#i liked my old one even if it was plastic leather but it didn't have a handle

[arctic-hands]

Dammit all my bujo's padfolio binder with the handle is already falling apart and it's only been a few months

[thetriumphantpanda]

I Was Enchanted To Meet You | J. Miller Drabble

Summary | Literally just a Drabble about Joel being an era's tour dad, meeting a pretty girl in cowboy boots and flirting. That's it. It's dumb. This goes out to my girl Doni @morning-star-joy who is going to see Tay-Tay tonight and can now be delulu about meeting Joel Miller there. And also therapy for me because I'm in the UK and got waitlisted for tickets, so CRIES. I wrote this in like an hour so excuse any spelling/grammar errors.

Joel Miller didn't exactly understand when he'd signed up to take Sarah to her first concert. When she'd asked to use his credit card to buy the tickets, he'd just nodded and handed it over. When his bill came through the next month, he almost passed out from the cost. But stood here now, in seats that might very well give him a nosebleed, watching Sarah almost lose her mind over the fact that Taylor Swift was about to appear on stage, it was all forgotten. All Joel ever wanted was for his little girl to be happy.

He'd spent weeks listening to the songs, learning the lyrics so he might be able to sing along with Sarah. He watched her sit in front of the television each night making bracelets to trade, and he squirrelled away as much money as possible so he could buy her a t-shirt or something on the night too.

Joel was watching as Sarah swapped friendship bracelets with two girls to her right when something else caught his eye. Two people shuffling into the two seats that had been vacant in front of Joel and Sarah for most of the night. One of them, around Sarah's age, was almost as excited as his girl, bouncing up and down, looking around the stadium with eyes as wide as saucers, taking it all in, but you? You were something else entirely. You had a white cowboy hat sat on top of your head, not dissimilar to his own apart from the colour and the fact yours was covered in sparkly rhinestones. You had a white dress on, falling to your mid-thigh, made of lace and scalloped edges, and a pair of beat-up old brown leather cowboy boots. The literal picture of heaven on earth as far as he was concerned.

He watched as you pointed to the two seats in front of him and Sarah, motioning for the other girl to sit down so you could hand her the soda you were carrying. He noticed your wrists were covered in the same type of bracelets his daughter had been going wild for all evening. Almost on cue, Sarah leans over, tapping your shoulder.

"You wanna trade?" She asks, holding up her own plastic-laden wrist to show you.

"Hell yeah," You smile, nudging the girl with you, "Why don't you give this little superstar one of yours too?"

Joel watches intently as you let Sarah scan your wrists for the specific bracelet she wants, picking one made of pink beads, swapping it with one of hers that was made of black and gold. Joel had no idea what any of them meant, all he knew was that the bill for friendship bracelet materials on his credit card nearly rivalled the bill for the tickets.

"You want one as well, mister?" Your voice cuts through his thoughts, "Can't come and see Taylor and leave with empty wrists I'm afraid."

"Well, I ain't got anything to trade ya with." Joel shrugs.

"That's okay," you smile, "I'll forgive you, this time."

Joel keeps an eye trained on you as you search your wrists, obviously having something incredibly specific in mind for him. You find it, eyes lighting up as you pull it from your wrist and hand it over to him. He takes the delicate thing in his big palm - red, white and blue beads with letters in hearts that spell out 'Cowboy Like Me'. Very fitting.

"Thanks, Darlin'," He smiles, slipping it over his hand, "You been waiting to find the perfect man to give that to all night?"

You let your head fall back in a laugh and Joel thinks you might just be the prettiest goddamned girl he's ever seen in his life. Sarah is pulling at his wrist so she can see exactly what bracelet you've given her dad, laughing and then leaning forward.

"I made him wear the hat!" She exclaims, "Told him he had to fit in."

"Well, you made a good choice," You grin, "He looks mighty fine in his cowboy hat."

You finally turn your attention back to your companion - judging by your likeness he assumes it must be your little sister. You're pointing out things around the stadium for her to look at, and he can't help but find it endearing how she's bouncing in her seat at every little thing, much like Sarah had done when they'd taken their seats.

Joel feels a nudge to his side, Sarah is looking up at him with that glint he knows and loves so much - she's got an idea.

"She's really pretty, dad."

"Sarah!" He chastises, eye flickering to you to make sure you didn't hear what she'd said, but you look completely oblivious.

"She is though!" She retorts in a hushed whisper, "I think she likes you."

Joel brings a finger to his lips to try and get this devil of a girl to be quiet, but he can't help but indulge her - Sarah was right, you are really pretty, "She don't know the first thing about me," He finishes the conversation, "Now you sit tight, I'm going to find you a soda."

When Joel returns, to drinks in hand, he can see Sarah leant over the seats speaking to you. He dreads to think what she's been trying to cook up, seemingly obsessed with making sure he's not so lonely in life anymore.

"Move over," He asks, Sarah shifting to the seat he was in before he left, "Don't drink it all at once, you'll need it for all the screaming you're gonna do." He says, handing the soda to her.

Once he sits back down, you turn in your chair to speak to him.

"Sarah says you're a builder?" She asks, clearly just trying to make polite conversation with him whilst your sister speaks to Sarah.

"Contractor actually," He shrugs, as if it matters, "But yeah, I build stuff, what do you do?"

"I'm a teacher," You smile, "Teach 4th grade." He's about to ask you another question when every single person in the stadium starts screaming, he thinks by the end of tonight he might actually be deaf, "Well, you enjoy the show, mister, hope you learnt some lyrics."

Contrary to what he'd thought, Joel actually does enjoy the show. He sings along to some of the songs he remembers, dances with Sarah for most of the night and keeps a close eye on you during it all. You know every single word to every single song, just like your little sister and he has to admit that when you're throwing your hands in the air and screaming to the lyrics, he finds you prettier than he had done all night.

When all is said and done at the end of the night, you say a polite goodbye to him and Sarah. When he finally sits in his truck, waiting for the scores of traffic to clear so he can get them home, he kicks himself for not asking for your number, but resigns himself to the fact that it was fate. Meant to meet once and that was it. It's not until he's finally carried Sarah up to bed, fast asleep in his arms and settled down to unwind in front of the TV that he pulls his phone from his pocket and sees a message from an unknown number.

I was enchanted to meet you, Joel. Drinks? Saturday @ 6pm?

[empty-movement]

sorry but please... post your akio plastic covered couch tweet here... the world needs to know...

Warning: pics of gross shit happening on the couches

I'll do you one better and include the STORY! So, I, Vanna (note: Yasha mostly does the Tumblr and I mostly do the Twitter,) was smoking enough weed to knock out a large horse or put a very tiny dent in my constant back and shoulder pain, as one does when when they're a middle-aged Registered Nurse in the year 2023. (I'm 39 but it's an old 39, lmao.)

Scrolling through Twitter, I stumble on a fanart of Suletta from Witch of Mercury sitting goofily on a white couch. Now I haven't seen this show yet, but the white couch....looked familiar, and I know the show is very much a descendent of Utena in terms of creative teams. For those that don't know, the series is written by Ichirō Ōkouchi, who also wrote the two Revolutionary Girl Utena novelizations...which if you didn't know about before, you know about now, and can read translated on our site here! (Warning: Touga and Miki uh, in the novels...)

Anyways, so I hop onto my own website and start downloading the images that will constitute receipts, before realizing 1. these images are all on multiple computers feet away from me, 2. the couch isn't an identical match, 3. that'd have been weird anyway, and most importantly, 4:

AKIO'S COUCHES DON'T LOOK RIGHT. OBSERVE:

The edges of the armrests have sloppier upholstery than the blanket I have covering my computer desk. I took the time to tuck seams at least. What is this??

Now it could absolutely be leather, I thought. It would absolutely track. But leather upholstery doesn't look like this. It doesn't wrinkle quite this way. It would have cleaner seams.

No. No that's too shiny for leather. So here I am, presented with this strangeness I'd never really considered in how Akio's couch is drawn, and having spent the last few months learning about my Italian-American family history, my chemically altered ass came to the only reasonable conclusion:

Akio Ohtori has plastic coverings on his white couches, like he's a depression era American in poverty.

Fuck yeah, I though, A HIT TWEET, there, at the end of all Tweeting things. (Yeah I'm working on that, stay tuned, lmao. I of all people know when to bail on stupid men with stupid power.) Because I am me, I framed it as semi serious by pulling a context to explain it out of my ass:

I was joking.

But the replies? They were not. And then I thought about it some more. And I've kept thinking about it. Do I seriously think Ikuhara and Co literally are intentionally drawing a plastic covered couch? Doesn't that feel, Vanna, like a bit of a stretch, even for Utena meta?

Listen to that CRONCH when Akio sits down in episode 31, before Anthy is seen by Nanami. Look, the buttons on the back rest don't quite fit, but the rest? Yeah it kinda does. I was high, but not wrong!?

Akio *does* surround himself with a bizarre hodgepodge of Americana as an aesthetic. The arm garters. The piping and cut of his cowboy-ass shirt. His American car. His mullet. His miniature fucking golf. Why not the plastic covered couch? It's a trope of American poverty that would absolutely have fallen neatly into the diet of American pop culture that influenced Ikuhara. (He makes references to E.T. and The Godfather and Suspiria and all kinds of things in his other work, Utena itself is a little less obvious with individual references but inherits HUGE amounts of vibes from the same content--Ikuhara and Co watched Lost Highway in theaters during the production of the Akio Arc and I will not be convinced otherwise.)

So yeah. That's the story, and that's the theory. Do I seriously believe it was deliberate? Maybe. Probably. Possibly. But it fits so well it's headcanon for me, and in the Utena fandom, pretty much all canon is kind of headcanon so enjoy this one.

What an asshole.

[just-plenty-of-prompts]

Rockstar prompts that don’t include being a groupie.

"I didn't get into this business to be liked. I got into this business to be heard."

"I've been on the road for so long, I feel like a nomad. But the stage, man, that's where I feel at home."

"The best thing about music is that it can bring people together. The worst thing is that it can tear them apart."

"I never cared about fame or fortune. I just wanted to create something that would stand the test of time."

"The only thing that matters is the music. Everything else is just noise."

"I may not have the voice of an angel, but I've got something to say, and I'm gonna say it loud."

"There's nothing more liberating than stepping on stage and letting your emotions pour out through your music."

"The road can be a lonely place, but the music keeps me company."

"When I'm on stage, I feel invincible. Nothing can stop me."

"Rock and roll isn't about being cool. It's about being true to yourself, even if that means being a little bit weird."

"I'm not a diva, I'm a rockstar. There's a difference. Divas wear feathers, I wear leather."

"I can't believe people still think rock and roll is dead. Clearly, they haven't seen my bank account."

"The only reason I'm still touring is because I'm too broke to retire. And I'm too old to learn a new skill."

"I don't need a personal assistant. I need a personal bartender."

"I don't always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer it in a plastic cup."

"I don't have a problem with authority. I just don't like being told what to do."

"My rider is longer than my setlist. Priorities, man."

"I used to be a rebel, but now I'm just a recluse. The rock and roll lifestyle is exhausting."

"I've got 99 problems, but a guitar ain't one."

"I'm not getting older, I'm getting better. And by better, I mean more stubborn and less tolerant of people who can't keep up with me."

Here you goooooo!

[sullina]

i think one of the biggest steps we, as a society, will be able to take towards sustainability (of, like... everything) is to eliminate the concept of manufactured obsolescence. For big stuff like houses and buildings, but also smaller stuff, especially electronics of all kinds.

And this got a bit long, but the TL;DR (too long; didn't read) is: capitalism is evil and gonna destroy the entire planet unless we abolish it as soon as possible.

There's no real reason why any kind of computer/tablet/phone/etc. can't last more than like 3 years max. It should be highly illegal for companies to push updates onto our electronics that purposely slow them down, or to stop support of "old" operating systems that aren't even 5 years old yet, in favor of getting a new phone with a new operating system for no reason other than to sell people a new phone.

Same goes for storage, kinda. I have an SD card that's about as big as a SIM card and can store 250GB of data. There's no reason why my phones internal storage is only 25GB, except to push "cloud storage" onto people for companies to secretely mine that data to push more advertising onto us. And why is it always ads, anyway? Like, at least offer me a service, but they're not doing that.

And not just phones, but literally everything. There's no reason why a fridge or an oven or an automatic feeder or ANY kind of smart device should need a wifi connection to just do the one thing it's supposed to do. None. These things worked just fine in the part when we didn't have any internet of things type bullshit, there's no reason to make these things worse except to squeeze more money out of people. (I am aware that "smart things" can be incredibly helpful for disabled people to live an independent life. However, in those cases as well, there's no reason why "no internet" should be a fatal point of failure, and there's no reason why something like a thermostat needs to have an internet connection to recieve voice commands. I mean it needs to know like... 3 or 4 words: an activating phrase, "higher", "lower", and numbers. It cannot be complicated enough to require regular updates via internet.)

and non-electronics as well.

Just take clothes.

So many clothes are made out of "polyesther" or "polyacryl" or something else with the word "poly-" at the start, which usually just means "plastic". And I'm sure there are some uses for plastic clothes like if someone has complicated allergies to a bunch of natural fibers, but there's no reason to have more than 80% of all clothes available on the market be either pure plastic or half plastic. 1) it's absolutely atrocious for the environment, because these clothes leech microplastics into waters like no tomorrow while only lasting like 5 years at best 2) they're just terrible quality-wise. I used to wear a plastic jacket in winter, and i would either sweat to death with it closed without even exhausting myself, or freeze like hell with it open. Neither of which are ideal. Then i got a cotton sweater to wear in winter and i didn't sweat, but i wasn't cold either. I was comfortably warm without getting sweaty, because the sweater let my skin breathe. Plastic can't do that. 3) Vegans can yell about this one all they want, but "vegan leather" is also just plastic. there's no such thing as "vegan leather", but ACTUAL leather may harm an animal (though with as much beef that's sold all over the world, there's no way there's a shortage of cow leather), but it's only gonna "harm" ONE animal. Not every single animal on earth due to byproducts of the manufacturing process and the fact that it never fucking goes away. And real leather is so durable. Like, sure, you kill one animal and get its skin for leather (but also its meat for food and everything else, i don't even know how much), if you care for the thing you made from its skin, you're set for literal generations, because it doesn't break after like 5 years. And if that thing does eventually break, you can still break it up and use the leather for new, smaller, things. And once those things break, too, to the point where the leather can't be reused, you can throw it away, knowing that it will decompose soon, instead of sticking around forever.

And I'm sure there's plenty more things, but it all ends up leading back to money and capitalism. Capitalism tells companies to get money. More money. More money. Get absolutely obscene amounts of money.

and of course the first question that regular people always ask is "but why?" But here's the thing: the "why" isn't important in capitalism. There's no reason behind the hoarding of wealth, because the hoarding of wealth is the reason.

and remember the saying "When the Last Tree Is Cut Down, the Last Fish Eaten, and the Last Stream Poisoned, You Will Realize That You Cannot Eat Money"?

Yeah, capitalism doesn't care about the fact that you're cutting down the last tree, killing the last fish, and poisoning the last stream. As long as you're making money, the damage you're doing is irrelevant. There's no cost too great for making money, as long as that cost isn't money.

[grey-sides]

bentgrass

~2K, explicit, bottom!Steve

Billy's finished his shift, as luck would have it- Steve Harrington is at the tiki bar.

Billy's cut-off jeans and sweaty t-shirt might not exactly be course approved, but he shows up to work on time and doesn't fuck up the greens so the super lets him get away with it. He smirks as a couple rich ladies look his way and flush under their fake tans. He doesn't give a shit that they're looking at him though, his hair pulled back from his face by an old ass baseball cap.

He does flick his sunglasses down and flips his toothpick around because it makes them look away. They titter amongst themselves, while he tracks sod and sand through the pool area. The lifeguard is gonna give him shit tomorrow, but he still doesn't give a shit.

On the other side of the pool, sitting at the outdoor bar there's someone he's after. His shift is long over and Billy could head home, but that would involve passing this opportunity up.

There's a couple of players here, some of the first to tee off before Billy had even finished the back nine. He gets it, warm day in May, better to take the day off from the office and crack out a round.

He licks the sweat from his upper lip and pulls a rag out of his back pocket, dragging it across his face. It probably only dirties him more, judging by the looks a couple more rich ladies give him. They're probably homemakers, here for the pool and the tennis courts. They probably only pick up a set of clubs when their husbands need a foursome.

He tucks the rag away and skirts around the edge of the pool. It would be nice to take a dip, but he's a man on a mission. So he nods to the kid working the snack stand and heads over the bank to the lower tiki bar.

There's some vague island mix playing, more than a few businessmen who decided to have a long weekend lingering around it. Tables off to the side, overlooking the eighth hole.

And there he is- bored probably. Baby blue polo, khaki shorts, golf cleats changed out for loafers. His hair is a mess, probably run through a hundred times to kill the hat hair look. He has a cocktail in a plastic cup beside him, ice half melted and almost completely drunk.

Billy's not a fool, he didn't come here just for him, but damn he looks good bored like this. There's some old guy talking to him, probably someone from work. Steve's dad pays their membership and Steve likes to play whenever he has the chance to. Billy knows he's been here since early in the morning, before Billy had even finished the back nine because the pro shop told him.

No one here knows why Billy gives a shit that Steve is here, just that he does. So they always tell him. And Billy makes sure to get as good and fucking dirty as he possibly can.

"Harrington, heard you fucked up my second hole," he says, turning the heads of the businessmen. They're probably rich enough to buy Billy, but this is his turf. He's seeded it, treated it, evened it with precision. And Steve is the boss's son. So they turn away.

Steve shakes his head and picks up his cocktail as he gets up from his seat. "You didn't cut it straight."

"Not a chance, I spent hours perfecting that one," Billy replies, dangerous. He knows Steve put the divot back, but it's an in.

"How much do I owe you for seed then?" Steve replies, raising his brows. He pulls his nice leather wallet out and flicks it open.

Billy shakes his head and holds his hand up. "A drink'll do. No employee discount."

Steve snorts but he waves goodbye to his posse. They all nod back like they give a shit that he's leaving and tosses his cup into the nearest trashcan. He tucks his hands in his pockets as they head back up towards the pool.

"Nah, it was good today. I was only five short."

Billy looks surprised when he glances at Steve. "Really? Damn, you're getting good, Harrington!"

"Helps that I come here so damn often," Steve chuckles. He shakes his head and opens the gate that leads back to the hotel, holding it open for Billy. "You been here all day?"

"Course I have, grass doesn't mow itself," Billy scoffs.

Steve chuckles and looks over his shoulder to make sure no one is watching them when he turns to Billy. "You look like you've been. What did you do? Roll around in the sand trap?"

Billy shoves him and grabs for his wallet so he can pull out Steve's room card. "You're a fucking asshole. You're the one who likes this."

"And yet you keep doing it!" Steve laughs. He opens the door to the hotel and heads straight for the winding staircase. He has a permanent room here as part of the membership fee his dad pays. It always comes in handy, even though none of this is a secret anymore.

Steve grins at him when he slides the card against the handle, Billy takes the opportunity to crowd him up against the door. They're laughing as they stumble in together, cheeks flushed with delight.

"Mm, didn't think I'd get to see you today," Steve croons when he backs up, sliding his arms around Billy's shoulders. The door shuts behind them and all that's left is the whirr of the A/C.

"Nah, can't leave you high and dry after that good of a game," Billy replies. He slides his hands low, grabbing Steve's ass as he leans in to kiss him.

Steve tastes like whiskey when he slides his tongue into Billy's mouth, the expensive kind. He moans softly as Billy pushes him back towards the bed. It's fresh, far too clean for Billy to get into. He'll have to thank Gloria extra in the morning.

Steve falls back and pops the button on his shorts so they can be slid down past his ass. He huffs a laugh as Billy's t-shirt follows them and slides his hands up Billy's stomach and chest.

"Look at this man," Steve laughs, tugging on Billy's chest hair.

Billy dives his hands under Steve's shirt too to tug on his chest hair, laughing. "You're one to talk!"

It's easy, it's fun. It's so much different from how it used to be and Billy can't believe they found it on a golf course of all fucking places.

Billy works to get them both nude and reaches over for the bedside table where Steve has already set out lube and condoms. He stops to kiss Steve again on his way back, sliding his hands all over his body.

Steve hums into the kiss, smiling, giddy. They do this semi-frequently and go on real dates too, but sometimes it's just like the first time.

Billy does get off the bed after a moment to wash his hands, no matter how dirty Steve likes him, he's not giving him a fucking infection from shit like that.

"Billy!" Steve calls and Billy can hear the crack of the lube bottle from the bathroom.

"I'm cleaning up for you, princess! Giving you a nice man you can take home to Mom!"

"Don't make me think of my mom when I'm fingering myself, asshole!"

Billy laughs and dries his hands off. He wiggles his fingers when he walks back out, grinning at Steve. "Seems like you're still doing just fine to me."

Steve rolls his eyes, though they end up fluttering when he hits himself just right. He's three fingers deep, doing it just because he can and Billy loves to watch.

He busies himself with lubing up and rolling the condom on. He's heated, warm from the day and made warmer by watching Steve. He shivers a little and leans down to kiss Steve while he sees how far he can push himself.

"My turn," Billy breathes, steadying his hand so he can pull it out of Steve. He brushes their noses together and sighs softly.

Billy pins Steve's wrist above his head and uses his other hand to help him get into a good position. Face to face, but it's fine because Billy can kiss him this way.

"So fucking hot, even in your dumb little shorts," he murmurs. He lines himself up, lets Steve take his dick to guide him in.

"It's your fucking course's oh fuck rules!" Steve protests while Billy pushes himself in. He loves to watch Steve's mouth open and close a couple of times while he tries to center himself.

"No more work talk," Billy says and his voice is only a little strangled. Mostly. He bottoms out and leans over Steve to kiss him silly again.

Steve lifts his leg so he can hold Billy in place and stares back at him when they break apart. Then it's the push and pull. Billy moves at a somewhat slow pace, but hard like Steve likes it.

Steve does his best to move with him, though it can get a little awkward. He licks his lips and opens his mouth, panting out moans with each thrust.

"So fucking good," Billy praises, his hair hanging down around his cheeks.

"Yeah- right there," Steve begs. He arches his throat back and it's Billy's cue to lean in, to nip at the skin above his Adam's apple. He likes to leave it a little red, a little sore so Steve will fidget about it later and whine. Billy loves to listen to him whine.

Steve's other hand wiggles between their stomachs and he starts to stroke himself too. He almost always takes a little longer than Billy, which Billy absolutely does not mind.

"Shit," Billy breathes. His pace picks up a little while he chases that feeling. His balls keep slapping Steve's ass, but he swears they're tightening up against him. His eyes flutter shut and he moans, bending over Steve some more.

"That's it," Steve coaxes, voice wrecked. "Come on, give it to me."

Billy huffs through his lips, tightens his hold on Steve's wrist. He gets a little frantic, a little sloppy and then-

"Oh fuck, Steve," he grunts, fucking his hips hard as he cums. Right up to the point it becomes too much.

Steve laughs when Billy pulls out, half delirious as his hips come off the bed. His hand moves faster and Billy watches as he squirms until he cums too. He makes a mess across his chest and hand, but he smiles lazily when he catches Billy's eyes.

"Good?" Steve asks, reaching for a tissue to wipe his hand off.

Billy nods lazily, eyes slipping closed for a moment. It's been a long fucking day.

"Good." Steve rolls onto his side and leans up to kiss Billy's jaw. He needs a shave and something for dinner soon.

"I wanna take a shower and then we can order room service?"

"Can I have the fluffy towel?" Billy asks, yawning around the words.

Steve laughs as he sits up and pats Billy's chest. "Anything for you, tiger."

Billy listens to the bathtub start to run and forces himself to sit up. He hums as he makes his way to the bathroom, slapping Steve's skinny white ass when he passes him. He holds up the condom and drops it into the trashcan.

"Oh and by the way-?" Billy begins.

"Hm?" Steve asks, bent over to make sure the water is nice and warm for them.

"Seed's free of charge."

"Billy!" Steve whines, but he's laughing when he kisses Billy again.

[miniapplepies]

The only thing that knows your bleeding is your bandage.

The bus ride home from school had always been miserable, especially in the summer heat. Strands of hair clung to my forehead with sweat, and my whole body swayed back and forth in the sticky plastic leather seat. Nearly every window was open, apart from the one directly above me. I never bothered opening my window because I hated how my long hair flicked around when it was. It always seemed to either get stuck in my mouth or whip me in the face so hard I was afraid it left marks. The other students were loud, always having something incredibly important to yell at each other about. That part always confused me because I rarely felt the need to talk, much less yell. 

However, as time passed, fewer students remained on the bus. First, the bus would stop with a hiss and shudder, and the driver would reach over and pull open the door. The students would jump up before the bus stopped, always being met by a shout from the driver. They left with short, often rude, goodbyes to their less fortunate friends whose stops were further along the route. I never had anyone sit with me, at least not willingly, but I preferred it that way. As the chaos in the air stilled and the sun began shining golden light through the windows, I felt a sense of calm unlike anything else I had felt. I hated school, every second of it. But in those moments, those seemingly insignificant blips of time, I felt peace. It was usually the only time I'd feel that way. Well, that is until I got home. 

I don't even remember how old I was when it happened. I was definitely in middle school, but I've lost almost every other detail. As soon as I stepped inside, I could feel it in the air. Mom and Dad had fought again, and this time, it was bad. The sound of the front door opening caused my parents to rise out of their chairs in the living room and meet my gaze. Mom had been crying; that was clear. Concealer was caked under her eyes, and her mascara was laid on thick. It was all a poor attempt at hiding just how upset she was. However, Dad stood tall, an unreadable wall that loomed over me. His jaw was clenched, whether out of nervousness or anger, I'll never know. 

"Hi, honey," My mom finally said, breaking the silence. "How was school? Did you learn anything?" They already knew the answer when I said it.

"It was fine." If I had learned something that day, I would have forgotten it by the time I left class.

"That's great. Why don't you take a seat, your father and I have something to talk to you about." Mom explained, "You're not in trouble." She must've seen me tense up at her words because she gave me a gentle smile that was supposed to make me feel more at ease. It didn't. I did as I was told and sat on the couch directly across from them. They sat on the loveseat, leaving about a foot of space between them.

"You know your mother and I love you very much, right?" My dad spoke with a tone that made me think there was a gun pointed at his head.

"Sure, I do." I nodded, confused. 

"And you know that we would never want to hurt you?" He asked. Then I braced myself because no one ever says that unless they're about to hurt you. 

"Of course," I answered, my voice almost a whisper. My dad sighed, placed his elbows on his knees, and interlocked his fingers in a tight ball. Mom's lips quivered, and she reached with a shaky hand to move a strand of hair from her face. 

"Your mother and I—" Dad started, but I stopped listening after the first few words. I knew what was happening; truthfully, I saw it coming. The screaming, the slammed doors, the tension in the air—all of it had been pointing to this: My parents didn't love each other anymore. They didn't even like each other. That day, something inside me broke so violently that I was shocked my parents didn't hear it. I didn't cry. I didn't sob or wail. My pain was horribly discreet and almost as silent as bleeding from an unstitched wound. The problem with a pain like that is that other than you, the only thing that knows you're bleeding is the bandage soaking it all up. But I didn't have a bandage then and wouldn't get one for years. 

"Are you alright?" My mother's voice pulled me out of my thoughts, and I looked up at her. If I had spoken, I knew tears would follow, so I answered her with a slight nod and a straight face. The stillness in the air was so thick I could barely breathe, and their piercing stares felt like sharp blades. My eyes moved back and forth between them, and at that moment, they seemed like complete strangers to me. 

“Uhm,” I stuttered, desperately wanting to fill the air with some type of sound. I couldn't help but fidget with the zipper on my backpack, sliding it back and forth as I searched for the right words. “What happens now?” 

It only got worse. The following months passed in a whirlwind of cardboard boxes, anger, and court dates. I found myself in countless meetings with the lawyers, each one drilling me with the same questions over and over. It didn’t matter how young I was, not anymore. I sat in the courthouse the same way everyone else did, and that was enough for them. 

I remember my shoes' tapping sounds as I entered the courtroom. The first person I laid eyes on was my dad, and his expression would have convinced you that I was being accused of murder. He had no idea I would show up, and I could sense his eyes on me the whole time. I could tell by the look on his face that he was not just angry but absolutely furious. Was he angry at me? Did he know how scared I was? Could he see how badly I wanted to go home?

My heart sank when the judge asked me who I wanted to live with. It was an impossible question. How could I choose between my parents when I loved them both so much? It hit me then how permanent this was. This wasn't something I could simply wake up from like a nightmare or recover from like a sickness. They wouldn’t ever love each other again, no matter how badly I wanted them to. Then, I remembered something my grandmother had told me years before. She always said that I had my father’s eyes and my mother’s smile; on my face, they were still together. In a way, they would always love each other because I knew they’d always love me.

[masschase]

Horizon

Rowvember Day 5: Rebuild.

This is a short fic (1.5k words) from Dex's perspective, set in mid-2023. Dex faked his own death in 2013 in my headcanon, and was one of very few people who changed their records so successfully that not even Zinyak had him stored under his real name. He is eventually removed from the pods in one of the final waves of humans. Hopefully that's all the context needed for this!

I'm not going to do the usual description and stuff for this bc it's short and I don't want to spoil things, but it's SFW!

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

Down to earth.

That's how everyone's always described him. Pragmatic. Level-headed. Grounded. Down to earth. He was never too sure whether he liked that. It felt like a responsibility he'd never signed up for. A mould he was forced into.

Be the anchor, Dex. Weigh us all down so we can go off doing our dumb shit and know you'll still be there. Keeping us down to earth.

Yeah, actually, for a long time, he didn't like it at all.

Maybe that's why after he faked his death he was always moving around. He always told himself he was just being smart. There were Saints in so many cities now. If he stayed too long, he’d be recognised for sure. Deep down though, he wasn’t just escaping people who knew him. He was escaping himself. The very essence of who he was. Dex was an anchor, not a ship. Dex never would have left Stilwater. That Dex was dead.

He survived that way for three years until a moment of serendipity changed that aimless drift. His car had broken down for no god damn reason. He hated shit like that, shit he couldn't plan, couldn’t account for. There was no cell reception on that route either. His tendency to go down the least travelled paths had backfired.

There was a diner within walking distance. The waitress, a kind older lady, told him sympathetically that no-one really came this way. Once she’d poured him some coffee she headed into the back to see if she could find her phone to charge for him. As he'd sat there, sipping in silence, wondering where the hell he was going to go from there, the cheap plastic door had swung open like a saloon door in an old western, appropriately followed by a cowboy. Or a biker. Or both.

The only objective observation Dex could make of the man was that he was clad head-to-toe in magenta leather, perfectly matched to his long curls. He didn’t suit a drab, lifeless, silent place like this. He was bold and lively and it wasn't long before he became pretty loud, too. He immediately started talking, talking a little too much, and yet somehow Dex didn’t mind that he could barely get a word in edgewise. Because he’d left his world behind already. But he knew then and there that something about that guy was otherworldly.

He spent four years bathing in the light of that man’s smile, and yet he still remembers the first time he experienced its warmth. When he sat there, trying to decide whether to wait for the waitress’s phone to charge to make a call, or accept a ride from a relative stranger, and did what he did best. He questioned everything.

Did this guy really just happen to be here? On this barely travelled route, at the same time as him? A guy who had allegedly just come up against the Saints and lived to tell the tale? A guy from Stilwater? A guy he may well have glimpsed in the street years ago? He asked his barrage of questions, expecting another continuous stream of words in response.

Instead, the reply was surprisingly understated. Because the other man listened carefully, thoughtfully. “I guess just...” he began, and that’s when the beautiful smile lit up his features. “Right place, right time.”

For four years, they ran together. Travelling. Exploring. Falling in love. Suddenly Dex didn’t mind being down to earth anymore, because his lover’s head was so high up in the clouds and it was everything, everything they both needed. Together they were the earth meeting the sky. A beautiful sunrise breaking on the horizon, just like the ones they watched together wherever they happened to be.

But like a sunrise, it was fleeting.

Four years flew by in an instant, two more in a simulation, and now earth is lost, replaced with the closest thing they have to a facsimile. It doesn't sound the same. It doesn’t feel the same. It doesn't smell the same. One part, though, looks the same. Almost exactly. So he has to admit, he's spent every morning there ever since it moved. The first rebuilt church was used as their HQ. He didn’t go near it. He wasn’t ready to face the Saints again. He certainly didn’t know how Case would respond to seeing him alive after years of thinking otherwise.

He’s proud of what she’s become, he really is. He always knew she had a good head on her shoulders. It used to mean a lot to him to have a younger Saint around. After he quickly unpicked her bullshit it turned out she was the same age as one of his sisters. But unlike his sisters, she actually seemed to listen to his advice.

But he’s not sure he can call her down-to-earth anymore, even as he lives within the infastructure she and the rest of the Saints have built for humanity. She’s down to New Earth, or Ragnarok, or her earth. This planet has multiple names but whatever you call it, she’s moved on. All the Saints have. They've moved on with their lives. To them he's dead, and has been for near enough ten years.

His heart might as well have stopped when he processed that his partner was gone.

He’s back to aimlessly drifting.

He's a ghost now. Haunting this place.

It isn’t for anything now. Not since the town was relocated, the thing re-rebuilt. He’s heard whispers. They’re too scared to make it the HQ again after the last one was destroyed. Scared it’s an easy target. So it almost feels like they rebuilt it for nothing. No one. No one but Dex, sitting there every morning at sunrise like a recurrent sinner.

He sighs and closes his eyes, tilting his head up into one of the first warm rays of sunlight beaming through the stained glass. It casts a dancing array of colors down onto the former Saint’s face. But with that ray comes a change. A break in the routine. A slight jangle of the door.

There’s a knack to it. You have to push down the handle, but not too hard, just short of all the way down. He knows it.

Casey probably knows it too.

He turns his head towards the noise, trying to make out a shape in the glass. The dawn is still breaking, it’s not the easiest to see. About the right height; 5’9” or so, maybe a little taller with heels on. A lot of hair. The shoulders look a little broader. But then he’s seen her wearing her boyfriend’s jacket before, when he’s been watching from afar. It looks like a Boss alright.

This might just be judgement day.

Maybe it’ll be OK. Maybe she’ll just be glad to see him alive. He knows she’s not the most forgiving type, but she has a great deal of dedication for her friends. He can’t tell where he sits between those two extremes. He’s an anomaly.

He’s going to have to talk fast. He has no weapon, despite the fact that in the back of his mind he already knew she’d come one day. While he didn’t seek death, he wasn’t actively resisting it either. Perhaps he’ll make a joke out of it. “Yeah, yeah, I know, I ain’t Jules.”. The sort of thing she’d love. He’s not exactly coming up with the smartest shit right now, but he has to come up with something.

But the door opens, and it’s definitely not the leader of the Saints.

The magenta hair remains but it’s cut a little shorter. The man dressed entirely differently to how he dressed before the earth was lost. Stylish as ever, but nowhere near as colorful. Like something has been stripped from him. Ivory shirt, black pants and boots, long black coat. The stetson remains but it’s a new, pure black one, not the one Dex was never entirely keen on because it had belonged to the dead boyfriend. He almost looks like a vampire hunter.

Or... maybe... maybe a ghost hunter.

There’s a stunned silence between the two. It seems impossible. It should be impossible. But still their feet are advancing in a quickening tandem across the floor and the feel and the sound and the range of emotions overcoming Dex as they near each other make it all seem so real.

He doesn’t quite believe it. He tries to be lighthearted about it as he moves closer, but his voice is trembling. “Let me guess. Right place right t-“

He is interrupted as the other man closes the gap and smashes their lips together passionately, wrapping him in a desperate embrace.

Dex's heart and mind trade places at that moment. The former races incessantly and the latter just... stops. Stops focusing on the what and the why and the how of what is going on. The time doesn’t matter. The planet doesn’t matter. Even the church doesn’t matter, because all that matters is the earth and the sky colliding into a perfect sunrise.

Anteros is here.

Dex is alive again.

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

Look, Dexteros isn’t just a ship, guys, it’s poetry.

So... Ted if you read this, hiiiii! I didn't tag you yet but will later because I thought you'd probably read a thing about Dex anyway and that it would be a nice surprise just to see your own OC pop up! Happy (early) Birthday! xD

Tagging/crediting now: Anteros and his dynamic with Dex are very much the creations of @whoredmode

Everyone else, for further clarification, here are a few posts about Anteros’s place in Casey’s universe! There are probably gaps that I’ve probably thought about but not written anywhere but I’m always happy to answer questions!

[animmortalrecord]

I'm in spending jail for 60 days and I'm going to get dressed about it. Come along with me!

Does anyone else spend a million years deliberating over certain articles of clothing, only to get them home and not be totally in love with them? But then also, sometimes you grab something on impulse, totally expecting to regret it and beat yourself up over it, only to have it be one of your favorite items? Yeah, this dress is the second thing. I'm obsessed with how the cotton crinkles and the full skirt is amazing. It's my first Kate Spade (RIP) piece and why didn't anyone tell me about these amazing zippers?! It goes up like butter. It's a bit roomy in the bust, but I've come to expect that as a card carrying member of the tiny ribcage club. I may get it tailored in the future, but for now, I'm really just enjoying the extra space.

Has anyone tried out the new Snag 30 denier pantyhose? I may have bought 3 pairs... this particular color is the Lemon and they are solving my "how to wear tights in the summer without dying of heat stroke" problem quite nicely. The polyamide still isn't that breathable but I'm willing to suffer in order to have highlighter yellow legs.

I bought this belt because it was in stupendous condition and the best shade of pink, but it ended up being too big for me so I used a leather hole punch and a tape measure to fashion a few new holes and I think it looks good? Of course I just found a very similar but perhaps even better actually leather version on Lucky Vintage IN MY EXACT SIZE so I'm kicking myself a bit. Anyone need a pink belt? I can't believe it's 20+ years old. We really have made enough stuff to last us several lifetimes on this planet 😬

Dress: Kate Spade New York - 100% cotton - ThredUp (thrift)

Belt: Brand Unknown - Synthetic Leather - Etsy (thrift)

Tights: Snag - 84% Polyamide, 15% Elastane & 1% Cotton - Snag (new)

Shoes: Croc - Plastic Foam - Croc (new)

[izzy-b-hands]

Rambling abt the half dream half nightmare that woke me up today below the cut. feel free to ignore, just need to vent it out somewhere. Probably going to include me talking abt Current Family Issues and Feelings so. yeah. TW for mentions of someone in hospital, death, religion, and overall family dysfunction lmao

I know that ultimately, right now, if something big and/or terrible happened medically to anyone in my family back in ND, I wouldn't be able to go see them. The money just isn't there (part of why I'm not going out there this summer nor are they coming out here at all.) I've accepted it, and I try not to think abt it.

That said, LOVE (read: HATE) my brain deciding a hyper realistic yet weird dream abt my mum winding up in hospital is the way to go this morning. Complete with:

-her bf refusing to speak to me abt it, and telling me not to bother going to visit her in the weird, somehow existing in both CT and ND simultaneously, hospital with a 'haven't you already been enough of a burden to her?'

-me staying in my grandparent's old house in ND, and for some reason that meant being wildly unable to get ready to go to the hospital. Finding my clothes was nearly impossible, but. all their old decorations were back up on the wall so even as I was searching for them I like. Didn't want to leave? As if the house would revert back to being sold like it has been irl, if i left it. Finally I wound up just stealing clothes from my grandfather's side of their closet (specifically his old 80s styled 'eagle on a tree branch' print sweater that he got forced to toss a few years ago bc it was becoming more holes than sweater, and one of his old, big leather jackets. somehow i found jeans that fit me, idk how considering i can't seem to do that irl rn but i digress)

-me showing up to the hospital FINALLY only for Noel Fielding?? to be sitting outside it with a friend dressed in what i can only describe as absolutely gorgeous future techno witch clothing. Unfortunately they were fucking dicks in this dream and scared the shit out of me by joking that 'it was so nice I'd shown up still despite the worst' and implying my mum had already passed. Noel did shout apologies as i stomped off inside and that as far as he knew she was still okay, but his friend is the one who handed me a wrapped in plastic, small, metal stool with a weird cartoon face on the seat so i could 'sit with her body, like sitting shiva, right?' (not like that at all to my knowledge, but then again my family has rarely to never fully followed any of the various religious rituals around death, we just. take the bits the dead person liked from them and ignore the rest, for better or for worse. Maybe that's just what happens when a family is a mishmash of various christian sorts from Catholic to Protestant with the hidden knowledge that actually, prior to ppl moving to the States, ppl in the family were Jewish but inter-marrying into Catholic families for safety-sake, and so any Jewish traditions used now are done wrongly and weirdly and in odd bits and pieces. At least that's as much as I've been told/have found out abt it, anyway)

-I proceed into this stupidly fancy and open concept hospital, to immediately find a hugr crowd mucking up the elevators (crowding the elevator bank and refusing to let others on.) That's where Con showed up, and helped me make it up the ridiculously wide, roundish staircases (think like. wide rounded stage steps, but for each level of this hospital), while also trying soothe me by telling me Housemate was already here and waiting for me, so were my grandparents and even Mum's bf (he promised to keep him away from me lol, it was v sweet in an otherwise filled with anxiety dream.)

-however, as we were struggling up the steps (also full of crowds, pushing each other around, so we literally had to hold hands and hold onto the railings and walls to avoid being shoved down the stairs), he kept hesitating on saying more abt mum. He tried to distract me by mentioning that, since I was here, the docs might want me to address some of my own health issues but that he wouldn't let them force me into any treatment i didn't want. Then he finally alluded to mum being in worse straits than I'd been told abt and said something to the effect of 'doing only what you can, not what she or others would expect of you' and 'not to set yourself on fire to keep someone else alive' plus admitting he was deeply worried my family was abt to force me into a big decision that absolutely wasn't the ONLY treatment option that would help mum, but it was implied to be the one mum's bf and my grandparents were pushing for.

-still dunno exactly what that option was, but just before i woke up i started hearing the latter part of the song Gethsemane from JCS (Housemate and I have been watching various versions irl this weekend lol), specifically the bit where Jesus dares/begs/etc God to see how he dies. This was accompanied by me finally reaching my mum's hospital room, and a stupid bright light emanating from it and like. Not to critique my own brain and the dream it created, but that was far too on the nose for me personally lmao.

-and I woke up thinking abt the call with my grandparents that I had on Thursday (didn't go super poorly but went. kind of weird and uncomfortable and confirmed again that like. they're happy for me being out here in CT, yet at the same time hold it and my happiness against me to some unconscious degree as originally outright confirmed by Mum in an earlier call her and I had like. Tail end of last year lmao. the main crux seeming to be 'why couldn't i find happiness in ND/what's wrong with all of them/why wasn't i willing to keep trying to make my life work in ND regardless of my happiness/don't i know how hard it is without my being there to help everyone whenever they ask/etc family bullshit')

And now I'm laying here thinking. If the Worst would happen for any of them, they would fully expect me to empty my bank accounts and do whatever else i had to, to get to ND not just to see them, but to help. to take care of as much as possible for them (mum and grandma get decision paralysed by sad/scary life events, my aunt is so uncomfortable with sickness and death she won't do hospital visits or funerals at all anymore for anyone, my cousins...are young enough they won't know how to handle it/won't want to, my grandpa tends to just shut down and isolate when things go to shit, and that's not to say that they all don't still get done things that need doing in these situations, but that they DO all usually need prodding and help and have leaned on me for that since i was a kid.)

And i would of course want to see them/help however i could, but. not to that extent. not to the point that I'd have nothing for myself, no money or help (bc they're not in a position to return that help or money to me, and they'd be so emotional as to likely be extremely offended and upset if i mentioned needing help myself.)

That said, I'm sick of silently daring them to watch me die just for their sakes, even tho i do still love them all dearly. and of course, that's entirely too dramatic but at the same time, Mum and I have had convos abt 'what if there's a shooting somewhere that we're at, how do we handle it, how are we attempting to protect each other' and Mum always says she would take a bullet for me, but she didn't protest when i say that I'd take one for her or anyone else in the family first. Last time she just nodded like. yeah. of course you would. so. Feelings, abt all of this.

If u actually read this full thing that was A. very sweet of u and i appreciate that u care abt my silly lil fucked up brain enough to do that (genuinely, I'm v grateful) and b. here is a pic of Nisha as what little compensation i can give for u reading this long ass ramble lol

[cherrygorilla]

The Mixtape Mysteries: Chapter 1 (Part 2)

Crazy Train - Ozzy Osbourne - 4:53

Yes, it is a ridiculous amount of time since I last posted anything to do with this (or anything at all really), but I've been dying to write for this story again, so I thought it would be a good way to help me get my groove back. Plus, I wanted to wait until Camp Wanamaker was done before I went back to working on Acting School Drop Out (because I feel like I might be able to use some stuff that's been mentioned in the next part lol). So, after months and months of uni stress that's kept me away from my google doc, here's the next installment of the story that's kept me going through it all.

Listen along with the gang here. Enjoy!

Heavy eyelids dropped over a pair of umber eyes trying, and failing, to focus on the computer screen in front of them. Whilst the radio often felt like Butchy's only co-worker, today it just seemed to be functioning as a lullaby machine - and the smooth, fade-out ending of Electric Light Orchestra's 'Evil Woman' just proved the point further. One second he was staring blankly at a page of pixelated text on a fuzzy screen, and then the next thing he knew he was drooling into the palm of his hand and almost falling off his chair at the sound of a car racing past his window. 

It's not even that he was tired - it was barely even 11am for Christ's sake - he was just so bored his brain was shutting down from lack of stimulation. And considering the latest turn of events, his body wasn't far behind. The roaring engine disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, leaving the incessant ticking of the plastic wall clock in its place. It didn't matter what kind of car it was, or where the hell it was going; all Butchy knew was that he wanted to be in it. Hopefully travelling far, far away from this crappy, dead-end town, and this shoe box of an office, that was more dust than desk, and smelled like a wet rat. 

Begrudgingly, he gathered himself together and finished typing out the latest file he'd been working on - something about trespassing in the old steel mill, he didn't care enough to look into the details. Tipping his head back, he rubbed his palms across his eyes, trying to press as hard as he could to draw some sort of alertness to the forefront of his mind. If anything, it just made him more tired.

One glance across his desk let his gaze settle on the dorky Star Wars mug Royce and Bentley had gifted him on his last birthday, and for the first time since he'd slumped in the splitting leather swivel-chair that morning, a ghost of a smile graced his features. He took a swig and drained the mug of the last of its contents: bitter, room-temperature coffee. Wincing at the taste, he picked up the next file to work on, but swiftly dropped it in favour of refilling his mug. After all, the walk to the coffee pot in the main office was the only change of scenery he got all day. Sometimes he watered the dying yucca plant beside him with the rancid liquid just so that he had an excuse to get away from his desk.

The tapping of keyboards and mumblings of the same, tedious phone calls he overheard every day met Butchy's ears as he lumbered down the hall and pushed open the office door. Lurking behind the frosted panel, caked in as much dust as the rest of the building, was the rag-tag reception team, consisting of three women Butchy had absolutely no intention of even looking at, let alone speaking to. He'd given up trying to make conversation with his co-workers pretty quickly after every meagre attempt on his end had been ignored. Most shifts passed without him uttering a single word. However, Lela ditching his ride that morning must have thrown him off more than he realised, because this shift was about to become an anomaly. 

"So I said to him: If you know so much about the damn sausages, why don't you cook 'em yourself?" 

"I bet he knows a lot about one kind of sausage."

"Oh Jen, pull your mind out of the gutter, you sound like a teenager."

"She practically still is one."

"I'm right though, aren't I?"

A strained sigh slipped past Butchy's lips before he could stop it. The nasal drones from the women behind him were enough to make his eye twitch at the best of times, but the added scraping of Jennifer's nail file made it inevitable. Before he could short-circuit altogether though, one of the adjoining doors to the main office was pushed open, and the conversation unfolding behind it immediately caught his attention. 

Heaving a sigh that put the young trainee's to shame, the fourth, and final receptionist, led the charge into the room - two officers hot on her heels. "Well, you'll just have to go alone then, won't you, gentlemen?" 

"We can't just 'go alone', the chief's the only one that goes on solo investigations. What if it's dangerous? What if we need back-up?"

"And what, pray tell, Officer Reynolds, is so 'dangerous' about a broken store window?"

"Well from the sounds of things it's a pretty clear-cut robbery. What if the culprit's still on the scene? What if he's armed?"

"Why are you assumin' it's a 'he'?" Jennifer piped up with a smirk, punctuating her question by blowing the acrylic dust from the tip of her nail. 

As expected, neither officer batted an eyelid at her interruption. 

"We got the call last night. You've got a higher chance of him sticking the damn window back together."

"But what if it's like that time when Old Man McRoberts'-"

"Enough, boys. I don't want to hear it," she finally snapped, slamming the stack of paperwork down on her desk so hard it even made her glasses chain quiver. Turning to the pair with her hands planted firmly on her hips, she continued. "Callahan, you're on patrol with Officer Powell; Reynolds, you're investigating that store window. Alone."

"But Fran, that never-"

"No, I don't want to hear another word. You're going solo, Reynolds, and that's that." 

"...Uh, I could go with you."

The whole office fell silent. Even Jennifer's nail file seemed to pause for thought. But all too soon, six pairs of eyes fell on Butchy, whose grip on his mug instinctively tightened under their bemused glares. He couldn't exactly blame them; even he couldn't believe that he'd dared to speak - let alone suggest such a thing. But then again, this was a perfect opportunity - perhaps the only opportunity he'd get (at least for the foreseeable future) to prove himself a worthy member of the team. Being stuck behind a computer screen all day was getting him nowhere - in fact, he was pretty sure he had even less respect now than when he'd first set foot through the door over a month ago. But working on a case, a real case, meant he could put all the skills he'd learnt in his training to the test - show everyone that potential he'd promised in his interview. This could be the making of Officer Bandoni. This could be his ticket out of that godawful, stuffy office. This could be-

"Oh my god, look at his face; he's serious."

God, he hated Jennifer. But he hated that cackling laugh of hers even more. 

"Jennifer," Linda, the crotchety receptionist to her left, scolded. If Butchy hadn't known better, with her brusque, hushed tone and sharp glare from over the top of her tortoise shell glasses, he'd have thought the woman was her mother. 

"Yeah right," Officer Callahan snorted. But a pause, followed by a brief glance in the new recruit's direction soon had his confidence faltering. "I- Oh…" 

"Hey, cut him some slack, Jen; the kid's still learning the ropes," Officer Reynolds piped up, ignoring Officer Callahan's attempts to hide his smirk by smoothing out his moustache, and instead sending the smarmy receptionist a blasé, yet stern frown. "Of course he wasn't being serious."

"Actually, I was," Butchy corrected. He set his mug down and stood his ground opposite the two officers, gently nudging his chin up and puffing out his chest in an attempt to outwardly show some of the confidence he was so desperately trying to scrounge together. At least that would help to mask the stubborn rage bubbling away in the pit of his stomach. The staff's dismissiveness was frustrating enough on its own, but being reduced to a 'kid' was downright infuriating. 'Kids' did not single-handedly raise their little sister. 'Kids' did not give up their weekends to go and work in a shitty garage for two bucks an hour all throughout high school just so they could have food on the table. 'Kids' did not shoulder the responsibility of four adults after stepping up to parent, not only his own sister, but the three boys next door too. Butchy hadn't felt like a 'kid' in years. He had always been the oldest - the most mature, the most dependable, the most capable… So for these six adults, who had barely given him the time of day in the month he'd been working with them, to stand there and tell him he was nothing more than a 'kid'...it was insulting. And he was determined to prove them wrong. "If you need another officer for back-up, and no one else is free, then why can't I go with you?" 

"Well, for one, you're not an officer-"

All Reynolds had to do was hold up a hand for Callahan to snuff out his snickers. "Because you haven't finished your training yet, son," he plainly explained. At least his withering look was softened by a bored tone. 

"But I've aced every part of the course I've completed so far," Butchy argued. "And this could be a chance for me to learn on the job, out in the field-"

"Son, let it go."

"You said, yourself, that I've got potential. Why can't I just show you-?"

"Look, kid, you're not ready - you won't be for a long time. I admire the optimism but we've gotta look at the facts here. And truth is: the dirt on Callahan's shoe's got more experience walkin' 'round a crime scene than you do. I know you want to get out of the office and get a taste of the action, but I can't work the case and babysit you at the same time. It's just not realistic."

'Babysit'? Butchy could feel the word in the palm of his hand as he clenched his fingers into a fist around it, crushing it, along with all its juvenile connotations. "I'm not a 'kid', I'm eighteen years old," he insisted, choosing his words and tone very carefully as he fought not to lose his cool. 

"Yeah, and I'm not a chainsmoker neither," Jennifer sniggered, appearing to have swapped her nail file for a cigarette during the confrontation. She took a long drag as her, deep, carob eyes latched onto his, lashes sprawling across a rough sea of streaky kohl, before letting the smoke leak out through her crimson-painted smirk. 

Butchy didn't know what was more nauseating: her attitude or the stench of tobacco hanging in the air. 

Officer Reynolds let out an exasperated sigh that soon stole back the trainee's glare though. "That's all well and good, but it's not gonna change my mind. You need more experience before you go out in the field, Bandoni," he explained, with an expression that told Butchy he was well-weary of the conversation now. "You can't learn to run before you learn to walk. It's just not realistic - if anything, it's naïve."

"But how am I supposed to get more experience when I'm stuck behind a desk all day?" 

Butchy's question was shot down though as the pair of officers crossed the room to the office's main door, back to their usual routine of barely acknowledging his existence. "If I'm not back by two for your CPR training, Officer Powell will handle it, okay?" Reynolds said as he plucked his hat from the coat stand in the corner and secured it atop his head of thinning, taupe hair. Knowing the new recruit wouldn't be satisfied with any answer he could give him, he'd just decided to brush the question aside altogether. 

And knowing that defiance, and further provoking, would get him nowhere, Butchy finally relaxed his hand, and gave a stiff nod. He silently watched the officers announce their departure to the room and felt his shoulders slump in defeat, his chest aching with betrayal. Officer Reynolds was supposed to be his mentor, the one who would take him under his wing as he learned the ropes - and yet he'd kicked him to the curb and spat in his face the one time he'd tried to do the right thing. At least that's how it felt to him anyway. 

"Bye boys," Jennifer trilled with a flirty giggle as the office door closed behind them. Tapping the ash from the end of her cigarette, she turned her vampish smirk to Butchy. "Nice little show there, Bandoni. And there I was thinking today was gonna be boring." 

Butchy's frown deepened as her scornful laughter battered his ears. The thick-headed she-devil wasn't worth his breath though - even the sickened huff that escaped his throat felt like a waste. His fingers once again closed, although this time they at least found the warm ceramic of his mug beneath them. Letting the heat seep into his skin, he took a deep breath in through his nose and tried to focus on anything else other than the anger boiling in his chest. At least the Star Wars mug, and the memory of receiving it, gave him something to anchor himself to: a way to discharge all the bitter resentment that had been steadily building for weeks, but had finally come to an ugly head. One more snarky comment from Jennifer and he'd have hurled the coffee at her sloppy up-do, he knew it - he could feel himself teetering on the brink. 

And yet, a friendly hand in the centre of his back was all it took to draw him back from the edge. "I should be thanking you," Fran said with a sympathetic chuckle, and roll of her eyes at the officers' expense. "I thought they'd never leave."

Managing a weak, but grateful smile to the receptionist, Butchy finally picked his mug up from the drink station and took his leave before he could draw any more unwanted attention to himself. Jennifer's squawking voice still rang in his ears as his footsteps pounded down the hall, desperate (for once) to shut himself away in his office. At least in there he knew he was safe from further embarrassment, even if the only thing waiting for him was a stack of files on petty traffic crimes. Apparently reading about speeding fines and parking tickets was all the excitement his life could afford him for the time being. But, for once, he actually found some comfort in that. 

"Well, Wuthering Heights, you were fun while you lasted, but I am not going to miss you," Vivien snorted, holding the worn paperback out in front of her, as if to address it like an old friend. 

The gentle chuckles that bounced the soft, chocolate brown curls beside her set her innocent little middle-school heart aflutter, and she caught herself clamping her lips shut in case it tried to escape. Craving the thrill of that sensation again, she snatched a shy glance in his direction before plastering the jovial grin back on her face. "Thank you for the 'A' though, Emily." 

"What are you thanking her for? We did all the hard work," Royce scoffed. "I wrote so many notes on the moors I'm pretty sure I almost gave myself Carpal Tunnel."

A snicker crinkled the brunette's nose. "Well you do have the neater handwriting."

"And you have all the good ideas," Royce chuckled, praying desperately that the prickling he felt across his cheeks wasn't what he thought it was. 

Stopping in front of a set of painted metal doors, Vivien turned to him with a disapproving frown. "Not all the good ideas." 

"Fine… most then."

Whilst Royce may have been able to keep his blush at bay, Vivien felt hers raging like a wildfire as she downplayed his compliment with an affectionate eye-roll and pushed her way out into the crisp autumn air of the Hawkins Middle parking lot. Hopefully a bracing breeze like the one that smacked her across the face the second she set foot onto the asphalt would help her systems stop running on overdrive, because right now she felt like a live wire about to catch light. One wrong move from Royce and he'd be fried to a crisp. 

Wrapping her free hand around the forearm that flanked him, protecting his arm from being barbecued should he decide to fondly bump her as they fell into stride once more, Vivien, composure regained, offered him a smile. "I guess that makes us a pretty good team then, huh?"

"Yeah, I guess it does," he agreed, holding her gaze for a beat and letting the sincerity of the moment swell alongside the tingly, warm feeling spreading through his chest. "...And we've got the A to prove it." Terrified by the sensation, he snorted out a laugh that shattered the tenderness of the moment just as awkwardly as how he almost tripped over his own feet because he was spending more time looking at Vivien and her freaking dimples than where he was walking. Damn his stupid hand-me-down sneakers from Miles and their stupidly long laces.

More awkward, cheerful chuckles tumbled from the middle schoolers' lips as Royce steadied himself again and they made their way over to the cluster of trees by the soccer field. It didn't take Vivien long to break the comfortable silence that had fallen over them though. "I don't know what we're going to do with ourselves now that project's finished; it completely took over our lives for like two whole weeks there."

"I'm sure we'll find something."

But Royce's laidback grin was the complete antithesis of Vivien's tense shoulders and skittish gaze. Then again, he had no idea what she was planning, or what her skating friends had been begging her to do for weeks. 

It couldn't be that hard, right? It was just one little question. She asked him questions all the time, this one didn't need to be any different. And besides, there wasn't really anything Vivien felt as though she couldn't talk to Royce about; he was her best friend, he was always her first port of call for anything that was bothering her - well, unless it was about something like her period; that was strictly for her mom…

But this was just a question: one that could very well have been asked without another thought had she not attached all the extra weight to it in her mind. And yet here she was, fighting her own tongue, trying to persuade it to recite the script she'd meticulously planned out in her head the night before, because for some reason it wasn't convinced by her promised ability to brush the sentiment off as 'just a friend thing' should Royce take it badly. And neither was her mind, really. 

Realistically though, what was the worst thing that could happen if he had a weird reaction? It's not like a meteor would crash out of the sky and strike them both down or anything, no matter how much she may want it to in the moment - she knew; she'd checked and it wasn't the right time of year for it. The worst that could happen is things might be a little awkward between them for a couple days, right? He wouldn't- 

-Actually, scratch that. Vivien didn't want to think about it. 

"Well, actually…" she began, before she could talk herself out of it any further. 

Vivien felt Royce's gaze land on her the second she stopped to clear her throat, which had become inexplicably scratchy ever since those last words had left it, clearly so reluctant to be said they'd dug their heels in the entire journey out into the cool, October air. And as soon as it did, it felt as though all her sweat glands released at once, adding a glistening sheen to her already crimson skin. Horrified, Vivien kept her gaze on the ground a few paces ahead of her to avoid having to find out if Royce had realised, and pushed her round, silver-rimmed glasses further up the bridge of her nose in an attempt to shield herself from further embarrassment as a result of her thirteen-year-old hormones wreaking havoc in her own body. 

Fearing that the longer she dragged this on, the more her subconscious would betray her, she swallowed her nerves and ploughed ahead. "Do you remember how you missed out on going to watch The NeverEnding Story this summer because you had to spend your ticket money on a new wheel for your bike?"

In her periphery, Vivien saw Royce's hand shift up to play with the fraying fabric of his backpack strap. He only ever did that when he felt uncomfortable. She didn't even have to look at him to confirm it either, the pause before he responded told her almost as much as his tone of voice did. 

"...Yeah, but what does that-?"

"Hey nerds!" 

Despite their disdain for the term, both Vivien and Royce's heads whipped around to try to locate the source of the voice, mentally cursing themselves for even acknowledging that the phrase could have been used to refer to them, let alone responding to it. But as green and brown eyes scanned a sparse sea of middle schoolers, searching for signs of anyone with ill-intent, they came up short. 

"Over here!"

The voice, carried on the wind, drew the pair's gazes to a figure, practically standing on the bench of a rotting, wooden picnic table to try to grab their attention and their disgruntled grumblings fell from their lips within seconds of one another, replaced by fond sighs. 

Bentley waved the duo towards him so spectacularly that, for all they knew, he could have been directing a plane to land. And whilst Vivien couldn't help but smile at the blond's boundless energy, she also couldn't help but feel a pang of disappointment with how easily Royce shelved their conversation by letting out an almost relieved: "Duty calls."

"Yeah," Vivien agreed with a forced smile and a breathy, awkward laugh to match his. Although it dropped from her face the second he turned his back to head over to the shaded seating area. 

Once he was a good few paces ahead of her, and she was sure he was out of earshot, Vivien let out a frustrated huff, so hot she was surprised it didn't steam up her glasses. "Goddammit, Bentley," she muttered, shoving her library copy of Wuthering Heights into her backpack as she started trudging along behind Royce. "I almost got through it all that time."

But Bentley was none the wiser to Vivien's grand plans; too excited by his own news to consider that the pair may have been busy. And besides, the easygoing grin his older brother shot him as he approached made him none the wiser. 

"You've gotta come up with something better to call us, Benny," Royce said, fondly shaking his head as he climbed the last few steps of the hill leading up to the picnic table, adorned by Bentley's friends, the contents of at least three up-turned pencil cases, and enough sheets of paper to paper mache a small child. Thankfully, the table was sheltered from the worst of the breeze, so the most that a stray gust could do was flutter the edges beneath the various, makeshift paperweights (dog-eared textbooks and unopened juice boxes) strewn across the splintering surface.

"Why? You are 'nerds'," the boy laughed as he bounced back down into his spot on the bench seat beside August. 

"We are not," Royce protested.

"It got you to come over here, didn't it?" Bentley replied with a cheesy smirk. 

Royce let out a slightly bitter sigh as he fumbled through a response. "Well- yeah, but it's… demeaning." 

"Then why'd you respond to it?" Kona snorted, apparently more focused on selecting the right shade of crayon than bothering to look Royce in the eye as she insulted him. 

The bluntness of the eleven-year-old's comment drew a snort of laughter from him before he could stop it, whether it was in amusement or incredulity though he'd never know. But the smile that threatened to envelop his disapproving frown stayed firmly in place as he said, "Because I'm so used to everyone else calling us it, that's why. And you shouldn't be contributing to the problem anyway; I thought we were all on the same side here."

"You calling us nerds, RJ?" Zack piped up with a challenging quirk of his eyebrow. 

"Pot calls the kettle black," Royce smirked.

"White boy says what now?" Zack retorted with a confused frown that soon gave way to a mischievous grin the second that Royce rolled his eyes and playfully ruffled his hair, insisting through shared laughter that the boy knew what he meant. 

"What are you guys doing up here?" Vivien asked with a breathy laugh of her own as she arrived at the picnic table and caught the end of the boys' friendly roughhousing.

"Having fun until you nerds showed up," Zack scoffed as he shoved Royce's chest in an attempt to get the older boy away from him. But the bubbling giggles that tumbled from his lips as Royce expressed his disdain for the name once more told everyone all they needed to know about how much he enjoyed the brunet's company - proved even further when he resorted to wrapping his arms around his torso and tackling him into a hug from his spot on the bench. 

"Looks like it," Vivien noted with a bemused chuckle. "What's all this then? You writing out your own comic book or something?" she continued, gesturing to the vast collection of paper spread out before the quartet. 

"We're designing our characters for this cool new game Gus brought in," Bentley raved, holding up his sheet of paper for Vivien to see. "Look at my guy, he's got a wand that's disguised as a paintbrush and this magic flute that lets him talk to animals." 

"Damn, Benny, that's so cool," she grinned, marvelling at the artwork with almost as much care as the blond put into creating it. 

"And look, here's the one I'm doing for Gus," Bentley continued, shuffling the papers around until he selected the right one. 

"You didn't want to draw out your own?" Vivien asked the boy, whose sandy blond eyebrows were furrowed in concentration. 

"Nah; Ben's better at art," August admitted, only glancing up from his work to shoot his oblivious friend a shy smile. "And I enjoy the planning part of it more anyway," he went on to explain. "So he's doing the drawing, and I'm filling out his character sheet for him." 

"Yeah, 'cause there was no way I was gonna be able to deal with all that," Bentley snorted.

"This looks like a lot of work for just one game," Vivien noted, inching another piece of paper towards her and finding it covered from top to bottom in meticulously written words, numbers, and the occasional, scribbled doodle. 

"Tell me about it," Kona scoffed. "I feel like we got extra math homework with this stupid number system we've got to work off of," she added with a huff that blew a straw strand of hair away from her eyes. Begrudgingly tapping the open, yellowing pages of an intricately illustrated book with the end of a pencil, she brought the thirteen-year-old's gaze to the table she was drawing from. 

"You guys are willingly doing math over lunch and you're calling us nerds?" Royce asked with a teasing incredulity that earned him further, playful bickering from Zack. 

"So what do you do with all this when you've created your characters then?" Vivien continued, feeling a fond smile tugging at her lips as Royce's unbridled laughter tickled her ears. Fighting the urge to swat the imagined sensation away, she focused her attention on the other children at the table. "What's this dorky wizard math game called?" 

"Dungeons and Dragons," Bentley explained.

Vivien’s ears perked up. “Dungeons and Dragons? That weird roleplaying game Riven plays with his sweaty high school friends?” 

“Who’s Riven?” Kona asked.

“My skating partner,” Vivien said, throwing the explanation away like a used napkin so that she could get back to the main point at hand. 

“Ew, so is he like your boyfriend then?” Kona teased with a devilish wiggle of her eyebrows. 

“No!” Vivien blurted, maybe a little too quickly if everyone turning to look at her was anything to go by. "No, not like… It's just- He's like my brother, ok?" she hurriedly tried to explain, trying to ignore the bile now creeping at the back of her throat the very thought alone had placed there. 

"Ok," Kona snorted, smirking to herself as she caught Royce's shoulders slump in relief in her periphery. Making the ninth-graders squirm was a favourite pastime of hers, and lately, all this girlfriend-boyfriend talk around them, despite making her want to hurl, had been a homerun every time. 

"I didn’t know Riven played DnD,” Bentley piped up, earning himself a grateful smile from Vivien for taking some of the heat off her. 

“Neither did I until he made us switch our practice days so that he could go play pretend with a bunch of dorks out the back of Eddie 'the freak' Munson's trailer."

"Riven's in that weird Hellraiser club?" Royce asked, bushy eyebrow raised in disbelief. 

"My sister says they're all devil worshippers," Zack mumbled.

"It's Hellfire," Vivien corrected. "And they're not devil worshippers - well, Riven's not anyway. As far as I know they're just losers in matching shirts who play make believe like they're still in first grade."

"It's more than just playing make believe," August dared to pipe up with a somewhat defensive frown, immediately toying with the corner of Bentley's character sheet the second the group's attention landed on him. A sideways glance in the blond's direction earned him a reassuring smile that breathed some much needed confidence into his lungs, and as he released it, he said, "There's this whole world you can build your own stories around with all these super detailed characters and a bunch of lore you can discover. I spent my whole weekend reading through the books my cousin gave me and that doesn't even cover half of it. It's like one big choose-your-own adventure story, but everyone gets a say in what happens, and gets to feel like they're a part of it."

A beaming grin and steel blue eyes, sparkling with excitement, found Royce with startling ease. "Doesn't that sound cool?!" Bentley enthused.

"...It actually does," Royce admitted, even surprising himself with his answer. 

"Hear that, Auggie? You didn't even have to mention dragons to convince someone that time," Kona snickered, firing the curly haired boy beside her a smirk. 

"Whatever," Zack scoffed, rolling his eyes. "You thought they sounded cool too," he added with an accusatory nudge of the blonde's elbow that had her cursing him under her breath for making her pencil skim across the page. 

Ignoring his friends' sibling-like arguing, so used to it by now that it honestly would have been stranger to acknowledge it, Bentley kept his attention, and his toothy grin, focused on his older brother. "I knew you'd like it! You're always borrowing those old fantasy books from the library and writing your own versions of them."

"Well- yeah, ok, but what does that have to do with this?" Royce stuttered, cheeks tinged pink with embarrassment despite Vivien's small, amused smile. 

"Well this is just like that! Gus wrote out our first campaign all by himself," Bentley gushed before leaning into the shying blond beside him. "That's like the story, right?" he checked in a hushed tone. And after receiving a confirmatory nod, he turned back to Royce with renewed enthusiasm. "The plot, the monsters, the bonus quests - he came up with it all!" 

Bentley pushed a stack of papers towards his brother, bound by treasury tags and bearing enough ink to have drained an entire pack of ballpoint pens. "Holy shit," Royce breathed as he picked it up and began flipping through the makeshift book, becoming more and more stunned with every turn of a page. "You wrote this whole thing by yourself?" he asked August, who timidly nodded. "In one weekend?" Again, the boy nodded, this time a little more eagerly. And Royce could see why. "...Wow," he marvelled, smiling as he watched the younger boy swell with pride. "This is really impressive, August."

"You put some serious work into this, huh?" Vivien noted.

"Yeah, I guess," August admitted as his steadily reddening cheeks were pulled aside by an appreciative grin. "It's not like I minded though," he went on to hurriedly explain. "It all came together pretty quickly once I got into it. Plus it gave me an excuse to shut myself up in my room away from my stuffy aunt and that stupid dog she carries around in her purse," he added, earning himself a bright laugh from Bentley that completely stalled his train of thought. Luckily, it was nothing that clearing his throat and refocusing his gaze on the blond's character sheet couldn't fix though. "I guess I just thought it would be something fun for us all to do together, you know?"

"Yeah, it sure sounds like it," Vivien said with a warm smile. But there was still a little, nagging thought hammering away at the back of her head, and she feared that if she didn't use this opportunity of an out as her last-ditch attempt at getting Royce alone before the end of the school day then that nagging thought would break right through her skull and puncture her brain with its pesky little pickaxe. And she needed all the brainpower she could muster to get through this, so she did not want to take any risks. "Anyway," she continued, snagging the attention of the table of eleven-year-olds as she clapped her hands together. "We'd better let you guys get back to planning. We wouldn't want to be the reason for you guys delaying your first adventure now, would we?" she asked rhetorically, firing a knowing look across at Royce that was not-so-subtly hidden behind a theatrical grin.

If Royce picked up on the intensity behind Vivien's gaze though, he didn't show it, instead remaining as blissfully oblivious as he always seemed to be when it came to her intentions as he took his turn to offer a fond smile to the table of his brother's friends. "You'll have to let us know how it goes," he said, before adding with a chuckle: "I'm invested now; it sounds awesome."

Breathing out a sigh of relief between her teeth as Royce rounded the picnic table to join her, Vivien kept her almost clown-like smile plastered to her face as she thanked whatever great powers were at work for making Royce ever so slightly more perceptive than the other, gormless teenage boys in their class. But just as she was inching her way back down the hill, and readying her opening line for the brunet once they were out of earshot of the eager little gremlins, one of them piped up with a perfectly pointed pin to burst her bubble. 

"Why don't you just play with us then?" 

Bentley's wide-eyed, hopeful grin was the only thing keeping Vivien from snatching up Kona's muddy jump rope and strangling him with it. Besides the years upon years of sibling-like friendship, obviously.

Forcing out a strained laugh, she managed a tight, "It's alright, Benny, we don't want to crash your fun." 

"You're not crashing anything; we want you to join in. Right, guys?" 

Ok, so Bentley can't read social cues… Good to know. 

It would have made things a hell of a lot easier if Vivien could have known about that before she set the wheels of her master plan into motion though, because right now she felt like they were so out of sync they were about to derail the handcar she'd strapped this grand idea of hers to. But even if she could have brought herself to get mad at Bentley, Zack jumped to the blond's defence before she even had the chance. 

"Yeah, we're gonna need all the help we can get because Kona can't add up for shit and I'm not about to let my guy Omar Scale Crusher die after I've spent all this time working out his stats."

"I can't add up for shit?! What the hell are you talking about? You're the one who got put in Math 2!"

"Only for a week! And I totally got a better grade than you on that test last week."

"No you didn't!"

"Did too!"

"Bite me!" 

As the pair energetically bickered about Zack's accusations, which Kona steadfastly claimed were built on entirely false foundations, Vivien found her frustration with the picnic table occupants crumbling away. After all, they weren't to know that she'd been practising for this lunchtime conversation with Royce for weeks. How could they? The only others she'd confided in were her three skating friends and the balding Big Bird stuffed animal from the end of her bed that had taken on the role of Royce during her many rehearsals. And she couldn't blame them for their excitement over the game either; even she had to admit that it sounded pretty cool. Plus, after hearing Riven rhapsodise about Hellfire's epic campaigns for weeks now, she was starting to get a little curious about the game and how it was played. 

"Omar Scale Crusher, huh?" she eventually chuckled, raising a quizzical eyebrow at Zack that soon ground his and Kona's squabbling to a halt. "How'd you come up with that?" 

"Isn't it sick? Auggie had this big list of names with cool meanings to help us decide."

After shuffling through the endless sheets of paper around him, August found the right one and went on to explain for a very enthusiastic Zack: "Omar means 'one who has a long life'."

"Yeah, so he'd better live up to his damn name! I'm not planning this whole thing out to have him die in the first round," he declared with a hearty laugh, before tagging on: "Plus my uncle's called Omar and he's awesome."

Vivien couldn't help her snort of laughter at the blunt innocence. "Very creative," she noted. "What is he then? Like a viking or something?"

"No, he's a wizard," Zack stated matter-of-factly. "'Cause why would I bother using a sword when I could just kill an enemy with magic?" 

"How come your guy's holding a sword then?" 

Royce's frank delivery, from over the younger boy's shoulder, had a laugh spurting from between Vivien's lips before she could stop it. And Bentley, August, and Kona were all quick to follow suit. 

However, as to be expected, the brash brunet soon scrambled a retaliation. "Well I'd still want one for backup."

"No duh," Kona chuckled as she finished shading in the metallic sheath of the dagger her character clutched in a leather clad fist. "Magic or not, you still need a weapon."

"Is your character a wizard too then?" Vivien asked Kona, but the incredulous snort the blonde let out could have told her all she needed to know on its own.

"No, Andromeda doesn't need to rely on magic to keep herself out of danger; her dexterity's off the charts." 

Before another argument could break out between Zack and Kona as a result of her roundabout dig at him, August decided to speak for the table. "Zack’s our mage, Kona's our thief, Ben's our Bard and my guy's a ranger."

"But you're the dungeon master too, right?" Bentley checked, mischievous blue eyes peeking out from beneath furrowed bows. 

August's own eyes were drawn to Bentley's the second that he'd opened his mouth, but the smirk tugging at his friend's lips was what captured his attention. "What's so funny?" he challenged through a chuckle that coaxed one out of Bentley too. "You don't think I could be a dungeon master?"

"I never said that," Bentley laughed. But the look the boys shared meant they both knew that's what his tone had implied.

"You didn't have to."

"Well can you blame me? It just sounds so menacing and scary. I know you read all those horror books and stuff, but come on, you're about as intimidating as Winnie the Pooh - who, last time I checked, was still tucked under your comforter next to your pillow and your old baby blanket."

Jaw dropped in incredulity, August lightly elbowed Bentley in the ribs. "I can so be intimidating," he retorted. But if he was pretending to be mad at the boy, his true feelings were soon revealed by the smile he couldn't seem to keep off his face.

"Yeah, well, we've yet to see it," Kona bluntly noted, which once again set Royce and Vivien off giggling at the sixth graders. 

"You sound like you've got a pretty well-rounded group then," Royce carried on, drawing the conversation back to August's point from earlier. "Are there even any roles left for us? Or are we going to have to start doubling up?"

"You can double up if you want, but there's still a bunch of classes that haven't been picked yet," August explained, flipping through the large book spread out before him until he got to the right page. "We've not got a druid, a cleric, or a fighter."

"What does a fighter do?" Royce asked.

"Fighters are weapons-oriented warriors, who fight using skill, strategy, and tactics," August recited from his handbook, bringing the group's attention to the detailed illustration of an armoured swordsman, wielding what looked to be an incredibly heavy shield with almost no effort at all.

The second Vivien's eyes met the page she knew it was game over; her imagination kicked into overdrive and tossed all other thoughts about how she could have been spending this lunchtime to the curb. Racing at a million miles an hour, her brain plucked ideas from seemingly thin air and began piecing together a muscular young woman, strong enough to knock an ox clean off its feet in one quick shove, although you'd never know it since her frame was cleverly disguised in roughened leather padding, tarnished silver armour, and rich, violet robes fashioned into a sort of cape. Her face was weathered, but kind, and her vibrant, emerald eyes sparkled with determination, and the promise of adventure. Like the picture in August's book, the woman carried a large, battle-scarred sword by its ornate handle, and kept a hefty shield vigilantly by her side, painted in, again, deep shades of indigo, violet, and the blood of her enemies, naturally. She also had a quiver of arrows slung over her shoulder though, nestled beside a crossbow, just peeking out from behind a head of flowing, chestnut locks. The heroine had no time for preening, so her hair was tousled with grease and grime from combatting the elements on her journeys, but as it fluttered in the wind, it was kept away from her face by intricate braids, weighed down by silver rings and stolen jewels of amethyst and topaz. She smiled at Vivien from the forefront of her mind, as if marking her territory there, and Vivien felt her heart skip a beat as she breathed out a quiet, and hopefully nonchalant: "Hmm…cool."

"That sounds like a good one for you, Viv. Strategy and tactics? You're great with planning stuff out," Royce noted. But one glance in her direction and his face broke into a knowing smile the second he clocked her eyes, glazed over in thought, and lips, parted in awe. 

"Yeah, and look, you'd make a great cleric," Bentley continued, pulling Royce's gaze away from Vivien, albeit reluctantly. Flipping the page of August's handbook, he excitedly tapped at a drawing of a tall man, draped in heavy, fur pelts and bronzed chainmail. A glowing staff was held in one hand, and a massive axe was thrown over his shoulder as though it weighed no more than a sack of flour. 

"Clerics are versatile figures, both capable in combat and skilled in the use of divine magic," August recited from the page after a light, nudge from Bentley. "They're also powerful healers."

"See? That's perfect for you! You're always helping patch us up if we fall off our bikes," Bentley enthused, undeterred by the amused chuckles that his brother unleashed as a result of what he thought was an adorably innocent explanation. 

"Yeah, and we could use a healer on our team, especially with those two and their lack of impulse control," August snorted as he gestured to Kona and Zack, who jumped at the chance to express their indignation. 

As the group of friends returned to jovially bickering amongst themselves, Royce and Vivien's minds were quietly whirring with ideas. Ideas which, upon glancing at one another, they soon realised were all too perfectly aligned. 

"What do you say then, losers?" Kona finally asked once she'd finished fighting her ground against the boys, snapping the eighth-graders out of their heads and bringing them back to reality with a knowing smirk. "Are you playing with us or not?"

Royce, as always, left the decision to Vivien. But the hopeful glimmer in his caramel eyes, paired with her own, itching curiosity made that decision all too easy. And besides, even if she wasn't spending time alone with Royce, she was still spending time with him. And that was good enough for her.

…For now. 

"Well… I guess one game couldn't hurt, right?" she said with a smirk that soon broke out into a grin as Bentley's face lit up like a firework display. And it only grew when she glanced across at Royce for one last confirmation that she'd made the right decision, only to find him beaming with almost as much enthusiasm as his brother. 

If this nerdy little game brought Royce this much joy, and was even half as much fun as it sounded, then Vivien knew it would be worth another few hours of crippling anxiety. Besides, she hoped that she could immerse herself in the story so much that she'd forget all about her predicament with the brunet anyway. But as they took their places at the picnic table, and Royce's sneaker brushing against her shin shot a jolt of adrenaline up her leg with such a force that she almost jumped straight back out of her seat, she knew that that was just wishful thinking. Covering up the brief waver in her cool, confident exterior with a quiet cough, she tried to refocus her mind on the endless streams of information August was unleashing on the pair of them.

"-and so the group our characters all belong to is called The Circle of the Emerald Torches, but part of the first campaign is about how we get our name, so I'll explain more about that later. Before you start, and before I give you your character sheets though, if you want to be in our party then you'll need to recite the Oath of Noble Heroes so that we know you're serious about this."

"Don't worry, we had to do it too. But it's so cool, you'll love it! And then there's a declaration of loyalty for you to sign somewhere too," Bentley tagged on before the boys started animatedly babbling amongst themselves about the ins and outs of their party's rules again. 

Shaking his head at the pair, Royce took the opportunity of them being distracted to lean over to Vivien and teasingly chuckle, "What the hell have you just gotten us into?"

Fighting the urge to roll her eyes at the boy, knowing that his enthusiasm for the game was a major driving factor in her decision to play, and that he was also well-aware of that fact, she looked him square in the face and hid her smirk behind a deadly serious, blank expression, "I'm pretty sure we just joined a cult." 

American History, Volume 2, lay open on page 38. And it had laid there like that for the past 45 minutes, having been abandoned by its current owner almost as soon as it had been removed from their backpack. Because instead of completing the assigned history homework, the desk's occupant was using their study hall period much more wisely: by shredding a solo, courtesy of Ozzy Osbourne, on possibly the most prestigious instrument of all: the air guitar.

Ethan's eyes slid shut, and a blissful smile curled his lips as he mashed the volume button on his Walkman with practised ease. Bar after bar of 'Crazy Train' pounded through his skull at a staggering volume, rattling what little of his brain was left in the mostly vacant space between his ears, helped along by the bopping of his head in time with the song's beat. When his fingers weren't plucking out riffs on imaginary strings, they were banging out the drumline on a drum kit that was just as real as his Gibson SG. And all the while, he was passionately miming the lyrics for his audience of the pencil shavings and dust mites that hugged the wall beside his desk. 

He felt the music in his bones. The bass line pumped through his veins. Every note that was played resonated through the chambers of his heart until it felt like the song was as much a part of him as his left arm. And the deeper he let himself sink into the music, the less aware of his surroundings he became - or the less he cared to remember them anyway. Until a sharp elbow to the ribs shattered his rockstar illusions, that is. 

Bleary brown eyes met earnest, steel blue, and held nothing but confusion for the several seconds it took him to realise that Miles’ mouth was moving without making a sound. 

“What?” Ethan bellowed, prying a wailing headphone speaker away from his ears as he leaned closer to the exasperated brunet. 

“Jesus, man!” Miles exclaimed under his breath as he reached across to his friend’s Walkman to frantically turn the volume down. “Are you trying to blow your eardrums out or something?” 

“That would be pretty metal, so maybe,” Ethan chuckled, entirely unphased. But Miles’ disapproving frown soon had him rolling out an explanation. “You’ve got a front row seat for my biggest show yet and you’re choosing to lecture me about volume control? I can care about my hearing when I’m in the retirement home.”

“You’ll be lucky if you make it to a retirement home," Miles snorted. "You've got the survival skills of a two dollar house plant."

Instead of arguing back, or even rolling his eyes at his best friend's dig, Ethan just continued chuckling along in agreement as he slid his headphones down to rest around his neck - still blaring out Ozzy Osbourne's vocals, although they were only just audible over the hubbub of chatter and laughter that filled the rest of the classroom. "What were you saying before anyway?" he went on to ask. "Did you want something?"

"Yeah, the answer to number four."

"Pfft, you think I've even made it past one?" Ethan guffawed, astonished and highly amused that Miles thought highly enough of him to assume he hadn't been shirking his responsibilities all afternoon. "I've got no fucking clue. What chapter are we on again? Abraham Lincoln?"

The mix of despair and disbelief Ethan was faced with when he glanced back across at Miles told him his guess might not have been as accurate as he'd pitched it to be. "...Are we not on Abraham Lincoln?"

"We haven't done Abraham Lincoln since freshman year," Miles deadpanned before letting out a chuckle of his own. "When was the last time you actually paid attention in one of Mr Bishop's classes?"

"Probably freshman year," Ethan noted with a laugh, slumping back in his seat and starting to rock on the back two legs of the flimsy, plastic chair. "I think the only chance I've got at retaining any of the information in that textbook for this month's pop quiz is if I eat it."

The look of reproach Miles shot the carefree stoner could have fooled any passerby into thinking that he was the boy's father, but he blamed that on the past however many years of having to act as a sole parental figure for two young boys - who, on several occasions, had actually proved to be far more mature than the lank-haired brunet before him. More often than not, Ethan felt like a third child he had to keep alive. And somehow, his lack of height was not one of the driving factors behind that reasoning.

"Oh come on, don't give me that look," Ethan groaned, ever the resentful teenager in their relationship. "You've not exactly been Mr Studious yourself today."

"What are you talking about?" 

"Well you've been stuck on that same question for the last twenty minutes 'cause you keep making goo-goo eyes at you know who," Ethan smirked as Miles' eyes widened in horror and his forehead started to prickle with sweat. 

"No I don't," he indignantly tried.

"I thought you said you were over her," Ethan teased.

"I am! It's not like that anyway," Miles muttered, then added. "And it's not been twenty minutes."

"It totally has."

"How the hell would you know? You've been listening to Motorhead since we sat down."

"Yeah but my fuckin' eyes still work," Ethan snorted, hitting Miles with a loving grin that had him rolling his eyes before Ethan had even finished his sentence. And yet, the boy's frustration did nothing to deter him from probing further. "What's the stalking for this time then? You know, if you're not trying to get in her pants anymore." 

Miles was at as much of a loss as Ethan. His eyes found the head of bouncing, blonde curls with almost no effort at all (likely a result of an entire study hall period of practice), searching for some sort of answer. But all he found was a dull, fluttering in his chest. 

Even the giddy, lovestruck butterfly that had been trapped in there for months seemed to have admitted defeat. 

Still, his gaze never wavered. He watched airy laughter spill from her glossy lips, and her nose crinkle beneath brilliantly blue eyes, framed by thick, black lashes and copious amounts of mascara. Whilst before, Miles could have eaten through a movie theatre's entire popcorn supply and still want to look just a little longer, in that moment he just felt empty. And that’s when he realised it wasn't actually Carrie herself that was occupying his mind, it was everyone else around her, and how she was treating them. Plucking a proudly presented flyer for a house party from one, impishly teasing another, waving at Sharon Frye on her way out the door, firing a flirty wink in jest at Steve Harrington after giggling at one of his jokes…

Miles was certain she'd looked at every other person in that room at least once since their study hall period had begun, and yet the closest her eyes had ventured over to him was when she glanced at the clock on the wall. Every thought in his head was plagued by her smile, or her voice, or her laugh… Had he ever even crossed her mind? 

"Do you think she actually cares about us?"

Miles hadn't been able to bring himself to tear his forlorn gaze from the blonde in question, but that didn't stop Ethan from snorting out an answer. "Well yeah, I'd hope so; we spend enough time with her." 

"Not by choice," Miles huffed. 

“Well she talks to us now, and that’s more than we could have said before we worked with her, so that’s got to count for something,” Ethan chuckled. “But if this is about what I think it’s about, then she absolutely cares about you, dude. Like way more than the rest of us.”

“You really think so?” 

“Dude, it’s like you two are glued at the hip. I can’t get you away from each other for shit once we close every night,” Ethan replied. And when Miles still looked unsure, he added, “Why else do you think I always get stuck cleaning the kitchen with Mick? She hates my guts!”

“No she does not,” Miles softly chuckled.

“Well I definitely don’t think she likes me, not like Carrie likes you anyway,” he retorted with a smirk and a wiggle of his eyebrows. “I’m telling you, man. There’s something there. There’s no way she’d laugh at your crappy jokes like she does if she didn’t at least have a little interest in you - I don’t care if Mick thinks it’s bullshit, I know I’m right.”

Miles just rolled his eyes, but a hopeful smile desperately pulled at his lips, no matter how many times he tried to dismiss it. “I don’t know, I think she probably just does it to be nice,” he mused, watching as Carrie animatedly responded to Rachel Price before turning back to resume her conversation with the girl sat beside her - the very girl that Miles still had an irrepressible urge to swap lives with: Juliet Harmon. Now faced with nothing but the back of her head, he quickly lost interest in the view. “…She seems to act like that with most people.”

“She definitely does not, man. Why do you think the entire marching band is scared to look her in the eye? She’s like one of the biggest bitches in school,” Ethan scoffed. But he paused when he realised Miles wasn’t laughing along with him. “Why does it matter how she acts around other people anyway?” 

“It doesn’t,” Miles huffed. “…Not really.” 

But the second he dared to make eye contact with his oldest friend, the floodgates opened and the truth came tumbling out. 

“I just…feel stupid for letting her get in my head, and for actually thinking that we had something special - that I was somehow different to all the other idiots who throw themselves at her to get a second of her attention. But here I am, thinking about her constantly, hanging onto every interaction we have like my fucking life depends on it, only for her to… Ugh, I don't know. I just…don't want it all to not mean anything to her, when it means so much to me - no matter how much I try to convince myself it doesn't. I mean, yeah, she's nice to me at work - really nice - but she barely even acknowledges me outside of All Skate… It's like I don't even exist, like she doesn't even realise I'm there. And it makes me feel like shit."

"She barely acknowledges anyone," Ethan absentmindedly mused. "I wouldn't take it personally."

"That's a lot easier said than done," Miles huffed dejectedly. There was something freeing about Ethan's nonchalance over Miles' feelings though; it made them feel less suffocating. And whilst he still felt entirely hopeless about the situation, he did feel a little bit of the pressure ease off as he rested his chin on his hand and let his mind start to wander. "...You think she actually considers us friends?"

"Sure; she calls us her work friends all the time."

"No but like her actual friends," Miles clarified. 

"Dude, I don't fucking know; the female mind is a mystery to me at the best of times, but hers is on a whole other level," Ethan scoffed in incredulity. "Do you not remember that like thirty minute debate I had with her about diet sodas? Actual insanity.”

Miles' quiet chuckling as he reminisced about what had started as an innocent question, yet progressed to a full-blown screaming match, with each participant equally as confused and frustrated as the other, was soon silenced by Ethan's next prompt though. "I know a way you can find out though…"

"...No!" 

"Oh come on, man. Don't be a sissy. It'll be so easy. And then you can stop getting hung up on all these bogus hypotheticals."

Miles' initial horror slowly dissipated as Ethan's reasoning started to lure out a far greater force from its hiding place in the corner of his brain: his curiosity. "...You really think I can just go up and talk to her? In class?" he asked, as his eyes once again found that jumble of golden curls. 

"Sure, why not? It's only study hall." 

Again, Ethan's nonchalance, which was only heightened by the fact that he was trying to balance a pen on his curled upper lip as he responded, did far more for Miles' confidence than any pep talk of his own could have. And besides, maybe he was onto something - maybe it really was that simple; it always was in his world. 

"It wouldn't be weird?" Miles double-checked. 

"Why would it be weird? All you're gonna do is talk to her. And we already established you two are friends, so what could go wrong?" 

Miles shuddered at the very thought. "So much."

Ethan glanced across at him, ready to fire out further encouragement like a sixth grader with a penchant for making spitballs, but when he clocked his friend's nervous fidgeting, he reconsidered his situation and gained a little clarity. "Ok…yeah, fine, stuff could go wrong. But are you gonna die?" he proposed.

"No," Miles begrudgingly mumbled.

"Are you gonna break something?"

"No, but-"

"Then how bad can it be?" Ethan cut in with a lopsided, optimistic grin before Miles could tie himself up in any more self-conscious knots. "Just get over there and scratch that itch that's been bugging you for weeks; it's not gonna stop until you do. And you'll feel so much better after."

It took Miles by surprise every time it happened, but yet again, it seemed as though Ethan might actually be…right. This question of Carrie's loyalty had been eating away at him for weeks now. And, as he'd stressed earlier, it was making him feel shittier and shittier with every day he let it drag on. Asking her outright was a definite way to get his answer… It was just going to require him growing some balls, as anything to do with All Skate's resident disc jockey apparently made his own shrink to the size of peas.

"...Just walk over and talk to her?" Miles checked. Although, between us, he was just stalling to give himself more time to muster some courage.

"Yeah, as a friend," Ethan confirmed. 

"You really think I can pull that off?" Miles asked with a dubious, but hopeful quirk of his eyebrow that had Ethan melting like a bomb pop that had been left out in the 4th of July sun.

"Absolutely," he grinned, totally enamoured by his friend's giddy trepidation, and the promise of a relationship he so steadfastly defended. "She's got a major soft spot for you, man. I see it like every night," he went on to reassure. "There's no way she's gonna blow you off. You'll be fine."

And as a result of that dopey grin, complemented by the ratty, chestnut locks, and vacant, dark chocolate eyes… Miles believed him. 

"...Ok, I'm going in," he breathed through a determined smile. 

"Atta boy," Ethan chuckled, fist-bumping Miles before tipping his chair back onto all four of its legs again, as though to signal the resolution of their predicament. "Go scratch that itch," he added, finishing their little handshake with a bolstering point before lifting his headphones back over his ears and disappearing back into his wildest rock star fantasies - totally oblivious to the disaster about to unfold right behind him as Miles took a deep breath and waded into the wild, uncharted waters of the female mindset. 

"So now that we know that y=7, we plug that into this side of the function, that we've already simplified, to give us this…which then means that we can carry this over here, giving us x=3." 

…Silence.

"Right?" Juliet checked, although the satisfied smile that had settled on her carnation pink lips as soon as she finished the sum was beginning to falter into one of desperation as she turned to her tutee. "Did you follow along ok that time?"

But all Juliet was met with was a glassy stare and an infatuated grin, smushed between two fists as its owner rested their chin on their palms. "You're so smart, Julie," Carrie breathed. 

Juliet just rolled her eyes, although she did little to hide the bashful blush tickling her cheeks. “Never mind that, did you understand how I worked it out that time?” 

"...Kind of?" Carrie tried, offering a lopsided, hopeful grin to try to lessen the blow.

If Juliet's exasperated huff was anything to go by though: it didn't work. But her frustration dissolved the second that she met Carrie's gaze. "Where did I lose you?" she asked with a gentle, patient sigh. 

"The whole reversing the function bit," Carrie admitted as she bit her lip and braced herself for Juliet's reaction. Although the blonde's expression never wavered, the dismay that flashed in her eyes soon had Carrie barrelling through an explanation. "I swear I was getting it before that this time, but then it all started to sound like you were talking in another language, and then I got distracted by that pretty way you write out the 'x' again, and then I just…"

"...Stopped listening all together?" Juliet teasingly offered with a fond smirk.

Carrie scoffed in mock-defence. "No, I listened the whole time, I just stopped taking it in," she went on to clarify. But as soon as she drew a giggle from Juliet's lips she melted into that same infatuated grin from earlier as she admitted, "I'd never stop listening to you. You know I could listen to you talk for hours."

"Even about algebra?" Juliet teasingly tested with an affectionate smile of her own. 

"Of course about algebra," Carrie gushed with a glittering honesty that soon had Juliet giggling again. "Believe it or not, this is the most I've ever understood a math module," she carried on, straightening up in her seat to help give her point a little more credibility, before tagging on a jovial, "And it's all thanks to you, smarty pants."

"Would you stop calling me that? It's so lame," Juliet protested, hiding her smile behind a frank eye roll. "And besides, I'm not that smart." 

"You so are; you're like the smartest person I know," Carrie gushed, never one to let her friends downplay their successes, much to Juliet's disgruntlement. The blonde's frown didn't deter Carrie from continuing to lovingly babble straight through her stream of consciousness though. "That brain of yours has to be huge - no wonder you get headaches all the time, it's because it doesn't have enough space in there."

Carrie's knack for making herself giggle never failed to make Juliet smile, but yet again she found herself trying to cover it up with a bashful roll of her hazel irises as she let out a sigh and attempted to get their conversation back on track. "You wanna try another question then?" 

"Don't try to change the subject," Carrie fired back with a mischievous grin. 

"I'm not, you are!" Juliet retorted, biting back an incredulous laugh. "We're supposed to be doing algebra, not Juliet 101."

Carrie's mischievous grin only broadened. "Now that's a class I might actually get an A in."

Rolling her eyes for the third time at her best friend's antics, Juliet teasingly tried, "What? Not an A+?"

"Maybe," Carrie smirked. "But then again, I might get distracted by my teacher." Her wiggling eyebrows soon had Juliet reprimanding her and attempting to draw her focus back to her school work, but Carrie's mind was already wandering off too far down a different path altogether. "...Do you think you'd ever wanna be a doctor, Julie?" 

The comment, that fell slap-bang in the middle of Juliet's offer to rewrite the steps of the previous algebra equation, baffled her into silence - so taken aback by the suggestion that she almost thought she'd misheard the golden-haired girl. "What? No," she spluttered, looking at Carrie as though she'd just sprouted a third nose. "Where did that come from?"

Juliet's confusion didn't seem to faze Carrie though, because her dreamy smile stuck it out through her whole, rambling explanation. "I don't know, I just figured you should use your big brain for a job one day. You know, like one that actually actually makes you think instead of just like a working a cash register, or stacking books or something. And you need to be super smart to be a doctor, so…"

Juliet was quick to shoot down Carrie's optimistic grin. "I do not have what it takes to be a doctor, trust me."

"Sure you do," Carrie defended. "I'd let you be my doctor."

"Oh well then hand me my diploma," Juliet sarcastically replied, once more fondly rolling her eyes and chuckling at her best friend's enamoured stare and incessant bolstering. 

"I'm serious," Carrie pressed on though, determined to get through to Juliet despite her doubtful smirk. "I'd trust you with my life, you know I would. I'd let you save my life any day of the week," she grinned. But, after giggling to herself and absentmindedly twirling her pencil between her fingers, when she finally latched onto Juliet's hazel gaze again, only to find it significantly less jovial, it was her turn to express her confusion. "What? You don't believe me?" she teasingly challenged, with a quirk of an eyebrow. 

But Juliet still didn't seem to be in the mood to joke back, as her lips fell in line with the horizon and her gaze darted to Carrie's right before finding her again. 

Ok, now Carrie was really confused. 

"Huh?" she murmured, clearly not as in tune with her best friend's thoughts as she assumed she was. 

However, this time, Juliet flicked her eyes to Carrie's right with a touch more resolve, and paired it with a slight, but very purposeful nod of her head in the same direction. And finally, Carrie seemed to get the message. 

Following Juliet's line of sight, Carrie turned to look over her shoulder, only to find herself face to face with a person that almost caught her off guard as much as Juliet's sudden shift in dynamic had. "Oh," was the first word to jump from her lips, startling her back into what Juliet lovingly dubbed as 'show-mode' as she rolled her shoulders back and fixed a brilliant smile to her face. "Hey, Miles."

The second that Carrie acknowledged Miles, any confidence he'd managed to trick himself into conjuring fled. And whilst he had a Herculean urge to do the same, he too plastered what he hoped was a convincing smile to his face as he finished his approach to the blondes' shared desk. "Hey, Carrie," he said, breathing a sigh of relief for even managing to get the words out. And yet, he still pushed a little further to add, with a nod of acknowledgement too, "Juliet." 

The entertained smirk that started pulling at the corner of Juliet's lips in response caught him off guard, and he felt his stomach gently clench in defence. But he chose to ignore it, returning his gaze to Carrie's bright smile - its familiarity putting him back at ease and igniting that usual fire in his chest that sent warmth spreading throughout his- 

Wait, why was she turning back around? 

"Right, where were we?" Carrie said, dazzling Juliet with a grin as she readied her pencil on the page. "I've got a good feeling about this next one; I think if you just take it slow-."

"Ahem," Juliet interrupted. Her gaze caught Carrie's once again and held onto it for a beat before she tilted her head forwards, signalling with her eyes that there was still something - or rather, someone - behind her. The confusion, almost disbelief, swimming in Carrie's eyes made Juliet have to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from laughing, and locking onto Miles' look of bewildered dismay just made it even harder. But luckily, Carrie was quickly able to decipher her visual message once again, with little prompting this time.

Turning around to find that, to her surprise, Miles hadn't just been greeting her as he passed by her desk, he was, in fact, standing there - well, expectantly shuffling from foot to foot anyway - Carrie remounted her smile. Although now, Miles realised, it wasn't so welcoming. It felt almost…uncomfortable.  

"Oh, sorry. Did you want something?" she offered. 

He did - desperately so. And yet, he felt as though the sudden shift in tone had already started to write out his answer. 

The hairs on the back of his neck started to twitch as the walls of his stomach steadily closed in tighter. But, determined to stand by his heart, and prove to himself (and Mick) that his feelings weren't all built on fantasies he'd created in his head, he brushed the unease away and stood his ground. "No, not really. I just thought I'd…stop by…see how it's going."

Carrie's smile faltered again, giving way to further confusion. "...See how what's going?"

"...Study hall?" Miles said. But the response came out as more of a question than an answer, which he supposed was down to the fact that he wasn't even sure of it himself. And despite his hopeful grin, which he feared was now looking more like a grimace, he couldn't seem to stop trying to rub the growing discomfort from the back of his neck. 

God, he hoped that he didn't have any sweat stains. 

"Oh, uh, it's going fine," Carrie politely replied. Although her awkward fidgeting with her pencil's eraser told a different story. "We're just going through the algebra homework."

It was weird; it wasn't as though the conversation was making her seem 'off', it was like…the very fact he was talking to her was so distracting she couldn't settle. She was the centre of Miles' universe. And apparently he was just an asteroid in hers: a misshapen hunk of space rock, hurtling past in the blink of an eye, and completely blindsiding her with his very insignificant existence. 

A fellow asteroid must have collided with him at some point, because he could feel this weird twinge in his chest, by his heart, almost as though the impact had chipped a corner off. He swallowed thickly, pushing the creeping discomfort away. "The one for Mr Moreno's class?" 

"Mhm," Carrie confirmed with a nod. 

"Oh, nice…" Miles trailed off with an awkward chuckle and what he feared was now looking like a rather desperate smile. And he was sure his expression only got worse when his gaze was pulled off-course by Juliet, who gave him a look that made him want to give up altogether. How her hazel irises had managed to harness the ability to hiss 'you are totally blowing this' in his ear, he had no idea. And yet, the urge to prove her (and everyone else) wrong gave him the motivation to plough on. "Well, if you still need any help with it later, I don't mind going through some of the answers with you at wo-"

"It's alright," Carrie bluntly cut in, slicing out a chunk of Miles' self-esteem as she did so. "Julie's got it covered," she added, turning to dazzle the blonde with a brilliant grin. 

By the time that grin made its way around to Miles though, it felt cold. And it seemed suppressed, like she hadn't really wanted him to see it. What he feared was the beginnings of a smirk were tugging at the corners of her lips too. And whilst he wanted to believe that it wasn't at his expense - some cruel inside joke the pair of blondes had whispered with their oh-so talkative eyes in the second that Carrie's back was turned - something in the pit of his stomach told him otherwise. 

"Thanks though," Carrie lazily tacked on, with a brightness in her tone that just felt hollow to Miles now. 

"No problem," he breathed. But there was a problem, and he was staring right at her.

Miles tried to find it in him to mean the smile he sent her, but he just couldn't. Somehow, what was supposed to have been a simple conversation between 'friends' had left him feeling more insecure than ever. Why was she so difficult to talk to? And was she making it so difficult? If they'd been at All Skate, cleaning the rink after their shift, he'd have had no trouble talking to her - their conversations flowed like the Mississippi River when it was just the two of them. And yet here, he felt like he was trying to coax water out of a rusty garden tap in the peak of a summer drought. 

He couldn't find the words to piece together what he wanted to ask - he didn't think such a sentence existed, not one that he could construct anyway. Carrie seemed hellbent on getting rid of him, which did nothing for his creeping fear that she was only nice to him at work because she had no other option for company. And the damn heat radiating from Juliet's pitying smirk had so much sweat running down his back he contemplated running to the nearest bathroom to wring out his underwear. 

And somehow, those glittering, sky blue eyes of hers still threw him a line - a glimmer of hope to cling to. After all, she'd surprised him before - countless times - maybe she'd be able to do it again.

Just as Miles was moving to open his mouth to try one last time though, he was beaten to it. 

"Was there anything else you wanted? Or was that it?" 

Any hopes of a redemption for the blonde were snatched from Miles' grasp, and the reality of it felt like a punch to the gut. Thoroughly deflated, he accepted his fate with a heavy sigh. It may not have been the outcome he wanted, but at least he had an answer now, and there was a silver lining to that, he supposed. 

"...No," he breathed through a forlorn, but relieved smile. "That was…that was all."

Miles felt he must have imagined the concern that flickered in Carrie's gaze - wishful thinking, he supposed - because the airy giggle and laidback grin she flashed him certainly didn't marry up with it. "Oh, alright then. See you later!" she chirped with a wave as he started the walk of shame back to his desk. Again, just as he was turning back to offer a farewell of his own though, she managed to get her words in first. "Don't forget your thick socks."

Miles stopped in his tracks. Now he was more confused than ever. The cheeky glint in her eyes, the knowing smile, the reference to a throwaway joke from their closing shift last night… Everything he'd just come to terms with about her vehement disinterest in him had been called into question with those five, simple words, and a wink that just about made his heart stop.

…Maybe she did really care after all. 

With his heart leaping up from its dejected slumber, Miles shot her a grateful smile and chuckled an earnest, "I won't." Breathing out a contented sigh, mind already racing with ways to talk to her about this more that evening, Miles finally felt his shoulders relax as he raised the hand that had been rubbing the back of his neck his whole time. "See you la-"

Nevermind, she'd already turned around to talk to Juliet again. 

Again the brunet was flummoxed. The only thing he felt truly confident about as he slunk back to his desk was the very thing he'd been warned of before wading into that mess: the female mind was a mystery. And he had never felt further from figuring it out.

Turning back to Juliet, Carrie couldn't help but shake her head and chuckle under her breath. "That was weird," she noted, tilting her head in the direction of her retreating co-worker.

But Juliet's eyes had never left the bumbling brunet. "Mmm… He's kind of cute," she mused. Although her prompting smirk was lost on her tutee, since her sapphire gaze was immediately pulled to the back of Miles' head.  

"Yeah." Carrie's breathed response fell from her lips with startling ease, so much so that it even surprised herself. Hoping to catch it before it slipped into Juliet's ears though, she shook the starry-eyed gaze from her head and scrambled together a cover-up. "Uh, yeah? I can try to set the two of you up if you want. You know, put in a good word at work and stuff." 

If she expected Juliet to accept her optimistic offer with open arms though, she was soon proved wrong.

"Yeah something tells me he's not interested in me," she snorted.

Carrie looked at her, perplexed. "What are you talking about? Why wouldn't he be? You're like a total babe."

"Oh come on, Carrie. Please tell me you know that he's got a major crush on you," Juliet said with an almost disapproving frown. "Like major major."

Carrie scoffed at the accusation. "It's not major," she tried, rolling her eyes in a further attempt to downplay the gravity of what Juliet was implying. 

"Carrie," Juliet pressed as she knitted her brows. "The guy could barely speak."

Caving under the blonde's hardened gaze, Carrie let out a resentful huff. "Ok fine, so he's got a little crush," she finally conceded. "What's so bad about that? It's not like anything's gonna happen; he knows I've got a boyfriend."

"Mhm… And what does Eric have to say about Miles?"

Carrie rolled her eyes so hard Juliet thought for a second that they might never come back down again. "Why does it matter?" she groaned, her skin prickling with irritation. 

"Well he's not exactly got the best track record when it comes to being understanding about you hanging out with other guys," Juliet sighed, with a sneaking suspicion that her tutee's frustration had been triggered by the mention of her boyfriend's name alone: a welcome sign that their relationship was as healthy as ever. Not.

Carrie scoffed as a bitter scowl settled into place. "It's not like I'm 'hanging out with him', we just work together. I barely talk to him during my shift anyway, only when we're clearing stuff up at the end."

"Oh yeah?" Juliet started, curiosity piqued. "And what happens then?"

"Nothing!" Carrie insisted. "We just talk - you know me, I can't keep my mouth shut even when I want to, so of course I'm gonna talk to the guy." Letting out a sigh to try to blow off some steam, she softened under Juliet's gaze and allowed the blonde to lead her through her haze of thoughts. And if Juliet's gentle nudge in the right direction wasn't already enough to do the trick, one glance at Miles' retreating form completely burst the dam. "We've been talking for like the whole last hour of every shift since I started - about school, movies, whatever really - it's like the only thing in that dump that's worth sticking around for. I kind of just did it because I was bored out of my mind at the start, but turns out he's actually really fun, and sweet too - you wouldn't believe some of the stuff he does for his little brothers, Julie; I've literally gone and cried in the break room before after he was telling me about it. It's that cute." 

"You cry at everything," Juliet countered with a fond, teasing chuckle. 

"Oh come on, not everything," Carrie retorted. Naively hoping that their conversation on the matter had ended there, she let her eyes settle on Juliet's again, only for them to inch open the floodgates once more with a simple bat of her lashes and a tilt of her head. "We just talk and…goof around," she tentatively began - defensive, despite her nonchalance. "You know, make each other laugh about weird things customers have said, or stupid things we did. It's not like we're fooling around or anything. And before you say it, because I know that face: no, I am not leading him on. It's all totally platonic, I swear."

"Ok…" Juliet softly trailed off, taking a moment to choose her words before raising her next point. "Does Miles know it's all 'totally platonic'?"

Carrie let out a groan of despair, as she always did when her best friend lovingly lectured her. "I don't know, Jules. I'm not a mindreader. He's not grabbed my ass or spiked my water bottle, if that's what you're getting at," she grumbled, before promising, "I've got it all under control, I swear."

Somehow, Juliet didn't seem to be buying it; as impervious to Carrie's confident charm as ever. 

"So Eric's totally chill about this whole thing with Miles?" she tested, arching a perfectly plucked eyebrow.  

"He knows I work with him…" Carrie mumbled.

Juliet nodded understandingly - almost too understandingly - in Carrie's periphery. 

"...And does he know how he makes you feel?"

Daring to challenge Juliet's calculated point with ignorant defiance, Carrie whirled around to meet the blonde's smug expression with a gasp of indignation, and an argument that fell away the second she realised that she didn't have a single word in her head to back it up with. Admitting defeat, she sighed and let her body slump, along with her hopes of her vindication in her best friend's hazel eyes. "Ok, yeah, fine. I know Miles has a crush on me," she confessed. Although the guilt laced into her words steadily morphed into hurt the more she tried to defend herself. "And yeah, I do lean into it sometimes because it makes me feel good about myself. Is that really so bad? Is it such a bad thing to want someone to be extra nice to you for once? Or to give you some positive attention?" 

"No, of course not," Juliet assured, assuming a fierce determination of her own. "I just think your boyfriend should be able to do all those things and more, and clearly he's not."

Carrie sighed, exhausted by the very thought of him. "This isn't about Eric."

Juliet sighed back, exasperated by her best friend's submissiveness, especially when she was usually so domineering. "How can you still want to defend him, Carrie?"

"Because, I love him, Julie," Carrie replied, finally finding the contented smile the thought of him should have immediately slapped on her face. "And because he's a good guy."

"Really? Because he's been nothing but a dick to you lately," Juliet flatly countered, hoping that with a little pushing her friend would see sense. 

"We've just had a couple of arguments, it's not a big deal," Carrie casually defended. "And they're all resolved now, so I don't know what you still have to complain about."

"Just because you had make-up sex does not mean that the problems were resolved," Juliet rolled her eyes before fixing the golden-haired girl with a more earnest look. "Did he actually apologise this time?"

"We talked it out first-"

"Did he apologise?"

Carrie squirmed under Juliet's gaze before muttering a reluctant, "No."

"Ugh," Juliet groaned, rolling her eyes again as she wound up to unleash a rant she'd been working up to for weeks. But, to her dismay, Carrie's defences beat her to it.

"Neither of us did, really. We just agreed to forget it and move on."

"How is that resolving anything?" Juliet asked with an annoyed frown that Carrie was starting to take personally. 

"Well I hadn't thought about it until now, so it must have at least kind of worked," she attempted to justify. 

But Juliet's nettled scoff told her that her stance on the matter wasn't budging. "You and Eric might as well speak two different languages; I've seen a pig and a fly communicate better than you two." 

The comment drew a giggle from Carrie's lips before she could stop it. "Don't try to distract me with your cute, Southern lingo," she said as the amused smile settled on her face and she affectionately bumped her friend's arm - the act bringing both their tempers back down to Earth. Before Juliet could launch into another lecture though, Carrie hoped to diffuse the situation once and for all. "Anyway, we worked it all out and everything's back to normal," she said. Although Juliet's questioning glance made her correct herself, "Better than normal. In fact, we're going to go look for Halloween costumes together this weekend," she finished with an optimistic grin. 

Now that was an improvement. For the first time since they'd sat down, Juliet found herself pleasantly surprised. "The Barbie and Ken costume's back on? I'm impressed. You two really must be getting along." Knowing how excited Carrie had been about the idea, she couldn't help but smile at the prospect of it finally coming into fruition. 

"Oh no, the Ken idea's long gone. I think he's going as a firefighter or something now."

Juliet's optimism shattered in a split second, and yet she stayed frozen in place, mouth hanging open in disbelief. "...You're kidding, right?"

"No, but I don't really mind. I'll just find something else to go as," Carrie sighed through a small, indifferent smile. If she'd spotted the disgust hidden in Juliet's eyes after her last revelation, she chose to ignore it. "It'll be fun getting to plan out my own costume anyway; I've got so many more options now. And plus, the Barbie one was only gonna be a pain in the ass to-"

"You're not even doing a couples one?" Juliet asked, far too concerned with what she was learning to care about hearing out Carrie's excuses. 

"He thinks couples costumes are lame," she explained with a huff. "Or at least that's what Adam told him anyway. He said he wanted to just do his own thing."

"But Carrie, you've been excited about doing a joint costume with him for like a whole year."

"So?" Carrie asked, with an eyebrow quirk of her own, shoving the accusation aside as though she was kicking an ice cube under the refrigerator. "It's just a dumb Halloween party, it doesn't matter what we wear; everyone will probably be too drunk to even pay attention anyway."

"Yeah, but it matters that he doesn't care about stuff that's important to you. He never has, and it's selfish, Carrie - super selfish…" Juliet trailed off with a frustrated sigh, praying that she might finally get the ditzy DJ to see sense. "You need to stop defending his shitty behaviour."

"And do what?" Carrie mumbled, unknowingly giving Juliet just what she wanted: a chance to unleash her anger with the infantile blond bozo and the mockery of a relationship he had roped her best friend into.

"Hold him accountable," she urged, hazel eyes blazing with passion. "Relationships should not have to revolve around making excuses and placating your partner with blow jobs - it's a fucking joke. I don't care about all the 'good times' you guys have, or all the memories you've made; the way you've been treating each other lately is appalling, and you deserve way better," she said, pausing to let Carrie absorb everything she'd just thrown at her before delivering the finishing blow. "And I know you know that too, because you're already looking for it in someone else."

Carrie's blood stilled in her veins. Sometimes it scared her how deeply Juliet understood her, and other times it felt comforting. This was not one of those times. 

She took in a slow, shuddering breath as Juliet's words seeped into her skin, carrying a deep sense of guilt with them. As much as she wanted to denounce Juliet's observations and stand by her own, joyously declaring her undying love for her boyfriend at the top of her lungs…her mouth made no attempt to move from its crestfallen frown. It couldn't, because she knew she was wrong. 

The despondency in the blonde's vacant, blue eyes soon drew Juliet down from her soap box though. This time she approached with a gentle, almost apologetic, smile as she entwined their fingers and began rubbing circles into the back of her tanned hand with the pad of her thumb. "I just want what's best for you, Car," she quietly promised. 

"I know," Carrie murmured, mustering a grateful smile as she squeezed her hand back, as though to say a 'thank you' her mouth wasn't quite ready to commit to yet. "I'm fine, Julie, I swear," she went on to profess. But when she started to get a sneaking suspicion that the statement wasn't all that convincing, she decided to switch up her tactic. "Now can we please get back to algebra?" 

The genuine laughter that tumbled from Juliet's lips was music to Carrie's ears. "There's a sentence I never thought I'd hear you say," Juliet chuckled as she picked up her pencil again. 

"I'll do anything to get us talking about something else," Carrie admitted with a woeful chuckle of her own. "And besides, I think I've got a better chance of wrapping my head around this than anything to do with my love life at the moment."

"Boyfriends suck, huh?" Juliet snorted with a knowing smirk.

"Try all boys suck," Carrie countered with a smirk of her own, at last feeling as though some of her signature confidence was leaching back into her frame. Although the pair's giggles took a few seconds to die back down, a mischievous glint remained in Carrie's eyes before she let them glaze over in thought. Mind idly wandering down untrodden paths, a wistful sigh escaped alongside a rogue proposal. "Wouldn't it make life so much easier if we could take them out of the equation altogether?"

Carrie was too lost in thought to notice, but the words that left her mouth forced an entire systems reboot in Juliet's brain. She had to do a double take, certain that she must have misheard her, or had at least missed the joking undertone. But no, the glassy, pensive blue irises held nothing but sincerity. And that confused Juliet more than ever. Her mind whirred with possible explanations for the brainless musings that definitely didn't sound as though they came from a girl in a committed, heterosexual relationship, but before she dared to question her on any, a tanned hand, the size of a frying pan, pulled her prospective interview subject right out of her seat. 

Carrie's eyes widened as she was whisked into a pair of cotton-clad arms the size of tree trunks, hardly able to catch her breath before it was being exchanged for someone else's. A faintly stubbled smile pressed into hers several times before she fully regained her bearings and was able to catch the frying pan hand from travelling too far south of her waist. "Eric," she giggled once she finally managed to inch their lips far enough apart to mumble a greeting against his skin. A subsequent flurry of kisses kept her from elaborating any further though. It was a wonder they didn't pass out from lack of air. 

"Hi, beautiful," he eventually greeted with a smitten grin. But their lips didn't stay apart for long as the dopey quarterback seemed hellbent on keeping his coated in his girlfriend's saliva. "You have a good study hall?" he mumbled, nuzzling his nose against hers. His roaming fingers shattered any hope of his interest in her life being genuine though.

Even if Carrie had wanted to answer Eric's question, his tongue was shoved so far down her throat she couldn't get her words out. "Eric," she finally gasped, jerking her head back from his with a breathy laugh as she felt his thumb start to lift the hem of her cheerleading skirt. "You're gonna get us both detention." 

"I can't help it," he chuckled, pulling her back towards him for another seemingly endless stream of kisses. "I missed you." And whilst a stupefied grin played at his constantly interlocking lips, something didn't feel quite right with Carrie. Her kisses were lazy, almost reluctant, and whilst her body normally felt like putty between his palms, today it felt…stiff. She seemed distracted. And because Eric's head was only ever swimming with thoughts of her, this worried him. "Hey," he gently prompted, nudging her chin with his knuckle to bring her gaze up to meet his. "Everything ok?"

Carrie's breath stuck in her throat, too scared of getting caught in the crossfire of two sets of brown eyes to dare to leave. Eric's sat beneath a pair of thick, furrowed brows, marred with insecure concern, and she could feel Juliet's boring holes into the back of her skull, begging her to remember everything they’d just spoken about. Tensions were high in her usually spacious brain - thoughts flying back and forth too quickly for her to make sense of as she tried to let her conscience guide her in the right direction. And although she felt herself inching towards a blonde ponytail-bolstered confession, her conscience's valiant efforts were all for naught. Carrie's fingers found purchase in the bristly blond hairs at the nape of Eric's neck, her cheeks were dusted in the scent of spearmint and the sweaty must from his football helmet. The profound warmth of his embrace seeped into her bones, and she curled up into it like a cat in the glow of fireplace embers - helpless to resist. "Everything's great," she promised, drawn in by the comfort of familiarity. "I just missed you too."

Disappointed, but not surprised by her best friend's decision, Juliet sighed as she tore her gaze away from the stomach-churning couple and began gathering together her and Carrie's things. She'd get through to her eventually, she had faith in the pit of her steadily grumbling gut. She just needed to be patient…or to find something that could drive a wedge between them once and for all.

"Ethan!" 

The pint-size pothead almost jumped out of his skin at the barked greeting, which actually felt more like an accusation than a 'hello'. He didn't know what was more offensive, the girl's tone or the fact that she'd interrupted his concert-for-one. 

"Jesus, Mick! You scared the shit outta me!" he cried. 

Rolling her eyes, Mick let go of the headphone speaker she'd had to pry away from Ethan's ear after he'd blatantly ignored her fifth call of his name, letting it thwack the side of his head. The look on his face as he recoiled in bewilderment did have a faint smile tugging at her lips though. But it soon disappeared when he slumped back in his seat and readied himself to tune her out again. 

Moving to stand in front of his desk, Mick didn't give him a chance. "Where's Miles?" 

"What?" Ethan squeaked.

"Where's Miles?" she reiterated, crossing her arms across her chest and nodding at the empty seat beside him.

"He's talking to Carrie," he revealed with a blasé wave of his hand in the vague direction of the pair.

Even with AC/DC blasting through his headphones, Ethan swore he heard Mick's face crack.

"He's doing what now?" she demanded, flames roaring in the mahogany logs that made up her irises. 

"He's just asking her something, it's no big deal," Ethan said - although his attempts to reassure the brunette were ham-handed at best given his lazy grin and total lack of concern. 

This was further backed up by Mick's growing urge to strangle him. "Can I not trust you to do anything?" she hissed. 

"What did I do?" Ethan squawked in indignation.

"Nothing - that's the problem! All you had to do was keep his mind off her-" 

"I don't know what fucking mind-control powers you think I've got, Mick, but that was a bogus plan in the first place."

"Oh so what? You just weren't gonna go along with it at all?" Mick scoffed. "I just said to try to keep him distracted."

"And I tried, so I don't know what you're getting all pissy at me for," Ethan retorted. "What's so wrong with him talking to her anyway? I thought 'working through your feelings' was supposed to be a good thing."

Scowling at him for using her own advice against her, she snapped, "Talking to her is not helping him distance himself from her." But when her eyes scanned the room for that familiar mop of coffee brown hair, the sight it settled on made her heart drop to her collegiate green Campuses. "And neither is a run-in with Eric Brennan."

Trailing back to his seat, muttering to himself about the mystifying female mindset and what the hell all of that could have meant, Miles soon realised he wasn't looking where he was going when he collided with what felt like a wall of meat. 

"Shit, sorry," he muttered.

When he looked up and saw who it was that had almost knocked him off his feet though, he realised his assumption hadn't been too far off.

"Woah, watch it, man," Eric guffawed.

The amused twinkle in his eye, and the smirk that blossomed as soon as his gaze landed on him, made Miles' stomach twist. Something told him that this interaction wasn't going to be nearly as quick as he'd hoped. 

"Miles, right?" Eric went on to ask, eyebrow cocked in recognition. 

"Uh, yeah," Miles stammered, although he was more confused than concerned at this point. 

"Why you in such a hurry, bud? You got somewhere to be?" he continued, a charming smirk still sitting proudly on his chiselled jaw. 

"I'm just going back to my seat."

"Oh yeah?" Eric probed, steadily turning up the pressure. "And why were you out of it?"

Miles immediately regretted the exasperated huff that fell from his lips, but he couldn't help his frustration. "Why does it matter?" 

To Miles' surprise, the jock didn't snap back at his remark - there was no sign of meat-headed defensiveness at all. Instead, the guy just laughed. "It doesn't," he reassured with a jovial smile. "I just thought I'd ask 'cause, you know, from here it kind of looked like you were going over there to talk to my girlfriend." 

Any relief that jovial smile had filled Miles with steadily leaked out as Eric's words sunk in. "I was just asking her about our work schedule," he explained with a careful, albeit tight smile of his own. 

"Yeah?" Eric tested.

"...Yeah," Miles confirmed. Although he could feel his bravery slowly shrinking under the hulking weight of Eric's arched eyebrow, he stood his ground, hoping that a nonchalant tone and a set of squared shoulders was enough to convince the dopey blond.

"Oh well, that's a relief," he said with another booming guffaw. Miles' wishes were seemingly granted as the warning smirk slipped from Eric's face, replaced with a laidback grin. "There I was thinking you might have been trying to make a move on her or something."

Miles managed to eke out a chuckle, more at his own expense than anything. "I wouldn't do that, man," he promised through a freshly starched smile. "I know you're both very happy together."

Eric's shit-eating grin must have been powered by at least three AAs with the way it lit up his face. "That we are, my man," he proudly proclaimed. "And that's good to hear 'cause I know you spend a lot of time with her at the end of your shifts, and she says you two get along super well, so I'd hate to think that you were getting the wrong idea or-"

"Not at all," Miles assured, cutting the blond off before he could drive the knife any further into his chest. Fixing a plastic smile to his face to cover up the wistful sigh that escaped between his teeth, he delivered an admittedly painful, "We're just friends."

Eric's rich brown eyes seemed to scan every inch of Miles for any sign of a lie before he proceeded, and the brunet's lack of acting skills left him squirming like a worm on a hook as a result. But the satisfied grin that soon surfaced, dropping the tensed shoulders to help it rise, told Miles the quarterback probably needed an eye test. 

"Good," Eric said with a contented sigh. "'Cause you and I both know that it'd be stupid to think anything else, right?" he went on to cockily taunt. "Like, no offence, but she'd have to be fucking insane to choose you over me… Right, Miles?" 

Although his ego was severely bruised, to save his face from meeting the same fate, Miles forced himself to maintain a smile, albeit reluctantly. "Right," he confirmed.

"That's what I thought," Eric smirked, finally satisfied that Miles had taken enough of an emotional pounding if his lazy grin and affectionate arm bump was anything to go by. "Alright, nice talk, bro. I might catch you tonight if I drop by to see her, ok?"

"I'll be there," Miles verified with a strained sigh. Finally daring to drop his gaze from the sturdy blond, he made his escape without so much as a goodbye.  

Apparently Eric thought he could take a little advice on the road with him though. 

"Remember, watch yourself, Murphy," he hollered.

But the words didn't even register with Miles, because the swift shove between his shoulder blades was so jarring his entire focus was dragged to keeping himself upright. 

Miles kept his eyes trained on the scuffed linoleum as he hastily lumbered back over to his desk, cheeks burning with self-hatred as he tried to push Eric’s no doubt smirking face out of his mind. It wasn’t until he heard a familiar voice that he finally dared to lift his head again. 

“Are you ok?” Mick asked, expression overrun with an almost frantic concern. “What was that about?”

“I’m fine,” Miles brushed off, retrieving his threadbare backpack from its spot, slumped on the floor in one swoop. Haphazardly shoving the books from his desk into the main compartment, he mumbled a quick, “Can we just go?” 

But Ethan’s glassy-eyed intrigue held him firmly in place. “Yo, what happened, man? Did he bust you for flirting with her?” 

“No,” Miles sighed, wearily shaking his head at the stoner’s excitement. 

“Did you flirt with her?” he pressed. 

"No, I just- ugh," Miles huffed, quickly giving up on trying to explain the situation he didn't even fully understand himself. "It doesn't matter. Let's just go."

"I told you to just forget about her," Mick sighed. 

"Yeah, well, that's a lot easier said than done, Mick," Miles retorted, returning her disapproving frown with a defensive one of his own. 

"Did you at least get some closure?" Ethan offered as he rose from his desk - partly from curiosity, partly to try to prove a point to Mick. 

Whilst Miles' tongue instinctively prepared to shoot Ethan's optimism down, his brain jumped in to tell it to hold fire. And after a few, brief seconds recalling the interaction, his answer soon changed. "Actually, I kind of did," he admitted with a chuckle of incredulity. 

"You gonna try to talk about it more with her tonight then?" Ethan asked, smirking to himself at Mick's look of disbelief. 

"Fuck no," Miles snorted with a nonchalance that took both of his friends by surprise. "I just want to forget it ever happened- just…move on."

"From her?" Mick asked, trying to hide the hopeful edge in her tone with a gentle smile.

Sparing the blonde in question one last glance over his shoulder, only to catch the tail end of her and Eric getting pulled up for their excessive PDA by their (up until now) entirely uninterested study hall supervisor, he let out a wistful sigh. A chorus of voices swelled in his head - Mick's, Ethan's, Carrie's, Eric's - each one telling a different side to the same story. He couldn't have picked one to listen to if he'd tried. So, in the end, his own took over, steering his heart down a path that promised the least damage in the long term, and that Carrie's indifferent dismissal of him had already forged in his mind. "...That's the goal."

[nightmaretist]

BARK BARK BARK // Van & Inge

PARTIES: Van @vanoincidence & Inge LOCATION: A park. TIMING: 15 june. CONTENT WARNINGS: None. SUMMARY: A dog didn't like Inge's mare-ish vibes and chased her into a tree. Van bares witness and tries to help a little, but she's pretty exhausted and mostly amused.

The string of curses that left Inge’s mouth was a combination of English and Dutch and somehow some third language, too. It was hardly like she was occupied with the linguistic nature of her cursing, though, as she was at present being chased by a massive dog. The creature seemed to have gone rabid from its unease and saw it fit to yank free from its owner and start sprinting, flashing its shiny teeth.

Now, it wasn’t like she was afraid. Ingeborg Endeman created fear, invented trauma and terrified for a living, so she did not get scared. She was just worried about the very real threat of this dog burrowing its teeth in her leg and revealing a lack of red blood, as well as its teeth ruining her delicate decades-old skirt. She didn’t mind a scene, but she would mind one like that. And so she ran, heeled leather boots hitting the ground.

It would be perfect if a storefront appeared on either side, but the park offered little places of shelter. There was nowhere to go but up. So up Inge went, clambering into a tree with haste, watching as the dog jumped up and down, trying to nip at her feet. When her eyes fell on a passerby she yelled: “Hey, you! Help!” She was not afraid, please remember that.

Van stuck the straw from her drink into her mouth, jabbing down at the leftover tapioca pearls at the bottom. They were a little too squishy to go through the straw now, so it was a stab and jab kind of deal. Once she’d gotten one, she let go of the straw from her mouth and pulled it out through the small hole she’d poked through the plastic, biting off the pearl. She wasn’t normally a taro kind of girl, and it never tasted right, but she’d been in the mood for something purple to match her outfit. Except she’d sucked down the entire drink within ten minutes and now she was at the beginning of a tummy ache. “Should have gotten it with soy.” She frowned as she found a trashcan to throw the near empty cup into. 

The sound of a dog barking made her look up, exhaustion evident beneath her eyes. The dog was chasing somebody and that… somebody was climbing up a tree. Suddenly, Van was amused. It was like something straight out of a cartoon. Maybe if she’d been a little less tired, she would have been more concerned. 

The woman began to shout, and with Van being the only one in the vicinity, she assumed that it was she who was being beckoned. “Me?” She pointed at herself with her index finger, then looked at the dog, its front paws scratching into the tree trunk while its jaws snapped wildly, spit flying from its jowls. “What did you do to him?” Because he wasn’t reacting to her, which meant that the brunette in the tree had done something. “Did you pretend to give him a treat and take it away? Is it your dog?” 

Give it a few days, perhaps even one of them, and Inge would laugh at this. It would be a moment to look back at fondly, to potentially recount when she met someone new and wanted to exchange exciting anecdotes. In the moment, however, she was nothing if not agitated. She was too unfocused and frazzled and in public to elevate her spirit and body into the astral plane and this entire ordeal was bound to become the source of at least some public ridicule. She really hoped no teenager was filming this. Or worse, a student.

The dog kept snapping and barking, tireless in its stupid rage and ferocity. If she wasn’t so annoyed, she’d pay a little more attention and focus on the details of that jaw snapping, the spit flying. Instead, it was just the young woman she was trying to get her to help that she focused on.

“I did nothing!” The words were exclaimed, her voice an octave higher than she had intended for it to be. “Not my dog either. Its owner has to be fucking somewhere, but it just must’ve whiffed something and —” Inge’s hands pointed wildly at the dog before grabbing the branch she was sitting on again, making sure not to lose her balance. Now that would be even worse. “Can you, I don’t know, throw a stick? Find its owner?” 

The woman’s voice was shrill, full of desperation for somebody to believe her. Van had been there before many times. Only, not in public. She looked at the dog as it continued snapping its jaws, tail low to the ground, ears peeled back. Whatever it saw in the woman, it didn’t like it. At the woman’s suggestion she do something, Van sighed. “Yeah, sure.” She looked over her shoulder, tired gaze sweeping the green behind them, but there was nobody looking slightly upset that their dog was up a tree. Instead, all either she or the other woman gained were stares. 

“I don’t think they’re owner is here and like, I don’t… want to get bit.” Van tried her best to get the dog’s attention by clapping her hands together, but it did nothing. She had some of her slim jim left, the plastic folded over itself to keep it from getting fuzz from her backpack on it. “Hold on.” She dug it out and unwrapped it. “Dude, I hope you’re not on a diet.” She waved the meat stick around, but the dog didn’t even look in her direction. Van looked up at the woman in the tree with a helpless expression. “Any other ideas? You a cat person or something?” If she weren’t so tired, maybe she’d take the situation more seriously. Anxiety, for once, was on the backburner. 

She really wasn’t afraid. Of course, it was easy to claim such a thing when you lacked the flow of blood of mortals and your heart didn’t tend to start pumping excitedly. When you had seen terror in its purest form and caused it. Inge refused to be afraid, even if her voice jumped higher and there was an edge of panic to it. No, this was nothing but pure frustration. Her own gaze drifted over their surroundings, trying to find whatever idiot owned a dog this aggressive, but finding nothing.

“Their owner is a shit, then.” It was fair enough that the other didn’t want to get bit, but Ingeborg found she couldn’t care as much as she perhaps ought to. Her eyes were hopeful when the other waved a meat-stick around, but the dog didn’t budge. Inge steadied herself on the branch she was perched on, breaking off a stick and tossing it down. Hitting the dog on the face did nothing if not infuriate it more. “Yes, sure, I’m a cat-person, but that doesn’t warrant this kind of response, does it?” She was a plant-person, actually, but this could already look suspicious enough for someone in the know of mares. She let out a bark of laughter, ironically. “Fuck! I mean, that’s hardly on you, sorry. But can you believe this?” 

Van made sure to keep her distance from the dog, just in case it decided to turn and chase her instead. She really wasn’t sure what had happened to make the dog so upset in the first place, but she wasn’t sure that she believed the woman in the tree had done nothing to elicit this kind of response from it. 

As the woman broke off a stick from the tree, Van winced, watching it fall down to the ground, but not before smacking the poor animal in the face. Honestly, it probably didn’t hurt very much at all, but she couldn’t help but understand the dog’s rage a little better. The woman spoke again and Van lifted her gaze up to meet the brunette. “Maybe it can sense that you don’t like dogs. Dogs are like, weirdly in tune with that kind of shit.” With a sigh, she looked over her shoulder, scanning for anybody who might be upset that their dog was off leash and barking at some random woman. Still, nobody came into view. “I’m not sure what I believe anymore.” There was some truth to her words, but they weren’t meant for this situation. “I mean..” Van cleared her throat, pausing only momentarily, “do you have any snacks in your pockets? Maybe it wants those.” 

Maybe this was her own fault, for having called out to the stranger. But what was a panicked mare to do? She could have tried to remain calm and wait for the area to clear so she could go into the astral plane and back home, but in stead here she was. Attention on her. The dog still fucking barking. Inge was starting to get a headache. 

“Yes, maybe that’s it,” she said, knowing full well that that was it. Sanne had explained it to her, all those years ago: animals don’t like us, they think there’s something wrong with us. It had been a nightmare to walk around her hometown, with all the cattle and other animals. Inge patted down her jacket, which did have multiple pockets of which she didn’t always remember the content. “Just chocolates, don’t think I should poison the thing, right?” No, she had little interest in that. Despite her tendency to scare the bejeezus out of people who others might consider innocents, she had little interest in harming animals. Hell, she didn’t even eat them. Just as she was about to open her mouth, a stout man ran in their direction, a leash swinging in the air, apologies falling off his tongue.

“Sorry, sorry, don’t know what got into her, this never happens!” He did look genuinely apologetic. Inge didn’t care. If he couldn’t handle a big dog, he shouldn’t have gotten one. The dog’s head turned at the sound of his voice, though, and that, at least, was something good. “Come here, girl, come to dad.” It took all her might not to gag at that.

“No, I don’t think so.” Van’s frown deepened as she craned her neck to get a better look at the woman in the tree. It didn’t seem like she was carrying any bundles of salami, either. She’d seen it in a cartoon once. Van was silently grateful that it hadn’t been her up in the tree. What would she have done? Would anyone have stopped?

Just as Van was about to suggest that the woman get out of the tree to try and pet the dog to show it that she was kind, a man jogged up to them. Van turned around to look at him, his expression melding from fearful to relieved. The dog turned around at the sound of his voice and let out a high pitched whine before returning its attention to the brunette in the tree. The barking had stopped, at least. 

“Can you get your dog? She’s stuck.” Van’s voice came out a little more monotone than intended. The exhaustion really was catching up to her. The man nodded, desperate in his movements as he approached the dog, picking her up without issue. If Van had tried that, she had no doubt that she’d have gotten bit. The man apologized again before he began to coo to the dog who was wiggling in his arms. 

At least the man was strong enough to carry his stupidly big dog himself. Inge watched him from where she sat in the tree, eyes near-blazing with indignation now that her panic was subsiding. “You should really get a stronger leash, or one with a stronger grip, you know! This is outrageous. Look at me!” She gestured at her position in the three. It was his fault, really, and not hers. How could she help it that her nature upset animals? 

“I really am sorry, you’re right — but please understand, it’s never happened before, I’m telling you, I have no idea — well, I’ll just get out of your hair and get her out of here, alright? So sorry.” 

She watched him try and traipse off, the dog struggling in his arms but at least on his leash again, now. Inge stared at his back, hard, but eventually tried to let go of her frustration and focus on getting out of the tree. At least her limbs were still as nimble as they had been when she was thirty three, because if she’d had to do this in an actual 77 year old’s body, she would have been majorly fucked. Still, there was a lack of some grace as she jumped from the last bit of the tree.

“Well.” She looked at the other. “I appreciate you not laughing at me.” She really did, though she did think that in a few months - or perhaps years - she would be laughing about this herself. “I really thought it would never leave me alone and I’d just have to sleep there.” Inge wanted to get away from this horridly embarrassing scene. She tried to pat her hair, wondered if there was a stick in there. “Right.”

Van couldn’t blame the woman in the tree for talking sternly to the man with the wiggling dog. Even as he walked away with it, it still barked and let out high pitched whines that made her ears hurt. 

She watched with mild amusement as the brunette slid out of the tree, half-expecting her to scrape her backside on a rogue branch. She didn’t, however, and her feet were firmly planted on the ground. Van watched her for a moment before shrugging. “It would have been funnier if the dog had been smaller.” With a raised brow, Van tilted her head to the side. “You would have actually slept up there? Really?” She looked back up at the tree and shook her head. “At that point, let the dog bite you. Think about the bugs that could have gotten you instead.” She scrunched her nose. 

Van took a small step away from the woman and shoved the beef stick into her pocket (something she’d started doing in an attempt to mirror Nora), and let out a small breath. “I’m just glad it didn’t turn on me. Then we’d both be stuck up there.” 

Inge tried to look at her backside, trying to gauge if there was any green stuck to her trousers but unable to get very far. She still tried beating some off the dirt off regardless, having given up on trying to seem like a graceful person. Tomorrow she’d try again.

“I wouldn’t have had to climb as high if it was a smaller dog, too. But its barks would’ve been much more grating, so.” She let out a sound of amusement and frustration, somehow conveying both emotions into one. “God, maybe I would have. I’d prefer some bugs over potential rabies.” Besides, there wasn’t really any blood for mosquitos to suck from her veins anyway. What she left unsaid was that she’d just have astral projected herself home.

“Either way, nice of you to stick around and not let me sort-of-fight this battle alone. And fair enough, I wouldn’t wish being stuck in a tree as a dog barks up to it to my worst enemy.” She absolutely would. “Anyway. I’m running late to my appointment as is, so I really should go. Have a nice day without any other feral dogs, will you?”

[euryalex]

Joey tries her best to get used to Raccoon City, but it seems trouble - both old and new - seems to try and get her.

Series Masterlist | AO3 link

Let me know if you want to be tagged when the next chapter releases!

Chapter 3: When The Past Comes To Haunt You

The red plastic basket of fries felt hot to the touch when Kevin handed it over to her. Joey immediately put it in her lap as she dipped a fry into the small bowl of ketchup while Kevin jumped back into the driver's seat.

"So, what do you think of Raccoon City so far?" he asked before taking a big bite from his hamburger.

Joey hummed. "I'm not sure yet," she confessed, "I've lived in Montana all my life, so this is different."

"Good different or bad different?"

"I haven't decided yet," she chuckled, "How much do I owe you?"

Kevin waved his hand, "My treat, to welcome you."

"Damn, really trying your best to make me love this city, huh?" she laughed, and he snorted, "Can't blame a man for trying, can you?"

Joey missed her friends from Great Falls – and her colleagues. But, most of all, she missed Danny. He wasn't just her partner against crime. He was her friend. She could count on him, and he could count on her. Simple as that. No one could ever replace Danny. Not even Kevin.

But that didn't mean Kevin was a lousy partner. If anything, he was great. So far, they'd only worked together for three days – if you can even count Joey's first day, which ended poorly.

She should've expected that Chief Irons wouldn't be any nicer at the end of the day, but Joey felt like she had to report what happened at the motel. At first, she wanted to inform S.T.A.R.S., but the office was locked when she tried to enter. Thus, she decided to take her chances with Irons, no matter how much he seemed to dislike her already.

And as she predicted, Chief Irons wasn't exactly happy to see her. Even less so when she told him about the situation at the motel. He went from claiming she was making up a story to insinuating she imagined the whole thing due to sleep deprivation.

So, if there was a chance Irons didn't completely hate her guts by then, he sure did now. The feeling was mutual.

Unlike Irons, though, the rest of her co-workers were nice. Just in case, Rita had already given her phone number (although Joey was convinced it was mainly because Rita was glad to have more women on the force), and Marvin was a tough yet kind boss. Kevin was a great partner who seemed to make it his duty to ensure Joey felt at home in Raccoon City, and she'd be lying if she said it wasn't working.

Once they finished their lunch, Kevin drove them back to the precinct, ending their relatively calm patrol. Life in Raccoon City (so far) was peaceful. Alarmingly peaceful. Tens of thousands of missing person posters littered the city streets, but when Joey asked Kevin about them, he made it clear that Irons forbade them from looking into it. Allegedly, they were all dead ends that couldn't be tracked, or they were flukes, or… Irons apparently had a lot of reasons.

"So the West Squad is going out for drinks after work today," Kevin announced as he parked the car, "Wanna join?"

"On a work night?" Joey snorted, to which he shrugged, "We don't get drunk. Just… hang out and make sure no one's hangover the next day."

"Sure," she eventually decided, "I'd love to."

Yeah, she was lucky with colleagues like them.

The police station was as calm as ever. The officer on front desk duty had made himself comfortable in the black leather office chair by kicking his feet up on the desk. Kevin put his finger over his mouth, a cheeky grin on his face, before sneaking over to the desk. Then, after making sure the officer was still sound asleep, he started banging on the desk, chanting, 'Wes, wake up!'

Poor Wes was startled awake, nearly tipping over his chair. "Jesus Christ," Wes gasped, resting his head in his hands from the shock.

Kevin laughed, "Sleeping on the job?"

"Fuck you," Wes cursed, which was then followed by a chuckle.

"Sometimes I wonder why we're even here to begin with," Kevin sighed, "Look at this place. It's empty!"

His friend sighed, "Pft, you wish. Eric and Elliott were called for a dead body just a few moments ago. From what I've heard, this time, it was cold-blooded murder – none of that Spencer Mansion bullshit."

Joey had heard of the Spencer Mansion before – at least, some things. The Spencer Mansion was a large home built in the Raccoon Forest. While there were different accounts of who lived there, one thing was known: the Trevor family was last seen visiting the mansion before they went missing. She may have also caught a rumour or two about how the mansion is used as a front to hide sinister experiments. Joey wished she could brush it off as a dumb conspiracy theory, but after what happened to Danny, she couldn't help but believe it just a little bit.

"And they sent Eric? He can barely figure out how to put his shoes on in the morning, let alone solve a murder," Kevin rolled his eyes.

Joey probably would've scolded him back in Montana, but it seemed Kevin's attitude had started to rub off on her.

"Yeah, well, he's the only detective around," Wes frowned, "That's right, Emmett quit."

"Wait, what? Since when?" Joey asked. She hadn't really known Emmett well because he was part of the East Squad, but she'd run into him a few times, and he seemed to love his job. Not only that, but he was a great detective – the type who'd see details no one else sees. So while she didn't really know him, she understood he wouldn't just quit out of nowhere.

Wes shrugged, "Just heard the news this morning. So, Eric's all we got."

"As if we don't have enough cold cases already," Kevin grumbled, walking past Joey to return to the West Office. Before Joey followed, she eyed the computer behind Wes. It was mainly used to check cases whenever someone came by to ask questions, but with the Sunshine Motel still in the back of her head, she wondered if she could find something.

"Hey, mind if I look something up real quick?" she asked, nodding towards the computer.

He followed her gaze and shrugged, "Go ahead, just don't tell Irons I slept on the job, alright?"

She chuckled, "You got a deal."

Joey walked around the massive desk and unlocked the computer. She opened the search engine and began typing in the motel's name, followed by the city's name. Once the results loaded, Joey clicked on the first link that caught her eye.

'MOTEL BURNS DOWN: Fifteen dead, twelve injured'

She looked back behind her to make sure no one was watching her. Sure, she trusted Wes, but she preferred not to take risks. Once the coast was clear, she clicked on the link.

The site slowly loaded, and Joey could feel herself grow more nervous with every second.

'RACCOON CITY, Illinois – Early Tuesday morning, a fire broke out at the Sunshine Motel, just outside of Raccoon City. Fire officials claim faulty wiring in a desk fan is to blame. So far, there have been 15 casualties, and twelve people are still in the hospital. The motel's owner, Courtney Golden, was amongst the 15 casualties.'

Tuesday morning, Joey realized, not even a full day after she informed Irons. Something was up. Maybe she knew that already, but she was forced to confront it this time.

The door slammed open, and, in a panic, Joey closed the browser. A man with gaunt grey eyes and thin, light blond hair ran to the front desk, leaving the main entrance wide open behind him.

"I-I received a call- did you find her?" he asked, breathless.

Wes stood up from his chair, leaning closer to the man, "Sir, calm down and tell me who you're talking about."

Joey had to give credit where credit was due – Wes knew how to handle stressful people. When he wasn't sleeping, at least.

"Clarissa, Clarissa Myer," the man said, "I got a call th-that she's been found. Is she alright? Where is she?"

Wes stayed quiet for a while.

"Joey," he finally said, "Would you mind taking Mr Myer to Officer Hamilton in the East office?"

Joey muttered a quiet 'of course' and began to lead Mr Myer to the East Office. That was another big difference from working in a smaller Sheriff's office. She was used to knowing everything about every case. Now, though, she was told to do things and couldn't even know why. Case in point: she had no clue why this Mr Myer was so important.

"I don't get it," the man stammered, "I just want to see my daughter? Why isn't she in the hospital?"

"Sir, I promise you, Officer Hamilton will answer your questions," Joey replied, smiling despite the awkwardness. Luckily, it seemed to calm the man down enough until Joey introduced him to Tyler Hamilton. When she returned to the main hall, she immediately made her way over to Wes.

"Who was that?" she asked, and he leaned closer to whisper: "Clarissa Myer? The girl he mentioned? It was her body that was found this morning. She's his daughter."

Joey gasped, and he nodded, "Yeah, hope he has some info 'cause he's a suspect right now."

"In that case," she murmured, "I hope they find her murderer soon. Anyway, I should get back to work. Bye, Wes."

She left rather quickly, but Mr Myer's distraught face still haunted her. She knew she should've expected the city would bring more gruesome cases – the most she'd seen so far was a family murder that ended in a murder-suicide. It shocked the entire town at the time.

But Raccoon City had seemingly seen its fair share of murders and worse crimes. Joey knew she had to be prepared for that. But what she didn't know was why these cases were treated like this. Something fishy was going on, and Joey wanted to get to the bottom of it. She had to find a way to do it without Irons finding out because she felt he wouldn't appreciate her snooping around. 

When work was done, and Joey changed back into her regular outfit, Kevin waited for her in the parking lot. He waved at her from his car.

"Where are you taking me?" she asked as she jumped into the passenger seat.

He started the car and said: "Bar Black Jack, it's only a few blocks away."

He was right. After barely a five-minute drive, he parked the car on the side of the road. Joey recognized the street because her apartment building was only a short walk away. Part of her was relieved. She could probably walk home later. In between the many buildings stood one establishment, marked with a neon sign that said 'Bar Black Jack' 

The bar itself was small, but it felt cosy. There were only a handful of tables and a single booth next to the kitchen where Rita, George and Marvin were waiting. Once they noticed Joey and Kevin, they waved them over.

"There you are!" smiled Rita, "About time."

"Yeah, yeah," Kevin rolled his eyes, "You guys ordered yet?"

Marvin shook his head, "No, we were waiting for you. First rounds on me, though. What do you want?"

"Ah, you know me," Kevin replied, "Just a beer for me."

"Got it," he said before turning to Joey, "You?"

Joey took a quick glance at the laminated menu and decided: "Just a Coke. Hold on, I'll help carry the drinks."

Rita snorted, "At least pretend you're not kissing ass!"

"Haha, fuck you," laughed Joey as she followed Marvin to the bar.

Joey slowly got used to Raccoon City. Work wasn't as good as she expected, but her colleagues sure were. For the first time since arriving in the city, she stopped thinking about Montana. About Danny. But she'd always remember why she came here in the first place: to find out what really happened to Danny.

It was about eleven PM when they called it quits – at least Joey did.

"It's been fun, but I should head home," she yawned, putting on her jacket. Kevin immediately stood up as well, "I'll take you home."

"Oh, you don't have to," Joey shook her head, "I live a few minutes away. It's fine."

"No, no," Kevin insisted, "It's late and dark outside. I'm just making sure you get home safe."

Finally, she relented and let him lead her outside.

Right outside the bar was a bulletin board with more missing person posters. Joey had grown accustomed to ignoring them, but one poster partially covered by others caught her attention.

'HAVE YOU SEEN ME?: STEPHEN MCDANIEL'

Familiar eyes stared back at her. Stephen was, in fact, an old co-worker of hers. He was the Chief Deputy Sheriff of Great Falls, but he quit shortly after his wife passed away. No one had ever seen him since.

"Joey?" Kevin called out, joining her side, "Oh, him. His daughter would come to the R.P.D. once a day to report him as missing, but Irons always shut her down. She stopped coming a while ago."

Joey took a step closer and brushed another poster aside. Next to Stephen McDaniel was a woman in the same picture, smiling brightly as she hugged him. Joey recognized her too. It was her best friend in high school before she left for Helena.

Evelyn McDaniel.

[artielas]

I grabbed the phone. "Hi, Interdimensional Tech Suppo-"

"<^_8^+•]H$))\€[*"

"You can't hear me? OK, put the bottom of the phone to your mouth." Through the phone, I heard the sound of teeth and saliva clashing against plastic. "No, not in your mouth, next to your mouth."

"%^]++]£\£>?"

"Just pick one that's close to your ear, and put the other end of the phone to that ear."

"]>\*\+£€}|\}^=£~!"

I groaned. "Well then, your closest equivalent to an 'ear.'"

"*#+£*^{|~#>€*£<~|"

I took a deep breath. "OK! Uh, have you tried turning it off and on again?"

"@&!(£#||"

"Is it plugged in?"

"ji+¥£/$&g#\e+"

"Is it charged?"

"\>*[+£!h|*{*\£€)&@/$/&?)"

"OK, so it's a PC. Is the power out? You'll tell by all the lights suddenly going out, the screen going black for no reason, all of that."

"^+{+]\%>€'5¥+]€"

"Alright then... Just wait for the power to come back on."

"^+|£]€]£>€\*[£[\>\>_?€£+'s^+_9€>%\#<_>*"

I couldn't believe my ears. "Well, you really don't have to-"

"+|£_='$-9"

Something came up on the edge of my peripheral vision, and just as it did, the phone cut off.

I turned to see a package on my desk, a simple brown parcel tied with twine. My fingers hovered over the string, as if it would burn me at the touch -- you never knew with the way these beings worked. Finally, after what felt like eternity, I loosened the twine and let the paper unfurl.

Inside was a book bound in a strange leather, the cover decorated with intricate runes and symbols embedded in silver leaf. I was careful not to touch it or look into it, to be safe. The silver leaf in the center also had some type of inscription. The lexicon was indecipherable, it rearranged the symbols every time I glanced at it.

Next to it was another book. I guess this being really likes their books. This one, however, was bound in a more natural-looking leather, with a leather band wrapped around it to hold it tightly closed. On the cover, in more silver leaf (and more importantly in a human language), it read, "Scientific Logs of." Whoever owned it, their name had been furiously scratched with some sort of sharp object.

Between the book and the log was... A gift card to Dave & Busters. Even if it wasn't actually a gift card to Dave & Busters, what did it do? What could I use this for? I didn't have access to the human world anymore, so even if I wanted to, I couldn't spend this!

Finally, at the center of it all was a small note. Thankfully, it was also written in a human language, and it said what each of these items was: the book was an old spellbook of the being's, one that they said they had kept for quite some time and "savored the sweetness of as [they] indulged in its recreation of [their] capabilities"; the journal was the science log of "one of the greatest alchemists of the world [they] knew best;" and the gift card was "a Gift from the Modern Civilization of Humanity, from the Being who Sees All. Take the greatest care of it."

I am now the proud owner of a grimoire, a science log, and a really suspicious-looking Dave & Busters gift card.

You work as tech support for ancient supernatural beings who are trying to adapt to the modern world. It’s a frustrating - and at times dangerous - job, but at least your clients pay well.

[curiouserxandxcuriouser]

Breaching our World

I have had another dream. I am torn between this idea of either my over active imagination, or the connection that I have with something greater than myself. In my waking hours I am insignificant. In my dreams, I seem to be some key to protecting the balance of the universe.

It was bright and sunny in the city square. The towering buildings all funneled people toward the small park a the intersecting cobblestone roads. It was a small park, no more than a bench, a fountain, and some trees. It was a park nonetheless.

In the fountain parents watched their children kicking up water. They splashed each other and laughed with jubilee. The occasional warning to be careful would escape the parents as they held onto each other. They seemed enamored with the simplicity and beauty of this moment.

On the bench, a man was being photographed. He was dressed for fall fashion with a long brown leather duster. He wore a white turtleneck with black slacks. His black leather shoes were polished to almost a mirror shine. (Now that I think about it, I can't remember anything about the family's dress). The photographer was approaching him from different angles, and thanking him for the opportunity to capture these images.

The photographer stood out to me. He was dressed like he belonged in an office, stuck behind a keyboard. While his camera was of an extremely high quality, his clothing was clearly juxtaposed with the man he was taking pictures of. His jacket, while it did match the brown of his subject, was old and faded. It was cropped around his hips and had seen multiple years of sun and rain damage. His black T-shirt looked like it was pulled from a plastic bag that had 4 others rolled up in it. His blue jeans (I use that color lightly) were faded and torn around the boot cut. His boots were quite simply the boots of a man who would work construction. Seemingly bought for the versatility of being waterproof and steel-toed.

In all things, if the man on the bench was a polished figure, the man with the camera represented what it is to be human. Tattered, tired, and worn out.

The Subject of the photograph did at first appear to be posing. Watching them for a few moments would reveal this not to be the case. He was looking away, and while not directly asking the photographer to stop, each time the Ratty man moved for another picture, the Subject shifted his body away. The photographer would say something like "You are doing great. Keep looking disinterested with this." then would move to a new angle to take another photo. The man on the bench maintained a calm composer, but seemingly uninterested would look in a different direction. He would shift from having his arm along the back of the bench to turning away and crossing one leg over the other.

None of this was my concern. I wanted to sit and enjoy the beautiful day. As I approached the bench the photographer stopped. I assumed due to ruining his efforts to capture the subject. He kept his eyes trained on me. He took a few steps back and his brow furrowed. Clearly, I was the villain in this scenario. I found it odd that he did snap one quick picture of me. He did not use any posing, or even offer the instruction he offered The Subject. Just a quick unfocused shot which I started challengingly into the camera for.

He looked down at his camera's screen confused. I mistook this for irritation, but looking back now it was definitely confusion.

The Subject looked at me surprised, turning his body for the first time forward. He immediately appeared more relaxed. It seemed as if what I had taken for harassment was accurate.

In an attempt to cover what could be constructed as rude, I spoke up. "You didn't pay for this photo shoot, right? I don't want to interrupt. I can move." His voice carried a power with it. Commanding of authority. "Not at all. Please enjoy the-..." He stopped speaking and looked past me. His left eyebrow arched questioningly. As he stood from the bench the skies darkened. The wind picked up. Lighting cracked across the sky. In the second that it took The Subject to stand, the weather changed drastically.

That moment is when the Ratty man put away his camera.

I watched the previously composed subject boil over with anger, he leapt straight forward, through the air, at such a high speed that had I blinked, I would have thought he disappeared. No sound accompanied his movement. Not his shoes on the cobblestones, nor a swishing of his clothes. It was if he controlled the air pressure around him to prevent it.

I turned to see where he had gone to. He was now some hundred feet away pulling another man off a motorcycle. The force behind this move became readily apparent, as the bike continued, but the rider did not. The rider dangled helplessly by the throat, held in place by the one calm Subject of the photography. His voice this time came more commanding. "You dare to call out to us? Do you understand the power you toy with? Does the mud bubble at the mountain? Do the insects command the stars? You are an insignificant pebble caught in a typhoon beyond your understanding."

A rousing speech to say the least. Whatever this man did, whoever the subject was, it would seem a boundary had been crossed. One that should not be taken lightly.

A hand pressed hard on my shoulder. "Get down!" was shouted in my ear, barely cutting over the winds and thunder. I followed the direction, just barely catching a glimpse of the Ratty photographer. He stood poised against the wind. His gaze was not on me, but on the previous Subject of his photos. He reached into his coat and pulled out something. I can not say what it was. It glowed, and from my position beneath the bench I could not dare the glimpse it.

A crack of lighting bathed the area around us in bright light. The photographer shouted over the deafening roar of thunder that accompanied the lightning, but his words were lost on me.

That is when the world went dark.

I imagine I blacked out? Possibly was dreaming. Curiously this dream within my dream was of the photographer. I saw him approaching the fountain. He was placing a sword in the upper bowl of the fountain. I saw him by the tree. He placed a shotgun up in the branches. I saw him under the bench. He placed throwing knives under the bench.

When I came back to "reality", I was still under the bench. The wind had stopped. (It is better to say it moved away than stopped.)The sky was still dark, but the thunder was growing more distant.

I looked along the underside of the bench to where I had just had a vision of the Photographer placing the knives. There was indeed a set of three throwing knives. I removed them from their sheath, and held them up to my face. I did not believe they were real. "What the fuck?!" I heard the voice of the photographer.

As I looked to my right, he was on his back, in the street, and looking over at me. His face showed confusion, concern, and possibly anger. He rolled onto his knees with a grunt. It was at this time that I realized he was covered in dust and soot. Likely from the percussive blast of the lightning. "There is no time to figure out how you found those. Come with me."

It was less of a request and move a command. He grabbed my upper arm and pulled me out from under the bench effortlessly. He dragged me along as he walked to the tree and recovered the shotgun. He continued to drag me as he likewise recovered the sword from the fountain.

Then he started to speak as he lead me up the street in the opposite direction of the thunder and wind.

"Thousands of years ago, what you would call gods walked this planet. They were powerful by comparison to you. They were cunning by comparison to you. They were strong by comparison to you." We stopped walking and he looked down at me. "I mean your species. Not you in particular. I don't know what you are." He started walking again, still dragging me by the upper arm. "They subjugated your people. They enslaved you to make sacrifices, make their food, their wine, and give them your minerals."

He pulled me into an alleyway not far from the park. He pulled a bag out of a trashcan and began placing his various items into the bag. "These so called gods come from another reality. One that they are not supposed to be able to escape. Your species opened the bridge for them because they promised you power and knowledge." He turned to look at me, then down to the knives in my hand. He quickly plucked them from my clutches. "Have you heard of Zeus? Apollo? Brahma? Shiva? Anubis?" He started at me as he listed off the names of ancient gods. He seemed disappointed at my lack of a reaction. I was still trying to figure out what was happening and what this had to do with stories from out past. He turned from me and placed the throwing knives into the bag.

"It doesn't matter. They don't belong here, and you people called to them. In their realm they are normal. Here they are gods. I spent the better part of 2 millennia cleaning up your mess. I chased them all over the globe, sending them back to their realm where I could. It took so much to get you all to believe they were just stories." He picked up the bag and started to walk down the alleyway. He was 10 or so steps from me when he stopped walking. He sighed with a heavy annoyance. "Follow!" he barked.

I started walking behind him, keeping pace with his steps. I spoke up for the first time. "So... the story of Prometheus and Sisyphus are real? They were tortured for all eternity?"

He grumbled from his position in front of me, without turning around. "I hate it when your type asks those questions. I did my best to stop it. Once they have you, they can claim your essence. What you would call a soul. It makes them stronger. They are free to do whatever they want with you."

--This is where the dream ends. I am certain other people have these dreams too. Does anyone else search for meanings in them?

[nei-ning]

Old dream visiting me again. Long and messy one, but here goes. WARNING! INCLUDES KILLING / SHOOTING A PERSON!

I was visiting sis, apparently, but she lived in another place instead of her current one. It was more like countryside near big town. It was bright snowy day as I walked on this road when I noticed police cars in front of one wooden house with police hiding in bushes and behind their cars, guns ready. At the stairs stood, apparently, middle aged woman. She was fat, hair dirty but mostly hidden under her wool hat etc. She was pointing cops with her pistol.

I don't think she had done anything that bad until she had pulled her gun at the police. One police was yelling her orders to put the gun down and talk. They didn't want to kill her (note, in Finland it's VERY VERY SUPER RARE for police to shoot / kill). I got curious so I went a bit closer, kneeling down on one knee behind tiny snow pile. She noticed me, aimed and shot. I felt the bullet hit my face, my head snapping back a bit.

I instantly lifted my hand on my mouth since I felt warm blood starting to run down and out of my mouth. In this moment my sis rushes to me somewhere, taking me away as one of the police orders.

She takes me to this one weird place which looks like it could be hidden underground place from Ghibli movie. Steampunk-factory kind of thing? Here, on second level, I dare to open my mouth and I don't see the bullet via tiny hand mirror. Nor any damage either. I push one of my upper front tooth with my tongue and this bullet drops out if it. It looks like slightly flatten black pepper! Even my sis is in awe. My tooth? Absolutely spotless since it had some kind of clear but soft plastic cover! I don't know why but that DID save my tooth, my life.

I then return back to the scene with police group and the woman. They haven't got nowhere. For a some reason my hair is now short (like Sukuna') and almost pure white. I'm wearing red long leather jacket which is black from the inside. My pants are the same with black belts and boots which match the jacket. I have black long sleeves shirt under my fully open jacket.

I squat down, my eyes locked on the woman, and I start to sneak closer. Between me and the woman is pile of snow, 2 tall pine trees, some kind of outer storage room and then she on the stairs. I have to move a bit to the left to get perfect straight line on the woman. When I'm on perfect spot, I stop and pull out my own pistol. I don't understand anything about guns but this feels like a mix of pistol and riffle. Like... It has riffle's fire power or something?

She notices me now, turning to aim at me while I'm aiming her already. Even that she stands rather far away from me and I can't see her face clearly, I just know she has more maniac look in her eyes than before, knowing she's not gonna drop her weapon. Instead this growing feeling of 100% certainty is starting to fill me, even that I'm amazingly calm and steady through this whole scene. She WILL shoot me. I can feel her finger pressing more against the trigger.

My own finger, without hesitation, pulls the trigger of my own. With a bang, the bullet from my gun hits the woman right in the middle of the forehead and she drops down dead. Of course this upsets all police officers since they wanted her alive. One of them asked me why I shot her and I told him she WOULD have killed me if I didn't shot her first. They never wouldn't have gotten her alive.

I stood up, suddenly covering my eyes with my right arm as I started to cry fake cry (note, I can do fake cry with tears in real life super easily. It's like my special skill :'D). I mean I felt absolute NOTHING from killing that woman but I thought that crying would show the police how upset I was for the fact I just shot someone. Killed the first person ever in my life. I also thought it how Grimmjow has kill people, never feeling anything either. He just goes and kills and moves on.

I now decided to run from it since I didn't want cops to arrest me from killing that lunatic woman. I went back to that Ghibli movie place, heading half way on wooden stairs to floor 1 from floor 2. There was very wide place which looked like kitchen. There also was weird creatures which had other weird creatures, pokemon styled if I have to reference idea, tied and caged - some chopped with fur on the table already. One of these tall superior creatures saw me on the stairs, yelling: "What are you looking at?! We eat them!"

I calmly said it was fine by me, turned and walked stairs back up on the second floor. This creature, chef perhaps, followed me so I turned to face him, saying:

"Look, it's perfectly fine by me if you eat those cute creatures. After all, we humans eat chickens, pigs and cows too."

This calmed the chef down and he left me. Next I'm sitting in a bus which is going around my old home town. I was happy I was now hundreds of kilometers away from the crime scene (woman who I shot) since cops were looking for me without a doubt. Here, behind God's back, I would be safe.

I got reunited with my ex childhood friend and some other person(s). We decided to head to this cabin deeper in the woods. None wouldn't look for us there. As we walked on this old road in the middle of the woods, we came to small swamp / pond opening. I looked down to my left and right next to the roads was water line. I instantly noticed a golden frog statue (money frog) with very shiny golden Chinese coins with red ropes beneath and all around it. There also was pink lotus flower with green lotus leaves. Very pretty sight but it slightly confused me since it had never been there before.

Then I noticed chocolate bar, big and long, right side of the road. It was unwrapped but also otherwise untouched. My friend's words made me snap out of my head when she goes: "Isn't this the area where you li-?" but before she can finish her sentence, I shush her down. I don't want others to know I used to live here.

We finally come to the cabin which is partly in the middle of forest hill. The woods around us, especially behind and on left side (when looking cabin from the front) are HELL DARK. There's only pine trees but between them are wide gaps but still... I don't like that darkness. It's familiar, heavy, nasty and damn right frightening.

Indoors I head to my own room which is first room at the right after coming in and walking through tiny hallway. As I stood at the open doorway, facing the window which was directly facing the forest behind the cabin, weird dim light glows somewhere behind the hill, casting light appear between the trees.

There's one tiny tree which has break in half and on top of it sits a creature which caught my attention first. I only see black-gray silhouette but it's definitely formed like a hare but it has antlers, owls's wings and maybe owls beak or fox's muzzle. The eyes are in shadows so I don't see them.

Behind this creature, on top of the hill between 2 trees, stands another creature. I see it clearly since it's firm is more sharp and dark, but the eyes? Round, piercing white ones. I DON'T like them. This creature... It looks like it has human torso but moose's body. I do see long legs which also reminds me of a moose.

Both of these creatures are NOT friendly. I can sense it. They don't have the most nasty negative energy I've ever sensed in my life but at the same time, I know they already hate us and will kill us if we do anything to piss them off.

My friend's voice snaps me out of it all when she yells from other room if I would like to accompany her and others. They were going for shopping in this little city which was below us. You could see it from our living room window. There also was big horse farm. I agreed to go but when I turned and stepped out if my room on the hallway, I instantly turned to look to my right. At the end of the hallway, short one, was big window again facing the forest.

There, like with my bedroom, was forest hill with dim light coming from somewhere. Between the trees on the small gap stood huge black gorilla. I saw the shape clearly and this, too, had uneasy bright eyes too with nasty energy. Next to the gorilla appeared huge truck! It had uneasy lights too. I instantly hear the truck honk once and that's all I need to hear.

I take step back, pressing myself as hard against my room's door (which closed on its own) as I can since I know that truck WILL drive right through the cabin, tearing it apart. It wants me dead. Probably others too. I close my eyes and I hear that damn truck! I hear the sound of it's engine coming closer and closer. In my mind's eye I can see how it would go right through the cabin, and perhaps it does as a ghost truck, since suddenly the sound vanishes. I open my eyes and in some way I know it did drive through the cabin but there's no any damages. I'm confused but not taking any risks.

I run outside, getting in this tiny red car with the others. The car looks to be very old one, something what hunters would have use like 20-30 years ago. I then started to wake up.

I also had Kuroko no basket dream (Aomine, Kagami, Kuroko) but I don't remember it anymore. Tho, that would have been old dream as well.