”

“Hm?” Her brother doesn’t look away from the show, but he kind of tilts his head in her direction. He’s younger than she is, only four and can’t read yet. But he doesn’t have to, she can do the reading for them both. She reads at a high level, her teacher says. Izzy practices every single night, she’s the best reader in class. 

She has to be.

“Where’s Grandpa, d’you know?”

Jamie points to the side. “In the, um, in the kitchen-”

“Sssshhhh! Quiet, don’t let him hear I asked.” Izzy puts out both hands, and now she has her brother’s interest. He loves having secrets with her, special kids-only things. It’s why this works, why she can teach him what they need to do, just in case, without him running off to tell Dad or Grandpa right away. 

She goes quiet, listening. She can hear Alfie’s voice, low, murmuring. He stays home on the days her dad has to go to therapy, so Jax can go and then come back and lay down in his room without having to worry. 

Grandpa will be talking, probably with some tea in hand, and he won’t overhear them. It’s perfect timing. Dad at therapy and Grandpa on the phone, maybe for a long time. 

“Hey, Jamie,” Izzy says, keeping her voice carefully casual. “You want to play Get Ready with me?”

Her little brother brightens. Izzy isn’t the best at his kind of play, rough-housing or throwing things around, playing Daddy-and-Baby with the big soft dolls he’s given all sorts of odd names to. Izzy doesn’t like playing baby-holding games, and besides that she doesn’t like how loud he is about it. She’s too quiet, too prone to sitting very still or whisper-talking her way through pretend games about princesses that Jamie doesn’t find interesting at all.

But this game… this game, he likes. 

He knows it’s important, even if he doesn’t know why. He knows his big sister is trusting him with big important things, and not being irritated by him or pushing him away. James scrambles up onto his feet, accidentally kicking his little tower of blocks over in the process. Both of them freeze at the crash.

Alfie’s voice rumbles through from the kitchen. “You all right in there, Jamie?”

“I’m good! I just knocked over my blocks, is all! Can I watch one more show?” Jamie pitches his voice just right, and Izzy’s proud of him. He’s learning all the tricks, and he’s doing it without having to be scared first, without it having to be something he has to learn. 

“All right, one more,” Alfie calls back, and Jamie grins, giving Izzy an exaggerated finger over his lips. Izzy grins right back, one of her top teeth growing in still, one of the bottom ones flat out missing entirely, she only lost that one three days ago, wiggling it in class until it came right out. The two of them move out of the room and down the hallway, almost tip-toeing in their bare feet, listening to Alfie’s voice, on high alert for him to make his goodbyes. 

They make it back to the bedroom Izzy still shares with her father - two twin beds lined up in there, and Alfie’s been talking about moving to get Izzy her own room, but Izzy never feels safer than waking up from a nightmare to still be able to hear her father’s gentle, deep breathing nearby. Jax’s bed has dark blue blankets and Izzy’s has a deep purple fuzzy one, plus special sheets she picked out herself with unicorns on them.

“Okay, Jamie,” Izzy says in her stage whisper. Her brother’s eyes lock on hers, hazel-brown like they all have, but Jamie has Jax’s hair color and Izzy’s short, spiky hair is the same deep chocolate brown as her mother’s, reminders she can’t escape, only try to cut off short enough that she can’t see it. “How does Get Ready start?”

Jamie’s smile widens further. He knows this one right away. “We meet in the hallway outside your room,” He says, very seriously. “Then… we come in here and find the Get Ready bag,” He answers, eyes already shifting to the closet, where it was the last time they played.

“Nope, not there.” Jamie looks at her, confused. “It’s okay, Dad did something in the closet last week so I moved the bag, just in case. I don’t think he found it, though, I hid it really well. Can you think of where I might hide it now?” She lilts her voice, slightly sing-song, like her teachers do at school. 

Jamie looks slowly around the room, taking in every detail - the window with the curtains pulled to make it dim, the two beds with the table between them, a lamp. Dresser messy on top with things tossed there - receipts, interesting rocks that Izzy has found and kept and given to her father. Then he nods, firmly, to himself more than her, and points under her bed. “It’s there.”

“Are you sure?” Izzy asks, still in teacher-voice.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because… because, because you would want to get it fast if you woke up, and you can roll under your bed for hiding from Mom,” Jamie explains. He sounds very earnest, and Izzy smiles at him to reward him giving it so much thought.

“Go look and see if you’re right.”

Jamie walks over to her bed and drops down onto his hands and knees, looking underneath. He pulls out a stuffed-full old, raggedy-looking adult-sized backpack, a faded gray that might once have been black, some old band patches and button badges still stuck around the outside. “I was right! I was right, Izzy, I found our get-ready bag!”

His voice is too loud, and Izzy shushes him quickly, closing the still-open bedroom door. Grandpa won’t like it, they’re not really supposed to close doors to shut out grown-ups, but this is too important. “Good job, Jamie!” She says in a high sotto-voice. “You are right. So, if I wake you up and I say, we have to get ready, what do we do?”

“We grab our Get Ready bag,” Jamie answers, all seriousness, patting the top of the bag gently with one small hand. “And we hide, inside the back of the closet in the big box. Then, when it’s safe, we go outside.”

“Right. How can we go outside if Mom is in the living room, though?”

Jamie’s eyes go to the window, and he points. “We go out the window,” He answers, and when she nods, he gets a little braver and adds on. “There’s-... fire escape, out there. Like stairs made of metal. We climb down with our bag. You know how to unlock the window.”

“Good. Right, I do.” She’d had to work out the trick to the window over days when no one was around her, fiddling and messing and making her fingers ache until one day, she’d managed it just right. Child proof my butt, she’d thought, but then she knew she wasn’t as child-y as everyone else her age seemed to be. 

Everyone else didn’t have to be ready for what would happen if their mother came back. Everyone else didn’t still dream about their father begging their mother to stop. Everyone else couldn’t still remember, a little bit, screaming-

Well. 

Everyone else might not have a Get Ready bag, or play this game, but she did. And when it happened, she’d be ready. Even though she knows the grown-ups wouldn’t want her to do this, they’ll be glad when it’s time, when she does what her dad would do in her place and takes James and runs. He’ll understand, if she has to, and he’ll be proud of her for being ready. He will. 

She just can’t tell him ahead of time. 

Izzy drops down into a crouch and hugs James tight. His hair smells like strawberry kids’ shampoo, just like hers does, and he’s very warm and his hands are always sticky, even when he hasn’t been touching any sticky things. “You remember very well, Jamie. Do you remember what’s in our Get Ready bag?”

She pulls back, and Jamie presses his lips together in deep thought, tapping on his chin in an overexaggerated ‘thinking’ expression. “Toothbrushes,” He says, finally. “Mine has Wally Lizard on it.”

“And?” 

“And toothpaste, the kid toothpaste.”

She’d spent weeks and weeks getting enough - putting a little extra in a baggie every night, so that her dad and grandpa wouldn’t know she was taking more than she needed. There was enough now for she and James to last a while. “Perfect. What else?”

“Ummmmm…” He trails off, sitting on the floor and thinking about it. “There’s pull-up nappies, for me for sleeping, and underpants for both of us, and pants and shirts and Franken-puppy and Unicorn, and the black-and-white bear from the zoo-”

“Paulie Panda,” Izzy corrects.

“Paulie Panda. And also Monkey George. Um um um um there are juice boxes, and Monster Munch, and Jaffa cakes, and that thing with the nuts in I don’t like, and chocolate biscuits… Aaaaand books, and…” He stops and frowns. “I don’t remember what else.”

“No, that’s good, that’s better than last time. You’re doing great.” He puffs out his chest a little in pride, and Izzy smiles, settling down to sit with him, the two of them tucked in the space between the twin beds. “There’s also hair-combs, and some shampoo and soap in a bag I nicked from the shop.”

Jamie’s eyes widen, big as saucers. “You didn’t. That is taking, Izzy-bella, and taking without paying is wrong.”

“I gave them money for it,” Izzy says, dismissive, ignoring the prickle of guilt inside her chest, too hot and sharp not to feel at least a little. “I put some of Dad’s money on the counter when nobody was looking the next day. It wasn’t really nicking, I just didn’t want him to see me get it and have to explain. But also in the bag is… this.” She digs into a front pocket and pulls out a bunch of index cards scrawled with careful child’s handwriting, numbers and letters she had spent hours and hours on. “Do you remember what these are?”

Jamie looks down at them, cocking his head, then looks up and shakes it, side to side. His hair is longer than hers is. 

“These,” Izzy says, “are the most important thing of all. These are our numbers. I’ve got about three where I remember them without even having to look, but I’ll get the rest, too. The first card has Grandpa’s phone number, and Dad’s, and it has Nana’s and Auntie Poppy and Auntie Georgia’s, too. Plus the number for Nana’s favorite shop, because her friend works there and her friend could help us get to her if she isn't home. For starters, I’ll say one that you know. We know that if-... that if Mom comes back, Grandpa will probably get-...” She takes a deep breath, tells herself to act more like a grown-up, forces down the panic and fear and worry in her chest, pictures it curled into a ball and thrown in the back of her closet to gather dust. I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid. “Grandpa could get hurt and not be able to help us. So, what do we do when we get out on the street or run away from here?”

“We, um, we find grown-ups, and we… we ask them to call 9-9-9, and tell them our names and our dad’s name, and we say, our dad is in danger and needs help. Then we tell them Nana’s name, or anybody else’s.”

“Good. Really good. What do we do if she gets us and takes us back to America?”

James swallows - this part scares him, just a little. He doesn’t remember America, not really. He was only a baby. And he remembers it being a fun place for a holiday, from the trial. But he knows Izzy is scared of America, scared enough to wake up at night crying because she dreamed about going back, and so he is, too. “We find a phone,” He says, very soft and very slow. “And we push the numbers 9, 1, 1. And that will go to people who will help us in America.”

“Good, good job, Jamie. What do we say when they pick up?” They’ve rehearsed this, over and over again. It’s the most important part of the Get Ready game. 

“I say… ‘my name is James Timothy Gallagher, and I have been ab-... abd… I have been kidnapped.’”

“Perfect. And if it were me, I would say, ‘My name is Isabella Nicole Gallagher, and I have been abducted. I am six and three quarters years old and my brother James is with me and he is four, and we are English.’ Then what?”

“We say, um, we say our… our dad is Jackson Gallagher and he has been kidnapped too, probably, and he needs help. And Savannah M-... Mark-set-”

“Marcoset,” Izzy says quietly, sounding out each syllable for him.

“Mar-co-set… is who took him. Then… we wait for help to come.”

Izzy nods, and she rifles through the flashcards, scanning over the names and places and numbers she has carefully, painstakingly, been writing down while casually asking the librarian question after question. How to call emergency services in England, America, Canada, France, Russia, and the country Georgia. Her information, to hand to people, so she won’t have to repeat herself, is copied on six cards. 

Under the flashcards, a photo of she and her dad and James that Grandpa took, at the park. It’s a photo where her dad is smiling, and he doesn’t look scared or upset or closed-off. Just happy, with them. It’s the photo she wants to have to show the police officers who she has to hope will help them. 

It’s the photo she’ll have if…

“What do we do,” She asks, and her voice is thinner, trembles just a little. “What do we do if she takes him away and we get left behind?” 

James crawls over to her in a flash and holds on, putting his arms around her waist and tucking his head under her chin. His hair tickles under her jaw. “We go all by ourselves,” He answers, in his high voice. “You and me, Izzy and Jamie. We go by ourselves, and we go find Nana.”

“Right.” Izzy closes her eyes against a rush of heat, of tears. “I-I have a card-” Her voice catches and she clears her throat. “Dusty in here,” She says, hoarsely - her grandpa says that sometimes when he’s pretending he’s not teary - and forces her racing heart to calm. Stop it. If Dad is gone, you have to be the grown-up, then. When she finally speaks, she manages to keep her voice slow, and even. No sign of her fears at all. “I have a card with Nana’s whole name and address on it, and which buses we take to see her. We can-... we can do it ourselves, all by ourselves. I know we can. But-... you have to be very good and quiet, so we don’t make anyone look at us and the bad guys can’t find us.”

“So Mom can’t find us,” Jamie whispers.

She nods, chin moving against his hair. “Right. We have to go very fast, and be very very quiet, so Mom can’t find us. But with our Get Ready bag, we have everything we need, if Dad-... if dad can’t help us. Okay, last question for our game and then we’ll be done. Do we tell Dad or Grandpa about Get Ready?”

“No.” Jamie answers right away, immediate. He knows this one. “Because, because they… might tell Mom about it.”

“Right. Even if they don’t want to tell her, she might be super mean and hurt them lots to make them. She used to hurt Dad until he would tell her things she wanted to hear, before, and she’ll be even madder now. But… if we don’t tell them about Get Ready, then they can’t tell her, right? So we can go find Nana before Mom does, and if Mom gets to Nana before we can, we have food and everything for a few days until the police officers help us.” Izzy holds him tightly, resting her chin against his hair. “I’ll take care of you, James. I promise, I won’t ever let her hurt you.”

“Dad won’t let her hurt us neither,” Jamie answers, but he likes the cuddles, and he doesn’t pull away. Izzy doesn’t hold him very often. 

“No, I know. I know he won’t. But… if he can’t stop her…” Izzy sets her jaw, closes her eyes against the memory of the bright red spots layered over older scars around her father’s neck when his big black necklace first came off. “If he can’t… I can. I just have to be very strong, and very smart, smarter than she is even. I have to be smarter than all the bad grownups.”

“And I have to be quiet and brave.”

“Right. And you’ll be very good at it. I know you will.” She squeezes him, so tightly both of them ache, and then pulls back and away, shoving the backpack back into its hiding spot, opening the bedroom door. The two of them get back to the living room just as their grandpa’s phone call finishes in the kitchen, and by the time he comes back in to ask them what they want for snacktime, James is back building his tower of blocks, and Izzy pretends she’s been on the couch with her chapter book the whole time, sitting open in her lap.

She doesn’t realize she opened it upside down until her grandpa’s gone back in the kitchen to get their snacks ready, and she flushes, embarrassed at the stupid mistake.

Still, she’s… she’s pretty sure he didn’t notice.

Every time they play, James remembers a little more without her having to tell him. Maybe… when their mom comes for them… Izzy can save Jamie - and then get help to save her father. 

And he'll be proud of her.

He will.

----

@astrobly @finder-of-rings @burtlederp @wildfaewhump @whumpiary @whump-tr0pes @moose-teeth @orchidscript @sableflynn @pretty-face-breaker @raigash @vickytokio @eatyourdamnpears

[psychedellic-phase]

Fifteen (pt 13)

(gif by me! I use the iphone app momento)

tw: language, angst, mentions of drug use (relapse), mentions of miscarriage

word count: 7.3k (im sorry)

masterlist

series masterlist

Spencer got up from the cold tile floor, fuzzy unicorn in hand, and faced the window above the kitchen sink. He stared out of it, admiring the snow that was still falling lightly, wondering if it was raining in Seattle. His memory flashed to the last time he stood in the rain with you, but he tried to shake the images away. Instead he watched the snowflakes hit his windowpanes and melt. He hoped that maybe you were somewhere staring out of a window, admiring the dreary weather, and thinking of him too. 

He found his place against the dishwasher again, sliding down as his mismatched socks gave way so he could stretch his long legs out fully. He pulled the nearly empty box onto his lap and appreciated the light weight of it, as he continued with his twelfth letter and thirteenth item. Thirteen, a number whose history of unluckiness stems all the way back to the thirteen attendees of the Last Supper, and tracks through the number of steps leading up to the gallows, all the way to the number of letters in the names of some of the most infamous criminals. 

Thirteen was a haunted number, which rightly accompanied a haunting letter. 

“This one’s long. It’s a month of tarnished memories packed into a few pieces of paper. So far I’ve gone through half of a college-ruled one subject notebook and I’ve had to change pens twice. It’s nearing 2:30, and the wine is finally hitting my empty stomach. Sorry in advance for the way my handwriting will be. I’ll try to make this make as much sense as I can. 

If you look at your thirteenth item it is the notepad I stole from that resort in Florida. There isn’t much around to signify this letter. You don’t keep mementos from one of the saddest days of your life, but for some reason I took this useless paper and shoved it in my purse on my way out. Good thing I did, or you’d have no item to attach to these memories. Though I suppose that might be better. 

The resort was where we were going to be at for our ‘babymoon,’ whatever that is. What a dumb idea, I’m still mad at myself for letting Garcia talk us into one. She just made it sound so appealing. 

Once everyone knew I was pregnant, Hotch pretty much sat me in Quantico with Penelope. There were a few local cases where I was lucky enough to go visit the ME’s office, but usually I kicked my feet up in her lair while you were out in the field. 

“A what?” I said one day as she ran DNA through CODIS. The two of us were drinking herbal tea, and I was barely 16 weeks. I just looked like I had a big lunch in my stomach, not a baby the size of an avocado. 

“A babymoon. It’s like a honeymoon, but you go when you’re pregnant. It’s one last trip for mommy and daddy to go on and spend quality time together. How many trips have you and Dad-Wonder even been on?”

I shrugged. We didn’t travel much for pleasure. We traveled for work, so on our rare days off we liked to be at home. 

“I mean we’ve gone to Vegas and Connecticut a few times.”

She rolled her eyes, “Visiting family, my dear, is not a vacation! I was thinking you two would go to the beach. You guys relax and wade in the ocean and Spencer can build sandcastles that defy every law of physics!”

I laughed at that. You and the beach? It just didn’t feel natural to me. Probably because you aren’t capable of actually relaxing.  

“That does sound fun,” I said and I spoke to my barely there stomach, “And it would make daddy take a few days off.”

Penelope squealed and started clicking at her computer, “I’ll find a resort online right now! Okay so how about Marco Island? It’s gorgeous and in Florida, so it’ll be like eighty and sunny, even in the beginning of December.”

“I’ll have to talk to Spence about it. I mean I know it would be fun and all but we really should be saving money for a crib, and car seat, and bassinet, and high chair, and a rocking chair, and a baby swing, and a—“

Garcia stopped me from spiraling out of control, “That is why you throw a huge baby shower! People buy those things for you.”

I rubbed my tummy again, “Oh no, Daddy is very particular about what things are bought.”

“That’s why you have a registry, Momma Bear. Now, no more excuses.”

Before I could even call you, she had put in both of our requests for days off and we had a week long reservation at this fancy resort that you see listed at the top of this notepad, the “Crystal Cove”.  

I was only slightly mortified that she did all this without me asking you. Mostly, I was happy. I was afraid you wouldn’t say yes, but if PG already booked it, you kind of had to agree. And to my surprise, you did. 

When you got back from that case we were at home, you eating something I had poorly made from a random cookbook on a shelf. I had decided to start cooking more, so I could make homemade meals. I wanted to be that mom who cuts sandwiches into flower shapes and always has fresh baked bread and cookies laying around. I wanted us to be those parents; the ones who are so sickeningly in love that their kids roll their eyes every time they kiss. We were those parents, kind of, if we could even be considered ‘parents.’ At that point, I don’t think we were. But we were definitely in tooth-rotting, sickeningly sweet love. 

“So, I have a surprise for you,” I said, coming up behind you and rustling your hair. 

“Hm?” You said, stuffing your face like you hadn’t eaten in days. You probably hadn’t. You’re the king of forgetting to eat. Maybe that’s how you stay so skinny. 

“I booked a trip, well I guess technically Garcia did.”

“A trip?” You raised an eyebrow. 

“Yeah, a trip, to the beach. Penelope called it a ‘babymoon.’”

You laughed, “A babymoon? I’m not familiar."

I smiled and sat across from you, “It’s like a honeymoon, except it's just me and you relaxing and spending quality time together before this lil dude makes his appearance.”

You smiled, “I’m telling you, it’s a girl.”

I rolled my eyes, “It’s definitely a boy, but stop ignoring my offer.”

“Well, it’s not really an offer so much as it is you telling me that we’re doing this.”

“Okay, yes Garcia helped me book it already, and yes she put in our requests for days off, but you can say no.”

You did your little nose twitch scrunch thing, “I’d never say no to quality time with you, Love.”

You leaned over and kissed me, and I squealed, “I’m so excited! I have to buy maternity bathing suits now! Oh and a sunhat!””

Spencer smiled fondly, recounting that day. He was thrilled to go, minus the part where he’d have to wear shorts, and flip flops. Something about the piece that goes between your toes makes him squeamish. He was looking for the right opportunity to use something special he had bought for you, and you had just given him it. A week on a beautiful beach with the love of his life? That would be the perfect time to ask you what he had been waiting to ask you since JJ’s wedding. He was going to take Hotch’s advice; stop waiting, start doing, and get down on one knee with a blue velvet box. 

He never got the chance to. The trip was supposed to be in the beginning of December, around your week twenty-four. You never got that far. 

He got up from the ground, immediately digging around in a drawer full of pencils and compasses and rulers, finding the blue box in a corner. It was covered in pencil shavings and dust. He hadn’t looked at it in months. He held it delicately in his hands before opening it. 

It was plain, but he remembered you said that was what you wanted. 

“Oval, of course and silver,” You had explained to Penelope and JJ at a night out years ago. Derek and Spencer sat on the opposite side of the table, but his ears perked up at the mention of rings. 

“I like just the band,” JJ said, admiring her own ring, “And I have Henry’s birthstone, the citrine, so I didn’t need another one.”

“What kind of stone Y/N? I’d love a pink diamond! Or a ruby! Imagine!” Penelope gushed. 

You shook your head, “I’d take cubic zirconia, if it was coming from the right guy.”

Both Penelope and JJ stuck their tongues out, “Nuh-uh!” Garcia said, grabbing her phone to scroll through more pinterest photos. 

“Spence will be getting you a diamond.”

You rolled your eyes and whispered, “Don’t jinx it JJ! And I don’t want a diamond.”

Her mouth dropped, “No diamond? Really.”

“Diamonds aren’t ethically sourced.”

“Lab grown! Get lab grown!” PG piped it, showing you a picture of a ring, just an oval in a plain silver setting. 

“That! That’s the one!” You said and Garcia giggled, going on a rant about her dream wedding. 

Spencer had gotten that exact ring. Lab grown, oval, classic, beautiful. It was what you wanted, and you deserved everything you ever wanted. 

Spencer looked at the notepad. He could tell you had a hard time picking an item for this letter. He knows this letter is the end, the other two are the epilogue of  a story he wishes you kept writing. Crystal Cove is the place where he had planned on asking you to marry him, but it ended up being the place where your love story ended. He tossed the notebook to the side and decided that the souvenir for this letter was now going to be this ring. This ring that sparkled and shined, even in the dull incandescent lights of his kitchen. This ring that belonged on your finger, and not in the back of a drawer. This ring that you didn’t even know existed, but if you had, maybe you’d still be together. 

“I did buy three maternity bathing suits, and you bought shorts. Spencer Reid in shorts. It was going to be the best trip ever. We were going to snorkel and look at sea turtles and sunbathe and drink virgin piña coladas by the ocean. We were going to get couples massages and spend every moment loving and appreciating each other.

The actual trip? Much different than the one we had planned on paper, but let’s first discuss that time between the hospital and the trip. 

It was four weeks. Four weeks of me sitting at home while you were off at work. Four weeks of the door opening and Derek walking through, not you. And on the odd chance that it was you opening the door, you’d be appearing at odd hours of the night to grab a new suit or a file or a snack and then getting back in your shitty car and going to your apartment. Each time I heard that comforting sound of your satchel hitting the floor, I’d crawl out of the cave of blankets I was in to find you, and you’d act like I wasn’t even there. 

For the first few days, you asked me how I was and if I was feeling better, then you’d check your phone and wave goodbye. After that, I was lucky if you’d say hello, then I was lucky if I even got a glimpse of you. You never held me. You never kissed me. You never told me you loved me.

I got all my information about you from Derek. Every day I texted you, “Have a good day at work! Talk soon?” And everyday you didn’t answer, so I’d ask Derek if you were okay. He’d always tell me what you were doing. Usually you would take a stack of files of cases to a dark room and make preliminary profiles to send back to the departments, alone. I’d tell him thank you, and the next day would be the same nonsense. 

Those four weeks dragged. It was like every minute was an hour and everyday was a year. I was healing, even without you, everyday I felt better and better. But that’s relative to the day before. I haven’t felt ‘good’ yet. I haven’t felt ‘happiness’ yet. But I will. And I’m counting on that. 

My mandatory leave was four weeks, and at the end of that Hotch called me in for a ‘mandatory psychological evaluation.’ I didn’t tell you about it because you weren’t speaking to me, and even when you did you were angry and snappy and rude.  

I didn’t pass the evaluation. Even though the BAU wrote those damn questions, I still didn’t pass. When my four weeks were up, you were expecting me at work, and I never showed. You didn’t notice how not okay I was because you were too busy handling your own feelings, which I understand. You have to take care of yourself first, deal with your own trauma before touching anyone else’s. So, your trauma was none of my business, a concept you should've applied to my healing process. 

I was supposed to come back on a Monday and when I didn’t show you came to the house. You opened the door and yelled my name. It was a sound I hadn’t heard in weeks, and it felt good. I thought you had finally come home. I thought you were finally ready to heal with me, but you weren’t. You were there to judge me.

I think I ran to where you were, a smile on my face that I didn’t think I was capable of making, “Hey!”

You looked so put together in a neatly pressed suit, but your eyes exposed you. They were bloodshot and the bags were so large they almost reached the end of your nose. I had on one of your shirts; it was comforting at the time. Not so much anymore.  

You looked me up and down, a small scowl forming on your face, “Where were you today?”

I took a deep breath, and I lied, because lying to you felt easier than telling you the truth. The truth that I was not deemed stable enough to come back, even though I wanted to. I needed to be distracted. I was ashamed, scared, confused. 

“I-I didn’t go.”

“Didn’t go? You’ll get fired Y/N.”

I sighed, “No, my leave got extended.”

I could feel the way your eyes bore into my skull as I dodged eye contact. 

“Extended?! It’s been four weeks.”

“I’m not ready!” I desperately wanted you to see through it. I thought I was ready, but the papers disagreed.

“Hotch let you do that?” Your voice was increasing and I found myself inching away from you.

“He encouraged it!” Another lie. He didn’t ‘encourage’ it. He forced me.

You rolled your eyes, grabbing your bag and opening the door again.

“You’re leaving? Spencer c’mon I-”

You cut me off by slamming that door in my face. 

That’s when I started closing myself off. I started dreading the sound of your feet against the floor at three am. I started to put my own walls up, but they would dull in comparison to the Great Wall of Spencer you built around yourself to keep me out.”

Spencer was always good at putting walls up. In fact, you were the only person to ever get him to take (almost) all of them down. There’s a side of him he doesn’t show anyone, a side of him that he reserves for himself, and when something happens, that’s where he goes. He goes to the corner of his brain where he feels safe, and the walls come up to protect him.

And in those last four weeks, he did just that. He put the walls up, shut you out, and decided that was better. Except it wasn’t better, it just was easier. It was easier for him to bypass you and find a new outfit for work tomorrow. It was easier for him to disappear in the office until the odd hours of the morning. It was easier for him to hide away from you, because when he’s exposed he always gets hurt. It was easier to act like everything was fine, even though everything was the opposite of fine. 

He never needed to go to the house, part of him was drawn there like a moth to a lantern. He was drawn to you. As much as he didn’t want to see those four walls, he still needed to check on you. He just did it in his own damaged way. He’d get a glimpse of you in old sweats and a shirt with a hole in it, hair a mess and mascara from two weeks ago adding to your eye bags and he’d be reminded that he couldn’t be there for you. He would never be enough, and he’d retreat into the comfort of solitude. 

He was so preoccupied with being hurt, that he didn’t realize just how much he hurt you too. 

“I had forgotten about the stupid trip, and so had you. You were too preoccupied with work and not speaking to me and I was preoccupied with crying and trying to speak to you. I only remembered the trip when I got an email from the airline about the flight, they had to move our seats or something stupid. I decided that was a reason for you to actually need to speak to me like I was a person, so I took advantage of it. 

I intercepted you at home one day. I had been sitting in the kitchen waiting for you. You came home at two am. 

“Hey,” I said, immediately as you walked through the door. You looked surprised that I was up. 

“Hi, I’m just gonna—“

“Spencer, stop. We have to talk.”

You crossed your arms, not leaving the threshold of the door, “No. I told you a million times Y/N, I don’t want to talk.”

“Not about...” I couldn’t find the words and you started up the stairs. 

“Are we going on this damn trip or not?” I said, my voice cracking from lack of use. 

You stopped, looking over the banister at me, “You didn’t cancel it?”

“I didn’t think of it until now. We’re supposed to leave in two days.”

You groaned, “Why didn’t you cancel it?”

I threw my hands up. As if all of this was my responsibility? 

 “I was preoccupied! Did you cancel your days off?”

You shook your head, rubbing your face, “No, God. Can we still get a refund?”

I was hurt that you didn’t want to go, but not surprised. As I stared at the front door from my spot at the kitchen table I decided that I was going to go no matter what. It was going to be refreshing to look at the ocean instead of an empty nursery. That would be my distraction.

 “I-I’m going. I’ll pay for your half, but I’m going. I’m losing my mind here, Spence.”

You looked at me again, still contemplating your options. 

“I get it, okay? You can’t be in this house, but neither can I. Maybe we can talk and stuff on neutral ground. I-I just want you there with me, the way it was supposed to be.”

Then you took me by surprise, you nodded, “Yeah, yeah we’ll go.”

I’m sure I lit up like Rockefeller Center at Christmas, “Really?”

You rubbed your eyes, “Yeah, we can go Y/N.”

I was feeling lucky, so I pushed it, too hard, “Are you staying tonight?”

Your voice went from sleepy to sour, “No.”

And you vanished up the stairs, taking all my hope in us with you. 

I knew deep down it wouldn’t end well. I knew it was going to be fighting and yelling and arguing, but any time with you was good time with you at that point. And I favored the little bit of serotonin and dopamine you flood my brain with as opposed to staring at the gray walls of the kitchen alone.”

Spencer only agreed to go because he thought he was getting there. Everyday he felt a little better when he’d walk through the door, but he still wasn’t ready. He thought a week of no work and no one to talk to except you would bring the walls down. This would finally be the catalyst in a reaction that was taking far too long to complete. He also couldn’t stand the thought of you flying and spending a week alone. He felt better about you being alone here because you weren’t really alone. You had Derek visiting, Garcia dropping off baskets, phone calls from Emily, the odd visit from Rossi, and apparently phone calls to Hotch, but on that island you’d really be alone, and he was worried about how you’d handle it. 

“So two days later we got on a three hour flight to Miami, and I drove our rental car to this resort. We didn’t talk much the whole time, besides some small talk about the flight and other odd comments. It was painfully awkward, and I regretted even coming. 

We didn’t speak until I used the keycard to open the door, and we stared at the one king sized bed in the room.

“Oh,” was all you said when you realized you’d have to share with me.

“What?”

“There’s only one bed.”

I rolled my eyes, “Spencer, we’ve shared a bed for three years.”

You just stood at the door with your hands fidgeting on the handle of the suitcase, “I’ll call down and ask for a cot to be brought up.”

“A cot? Are you serious?” I couldn’t believe you, “Why come if you wouldn’t even share a bed with me? I said I’d be fine alone.”

You opened your mouth to speak, but changed your mind. 

“Great communication skills Spence. Really, I’m impressed.” You rolled your eyes and finally started to unpack your bag, “I came because I was worried about what you’d do here all alone.”

Part of me was happy you were worried, but a bigger part was annoyed, “I’ve been handling being alone fine, thanks.”

You scoffed, “Yeah. That’s why you need Derek to bring you food everyday, because you’re doing so well.”

I bit my tongue and tried to speak calmly, “Well at least someone checks on me everyday.”

That shut you right up.

The three days you were there went as follows: we slept as far apart from each other as we could, despite how badly I wanted to cuddle into your arms. We’d get up in silence, eat breakfast in silence, walk to the beach and read in silence, eat lunch and dinner in silence, and each night we’d yell at each other until we fell asleep on opposite sides of the bed.

Remember what I said to trigger the fight on December third, your last day there? How could you forget? It’s the fight that broke us up. 

“So, I was thinking of going to a counselor,” I said, staring at the waves lap the sand from the balcony of our room. The air felt cold for eighty degrees. But maybe that was just because the air between me and you had been cold for weeks. 

You were sitting next to me, but I could tell you were worlds away. 

“Spence,” I nudged, trying to snap you out of your daydream. 

“Hm? What?”

“I said I’m going to go to a counselor.”

You twisted your face, “A counselor? What for?”

I shrugged, “I-I think it’d be good for me. It’s a grief counselor.”

You turned to look at me, your brow covered in sweat and your eyes watery. You were incessantly bouncing your left leg, rubbing at your nose, and you seemed disinterested in every single thing I was saying or doing. In fact, you’d been acting that way since the first day you disappeared to your apartment. 

“Counselor? Yeah,” You were fidgeting, barely making eye contact. 

A feeling I can only describe as pure dread formed in my stomach. I thought I might puke, but I swallowed the feeling and kept talking, “I got a recommendation from Hotch. He said he went to Dr. Stevens after Haley died. He said it really helped.”

You were still not listening. 

“I think it’d be good if we went together.”

That finally got your undivided attention. “Together?” You snapped, “No.”

“Why not?” I said it with an air of exhaustion and despair. I was tired of this. So fucking tired of it. 

“I’m not going to a damn therapist, Y/N,” You seethed, your metal deck chair scraping against the concrete as you stood in front of me. 

The sky looked stormy, palm trees whipping in the wind as you came before me. The bags under your eyes looked like bruises, and you had on sleeves. It was eighty and you had on sleeves.

“Okay, I’ll go alone then. I think he could really help us though.”

I was giving up on fighting. I didn’t understand how when I was at my absolute low you could just keep kicking me while I was down. All I wanted was for you to go to someone and talk about it. That’s it. You were acting like I’d asked you to move a mountain for me, which, might I add, at one point you would have done. 

“He? You really think a male therapist is going to help? You lost a baby, Y/N—“

“WE,” I clarified, for what felt like the fiftieth time, “We lost a baby.”

You rolled your eyes and ignored me, “You lost a baby. How does a male therapist help you through that?”

I was angry now. It was bubbling up to the top and I thought I might explode. 

“He’s a grief counselor! He’ll help me through my GRIEF! And I think you should go because clearly you have a lot going on. You always have! You should’ve been seeing someone for years.”

“Oh, I have a lot going on?” You sneered, “Of course I have a lot going on! I go to work everyday to bring you home a paycheck so you can sit around all day and do nothing.”

I stood up, got close to your face, “I’m on leave.”

“Yeah, sure, keep telling yourself that.”

You bypassed me and went inside, and my hot anger turned into wet anger and fat tears were rolling down my cheeks.

“Do you know how traumatic this was on my body? Do you? Everything hurts and you were supposed to be there! You were supposed to take four weeks off too! You were supposed to be there for me!”

“Yeah and who’s there for me!” You yelled, louder than I think you ever had; at me at least. You had thrown your suitcase on the bed, haphazardly grabbing your clothes from the drawers and shoving them in. 

“I would’ve been,” I said softly, coming up behind you to grab your arm lightly, “If you had let me.”

You pulled back, “Don’t touch me!”

I reached up to wipe my eyes and crossed my arms in front of myself defensively, “I want to be there for you, Spencer. I do. Why won’t you let me?”

You didn’t answer, because even you didn’t know why. You just stood over the suitcase, one arm on either side of it, hair matted to your sweaty face, panting and panting. 

The facts I had chosen to ignore were staring me in the face again. Or maybe I was just that oblivious. 

“I’ve never seen you like this. This isn’t you, Love,” I tried to say in my most soothing voice. The dread had clawed its way back up to the back of my throat. 

“Or maybe this is me,” you said softly, and I swear you were crying. Or maybe I hoped you were, that way we were both sobbing. That’s as close to togetherness as we could get. 

“Maybe this is who I am now, or who I’ve been all along.”

I reached out for you again, but stopped myself, “No, Spencer. The real you isn’t this angry, and bitter, and mean.”

You slammed your hands against the bed, “Yes it is!”

“Is that what you’ve been doing all this time?” I said sadly, shaky breaths between words, “Is that what you’ve been going to your apartment and doing?”

You turned around, skin sweaty and eyes red, “What? What are you talking about now? God, do you ever stop talking?”

I snapped, ignoring your last jab there, “Are you using?”

Your face contorted into a sour expression, “Am I using?”

“Yeah, Spencer! Are you? Because I can’t see any other reason for why you’re so irritable and sweaty and out of it! So I’ll ask you again, are you going through withdrawal?”

You looked like I had literally punched you in the gut, and I kind of had. It was a low blow, I’ll admit it, but I was seriously worried about you. If an event would trigger you, this would’ve been it. 

“What? No!”

I wasn’t sure whether or not I should believe you, but I knew I had to support you either way. I love you, even when you’re angry at me, I still love you. Even when you throw clothes and seethe at me through gritted teeth, I still love you. That’s my fatal flaw. No matter how many reasons you give me to stop loving you, I never will.”

Spencer let out a shaky breath, lower lip pinched between his teeth. Was he really that terrible? He didn’t remember being so spiteful. Reading it back, he understood why you thought he was high, and he had thought about it more than he cared to admit. But he hadn’t touched the stuff in seven years, and he wasn’t about to start again now.

‘No matter how many reasons you give me to stop loving you, I never will.’ 

That line made him want to cry, hands clenching the ring box as if it were a stress ball. That line simultaneously felt like a stab in the gut and a breath of fresh air. He had given you so many reasons to walk away, and the one reason to stay was there in his palm, unused.

““It’s okay if you are. I understand this is a... hard time. I’ll support you through this,” I put my hands out to touch your chest. 

“I’m not high and haven’t been in years!” You swatted my hands down. 

“Then what the hell is going on!?” 

“I’m angry and I’m sad and I’m heartbroken!” You yelled, going back out onto the balcony to stand in the rain that had started pouring down in sheets. 

“Spencer! Stop!” I followed you out, tears mixing with rain to the point that I didn’t know which was which. 

“I’m just confused! It’s hard to see the point in all this anymore. Maybe it’s just not worth it,” You said, yelling at the ocean not at me. Rain soaked our clothes instantly. Part of me was hoping this scene would end like the ‘notebook’ we’d kiss and you’d spin me around. I guess this is kind of like the notebook, it’s a story to help you remember us. Except you don’t have Alzheimer’s and I wrote 15 letters, not 365. 

“Maybe what’s not worth it?” I was yelling too, just so you could hear me over the sound of the wind and the rain. 

“This!” You gestured between us. I felt like you knocked the air out of me, my whole body stinging. 

“But I love you!”

“All of this has made me realize that love isn’t everything! I love you too but we need more than that!”

That was the first time I’d heard you say ‘I love you’ in a month, but it was a double edged sword. I bit my lip so hard I think I started bleeding, “Love isn’t enough? Are you kidding me, Spencer?”

You swallowed thickly, “No! I’m not kidding. I’ve never been more serious!”

“So what? That’s it?” I said it quietly, but I wanted to scream at you. I wanted to scream that you were being an idiot. You were being ridiculous. You were being unnecessarily cruel. But I didn’t. I was tired and water logged. I had finally given up.

You ran your hands through your hair, “No–it’s–we we aren’t over Y/N. I’m just saying that it’s gonna take more than love to fix us.”

“Well maybe if you were ever home, we could actually try. But you aren’t. You’re always gone! So explain to me how we’re going to fix this. What’s it gonna take Spencer? What do you want from me?”

You took a deep breath, uttering words I was so sick of hearing, “We need space and time.”

“Space? Time? It’s been a month Spencer! I let you go to work. I let you spend every day at your damn apartment. I stopped calling. I stopped checking in. How much more space and time do you want?”

“Thirty-four days,” you mumbled, just so I could barely hear. The thunder rolled, mostly drowning it out. 

“What was that?” 

“It’s been THIRTY-FOUR days, Y/N. Thirty-four. I don’t know how you expect me to be okay after only thirty-four days.”

“I don’t expect you to be fine! I expect you to speak to me! To look at me! I want to go to bed crying and have you there next to me. I want to be there for you when you’re crying. The only way we get better is if we do this TOGETHER!”

The anger looked like it melted off of you, and I took that as my opportunity to approach. I threw my arms around your soaked body as you shook with sobs into my shoulder. I held you like my life depended on it, because in a way it did. You wrapped your arms around me too, and everything felt okay. We were standing in the pouring rain, holding each other as we cried, and somehow I felt more okay than I had in the thirty-four days prior. It felt like maybe you were coming back to me. 

You weren’t. 

We stood like that for what felt like hours, and eventually I pulled you inside. I wish I didn’t. I wish we stayed there, holding each other in the rain until the sun came up and dried us off. I foolishly thought the rain washed our sins away. 

“It’s going to be okay,” I said, my head on your shoulder as we wrapped ourselves in towels, “I promise.”

You shrugged me off of you, going back to packing your bag. 

“Spencer, stop packing, please,” I begged, grabbing the items you were putting in and taking them back out. 

“I don’t want to be here anymore,” you said plainly, taking a shirt and putting it back in. 

“I-I thought—“

“Thought what, Y/N? That because I cried to you and told you I loved you that we were magically okay?” 

I stammered, “No. No! But I thought it meant we were in this together now.” 

“You just accused me of relapsing an hour ago.”

“And I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that, but that’s not a reason you should go,” I pleaded, reaching for you again. I thought if you walked away I’d never see you again.

“You don’t trust me,” your voice cracked. 

“No, Love, I—“

“Don’t call me that.”

The pain in my chest bloomed, sending a wave of heartache through my entire body. A heartache I still haven’t been able to shake. It’s still there. Some days it's a thunder crack and sometimes it's a low grumble, but it’s always there. The rain hasn't stopped.  

I hadn’t even realized that you were completely packed until you zipped the suitcase shut. 

“You’re really leaving?” 

You stopped at the door, hand on the handle, to turn and face me. I didn’t need to use my profiling skills to see how much pain you were in, and my pain doubled at the sight. I’ve always been an empath when it comes to you, feeling what you feel like it’s my own. 

“I am.”

I crossed the room and threw my arms around you, sobbing into your chest. To my surprise, you wrapped your arms around me lightly. 

“I understand,” I said, looking into your eyes, “We can’t be there for each other the way we need to.”

You nodded into my shoulder, “Stay. When you get home from this we’ll talk. I just need a few more days.”

I shook my head, finally coming to the realization that we didn’t work anymore. We weren’t healthy anymore. 

“Don’t bother. The writing’s on the wall, Spence,” my voice wavered, and I regretted every word as they left my mouth, “I’ve been waiting for that person from the hospital to come home to me. I’ve been waiting for the Spencer who lends me his shirts and fact dumps and eats IHOP and ice cream with me to come home.”

I felt your breath stop under my arms, “But that Spencer, the Spencer I love, isn’t here anymore. We need to be alone.”

I felt you shake with tears under me, and that triggered mine, “We have to break up.”

I wish I never said it. I wish I gave you those few days, but we both know those few days would’ve turned into weeks and months and we would’ve ended up here anyway. I wish you didn’t let me say them. I wish you kissed me to shut me up and told me I was being stupid. I wish I didn’t watch you go down that elevator, tears on your cheeks. I wish I didn’t spend the other four days in an empty king sized bed, crying for you. 

I realize now that you changed. I did too. Instead of wishing for the old you, I should’ve learned to love the new you. I think I would’ve, if I had given it a chance. Actually, I know I would’ve. I think I’d fall in love with every version of you that could ever exist or has ever existed. You and I, we’re meant to be together. 

I know you probably don’t believe in it, but I like to think that we’re twin flames; we’re two halves of one soul that somehow ended up in two bodies and constantly pull to find each other again. I’ve read a lot about them recently. Twin flames don’t necessarily end up together. They can even just be two people with an intense friendship. They’re people who help each other grow, even if that means they’re only in your life for a short time. I like to think that we are that case, and that in some parallel universe I’m with you and we have our daughter and we’re happy. I just wish that I was in that universe now. 

I know it’s for the best that we went to the damn Crystal Cove and broke up. I’m sure someday in the future I’ll be pleased with that decision, but for now, I still regret it.”

Spencer stared at the notepad, eyes flicking between that in his left hand and the ring box in his right. He took the ring out and admired it in the light. It glinted and glimmered, delicately refracting light onto the cabinets. He slid it halfway down his ring finger because that’s as far as it would go. He imagined it was on your slender, perfectly manicured hand instead of his, but an ache formed where his heart was when he realized it’d never end up here. 

Spencer grabbed the notebook. It was unlined and the paper felt flimsy and thin. He got up from the floor to find a pencil in the drawer the ring had been hidden in, and took it out to scrawl his own letter to go with his own memento. A sixteenth letter for a sixteenth item you had no idea even existed. 

“Y/N,

I’d like to consider this letter sixteen, to go with the engagement ring that’s in my palm. I bought this ring the day after we ate dinner at Rossi’s and showed everyone tiny FBI onesies. I have your perfect ring here in my hand, a plain silver band with a lab-grown diamond in a four-prong setting in the center, just like you told Garcia you wanted. I should’ve given it to you the day I bought it, but I waited until the perfect opportunity presented itself. 

What you didn’t know about the trip to the Crystal Cove was that I was going to propose to you there. I was going to get down on one knee in the sand at sunset after dinner. I even had a whole speech planned. I was going to tell you that I never thought I could love anyone as much as I love you, or that anyone would ever love me the way that you do. I was going to say that it amazes me how everyday, I wake up and love you more than I did the night before. And everyday I think it’s be impossible to love you and our daughter more than I do right now. I wanted to tell you that I want to wake up every morning and feel that for the rest of my life. I want the good, the bad, the ugly, I want it all. I want Korean film festivals and IHOP breakfasts and to talk to the moon. I want tubs of ice cream and overly sentimental flowers hanging from the wall. Most of all I wanted to say that I want to spend every day of my life making you happy. 

That speech still applies today. I still love you enough to ask you, but I don’t think you love me enough to say yes. 

It’s okay. It really is. I haven’t decided what to do yet, but if you do read this, just know that it’s okay. I promise you, it’s okay. I’m not the bitter, angry man I was at the Crystal Cove anymore. I changed again, and I hope you’re right. I hope we are twin flames and your soul will come looking for mine, and I hope it happens in this universe, not the infinite parallels that may or may not exist. I miss you and I want nothing more than for you to come back. Come home, Love, please come home.

-SR”

He stared at the notebook page, before tearing it off and folding it in half, placing it in his pocket for safekeeping. He went on his computer and bought the cheapest one-way ticket to Seattle that he could find. He needed to see you. He needed you to see this letter, see this ring. He needed to make this right.

The flight was a red eye, leaving at midnight, so he’d get to the Seattle field office by eight. He looked at the leather watch and saw that it was nearly nine. He decided had to finish, and he had to finish now, as he grabbed letter #14. 

PART 14

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

Taglist!

@l0ve-0f-my-life @aperrywilliams @helloniallslovelies @random-ravings @ajwantsapancake @andiebeaword @boiled-onionrings @frnks-stuff @icantevenanymore1 @mellifluouswildbluebells @rottenearly @sammypotato67 @blushingwueen @peaxhyjaes @justanotherfangurlz @juniorgman187 @mbowles23-blog @blameitonthenight21 @goldentournesol @rainsong01 @thelifeofadumbbitch @swimmingtrashwobblersludge @youre-a-wallflower-charlie @eldahae

[dannyphantom-rewrite]

What's "how to get to cracker barrel" ?

What's "how to get to cracker barrel" ?

Oh now that, that one isn't Actually a wip. It's a short story I finished ages ago that later ended up being inspiration for one of the plotlines in an anthology style audio drama podcast I want to make some day. There's 4 main characters:

The Mckellen sisters Jamie and Lady who aren't Actually sisters but pass rather well for twins since one of them is actually a changeling, Natalie Anderson, photographer and lady's GF, and Gavin Walker, a mage still haunted by the death of his fiance, Caleb Adams, mostly due to the fact that his fucking ghost won't leave him alone.

Art by @unded-bun (click image for higher quality)

I'm leaving out a lot of details, but I'd be happy to fill in the gaps if anyone asks.

I'll Also throw the story itself under a read more here, bc I'm still super proud of it even though it's a few years old now.

A small hotel on the outskirts of Savannah, Georgia. There is a Sonic Drive-in across the busy street. Bright neon lights in the window state, “Open 24/7!” A Greyhound bus is idling in the parking lot. A man, Gavin Walker, climbs off and crosses over to the hotel. He walks easily, but not confidently. Approaching the hotel’s entrance, he spots a cat eating from a plastic bowl in front of the door. The feline is small, and feral. He is black, with white paws. He does not pay Gavin any mind as he enters, only continuing to crunch on dry cat food.

There's a desk on the left side of the lobby. The receptionist smiles kindly as he checks in. Her eyes are tired. Gavin gives her a knowing nod, and travels deeper into the building. There is a sign marked, “Out Of Order.” on the elevator. This is a good thing. Gavin takes the stairs, of which there are three flights. This is also a good thing, because three is a good number. He enters the hallway, which is old, and worn. The walls bear chipped yellow paint, and the floor, faded red carpet. Gavin continues down the hall after checking the time on his phone. It is exactly 11:59PM. He turns the device off and begins to count the seconds. At sixty he has stopped in front of the elevator. The fluorescent light above him flickers. The elevator does not have an out of order sign on it. It is the same elevator as before. Gavin enters.

He presses the button for the first floor. In the lobby the check in desk is now on the opposite side of the room. The lights are off, the receptionist is gone. It is daytime outside now. The bus is gone and the Sonic is closed. The road is vacant. There is a cat outside. She is white, with black paws. She looks up at Gavin as he approaches. They lock eyes, and he kneels in front of her.

“Hello, cat.” He says.

“Hello, Mage.” Says the cat.

She flicks her tail, “What is it you seek?”

“Direction.”

She nods and stands, before making for the road. The Sonic across the street is closed, but it was never empty. A Sonic is not a sit down restaurant. Customers are expected to pull into a parking spot and order over an intercom, and then a waitress delivers their meal directly to their car. Gavin’s pretty sure places like Sonic were more common in the 1950’s, and he knows that drive in diners are a dying breed now a days. The thought gives him a strange sense of nostalgia for something he’d never actually experienced, and he shudders involuntarily.

The cat sits down in the parking spot furthest from the building. She watches as he presses the the button on the intercom, listens, ears swiveling, as they are greeted with static. Looking out of the corner of his eye, Gavin can see something moving within the darkened restaurant. An outline of a figure, only vaguely humanoid. The thing moves like a deranged ape, long, long arms dangling to the floor and dragging it forward. Its back is hunched, legs short and stumpy. Gavin can not see its face, and he does not wish to. The intercom crackles to life.

“WhAt can aH’ do fER ya’lL?” Drawls The Thing in the Sonic. It’s got a southern accent thicker than congeling visera, and the pitch of it’s voice fluctuates wildly. Gavin glances uncertainly at the cat, and she nods.

“I’m looking for Direction.”

“Ahhhhhh……” groans The Thing, “WEll, watch’ Yer goNna wanna dO is hEad doWn the road, bout maybeEEee…..foUr, five miLeS, an’ yer gOnna wanna look fer’ weEl, watch yer gonna wanna fiNd is soMeTHing’ idEaliZed, ya knOw? Like uh, somethin’ kinDa romanticized, an’ a liTtlE faKe in sOme senSe but reAlLy true in anOther, ya follow?”

“Yeah.” said Gavin, even though he did not follow at all.

“Yep,” Continued The Thing, “n’ yer gOnna wanna gEt yourself sOme rasPberRy lemONade when ya get theRe, It’s some gOod shit, lemme tell ya.”

“Alright, I’ll uh, I’ll do that.”

“Good, GoOd, That’s Good. Y'all have a niIiiccceee daaaaaay nooooow.” And then the intercom crackled once more, and returned to spewing static. Gavin released the button and looked around for the cat, hoping, maybe, for some more guidance, but she had long since abandoned him. He started walking down the road, away from the Sonic Drive-In, and The Thing inside, and hopefully towards where he needed to be.

Gavin started to think as he walked, which was not something he liked to do often. He much prefered to act in the moment without much consideration for the consequences of those actions until they themselves became the moment. Gavin did not like to think because he often thought much too deeply, and it sometimes scared him. Gavin thought about a lot of different things in quick succession, he thought about the missing greyhound bus, and The Thing in the Sonic, and wondered if the disappearance of one had to do anything with the appearance of the other. It probably did. He thought about what The Thing had told him to do, and why he was doing it. He thought about why he’d come here in the first place, to this inverted little section of Georgia. And he thought about Liminal Spaces, about busted elevators and darkened hotel hallways and empty stairwells. The air shifted suddenly as a pickup truck speed past him, it had a faded confederate flag on the back window.

Liminal Spaces, simply put, were the areas between one place and another. The small spots in the middle of point A and point B where reality seems to be altered in such a way that the change is almost imperceptible, and yet, it is still enough to leave you feeling so impossibly strange.

Liminal Spaces can also be doorways, if one knows how to properly open them.

Gavin isn’t sure how long he’s been walking down this empty stretch of road, but it’s been long enough that he can no longer see the Sonic Drive-in behind him. It’s not even a dot in the distance now, just gone, as though it were never there to begin with. He keeps going. He walks until his feet hurt, and his legs ache, and keeps going even after that. At some point he sticks his thumb out towards the road, tired enough to risk hitch-hiking, but no cars have gone by since the pickup truck. And at some point he takes a moment to rest. He sits down on the shoulder, and just breathes for a while. And then when he stands again, he sees the Cracker Barrel just down the road. Exhausted as he is, he knows it isn’t possible for him to not have seen it earlier. Gavin decides it’s best not to dwell on that, though, because this is exactly the kind of place where Cracker Barrels can just pop into existence. (Although, as he enters the restaurant, he remains somewhat annoyed that it couldn’t have decided to do it a little sooner.)

The front of the Cracker Barrel is a store selling all manner of things. There's a back corner full of vintage candy, a small section of organic make-ups, and another full of knick-knacks like salt and pepper shakers, and dreamcatchers, as well as the usual crap that tourists like to buy, T-shirts and mugs and what not. Gavin has never actually been in a “regular” Cracker Barrel, so he’s not sure if this is a completely normal thing, but he’s certain that a “regular” Cracker Barrel would not also be selling such wares as bottled crocodile tears and Unicorn meat slim jims. There aren’t a lot of people in the store, and yet Gavin finds it impossible to get a good look at any of them. The people look normal, but they move like extras in the background of a film. The only person in the room with any notable features is the waitress standing by the back. She’s short, and her hair and eyebrows have been dyed a vibrant blue. As Gavin follows her into the seating area he can't help but stare at her hair, and he finds himself thinking that it can’t possibly be dye, it’s too bright, somehow. She smiles at him as he sits, and her teeth are a just little too sharp.

Once he’s seated, she says, “Can I start you off with a drink?” Her voice has a pleasant, lilting tone to it.

Gavin thinks back to The Thing in the Sonic, “A Raspberry Lemonade? If that’s something you have here?”

She nods, and goes off to get him one. Gavin leans back in his chair and takes in his surroundings, trying to relax. The decor in the Cracker Barrel has a sort of vintage, rustic feel to it, there’s things like black and white photos, and old advertisements on the walls. All the furniture looks antique. There are quite a few other customers present. Most of them look like the same nondescript folk from the front, but a few stand out. There’s a woman in the back corner, she’s dressed in black furs and her head is an ember eyed wolf skull. She’s sitting across from a man with the skull of a stag upon his shoulders, the antlers adorned with ivy. There’s something resembling a giant moth sitting two tables away, slowly crunching its way through a Caesar salad. Occasionally, there’s a figure leaning against the kitchen doors, they look as though they’re made up of television static. Gavin’s eyes start to hurt from trying to look at them, so he turns his attention to the menu instead. The waitress returns with his Raspberry Lemonade, and he orders the Country Fried Shrimp.

Gavin takes a sip of his drink and finds that he agrees with the Thing in the sonic. It’s definitely some good shit.

“Funny seeing you around here, Gav.”

Gavin looks up from his drink, almost spills it in surprise.

“Is this seat taken?”

Gavin manages to shake his head.

Caleb Adams pulls out the chair across from him and sits. Gavin stares at him. He’s wearing a T-shirt that reads, “NORMAL HOROSCOPES: Making your day a little more magic whether you like it or not.” Gavin’s not sure if it’s supposed to be advertising for a psychic’s shop or if it’s some strange indie band he’s never heard of. Knowing Caleb, it’s probably the latter.

He finally manages to speak, “You’re dead.”

“Yeah?” Caleb leans an elbow on the table, and props his head up in his hand, his smile never wavers, “And?”

“And- and I don’t know, Fuck, I don’t know.”

The waitress briefly interrupts his existential crisis by depositing his Country Fried Shrimp on the table. Gavin looks down at it and tries to focus on the smell of greasy seafood instead of the dead man sitting across from him.

“You seem confused.” Caleb’s voice sounds uncharacteristically sympathetic.

Gavin nods.

He sighs, frowning “Eat your lunch, and then we’ll talk.”

Gavin eats what he can, but it’s a large portion, and he’s somehow not that hungry. He takes a final bite, and pushes the plate across the table, silently offering Caleb the rest of the shrimp.

The barest hint of a smile returns to his face, “Thanks, but no.” And then he’s frowning again, “Why’re you here, Gav?”

“I just went where I was told to-”

He shakes his head, “No. I don’t mean the friggin’ Cracker Barrel, I mean Here.”

And Gavin doesn’t really know what to tell him. That he’s here because he felt lost and desperate? That he didn’t know what to do anymore? That it doesn’t matter anyway because he’s fine, everything's fine and he’s just tired?

But he doesn’t tell Caleb any of that, he just says, “I miss you.” And he can’t keep his voice from cracking.

“I know you do.” Caleb places a hand over his, “But this is damn near one of the dumbest things you’ve ever done. You knew this place wouldn’t be safe for you.”

He feels numb, “I didn’t really care.”

“Gavin,” Caleb grips his hand now, “Look at me, please. I mean, really look at me.”

So he does, he looks up at him, and finally, meets his eyes.

They have not changed. Death has not reduced the amount of compassion behind them, nor faded the sea blue color. Gavin stares. Eyes are supposed to be a window into someone's soul, a way to truly see into them, and Gavin just stares because Caleb’s eyes are still capable of conveying so much, and he can feel tears running down his face…..

“It’s time to go home, Gav, okay?” He gestures to the window, and the Greyhound bus has pulled up, “Your ride's here.”

And Gavin knows has to force himself to look away and loosen his grip, and he can’t bring himself to.

“It’s alright.” He says, “It’s going to be alright. I’ll take care of the bill, Please just let go.”

And Gavin finally, Finally manages to tear himself away.

He does not feel anything but relief as he leaves, as he boards the bus and settles into a seat. He leans back, and watches through the window as the world shifts and shimmers and is suddenly dark and starry once more. As the Greyhound pulls out of the Sonic parking lot, Gavin closes his eyes, and slowly falls into the comfort of a deep, dreamless sleep.

[erinelizabethh]

it’s your world, not mine | The Umbrella Academy (1/?)

Summary: You are Number Eight, the epitome of extraordinary in a crowd of the mundane. So is Number One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, and... maybe not Seven. The more you remain aligned with the Hargreeves name, the more you wish you weren't. 

Reality is what grounds you to this fact, although you can't help but like your siblings... just a bit.

Chapter One: An Unfortunate Beginning

You recalled of a story told to you as hands warm and careful pulled back your blanket to allow you room to climb inside your bed, a woeful narrative escaping past cherry lipstick that popped in a second of playful pondering. “On October 1st, forty-three women gave birth simultaneously…” she would begin to say, except you were too enthralled in the plethora of worlds behind her gaze despite how artificial her very existence was to your world. To continue the story, the stars had aligned on that day in 1989 to bless these forty-three women with children, allowing them to skip nine months of back pains and cravings to give birth to babies some didn’t desire to have. Now the lovely Sir Reginald Hargreeves, a billionaire of his own quirks, decided to take note of this and search throughout the world for these children for his own ulterior motives that the world might turn the other cheek from.

… He got seven of them.

You wished the man halted his search at seven when your mother accompanied you at his doorstep, her hands firm yet cold clawing at the straps of your backpack. There was a frown tugging at your lips, your mind plagued with thoughts too horrifying to bear. If her hands left you for just a second, you could run; your escape was never too far out of reach, an endless field of flowers where you could choose to be a kid. A girl living for nine and a half years should be building friendships at school, riding swing sets high into the sky with such reckless abandon that she wouldn’t care what would happen if she happened to move an inch off her seat. Instead, you were nine years of age, forced to deal with the opposite and a mother who sometimes couldn’t bear to look at you. Reality gripped at your shoulders and forced you to remain at the edge of your seat, as you were not permitted to lose yourself to insanity when around you were constant noise and reminders that you existed among billions.

It was no surprise to Sir Reginald Hargreeves for your mother to appear at his doorstep, as he knew the offer held on the table over her newborn’s life was too much to resist, the eye behind his monocle shuffling from you to the bookbag painted with a disgusting, bright lilac and unicorns too content to match your demeanor. Children your age, sharing your birthday, sharing your sign, peeked from the doors leading to their father’s chamber, following his actions with a curiosity that did nothing to relieve the tightness traveling throughout your body. With a diverse cast of superheroes, a glance over your shoulder placed you between two of them; to your right would have been the one with curls flowing past her hips having arms crossed over the other, to your left a passive child of Asian descent allowing himself to be overshadowed by the other members of his family. This would be your family if this man who decided to play God deemed it so, and the fact left you with such contempt you pondered if you would ever grow to like them following this mundane Sunday.

“I live in my own little world, sir, and I can bring anyone I want into it when I touch ‘em,” you responded when asked, tone lifting a bit, “’S hard, though. Everyone’s so fucking loud.” You paused, your finger tapping at your head. “It’s quiet here.”

One of the children chimed in with, “Dad, everybody has their own little world. She can’t be that special.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I think I am.”

You thought correctly, as Sir Reginald Hargreeves had eventually deemed you as Number Eight and eyed your mother’s back as she trotted towards the mansion’s exit with enough cash to last her for her lifetime, never to be seen again by eyes growing used to seeing hers. Instead, you were to search for comfort in the eyes of a woman created to be your mother, Grace, and love you she did. For years of your life you were addressed as this number, with hardly any of your siblings allowing you to make contact for the first year of your meeting but two. You would argue the two of them fell just short of family to you, except your routine of waking up to breakfast at the table with seven of them at your side, training to eventually one-up the other in the grand scheme of things… perhaps this was meant to be your family, after all.

Klaus and Ben certainly made the idea bearable.

[thorne93]

The Right Path (Part 3)

Prompt: (From request) Hi! I was wondering, would you it be okay to request a Charles Xavier x telepath!reader? Where they have a mind link since their ability first showed up and so they already know each other even before theyve actually met and then he finds her when he first uses Cerebo and he and Erik go to her first?? Its an idea ive had for a while, but im not nearly an amazing writer like you!

Word Count: 1874

Warning: language (maybe??), child abuse, mental and physical abuse, depression…

Note: I LOVED this request. Thank you for sending it in. I am so sorry it took so long to write. I hope I did it justice dear. Plus, thank you for the super sweet note ; ) Beta’d by none other than @like-a-bag-of-potatoes

Forever Tags: @capsmuscles @cocosierra94 @essie1876 @magpiegirl80 @letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked @harleyquinnandscarletwitch @iamwarrenspeace @marvel-imagines-yes-please @superwholocked527 @myparadise1982sand @missinstantgratification @thejemersoninferno @rda1989 @marvelloushamilton @munlis @thefridgeismybestie @bubblyanarocks3 @random-fluffy-pink-unicorn @hardcollectionworldtrash @igiveupicantthinkofausername @kaliforniacoastalteens @feelmyroarrrr​ @kaeling

James McAvoy:  @bohemianrhapsody86 @lenawiinchester

Charles Xavier: @bohemianrhapsody86 @lenawiinchester

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Midterms. Always a pleasure.

No, they were the worst. At least finals meant you could be done. Midterms just marked the middle of a dreadful era.

You sighed as you worked on your physics homework, your eyes straining from the numbers and symbols so badly that your vision actually got blurry. College wasn’t much better than high school, but at least you didn’t live with fearful and hateful parents. Your roommate didn’t want much to do with you, but you couldn’t blame her. You shut yourself off from her on day one. You couldn’t bear the thought of friends and knowing their every thought. At least if they weren’t a friend, their hateful and judgemental thoughts weren’t as hurtful. You had gotten to the point where you sort of tuned out other minds, but you could still hear them, all the time, no matter what.

“Y/N,” the dorm RA said as she came to the doorway and knocked on the bedroom door. You lifted your head from your studies and eyed her. “You have visitors in the lobby,” she informed.

You frowned at her, seeing the two men in her mind. At first, they weren’t recognizable to you, devilishly handsome, but no, not recognizable. You followed her down the lobby where the two men who looked like models spun to face you and you thought the wind had been knocked out of you.

A tiny gasp escaped you when you laid your eyes on him.

Charles Xavier.

He was real...And he was here. In front of you. You didn’t recognize him in the RA’s mind because she saw him for a brief second and she already contorted her memory of him. But in front of you now was the man who visited your dreams. He looked even more handsome in person. He was absolutely dashing.

“Charles,” you breathed without meaning to.

“You two know each other?” Erik asked, his eyes narrowing in the slightest.

Charles couldn’t take his ocean blues off of you though, they were permanently pressed to your face.

“Uh, yes, in a sense,” he answered. “She’s a telepath. She and I have had an unorthodox mindlink for quite some time now,” he informed with a handsome grin that made your insides melt. His voice...It was better than you could’ve ever imagined. And...He was British? Interesting.

“It’s so good to finally meet you,” you gushed as you ran forward and hugged him, happy tears spilling over. It wasn’t usually like you to hug or touch anyone but you felt so connected with him. Like he was the one person on earth you could trust.

He grinned widely in response as he hugged you back.

“You too.”

“How did you find me?” you questioned with glee.

“A long story. Do you have time to talk?” he asked.

You looked around, hoping to find a quiet place but everyone was chatting in the common area and it was rather loud and intrusive. You already heard the thoughts of the other students: “What are they doing here?” “Who are they?” “Why are they talking to her?” “How does she know two foxes like that?” “What could they possibly want with a nobody like her?”

Swallowing your insecurities you said, “Yeah, this way.” You lead them a few buildings away from campus to a small eatery, but only one other person was in there apart from the staff. “Do you want anything to drink? Coffee or...?” you questioned awkwardly, gesturing to the bar.

“No, we’re fine,” Charles assured with that glowing smile that you were sure would never tire of.

“Charles?” Erik said, an attempt to bring him back to reality.

“Right, right,” he quickly said, shaking his head. He gestured to the table in the corner with an open hand. “Shall we?”

You nodded and the three of you sat.

“I’m Erik Lensherr, by the way,” the other wildly attractive man stated as he extended his hand to you.

“Oh, charmed,” you said, taking his hand and shaking it. “You have no idea how thrilled I am to finally meet you,” you gushed your eyes going between the two of them.

“And I you,” Charles noted.

“Charles, you have a bit of drool on your chin, you might want to wipe that up while I talk to Y/N,” he noted sarcastically before giving you his full attention. Charles blushed, as did you, before you let a small giggle out, then you turned slightly more to your right to speak with Erik.

“As you may or may not have guessed, you have a mutation,” Erik started, “Charles tells me you're a telepath.”

“Is that what it’s called?” you asked innocently.

“Yes, it’s quite fascinating,” Charles began as he leaned his elbow on the table.

“Charles,” Erik chided again, his eyes going away from yours and in the general direction of his companion. “As I was saying, you’re a mutant, like us. Charles is a telepath as well and I can move metal.”

You frowned ever so slightly. “Well...while I’m really happy to know that there’s others like me, I don’t see what this has to do with anything. I’ve had these powers for four years, Charles has been contacting me through dreams, why are you two just now getting to me?”

This time, Charles answered, “Because I had no way of reaching out, but thanks to the CIA, they gave me a device that I could reach out to mutant minds. I immediately thought of you.”

“The CIA? Wha--what do they want?” you asked, panic rising in your voice as you tensed up.

Charles reached towards you. “Oh, no, no, it’s not bad. We...We have a job for you. We could use someone like you. We’re recruiting young mutants from all over the eastern coast. Would you be interested in joining us?”

You wanted to say yes...but you had a bit of a life here. And you still didn’t know them.

“How long would I be gone?” you questioned while your eyes darted all over the cafe, avoiding their intense gazes upon your face. Just having them look at you made your nerves, anxiety, and butterflies explode within you.

“We aren’t sure exactly,” Charles explained a little reluctantly, his gaze dancing to his friend’s. “We don’t know how long this job will take. Why?” he questioned incredulously. “Do you have something here?”

“Midterms?” you shyly answered, a gentle shrug coming into your shoulders as you re-made eye contact with him.

“Oh, well, midterms…” Charles noted, knowing how important education was, as he just graduated himself.

“What we’re facing is bigger than some midterm,” Erik said, his finger pointing down hard onto the table.

“I’m sure it is, but I’ve worked very hard to get where I am, I don’t think I want to throw it away for some random proposal to be in a circus of...freaks,” you spat, angry. They were just discrediting everything you’d worked hard for. Maybe it was because they were men, they didn’t get it, they didn’t get how difficult it was for a woman to get where you were.

“Y/N, please, hear us out,” Charles pleaded for a moment. “We want you with us. And mutants aren’t freaks, you’ve only been told that because of what your parents did to you,” Charles spouted quickly.

You narrowed your eyes on him.

“You think that you know because they cast me out that you know me? Or understand me?” you accused, getting angrier.

“He does,” Erik defended quickly. “He helped me. I was going to die, and Charles jumped into freezing waters to save me because I was blinded by rage.”

“Please...let us help you. We can help you learn to control your mind, your powers,” Charles informed. “You and I both know you want this. If you’re really worried about the scholarship, I’ll reimburse you,” he stated sincerely.

You pulled back from him as your eyes scanned him, wondering if he meant it.

“I mean it,” he reinforced, his eyes never once leaving yours. “But I really want you on this team. I really need to get to know you…So will you please help us?” he requested again.

After a moment, you nodded. “Okay, but I want a guarantee I can return to schooling.”

“I’ll write it with my blood if need be,” Charles promised, holding his hands up with a gentle face. You wanted to trust him, desperately. And they were mutants, like you, they weren’t like humans who would turn on you.

“So...what are we up against?” you tentatively asked, the butterflies still raging within, with these two super models sitting here gazing at you. But as soon as you asked the question, flashes of painful memories flickered in your mind. Your face whipped to Erik’s. “You poor man,” you gently said as your hand went to his cheek in an attempt to comfort what he just saw. His face contorted into confusion for a brief moment. “Shaw...What he did to you...Oh my gosh…” You shook your head. “I’m so sorry,” you apologized quickly. “I can’t control it, I just hear and see the things you think. I didn’t mean to invade your privacy…”

Erik shook his head. “That’s alright,” he assured, a soft smile coming to his handsome face. “So now you know what we’re up against. You can trust us.”

You nodded slowly. “So when do we leave?”

“As soon as you’re ready,” Charles answered, that delicate light glowing in his eyes as he stared at you.

“Okay, um, give me an hour to see if I can close out of my semester, grab a bag, and we’ll go,” you informed.

“We’ll be waiting by the car outside your dorm,” Charles said as the three of you stood.

You nodded. “Okay. Thank you again,” you emphatically said as you stepped forward and hugged Charles again, relishing in the feeling of his arms around you. He felt like home. He felt right. Everything about him made you want to trust him. You let go and walked over to Erik to hug him. He seemed to be shocked at first but recovered himself and wrapped his arms around you. “Both of you,” you stressed, your eyes meeting Erik’s, trying to ignore how being this close to him made you feel.

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

You took care of withdrawing from school, packed a suitcase of your small bit of belongings and met them out front of the dorms. Erik was leaning against the car while Charles spoke to him, before they both looked up to see who was approaching them.

“Ready to go?” Charles asked with a beaming smile that made your breathing stutter.

“Uh...yes,” you said, trying to keep some form of composure around them.

“Here, let me take that,” Charles offered before taking your suitcase to the trunk.

“Allow me,” Erik sweetly said before opening the door and gesturing for you to get inside.

“Thank you very much.”

You slid into the back seat, nervous and giddy for this new chapter in your life. Praying you made the right choice, you tried to relax as Charles got behind the wheel and began driving to your new future.

[orderoftheavengers]

The Other Guy 

BRUTUS “BRUCE” BANNER 

Summary: Ilvermorny potions prodigy, turned giant green werewolf.

Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw

Ilvermorny House: Horned Serpent

Species: Human, werewolf (unique, potion-created breed) Blood status: Muggle-born

Wand: Womping Willow wood, 15 inches, unicorn tail hair

Broom: Tinderblast (not the fastest, but the most durable)

Familiar: Cute little barn owl named Ruffalo/Ruffles

Specialty: Potions

Patronus: Brown Bear

A New Kind of Werewolf

When Brutus "Bruce" Banner was in his first year at Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he was taking potions class with the sixth years. His house was Horned Serpent, the egghead house. He was dating Zarabeth "Betty" Ross, of Thunderbird (the "warrior" house), daughter of auror Thaddeus Ross. For his final project of his first year, Bruce was working on an assignment that involved creating a potion that would grant the drinker some impressive powers. Wanting to go above and beyond, Bruce tried to re-create the super-auror serum that had resulted in Steve "the Captain" Rodgers.

Now, mixing the saliva of a werewolf and the blood of a troll into the Polyjuice potion, adding a dash of Doxy venom, a few hairs from a Metamorphmagus, and dropping in a dragon scale to finish it off, and then testing this concoction on yourself probably doesn't sound like a very Horned Serpent or Ravenclaw thing to do. But for an eleven-year-old, Bruce was showing some stunning genius, and took more precautions than most first years in his place would've.

Still, the results were catastrophic. And green. And furry.

On the Run 

Thaddeus Ross became obsessed with "containing" the "monster," or worse. (Which is obviously kind of fucked up, since Bruce was still not even twelve yet.) Obviously the Ministry of Magic wasn't going to let Thaddeus kill a kid, but even they couldn't completely control the overzealous auror.  Thaddeus's daughter Betty helped Bruce flee Ivermorny. Bruce tried hiding out in some magical communities at first, but soon discovered that the more magic there was around him, the more likely he was to lose control. Maybe it was physical contact with extra magic that made the wolf harder to control, or maybe it was just the stress of being in a community where everyone knew what he was. But in any case, Bruce fled the wizarding world, and lived among muggles in various foreign countries, usually in the sketchiest parts of the cities. A muggleborn, Bruce was already somewhat estranged from his parents, and didn't feel much loss in cutting contact with them.

While hiding out in a muggle favela in Brazil, he kept regular owl-contact with a mysterious pen-pal who went by "Professor Blue," who helped Bruce come up with temporary antidotes for his condition. The now twelve-year-old wizard supported himself mixing colorful paints for those kickass favela buildings, and made a few friends. His next-door-and-one-square-up neighbor was a snake who apparently knew Harry Potter. (Communication between Bruce and his scaly neighbor was limited though, as Bruce didn't speak Parselmouth and the Snake could barely write in Portuguese.) Thaddeus eventually found Bruce, and rode into battle astride a Portugues Longsnout. The dragon's flames however had no affect on the giant green werwolf. Fortunately, no muggles were hurt in the battle, except a group of drug lords who'd just assumed they were hallucinating and didn't get out of the way. Bruce fled into the rain-forest, where he transformed back into a human. He wandered alone for a while until he happened on a friendly chuppacabra that agreed to give him a lift. The chuppacabra didn't speak Protuguese, but told Bruce in Spanish that he wasn't in Brazil anymore. Figuring hiding out wasn't working, Bruce decided to go back to Ivelmorny where most of his old research was, and continue working on a cure. The chuppacabra gave Bruce a ride all the way back to the States, stopping for a few portions of goat for lunch along the way. Bruce reunited with Betty, and together they traveled overseas to Hogwarts to meet "Professor Blue." How did Bruce figure that was where Blue would be? Well in all his letters he kept mentioning "tea" and "ugly Christmas jumpers," and regularly had to be reminded that the asshole chasing Bruce was not a "Slytherin." When they finally met, Blue--actually a forth year named Samuel Sterns--was very disappointed to learn his cover had been blown so easily. (It appears that while Ravenclaws are usually brilliant in some areas, a lot of them lack some ingenuity outside the lab.) While the three worked on finding a cure for Bruce, the Sorting Hat dropped by to inform Betty that she was a Gryffindor, and Bruce a Ravenclaw. (Betty had a mind for science yes, but that was overriden by the courage and fortitude she'd inherited from her homicidally brave father; it takes a Gryffindor to go after a Hulk, and an even bigger Gryffindor to love one.)

Ross caught up to them again, now with a Chinese Fireball. A massive battle ensued all over Hogwarts' grounds. While on his defensive rampage, Wolf-Hulk wound up toppling a few castle towers, uprooting the Whomping Willow, and flinging the Giant Squid through the wall of the Great Hall (insert sushi joke). The Quidditch pitch was also pretty much decimated. This was not a good day for groundskeeper Argus Filch. The battle finally ended when Professor Neville Longbottom (now teaching herbology) announced via microphone-wand-spell that if Thaddeus didn't break off his attack ASAP, he'd call the Ministry on him and he'd have all of his medals and mustache confiscated indefinitely. The Ministry of Magic had arrived by then, and took Betty and Bruce into custody.

Unbeknown to our heroes, a neighbor back at the favela named Emil Blonsky had witnessed Bruce transform into "the incredible green furry," and was overcome with awe and envy. He tracked the heroes to Hogwarts, and cornered Sterns in his lab, demanding the Ravenclaw transform him into a badass like Bruce. Sterns immediately replied, "Holy balls, you look JUST like that guy from 'Four Roo--'" Blonsky's hand around his throat cut him off. Sterns reluctantly agreed to inject Blonsky with Bruce's blood, and then ran for cover (all the way down to the dungeons, past some Slytherins entering thier common room, and diving under a green-and-silver sofa where Tony Stark was reading a dirty "Veela" magazine).

Blonsky transformed not into a green wolf-ogre, but instead, an orange ogre-troll. He bellowed, "I AM ABOMINATION BITCHES!!!!" to the un-phased Hogwarts populace (who witnessed stuff like this every other week), and then promptly began smashing down the towers, Quidditch stadium and Whomping Willow that Argus Filch had just finally finished repairing.

Everyone in Hogwarst was quickly evacuated to Hogsmeade, so Bruce could smash-fight Abomination without worrying too much about collateral damage. Betty however secretly stayed behind, and at the end of the battle, begged Bruce not to kill Abomination.

"Bruce please, he's already died in 'Reservoir Dogs'..."

"Huh?"

"I AM NOT TIM ROTH!"

Bruce punched Blonsky, shutting him up.</b>

The Ministry of Magic quickly arrived to the scene and transformed Blonsky/Abomination into a ferret, before taking him into custody. Ross was about to order his dragon to blast another fireball at the Hulk-Wolf; but seeing human Bruce hugging his daughter, Ross finally admitted to himself, "Maybe there is something a little bit wrong with trying to kill or arrest a twelve-year-old..." The Ministry still wanted Bruce in custody though, and Bruce was forced to flee again after bidding Betty a tear-jerker farewell. After the credits, Thaddeus then went to the Three Broomsticks to get drunk and smoke a cigar; Tony Stark attempted to make a cameo, but didn't get one sentence out before Rosmerta noticed the firwewisky margarita in the underage Slytherin student's hand, and chucked him out.

Order of the Avengers

Bruce went back to hiding out amongst muggles, this time in Asia. The stress of trying to keep the wolf repressed resulted in half a head of gray hair before the poor little wizard was old enough to be bar-mitzvahed. Things got so low that at one point, he stood before a mirror and attempted to cast Avada Kadavara on himself. The "other guy" spit the green death-blast out (incinerating a nearby adult video store and causing a mass UFO conspiracy in the area). So he got passed his depression, and moved on by helping people. He used his magic to cure diseases for sick muggles in the slums of the third world, ignoring the Ministry's rules completely. Then one day, a redhead confronted him with a wand, and introduced herself as Natasha Romanoff. She wasn't here to kill him. She was here to recruit him for the Order of the Avengers. The program was at Hogwarts, so he'd have to go back to school; but at least it wouldn't be the school where his accident had happened, with all the bad memories. Bruce finally gave in, and began classes as a third-year Ravenclaw. Bruce contributed both brains and brawn to the Order, and became "potions bros" with Tony Stark. Bruce learned the hard way that while Ravenclaws and Slytherins make great lab partners, the latter can be a very bad influence on the former. If Bruce had a knut for every time Tony talked him into some experiment that backfired on them, he'd be richer than Harry Potter.

Bruce's other closest friend was fellow Ravenclaw Natasha, who had once been brainwashed by Death Eaters. She and Bruce bonded over the fact that at heart, they're both Ravenclaws, but have been transformed into some kind of monster or another against their will. They began dating, but no one's sure if they're still a thing, or if it was just a fling.

Detention With the Grand Master

In his final year at Hogwarts, Bruce, along with Thor, had to miss out on the epic illegal Quidditch match the other Avengers arranged. (Fortunately, it sounds like Thor and Bruce didn’t miss much, as the whole “civil war” game was less of a “deep clash of ideals” than a “drunken brawl fueled by Idiot Balls.”)

Defense Against the Dark Arts Class. Actually, most of the Avengers were behind in that class. But when Professor Masters--AKA “the Grand Master”--assigned all the failures to detention in the Dark Forrest, Bruce was the only one studious enough, and Thor the only one concerned with his fighting skills enough, to obediently attend their detention instead of playing Quidditch.

In detention, the Grand Master--Hogwarts’ latest eccentric D.A.D.A. professor--forced various badass students to duel each other, for cheering crowds of cheering centaurs, unicorns, merfolk, and other strange creatures. And while wearing ridiculously fruity gladiator outfits. (And the Grand Master’s henchmen will tell you, forcing a giant green wolf into Roman armor is no cakewalk.) Bruce and Thor had an epic duel, before the werewolf noticed Loki, and made like a pooch chasing a screaming, squealing car.

But the group wound up having to play Hooky after all, with Thor’s homeland at stake. Bruce helped Thor and Loki defeat their evil half-sister Hela, and almost caught himself a break....

As if.

Waning Powers

A regular werewolf will change with the moon no matter what. But Bruce was no regular werewolf. The potion that had transformed him had contained hairs from not only werewolves, but Metamorphmagi as well. And those who knew Nymphadora Tonks know that a Metamorphmagus’s powers can be affected by their mood.

Thanos gave the green wolf such a frightening beating, that the “monster” refused to “come out” afterwards, even when Bruce desperately needed him to. Thus, Bruce was forced to fight like a boring regular wizard, on a broom with a wand. Green asshole.

But after Thanos’s Dusting Curse murders half of Bruce’s friends, and half the universe he’d worked so hard to redeem himself by protecting, the wolf returned full-force...

Professor Wolf

With help from Tony and Shuri, and his own Ravenclaw cleverness, Bruce finally found a way to make peace with “the other guy.” He now walked around in the form of a furry green humanoid, taking the name “Professor Wolf.” Since Thanos’s curse and following tyrannical rule exposed the magical world to the Mugggles, Professor Wolf gained some new Muggle fangirls, mainly from the segments of Muggledom that frequented DeviantArt and Fur Affinity.

Time Travel

Deep in Snape’s old Potions dungeon, Tony, Bruce, Rocket, and Shuri–who was not Dusted!–all get together to brainstorm how to use the Spirit Realm for Time Travel (since Thanos destroyed all the Time Turners). 

The four geniuses exchange ingenuity and banter, and it is brilliant. Rocket, a niffler, is enamored with Tony’s chest amulet, and steals it, causing some health problems for Tony. This angers Professor Wolf, who chases the niffler/raccoon hybrid around the lab until he catches him and makes him into a violent chew toy. 

Shuri snags Rocket from the Wolf, and the amulet from Rocket. Struck with inspiration, the Wakandan princess makes some adjustments to the amulet, to Tony’s embarrassment and begrudging awe. This leads to a “eureka!” moment for the four of them, in regards to the Time Travel problem, and they finally get it solved.

Ravenclaw to Ravenclaw

Bruce gets the Time Stone from fellow a Ravenclaw, the Ancient One. Not battle or trickery is needed for this one; just honest, Ravencalw-to-Ravenclaw reasoning. When Bruce tells her about Strange sacrificing the Time Stone to save Tony, she realizes what this must mean, and hands the Stone over to Bruce.

After losing the Ravenclaw closest to him--Natasha Romanoff--Bruce is as devastated as Clint.  Professor Wolf roars, and tosses a bench into the lake. The kids sitting on the bench, Teddy Lupin and Victoire Weasley, barely react, as they too were close with Nat and are mourning her. Even the Giant Squid is too sad to be bothered by the littering of his lake.

But later, when Bruce is fighting Thanos in the final battle, something extraordinary happens...

Bruce and the Wolf fight Thanos once more, now together, and wielding the red Infinity Wand. Professor Wolf is struggling to simply turn Thanos and his minions to dust, but it’s one Infinity Wand up against another. As the two Infinity Wands blast against each other, a light begins to glow in the middle of the two spells. Bruce suddenly hears a familiar voice, half in his head. “Bruce, give someone else a turn.” Natasha–or a ghostly version of her–is emerging from the middle of the two Infinity Wands’ spells. “Priori Incantatem!” shouts Shuri, from her blue-and-silver panther broom. “Or something like it! Two sets of Infinity Stones blasting against each other, their past spells are regurgitating!” The moment of shock distracts Bruce long enough for Thanos to blast him to the ground. The grape bastard is about to pick up the other Infinity Wand, but spirit-Nat delivers a kick to his face. It’s not a huge amount of damage–she only has the typical strength of a very angry poltergeist–but it buys enough time for Spidey to swing by and snag up the wand with his web, and the battle continues...

Epilogue

Bruce, Sam and Bucky have a brief scare, when it seems that Steve has massacred the timeline for personal gain; but this false Steve turns out to be only a Boggart. The real Steve has returned just a few minutes after schedule, and has only made one tiny change to the timeline; saving Nat. 

Professor Wolf is now in the dungeons of Hogwarts, teaching Potions. Bruce can alternate between any of his three forms at will, and actually tends to teach in his boring, adorkable human form (with only the green tail).

Wand, broom, etc. Ollivander has crafted for Bruce a wand from a branch of the Whomping Willow, the only wood green-Bruce can't instantly snap in half. It contains a unicorn hair. Bruce's broom is a Tinderblast; though not as fast as some other models, it's highly resilient, so Bruce can ride it even if he transforms. Bruce's Patronus is a bear (all Patronuses are silver, so Black, Brown, or Polar isn't really a factor here). His specialty, obviously, is potions--his initial first-year accident notwithstanding.   A/N: Bruce was blessedly easy to sort, draw, and write a Potter AU for. Tony and Dr. Strange are too overflowing with Slytherin-style heroism for me to let them go to waste as Ravenclaws, just because they happen to be geniuses. Bruce on the other hand, his personality and powers really do revolve around his mind--even his Hulk related ones.f

[oikawas]

Title: The Hounds Come Running (and No One is Safe)

Summary: It’s a homecoming. Or where Dean is never forced to forgive Seth, Finn isn’t treated like crap by creative, and the reunion of a different faction brings everyone together in a way that’s right. (for @artemidi)

Contrary to popular belief, it takes four whole years for the three of them to reunite.

Finn Bálor steps over the fallen body of Kofi Kingston, deft fingers pulling the cloth of his bandana down to hang around his neck. The icon and his unicorn buddies were just the latest to fall under the pressure of the reunited Bullet Club, brought together under the joint distaste over the mediocrity they were dealt by the company. The crowd boos its distaste even as he holds up the iconic Too Sweet with both Karl and Luke, a smirk playing his lips.

It feels good. It feels natural. It feels right.

His thoughts wander to the months he spent pandering after that infamous shoulder injury had shot down his momentum. The useless fights, the misdirection, the way he had been held back from his title shot.

No more.

No more.

He accepts the mic Luke hands him, bringing it up in front of his face and huffing a laugh. “You lot really thought the New Day could beat us?”

The boos grow louder in intensity, but he can still make out cheers intermingling with the noise. It was a gratifying experience, being the epicenter of such controversy and adoration. To know his fans still support him, after all the betrayals and bloodshed and attacks in the dark.

“Remember this,” he drawls, wrapping an arm around the top rope and laying his weight against it. “There’s not a single damn person in this company who can stop us. Vince McMahon himself can come down here, and I’d give him what he’s owed, lest he’s forgotten how long I waited for my title shot.”

He pauses, glancing down at the WWE Universal belt hanging around his waist. His, ripped out of the hands of one Roman Reigns. Held up above his head, Karl and Luke at his side and the Samoan beast on his back.

Victory.

“Last week, we gave Roman a nice reminder of who exactly he was mouthing off,” Finn continues, accent thick. “Since he apparently forgot who took his title, who beat him down into the ground so hard he forgot his own name.”

A hush fell over the crowd; very rarely did any of them try to defend Reigns, and it was no content who they preferred. Which was unfortunate, considering the man’s work ethic, but that wasn’t his problem.

“A month of us running the show, and still people step up to try and knock us down. What more is it going to take for you all to realize that there is nobody who can drag us down? This is our company, and there isn’t a damn soul who can take it from us!”

He relishes the taste of truth, the knowledge of his strength, the strength of his stable. It is his world now—

The lights go out.

Finn startles just as the crowd begins to work itself into a frenzy, his brothers muttering choice curse words as they stumbled into one another in their haste to get their bearings straight.

The lights flicker, once, twice, and then remain completely off.

An excited murmur begins to make its way through the crowd, the only visible lights being the phones and the exit doors at the top of the arena. His eyes wander.

There’s a figure standing in one doorway, silhouetted by the white light from the hallway. Heart in his throat, Finn swings his head towards another exit, where another body awaits. And then in the third doorway, a figure larger than the first two.

Familiar.

Realization hits him like a spear to the gut.

A second passes.

And then another.

Sierra. Hotel. India. Echo. Lima. Delta.

SHIELD.

Bright, blue light flooded the arena, the beat dropping and the familiar theme song ringing throughout the building. Finn takes in a sharp breath, wild eyes watching as Dean Ambrose, Seth Rollins, and Roman Reigns begin to make their way through the crowd, dressed in familiar, black gear and wearing the skeletal masks they’d debuted shortly before Seth’s betrayal.

The crowd’s yelling reaches a fever pitch, shock vibrating through the hundreds of people at the sight of one of the most dominant stables in the history of the company reunited.

Finn parts his legs, stiffens, and waits.

Dean spares Seth a glance, the quirk of his lips hidden by the cloth around the lower half of his face. He sure as hell hopes the asshole trips over the barricade, reminiscent of the isolated incident from years ago; if anybody deserves it, it was him. He himself makes it over perfectly, the swift action coming to him without a thought.

When he had hauled Roman backstage the night Bálor had stolen the title, the older man had been a mess of anger and bitterness. Dean had been a quiet, solid weight to lean on, making sure his friend got to the locker room they were sharing with no trouble from preying eyes. It took a solid hour to bandage Roman up and help him into comfortable clothes, Renee seated next to them and whispering soothing words into both of their ears as Roman simmered and Dean worked.

Renee Young is a bright light and he doesn’t deserve her, not one bit. The thought of his wife brings a silly smile to his face as he began to circle the ring, eyes locked on Finn.

The two of them had managed to get Roman into their car with little difficulty, the trip back to the hotel one of silence until Roman cracked a joke and melted the tension away. They would cut their losses, would lick their wounds, and would go back for more.

Just like always.

He can still vividly remember the exact moment Roman had formulated their plan, this mess of a reunion and bandaging of old betrayals. The man had found him after a physical match against Wyatt, the kind that left Dean aching in the worst ways. Had sat him down, trepidation as clear as day on his face as he shifted back and forth in his seat.

“Bálor’s a problem,” Roman started, voice low. Dean settled further into his seat, attention only diverted when Renee entered the room with a warm smile. He returned the gesture, pulling her close as soon as she settled into the couch next to him.

“Man’s a pain in the ass,” Dean drawled, shooting his brother a tiny smirk. Still, he felt a bolt of anger shoot through him at the reminder of Bálor taking Roman’s title. A slight against one of them was a slight against all of them. “Got something in mind to deal with him?”

“Yeah, but you’re not gonna like it, brother.”

Immediately, there was a shift in the atmosphere. Dean blinked, taking in Roman’s rigid form and the guilt suddenly clouding his eyes. If he could, he’d give Roman the world, and his brother knew that. What could he possibly be thinking of asking that called for guilt? Dean didn’t love easily, but when he did, there wasn’t a price he wouldn’t pay for those he held dear.

Roman knew that, too.

“Spit it out, man,” he finally spoke, tone sober and nothing like his usual self. He could tell when a situation called for seriousness, could be serious when it mattered.

“We can’t take the Club on by ourselves. We…we need him, Dean.”

Him.

Seth.

Dean felt his heartbeat break out into an erratic pace, the feeling of Renee’s hand over his skin doing nothing to slow the vessel down. Roman watched him carefully, looking for any signs of distress, anything that meant he had to nip this bud of an idea before it grew.

“He stabbed us in the back, Rome,” his voice is deceptively soft, albeit enough of a reminder of what kind of hell had followed that steel chair. “He…my head went through cinderblocks. He put my head through cinderblocks, after everything we’d gone through. You’re telling me we need that? Him? Until when? Until he hits us with another chair? Or maybe it’ll be a baseball bat this time, or a sledgehammer, or the stairs!”

Slowly, but surely, his voice rose in volume, and by the time he was done, Dean was yelling, his words bouncing off the falls and falling back inwards to suffocate him; he wasn’t sure if he was breathing. Renee is steadfast in her comfort, moving into his lap and letting him cradle her close as he struggled to regain his composure.

Roman reached out, grabbing Dean’s knee and squeezing softly.

“Never again,” he vowed, voice hard. “Never again will I let him lay a hand on you. Never again will you have to have your back to him. Until I’m dead and my body’s gone cold, I’ll be standing between both of you. He’s different, Dean, but I don’t expect you to change your mind about him. He doesn’t deserve it, and I know, brother, I know there are wounds that time doesn’t heal. I know this is one of them. All I’m asking for is some time for us to tear Finn Bálor’s little fan club apart, enough time to restore order to this place, and then you never have to team up with him again. We serve justice, and then we’re done.”

They lock eyes. Dean finds the sincerity, the promise, burning bright in Roman’s eyes, and Roman finds reluctance in his.

But Roman was a part of his family, his only brother, the rock that withstood his storm. He held just as much of Dean’s heart as Renee, in a different way.

And there wasn’t a damn thing he wouldn’t do for him.

“Fine. Fine, we’ll recruit the little weasel.”

A hand touches his shoulder, and Dean jolts out of the memory, eyes locking with Roman’s as he nods down at him. Something presses against his palm; Seth is handing him a mic.

He takes it. Pulls down the mask, eyes the trio in the ring.

Smirks.

“Well, well, well,” he begins, his words stringing together in a way that sounded both warm and dangerous. He watches the way Finn’s eyes narrow, loves the calculating look. “You boys sure made a lot of claims, hmm?”

He pauses. Let’s his words sink in, waits for the anticipation to begin to mount. The fear; the paranoia. Mind games are what he’s good at.

“You beat down Roman not once, but twice, with no regard for who he is. You stupidly, recklessly, forgot he was a hound of justice long before he was Superman.”

The crowd cheers, unhinged, and Dean moves forward, feels Rollins and Roman following his lead. The energy in the air bleeds into his skin, heartbeat racing and pounding against his chest as he sizes up their opponents. It was a good feeling, a lost feeling, and he drowned himself in it for a moment.

Only a moment, before he grabs a rope and jumps up onto the apron, shortly followed by the others. The crowd’s excitement climbs as he stares Finn in the eye, makes his anger abundantly clear.

This man has put his hands on Roman. A stupid mistake, and Dean will make sure he pays dearly for it.

A slight against one is a slight against all.

“And we hounds of justice? Well, if there’s anything that could bring us out of the shadows together, Bálor, it’s injustice. And this little group you got going over here? The greatest injustice of them all.”

Gallows and Anderson begin moving closer, but it’s isn’t enough.

They will make sure it isn’t enough.

Dean Ambrose is a man of many words, and they are words he knows how to use properly. But he doesn’t have very many left, not for this particular moment.

So, he lets them go, just as Finn’s instincts kick in.

“But don’t worry, we’ll fix that soon enough.”

They pounce.

It’s quick work, really, and momentum is on their side; Dean slams heavily into Gallows, sending the man rolling across the canvas. A kick later and he’s bouncing off the ground, crashing into the tables with little fanfare.

Beside him, Seth does the same to Anderson, locking eyes with Dean only after the fact. Time slows around them, and Dean can almost hear Seth’s question, can almost feel the desperate hope emitting from the younger man’s skin.

He nods, once, twice, and then they’re racing, and flying, and suicide diving into both Anderson and Gallows.

The rush is a drug, but Dean let it go years ago. The euphoria’s nothing compared to the cold kiss of steel he became familiar with.

He didn’t need it—him—any longer; without any fanfare, he climbs back into the ring, where Roman is standing over Bálor. Doesn’t look back to see if Seth is watching.

Doesn’t have to. Doesn’t want to.

Doesn’t need to.

They gather around him, the crowd chanting ‘this is awesome’ without pause. There has been no break in the excessive cheering since long before the beat-down, and it is a liberating thought, knowing that the higher-ups will be immensely pleased with the reaction.

Good. Let the world know who really ran the yard.

Roman throws his head back, hair swinging, and howls like his life depends on it. With a nasty grin, Dean and Seth hoist Bálor’s limp body onto their shoulders, and together, the three of them slam his body down into the canvas. Like riding a bicycle after years of nothing.

Like a homecoming.

Their fists slam together, snarls matching.

A tidal wave of cheers erupts through the crowd, bodies jumping up and down as the Shield stood triumphant, once more, to close out the night.

It’s a good feeling.

It’s an even better sight.

[vicioushyperbolizer]

Ok so so ok. I Adore your nurseydex fics. Can i maybe possibly request a fic? Maaaaaybe one where they try to work out living together without the team finding out that they're dating maybe? Its chill sauce if you aren't taking prompts rn or anything don't stress it starshine

a/n: Sorry this took so long and that it’s less than amazing. 

With a sigh of relief that he wasfinally (FINALLY) back at the Haus after a long day of classes, Dexquickly made his way through the door, hoping to slip up the stairs unnoticed. He wasn't in the sort of mood to run into anyone. He justwanted to get comfortable and maybe cuddle with his boyfriend.

Of course, that meant that he wasstopped precisely four steps into the Haus by an aggressivelycheerful Bitty, bearing a plate piled high with sandwiches. Dexwanted to hit himself for forgetting that he had texted Bitty earlierto complain that he had forgotten his bagged lunch on the kitchencounter (because yes, shut up, he took bagged lunches... his classschedule didn't give him enough time to buy food on campus). And,because he was that sort of friend, Bitty promised to have lunchwaiting for Dex when he got done for the day.

Dex didn't want to have lunch withBitty, even if he made the best sandwiches, bar none. He justwanted to lay with Nursey and get his hair played with and maybe getoff. He couldn't tell Bitty any of that, though, so Dex gave hiscaptain a tight smile and followed him into the living room.

“Just a heads up, Dex, Nursey isalready here. Gotta fuel up before whatever fight y'all are gonnahave today.”

We're not going to fight!,Dex wanted to yell. We've been going out for six monthsand none of you bothered to notice.

Hedidn't though. Instead, he grabbed a sandwich of the top of the pileand shoved it in his mouth, then grimaced. Apparently that wasBitty's stack, because it had more mustard than meat. Dex tried notto gag when he set it back down on the plate and grabbed a new one.

Bittyspent the next 20 minutes sending concerned looks his way that Dexpretended he didn't see. That would mean having a conversation, whichmeant not getting to go upstairs, the exact opposite of what hewanted. So, he made sure to have food in his mouth at all times, andgot up immediately when he was done eating.

Hethrew a casual “Thanks for lunch” over his shoulder as he boundup the stairs.

Nursey had their bedroom door proppedopen with the stupid unicorn like he usually did. They both hated thething, but Nursey refused to admit it. Dex kicked it out of the way alittle harder than necessary (he wanted it gone more than he wantedto win the standoff about it, and that was saying something).

Nursey was laying on the top bunk,something they started doing when they realized it was easier to hidethat they were laying together if anyone barged in. Dex hated it. Hehated that it was necessary. He threw his bag on the floor, notwatching where it landed, and rolled onto the bottom bunk. He kickedhe flimsy mattress above him a few times with his socked feet.

“come down here, asshole.”

Practically, there was no differencebetween laying together on the top bunk or the bottom bunk. They wereboth too small and too lumpy. They both knew there was no reason forNursey to switch beds. Nursey didn't point any of that out, though.Instead, he rolled off the top bunk and lumbered into the bottom tojoin Dex.

As soon as he seemed comfortable, Dexclung to him like a limpet. Nursey, the saint, didn't say anythingabout that, either. He just let Dex wrap around him as he slipped ahand into curly red hair. The tension that had been building betweenDex's shoulders eased the tiniest bit.

They laid there for a while, Nursey'shands running through Dex's hair while Dex tried to put his feelingsinto words. It was something he was working on, processing hisemotions instead of just reacting to them. Mostly he sucked at it,but he was trying. For Nursey (the woman at the counselling centersaid he should be trying for himself, but Dex was still having a hardtime believing he was worth that effort... but he could do it forNursey).

Once he felt like he had his thoughtssomewhat gathered, he asked, “Why haven't we told the team we'redating?”

Nursey tried to pull back enough to seeDex's face, but the bunk was too small. He settled for holding on tohim tighter, instead.

“Well, Ransom and Holster said itwould be easier this way, and you thought it would be a good idea, sowe agreed.”

Which was true. Right before summerstarted, after Lardo had moved her things out and Dex and Nursey weremoving their things in, Holster had walked in on them making out inthe mostly empty bedroom. Dex expected him to go yelling it throughthe Haus, but instead, he sat them down and told them about him andRansom. Except...

“Everyone knew they were together,though. They weren't really hiding anything. And they thought thatthe team wouldn't understand the whole them and March and Aprilthing. I mean, look how happy Bitty is now that everyone knows abouthim and Jack.”

This time, Nursey did pull away enoughto look at Dex, and ended up half-off the bunk because of it. He hada little smirk and a glimmer in his eye. “You wanna tell everyoneabout us?”

“Well, maybe. Yeah. I do.”

Nursey's smirk turned into a widesmile.”Awww, you like me.”

“Whatever, don't go that far. Youjust don't annoy me enough to pretend I hate you around everyoneelse.”

Nursey rolled his eyes, but pulled Dexin for a sloppy kiss anyway. For Dex, that was practically a loveconfession. But that could come later. So could telling everyone.

Dex tried to deepen the kiss, but theyended up rolling straight off the bed, instead. They landed with a thump. Seconds later, a shout came from downstairs. “If I have toseparate you, it's on y'all's head, you hear?”

They both laughed until they couldn'tanymore, then kissed until it turned into something else entirely.

[tnp4tbowm]

THOTS & PRAYERS FOR THE BROTHERHOOD OF WHITE MEN

is what I’m gonna call this mess

since we’re the demo that does them best

if thots and prayers mean acting less

or voting against marginalized groups with minority stress… as if women at conference tables… and brown folks in dorms… need white guys subtracting more… and I know we use categories for making sense… and giving names to groups we haven’t met

but no

WHY DO YOU HATE WHITE MEN THAT’S LIKE ME SAYING I HATE FAGGOTS AND LATINAS

my brother

on the phone while I’m at an intersection

but what about flesh in the grass and women in ironworking and los trumpistas in southern california and pixie boys in kootenai county and ill-eagles fireworks on the skokomish reservation and mothers nursing children in rocking chairs at spokane international airport… and steer ropers staring in horses’ eyes… and words so strong they become actions like “guilty” and “I hereby pronounce you”

I want to say

it comes down to

while animals aim for physical victory bc they’re rewarded by evolutionary gain… my brother aims for high-volume sucker-punching bc… well same

no no no I reassure myself… I’ve prepared for this moment… covering my bedroom walls with butcher paper and definitions for agápē and wisdom and grace

the light turns green

in seattle where my boyfriend and I saw a band named “boyfriends”… consisting of three guys some with girlfriends maybe play-acting “gay”

not the faggot town I grew up in

did I say faggot town

flipped my thoughts

I live with faggots now

bc of course I moved away

from where I was raised… where ladies in subdivisions filled rusted bathtubs with dahlias… and re-arranged living room sectionals and side tables… and guys in trailer parks worked on TVs in their yards

I never smeared deer blood on my face after a kill… and neither did my brother

we never paintballed stop signs… or climbed trees to catch squirrels (the unofficial after-school workout of the wrestling team)… or nailed the bloody skins to the weight room wall… or chilled in the parking lot with the tenth-grade science teacher slash security guard

where I grew up

white trash was designated white as opposed to other dodgy colors

wonder if the cafeteria table at school still says derek smith is a fag… I see blocky letters behind my eyes… nirvana on the lawn… holding a stick next to a praying mantis… hoping she’ll crawl on

live in the same place long enough and the frogs will be gone

each year I bike a block further

find certainty in school

lay around and think about what's true

leave cleats books water bottles in the living room

train for x-country in july and august… dream of anthropology and art history in college… parents fill out FAFSA forms

unconscious

at the intersection of my privs

square jaw wide grip

I give in

I say to my brother

driving by the gaybucks

are you serious? I ask... you want to do this rn? you think I hate white men? you didn’t show much interest in my self-hatred when we were teens

we were raised to read widely on top of doing our homework for English class… stories about white men unable to find work or shelter… I stayed awake by reading one chapter in the basement of our three-story home and another chapter in the bath… and another chapter in the basement… and another in the bath

it was 1997 and everyone was wearing ck jeans and eternity cologne and disappearing into the wood paneling of their basements

not everyone wrote a 5-paragraph paper on why abortion was wrong

but I did

most people ate the pro-life sundaes at youth group

as the tin man in our high school production of “The Wizard of Oz”… I dreamed of a fabulous life in the emerald city… while listening to conservatives in the community complain about the presence of witches and pagan values in the play… a few token liberals described how the Wicked Witch’s green skin and Glinda’s button nose… equated virtue with appearance

I worked on a farm for $

hi-ho the derrrrrrrrry-o

faggot on the farm

flesh in the grass

telling stories and pulling weeds as I acknowledged “weed” was a human category… for life distinct from other forms of life… standing out in color and shape… budding out of place

when I got home I studied Zanie’s backwoods dialect in Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God”

four years later

ash-covered New Yorkers crossed the Brooklyn Bridge with their hands on their faces

I picked blueberries on Mount Rainier… asked if subalpine flowers should smell like dryer sheets… if lakes should be toilet tab blue

¾” threaded galvanized pipe two chain links eye bolts flag

supplies list from the guy at the rest-stop on the way home… old glory should stand up to a 96 mile trip up to 70 mph

I went to work folding taco wrappers into triangles like nothing had happened… and made food with beef that showed up in boxes marked “fit for human consumption”… staging mexi-fries under heat lamps in groups of two or three

while boy george (w.) signed the Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism act

after work I slept in self-inflicted poverty in a house full of guys who did backyard enemas and drank jars of pee and kept mushroom journals… and changed my opinion about property ownership… bc why bother storing up treasure when human possession is an illusion… and condoleeza rice has a chevron tanker named after her

we argued about earth history and theological precepts like pre-destination

but agreed

god’s complacent

should be more like the hippie guy in the volkswagen van… with Eden Before The Fall painted one side… and Eden After The Fall on the other… and a nice patch of grass growing on top

textbooks copied screens

fireplaces provided intimacy w/o heat

virtual experiences dominated references in speech

green-tongued goats on forest service roads licked antifreeze

we asked if the phone was real or surround sound prestige... did the spin instructor in the windowless gym want sixty percent on hills or ninety percent on streets… is the norway maple transplanted to the front lawn of the new house conveying a line of aristocratic family wealth

an old-growth tree

the entrepreneur in an education workshop talked about “products” metaphorically

a patriot/explorer on a mustang/bronco went on an expedition/excursion to the frontier/tundra… passing through the winnebago tribe saying

srry bout it

the kids on the makah reservation don’t want whale sandwiches

wal-mart got blue and target red

white wonder bread 

happy meals

j. christ

c.e.o.

5 lb cereal

4 brown ghosts

the speaker at the commencement ceremony joked, “what’s the difference between Pullman and a cup of yogurt?”

the cup of yogurt has more culture

zuckerberg’s hoodie went from “disregard for convention” to “purity of intention”… for someone too focused to worry about clothes… monastic gray was helping folks

now we’re here

we’re here

at the mindfulness weight loss retreat… three raisins… six almonds… the right herbal tincture… twenty minutes in the redwoods

dragging

the past in front of us bc it happened

we’re at home eating pancakes with butter and syrup and powdered sugar… but the sugar is crushed-up hydroxycut

city buildings capture sun for the 20%

hey shadows

and data-mining companies have been adding my places of employment and the mesh shorts I almost bought… and the dreams I deferred and the shows I watch… to their digital dossier of me… and I guess the gazing goes one way but not the other… like church… where predictive analytics play upon thirsts…  and hunt me down like unicorn shirts

what’s next

trees drop plastic fruits

domesticated deer eat out of troughs

stunt-double bears rent suits in parking lots

forest rangers lasso the last of the orioles and roll up the sky

no

we learn

the last time I had a long island iced was... the last time I had a long island iced tea

seeeeeeeeeeeeeee

bro

I’m doing better

you’re like me

except I’m a busybody

with no kids

wish: “pc lecture with moral authoritarian tone by urban elite who reflexively rejects critiques of globalization”… reads “fearless inventory in a world where ‘quinoa empanadas’ are a thing… and platters of deviled eggs watch the horizon”

so even as I call your baby’s bedroom view of the skyline from your island home

privilege bestowed

I call out myself

for lavender cookies and oatmeal soap

never noticing appropriation in cartoon indian smokes

white peace pipe under a red sun on a yellow box

database of ruin snapshots

you know how I spent those years teaching high school in gig harbor… what you don’t know is I had two Hispanic sisters… Maria and Paula… spend a quarter translating children’s books on sticky notes

they

smiled

yawned

bored

I was their teacher and offered “support”

(but if you need more… in 2009 I was plucking spraying spiking shaving shoving… like the guys on jersey shore… watched every episode and called it my reward… for getting through two president bushes)

the founding fathers designed our branches of government to withstand the likes of King George

(also: granted love to gather more of it, shirked a wrong but lorded over it)

psychologically spiraling… debating if I should share the video of the first lady in the blue dress staring at her feet during inaugural prayer… wondering if I’m feeling personal irritability or existential despair… if I have “compassion fatigue” from doing “emotional labor” in my newsfeed

why someone hasn’t invented a female-friendly pee trough between the knees… why menopausal sensuality gets teased… why testosterone means feeling confident about incorrect answers

have the decency to feel guilty

living off the massive retail workforce stocking big-box brick-and-mortar stores and online fulfillment centers

what did we expect

detaching personal accountability from global effects

what did you think

watching nature documentaries frame lions as villains… positing giraffes as victims… when we know aggression isn’t something “we get out of our systems”

but confessing rings wrong

I say to my brother

pulling up to my apartment home

ear hot from the phone

how’s the kid

peeing blood

good… he’s got a kitchen set with a stove and dishwasher… he cooks plastic things while he toot-toots… farts on command... he says

I hope he’s reading “Radical American Women A-Z” and “The Adventures of Toni the Tampon”… I say… and playing with the nine new ken dolls with ethnically ambiguous face-sculpts… developing new play patterns… bc brown kids asked to play with “the good doll” choose the white doll… and still grow up overly disciplined at school… by administrators analyzing “racial predictability and dis-proportionality in achievement categories”… without saying the word “racist”

I like body positive post-holiday ken his paunch

also our white immigrant ancestors got rich enslaving Blacks

(the rest of the starter kit for understanding institutional injustice can be found online @ www.google.com)

(intermediate: people of color fight against constructed realities… internally and externally… and the racial imaginary overlaps with the gay imaginary bc invisible people need some space to practice their fkn moves… but what about time and place… whose ear does the hearing… which mouth translates)

o say can I… being me… understand how corporate restructuring shows one face and sublimates others… contributes to oppression where double consciousness affects women and people of color

o say can I hear the oppressors’ voices renegotiate my thoughts decolonize space

where do I fit in? will there be room for me? how do I make room for others?

my brother suddenly has to go asks if you’ll be him on the phone

yes

it's complicated

but yes

(if you're not my brother and the request is nbd bc you've always heard the voices of white men… I invite you to continue… if you’d rather not… peace be with you… let’s hang soon… I love you)

and right there did you feel that [ [ [ [

in actual life we aren’t there yet… I hung up the phone after “faggots and Latinas”... bc my hands were shaking so hard I could barely steer

typical of you to back out of conversation before we say the hurtful things you say

before we say the hurtful things? before? I ask

1) well at least I finally have the upper hand with you thinking you can threaten broken bonds 2) I’ve never seen two belief systems more perfectly in line 3) I guess you stand for democratic values most of the time

we’ll never know what’s depraved and what's divine… I can’t read hearts and I can’t read minds

already I had escaped into the televised self-help seminar in my head… where I am the host rolling up my sleeves…  ready to hear from household cleaner huffing sisters… and visualize problems worse than mine

after the commercial break I engage the girls in patient-therapist interactions... mixing hard-hitting realism and hypersensitive dialogue… as intolerable and inauthentic as my wife’s bouffant

basically I’m dr. phil… but also… if it’s okay with you… I’d love to try being the girls… who haven’t seen their father since they were two

and later during the re-tape… the visiting expert with a new self-help book… explains the “colorization of the soul”… saying “I think it makes sense to nurture the ‘daily me’ before skimming the news… look here… on the color rubric… reds before blues”

red apples picked by farm workers with multiple SSNs

blue mechanics in overalls twirling ballpoint pens

white eggshell enamel over pink or saccharine

symbols up for grabs… by anyone… bc that’s what I was told growing up and believed… I can be anyone I wanna be

hope the same for Muslim girls wearing spandex hijabs in P.E.

our country is not exempt… when campaign rallies look like nests… but I know I’m like… eighty-two percent spoon-fed/tone-deaf

tomorrow

is a child’s flying drone-wish… where native plants have extraordinary ability visas like the biebs… germinate round-up ready soft white wheat… and facial recognition software on my self-driving truck beeps… bc I’m not wearing guyliner… and lack ethereum cryptocurrency

so I walk into a bar and borrow liquid pencil

apply it in the mirror by the urinal

remembrance of things pabst

love comes in spurts

the worst

hasn’t

hap-

pened

be around

no

thanks

I’ll be a morel mushroom full of vitamin d in the dark

an emerald city queer in the shadow of Rainier where bark is bark

mist from the Nisqually River rolls above the fast part

torrent > P2P file sharing

a robot hands me a warm towel after yoga… scans my sweat for communicable diseases

construction workers buy baguettes out of a wheelbarrow… from my kids

paid in no-nuance knockoff dramatized black lady gifs

blood on their faces hunting feral pigs

allahu akbar… on the fortieth click… means more than the first search results about jihadist battle cries… jihad… means more than the first search results about holy wars

as-salaam aleikum… peace be unto you

ah

saw-lahm

all-lay-koooooooom

while keeping an eye on the horizon

for crowd estimation software in weather balloons

across the un-crossable Puget Sound

not really

we live in western wash.

what I’m saying is… I’m not traveling down Tolkien’s path… climbing Silverstein’s precipice… crossing a toothpick pier… or boarding a balsa wood boat… for a “dialogue event”… when I see you across this metaphorical inlet

not everything overlaps… smoke + fog = smog… marionette + puppet = muppet… enchilada + burrito = enchurrito… intermingling > provinciality…but apple slices on guacamole is white people saying to Mexicans we want your food and want to “touch” it too

eww

I want the queer bar full of queers… and that’s true of any gathering place… the identity shifts with who’s there and who stays… for physical touch and feeling safe... and cultural intensification... we congregate

I could never hate feminist separatists reading sappho by lyre

agrarian nationalists and queer energy collectives disappear

cross the cascades… to north idaho… passport in hand to show agents at the skin of the bubble… preparing for my cousin the welder… who can’t get out of his trailer… and my dad who says seat belts and metric measurements are communist and has a legal pad with instructions for working the computer

the girl on the greyhound says she didn’t go to college for four years to sit on her ass and bake cookies

been awhile

a few days later I ride in the back of our uncle’s truck to the parade… where grandma reminds me to keep my beer tabs so kristy will get a party for her class… as we set up folding chairs on the sidewalk… to watch shriners on little cars… and wave at hooters girls on the make-a-wish float… the mayor… always pooping in other people’s pants… grandma says… as we find ourselves standing and clapping for the coeur d’alene tribe

after mayor and police go by

later help grandma make tater tot hot dish... wrap the pan in a bath towel she pulls from a cabinet full of towels stacked vertically like pizza boxes

small talk

fawn over the s’mores pie with graham cracker crumbs on bottom and top… especially the marshmallowy middle

oh oops

did I go there

pre-prayer

here’s the thing… the alliances we need to overcome the monster are never what we think they are… and seeing anti-american sentiment in the firmament… and indicator species’ temperaments… reminds us the world collects… and/or usurps the throne… the debt is more than we think we owe… there won’t be polite knocking or ceremonial drumming… by so-called “others” we didn’t see coming

solution… testing limits… and I don’t mean excusing myself to get the wings by the jumper cables in the trunk… walking back in and telling everyone angel gabriel is here… saying… oh I guess this isn’t… is this not the sexy jesus party with a crucifix selfie station?

omg that hoe over there

our arguments are basically light divisions… internal-only obstacles where I go back and forth debating

I know

this makes you wanna scream into the phone

well

here’s a semi-autobiographical lyric novella in the form of an epic poem

typical passive progressiveness… I can’t even talk to you face-to-face… when you wanna chill by the water tank… I communicate via popsicle stick messages in the gutter / everyone on tumblr

one thing’s for sure… we’re giving up some things... s’mores pie is on the table… but it’s not on the table… of sacrifices I’ll be making… bc I love s’mores pie

we don’t wanna give up anything but we have to try

our lives are characterized by conveniences with steep costs

like celery and bell peppers and onions already chopped

people with invisibility powers can’t be stopped

rowing outside San Diego and the Gulf

above cracked pipes and pvc

clouds of oil

grass and reeds

dragonflies and damselflies with heavy wings

on multi-generational round-trips without breaks to breathe in juniper trees

addition: we had a seed vault… a plan b food bank… to take care of us... in case a plague trapped in siberian ice destroyed our crops… but ten years went by without permafrost… and car-less urbanites with mileage plans... shrugged and said there was nothing they could do

a collapsed ice shelf is another place for cargo ships to pass through

our ecosystems depend on conversations among interlocking interdependent parts… more than mermaid toast or zombie shows… or mother nature wish-fulfillment fantasies… where we ask quail and cranes in the forest… to come out of the trees and lift us away by our shoulder pads

our second eye watches the ground… as we pace sidewalks disrupted by roots… thank inchworms for decompositions…. trace the paths of ants on the side… turn our ears like ferris wheels on the sly

inner vision attuned

wilderness survival guide

I do not have superior autobiographical memory like my faggot boyfriend does… brother… but if I remember right you beat up the guy who peed on my backpack in ninth grade… bc the next passing period… he apologized

I’m in bed rn… thinking about how I hate your muscular public practice… but needed it… srry for being confused

the word is not the thing

the menu is not the food

the plan

after I’ve figured out what I can give up

is to invite people to a park

grand theft auto fans

promote

slacktivist slash accent coach

mom in dallas… cashier cleric caregiver… competing for section 8 vouchers

developer counting kickbacks and calories... at a housing tax credit industry gathering

middle-aged man afraid to lose… leaving Buenavista for Baton Rouge… parents of dead black kids don’t know what to do… Saudi women barred from carpools… El Salvadoran sugarcane harvesters… closeted Egyptian police officers… Filipino nannies tinikling to Lil’ Wayne… trans women fighting the state… Miss Texas 1988… Harlotte O’Scara Hellen Tragedy… snake handler crab trapper… adjunct professor qualitative researcher… world’s most prolific fortune cookie writer… Bible Jim… shirtless guy next to him in briefs and “This man gave me a blowjob” sharpied on his chest

salmon in gasoline

up the bank across the street

pipeline burst on whatcom creek

hyper-empathic hatchimal colleggtor

trained to serve but not hit back

except in tennis lessons

the male coach

flips that

srry

gay hater cake maker cradle labeler

homo-plausible bi-logical

floral arranger

retain it or give it away

intellectual property is three chords

and the person with less power says you're not allowed

your brother

it’ll be the opposite of when I showed up at your house after my wife left me… and you opened the door… and I collapsed in your arms in the hallway… and bc you’re a few inches taller than me… and my knees wouldn’t work… you saw the nail marks on the walls of my subconscious

we’ll play a game… where we introduce ourselves

recall times in our lives with less repetition more repair

describing versions of ourselves adding post-scripts unaware

listing words we never use: farce, fatuous, machination, myopic, subterfuge

sorting beliefs by size date modified proof

discuss satire-less south park

duraflame start

galvanize flake n rust

behave spontaneously n not combust

help hippielandia hostel in flames

learn ancient proto-langs

repeat shit we wanna forget

like, has anyone checked on the family in the nuclear train car yet

we’ll discuss what should change… what should stay the same… believe ourselves capable of restraint… revive the practice of communal processing… where townspeople gather side by side… to watch events from the day reenacted in light

practice… on a page

like in a play

oceans and lands… dna strands… airspace… electromagnetic spectrums… gridded and privatized… but the public square

ACT I

CURTAINS OPEN ON PARK/SQUARE. TOWNSPEOPLE GATHER IN HALF-CIRCLE. MISSILE, WEATHER BALLOON, AND RED SUN HANG OVERHEAD

NICO: “I’ve been thinking about how I might convey my progressive morals in a way that sounds wholesome to my family.”

ISSA: “I’m done with that. I spend ten dollars on tampons at the store and my husband gets a bowlful of condoms every time he orders a jaeger shot. Then if I mention the disparity he blames ‘red tide.’ When I needed postnatal care to stop my fourth trimester pants-pissing, my doctor’s visit wasn’t covered. Society isn’t family friendly. I spend forty-minutes on the couch organizing housework and childcare each week, and regardless of what society says, that’s project management.”

JASLENE: “Last year my teacher gave everyone two bathroom passes and if you didn’t use them they were worth extra credit, so I left bloody circles on the chair para mostrarle que esto es lo que sucedería.”

CROWD SILENCES. BOY IN “WANNA LIFT?” SHIRT LEAVES. DARLENE STEPS TO THE MIDDLE.

DARLENE (to vacated space, then to group): “We’ll miss you… Every manifestation of good and evil has part of the answer, but also, immovable people will not be moved. We will show civil inattention by giving him the space he needs.”

MARK: “I’ll never represent my beliefs adequately since I have trouble telling the barber how I want my hair without the assistance of visual aids, but I’m here to talk anyway.”

JAMES: “We're standing on varying levels of culturally constructed oppressive frames and the only way to deconstruct the artifice as it exists is to stand on the ones that are more entrenched and take apart the ones that are less entrenched.”

SOFÍA: “I’m so confused by the fact that I’m not supposed to feel shame, except for all the things I’m supposed to feel shameful about, which aren’t the things I thought were shameful. Am I supposed to know what a ‘gender illusionist’ is? I thought liking men made my nephew gay.”

CURTAINS CLOSE

overheard in audience:

they’re not connecting… just waiting turns and expressing

let’s not underestimate the hard work of avoiding moral outrage

dismayed at the repetition of “but” while conversation disintegrates

hang on

looking up cognac insta chef’s recipe for caramel-drizzled hennessy cupcakes

unwilling to listen generously… while aiming for an ending other than intensifying favoritism is like nailing jelly to a tree

using a chainsaw to cut butter

jumping from flower to flower in a fern gulley type situation

pragmatism is a dangerous alternative to conviction

ACT II

CURTAINS OPEN. CHARACTER ‘YOU’ GAZES OUT OF HOUSE WINDOW ON AN ISLAND, STAGE LEFT. CHARACTER ‘ME’ LOOKS OUT APARTMENT WINDOW IN A CITY, STAGE RIGHT

In unison: I promise me: to fight for-profit prisons, schools, and kidney-dialysis centers. you: [ [ [ [

In unison: I think I can give up me: the scholarship I got in college and give it to someone who needs it. But don’t touch the s’mores pie. you: [ [ [ [

In unison: I’ve been thinking about me: what you shared with me about China building artificial land around the Spratly Islands. And how prison construction companies look at standardized test data from second grade children of color. you: [ [ [ [

In unison: I believe I am owed me: a reply. Not long, but something. you: [ [ [ [

In unison: I care about me: how Ryan and Jesse’s mom used to put Carl Budding lunchmeat with mayonnaise and mustard in a blender… set it on ‘mash’ for a game of Duck Hunt… scoop it into Tupperware… and smear it on white bread throughout the week. I would eat that over apples on guacamole. The real globaloney. you: [ [ [ [

In unison: I hope me: we find space to show real love to kenyan baboons in garbage dumps and dioxin babies walking like spiders with red septic skin and people in apartments named after species they’ve displaced and women planning the clean-up of their suicides. you: [ [ [ [

CURTAINS CLOSE: INTERMISSION

overheard in lobby:

coming up with a formula for interacting in common space

himalayan crystals from the mystic utilikit dude

maybe we’ll see them agree… or calm down… or point towards partial truth… or connect idealism to privilege

not youth

we know old folks are idealistic

planting seeds without expecting fruits

going to target and payless shoes

ACTS III+

CURTAINS OPEN ON PARK/SQUARE. TOWNSPEOPLE HUDDLE AROUND A RADIO, AS IF IN A SNOWSTORM.

RADIO: ... let it be that great strong land of love… where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme… that any man be crushed by one above…

DARLENE: “Starting sentences with ‘I’ is a good place to begin, but feelings of belonging go deeper. Shift responses bring the attention to ourselves. Support responses ask for more. Let’s be more than cannibals with knives and forks.”

MARK: “Food metaphors. We want to think about asking better questions. ‘What place most inspires you?’ instead of ‘Where have you traveled?’ ‘What work are you passionate about?’ instead of ‘What do you do?’”

JASLENE: “What's your weightiest belief? What's your most potent fear?”

RADIO: … clutching the hope I seek… and finding only the same old stupid plan… of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak… it never was America to me…

ISSA: “The desperate search for an ethic, a specter.”

JASON: “I am willing to give up my authority but don't touch my autonomy.”

RADIO: ... say, who are you that mumbles in the dark? and who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

YOU: [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [ [

EPILOGUE

Before sharing my brother’s response, I want to say I wrote “Thots & Prayers” because women get fewer obituaries than men in newspapers. Because the Baltimore Orioles lost way back when they had no tree canopy in which to land. Because trauma squats in the valley and anxiety raps her knuckles on the hill. Because Taco Bell spent 10 years and $15 mill developing stretchy cheese. Because men look at other men working in daycare centers and think they’re dumb for frittering away perks that should have been theirs from birth. Because my older brother yelled about faggots and Latinas after visiting the site of the Orlando Pulse shooting.

I am not looking to be comforted or assuaged.

White men need to educate each other. It’s not anyone else's job. We need to listen to the cultural conversation, see connections, and act on behalf of people who aren't seen. We need to be friendly in crowded places, and pull each other aside and be bridges.

I hope my family understands how many things will break if we don’t accommodate fragility. I’m not a metaphysician and don’t know about quantum mechanics or particle physics, but I know the phrase “I hope” is a glimmer of light living outside my rage. “I hope” signals my privilege. I hope to understand more about “I hope” in the context of everyday life in coming days.

As a beneficiary of entrenched systems, I work for everyone to have equal voice and access. I work for what’s best in my neighborhood and nation, on this striking and stunning and astoundingly polluted planet. I avoid asteroid-bashing. I avoid the ossification of stalemate. I avoid co-opting languages of the oppressed. I save room for warmth and time for children. I learn about neuro-diversity in the workplace and nutrient density in school lunches, and communicate generously about these issues and other issues, like the shared struggle for justice.

Mantras I’m saying and acting upon.

What’s mine is yours.

We do not need all the parts of the old society to create a new one.

If you feel inspired, please comment. I’d love to hear your weightiest belief, most potent fear, frustrations, considerations, qualifications, corrections, assessments, and agreements. No presh. I get nervous sharing my feelings, and words impact and behave differently for different people. The spaces between known grains of wood make wood strong.

I wasn’t sure if my brother would be a grain or a space. He’s the first person to admit he doesn’t read much and would rather talk on the phone or hash things out in person. Before sharing this, I called him up and said, “I’m about to send you a piece of writing. You don’t have to read the whole thing. You can always ‘Ctl. F’ and look for ‘brother.’”

Here’s what he wrote:

FYI, I don't really like you writing somewhat rude things about me and my house (which I take as jabs towards my wife and kids), etc. I don't do that towards you. I know there was some nice stuff too… I am communicating by e-mail as I know email is your preferred method, but at some point you need to realize I have feelings and opinions too, and don’t share them with everyone.

Right now I’m looking at 40+ people smoking joints outside the subsidized housing across the street. Wish I had that option. I wonder if their chronic drug use is helping out the health care system – I know they're not paying into it? I was up at 4:05 a.m. today to keep working toward losing that 20 lbs. so I'm not a burden on the system in the future. Learned that from Mom and Dad. I guess sometimes I feel ripped off. Need to get back to work now as I need to pay bills.

I’m sorry about the hate stuff that one day, you know I don't feel that way.

On another note, is hydroxycut good stuff?

R

He attached a document where he continued the conversation.

I promise to… take care of my kids and not cheat on my wife.

I’ve been thinking about… how to lose 20 more lbs. so I’m not dead when my kids are 40.

I feel like I am owed… nothing. I don’t feel I’m owed anything. Everyone chooses how to spend their money.

... and gave me prompts of my own.

In unison: I’ve been busy me: working about 12 hours per day if I count commuting and working on my house. you: [

In unison: I save my money for me: the future. I think I’m responsible for taking care of my own problems instead of hoping someone will help me out if something happens. you: [

In unison: I feel I’m privileged because me: I had a good Mom, Dad, and brothers growing up. I was never given any money, but having someone in your corner is more valuable. I am in your corner if you are in a pinch, and I know Mom and Dad are too. you: [

Working for a great strong land of love,

D

COLOPHON

Published on tumblr on Thursday, Aug. 10, “Thots & Prayers” is a phone transcript, visual essay, poem, and interactive self-help manual. I edited my brother’s written response for clarity. My mom took the pictures of my brother and me. My friend Jonathan Ursin took the pictures of me kneeling on the amphitheater stage and laying in the grass with rosary beads. I took the rest. Spanish phrases were proofed by Alè Barrientos. Radio broadcast lines are excerpted from Langston Hughes’ “Let America Be America Again.” Endorsement by Seattle performer Nico Pecans (they/them) / Miss Texas 1988 (she/her) is available. Lines from “James” and “Jason” are from interviews with James and Jason. PDF with original formatting shared upon request.

[rafespeaks]

Okay so… I was thinking about things today. And I’m gonna tell a story. (A few stories actually, loosely connected by general topic.) It may get a bit long and rambly though, so…yeah. Be prepared for that. Topics of note: childhood crushes, internalized homophobia, questioning sexuality, and unwanted pda.

So… As you probably all know by now, I am a lesbian on the ace spectrum. And it took me a REALLY long time to figure that out.

I was raised in a Mormon household, so the only exposure I really had to the LGBT+ community was hearing about people who were gay and how the Mormon religion didn’t approve of that type of relationship. I’m unsure how young I was when I first learned there was such a thing as gay people, but growing up the way I did, gay people seemed as far-away and fanciful as a unicorn riding a rainbow into the sunset. I had no idea that bi, pan, trans, ace, etc. people even existed. (Boy howdy was I gonna learn…)

Throughout my life, I’ve witnessed my mom marry four different people, three of which she’s divorced, the first of which being my father. From early on, I’d determined to not make the same mistakes my mother did. I would not get married early. I would not have a child so quickly. I would not jump into relationships willy-nilly - I’d build a strong friendship first and foremost and see what happened from there. Sex never appealed to me. From the first instant I was told about it, I never showed any interest. I never even had celebrity crushes, and fictional crushes were short-lived at best. I don’t know when I learned the term ‘asexual’, but I quickly realized that was exactly what I was. Or at least very close to it.

Looking back now, I can see there were several instances where the ‘lesbian’ side of my identity really came out.

When I was about, oh… twelve? I had two friends. One was a boy my age, the other his younger sister. I started out friends with the boy - we met on the bus on a school field trip - and met his sister later. His sister was more of my brothers’ friend after he met them, since he was closer to her age. But then, we kind of… switched friends. I still cared about the boy - he was still my friend. But I was just… drawn to his sister a little more. Then came the day we had to say goodbye. I was used to saying goodbye. I was good at it. We’d moved from place to place for a long while. It was a new school almost every school year. I was prepared for it. What I wasn’t prepared for was THEM moving. I was shaken up and struggling not to cry as we said goodbye. I hugged the girl… and got the inexplicable urge to kiss her. Later on, I wrote it off as ‘hugging not feeling like enough’. As ‘a kiss between friends and nothing more’. Of course, I didn’t ACTUALLY kiss her. But I thought about that moment from time to time afterwards. And I felt embarrassed and ashamed. Now, I only feel understanding. (I still have three separate numbers for their family in my phone’s contacts. It’s been about ten years. I never called them. They called me like… once and visited once after they’d moved. After that, I moved and never heard from them again.)

When I was in middle school, after I’d moved to Maryland and my parents finally had 50/50 custody, I met a new girl in my church class. I found out she liked Pokemon just as I did, and I stuck to her like glue for several years afterwards. Then she said I was annoying her and she needed some time to herself. I was pretty much devastated - she was my only friend at the time. But I respected her wishes and gave her her space. I haven’t really talked to her since…

When I was in high school, I met another girl who was also from my church class. She didn’t like Pokemon like me, but she was nice and lived close by. We became friends. But then my stepbrother (son of my stepmother) came into the picture. She started hanging around with him, despite me explaining just how awful he acted at home. We actually got into an argument at one point over which one of us knew her better. Then my stepmother told me they’d caught her and my stepbrother making out at the neighborhood playground. I felt utterly BETRAYED. I remember I wanted to call her a whore, even though it didn’t go beyond kissing. When my mom suggested I was jealous, I was appalled at the very thought. But she was right. And beyond that, I was hurt that she didn’t tell me she’d started dating my own stepbrother, no matter how abysmal my opinion of him was (and still is).

I never once realized those were crushes until long after each girl had left my life. I doubt I would’ve had a chance with any of them. But just the fact that I didn’t recognize them as crushes, even when I specifically wanted to kiss one of them, shows just how oblivious I was.

Something else that happened in high school:

I was fairly solitary most of the time. My school had four different lunch shifts, so even when I did have friends, it was highly unlikely we’d end up spending time together. I sat alone. I ate home lunches, an ice cream bar, or nothing, because my social anxiety was so bad I couldn’t bear to get in the lunch line. (The snack line was shorter and more manageable.) I never once ate a school lunch there. I sat at the same table nearly every day my entire four years of going there. I took pride in the fact that I didn’t get wrapped up in the rampant high school drama. I wasn’t shouting at people in the halls. I wasn’t getting into fights or wrestling people in the middle of class. I wasn’t getting pregnant like those few girls you could pick out of the crowd. I wasn’t even dating anyone.

Then along came this mentally handicapped boy. Now I have nothing against mentally handicapped people. But when neurotypical boys gave me unwanted attention I never believed they were genuine. I still don’t believe any of them ever were. So I pushed them away easily. This boy, on the other hand, I didn’t want to be nasty to. Because that would just be wrong, right? I can’t remember exactly what he said to me, but before long, he asked me if I was seeing anyone. I told him the truth - I wasn’t, I wasn’t looking, and he shouldn’t expect anything without getting to be my friend first. (Hello Demi!!!) He didn’t seem to get it. Either that or he just didn’t care. Soon enough, I found myself in the atrium with him. He grabbed ahold of my hand and introduced me to a group of girls as his ‘girlfriend’. I was too stunned and embarrassed to correct him. I was terrified that he’d try to kiss me. Thankfully, he left before anything more happened (for some reason). The girls laughed and asked me why I didn’t tell him off. I offered the lame excuse “I guess I’m just too nice.”

“Too nice.“ I never wanted to come off as ‘nice‘ in high school. I wanted to come off as scary and edgy and the kind of person who would tear your head off and leave you goddamn terrified because I wanted to be left the fuck alone. But I never got to that point. I don’t think I ever will. I avoided that kid like the plague afterwards. I didn't sit at my table. He knew that was where I sat. I didn't even go back in the lunchroom for weeks, maybe months. It wasn't worth the risk. I didn't want the attention. HIS attention.

Then I found this community on Tumblr. I learned about all the different sexualities and romantic orientations - most of which I had no idea existed. I’m still learning about them. I’m still learning about myself.

But my real next big step concerning me and my identity and coming to realize this stuff about myself was when I first realized I was developing a crush on Turbomun. I was terrified. I didn’t want to make our friendship awkward by admitting my feelings. I didn’t want to try being in a relationship only for it to not work out and bring our friendship down, too. I can’t stress to you enough how upset the thought of this made me. So, I took baby steps. The first one was confessing, through my somewhat-self-insert muse that I was starting to think I wasn’t entirely ace - that I might’ve been demi instead. Turbomun played along with her own muse, who was an established lesbian at that point along with her, and essentially asked what this meant for their relationship. I wrote  “… You’re like a sister to me… I can’t… see us as anything else… There’s nothing… more… than what you already know…”

Bullshit.

I was scared of losing her as a friend. Yes, I did see her as a sister at the time. I couldn’t see her as anything else because why would she like me anyway? I’m a dweeb. But there was more. And when I finally posted that one meme and admitted I thought I liked someone, it all came out.

Things have only gotten better from there. It’s been a wild ride… but I’m more than happy with how things turned out.

[zombierunfiction]

Abel 20K Race Mission: Jeffro Complex

*Both 20Ks Happen During The Same Day*

The following morning Charlotte was setting Maxine with a headset and her pack while Sara talked to Janine.  Sam was watching them worriedly.  

"It's just that, with the Major away-"  Sam starts as Maxine sighs.

"I know, I know!  She has her rules! 'Don't risk the doctor'.  It makes sense, it does, but just this one time."  Maxine countered.

"Well, that's what the old Runner Seventeen said about going to that old abandoned carnival that everyone said was haunted, remember?"  Sam reminded.

Maxine sighs as Charlotte snorts.  "Well it wasn't haunted obviously."  Charlotte said as she tightened the headset onto Maxine's head.

"Yeah... but still it wasn't a good idea though, was it?" Sam questions.

"I guess we learned that zombies are attracted by the smell of really old candy floss."  Maxine said as Sam sighs heavily.  

"Not a lesson worth knowing.  What I'm saying is, these rules are there for a reason.  You might get bitten! But, you know, you might also get attacked by wild dogs!  You might... tangle with some roaming cannibals!  You might get attacked by unicorns-"  Sam started to list off other things that could happen.

"You've been reading The Road again, haven't you?  I told you not to read that before bedtime!"  Maxine said as Charlotte took Sam's head into her hands turning him to look at her.

"Sammy..."  Charlotte cooed making him stop and look at her still paniced.  "She will be just fine... you trust me right?"

Sam breathed deeply nodding as he rested his hands on her wrists.  "Besides we've checked the whole sector.  There are no zoms within several kilometers of Hertston.  And I'm the only one who can try to identify what's left of that lab equipment, in the lab that we thought was Simpson's Corner Shop, and try to see what's going on down there."  Maxine said softly.

"I still think it's-"

"We're going to be fine!"  Maxine said exasperated.  "There and back before you know it.  Plus, we always say, runners are safer than cars.  Make no noise, attract no zoms.  It's only a few kilometers, Sam.  Hardly a marathon.  It's not as if I'm insisting on going to the Jeffro Complex."

Sam laughs hollowly as Charlotte let's go of his head.  "Well, you wouldn't really insist on -"

"No no, I know the risks.  We'll find out all we can, and then maybe, eventually, we'll go to Jeffro.  But for now, just a little run down to Hertston to visit that lab."  Maxine said almost sadly.

"Mm... well, if you're sure.  Be safe out there."  Sam said giving Charlotte a quick kiss before going into the comms shack.

"Thank you Charlotte.  Sam is a little hard headed."  Maxine said as Charlotte smiled.

"No problem.  I agree why he's worried but between Sara and I we will make sure your safe."  Charlotte said as Sara walked over and put her arms around both of them.

"Sure.  Don't worry Doc.  We got you covered."  Sara said with a smile.

"Okay... Runner five? Runner Eight? Doctor?  Ready?"  Sam asked.

"Ready."  They call in unison.

"Raise the gates!"  The siren goes off with the gate going up.  "Covering fire!" Gunshots rang out.  "Short run to Hertston... go!"  The three of them ran out of Abel and headed towards Hertston.

After a while, a still nervous Sam came back onto the headsets.  "Look, is there anything you can really learn from that place in Hertston?  It was on fire the last time we saw it!  Can you learn a lot from a pile of ashes?"

"As long as there's some equipment left intact, we might be able to reconstruct-"  Maxine starts before Sam jumps in.

"Oh!  Oh, what, like CSI?  Are you going to enlarge a single fragment of ash until you can tell exactly where it was bought and how old the person who bought it as and what bubblegum they were chewing at the time and-"

"No!  i've told you before, CSI was never very accurate about forensic science.  And even less so when I don't have any equipment, and I'm not... how can I put this?"  Maxine thought for a moment.

"Not a forensic scientist?"  Sara supplied.

"That about covers it.  we're hoping to find something I recognize.  Something that'll tell us something.  And if we don't find any equipment that I recognize-"  Maxine says as Sara continues for her.

"That'll tell us something too.  We know our patient zero worked there. We know it wasn't a corner shop.  We have to find out everything we can about what it was - medical, scientific research, terrorists..."

"Terrorists?"  Sam questions.

"It's a possibility."  Charlotte says as Sam gulpped loud enough for them to hear.

"Tell me about Van Ark again.  How did he seem?"  Maxine questioned.

"You heard him.  Frightened, mostly.  And brace in the end.  He died well."  Sara said almost proudly.

"But not crazy, right?  He didn't seem like he was making stuff up."  Maxine asked softy.

"You're thinking about Paula."  Charlotte said softly.

"Yeah..."  Maxine sighs softly.

"I wouldn't have said he was making stuff up, no."  Sara replied.

"Thanks... thank you."  Maxine said softly as the low rumble of a motor made Charlotte look around.  Sara seemed to pick up on it as well.

"Uh... guys.  Do you see that?  At your three o'clock?"  Sam questioned.

"Zoms?"  Maxine questioned.

"Not unless they've learned how to mark in formation.  And drive Jeeps."  Sam said.

"Only people around here with more than one Jeep are New Canton.  How many do you see, Sam?"  Sara questioned.

"Um, around forty of them.  Armed.  Three vehicles."  Sam said.

"A raiding party.  Atleast they're headed away from Abel.  This time."  Sara said as Charlotte took a deep breath.  She knew Amir might be one of the people in that party.  If she did see him during the raid she wasn't going to let their past stop her from keeping him out of Abel.

"Three Jeeps.  That's a hell of a risk."  Maxine said as they continued to run.

"Yeah, they've picked up a small tail of zoms, quite a distance back."  Sam said as Sara looks at Charlotte.  

"We'll bear left and steer clear.  If you get any idea what they're up to, let us know."  Sara said as Sam confirmed.

"Are you sure this is the best day to be out, Doc?  Don't want to head back, now?"  Sam asked.

"We're almost there, Sam!  We're really almost there."  Maxine says as they continued to run towards the corner shop.

"Yeah, I know, but I'm staying here until the doc's back!  Tell Jack and Eugene they can have this shack when I go for my rest break! If their listeners are that loyal, they'll wait for them, won't they? No I'm sorry.  Sorry!  Shouldn't be much longer."  Sam says a while later in the background.

"We've been running for four kilometers.  We're near now.  It's just there in the distance.  You see it?"  Sara said pointing at it.

"Uh that building.  Simpson's Corner Shop?  The sign's still on it.  there's some smoke damage, and the roof's gone."  Maxine says.

"Yeah, but it doesn't look too bad."  Charlotte said.  "Fire must have burnt itself out.  There should be plenty there for you to look at, if you're careful."

"Hey, hey!"  A voice shouted at them.

"New Canton?"  Sam asked.

"No, it's... looks like someone who's made up camp near the burned-out building. Lone guy, rifle."  Sara said as Charlotte moved in front of Maxine looking at the man.  

Standing roughily 6'3 with a lanky build.  Her blonde hair was scattered with flecks of gray and was thinning on the sides.  He had on a black shirt and jeans with a straw hat hanging on his back from a cord around his neck.  His rifle was trained on the building as he looked over at them.

"Don't come in that way!"  He said with an accent that was a cross between southern english and irish.  "In the store, there are-"  Suddenly zombies broke through the door making Charlotte grab Maxine.  

"Too late!"  Charlotte shouted pushign MAxine ahead of her as she took off with her.

"Eight zoms close quarters!  Looks like they've been feeing on a dead cow!  Run!"  Sara shouted pulling out her shotgun.  Charlotte and Maxine ran down the side walk with Sara taking up the rear and the mystery man running with them.  The two of them fired at the zombies taking them down one by one.  

"Four down!  Come this way - it'll get us to higher ground!"  The man shouted.  "You armed?" He asked Charlotte.

"No!  We're, uh-" Maxine stammered.

"I am.  Not too much ammo to spare though."  Sara said continuing to run and shoot when she could.

"Better aim for the head, I guess."  The man said as he also fired.  

Several shots later the last one was blown apart with Sara's shot gun as Charlotte helpped Maxine to slow but keep her guarded.  "Last one, good.  There more about?"  Sara asked.

"All over town.  They were drawn by that fire.  Been picking them off when I can."  the man said.  

"Well Five, it seems like you and me need to run a little defense while the doc takes a look around in the burned-out shop.  Five, you go with... sorry, I didn't catch your name."  Sara said.

"Name's Ephraim.  Ephraim Whately."  He said as Charlotte nodded to him as they rounded back towards the shop.

"Sara.  But we go by runner numbers at Abel.  I'm Runner Eight.  This is Charlotte, Runner Five.  You two circle that way, I'll go this way, and Doc?  Make it quick!"  Sara said quickly as MAxine nodded and ran to the shop while Sara went off to the right hand side.  Charlotte and Ephraim ran to the left side.

"You're not from New Canton, huh?"  Ephraim asks.

"No I'm not."  Charlotte said as Ephraim nodded.

"Can't say I'm sorry.  them New Canton people are hard.  Mean, you know?  Tel you what I know that they don't know, though."  Ephraim reaches onto his belt and pulls out a handheld radio that had static coming through.  

"Runner Five and... Runner Twenty..."  Nadia's voice was coming in and out.

More static came up before the radio went quiet.

"They keep on changing that frequency, but I keep on following them.  Don't trust them.  They lock people out.  Locked me and Patty out when we were running from a pack.  Would have watched us die."  Ephraim said bitterly.

Charlotte sighed softly.  "I'm sorry Ephraim..."

Static appeared again on the radio as Nadia's voice is heard again.  "Runner Twenty, that's a confirm.  We have a hundred and thirty on their way to the Jeffro complex.  Confirm, that's the full platoon."  The static returned and made the radio go silent.

"That's mighty interesting."  Ephraim said as they continued to run back towards the shop once the zoms has been cleared away.

Little while later Sam and Maxine were argueing back and forth with each other.  "No!"  Sam shouted.

"We're out here now.  it's not even that much further."  Maxine countered.

"This isn't the - it's not the mission, MAxine!  This is not the mission!  I've seen it before!  This is how people get killed, you know it is.  You know it!"  Sam stressed.

"There's nothing conclusive here at Hertston anyway.  Beakers, lab equipment.  Something was going on here, but there's no way to know what, and we are so near to Jeffro now.  We have to warn them, Sam!  If New Canton are coming for them, we have to let them know.  They don't answer radio transmissions, you know that yourself!"  Maxine shouted.

"We're safer sticking together."  Sara concluded.

"Yes, yes!  Stick together and come back!  Right now!"  Sam pressed.

There was stattius on the raido followed by NAdia's voice sounding incoherent but Ephraim put the radio to his ear.  "New Canton are moving.  Heading south and east of us."

"They're directly across the path of home anyway."  Maxine said.

"Only for now!  Wait a while, come back later!"  Sam suggests.

Maxine snorts.  "After dark?  Oh yeah, that's going to be safe."

"I would rather not do another night run Sam."  Charlotte said as Sam sighed heavily.

"Maxine I know you miss Paula-" Sam starts.

"I have to see what they're doing at Jeffro, Sam, it is not that.  If they're close to a vaccine there, if what we've learned could help - Sam!  The human race, imagine it!  A day when a zombie bite is nor more than a dog bite.  tetanus shot and you're done!  Imagine."  Maxine stressed.

"We don't know enough to-!"  Sam sighs heavily.  "Jeffro won't communicate with the outside world, we don't know if they're even still out there!"  

"Sara, If I go, will you come with me?"  Maxine asked

"We should find out what New Canton are up to."  Sara replies.

"Charlotte?"  Maxine looked at the red head who sighed heavily.  

"I've gone this far trusting you Maxine... no reason to stop now."  Charlotte said.

"We'll just go a little further okay?  The four of us."  Maxine suggested.

"I'll show you the back roads.  If I come, we're radio silent.  New Canton can pick us up if you're talking to Abel."  Ephraim said.

"Radio-?  Oh, no!  That's - no!  That is absolutely-"  Sam shouted.

"Radio silent.  I'm sorry, Sam.  You'll be able to see us on the scanner most of the way."  Maxine said.

"No!  that's totally-"  Sam protested before MAxine turned off the transmitter between the three of them.  

Charlotte closed her eyes as she thought about how angry Sam was going to be when they came back.  "Let's get going now."  All of them headed out following Ephraim.

After a while of running more static came from Ephraim's radio as he listened in.  "They're everywhere!  New Canton soldiers to the east, south, southwest, and west.  What are you planning, you crawling cockroaches?  What in the hell are you planning?"  Ephraim hisses as a tone starts to waft through the air.  Charlotte looked up hearing that tone was become a reaccuring thing.

"Maybe Sam's right, this has the feeling of something..."  Maxine whispers to Charlotte.

"Something big.  Which makes me want to see what it is." Sara said.

"How far are we from Jeffro now?"  Charlotte asked.

"About half as far again as we've already come.  Doc, I have one duty: protect Abel.  That means find out what's threatening it and keep it's doctor safe."  Sara said seriously as Maxine nodded slowly.

"If you want to turn back we will come with you.  We'll send someone else out here."  Charlotte said looking at her.

"And if we're too late?"  Maxine questions as some zombies began heading towards them.  "Do they never let up?" She sighs as they tried to keep ahead of the zombies.

"Nope."  Sara said with a grin.  "Coming from the south."

"Cutting off our direct route home."  Maxine said sighing heavily.

"Guess that answers that question.  No way out but forward."  Sara said

"You armed Doc?  Runner Five armed?"  Ephraim asked.

"No, we, um... I don't travel armed.  Not with guns, anyway.  Never have.  I wear my red Cross badge on my sleeve.  I don't want to get into any fights.  Not with the living."  Maxine says softly.

"I got a fire axe."  Charlotte said.

"I have weapons. Me and Patty picked them up when that military transport got eaten just by the statium.  Got them hidden in the cellar of a house not far from here.  Want a gun or two?"  Ephraim asks.

"We wouldn't say no, I'm sure."  Sara said as Maxine bit her lip.

"Well, I, uh.."

Sara takes her hand looking at her pointedly.  "We wouldn't say no.  Bet you picked up a good haul, there. Some interesting stuff?"

"It's the good Lord's bounty.  A ripe harvest.  Guns, ammunition, grenades, flashbangs, body armor.  He wanted me and Patty to be safe, right enough."

"Flashbangs."  Sara said looking at Charlotte with a smirk. Charlotte got the same smirk as she continued to run with them.

"Can't let you have ought but a pair of pistals, though.  But since the Lord sent you my way, reckon it's my duty to keep you safe too.  It's this way." Ephraim said as there was static on the radio again.

"That's right.  Runner five's there..."  The rest of Nadia's words were garbled.

"See that?"  Ephraim pointed in the distance.  

"I see them.  New Canton soldiers, about a mile ahead, right the way we're heading."  Sara said as Charlotte breathed.  

"Can you tell me if you can see what they look like?"  Charlotte asks softly.

"Looks like a dark haired man and a curly haired woman maybe.  Hard to tell from behind."  Sara said looking at Charlotte.  "You think it's him don't you?"

Charlotte breathes slowly.  "If it is it changes nothing."  She said determined as they continued on.  "We've been going for about 10 k now.  You holding up okay Maxine?"

"I'm fine!  I could do another 10k easy if we needed.  But those New Canton soldiers are facing away from us, heading away."  Maxine says looking at them.

"Can't take the chance." Sara said.

"We'll go the long way around.  The good Lord will show us the way.  My ammo store's not far."  Ephraim said as they ran in a semi circle before coming to what looked like an old cottage with a large lock on the front.  Ephraim unlocked the door and stepped inside with them before shutting the door.  He turned on a switch which started a generator which turned on the lights of the room.  It was filled almost as much as the Abel armory making Sara whistle impressed.  

"Nice collection of arms you have here.  Expecting an army?"  Sara questioned.

"No time for dilly-dallying!  Here's what you need."  Ephraim said picking up two pistals and loading them up.  "A pistal each."

Sara was looking around the room as Ephraim looked at her.  "I think Runner Eight's just, uh, admiring your weaponry."  Maxine explained as Charlotte looked around walking over to Sara.  Sara looked down at the flashbangs that were laid out on the table.  Sara looked back at Ephraim who was talking to Maxine as Charlotte looked back to him as well.  They looked at each other before Sara took out a pocket knife and gently set it next to one of the flashbangs.  Charlotte gave a slow nod to Sara before turning away and going back over to Maxine.

"Can't stay away from some good ammo."  Sara said as Ephraim looks at her.  

"Don't be touching what's not yours!"  He snapped as Sara held up her hands walking away.  

"Not after all your kindness." Maxine saids with a hint of sarcasum. Charlotte and Sara took their pistals and attached them to their sides before helpping Maxine get hers attached.  As they walked towards the door Sara turned to Charlotte.  "I think I dropped my knife back there.  Charlotte go back and get it for me." Charlotte nodded and turned walking back in.  She heard the others step out of the house as she got to the table.  She picked up not only Sara's knife but also one of the flashbangs and put it into her bag.  She turned and walked out quickly joining back up with the others.  Ephraim locked up the house as they resumed their course for Jeffro.

A little while later Ephraim spoke up.  "Didn't think to come out this far again.  Not after the last time."

"You've been out to Jeffro before?"  Maxine questions.

"Many times.  Me and my sister Patty, well, we was never what you'd call 'friends' of Jeffro, but they'd pay us to gather for them, to fetch and carry.  Paid us in food, and clean water, and good medicine.  They're rich men in Jeffro.  Rich men who can't fit through the eye of a needle, you know.  That's why they're still here, on earth."  Ephraim said as they continued to run.

"I can tell you're a religious man, Ephraim.  I was a Catholic myself, back when I was young." Sara said as Charlotte and Maxine hung back a bit.

"Anyone with eyes in his head believes now.  Ain't no explanation for all of this but the wrath of God!  Me and Patty, we took on the Lord's work, walking from town to town, spreading the good news.  We kept outselves separate, never stayed overnight in a town.  That's how we were spared when the Lord called His own to Him."  Ephraim said with great conviction that made Maxine move closer.

"You think the Lord did all this?"  Maxine questions sounding almost flabbergasted.  

"Not a sparrow falls but that He sees it, ma'am!  Not a man dies but the He knows it!  This is His judgement upon the human race!  We've been weighed in the balance and found wanting, and those who died early, they're His blessed ones, who He gathered toHim at once.  And we who live on through this hell... we're those who needed to be punished before He decided to let us into heaven.  That is why I help you!  That is why I help all who ask me!  Because the Lord is watching.  He's watching us now more than ever before!"  Ephraim said with even more conviction as Charlotte gave him a hard look.  There was something about this guy that just rubbed Charlotte the wrong way.

"And um... how far are we now?"  Maxine asked.

"Not far, ma'am.  Not far at all."  Ephraim said softly as they continued on their run.

Soon enough they came past some trees and saw a large complex with guards stationed around the perimeter of the grounds.  A high chainlink fense circle the grounds that was also covered with barbed wire on the roof.

"There is it... Oh wow, it's..."  Maxine breathes.

"Yeah... it's big."  Charlotte said softly.

"If we head for the main gate, they'll stop us.  Might even shoot us if we get too close."  Ephraim said.

"Shoot?  But I thought they were working on a vaccine here."  MAxine asks softly as Ephraim looks down at her.  

"A vaccine?  Against the judgement of the Lord?  They're doing some science work, but it won't help them, no.  I'll get you into the compound, and then I'll leave you to find your own way."  Ephraim said as he starts to lead them away.

"It's not a stupid idea to go in quietly.  We don't know what we're heading into.  This way, if there's anything we don't like the look of, we can beat a swift retreat."  Sara said as Charlotte grabbed Sara's sleeve making her fall back.

"Sara... something about this is making my stomach twist.  I don't trust this Ephraim as far as I could throw him."  Charlotte whispered.

Sara looks at the back of Ephraim's head.  "I know... I got that same feeling but it might just be his religious determination that your feeling."

"It's not that Sara... something just feels wrong about this."  Charlotte hisses as they continued around the fence.

"We will just have to be careful."  Sara said as MAxine sighs.

"But they're a research station."  Maxine states.

"We don't know anything until we get there.  Stick close to me."  Sara said as MAxine hung back so she was between Sara and Charlotte.

"You all stay close behind me, you hear?  We need to keep moving.  Me and Patty worked out a route that'd keep us out of their cameras if we just keep moving.  She was a smart girl, smarter than me.  Even though she was my little sister.  She kept watch on the camera movements here, figured out the blond spots.  Don't stop!  We're nearly at the spot where the fence is loose."  Ephraim states as they moved quickly.

"Was Patty bitten?"  Charlotte asked.

"She's with Jesus now.  There it is."  Ephraim said as they arrived at a hole in the fence where they slipped inside the perimeter.  "Quickly now, off to the left.  It'll take you through and show you the way to the science block.  but then, you're on your own."  He said as they ran.  

"Sure, we understand."  Sara said running with them.

"Alright follow me.  Quiet as mice, remember?  Quiet as church mice.  It's just down-"  A loud horn sounded through the intercom made them stop and look around.

"What the-?"  Sara asked as a voice came onto the intercom.

"I wouldn't try running, if I were you. You're completely surrounded."  Charlotte breathed deeply as she reconized the voice instantly.  

"I brung them to you!  I brung them, just like you said to.  Here they are!  Now give me what's mine!"  Ephraim yelled as Charlotte looked at him rage beginning to fill her.  

"Very well done!  And radio silent for the past three miles.  Jolly good work."  The man said with a laugh.

"Is that..." MAxine whispered to Charlotte as the red head nodded slowly.  Maxine's jaw dropped slowly.  

"I don't care who it is!  You got that thing I asked you to pick up Char?  Give it to me now.  When I say run, run!  To the left and Close your eyes."  Charlotte reached into her bag and pulled out the flashbang handing it to her.  

"Drop your weapons!  Hands up, now!"  The guards said pointing their guns at the group.  Charlotte kept MAxine close to her as she glared at them.

"Now!"  Sara shouts and set off the flashbang as Charlotte closed her eyes tight when the bang went off with a blinding light making Ephraim shout.  Charlotte grabbed both MAxine and Sara's arms and raced as fast as she off to the left.  The soliders began to cough from the bang as Charlotte ran trying to get MAxine to keep up quickly.

"That's it, they're disoriented, now.  Come on, open your eyes and run!"  Sara said as Charlotte opened her eyes and let go of the two women racing away from the soldiers.

"You heard who that was Charlotte..."  Maxine breathes as Sara leads them around the building to a bushed area near a rear wall.

"Keep quiet and stay low.  I kept my eyes open as we came in.  There should be some low lying sections of the building here that we can climb to the top of.  They're near enough to the perimeter that we can escape over the roof.  They'll expect us to double back and head for the entrance."  Sara breathed as they started over towards the low lying building.

"But you know who that was..."  MAxine said almost desperately as Charlotte grabbed Maxine's hand looking at her.

"I know Maxine..."  Charlotte said looking at the scared face of Maxine.

"Please... tell me who you heard..."  She asked almost desperately.

"It was Professor Van Ark."  Charlotte said softly as Sara moved towards a window.

"I can see him inside.  He's sporting a healed bite wound on his arm."  Sara said as they turned and resumed their movement to the building.

"And that's not possible."  Maxine said quickly.

"Must be possible, we've just seen it.  Stay low.  We're heading for those buildings to the left, the ones with the skylights."  Sara said as they climbed up to the roof where they laid low on the roof crawling over to the sky light.  

Suddenly a voice came over the intercom.  "Commencing second phase, on my mark."

"Over here!  Look that way!"  The guard said running off in another direction.

"Did you hear that?"  Maxine said suddenly.

Charlotte looked up slightly then moved to Maxine.  "I... yes I did."

"Coming from that building over there."  Maxine said pointing towards another skylight.

"Sequence Initiating."  The voice said again.

"Char... you know who it is, that's Paula!"  MAxine said fast and went to stand up.  "Paula!"  She started to shout as Charlotte and Sara both pulled her back down covering her mouth.

"Are you crazy!?" Sara hissed.  "There are soldiers everywhere looking for us!"  

MAxine let out a whimper as they let go of her mouth.  "I know... I just, I have to-"

"We can go and look in the skylight, if you want.  But that's all we can do.  It'll take us out of our way as it is."  Charlotte suggested as MAxine sagged against them.

"Thank you."  Maxine breathed as they started to crawl over to the other skylight.  They looked in and saw the room was an office but not a single person was in there.

"There's no one in there.  It's just a recorded voice."  Sara said as Paula's voice appeared again.

"Commencing plasma cleaning."  Paula stated.

"But if it's a recording, it means that Paula was here, that she might still be alive, and..."  MAxine said as she crawled to the other one again.  "What in the hell are they doing in there?"  She asked as Charlotte and Sara crawled after her.

Inside the room was several enclosed beds that had what looked like people asleep with several tubes into their arms with soldiers and doctors milling around.  

"Looks like a bunch of zoms in deep freeze units."  Sara said.

"They're not zoms.  Look!  They're connected to IVs cleaning their blood.  And it's blood coming out not that grayish fluid."  Maxine said.

"There are names on each unit."  Charlotte said pointing to a unit that had a blonde young woman, she couldn't have been older than 19.

"No one writes a zom's name on anything!"  Maxine said softly.

"Patty Whately.... Well I guess we know what Ephraim was hoping to get from them."  Charlotte said giving Sara a look.

Sara sighed dramaticly.  "Alright alright you were right and I was wrong so just beat me up with it and let's get moving."  

"How about later."  Charlotte said with a smirk.

"We don't have time to waste.  Come on, along this building, then the following one.  After that down and up the next.  Char take point. Go!"  Sara hissed as they got up and ran low across the roof.  They dropped down from the roof once they got to the other side of the building.  "Dammit, they've posted soldiers at the perimeter, the way I was heading.  Come on, double back around the side of the building maybe there's another way."  Sara said as they went around the corner only for soldiers to come towards them.

"That's them there!  After them!"  The soliders shouted as Charlotte pulled them another way.  

"Run!"  Charlotte shouted.  

"Halt or I fire!"  One soldier shouted as several joined them surrounding them.  Charlotte and Sara stood on either side of MAxine with their backs to each other.

"You have led us quite the merry little dance, Maxine.  Up hill and down dale..."  Van Ark said almost laughing under his breath.  "My advise is to stay where you are.  With all these zombies around they're quite... trigger-happy."  He said as Charlotte looked at them slowly.

"We saw you!  We saw you get bitten!"  Sara shouted.

"Oh, this little thing."  Van Ark laughs softly.  "We've got far worse than that in store for you, I'm afraid.  Far, far-"  Suddenly one side of the building explodes with a black ploom of smoke.

"What?  Was that you Sara?"  Charlotte asked.

"Not it!"  Sara shouts as several more explosions begin to follow around the perimeter making several soldiers race away in fear.  "But I know a good distactionw hen I hear one!  Run!"  Sara shouted as the three of them raced away from the building.

"Hold them!  Take them!"  Van Ark shouted as the soldiers ignored him in lew of running for their lives as the explosions continued for a bit.  

The three of them ran for the main enterence leaping over the bar that stops vehicles from coming in heading for the tree line.  After a good 10 minutes away from Jeffro Sara grabbed Charlotte's arm.  "There... Char... here.  You can stop."  Sara said as the three of them stop panting heavily as MAxine fell against a tree putting her arms above her head.  "You're okay, we're okay.  We got out... Looks like our new best friend blew a hole in that compound."  She said looking back at the building.

"Did they blow up Van Ark?  Or whoever it was?"  MAxine breathes deeply as she looked over when footsteps drew their attention.

Charlotte looked up and felt her heart stop.

Amir was walking towards her with a stern look that shook her to the soles of her shoes.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ 

<      25      >

Season 1 Beginning

[bellabooks]

“Pretty Little Liars” recap S7 E15: In the eye abides the heart

Previously on Pretty Little Liars, Aria flipped teams, Paily shared a moment, and Ali went shopping at Rosewood’s most sinister baby clothing store. This week’s episode was directed by Spencer Hastings herself, Troian Bellisario, and she did a really great job with an emotional episode. We open with Emily and Ali staring at the board game, trying to decide what to do about their baby. They’re both feeling angry and exhausted, and Emily suggests they do a DNA test to confirm it’s her egg. Ali agrees, but in her heart of hearts she’s already knitting an Emily Jr. sweater set.  Emily, did you see the baby’s shiny unicorn-like hair on the ultrasound? It’s clearly yours!   Aria is new to the A team, and gets a video chat from a distorted image of herself. The Aria Face Filter is creepy, but there is something very funny about Aria literally yelling at herself. You hang up first! No, you hang up first!   The Liars assemble at the Brew, where everyone but Hanna agrees that Lucas is up to something shady. Hanna agrees to search the loft for any signs of Lucas’s connection to Charlotte, which is pretty bold considering the loft could come alive at any moment and try to eat her whole. Remember when that wacky fireplace tried to roast Aria like a marshmallow? The loft remembers. Spencer brings gluten-free cupcakes to Det. Marco, which in my book counts as a declaration of war. We find out that Toby and Caleb are having a bros weekend at a cabin in the woods, where they are not fishing and surely not having illicit gay mountain sex. JK, they’re talking about how they both slept with Spencer. Marco questions Spencer about Archer’s death, but Spencer awkwardly deflects him and leaves. She goes home to find an empty wine bottle with a message in it from Mary Drake, saying they need to talk. I guess you’re my mother now, Cabernet Sauvignon!   Ezra is headed back to New York because Nicole Probs, when Aria demands that he stay and be her fiancée. Ezra blows her off because of his big guilty man feels, and Aria is left with no one to talk to but her own face filter. She tells A.D. about Mary Drake and Pastor Ted, and A.D. hangs up on her. Emily fills Paige in on Ali’s pregnancy, but leaves out the part where she’s a co-parent. They hold hands, smile, and Ali calls Emily with the test results: it’s her egg. Ali also tells her that the father isn’t Archer, which means it could be anyone. My money is on Lucas or Peter Hastings, considering he’s impregnated half of Rosewood. A free trip to New York AND I get to be on the Maury show?! Nothing bad could come out of this!   Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention those weird cemetery interstitials where Caleb and Mona promote the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Later, they’re joined by Noel Kahn and Sara Harvey, who I guess has been camping out in the dumpster since they killed off her character. Guys, they’re supposed to be themselves in this, and this girl is not even good at playing herself! I’ve never seen four people less excited about a pirate movie. Hanna and Emily dig around the loft for clues, but Hanna is too busy playing with Lucas’s action figures. She asks Emily what she’s going to do about the baby, and Emily says it’s not her call to make. They go through Lucas’s comics collection and find an old issue of something called Arcturus, by Lucas and Charlotte. It’s about a couple of bullied boys, one of whom can morph into a female alien superhero. 10/10 would read this comic, watch the movie, buy the toys. Please let this be a PLL spinoff! There’s also a panel that looks just like the torture switchboard from the dollhouse. They show the comic to Aria, whose eyes practically bug out of her head. She tells A.D. about the comic, and A.D. makes her steal it and bring it to Rosewood High. Meanwhile, Spencer and Mary continue to play telephone through empty wine bottles. Are they using the same bottle, or is Spencer just downing a bottle before bed every night? If she isn’t, she’s getting plenty of help from Emily, who confesses that she wants Ali to have the baby. Emily feels like it’s an unfair and impossible situation, but she knows what she wants. Proof that Emily is ready to be a Rosewood mom: she’s already got that wine game on lock.   Later that night, Emily tells Ali that she wants to keep the baby and raise it together. Ali is conflicted, and Emily asks her to at least think about it. As if she could think about anything else. Mona finds Hanna at the loft and tells her that Lucas sold their fashion factory. This is not a surprise, considering Hanna bailed on the investors meeting. She honestly doesn’t even seem that bummed out about it. She also makes the smartest decision yet, which is showing Mona Vanderwaal the board game. And guys? Guys. Guys. Mona is in love with this game. She caresses it, holds it close, and feels its warmth radiating out and calling to her like Gollum and the ring. She does everything short of humping the board game before a razor pops out and tries to cut her. Mona deduces that the game is running on a battery, which means that the clock is ticking. Eventually, they will win the game or the game will end itself. Hanna begs her to play, but Mona doesn’t want to sucked back into her crazy adrenalized hyperreality self of season 2. Hanna says that she’s the only one who can understand and beat the game, and Mona realizes that she must once again save the Liars from themselves. My precious!   Aria arrives at Rosewood High and places the comic in locker 214. She walks away, but has a change of heart. When she opens the locker again, the comic is gone, replaced by a black hoodie. A.D. is some sort of ninja. Spencer and Mary agree to meet at an apartment somewhere, but Mary doesn’t show. Instead, Spencer is busted by Marco, whose been tailing her. Turns out that Marco is the only cop in Rosewood that is competent: he reveals that the night they nearly banged in the elevator, Spencer paid for the drinks with Archer’s credit card and signed her name on the bill. He tells her that he can’t help her anymore, and Spencer storms out. Later, she gets a note from Mary who thinks she purposely brought cops to their meet-up. I hope there’s some wine left. Emily and Paige have drinks together at Radley, and Emily reveals that she’s not only Ali’s baby daddy, but that she wants to raise the kid. Paige needs a drink, and proceeds to buy every drop of alcohol in the Radley bar. Paige realizes that she can never share Emily with Alison, and refuses to be part of a lesbian parenting triad with the girl who made her life hell. Bartender, I’ll take everything.   And the most heartbreaking part? She’s not surprised. Paige is utterly resigned to something she knew in her heart all along: Emily and Alison are inextricably woven together. They always were, but this baby brings everything into glaring focus. Paige knows that this situation is untenable, and she makes the mature choice to say goodbye to Emily and Rosewood. She tells Emily that this is the third and last time she’ll say goodbye, and kisses her. A tear runs down Paige’s face as she walks away from the love of her life. Whelp, this is a heartbreaker.   It’s not a fight. It’s not even an argument. It’s two adults coming to the painful realization that they want fundamentally different things. And those are the break-ups that are the hardest to bear. The ones where there is still love and affection and mutual respect. But things get in the way. Life gets in the way. If this is the last we see of Paige (sob!) I’m glad that she’s leaving on her terms, and not as a villain or as a victim. Besides, I’m sure there will be plenty of lesbians in Iowa who are more than eager to be her rebound. Before she leaves, Paige makes one last stop. She wakes Ali up from a nap, and they sit down to share some hard truths. Paige needs to know if Ali really and truly loves Emily. They both know that Emily loves her, and probably always will. But is Alison ready to let herself love Emily back? Paige floats the idea that maybe Ali’s legendary awfulness is a result of suppressing her feelings and being too scared to face her own truth. Alison admits to Paige and herself that she wants to be the Ali that Emily sees. Paige tells her she’s going to have a beautiful baby, and leaves Ali with her big repressed gay feelings. I’m not in love with Emily, I just think about her all the time, miss her scent, dream about buying a fixer upper with her in the subur- oh hell I’m totally in love with her.   Ezra is at the airport, where he finds Spencer grabbing a drink with Wren, who is making his obligatory farewell cameo. They try to convince Ezra to have a drink, but Ezra goes home to Aria instead. Spencer also asks Ezra not to tell anyone about the Wren thing, and Ezra doesn’t even care. Emily goes to Ali’s house, and Ali tells her that she’s keeping the baby. They agree to raise it together, and they share a long lingering hug. It’s the beginning of the Emison endgame. As much as I like Paige McCullers, I can’t say that I’m upset about an Emison ending. I think they’ve done a good job of rehabilitating Alison as a character, and I believe that she has genuine feels for Emily. Yes, there are issues, but it’s pretty wild to think that a show that premiered on a channel (formerly) called ABC Family has spent 7 seasons building to a grand same-sex love story. There are still five episodes left though, and anything can happen. What did you think of Paige’s departure and the Emison end game? Tweet me your feels @ChelseaProcrast http://dlvr.it/PFQSD0

[yahoo-shutdown-corner-blog]

What historical NFL team would you want to see on 'Hard Knocks'?

Welcome to the Wednesday War Room, where Shutdown Corner’s NFL experts kick around two questions facing the league each week. Got a question for our crew? Email us! Today, we’re talking “Hard Knocks” and player value. Onward! 

Question 1: “Hard Knocks” has kicked off its latest season, and while Tampa Bay might be intriguing, you know there’s plenty we won’t see. Which team in all of NFL history would you have liked to see as the subject of a “Hard Knocks” inside-the-locker-room series?

Frank Schwab: The New England Patriots would be fascinating. Because if they were forced to do the show, we might finally see them unplugged a bit. They have the dullest locker room in the NFL, and that’s by design. They’re not uninteresting, they just believe in not saying anything. It would be great to see the inner workings of the NFL’s best (and most paranoid) franchise. Follow @YahooSchwab on Twitter.

Zach Pereles: I would have loved to see the 2008 Green Bay Packers on “Hard Knocks,” simply because Brett Favre’s retirement/comeback/trade was unlike anything we’ve ever seen and unlike anything we probably will ever see. How his clashes with ownership — plus his perceived poor relationship with then-new starter Aaron Rodgers — affected the team would be something else. It would definitely provide the film crew itself with a bunch of unique challenges. Oh yeah, and did I mention this was Jordy Nelson’s rookie year, Ryan Grant was in the middle of a contract holdout, there was also backup QB controversy and fans absolutely hated Rodgers right after Favre was traded, even heckling him at his own training camp? It was wild. Follow @zach_pereles on Twitter.

Jordan Schultz: My pick would be the 1985 Chicago Bears. Why? Because they had everything! Sure, the Bears went 15-1 en route to a Super Bowl, but oddly that may be the least interesting element to this team. What I’d really love to know is what exactly went down between Walter Payton and Mike Ditka? While we’ve seen ESPN’s 30-for-30 documentary—a great film that gives us a peek into their tiff—imagine a weekly insider show with these two characters? I mean we’re talking about Sweetness here!

Better yet, William “The Refrigerator” Perry was made for social media. Can you imagine watching that dude in the cafeteria or being forced into a dancing prank in front of the whole team? Or how about the film sessions between Buddy Ryan and Mike Singletary, diagnosing trick plays and discussing the ins and outs of the 46 defense, which Ryan literally invented?

Maybe most entertaining would be Jim McMahon, the folk hero quarterback who wore sunglasses and publicly defied commissioner Pete Rozelle. As popular and borderline mythological as the ’85 Bears have become over the past three decades, a “Hard Knocks” inside-the-locker-room series would epitomize “can’t-miss” television. Follow @Schultz_Report on Twitter.

Jay Busbee: You’re all insane. There’s only one right answer to this question, and it’s the 1990s Dallas Cowboys. Jerry Jones flexing his good ol’ boy muscles for the first time! Jimmy Johnson terrifying an entire team with his maniacal devotion to Dallas! Emmitt Smith wrecking fools every time he touched the ball! Michael Irvin mouthing off and then backing it up! Troy Aikman wondering what the hell he did to get caught up in all this! Felonies! Allegations! You’d have more carnage in any one episode than an entire season of “Game of Thrones.” Shoot, an episode on the Cowboys’ famed White House—not the one in Washington—would draw better ratings than the Super Bowl. I’m legitimately sad now that this never happened. Follow @JayBusbee on Twitter.

Devonta Freeman has the largest contract among all NFL running backs. (AP)

Question 2. At this moment, Derek Carr is the top-paid quarterback in the league, and Devonta Freeman is the top-paid running back. You’d have made a lot of money if you’d placed that bet two years ago. Which players—pick a quarterback and a non-QB—would you say deserve the richest contracts in the game right now?

Frank Schwab: Instead of deserve, I’ll tell you who will be the highest paid soon, and the record won’t be topped for a while: Kirk Cousins. The Washington Redskins have botched his situation so bad, he’s going to be a unicorn in NFL free agency as a good quarterback to hit free agency in his prime (seriously, look through NFL history – a quarterback of Cousins’ caliber and age has never hit free agency unless there was an injury involved or his former team had a backup plan … and the Redskins have no backup plan). Everyone thinks Cousins will be going straight to the San Francisco 49ers, but there will be plenty of teams bidding. It’s going to get crazy. Among non-quarterbacks, J.J. Watt deserves to be highest paid, assuming he’s healthy. No other non-quarterback dominates a game like him.

Zach Pereles: If I had to choose the most valuable player right now, it’s Tom Brady. But at 40, he’s not getting a huge contract any time soon. I think Aaron Rodgers is deserving of the biggest contract in the game as far as quarterbacks go. Yes, he’s 33, but he’s the rare player who might be worth more now then when he was in his “prime.” Rodgers just gets better and better despite the roster and injury issues the Packers have faced in the past two seasons. He’ll be 35 when his current contract is up. With Brady still going strong at 40, I’ll be really interested to see what type of money Rodgers draws in 2019. As for a non-quarterback, I’ll take Aaron Donald. What other defensive player clogs the middle, stops the run and rushes the passer as well as Donald? Maybe J.J. Watt, but Donald is both two years younger and far more durable: He’s yet to miss a game in his professional career. Donald is a key part — and currently the best player — of the Rams’ massive rebuild. The Rams would be wise to pay him as such.

[Now’s the time to sign up for Fantasy Football! Join for free]

Jordan Schultz: If we really want to talk about those most “deserving” of the highest paid contracts in football, it has to be Tom Brady at quarterback and Von Miller as a non-quarterback. In terms of Brady, what hasn’t been said about him, really? His five Super Bowl titles surpassed Joe Montana for most all-time, and at 40 years old, he has shown zero signs of slowing down. Last season, despite missing four games, he managed to toss 28 touchdown passes and just two picks en route to the largest comeback in Big Game history, and his fourth Super Bowl MVP award. New England acquired Brandin Cooks in the offseason, no doubt the single best wideout Brady has ever had. With a healthy Gronk, there is no telling what No. 12 will do for an encore. And thanks to a vaunted diet and workout regimen, Brady isn’t slowing down.

All Miller has done is rack up All-Pro honors in five of his six years with Denver (he missed seven games in 2013). The best part about Miller however, is how he shows up in big games. Leading up to the Broncos’ 2015 world championship, he amassed five sacks, two forced fumbles and one interception during the pivotal two-game stretch. The way he forces opposing teams to game plan for him and him alone — that is worth top dollar by itself. The fact that he follows through and single-handedly changes the outcome of games? That is about as rare as it gets in this league. Miller has become a one-man game wrecker who is still just 28 years old, meaning his best football may be yet to come.

Jay Busbee It’s tough to argue against Tom Brady, dammit, but since the question specified “contract,” I’m going to think longer-term, as in who I’d build a team around. Quarterback-wise, Rodgers is an outstanding choice, but Zach already snared him. So I’ll go with Matt Ryan, who’s the best of the next tier of QBs after Brady/Rodgers. Sure, he’s headed for a record-breaking contract of his own soon enough, but I’d lock him up. And while it’d be tempting to grab his Falcon teammate Julio Jones, I’m going across the country to grab Khalil Mack. Like Miller, he can blow up an entire offense all on his own. I’ll throw all my money on these two cats, field a team of 20 other scrubs, and probably still make the playoffs out of the AFC South.

Thanks for hanging with this week’s War Room. Got a question for our crew? Email us right here. See you next week! 

____ Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports and the author of EARNHARDT NATION, on sale now at Amazon or wherever books are sold. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.

[chemorygunko]

WHY YOU FEEL LIKE YOU CAN’T FORGET YOUR EX OF THE PAST FEW YEARS Hi Beautiful Souls <3 Disclaimer upfront: when I share these revelations it’s about the patterns and core beliefs behind patterns and recursions. Another way to think of recursions is the Cosmos playing out it’s karma to reconcile the original I AM. We play out parts for the Cosmos, otherwise known as empath load. Yes, karma applies, but what I’m sharing in these revelations applies to ALL OF US - regardless of the individual karma involved. The karma just distracts you and personalizes (ego) the issue. The core beliefs are where you find aha moment releases and reshimot - those shifts where you feel like a whole new person afterwards. So onto it… WHY CAN’T YOU FORGET YOUR EX - OR DO YOU FEEL LIKE YOU SHOULDN’T? To say that this shift has been backwards on many levels is the understatement of the era LOL. For the past two weeks I have received the most contradictory and conflicting instructions to what I’m used to, starting with: I was told NOT to forgive and forget immediately. I was instructed to hold anger. Now if you know me, I’m a teddy bear, and my default is forgiveness. I have rules in relationship like if you don’t know what to say and you want to say something to fill the space, you say: I’m sorry, I love you, I forgive you, please forgive me. My first port of call, therefore, in any difficult situation is forgiveness mantra first, stay calm, walk away and forgive and forget. Me and the Holy Spirit have this non-stop forgiveness line open. And if I’m honest, holding anger when I can go to the place of forgiveness so easily is just horrible for me. So yes - the instruction to not forgive immediately came as a massive surprise - and for those of you in the same position, it’s still standing. The main anger has dissipated though. However, when the REASON for that instruction arrived this morning, well I nearly fell of my unicorn. LOL :) There’s, for many of us, this impending feeling that the relationship is not over, that you don’t get to walk away and forget. Like you’re almost stuck with this person for the rest of your life. Sound familiar? That feeling is making it difficult to pull away, because every time you do, or you go into the logical reality and anger of the situation, it draws you back in, saying this is not over yet. IT’S ABOUT THE HISTORY? Every time I went into this, I kept getting shown history. Somehow history is important. That alone didn’t seem to make sense. This is a twit flame for me, or would be for most, but I kinda volunteered myself for bigger lessons. What was I thinking lol? Either way, you get two types of Twin Flames - creating love flames and expressing love flames. It’s all in the words there: creating love means you need to fix it to build a relationship together and is usually more exciting, and expressing love is just easy and simple - and for many of us problem solvers, well it’s just a little boring too lol :) Read more about Twin Flames at http://lifecoachestoolbox.com/index.php/twin-flame-basics So it stands to reason that if this creating love Twin Flame collapsed, that it could be replaced by an expressing love Twin Flame. But no - they kept showing me the history of the past four years. Then they kept pairing it with the messages of: you can’t forget this (that’s why you couldn’t forgive immediately)this will be with you forever you cannot escape this relationship you have to go forward with this And to be honest all of that was making no sense at all…. until the teaching penny dropped. IT’S ABOUT THE TEACHING!!!!! Most of us have spent years looking for a mentor, someone who can teach us. Most of us also realized that wouldn’t happen, and so we learned to learn by teaching others, by sharing our experience. If you have studied A Course in Miracles (ACIM), you’ll know this already. Even the mainstream version contains a manual for teachers, because past a point on your spiritual journey, the only way you can continue to grow the ideas you have is to teach. It’s a natural evolution. So you are becoming a teacher, if you aren’t already... and this last four years of preparation? This is your teaching story. This is why you can’t forget the story or details and you will need to keep remembering them. This is why forgiveness is delayed…. we tend to block out the detail and information when we gloss over and forgive. Why? Because forgiveness recognizes that what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. RECURSIONS Recursions are repeats of the patterns that the universe or Cosmos is playing out to balance its own karmic load - the original ‘sin’ (thought/mistake) of I AM that lead to all of creation. According to your mental and spiritual strength, you will be asked to carry an empath load of the recursion. According to where you are, an ever growing percentage of your life is spent playing out Cosmic karma vs your own karma. Once you finish your karma you will ONLY carry Cosmic and empath karmic load. We’re here to clean the MORPHIC FIELD remember. For someone like me who teaches publicly, I carry the whole recursion load of having to share details of my story with others. And it’s in the details that the help lives, because it’s often one statement or sentence that gives a person relief, then they have to integrate before they come back for the next part. If you carry a smaller load because you don’t jump in as quickly as the rest of us (wise choice maybe lol!), then this becomes your STORY that you tell others. It will eventually be teaching - but maybe only once or twice in your life as you share something that helps someone in a similar circumstance. At it’s most core level, this is a lesson of privacy. Breaking privacy. Why do we break privacy? Because one of the places we’re heading in the Age of Aquarius is telepathic connection and communication, so we have to teach people it’s okay to have their innermost private experiences and thoughts made public. As long as the fear of privacy exists, or the fear of secrets coming out exists, we can never get to a place of telepathic connection. The connection will always be limited. That being said… I did mange to build an amazing telepathic connection with my twit flame even though he hid himself behind a lie. This again leads back to the narcissist/empath Twin Flame bond, which I’m starting to think might be the creating love twin flame recursion many of us will have to play out. SHAME & EMBARRASSMENT & PRIVACY At the ego level this is all about shame - what will others think of me if they found out this happened to me? I feel humiliated. How will others react if they know I did this? I feel guilty. Whatever the load is though, best you start making peace with it. For better or worse the past four years is now the teaching story that you will use to lift the next level of light workers who are beginning their trials. You chose this person, you kept committing to them, even when the signs showed you differently. Now, whether or not they are part of your life, you will have forever with them, because you will always be teaching from this story. That’s the commitment you made and what you asked for. Luckily… this has also been the biggest adventure of your life! OVERCOME THE EGO Take the first step today and tell someone what happened to you - break privacy. Tell the whole story. The way to overcome the shame, fear and doubt is to face it and realize it cannot and will not harm you. Yes people will be shocked and there will be judgement… but what better way to learn to overcome massive amounts of ego!?!?!? Here’s a prayer to help you :) Today I make no decisions for myself. I ask only for the day that is given me.Holy Spirit, I cannot do this alone, and I do not know what to do. But I trust you and I know you will help me. Holy Spirit I give you these thoughts of ego identification, and I trust you to please take care of all the details for me. I surrender my day to God. I choose to let go. I choose to let God. Hand over those ego identifications and become so much more of the shining light you are. The time is now - no more waiting. Stand up and shine. It has begun. Love & light always Chemory xo <3 <3 <3  00 53  111  <3 <3 <3