#i mean. considering that while it's in a red county

[nom-de-plume-system]

as someone who almost went homeless many times in my childhood, who WAS homeless briefly as a kid, nearly went homeless many times in my teens AND nearly decided to run away and live on the streets in my adult years, FUCK the bamas that criminalize homelessness. They need to lose their home, eat shit and die.

I just want to say I have absolutely 0 sympathy whatsoever for anyone complaining about anything homeless people do. oh you saw human shit on the ground?? hmm maybe it's because THEY DONT HAVE A TOILET. oh you saw someone cleaning themselves in a public restroom? maybe because THEY DONT HAVE A FUCKING SHOWER. oh no a homeless person is living in a tent and you think it's ugly?? CRY ABOUT IT IN YOUR FUCKING HOUSE. oh my goodness homeless people sleeping on the ground and they're in your way!!!! yeah THEY DONT HAVE A BED

if seeing homeless people bothers you that much then good news! you have some choices! 1) let them all live with you in your house! 2) start pressuring your local government to stop criminalizing the homeless and start giving them financial and medical assistance! 3) shut the fuck up and die!

[briyourmotherdown]

cool water ★ part I

James Hetfield x fem!reader

★ everyone is running from something ★

Words: 6.7k

Warnings: i know nothing about arizona and it shows. VERY incorrect timeline. mentions of rehab and alcoholism. james is a moody prick. 18+ in the future but part I is PG minus some swearing.

A/N: so i'm asking you all, please, PLEASE be kind to me because this is the first fic i've written in well over a year and the first metallica one I've ever posted. this is so unbelievably self indulgent it's insane. title named after a marty robbins song because that's where this whole idea stemmed from. i tried not to use y/n because i know some people hate that jhskjfhkjhfthftdhftkj. also i really really hope the fact that rehab is in here isn't a trigger or upsetting to anyone!!! it just makes sense for the plot. it's also very inspired by the some kind of monster documentary. this will probably be a shorter fit made up of a few parts but it may take a while since i'm literally about to graduate uni and i'm drawing in assignments. anyways i hope you enjoy <3

parts: (1), (2)

★

  A few states over, a little over a thousand miles and a few days long trek away, lies a life– packed crudely into a beat up Subaru with too many miles on the metre to go about adding another thousand. The air conditioning unit cracked out one state back, leaving only the rolled down windows to offer any sort of reprieve against the Western American summer heat. The unknown lies in the interstate ahead, yellow lines and road signs guiding you closer to your next destination. Only the front windows are open, the rear windows obstructed by precariously stacked belongings in unsealed cardboard boxes and garbage bags balanced against the glass. To roll them down would mean losing a good chunk of your clothing. 

   A map is sprawled out open on the passenger seat, red lines and circles marking the last stretch of your journey into Yuma County, Arizona. Golden light pours over countless acres of sprawling farmland ahead of you, the setting sun glaring into your eyes beneath your sin visor as you drive with one hand on the wheel and the other propping your head up against the open window. Your yellow Subaru is the only vehicle for miles, alone on the barren road as the sky fades into an inky blue. It’s eerie, being this alone. Eerie as you turn down yet another country lane, rolling the windows up. Eerie as you make sure the doors are locked and the gas tank full. Eerie for a girl who’d only left the city twenty-four hours prior, where such silence and solitude was such a rarity that you never stopped to consider what it felt like to actually be completely alone. 

   The night is still when you reach a stop sign, the hiss of crickets and cicadas audible even from inside the car. There’s no breeze that rustles the trees, nor a cloud to taint the clarity of the starry night sky. You feel as though you should be quiet and hold your breath, goosebumps raising on your skin. They only begin to subside when your headlights illuminate a sign reading Palo Verde Ranch. 

   Tires kick up dust as you roll down the tree-lined passage, inching closer and closer to where you will spend the next summer, checking the map one more time and breathing a sigh of relief when the trees part way to an opening. The ranch and lodgings look the same as the pictures in the brochure you were given, apart from being shrouded in a heavy darkness from the night. The porch lights are on, along with a few lamp posts circled by moths and mosquitoes. Pulling into an empty space next to a pick-up, you kill the engine and rest your head back against the headrest. The roar of the crickets seem even louder as you sit silently in the driver’s seat. 

   With a few final taps on your steering wheel with your fingers, you heave yourself from sitting position and stretch your aching legs, lifting your arms above your head before grabbing your suitcase from the backseat and forgoing the rest until tomorrow. It’s far too dark to go about it now. Boots crunch on gravelly dirt as you make your way to the lodging house, reading the brochure once more to check where the key is kept. It lays underneath a small terracotta pot, placed upside down and completely indiscrete. It makes you smile to yourself when you lift it up to examine it against the porch light– a small, metal cactus keychain hanging from it. You smack a mosquito from your arm as you unlock the door. 

   With a creak, the door opens up into the lodging house, though to you it seems more like a bungalow that had been converted into some sort of bed and breakfast. There’s a small kitchen to your left, under-cabinet lights casting an amber glow over the linoleum countertop and laminate floors. You take note of the humming refrigerator before turning to your right to examine a quaint sitting area, equipped with a floral printed sofa straight from the 1970s and a chestnut bookshelf housing a sparse assortment of books and magazines. It reminds you slightly of a waiting room– pretending to be lived in as to put you at ease. 

   Straight ahead lies the hallway, two doors on the left-hand side and three on the right, one of which has been left ajar. Upon further inspection, with slow, easy steps, you come to realise that it’s the bathroom, nose scrunching up slightly at the prospect of having to share one bathroom with multiple other people. On every door is a hand painted number, accented by flowers painted on in pastel colours. Very Bohemian, you note, eyeing the beaded curtain that hangs in the windowsill of the window at the end of the hall. Dim light spills from underneath doors three and four, but the other two remain dark. 

   Your room number is two. 

   Opening the door, you flick the light switch on before closing it behind you, a small puff of air escaping from between your lips as you take in the room. It’s cozy– genuinely, unlike the sitting room from before. It nearly reminds you of the room you’d grown up in, or, at least spent the earliest years of your childhood in. A golden oak bed sits against the wall in one corner of the room next to the window, fitted in cream and pale green floral patterned sheets. There’s a dresser-vanity and a wardrobe of the same golden oak, and a small nightstand next to the bed. On it beneath the small tiffany lamp lies an unopened note and a small plush teddy bear. 

   Tears fog your eyes as you sit on the edge of the bed and drop your suitcase at your feet. It feels so familiar– like a distant memory of a time in your life where things weren’t so turned upside down. A time when you weren’t running from something. Clutching the teddy bear against your chest, you open the note– a sweet, handwritten one from the owner of the land, welcoming you to your home for the summer. It tells you of breakfast in the main house at 10am, that there are fresh towels in the wardrobe, and that the vanity drawers tend to be a bit fiddly. 

   With a watery sigh, you blink up at the ceiling to clear your cloudy vision, flopping backwards onto the bed.

★

   James knew that he needed a distraction. 

   He knew better than to be around all the same people and places from how he was before. Breathing the same California air he knew and once loved now feels too thick in his lungs, like some sort of poisonous gas. 

   He knew better than to be around reminders. 

   Due to his therapist’s orders, James was to go somewhere different for a little while. In his words, to “relax, be at one with nature”. He had spread a pile of pamphlets across his desk, closing his eyes and laying his pointer finger down on the first one it came in contact with. Arizona didn’t seem to appeal to James’ bandmates as much as it did to his therapist. They had a hard enough time communicating as is, too many alcohol-fueled yelling matches only worsened by the unmade upcoming album that loomed over their shoulders. James wasn’t sure how he could make the album to begin with, not while he was walking this tightrope. If he was constantly teetering on the edge, how could he be a productive member of the band? 

   Part of him didn’t want to go. Running away from it all felt cowardly, as though he’s weak for not being able to handle what once was so normal. A few drinks at the bar with friends turned into something else, something monumental. Gigs, rehearsals, afterparties, bar to bar to bar to bar. People who once gave him comfort now only serve as reminders of how he has ended up. 

  His PA booked his flight and had his truck sent to meet him at the airport. His intentions were clear– he would spend a few months working on the ranch away from anything that might tempt him, and then he would return home in autumn and attempt to clean up the mess he had left behind. The mess in question haunted him on his flight, tension aching behind his eyes as he rubbed at them. Divorce papers. A band that might hate him, left hanging and waiting for him to get his shit together so that they can release another album. Loose ends, after loose ends. Mouth set in a straight line, he realises he’s clenching his fists, blunt nails pressing into his palms. 

   Settling in was fairly easy. There was only one suitcase to unpack, clothes folded neatly into the dresser and notebook placed haphazardly on the nightstand– blank paged and unopened. For a few days it was only him in the lodging house, resting and rising in silence, eating a bowl of cereal by the kitchen window before heading out to work on the ranch with Wayne, the owner’s husband. Wayne is a shorter man, or at least much shorter than James, with salt and pepper hair he keeps hidden beneath a straw hat, and a laugh that often turns into a smoker’s cough if your joke is good enough. Wayne is friendly and a hard-worker, unafraid to put James to work too. 

   A few days later, a couple more lodgers began filtering in, two men who based on their accents, come from the south. They didn't spare James a second glance, and James gratefully did the same in return. There was no need for making friends.

   When you arrived it shook up his routine. He now had to wait for his morning showers, entering only after you had spent far longer than he would’ve liked, only to be met with fogged up mirrors and the scent of vanilla and jasmine. He could hear music playing gently through the thin walls, some shit from the 70s that he wasn’t into, and he’d have to put up with the way you’d softly hum along. Truthfully, he avoided bumping into you at all costs. There was no concern of seeing you at breakfast or dinner– he skipped them in favour of some cheap crappy microwave meal– and he worked more on the ranch with Wayne while you settled into tending the vegetable garden. 

   Avoiding you seemed like a waste of time, however, because you didn’t notice him anyway. You always seemed too lost in your own head, focussed entirely on pulling weeds to notice him walking back and forth by you, carrying bags of feed. He didn’t offer a greeting, or even his name, but then again neither did you, and he was more than happy to keep his distance. 

   Your name only came up one day as James was sitting with Wayne. They’d both spent hours of the morning tending to the stables in the intense heat, James doing most of the heavy-lifting, and took refuge under the shade of a large tree. After collecting a few random chopped logs and sticks, James took out his pocketknife and began carving. Wayne spoke of plans to make his wife a wooden sculpture of a cactus for their front porch, with James silently shucking away at the wood to bring it to a sharp point. 

   In the distance you’re harvesting crops from the vegetable garden, wearing denim cutoffs and a t-shirt with the sleeves torn off. From here James thinks he can spot the image of Garfield printed on the front. He stares for longer than he should, eyes trailing down the expanse of your bare legs, and admittedly, over your behind when you turn and lean down to grab a shovel. 

   Wayne breaks through the intensity of his gaze by saying a name, the glass shattering when James averts his eyes and returns to sharpening the wooden shiv with care. His finger slips against the grain and he winces, plucking the splinter from his thumb, “That girl. She’s here from Seattle.” 

   He remains silent, lip twitching with a hint of annoyance at the older man’s intrusion. Yet he lets your name settle in his mouth, silently testing the way it feels on his tongue. Aware that he was caught, he keeps his eyes trained intensely on his craft to avoid Wayne’s gaze. 

   “Pretty, ain’t she?” Wayne muses, stripping bark from an ash log and looking at you in the distance as you pick weeds from the cauliflower beds, “We don’t usually get people like her out here,” he turns to James, simpering, “Don’t usually get rockstars ‘neither.” 

  He turns away to continue stripping the log and James uses the moment to steal another look at you. The sun beats down on your back and you wipe sweat from your brow with your bare forearm, pushing a few loose hairs back that had fallen from your ponytail. There’s a half empty sack of compost on the ground by your feet that stains the tips of your gloved hands. You look tired, standing back from the garden bed to study your handiwork before tilting your head all the way back to soak up the sun, hands on your hips. When you turn and glance in James’ direction, squinting your eyes through the heat mirage, he averts his gaze, once again all too aware of Wayne and the way the man lifts his hand to wave dramatically at you. 

   He doesn’t look up to see if you wave back. 

   He sees you again that late afternoon, in the same way he always sees you— in small vignettes, in short scenes that make him think momentarily that you might just be a figment of his imagination. He sees you walking past him with a crate full of lettuce, too focused on not dropping any from the heaped pile to pay him any notice. He sees you when he walks by the wire fence, where you’re being walked through the steps of feeding the chickens in the coop. He sees you now, entering the same house he’s staying in, the same one he’s walking to, only a few paces behind. 

   But still, you seem to pay him no mind, as if he’s a ghost. He thinks he might be one if it weren’t for the acknowledgment of Wayne and his wife, Marie. The other workers don’t much like him, interpreting his silence as him being a stuck up rockstar. He wonders if it’s for any reason that you don’t notice him. Does he skulk around too quietly? Sure, he’s not been the most conversational since he’s been here, but he’s sure you would’ve at least noticed him.

   It really bugs him. 

   For a man whose profession is to be seen and to be heard, he typically really likes fading into the shadows in his everyday life. There had been too many days of butting heads with Lars, too many arguments with his ex, too many paparazzi, too many expectations of him. He was only one man, and he knew he was too fucked up to be a role model for anyones kids. Before he entered rehab, he enjoyed the anonymity of a small town bar and the way no one knew who he was there. If they did, they didn’t care, clinking pints with him over the bar as if he was just another one of them. And even though Wayne and Marie do talk to him and put him to work, they still treat him like all the others staying on the farm for the season. And he does enjoy the fact that Wayne and Marie seem to pay him no mind, as well as the other workers. 

   But when he really thinks about it, he doesn’t like slipping into the shadows as much as he thought he did. Perhaps it’s his ego talking, but he at least likes being acknowledged. 

  It was as if you didn’t even know he was there. 

  It bugs him as he opens the door behind you after you’d let it close, watching you saunter down the hall and into the room only a door away from his own, not offering a glance as you shut it behind you. It bugs him as he makes his way into his own room, sitting at the edge of the bed and rubbing his hands over his tired face. It bugs him even more when he hears your door open and close again, squeaking on its hinges, followed by the click of the bathroom door and the rush of the shower turning on. 

   You claimed the shower before he could, as you always seem to do. Only today he had worked hard, back sore and legs aching with strain. Annoyance twitches at his lip but he tries to brush it off, taking deep breaths, groaning lowly as he lays back onto the bed. The day's work sits heavily in his bones and he shifts uncomfortably. He feels grimy, a layer of sweat having dried on his skin, sticking the Arizona desert sand to the hairs on his arms. He grimaces and tries to brush some off.

   Minutes pass while he waits for you to finish in the bathroom, then more, and after thirty minutes he’s grown more and more impatient with you, rising from the bed and storming into the hallway. He doesn’t take any time to notice that the shower has stopped running, the blood rushing too loudly through his ears, and as he’s about to aggressively rap his knuckles against the door, it swings open. You jump back with a start when you see him, his fist raised and face twisted in irritation. 

   Momentarily, he’s stunned, face contorting into an expression that matches your own as his eyes trail over your form– wet hair against your shoulders and fresh skin dewey with what he assumes is lotion. You’re gripping your towel tightly in one hand, the other clutching a toiletry bag. 

   As he lowers his hand, he realises that this is the first time you’re noticing his existence. Wide eyes glimmer up at him shyly, lips parted from the shock of opening the door to a man standing angrily directly on the other side. 

   With that realisation comes another—actually, two realisations that took him possibly too long to register– the fact that you’re almost naked, and he’s blocking your way out of the bathroom. Embarrassment nips viciously at the back of his neck, tinting the tips of his ears pink as he takes a step back. 

  James has never been good with embarrassment. His ego always gets in the way or gets him into trouble. Sure, it has won him many arguments, much to the chagrin of his opponents, but it has also gained him the title of an egotistical asshole to many people. Whenever James becomes embarrassed, the outcome is always the same– confrontational, cruel, unnecessary words he doesn’t really intend to say bubble up in his throat before he has any chance to stop them. 

   “Knowing that there’s only one bathroom, you should be more aware of how fucking long you take.” 

   He snaps his mouth shut the second the words are out, lips pressing together in a firm line. You raise your eyebrows at him, taken aback at the gruff rudeness of his tone. 

   You want to say something. Some witty comeback or even something to match his hostility, but your tongue struggles to find any words. Words have never come easily to you in the first place, always choosing to be quiet unless you’re around people you know, but they especially don’t come when you’re half naked and an angry, 6’1” man is towering over you. 

   All you can muster is a small, “I’m sorry.” as you push past him and retreat to your room. 

  James is paralysed in his spot, the increasingly familiar scent of vanilla and jasmine wafting over him from the bathroom as you walk away, listening to the door slam behind you. He’s not sure how long he stays standing in place, fists clenched at his sides with frustration directed at both you and himself. With a defeated sigh, he locks himself into the bathroom, turning on the shower. Once he’s stepped in he wastes no time in pressing his forehead against the cool tile, cursing himself for not being able to hold his tongue. 

   James really wants to spend the evening the same way he’d been doing, skipping dinner and smoking a cigar out on the front steps, but Marie had taken notice and when she bumped into him earlier in the day, had all but forced him into promising to come to dinner tonight. It didn’t sound appealing at all. It felt like fucking summer camp, having to sit around a big table with everyone staying at the ranch and talk about your day and the work everyones’ been doing. He’d quite honestly rather starve. 

   It didn’t help that he assumed you would be there. 

   He had made up his mind that he disliked you. The annoyance of  the way you’d practically ignored him for a week seems to only have increased with the duration of your shower. It was like you had no consideration for anyone else and didn’t look past the tip of your nose. He didn’t want to eat at the same table as you for that reason, is what he told himself. Not because he saw you in your towel and was so unnecessarily rude to you, no– James doesn’t do embarrassed. 

   He’s taken a nap directly after his shower, waking up even groggier and in an even worse mood, throwing on clean clothes and making his way down to the main house where Marie would be making dinner. The front door is already open when he gets there, and he takes an already exasperated breath before entering, 

   The smell that meets him is already mouthwatering, as much as he hates to admit it, and for a moment it makes him question why he’d skipped out on dinner for the past week. Wayne greets him as he walks in, already sitting around a large wooden table with a few men he recognises from around the ranch. Wayne has a cigar attached to his mouth, bobbing as he talks. 

   “James!” He exclaims, raising his hands in the air to greet him warmly, “Come on in, you should meet my guys.” 

   James nods curtly, having already met them in passing and discovered they didn’t much like him. But he puts up with it for Wayne’s sake, standing over the table but not sitting down, nodding in acknowledgment as he introduces everybody. They seem nice enough, greeting him with smiles, apart from two men at the end of the table who don’t so much as return James’ nod. They’re Dylan and Wes, the other two lodgers in the house. They offer him forced smiles, but James can see that the second Wayne turns his head to speak to someone else, they narrow their eyes in his direction. For a moment he wonders if you’d met them– if they treated you in the same way or if you hadn’t even noticed them in the same way you did him. 

   With that thought, Marie comes bounding in, wielding a wooden spoon in one hand, “James!” she grins, “I’m so pleased you came,” 

   She diverts her attention to Wayne, smacking him on the shoulder with the wooden spoon and scolding him in Spanish. The cigar between the man’s lips threatens to fall, but miraculously remains sturdy as he says something back, a sheepish expression on his face. 

   Marie rolls her eyes and turns back to James, “You, help me in the kitchen because my bum of a husband apparently has better things to do.” 

   Any other time James may have cringed at the idea– he’s not the best chef– but now, as he turns to glance at Dylan and Wes who stare at him with a look of contempt, he takes the out and follows Marie into the kitchen. 

   The moment he enters, his eyes land on you where you stand chopping vegetables at the butcher’s block island. You’re not looking at him yet, too focussed on dicing a tomato, and he takes a second to look at you. Your hair has dried, thrown back into a ponytail while you’re cooking, and you wear a white cotton sundress with thin straps that contrast against your skin. It’s different to how he’s seen you dressed, in denim cut-offs and cowboy boots, and for a moment he’s halted in the doorway to watch you. 

   “Could you shuck this corn?” Marie asks James, and your eyes finally snap up to look at him, trailing over his attire before you quickly go back to chopping. 

   He clears his throat with a small sure, taking his place across from you at the butcher’s block. You don’t dare to look up at him again, hoping that he doesn’t see the blush that tints the tops of your cheeks. 

   “You’re both very quiet, you know that?” Marie laughs, stirring a pot both metaphorically and literally, “Come on! Talk to each other.” 

   A short silence follows, painful and uncomfortable and it makes your skin crawl, clearing your throat and daring to glance at James. You break the silence by offering your name, extending some sort of peace offering.

   He doesn’t seem to extend the olive branch in return. uttering a gruff, “James,” as he shucks another ear of corn. 

   You nod, You’d hoped that he’d say more to make you feel less nervous, hands shaking slightly as you hold the knife. You knew his name already– Marie had told you a few days ago when she caught you staring at him while he repaired the broken gate near the stables– shirtless.  He had been sweating, lugging planks of wood from the shed on the other side of the lot, tattoos and bare skin glowing. Marie had snorted at your pink cheeks and made a smart comment about how he could fix your gate– whatever that meant. You’d been stealing glances at him since, averting your gaze quickly whenever he would begin to turn his head.

  You soon became aware of his dislike for you, and other than the earlier shower incident, you can’t think of why. You tried to stay out of his way as much as possible, which wasn't hard considering he hadn’t showed up to dinners so far, and always kept to himself except for when he was working with Wayne.

   It really bugs you. 

   You sigh when he doesn’t say anything else, glancing at Marie who’s back is to you as she leans over a large pot of stew, hoping that the heat of your gaze might burn just enough for her to turn around and save you. No dice. 

   “I–” You begin, “The gate looks really good.” 

   Instant regret rushes over you as a look of confusion paints his features, brows furrowed. You rush to explain, “The- the one by the stables, I saw you fixing it. It looks really good. I haven’t had to scale the fence to get through since.” 

   You embellish your compliment with a breathy laugh, audibly nervous, cursing yourself at your ability to make things so much worse. He didn’t return the laugh, and in fact, it seems that somehow your compliment had soured his expression even further. 

   “Thanks.” He deadpans, averting his gaze from yours and back to the corn. 

   You sigh, chopping another tomato. 

   Meanwhile James is internally kicking his own ass, unsure of why he can’t be fucking normal, intending to say one thing and actually saying another. He watches you from his place across the counter, the concerned furrow of your brow, pinched in the middle, to your nimble fingers diligently doing what Marie had instructed you to do. He feels a flash of guilt in the pit of his stomach. Maybe he misunderstood you. After all, you had noticed him– the gate was proof of that. Maybe he wasn’t as invisible to you as he thought he was. But that still leaves one question unanswered– if you noticed him, why did you intentionally ignore him? It’s silly and it’s childish, but it’s enough for him to continue on with his negative opinion of you.

   Time goes by wordlessly between you both, Marie instead taking the time to explain everything she was doing in detail, sure to send both of you home at the end of the night with the recipe for Birria engraved in your brains. Time passes this way until the table has been set and the food is ready, Marie ushering you both out of the kitchen and to the dining table. 

  The only three empty seats are lumped together, one of which is at Wayne’s side. It would be rude to sit where you know his wife would be sitting, so you take the next one with a small frown, waiting for James to take the one next to you. You’re aware that he’s not happy with the arrangement, and for a moment you wonder if he would take Marie’s chair, but he doesn’t and instead fills the vacant spot on your other side.  The table is tightly packed, and due to James’ frame, he has to keep his shoulders pinched together slightly to avoid rubbing them against yours. It’s nearly insulting, watching the amount of effort the man puts into not touching you, rolling your eyes to yourself as you eat the food Marie (and you and James, but mostly Marie) had prepared. 

   “So…,” 

   The mention of your name has your head snapping up, paused with your fork halfway raised to your mouth to look around at who had said your name. Your eyes fall on Dylan, who’s sat at the table directly across from you. You’d only met him once before and hadn’t really been able to form much of an opinion on him. He’s around your age, maybe a bit younger around twenty-three, with shaggy brown hair he let fall over his blue eyes and a smile that had a tinge of something you couldn’t quite put your finger on. He had helped you reach a pair of garden shears from the top shelf of the shed, and all you’d talked about within that span of two minutes was your names and where you were from. 

   “Hm?” You hum in acknowledgment.

   “You mentioned you’d stayed in Europe for a while, what was that like?” 

   You recognise the invitation of small talk, and you’d be thankful for it if it were just the two of you, but as everyone’s eyes settle on you for your response, you feel a little put on the spot. 

   “Uh, yeah, it was really cool,” you swallow, “Beautiful architecture.” 

   It’s a lame comment, and you're aware of it, but you're not sure of what else to say at the moment. Dylan nods slowly, eying you up and down in a way that makes you squirm nervously. 

   Wayne comes to your rescue, “James, have you been to Europe? I imagine y’have.” 

   The man beside you freezes, and he’s close enough that you can feel the tension, shifting in his chair. His bicep rubs against yours for the first time and you inhale quietly.

  “Yeah,” he sniffs, “Been a few times.” 

  “You been there on tour, I imagine?” 

  This piques your interest, eyes flitting to look at James profile. His jaw is clenched as he nods, “That’s correct.” 

   “On tour?” You ask. 

  He turns to you, and the intensity of his eyes this close up almost makes you regret asking. He nods, “My band tours here and there.” 

   “Ha! Understatement,” Wes snorts from across the table, southern accent strong through his laugh, “Mr. Big Shot over here has toured a whole lot more than just ‘here n’ there.”  

   He holds his fingers up in air quotes to emphasise his words, and you’re left confused. Mr. Big Shot? You thought James looked slightly familiar, but couldn’t place from where, so you’d just brushed it off as nothing. You turn to look at him again, studying his face and racking your brain to think of where you might have seen him before. It would make sense for him to be in a famous band, but which one? And why would someone in said famous band be out here in the middle of nowhere? 

   “What band?” You ask, ignoring Wes. 

   James looks uncomfortable, “Uh, Metallica.” 

   It’s as if bells go off in your head, piecing it all together and finally realising where you've seen him before. It wasn’t just one place you’d seen his face, but many. He’d been everywhere, on MTV, on the front covers of magazines on the newsstands back home, on billboards– dare you say Wes wasn’t too far off by calling him a Big Shot. 

   “Oh,” is all that comes out despite the revelation– despite the fact that you’re now painfully  aware of how famous he is. Your pre-existing nerves have only worsened with this newfound information, struggling to get a bite of your food down, wincing. 

   James, however, takes your lack of response and pained expression the wrong way and gets on the defensive, scoffing into his glass of water before slamming it down. The entire table goes quiet, and he doesn’t miss the way you flinch at his action, momentarily pausing to meet your gaze. Your eyes are wide as they lock with his, confusion written all over your face.

   He pushes his chair back from the table and stands up, “If you’ll excuse me.” 

   You watch his back as he retreats through the front door, letting it slam behind him. You flinch again and turn to look at Marie, who’s sitting next to her husband with a distraught look on her face. Sighing, you stand up and place your napkin on the table.

   “Dinner was absolutely wonderful, Marie, please excuse me.” 

   Marie flashes you a sympathetic glance as you walk to the door, and despite their chittering you don’t care to look at the expressions worn by Dylan and Wes. Instead, you make your way out of the house and down the front steps. The evening has finally matured into darkness, the pathway to the lodge lit only by lamp posts and strings of fairy lights that Marie had just put up earlier today. You’re not sure where to look for James, or even if you should be looking in the first place. If you truly are the cause of his bad mood, surely you’d be the last person able to talk some sense into him; but curiosity eats away at you, the need to fix whatever you’ve done gnawing at your stomach.

   It doesn't take too long to find him, sitting on the front steps of the lodge, mostly shrouded in shadows except for the orange cast of the fairy lights. 

   “Hey,” you offer carefully, slowing your pace as you near him. 

   You debate whether or not to sit next to him on the stairs, thinking it might piss him off if you do, but awkwardly rocking on your heels feels even worse. You take a seat next to him with a light huff, making sure to keep your arms from brushing against his like at the dinner table. He’s smoking a cigar, the burning tobacco lighting up his face ever so slightly on each inhale. Though he doesn’t verbally acknowledge your greeting, he doesn't leave either. As if he’s waiting for you to say something worth his while. 

   “I’m sorry, you know,” you offer softly, “I’m not quite sure what I did to upset you, but whatever it was, I’m sorry.” 

   He remains quiet, the sounds of the crickets and cicadas deafening. You exhale a sigh of defeat, tilting your head up to glance at the vast array of stars in the clear sky, counting the brightest stars until you lose your place. 

   James isn’t quite sure what to say. The longer he’s left to sit with his thoughts, the more he doesn’t understand what you’ve done to bug him so much. There’s been an explanation for every misunderstanding so far, leaving no reasons for his disdain, yet for some reason he just feels immensely frustrated by you. It’s something he feels under his skin, fizzing in his blood uncomfortably. He’s starting to wonder if it’s even got anything to do with you to begin with, or if this entire trip out to the desert has backfired and he’s got too much time and space to think about his life. Stress eats away at him, bubbling up slowly. 

   “I’m sorry about hogging the shower,” you ramble, “I didn’t realise you were waiting for it and I just got kinda…kinda lost in thought, I’ll hurry up next time.” 

   Nothing. It’s radio silence on his end, the air so thick that you feel it clouding your lungs along with the smoke from his cigar. You can’t stop your mouth from running, ”And it’s really cool that you’re in Metallica, I um, I don’t really know much about you guys but-”

   “You can stop,” he interrupts, the stress bubbling over, your face flaring with heat you’re glad he can’t see in the lighting. ”I don’t really care, honestly.” 

   He looks at you for the first time in the last five minutes, emotions flat and guarded, and for the first time since you’d met him, you feel your own anger rise up in your stomach instead of nerves– frustration, annoyance, fatigued with his attitude. 

   “Look,” you stand up, “I don’t know what I did to deserve this, but I’d appreciate it if you'd stop being a total dick.” 

   He puts out his cigar, standing up to tower over you, not letting you have the upperhand of being taller than him. He opens his mouth to speak but you don’t let him. 

   “All day, you’ve been awful to me, and we just met. I don’t get it, what’s your problem?” 

   He scoffs, “I have a whole fuckin’ list of problems, sweetheart, don’t feel special.” 

   You stare, dumbfounded, arms crossed over your chest, “Yeah? And what about it?” you challenge, eyes narrowed, “Why do you think I’m here, huh? We’ve all got our shit, we’ve all got things we’re running away from, what makes you think you can treat me like shit for no reason? Because if this is how it’s going to be all summer then I’m already real fucking tired of it.” 

   Cicadas are the only thing you receieve in return, the chirping filling the empty space between you and James. There’s nothing. There’s no apology to speak of, not even any retaliation. His face is void of emotion, hands dug into his pockets as he stands and stares. 

   His stare is intense and unmoving, but there’s something hidden behind it. It’s almost a sort of hollowness, as if this is something he’s been through a billion times before. It almost makes you falter, trying your hardest to search his eyes for any clues as to what he may be thinking. But his eyes are still those of a stranger’s, and you can’t place exactly what it is that he’s thinking. Shaking your head, you finally back down, taking a step back. 

   “I came here to apologise, and I did. I have nothing else to say,” you turn to the lodge and step towards the stairs, “But Marie didn’t deserve that shit you pulled tonight. I think she at least deserves an apology.” 

   The words hang between you in the night, heavy and oppressive. There’s a moment where your fingertips hesitate over the doorknob, casting one last look in James’ direction in hopes that he would say something. But he’s remained stoic, gaze set hard towards where you’re standing, hands shoved into his pockets. Shaking your head again, you step inside, leaving him in the dark. 

   Only when you’re gone does he rub his hands over his face and swear under his breath. With a sigh that holds the weight of the world, he takes begrudging steps back towards Marie and Wayne’s house. 

★

A/N: god pls bear with how slow and badly written this felt. anyways i hope you enjoyed jsdhgkjshdkjhgsdjg

[miirshroom]

Wings and Flight in Elden Ring

Misbegotten are feathered and have wings, although they are non-functional on all except the Winged Misbegotten. One of the main. places where they can be found is Castle Morne which is strewn about with many copies of a winged crest. This crest is just at the correct height to give the illusion that the player has wings of their own, when stood in front of - wings forged of metal. There seems to be a theme here connecting the concept of developing wings as "misbegotten" which can mean "an idea that is poorly formed".

Consider also the meaning of the word "imp". Because while the word can mean a mischievous creature or child, it is also an obsolete term for grafting plant buds. The term "imping" is still used today to describe the practice of repairing the broken wing or tail feathers of falcons - giving them wings. The Cat Imps have slender little wings and the Long-Tongued Imps have dragonfly/fairy shaped wings. The Fanged Imps have wings of various sizes between their appearances as statues for receiving stone sword keys, enemy types, fire pillars, spirit ashes, holding the books at the sorcerer rises, etc.

Wolf Imps do not have wings and neither do Elder or Corpse Imps judging by their catacombs statues. The linguistic connection of imping implies that grafting is at the very bedrock of culture in the Lands Between. Thinking back to the Misbegotten and Castle Morne, this is also the location where the Grafted Greatsword can be obtained.

The Crucible Knights use "Aspects of the Crucible" Incantations and from them are dropped the Tail, Horns, and Breath incantations. When fought, these Crucible Knights also seem to be using an "Aspects of the Crucible: Wings" incantation, but it is not obtainable by the player. This ties into a theory that I have about the general nature of the various equipment and items that we can see used by enemies throughout the Lands Between but are not obtainable. These items and incantations/spells are still considered something precious by Radagon of the Golden Order and the Elden Beast. Thus, the Wings incantation is unavailable because "flight" is in a subset of tools that only an Elden Lord can grant, and you are not Elden Lord (yet).

To explore further the meaning of wings leads to a tangent into Wizard of Oz theory. The north and purple-coloured country of the Land of Oz is called "Gillikin" and this is also the country from which the flying monkeys employed by the Wicked Witch of the West originate. The purple-eyed Demi-Human Queen in the Lux Ruins is called Gilika, and demi-humans in general have a design resembling a hairless cross between bonobos and wolf/rat (typical grunts have simian face & feet with pointed ears - the Queens, Chiefs, and runt subtypes like Boc have more elongated snouts of undefined species). No wings though. But that in itself is an interesting choice because as it happens the term "flying monkey" as used in the Wizard of Oz has been picked up as a psychology term meaning "people who carry out the work of a narcissist or an abusive person".

In the context of the above, it is notable that the witch queen of Raya Lucaria in the west also lives in a fortress guarded by winged marionettes in the similar spirit as winged monkeys. The west county of Oz is known for having the best craftsmen in the land, particularly tinsmiths. This is not to say that mapping the counties of Oz to some kind of 1:1 connection with Elden Ring is likely intended - the official map of the Land of Oz is itself a major source of confusion as it accidentally printed west and east backwards. On the other hand, Elden Ring does seem to use colour-coded regions in a way reminiscent of the Land of Oz - green for Limgrave, blue for Liurnia, red for Caelid, gold for Altus Plateau.

And for a final note, there are two demi-gods who sprout wings in their second boss battle phase - Malenia and Mohg. Of the two of them it is Mohg with his dark feathery wings that has the closest thematic connection to the Winged Fanged Imps and Misbegotten. And Malenia's butterfly valkyrie wings are something unwanted - manifestation of her blooming into a goddess of Rot in desperation. What unites both are their close ties to Miquella, who seemed to be in the process of trying to metamorphose and develop wings of his own.

[bijoumikhawal]

Cardassian Worldbuilding: Name Days

This is based on a throw away reference from ASIT: "“And Limor Prang will get you started. This is Elim Garak, our newest junior probe,” Tain said to Limor, whose facial expression appeared permanently set to reveal nothing. Tain turned back to me; the smile was gone. “You will no longer live at home. Visits to your family will be limited to holidays and name days. You are never to say anything to anyone about your work other than your designation as a research analyst in the Hall of Records..."

IRL, a name day is a celebration mostly found in European and Latin American countries where you celebrate the day of the year associated with the Saint who bears or is associated with your baptismal name. Some counties celebrate this and birthdays, while others do not. I, like most people, don't think normative Cardassian society is theistic by the time that Garak lives, and that includes the idea of saints that have officially recognized days.

The way I choose to interpret this is simply that Cardassians do not celebrate birthdays. Looking further at ASIT (this topic is not mentioned at all in the show to my recollection), I found this quote. "My name as a child was “Sleg” after the sleg corgan, a huge crawling beast that in certain seasons would barely move at all." The distinction made by calling it a "name as a child" and not a nickname to me implies that the name day is a celebration of the day one receives their "adult" name.

The adult name is picked and formally recognized when a child is around 2 years of age. This time is culturally recognized by Cardassians as when a child has crossed a threshold and is now unlikely to die of illness, and by this time most children no longer need adults to help them maintain body heat at all (in fact for many this need ceases much earlier).

This age is when it's expected a family will start collecting items for the dower and dowry of a child- delayed for the same reason as the delau of naming. These are collected in a chest and filled as the child grows, with the items needed to start a house (dishes, linens, crockery) as well as items primarily of value and decoration (jewelry, art, fabric for clothes). If a parent dies before one or more of their children has had use of their dower/dowry and is past their age of emergence, it's not uncommon for them to be given a small box containing a portion of it that the parent considers particularly important (see Garak's little red box that Tolan gave him). These small boxes are often very decorative.

Prior to receiving an adult name children are usually referred to by a slightly insulting nickname (such as Sleg). This is an old tradition that most Cardassians would not admit is intended to keep evil intent away from the child by referring to them in unappealing terms. It'd still common for a child to be called their child name by their parents even into adulthood as an expression of affection. Adult names have more blatantly positive meanings.

The first name day is celebrated by announcing the name to a gathering of family and friends, and many parents will commission a painter/calligrapher (one usually trains as the other) to paint something relevant to their child's name and write it out. This is displayed similar to a family photo in a common area of the home. This is sometimes also used as a basis to commission a piece of jewelry with the name on it, either as the primary decoration or an engraving. Gifts on subsequent name days may also feature an engraving of the name, now that it is known to others. Even if two people have the same name, the way a calligrapher writes it and the painting they create are unique (by this point personality is fairly familiar to their parents and they may talk about their child's personality to the artist, influencing the final piece).

In addition, it's common for children to bring a small treat for their school mates on the school day closest to their name day, and similar goes for workplaces. The celebrant gets their own sweets and gifts at their celebration. Depending on the families social status, the family may provide food at the celebration as well as the treat the child shares, while others provide something at the celebration but expect guests to bring dishes as well in a potluck style celebration.

Name days are celebrated every other dleiha (a period of time lasting 130 days, so name days are every 260 days). Dleiha are named after a constellation, and if one is named after one as well (which is not uncommon) they often will have an especially elaborate name day celebration during the corresponding dleiha.

[firespirited]

Overdid it on Saturday so chose to take Sunday off but the bowels have locked up as they do when too many spoons get used so today's going to be a truncated slow day too.

I had a brief moment of clarity in the middle of the night and was able to write a To Do list that includes more broken down To Do lists. Stuff that had been overwhelming became a messy but clear-ish path.

The past two weeks I've been repairing, destaining (or frogging) one or two found items of clothing per day to give back to charity. The red cross donation bin was broken again and all the clothes left beside the container to rot in the rain got tossed. I saved a few yarn items from the rain soaked pile then a leather jacket for helper C and a denim handbag for roommate M from the bins. Thankfully they've replaced the container for a working one (with all mentions of the county next door blacked out with tape LOL). I haven't got photos of most. It's harder to find the space and remember to photograph large things.

The kids' hoodie is from Peru and just needed a couple of seams redoing with yarn and a stain covering with a decorative X stitch.

This guy was from the same batch as Furby Domo. The motor mechanism was broken so he blared "you make me want to shout" while making crunching clunking sounds like his neck was broken (I mean it was).

I removed all the electronics, sewed him back up (ladder stitch is your friend for plushies) and put him through the wash as he's high quality fur and fabric, super soft and huggable.

The electric trimmer was on its last legs wrt its tiny motor so I used it to shave the bobbles off two beloved jumpers I've been saving then used the rechargeable NiMH battery to fix a solar LED garden light whose battery had corroded. It's currently serving as the nightlight in the sitting room but we're considering getting some (and water proofing the batteries with hot glue) for the front of the building, the grannies have been having trouble with the steep driveway, if there were lights it might help a little bit, we're still fighting to get that railing installed and a wheelchair ramp... It's a start.

This is our new neighbour and now friend. He seemed curious so I stood still and got Talia very calm and we just stayed against the wall chatting to him for 15 minutes while he slowly circled. He was very friendly and affectionate with me but a little confused about the creature that is not a cat but cat sized, definitely not as big as the dog that lives at his house. They ended up playing chase and orange boi only used a closed paw to gently tap and we've met three times now (unsure as there are two of them, identical in age and very similar patterns) so I think we're good.

[venezianos-art-gallery]

Naminara (ナミナラ, Naminara)

Name: Naminara Republic ( 나미나라공화국) (naminala-gonghwagug)

Human Name: Im Sun-Hi (임선희)

Age: 5-6

Gender: Female

Birthday: March 1st

Hair Color: Brown

Eye Color: Brown

Height: 115.57 cm (3'9.5")

Appearance

Naminara Republic is young girl with waist length brown hair typically braided and tied in a red bow, with a flyaway curl on the left side of her head and is used to represent the overall shape of the small island micronation that she represents. She dresses in a hanbok with a light green jeogori and a soft blue chima, attached to the jeogori is a yellow goreum.

Personality and Interests

Naminara is your typical upbeat social butterfly with a heart of gold, willing to befriend folks around her that come to visit even though at times she finds it a tad difficult. Along side being a bright and upbeat child her position as a tourist Micronation can cause quite the dip in her social battery.

She has a select few people she considers friends outside the folks that visit her from other counties, that being Japan and her older brother figure South Korea. Naminara cares deeply for her older brother and aspires to be like him one day, and as for Japan, she looks up to him greatly and treats him with all the respect she can muster and tries her best to be formal with him despite her lack of vocabulary.

Naminara has a deep interest for music, art and creative writings, alot of her home is based on aspects of all three put together into one big fairytale island, and with that she would always try to express her creativity in ways that are understandable to her and to the eyes of the beholder.

Despite all this her communication skills aren't always well put together, as there are days where she struggles to speak with others directly, and sometimes shuts herself away temporarily so that she could recharge and take some time to herself (though she still finds it nice when those she holds close come to visit her in these moments.)

Relationships

Korea

Naminara considers Korea to be like an older brother figure to her, she spends most of her time with him and cherishes these moments spent greatly. She's always beaming whenever he comes to visit and loves the stories he would bring to her.

She holds Korea very close to her heart and aspires to be like him one day, even if there are differences between the two, and even if she's claimed cultural independence from him, she still finds him to be an amazing inspiration to her deep down in her heart.

Japan

Naminara met Japan through Korea introducing her to him, she was a little intimidated by him at first but slowly opened up to him more as time went on. Japan is another person that she looks up to and considers him to be a very honorable character, she always wonders what more she can learn from him and hopes that he could visit her more even if for a little while.

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

I love her sm, and for the longest time I've been meaning to give her a proper character description. I'm sorry if some things might be wrong and I'll try my best to continue learning in order to continue developing her.

Also a lot of her relations will be based around how Korea (in canon) feels about the others and how he would introduce her to them.

[ankles-be-bitten]

i live in florida. pretty much everyone who lives here makes jokes like this--including myself--but most of the time it's just that: a joke. there are so many people up north who believe that all of florida is either the meth-head, backwater swamp hillbillies who have a pet gator in their airstream camper and eat crawdads raw out of the everglades OR the disney obsessed snowbird population who winter here and live in new england the rest of the year.

and the truth is? while these people do *technically* exist, they are by no means the majority. florida is a pretty ordinary state, 99% of the time, and i'm actually getting weary of the "[insert southern state] is hell on earth" rhetoric, a sentiment i've seen spreading pretty quickly amongst gen z, and i think part of the reason is that this presumed horror state we live in is used to invalidate our desire for a better future. don't like your governor because he wants to make it illegal for you to receive the support and healthcare you need? well shit! you live in florida, or you live in texas, no wonder you're miserable!! move to a blue state. so easy. shouldn't have been born in a red state, silly! everyone knows it's homophobic there :)

but my friends are here. up until recently, my whole extended family was here--and the family who don't live here anymore live in tennessee (where i was actually born), which is definitely more volatile than florida. i actually don't know why northerners think this about florida--is it our beautiful, diverse, and ANCIENT wildlife and native flora? is it our bloody, messy, and intricate cultural and social history? is it the anti-lgbtq+ legislature? we live in a region so geographically unique, the southernmost tip of the peninsula is the only place in the world where the alligator and the crocodile coexist naturally in the wild. is that hell on earth?

i used to hate my state. i used to hate where i live. i still fantasize about leaving, moving to some northern, walkable city, with accessible abortion care and a less volatile healthcare system to trans people. but i'm done feeling ashamed of where i live, where i grew up; i grew up in the town zora neale hurston grew up in, and one of my favorite books as a child, the yearling, was written by marjorie kinnan rawlings, who was FROM that rural florida that's apparently full of meth heads and rednecks. yes, it's overly urbanized in many places, including where i currently live; yes, it's incredibly difficult to navigate life here as a queer student; yes, there is a vast class disparity between the richest and poorest amongst us. but everyone i love lives here, and underneath the 5-lane highways is an intricate and valuable and one-of-a-kind ecosystem worth loving and cherishing.

i'm not going to condemn the place i live because it gets hot in the summer, or there's bigoted legislature, or the cities are unwelcoming to pedestrians. i'm not going to condemn my state because of the podunk, buttfuck, inbred hillbilly stereotype that originates from classism and the demonization of those who live in poverty or rural areas. remember: drugs are only morally reprehensible if it's a poor person making, distributing, or using them. when rich people do drugs, it's cool. so yeah, maybe putnam county is "full of meth heads," but have you considered why that is?

i love florida at it's worst, and i want to see it get better. i won't characterize the midwest as one-dimensional and barren; i won't call northerners self-absorbed, self-obsessed, and self-interested. please don't tell southerners that we live in "hell on earth." doing so erases all our history, natural and cultural, and boils us down to only the most classist of the stereotypes that apply to us.

the funniest thing to me is that florida is hardly even a "southern" state, technically it's a northern transplant. we're a whole lot more like you than you think--and you know what? so is everyone else.

[fresne999]

Just to add a bit onto this point. "The two party system is a mathematical consequence of the way we vote." For it's a point worth being repetitious about.

There are a number of types of mathematical consequences.

Presidents are not elected by the popular vote.

Democrats have won the popular vote and lost elections. Presidential elections are state by state slogs. While populous states get more electoral college votes than small states, because electoral college votes are 2 for each senator (and every state gets 2) + # of representatives, small population states have an outsized gravity. That's why swing states are a thing.

This is why Democrats keep talking about everyone needing to vote. What we really mean is presidential elections are decided by ridiculously slim margins.

But the math doesn't stop there. A government is made up of more than the chief executive.

Representative districts are gerrymandered in red states. This is where liberal voters are either stacked (all into one district) or cracked (broken up into many districts) so that liberal voters cannot gain political power either at the state level (which gets to draw the maps) or at the federal level, which controls the purse strings for things like funding/not funding Isreal.

This is why voting for state supreme court justices is important, because court cases are the primary way to fight that sort of thing once it's in place.

Red states suppress liberal voters. This can occur by instituting voter ID laws and then closing all DMV in urban poor (POC) neighborhoods, and not having any bus lines out into those areas. By considering hunting licenses ID, but not student IDs. By making it harder to vote by mail or vote early. By reducing the # of polling places in dense urban areas so that there are long lines which in turn make it harder for working people to vote. By having only 1 polling place for a hundred miles on reservation lands, or requiring voter registration to be associated with a street address when many natives on reservations don't have street addresses. By insituting complex rules around how to get your vote by mail counted and then disproportionately rejecting votes by folks in liberal (or POC) areas.

The list of methods is long. The way to fight it is lots and lots volunteering. Volunteer to educate folks on how to register, get their votes counted. Volunteer at polling places. I mean, yes, donations for things like Vote Riders, or orgs like Four Directions (legal org fighting for native voting rights), but also volunteering.

Political parties require an enormous amount of infrastructure to turn out voters. It takes something like 5 contacts to get a non-habitual voter to turn out and vote. That's purely aside from the persuasive work of getting independants to tip your way. But not all contacts are equal. In terms of efficacy, it goes something like: deep canvassing (you know the person), canvassing, phone/text banking, hand written letters/postcards, and somewhere way at the bottom is the paid media you tune out or throw away. This is why I'm often skeptical of third parties as they currently stand. The amount of labor involved is simply astronomical, and I don't see the work happening. If it was, I'd see more of it where I live, and I don't.

As an example, as I mention often in these sorts of posts, I phone bank every week. The numbers we're calling are from a publically available voter roll list you can get from a county registrar. Every list is formatted differently, and they take a lot of massaging to get into the tool so volunteers can start calling. And there are a lot of wrong # and disconnected phones. Same is true for canvassing. Half of what you're doing leading up to the actual push in the weeks leading up to an election is cleaning the crap info out of the list. It's a lot of very boring and repititious volunteer work, and the one thing a campaign never has enough of is time.

I realize none of this is particularly sexy or even "why does no one care about the dying children" painful.

It is why folks like myself keep talking about structures. It's why when I decided I needed to take action, as a process oriented person, I focused on voting. Because voting is the lever by which all sorts of other changes can be made.

Voting up and down the ballot, because that school board election is -- as it turns out -- super important too.

There’s some common threads I see in the anti-voting posts going around, and I feel like I need to discuss some of them. Let’s start with the biggest one:

Voting to punish evil. I see lots of variations of this. Biden is supporting Israel, therefore we can’t vote for him. Is there any viable candidate who would stop the genocide? I don’t think the anti voting crowd actually cares. They are appealing to moral feelings rather than political strategy, because strategically, you have to realize that voting is not going to change foreign policy, and that change has to be pushed by other means. It’ll probably be something in the long haul.

Democrats should run someone else. First of all, this is a shit strategy. You don’t primary your president in the second term unless your party is falling apart. This may come from people from countries where replacing the head of government is easier, but the POTUS is the de facto party head. Also, going to the lack of thought to the goal — do you know someone willing to primary Biden and able to win who would do the things you want.

Biden hasn’t done anything anyway. This is just a way to bat away pro arguments. There’s plenty of lists of progress on lots of things. Student loans, insulin price caps, regulations, anti-trust.

Putting the entire Palestinian genocide on Biden. I’m not saying there’s not culpability there, but understand that the entire US government is in support of Israel, on both sides. It was a miracle we got a handful of Senators to call for investigations. We should cut off aid, absolutely. Who’s running to do that? And keep in mind that Israel chose to engage. US officials would have liked a more limited response, not out of care for Palestinians, but because they know from experience that it will come back to bite Israel in the form of newly radicalized Hamas recruits.

Liberals just have no hope for change. This is a new one. Just some idea that people are stuck in a rut and that’s the reason the two party system exists. The two party system is a mathematical consequence of the way we vote. There is reason to hope for change. The change, though, whatever means you choose, will take decades. Keep working at it. The hope is not that this election will fundamentally change things. The hope is that many small political actions over the years will push things forward.

Funnily enough, I haven’t seen a whole lot of third party promotion, just lots of this rhetoric aiming to punish. When voting, ask yourself:

Is this problem I have with this candidate something that the other candidate would be better on?

Are there other political actions I can take that will help?

What things can change with a different President or Congress, and what needs to be pursued by other means?

Withholding your vote as a punishment isn’t really going to help. Biden doesn’t know who you are or why you are not voting for him, and there is no one with a chance of winning that will do everything you want. But you have other means. Protest, organize, donate, build up alternatives, advocate for a different system.

Vote to give yourself space and get a little bit. Do other things to keep things moving.

[theory-of-art]

1.3 Gender Influences

Gender has been, for the most part, a huge hindrance to half of the global population for centuries. If you had the "misfortune" to be born without a Y chromosome you were othered by the rest of your community, not permitted to pursue certain jobs, and treated as if you were less than the rest of your community. While it is much better now in the twenty-first century, gender equality has not reached full equity. It isn't super clear and obvious how the social and cultural construction of gender impacts my everyday life personally as I don't receive much gender discrimination. However, I am a public school teacher in the state of Florida and due to certain statutes laid out by certain governors, I have to risk my job in order to treat my students with respect regarding their gender and presentation. While I may consider my gender "factory default" and have just accepted how society perceives me because it's too much for me to perform one gender over another, I know that it is more extreme for others, and I know that I have students who are much more severely impacted by the small-minded cultural construction of gender as shown in my deeply red county. I currently work with one of my former high school teachers, who was censured by the county just two years ago for daring to call a trans student by their chosen name, a common courtesy we afford to cis students wanting to go by a nickname without fuss.

My personal conception of gender is that all gender is a performance particular to the individual that may or may not align with their society's set ideas. Or to put it more succinctly, gender is drag. As such, gender can be a powerful tool of expression in art, but historically (and following the traditional conceptions) gender has made it more difficult to pursue art for half of the population. Understanding these limitations, and means of expression, is important to processing art as a historical movement.

[ozma914]

A Look Back, Or: I was always Allergic To Everything

 Just for fun, I looked up the blog about my original allergy testing, to see how it compared to this time. I'm reprinting part of it here, partially because I needed to be working on the Haunted Noble County, Indiana manuscript instead of writing blogs.

But also because I went through that first testing in early 2013, well over ten years ago. What has changed since then? Basically nothing:

           The allergy tester looked away (after injecting numerous allergens under my skin), and when she looked back my forearm had swelled so much I resembled Popeye right after taking the spinach.

           To her credit, her eyes bulged out only for a moment. Then she calmly opened the door and called to the medical staff:

           “Red alert! I need 50 cc’s of all our antihistamines, a gallon of decongestant, hydrocodone, ice, oxygen, codeine, epi-pens, and an extra copy of that release form he signed, in triplicate. Also, cancel lunch.”

           From the next room I heard a puzzled voice: “Just how many patients do you have in there?”

If there's a flower, there's a good chance it makes me sneeze. But if you look really closely you can see a bee--and since the allergist doesn't test for that, bees worry me more.

           Then the tester lady put twice as many pokes into my other forearm.

           A little card, with round holes in it of different sizes, measured my reaction. After a few tries she tilted her head and said, “I think we’re going to need a bigger card.”

           Then she started poking single needles into my shoulder, one by one. Those reactions, by the way, held on for over a week.

           “What’s the verdict?” my wife asked, while I huddled, slobbering and shaking, in a fetal position on the floor.

           The tester shook her head. “Do you have any plastic bubbles?”

           “Um, we have bubble wrap.”

           “I’m not sure you can sterilize bubble wrap.”

           It turns out I’m what they call severely allergic, which is a medical term meaning … well, I guess it’s pretty straightforward. I’m seriously allergic to … let me take a breath:

           Dogs, cats, indoor mold, outdoor mold, dust, grasses, ragweed, pollen, politicians, insects, dust mites, urushiol, fungus, feathers, and cottonwood.

           Here’s a fun irony: Standing by the entrance to the allergy doctor’s office are two big cottonwood trees.

I LIKE trees. But I also like birds, and I'm allergic to feathers, too. This one was making fun of me right by the front porch.

           Oh, Urushiol? Poison ivy. I already knew about, through sad experience.

           The tester explained that, while medications might mask some symptoms, my body was still fighting the allergens every moment, every day. Imagine, she said, being in a boxing match in which you’re hitting at an opponent constantly, without a break, for years. How would that make you feel?

           That explained a lot. Not just the typical allergy symptoms, but sleep problems, depression, headaches, irritability, itchiness. I'd been sick my entire life, constantly, and because I had no period of wellness to compare it to I thought it was normal.

           When we met with the ENT doc again, I asked what treatment we could try. Anything, I said – anything to give me a chance to feel awake and alive for the first time in my life.

           “Since you have so many allergies, we can’t fit all the treatment into one dose. So, you’ll have to have two allergy shots, one in each arm every week, for the rest of your life … or at least, it will seem like the rest of your life.”

           I nodded, and pretended to consider it. Then I said, “On the other hand, I don’t know what I’m missing, so it’s not really that bad, is it?”

           But my wife encouraged me to try the shots, anyway.

           By encourage, I mean “made me”.

Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

Barnes & Noble:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

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Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

Substack:  https://substack.com/@markrhunter

Tumblr:  https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

Remember: Every several dozen books we sell pays for an allergy shot. Save the Kleenex.

[rebeccassocialchangeblog]

Blog Deliverable #1: Introductory Statement

This blog is dedicated to examining how Portland’s income inequality and homelessness issues disproportionately affect its LGBTQIA+ community. 

Metropolitan areas in the Pacific Northwest, such as Portland and Seattle, are known for being more inclusive to the LGBTQIA+ community than other parts of the country. Oregon and Washington are among some of the states with higher numbers of protective laws. Queer culture is celebrated beyond Pride Month, with the cities being home to several LGBTQ-friendly amenities and queer student alliances being allowed in schools. As blue states, Oregon and Washington (in this blog I will also include the city of Vancouver, which is part of the Portland Metropolitan Area) have relatively stable sets of laws that protect queer individuals, and they do not run significant risk of rescinding those rights. According to lgbtmap.org (2023), Oregon has tally of 38.5 out of 43.5 for sexual orientation and gender identity policies. This means that, out of the 43.5 laws and partial laws that currently exist across the country, Oregon has passed 38.5 of them. In addition to having a high number of positive laws (which grant rights to individuals, such as same-sex marriage), Oregon also has zero negative laws, which actively take away individual’s rights. An example of a negative law is banning transgender individuals from using public restrooms designated for their gender, instead forcing them to use the restroom associated with the sex they were assigned at birth. Washington has a slightly lower overall tally at 38.25 out of 43.5. The state did not pass a partial law that requires LGBTQIA+ topics to be included in school curricula (lgbtmap.org, 2023). 

Despite the relatively high policy tally compared to other states, Oregon and Washington still have room for improvement in terms of LGBTQIA+ equality. Income inequality and wage gaps are nationwide issues, but they are worth examining within the Portland Metropolitan Area’s queer community. As a city that already faces high rates of poverty and homelessness, Portland needs to address the way that intersectionality aggravates these issues. In Portland State University honors thesis on the social services that Portland offers as well as lacks for queer individuals facing poverty, Tomlinson (2022) reports that, “Seventeen percent of LGBTQ+ adults have experienced homelessness in their lifetime as compared to the 6% of cisgender straight adults” (p.4). While there may not be negative laws that directly take away queer individual’s rights, there is clearly not enough being done on behalf of their welfare. For example, one of the positive laws that was not passed in Oregon was a credit/lending non-discrimination law (lgbtmap.org, 2023). This means that banks and lenders can deny individuals the ability to open accounts or take out loans on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. When a person is unable to even start a bank account for themselves, they are essentially being set up for serious financial struggle. Without loans for cars or postsecondary education, the struggle to find a well-paying job increases, and consequently, the risk of losing one’s living space.

If these inequalities are not met with fervent action, then they will only increase. Portland is already struggling to support individuals from the local community, but it is currently seeing an influx of queer individuals from other states. Following recently passed anti-transgender laws in red states such as Texas and Florida, transgender individuals are fleeing to cities that are considered safe havens. Some are moving with their families and are relatively supported, but many of them are young adults who are at high risk of homelessness. In the Willamette Weekly article, Portland is Unprepared for the Wave of Transgender Kids Arriving Without Housing, Lee Vankipuram writes, “Multnomah County has just one day shelter—Rose Haven—that serves women, children and gender diverse people, offering meals, clothes and diapers for infants. Rose Haven encourages people to arrive early for first-come, first-served showers because the schedule fills up quickly every day.” Their resources are severely limited.

References

“Movement Advancement Project: State Profiles.” Movement Advancement Project | State Profiles, Movement Advancement Project, www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/phttps://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/profile_state/ORrofile_state/OR. Accessed 22 Oct. 2023. 

Tomlinson, Jay M. “LGBTQ+ social services and needs in Portland Oregon.” University Honors Theses, June 2022, https://doi.org/10.15760/honors.1227. 

Vankipuram, Lee. “Portland Is Unprepared for the Wave of Transgender Kids Arriving without Housing.” Willamette Week, 2023 Willamette Week, 5 July 2023, www.wweek.com/news/2023/07/05/portland-is-unprepared-for-the-wave-of-transgender-kids-arriving-without-housing/. 

[johnnyrobish]

Man Pulls Out Gun - Demands Closed Meat Department Sell Him Steaks

Larry Gene Gay, 70, of Springfield, Missouri, is being held at the Greene County Jail on a $50,000 bond after he held a gun to a Price Cutter employee's throat after being told the meat department was closed.  The said employee said he received a call from the meat department about a man behind the counter packing his own meat.  The employee then approached the man and told him that he could not be back behind the counter, at which time the man became upset and said he was going to keep doing what he was doing.  When the employee said he was not going to help him with the meat, Mr. Gay stuck his gun to the employee’s throat.  After police were called and he was confronted outside in his truck, Mr. Gay then claimed he had only showed the employee his gun “Just to say I’m not stealing.  I need you here to help me to get a couple of these steaks.  I’m not going to hurt you.”

You bet!  Because nothing says, “I’m not going to hurt you,” like ramming a loaded gun into someone’s throat.  At that point, the employee finally did comply with the man’s wishes - after realizing just how much was at steak here.  Say, now that I think about it, Mr. Gay’s approach might also work when you're trying to merge onto a busy highway.  Simply wave your gun out the window and “watch traffic part like the friggin’ Red Sea.”   

Now, in his defense, I’m sure being a MAGA Ammosexual, Mr. Gay felt God had told him that its his right to buy these steaks, even if the meat department was closed.  You know, kind of like, “Give Me Sirloin, or Give Me Death!”  Like the Constitution says, “The Right of the People to Buy Steak Shall Not Be Infringed!”  I mean, is it so wrong to ask, “Who the hell do I have to threaten to get a steak around here?”  Incidentally, when he said, “I’m not going to hurt you,” he was telling the truth because technically - its the gun that’ll take care of all of that.

So, ask yourself, do you really wanna live in a world where folks aren’t even allowed to threaten supermarket employees with lethal weapons anymore?  Is it too much to ask that the store have a “Well Regulated Meat Department?”  Why any card-carrying MAGA can tell ya that the “Grill of Liberty” must occasionally be watered with the blood of butchers and vegetarians.  Remember, this is Missouri, where they have strict “Stand Your Ground Chuck” laws.

The thing is, MAGA folks like Larry Gene Gay really do need easy access to guns.  You know, folks who really don’t have the vocabulary to verbally express what they really want.  The problem for MAGA Ammosexuals like Mr. Gay, who believes God says its OK for him to pull a gun on a meat department employee, is that in this country, we have a “Separation of Church and Steak.”  That means if you really wanna go around and threaten store employees while shopping, you’d better do your shopping at a place like “Bloodbath and Beyond,” not your local supermarket!

If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve just read, please consider joining me at:

[softwater3452]

Making Palm Beach Water Protected And Healthy

At least whenever you purchase most mutual funds, you may be investing in corporations. Another millennial who doesn’t use a financial advisor as a end result of I don’t have sufficient liquid belongings to make it worthwhile. It’s what you in all probability suspect – your family has sufficient cash to assist its personal VC or hedge fund infrastructure. I used to work for a corporation that gives crypto iras. Rehoboth is nice — very walkable and it’s hard to not have a view of the water.

We are a very easy going firm and can be reached at any hour of any day. When it involves water treatment, there are numerous companies that provide an analogous water softeners palm beach service to us at AWS. But, is it a high tier service that implements the proper customized models for each particular person application?

In Loxahatchee, on 162nd Drive, Jennifer Kelley stated her kitchen reverse osmosis system made her ingesting water secure to drink, however showering and brushing tooth have been one other matter. She was having to re-teach her babies to brush with out using the faucet. Septic methods are pretty simple, relying on dual tanks and gravity to separate solids and then ship waste water percolating down by way of ground and rock, where pure processes do their work. But when the septic fields are flooded, waste, and anything else that goes down the drain, can spread upward right into a homeowner’s yard.

Allini Water Filters is the best complete home water filtration system alternative as a result of our patented single tank entire house water filter system removes chemicals in water while conditioning at the same time. A water softener is used most occasions water softeners palm beach with nicely water filtration systems and completely removes all minerals from the water. Our water purification methods circumstances your home’s water, meaning it's not fully removing calcium and magnesium from the water with the water filter.

Benjamin Franklin Plumbing® of West Palm Beach can take your water check and suggest a water softener in your entire home or a faucet-based system. You may select a reverse osmosis system to have great high quality water in your whole home. Established over 20 years in the past, our household owned and operated company started installing and servicing water filtration techniques in Broward County and Palm Beach County here in South FL. Contacted Pure Touch to vary my beneath the sink water filters and check my outdoors water softner. Arrived on time and technician was educated and professional.

In winter, within the Pacific time zone, off-peak hours are 9 PM to five AM. Your local utility ought to have this data out there online. Every utility has “peak hours” when electricity prices more money because of the higher demand for power. Doing your laundry throughout water softeners palm beach off-peak hours can often save you considerably on energy costs. Most folks don’t cease to truly measure out how much detergent they’re using, so you may be actually losing detergent by this technique.

These could also be attached in one tank or a few separate models. Users have the choice to melt their full Royal Palm Beach water supply, or precisely the new one. Considering that getting a filter system for your home is such a significant decision, you'll want to set about it meticulously. Take note of the supplier's necessities on various entire home water filters so you understand precisely what you are obtaining. Typically, a multi-step system will definitely ensure optimal removing of impurities and give one of the healthful water.

That's why we take a look at your water before we recommend how to deal with it correctly. Here are a couple of of the problems we generally see and deal with. Cloudy and smelly water, onerous water, red rust or iron stains, chlorine style and smell, with chemicals (VOCs, ... ) contaminated water. By filtering harmful contaminants, you'll take pleasure in cleaner, healthier water.

[wexstie]

@komsomolka is a tankie account, of course they're praising Stalin. Half of their posts is dedicated to glorifying Soviet Union, and another half is them pushing russian propaganda trying to prove a bogus "theory" claiming that Zelensky is addicted to drugs.

This isn't even communism, really, because modern russia isn't communist, socialist or even generally left-wing; modern russia is a fascist oligarchy, and tankies are fascists painted red.

There are almost no families in russia that don't have a relative or a friend who was sent to the camps by Stalin's regime; this includes my family. Just Stalin's repressions alone were a huge tragedy for the country, killing approximately 700 thousand to 1.2 million people just because Stalin was paranoid.

Then, there's Stalin's dumb strategies during WW2, which involving throwing people at the enemy without any sophisticated tactics, hoping to simply overwhelm them with your own army's blood. Modern historians believe that if it wasn't for Stalin, the Soviets would probably lose a few million people less.

Then, let's not forget about Holodomor. While it's not clear whether it was caused by Stalin trying to eliminate Ukrainian independence movement, or by his own stubborn stupidity, it is a consensus among historians that Holodomor was man-made and could totally have been avoided, which makes it a genocide. It killed between 3.5 to 5 million Ukrainians, absolutely devastating the region.

Then, let's not forget Stalin's ethnic cleansings. Throughout his reign, he forcibly relocated millions of people based on their ethnicity, including, but not limited to: Crimean Tatars to Siberia, Siberian Koreans to Central Asia, Jews to The Far East, Russian Germans to Kazakhstan, etc.

If that's not fascism, then what is it exactly, and why do tankies keep justifying or denying it?

Tankies are fascists painted red, they have nothing to do with communism, and right now they just keep pushing russian propaganda despite it being clear that russia is an evil fascist hellhole. And it's concerning that a lot of people are falling for this ideology because it opposes the US. I mean, sure, US did a lot of evil shit, they still do a lot of evil shit, and their capitalist economy is actively exploiting workers and minorities, but you know what county also did a lot even evil shit, and keeps doing it at an even bigger scale? That's right, it's formerly USSR/ now russia, and it's not a good guys vs bad guys kind of conflict, it's a situation where it's better to side with the much lesser evil, which is the US, while still acknowledging that were siding with the evil for the sake of defeating a worse evil.

And by no fucking means should anyone consider Stalin a good politician, that guy was fucking evil, he literally caused deaths of several millions of people, and inflicted suffering on hundreds of millions.

Source: spent the first 22 years of my life in russia, know quite a lot about its history

liberal: stalin was an awful di

me:

[ialwaysknewyouwerepunk]

they wear flowers on their chest

x

for @mc5ftjillo, who inspired this post

so, as many may have noticed, our two favorite queers have been in the habit of showing off the flowers they really like. most significantly, we have louis putting flowers on his chest with his very own fashion line, 28 programme, and harry wearing a pair of coats in the late night talking mv where the boutonnières almost cover their entire fronts. this is - obviously - not random, but it really holds more significance than i even realised at first glance. 

from the expo at the V&A museum: fashioning masculinities

history of the boutonnière

boutonnière, or flowers in the lapel of a suit/coat jacket

origin: (probably, likely) the war on roses: two neighboring houses in the north of england, fighting for the throne - wearing a red (house of lancaster) or white (house of york) rose on their chest to show off which house they belonged to

prince albert supposedly started the modern trend of the lapel flower, after queen victoria offered him flowers on their first wedding anniversary, which he subsequently put on display in his jacket. since there were photos made of the event, which was a rarity back then, the gesture spread as a trend

from then on, and especially through the years, it was a sign of a dressed-up gent. formal, masculine, and a show of love - wiki: symbol of good breeding, elegance, and sophistication

green carnation, oscar wilde: 

oscar wilde, a famously queer writer, made a statement by wearing a green carnation in his lapel at the premiere of his play, Lady Windermere’s Fan, in 1892, urging his friends to do the same. it instantly became a symbol for solidarity among queer men, for men who loved other men

‘unnatural’ color for a flower:

“Blooming Haus speculates this may have been Oscar Wilde's way of poking fun at the authorities, using an unnatural green flower to mock the idea that, at the time, love between two men was seen as "unnatural.”

queerness of flowers, flowers symbolising queerness 

flowers have borrowed their names and meanings to the queer community, for all sorts of nicknames or secret codes. like the slang ‘pansy’ for a gay man, which is just a little flower, or how a violet is an ancient lesbian symbol. (or how “evening botanist” is an old school term for a gay man which i think is just the funniest thing ever)

rose

love, esp love between gay men in japan

key part of identity! f.e. Pokémon character James is often shown carrying a rose, which is an established symbol in anime to signify a character is gay

lily

in japan, a popular genre of manga is known as yuri, revolving around romantic relationships between women

depictions of female genitalia

“Both the Greeks and Romans held the Lily in very high regard, including it in dozens of their religious myths and breeding the plants extensively. Alchemists considered it a lunar plant with feminine qualities, while the Lily is in high demand in China for weddings because its name sounds like the start of a phrase wishing the couple a happy union for a century.”

AND THEN WE COMBINE WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED

louis came on stage at the afhf last summer with a custom-made jersey, designed by the man himself, which was pretty much covered in flowers. a flower on his right pec, a bouquet on his left.

source

NOW what’s super interesting here, is that louis is channelling the origins of the boutonnière with the abstract flower symbol he’s adopted as the 28 official programme logo!! it’s a yorkshire rose, the emblem of his home county. AND THEN on the OTHER SIDE he’s got ROSES, a whole bouquet of them, a universal symbol of romance, as well as that of a gay man. with the added fuck-me-up detail that the fabric of the jersey is green, the typical color of a certain someone we know, making the flowers green. just like the green coronation. ok. ok.

then we have harry, who has used lilies before, in the photo shoot for the fine line cover art and booklet, where it was used to symbolise rebirth and femininity. now, in the late night talking mv, he wore the lilies on his chest, first in the museum scene, which flows into the date scene, as well as at the end, where he officiates a wedding and then falls from the sky.

it’s completely meant to fit into the tradition of the boutonnière. harry is conveying the message: i am queer, and i am wearing it proudly on my chest. it’s not subtle, is it? it’s meant as a clear symbol for those who understand, just like oscar wilde and his friends wore the green carnation. it’s so beautiful that it’s the lily on his chest, causing the flower to be a theme in his art, of rebirth and femininity. 

when you look at when exactly harry is wearing the boutonnières in the mv, it’s just...?? in the museum, he’s the art exhibit. he’s wearing the lilies openly on his chest. then, he’s on a private date with a man. his napkin is even pushed to the side a little to show off the flowers in full. then, when he’s officiating a queer wedding, he’s wearing them, and then he seems to be shot from the sky by lightning, and he’s falling through the sky on his bed. WHAT DOES IT MEAN? harry’s gayness, or the way he’s shown it with messages, isn’t hidden. irl he walks around with a pride enamel pin. he’s being scrutinised, studied, and he’s still not hiding it. then he’s in private, celebrating love, and he shows it, loud and proud. it reminds me of how harry’s stated in the past that he has shown us who he is. that he’s said it in enough ways. he hides in plain sight, just like oscar wilde and his entourage. general society knew what the green flower meant, but it remained something unspoken. now, any casual observer could see that harry is at least not straight. and yet, still, you are deemed straight until stated otherwise. 

so what does one do, when one can’t say it out loud? a bit of queer signalling. with flowers. 

[hawkinsindiana]

i got you, i’m here

ALMOST PARADISE: PART FOUR - CHAPTER THREE OF NINE

pairing: steve harrington x henderson!reader

word count: 6.6k

a/n: alllllllrighty we’re backkkkk. the next chapter releases should be more consistent bc there’s less i have to write and we start gettin to the realllll meat of this thing so it’s all super exciting. miss ruby tossed in some things for this as well so a lil shout out to her as always. pls enjoy!!! time for some angst hehe. warning for graphic description of violence.

masterlist

You’ve run the plan through your head at least a billion times — the only plus side to your anxious mind making a reappearance. Even with Steve’s arms cradling you close in the night, you weren’t able to get much sleep; you suspect he wasn’t resting either. 

The past few hours have been spent thinking through every technicality, every problem you could encounter. Each time a new issue arises in your hypotheticals, you grow more hopeless. What if you can’t get into the Upside Down? None of you that are left in Hawkins have a way to communicate with the other side. You don’t want to rely on El, but contacting her and the Byers might be the only chance you have against this new threat. Finding a way into the parallel dimension is the hard part; killing Vecna will be much easier — or so you’ve convinced yourself.

While your feelings on Eddie have remained neutral since discovering him last night, you can’t help but feel some sympathy for the guy. The moment this town hears that ‘The Freak’ is the number one suspect, accused for murdering sweet innocent Chrissy Cunningham, his life in Hawkins is over as he knows it. Munson might as well consider leaving the county, maybe even the state if he’s able. Indiana hicks are not known for their skills of forgiveness; he’ll be burned at the stake if they catch him.

But more concerningly, Chrissy is no longer the only victim.

Part of you was shocked to see Nancy Wheeler standing behind all the yellow tape, amongst the police officers and the alternating red and blue of the sirens long silenced. Then again, she almost looked like she belonged there, investigating a case for the local paper as if she was born to do it. You thought that’s what she was there to do, until you saw that fear in her eyes and the relief that replaced it upon seeing your group drive up.

You didn’t know Fred Benson and you’re not proud to admit that you’re glad you didn’t. Something about him always struck you as odd, overeager in the way that got under your skin and nosier than he ever had any right to be. That being said, there’s no doubt that his final moments were torturous — he didn’t deserve a death that cruel.

But as you stand in the dimly lit office of the high school counselor, your thoughts aren’t centered around Fred Benson, no. It’s Max who worries you, loose flyaways curling into an amber halo around her head while she recalls her theory, voice and lips trembling with fear at her realization; she believes she is Vecna’s next target. A vision of a grandfather clock wedged into the wall only confirmed it for her.

“Max, you’re not…” You trail off, arms firmly crossed over your chest as your eyes drift from her to the floor. The jumble of thoughts inside your head is making it difficult for you to comfort her in a time like this; you’re not sure whether you should be terrified or furious. Terrified that Vecna would come after a little girl, barely fifteen, solely with the intention of killing her. Furious that it’s your friend and her trauma that makes her a perfect candidate. Vecna will find out that choosing Max means he’ll be on the receiving end of your rage — he’ll regret that soon enough.

“You’re not cursed, okay? It’s gonna be fine, we’ll… we’ll figure something out, yeah? We’re gonna get you out of this, I promise.”

Everyone can hear the lie in your words. You can’t promise Max her safety, even though there’s nothing you wouldn’t do to guarantee it. Steve can’t tell if you’re saying this to quell your own anxiety or the redhead’s. You and Max are very similar — your bond strengthened by traumatic experiences that are only understood by each other, intertwined due to the actions of one individual. If there’s anyone that can help Max through this, it’s you.

In an effort to keep her safe, the group of you decided that staying together from now on is the best call. Not only can all of you take turns watching over her in the late hours of the night, but it gives you an opportunity to plan. Now you have the lives of Max and Eddie to be worried about, for dramatically different reasons.

Lucas’ concern for Max was palpable the moment he joined your efforts. After many hours of drooping eyelids and anxiety filled breaths, he finally slumped against the back of the armchair and let sleep overtake him. Your heart breaks for the Sinclair boy as you recall that conversation on your last day before college, where he had come to you in search of advice. Part of you wonders if what you told him even worked. Maybe you wouldn’t be in this situation now if it had. Max has only spiraled farther into her grief over the last few months — would she have been able to overcome this if either of you had done more?

—

Your ears are filled with buzzing from the fluorescent lights overhead; your head… god your head aches. The constant noise filtering through the room doesn’t help, wedging inside your brain and splitting it open with an icepick. Then your eyes open, the intent of going to search for something to deal with this pain fresh in your mind until you realize where you are.

The Russian interrogation room. 

Everything’s exactly the way you remember it, almost as if you’re reliving a memory. Your hands are bound in the same fashion they were before, tied to the sides of the chair. The table in the corner is there, the extra chair, the large and looming door — it opens.

The next sequence of events plays out the same way it had before. The multitude of questions, the rush of adrenaline as you made your attempt to escape, the two bullets fired from the gun.

But this is the moment where it begins to drift from reality.

Instead of the soldier’s body collapsing heavily on top of you, it’s Steve — blood trails from the wounds in his face that you put there, pouring out onto your clothes and staining the fabric. His brown eyes are unnaturally cold and unresponsive as your own gaze widens in shock and horror.

The rubber of your sneakers squeak against the tile floor; you’re panicking, scrambling out from beneath Steve’s weight to press yourself to the wall behind you. His head, continuing to bleed, thunks against the ground. 

You’re dripping with blood. Every inch of skin from the tips of your fingers to the bend of your elbow is coated in the warm, thick liquid. You turn your arms over in your hands, staring at the sight with nothing but pure fear threaded through your veins. You rub your arms against your pants, desperate to remove the blood from your skin. 

You’re sobbing uncontrollably, almost scratching yourself raw as you struggle to rid yourself of the red stain — Steve’s body grows cold in front of you. The blood refuses to budge. No matter how hard you rub, nothing transfers to the fabric.

You wake with a jolt, momentarily out of breath while your gaze darts around the room. As you adjust to the dim space, only illuminated by a singular lamp in the far back corner, you finally recognize the familiar sight of the Wheeler’s basement. Your throat tightens as you swallow harshly, squeezing your eyes back shut for a moment to try and force the haunting images from your brain. You don’t remember falling asleep.

It’s been sixty four days since you last had a nightmare. That’s the longest you’d gone without one in over two years. You haven’t had that particular dream in some time — Steve replacing the Russian as the victim of your crime. The first time you had it was your second week away; you hadn’t managed to return home to Hawkins yet and the fear that something happened to your love while you were gone almost tore you apart. 

Steve nearly drove to Chicago to see you that night — the way your voice trembled over the phone had him reaching for his keys across the counter. He couldn’t stand the thought of only comforting you with his voice. It didn’t matter that it was a bit past midnight when you called and the trip would’ve been four hours in total; Steve would’ve done it in a heartbeat if you asked.

You lied to him then. You couldn’t bear to speak those words out loud and tell him what you had really seen. So you lied, and you did it every time that dream decided to torment you, and you’ll continue to do so. You never want to see the look on his face upon hearing that you’ve had visions of killing him with your own two hands.

“Hey, you okay?”

Dustin’s voice, hushed from the other end of the couch, reaches you through the darkness. The gasp that escaped you when you woke snapped his attention from the book in his hands, his finger wedged in between the pages to keep his place. He took watch after Steve, who’s been sleeping on the floor beside you for the better part of an hour; you fell asleep long before that. 

Your breaths are shallow but even, not an unusual phenomenon for you to experience after one of your nightmares. Before focusing on deepening your inhale, you answer him, “Fine. M’fine.”

In regards to your feelings, Dustin’s a lot smarter than you give him credit for. After that night at the Byers’ and in the tunnels beneath Hawkins, he noticed your late wandering around the house, the creak of his door as you’d peek into his room to check up on him. Ever since then, he’s assumed that you experience nightmares, but this confirms it. He doesn’t appreciate your deflection. 

You’re shrugging off the blanket as you sit up, still forcing deep breaths through your nose as Dustin’s concern only grows, “Are you s-”

“I’m okay, I’m fine,” You interrupt, carefully stepping over Steve’s waist. Before your brother can argue, you’re making your way to the small bathroom behind the stairs, too far to be spoken to without waking the others. 

Dustin can’t help but feel a bit angry once the door shuts on its hinges. His stomach feels like it’s in knots, but that could be due to the multiple cans of soda he’s downed over the last two hours. You’re his older sister — he wants to be someone you feel like you can come to when something’s bothering you. After all, it is sort of his fault that you’re wrapped up in this craziness. The Wheeler’s basement serves as a sobering reminder of that November night; Dustin might not be sitting with this unpleasant feeling if he hadn’t called you, squashing the possibility of you having a normal life ever again.

If Dustin were able to go back in time and prevent himself from involving you, knowing what he knows now, he might do it.

Then his gaze shifts to the boy that sleeps next to where you once were — the boy who loves you enough that as long as he still gets to sleep beside you, will willingly lay on the carpet instead of waking you and asking to make room for him.

If Dustin were able to go back in time and prevent himself from involving you, knowing what he knows now, he doesn’t think he could do it.

He’d be taking you and Steve from each other if he did. Who knows where either of you would be if you hadn’t been given the opportunity to fall in love? That’s an outcome Dustin doesn’t want to consider.

On the other hand, your bond is strong enough that you still might’ve found each other in the end. Maybe the love you and Steve share is a constant throughout the infinite number of parallel universes that exist somewhere in the cosmos. He likes to think of it that way. Not that he’d ever tell either of you that. Perhaps there’s a world out there where neither of you had to go through all of this in order to fall in love; maybe you two get to live in peace.

But in this universe, it’s the horrors of Hawkins that brought you together. 

With a sigh, Dustin comes to a conclusion; there’s no one more equipped to take care of you than Steve. 

With your fingers now chilled from the cold water, you press them to your face — another grounding technique you adopted over the last few months. Accompanied by some deep breaths, the combination does wonders to help calm you down. Even though you still see flashes of the dream when you blink, you understand that it’s not real; Steve’s just beyond the door, fast asleep and lost in some dream of his own. There are worse things you should be scared of right now. 

You cup your hand and let the water pool in your palm, watching intently as it collects until nearly running over. Carefully, you raise your hand to your mouth and gulp down the water, exhaling as you feel the cold liquid travel down your throat. The stale flavor of the tap then reaches your tongue and you’re grimacing from the taste before shutting off the faucet. You don’t know what time it is, but you can tell you didn’t sleep for long; your body is slightly sluggish as you dry your hands.

When you finally gather the courage to exit the bathroom, and no doubt be bombarded with questions from your brother, you’re met with a far more welcome sight instead. Steve’s on the other side, his knuckles raised like he was about to knock on the door. At the sight of you, he rests his hand against the door jam and leans forward with worry, caging you inside. Sleep is still present in his voice, low and raspy enough that he has to cough in order to speak.

“What’s the matter? What happened?”

Robin stirs behind him, adjusting her pillow in her sleep as she turns, taking up the empty space that was meant for Max. The redhead pays no mind to either you or Steve, lost in thought on the other side of the room as she stares down at something, a pen carefully held in her grip. Steve casts his gaze to the older girl and waits for a moment to see if she woke.

When his eyes meet yours once again, you can’t help but slouch dejectedly, immediately giving in to his concern. Your heart sinks; you must have been louder than you thought if you woke Steve. Usually he can sleep through anything.

Your voice, in comparison to his, is much quieter — you’re ashamed of what you admit.

“Nightmare.”

Your boyfriend sighs, his tired eyes roving over your face as he allows the meaning of your confession to roll over him. You were doing so well. He doesn’t have to ask to know that this relapse is going to hang over your head for a while.

The events of the past couple of days must be affecting your subconscious more than he thought. He should’ve noticed that.

One of Steve’s hands reaches for your waist, fingers curling around your sweater to gently guide you forward. He flicks off the light as you exit and leans in to press a soft kiss to your hairline. The moment you register his touch, that anxious feeling immediately disperses — the warmth of his palm through the fabric quells the terrors that had been circulating in your thoughts. You move away just enough to slip your hand into his before Steve can take another step; his fingers squeeze yours tightly.

Carefully and quietly, Steve leads you back to the couch. Dustin’s since moved to lounge on the chair, his legs tossed over the armrest. All of sudden as you pass your brother, the realization slams into you — Dustin woke Steve for you. 

Steve grabs the pillow from the floor and sets it on top of the cushions. As he sinks onto the couch, he eases you down with him until both of you are laying on your side. It’s a bit of a tight fit with his chest pressed to your back, but all the more reason for Steve to wind his arms around your stomach to hold you firmly against him. You’re thankful for the squish the couch provides; it gives you the closeness you desperately need.

He sighs, the puff of air hitting your neck as Steve settles with his nose tucked behind your ear. Somehow he manages to tug you impossibly closer — you drape your own limbs over his, the pad of your thumb swiping across his forearm comfortingly.

“M’sorry, sweetheart,” Steve mumbles, shifting briefly to press his lips to the soft skin behind your ear, “It’s okay. You’re safe now.”

Your eyelids begin to droop as your breathing subconsciously matches his — deep, relaxing inhales and cleansing exhales. As you find yourself melting further into his embrace, you grow even wearier, exhaustion overturning the fear that used to be present. You almost miss when he speaks again as you begin to drift off.

“I got you, I’m here.”

It’s a promise — you can rest now.

—

The next day, it becomes painfully obvious that Max didn’t get any sleep. 

Not that you’re blaming her — you don’t think you’d be able to either, given the circumstances. You still have no clue how to break this ‘curse’ and you’re running out of time. By your estimate, you assume she has about five hours left before… before Vecna makes his move. 

“What are we supposed…” You mutter under your breath, just loud enough for Steve to catch your words. The pair of you are behind the stairs, far enough away so that no one else can overhear the worry and uncertainty in both of your voices. 

“What are we supposed to do, Steve? Just sit here and wait for something to happen to her? I won’t… I won’t do that.”

Nancy and Robin left for Pennhurst Asylum about thirty minutes ago, dead set on interviewing Victor Creel — a man who may be the first to encounter Vecna. The research that you, Robin, and Nancy collected at the library yesterday all seems to point in that direction. Hopefully he’ll know something about how to free Max from Vecna’s spell; it’s the only lead the group has.

But until then, you and Steve are taking the initiative to protect her. How you’re expected to do that continues to evade you. His eyes dart over your shoulder to land on the girl — she’s still jotting something down, the same thing she’s been doing since last night. Concerned, he places his hands on his hips, shifting nervously on his feet.

“I don’t know,” Steve admits quietly, “I don’t like the waiting game either.”

You’ve never had to play defense before; there’s always been a way for you to fight back and win. It feels odd to do nothing — unnatural for either of you to be without a plan of attack.

“We’re sure that Munson said he couldn’t see anything?” You whisper, “There was nothing else in the room with him?”

“He seemed pretty confident they were alone,” Steve shakes his head as he drags his focus back to you. Your arms are crossed over your chest, fingers tightly bunched in the fabric of your sweater. While your brow isn’t pinched, your face is wrought with worry and frustration as you wrack your brain for any piece of information that could be useful. Unfortunately, you come up short.

The protective instinct to keep the teens safe is burning inside both of you, an impulse so great that neither of you think you’d be able to resist the urge. While only one of them is tied to you by blood, that sibling-like bond is not easily broken. You’re family now, through and through.

“I hate to say this…” Steve begins, moving one of his hands to rest on your bicep. He looks a bit defeated but still finds the will to continue as he steps in closer, his voice remaining low and hushed.

“I-I think we just have to wait. I know it could be a really stupid idea but…” Steve sighs as his thumb instinctively strokes the scar beneath the fabric that clings to your arm. It forces your eyes to meet his, equally earnest and distraught as he trails off in thought.

“We just have to hope that Nancy and Robin will figure something out before anything bad happens.”

You sigh too, raising your hand to grip his forearm extended between you, locking both of you in each other’s hold. Steve steps in closer and his shoe nudges yours as he watches your expression grow more distraught, the corners of your mouth turning down in a frown. You hate this.

A noise passes your lips — something similar to a scoff. Steve can already sense the shift of your tone before you can speak.

“I really don’t like it when you’re right.”

Your faces brighten. Not enough for either of you to smile, but the playful lilt in your voice is a refreshing change of pace. A sparkle in the vibrant color of your irises — a familiar sight in between the discussions of mortal peril. No matter what happens, at least you know you’ll be able to count on each other. Both of you will do what you can to protect Max like she’s your own.

You shift your hands to Steve’s waist, tugging on the fabric of that stupid blue polo of his to pull him even closer to you. His large palms move to rest on your neck, his thumbs swiping across the line of your jaw. A hint of a grin shutters across Steve’s face for a moment.

“When all of this is over, you’re taking me to see our home.”

You blink once, your eyelashes fluttering as you look away from him for a moment. Our home — it sounds so beautiful in his voice, like the safest place in the world. Your chest fills with that golden feeling you’ve gotten used to when you’re around Steve and a smile finally pulls at your lips.

You nod when you bring your eyes back to him, your cheeks heating at the soft adoring expression on his face. It’s a silent promise that all of this will be worth it in the end. Your new chapter together is starting soon — the epiphany waiting for you that will make the pain worth it.

“C’mere,” He mumbles, pressing a quick kiss to your lips before wrapping you in a tight embrace. You take a deep breath as you nuzzle your nose into his shoulder, inhaling his comforting scent. The pair of you stand here for a moment, soaking up the reassuring touches and soft words exchanged before having to switch gears once again.

“It’s gonna be okay,” You whisper, trying to soothe the anxiety that’s crawled its way into your minds. You emphasize the sentiment with a kiss buried in the slope of his neck. Steve wishes everything but you and him would melt away; he’s only reminded of his desperation for normalcy when he’s forced to remove himself from you. He kisses your forehead — the final act of sympathy before your thoughts begin to wander.

Twisting to look over your shoulder, your worried gaze lands on Max.

You recognize a lot of your younger self in her, specifically the version of you that existed prior to Will’s disappearance. Back then… you didn’t have anyone. There was no one that you felt like you could talk to if something was eating away at you. In retrospect, that was all you needed. You know from experience how important it is to have someone to let in. First it was Nancy, and when that didn’t last it was eventually Steve. But you can pinpoint the moment your shoulders started to feel a little bit lighter; it all started with your friends.

While Steve returns to Lucas and Dustin, you approach the younger girl. It takes Max a moment to notice you at her side, too lost in her own head to recognize anything happening outside of her own body. Except for what she scribbles onto the pages scattered in front of her — she is intently focused on those. Instinctively Max tries to cover her writings, but you’ve already seen enough.

“Letters, huh?”

Max sends an uncertain glance between you and the papers; she can’t sense any hostility or condescension in your tone. Your curiosity is genuine. She shifts, fiddling with the pen in between her fingers, “Yeah.”

When you sit next to her, an arm placed on the shorter end of the desk to prop up your head, Max finds herself spitting out the rest of her answer — she couldn’t help it even if she tried.

“Just in case I don’t get to say it before…”

She forces her expression to become stony, pushing away any thoughts of Vecna; she already feels him buzzing in the back of her head. Max’s feet shuffle beneath the table, “Y’know.”

You nod, pressing your mouth into a fine line as your eyes rove over her and the contents on the desk. Max’s voice betrays her outward appearance — the small break in her throat lets you in on how worried she actually is. Her eyes are tired, but not in the way that you’d expect from someone who didn’t get any sleep. It births a new fear inside your chest; when Vecna tries to come for her, you think she might let him.

“That’s a good idea, yeah,” You say softly, lowering your voice enough so it can only be heard by the two of you. Even with your show of support, you don’t think there’s much more you can say to reassure her. If you couldn’t guarantee her safety yesterday, you’re certainly not going to be able to do so as she hurdles towards her death. Anything you say now would be an empty promise.

But one thing you do know, as the pair of you sit here in an uneasy silence, is that you might be able to help her in more ways than one.

“Have Dustin or I ever told you about our dad?”

Max’s eyes shift back to you. There’s a wrinkle above your brow and a sadness in your voice that she doesn’t recognize — like digging up an old memory that stings. She shakes her head. You swallow harshly, removing your arm from the desk to cradle both your hands in your lap. 

“He, uh…” You stop yourself, searching for the courage to speak the next few words out loud. After another second, your gaze spacing out on the floor in front of you, you finally find it.

“He left us. Walked right out.”

A small scoff passes your lips; Max watches as your jaw tightens, fingers intertwining with each other, “He didn’t want a family. And it was obvious. Hell, I could tell that he didn’t want the three of us and I was young. Ten, eleven at the time.”

“So… we were science fair trophies you could put on the shelf, nothing more than what we could do to make him look better. And I wanted him gone.”

Your voice doesn’t even waver. Even though you’re physically tense, you talk about him like this is normal, like you’ve just… accepted that this is what you had dealt with. Max shudders at that thought. This has been your story this entire time? She’s intently listening to you now, the letters long forgotten beneath her hands.

“I thought I was… the worst person for that. I shouldn’t hate my dad enough to wish he was out of my life, y’know? Some people don’t even get to have a dad. I tried to tell myself that I should be grateful. Worst of all, is that I actually…”

You laugh, averting your eyes from where they had been, darting up to the ceiling in disbelief, “I hated myself for feeling relieved when he finally left. But then I wasn’t walking around on eggshells anymore. I could… I could just live and be loved by the two people that I knew did.”

“That man… he’s a monster. The first one I ever knew.”

You’re staring down at the scar on your hand, forever etched across your skin in a horrific reminder of the boy that came after your father — two people so similar it’s a shock you ever considered allowing him into your life. But you were blinded by love; most people make their stupidest decisions when they are.

With a sigh, your voice finally softens, “And it took me a while to realize that the relief wasn’t a selfish emotion. It meant finally feeling safe enough to breathe, Max. It’s okay if you feel that. You’re allowed to be glad Billy’s gone, even if he was a part of your family.”

It’s Max’s turn to tense, her body growing uneasy at the mention of her step-brother. It’s unfair that you’re able to read her this well and instinctively know that her feelings regarding his death are more complex than meets the eye. Not even Lucas knows that. 

You lean forward, moving one of your hands to rest gently on her shoulder, “Just don’t be too hard on yourself. Because I can promise you that it gets better. I know it doesn’t seem like it but-”

Your gaze moves to the boys just in time to see Dustin toss a paper airplane right into Steve’s nose at point blank range. Lucas’ smile grows wide as he laughs, throwing his head back over the edge of the couch as Steve whines. He rolls up the newspaper he had been reading and slaps your brother with it, a resounding thunk throughout the room. You don’t have to finish your sentence for Max to understand. There is so much love for both of you in this room.

When you refocus on her with a wistful grin on your face, your grip on her tightens, “It’ll get better.”

Max lets out a deep breath as you finally stand — everything you just said is swirling through her head. She doesn’t know what to think or which part of your confession to focus on more. That ache inside her has settled a bit; not by much, but enough to know the difference. Before you can drift away, she’s speaking.

“Wait.” 

The girl shuffles through the envelopes on the desk, flipping through them before she finds the correct one. She gingerly holds it between her hands, staring down at the name scrawled across the front of it, and hesitantly passes it up — it’s addressed to you. Your brow pinches at the gesture, taking the letter from her as she shifts uncomfortably.

“Y’know… just in case.”

Her words, an echo from earlier, tug at your heart. You feel admiration and dread spread through your chest, a complicated bundle of emotions that makes your throat grow hoarse. A knot forms in the pit of your stomach — the urge to protect her from Vecna is even stronger.

— 

When everyone regroups later that night, the weight on your shoulders has been replaced by a different one.

The desperation you felt, clinging to Max’s shoulders as you attempted to free her from Vecna’s curse while the boys searched through the cassette tapes. The panic that filled your voice, shouting to the redhead while her glazed over eyes stared right through your soul. The relief you experienced when she woke, the four of you huddled over her in shock that Robin and Nancy’s idea had actually worked. The sadness that silently poured down your face as Steve drove, his hand fused to yours across the front seats with his eyes darting between the road and the girl behind him. 

You hope you never feel any of that ever again.

It still lingers as you sit here in the dark, sitting shoulder to shoulder with Steve at the base of the stairs. You both offered to take the first watch, letting the others get some rest after the eventful day behind you. It took some serious convincing to get Lucas to relax and assure him that nothing bad would happen to her while you and Steve were awake. That seemed to help; you think he finally fell asleep about twenty minutes ago. 

Surprisingly, Max was the first to nod off. She must’ve been so exhausted her body couldn’t help but succumb to sleep when it came knocking. You’re thankful for that at least. You kept your promise — you protected her. Why do you still feel so unsettled?

Maybe it’s because you would have lost Max if Steve hadn’t reacted so quickly. In the end, the margin of error was seconds; you were seconds away from watching her die in front of you. 

Or maybe it’s because the visions she explained are a type of fear you’re familiar with.

You don’t want to imagine what you’d see if you were in her shoes, far too many moments of guilt come to mind when you consider what Vecna would choose for you. Your mind is like a tasting platter of fear. You shudder involuntarily.

The thought of Vecna weaseling this way into your mind makes you feel this incredible sense of unease — you haven’t felt that in a long, long time. Who knows who he could choose next, which victim is being analyzed, dissected for his own personal enjoyment? Somehow, deep in your gut you know that it could be you.

You watched Max’s slow descent into anxiety. You saw her struggle to try and make amends with herself, to try and accept what she was feeling in order to push Vecna away. It mirrors your own experiences a bit too much. But instead of facing Vecna, you’ve been facing yourself.

You’d hate for anyone to feel the same for you. Glancing over to Steve, who sits silently beside you and lost in his own thoughts, you know the dread he would experience waiting for you to be taken. As much as it feels ridiculous to even consider such a thing, it’s not inconceivable.

Your lip stings from how hard you chew on it, but it’s barely noticeable with the storm of thoughts kicking up in your brain. It’s difficult not to think of the countless nightmares that have kept hours of sleep from you for the last couple years. A shiver passes through you at the latest one, the memory still fresh; the trigger that you pull that kills Steve.

The warm press of Steve’s arm, snaking over your shoulders and pulling you closer knocks you from your thoughts. You blink over at him, confused but welcoming of the closeness.

“You shivered,” He whispers, “Thought you might be cold.”

You can’t help but smile at the gesture but no words can help you form a reply. As if he can sense it, Steve squeezes you gently.

“What’re you thinking about?” 

His tone is light, words breezy and you hate that you’re about to ruin it with your anxious mind. But you and Steve are built on your honesty and if anyone can ease you, it’s him.

“Y’know what Max said about… how Vecna chooses his victims?” You begin slowly, coaxing Steve along your train of thought. The urge to hide yourself is too strong and you shift under Steve’s hold, pulling your legs up onto the step and tucking them against your chest. Your throat is already growing thicker but you swallow and keep talking.

“Those with trauma… w-with guilt.”

Steve whispers your name softly, his hand around you raising to rest on the back of your neck. His touch forces your eyes to meet through the darkness; you hope it keeps him from seeing the glaze of tears beginning to form and your quivering lip.

He turns closer to you as you speak those words, the damning ones that he knows are going to haunt you for the foreseeable future. It shouldn’t be a surprise to him that your mind would force you to entertain these ideas, but he finds himself taken aback by it anyways. 

You hate this because you can’t quite shake the fear that saying things like this aloud is like a prophecy; that you’re sealing your own fate by suggesting the concept to the universe. You wouldn’t be surprised if Vecna works in twisted ways like this. You curse yourself, feeling foolish for fueling that fear. 

“Just… I’m worried that-”

“Hey, hey,” Steve speaks softly so he doesn’t wake the others, scattered around you in various positions, “He won’t, okay?”

His other hand comes up, brushing a tear that managed to fall onto your cheek; it’s not as dark as you thought, “He’s gotta get through me first, y’know.”

His words make you chuckle lightly, sniffling as you straighten your back to gaze at him properly. Steve intertwines your hands as he continues, “Besides, we know what to do now. If he does…”

He pauses, regretting that he could’ve just fed into your fear instead of comforting you, and then sighs, “We’ll be ready. And you’d get away, just like Max did. He’d regret ever trying to kill you.”

Something in the sentiment, the genuineness in Steve’s voice lights a flame in your chest because this is Steve; you’ve never been so sure that if anybody has a fighting chance, it’s probably you. His shoulders relax a bit seeing some of the worry leave your face, even more so when you give a wry smile. 

“Sure you know my favorite song?” You whisper, that familiar teasing tone floating between you. Steve pretends to think about it for a moment, running over different memories in his mind. 

“Oh, I don’t know,” He muses, fingers tightening in yours, “Footloose is definitely a contender.”

You grin fondly, well aware of what memory he’s thinking of — the two of you parked up by Lover’s Lake in the blistering heat of the summer. Amazingly, you had discovered that Steve could, albeit poorly, show off all the moves from the film. You both had taken a dip and were soaking up the sun when it had come on the radio, a tad static-y out by the lake but Steve had tugged you into the swinging dance moves regardless. 

“I remember that,” You whisper back, lips twisting into a reminiscent smile. You nod as your thumb swatches along the back of Steve’s, “That was a good day.”

Steve nods too, his body filing with that now familiar, comfortable feeling you give him. He thinks about that day when you’re away; you had managed to swallow your guilt and let yourself be as happy as he had ever seen you. He wished he could show you what he sees in you without the sorrow of what you’ve done hanging over your head.

But that day? It was like nothing had changed.

“It was, wasn’t it?” He adds, shifting impossibly closer to you. 

In the darkness of the Wheeler’s basement, he can still see the heat rise to your cheeks, or maybe it’s the sparkle in your eyes that gives it away. Steve knows that as soon as all of this is over, he’ll whisk you off for some getaway, something to help your hearts heal. 

But until then, you’ll be forced to stay here with the others, praying that this’ll all be over soon. For both your sakes, you hope it doesn’t take long.

—

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