#if i spelled ed’s name wrong i’m going to catch so much shit

[ticklishraspberries]

A Day (Or Six) in the Life

Note: This is from Richie’s POV sorta, so fair warning, there is some vulgar language from time to time. Hope you like it!

Sometimes there’s just too much shit going on in Richie’s head. 

And like, don’t get him wrong – he loves the weird crap his brain comes up with. Makes things entertaining, a little spicy, a little zesty. The only problem with it is that he can’t find the damn remote that turns off the six different brands of Looney Tunes going on up there. 

(He’d once spent an entire lecture assigning different Voices to the markers his professor used on the whiteboard, to the point that he hadn’t retained a single iota of anything the man actually wrote down.)

Man, that red little minx was pretty sexy though.

He snorts to himself as he comes out of his dozing, shoved back into the real world for the present. He can feel the hot line of Eddie at his back, leg hooked over his hip like a seat belt. His lil jet pack. 

Richie reaches blindly for his glasses and pushes them onto his nose, sniffling. It’s still fairly early by his standards, but he doesn’t glance long enough at the digital clock to tell for sure, choosing instead to take one of Eddie’s hand and squeeze like it’s his own personal communications device. “Ground control to major Eds, come in, major Eds?”

No response.

Richie huffs, squeezes harder. “Psht. Major Eds? What’s your mission status, major?”

Maybe Eddie understands what he’s saying, maybe he doesn’t, but Richie receives a huff of hot breath at the back of his neck for his efforts, followed by what feels like a cheek smushed against his head. “S’too early, Rich.”

Flabbergasted, Richie turns over completely to grip a disgruntled, squinting Eddie by the front of his sleep shirt. “It’s never too early in outer space, Eds! Did the academy teach you nothing? I’m ashamed.”

And Richie doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to seeing Eddie so ruffled in the morning. Slow, blinking away sleep from his eyes with those impossibly long lashes, yawning around perfectly white teeth that look like little moon rocks, and - and it definitely seems like there’s a theme going on in his head today, doesn’t it?

“What are you even talking about?” The question sounds irritated, but that’s never stopped Richie before. If anything, it means that he has to go and run his mouth harder, because that’s his default reaction to any indication that someone might be upset with him.

(Except they both know that if Eddie really felt like it, he could just pick up his hot little self and go back to his own bed across the room. Hasn’t happened yet, so. Free game.)

“What am I -? I’m talking about the great race, major!” He pokes Eddie’s side, smiling knowingly at the resulting yip and defensive curl. “Space ain’t some pre teen with a secret collection of skin mags, babe-be, it’s not gonna explore itself.”

Eddie wrinkles his nose but can’t bury his smile in his pillow fast enough for Richie to miss it, sighing a long-suffering breath. “You’re so gross.”

“I try.”

“Where am I going, anyway?”

“Hm?” Richie kinda shifted out of the moment there, it’s gonna take him a second to catch up.

“You know,” Eddie yawns again, gesturing to the ceiling with a limp hand. “Space. Tell me where I’m going.”

“Oh, yeah. Uncharted territory, actually. Forgot to mention that.”

“Mmm…”

A moment of silence passes between them, which is really fortunate for Eddie because it gives Richie an opening for just about the best joke ever. 

Gathering him in his arms slowly, he kisses his cheek, nuzzles up to him, and whispers, “To infinity… and your mom!”

Eddie, who had resettled peacefully in the crook of Richie’s arm, stiffens instantly and snaps one angry eye open to glare at him something fierce. Before Richie even so much as smirks, he finds himself pushed down into the squeaky mattress, two hands digging into any spot they can reach.

“Wait- W-wait!” Richie tumbles back with the force of it so hard he thinks he might get whiplash, but it doesn’t matter because he’s laughing around his next breath, tilting his head back and squeezing his eyes shut.

Eddie’s like a freight train when it comes to this, hands jumping from sides to ribs to neck to armpits to stomach - it’s all Richie can do to hold on to his wrists, tickle-weak and letting it happen. 

“Yeah, laugh it up, Trash mouth.” Eds hisses, though Richie can see through a few tears that he’s grinning, biting at his tongue in concentration. Richie loves it, loves how Eddie can just reach into his head and jumble his brain until his thoughts whirl around like confetti in a snow globe. 

At any rate, those insistent little fingers wring every last one of them out of him by the time he stops, looking down at Richie’s flushed excuse for a face and beaming like he won a prize. Always a competition with him, hoo-wee. “You done yet?”

Richie blinks, drudging through the mud pile that is his brain for a witty retort. “Uh… I…”

Eddie leans down and kisses his nose. “Good. Let’s go get breakfast, I’m starving.”

——————————

“Oh. My. Fuck.” Richie pulls off his hat and tosses it aside the moment he’s through the door. He stops only to kick off his shoes, one landing near the rack and the other hitting the wall. He doesn’t care, though, limping into the living room. After an eight hour shift, he has no fucking business being vertical and wants no part of it, no sir.

He collapses face first into the cushions of their couch and breathes in. It smells like Bill’s cologne. Richie’s back fucking hurts. 

“Owchie mama, that’s sore.” He complains out loud as he stretches to the full length of his gangly limbs, feet nudging the arm of the couch. He doesn’t expect his legs to get lifted up though, hello?

“What’s sore?” A voice asks curiously as the couch dips under his weight, Richie’s legs falling back down across a certain someone’s lap.

Mike. A godsend, for sure. “Oh Micycle, is it really you? It’s been decades since I’ve heard that macho voice, I almost forgot what it sounds like.”

“It’s nice to see you too, Rich. How was work?”

How was work? How was work?? Richie’s gonna combust, but he’s too tired to go all out, so he settles for a small tantrum, flailing. “Never mention that word to me again. If you do, we’ll have to get a divorce, and then who would look after the children? The traumatized little lads, fuck.”

“That bad, huh?” Mike chuckles, and it’s deep and fond and warm, and Richie looks over his shoulder just so he can picture it better. Mike’s holding a book in one hand, and the glass sitting on the table means that he was definitely sitting there before Richie got back, but now he’s sharing his seat like the fine friggin Georgia peach that he is, holy shit. 

Richie whines. “I thought being a barista would be sexy! Like, a wet dream soccer team of sweaty Brazilians asking me for juice and my number, but instead - pardon my French - I get a bunch of douchebaguettes complaining how I spelled their names wrong. I’m gay and illiterate and I didn’t fucking ask them, did I? Stop laughing at me, Mike n Ike, this is serious business.”

“I’m sorry,” he chuckles again, chest shaking with it. “Douchebaguettes?”

“You’re making fun of me. I’m wounded. Way to kick a man when he’s down, M- ah… never mind, I love you. Keep laughing at me.” He groans outright when a warm hand wraps around his foot and squeezes, eking out the ever-present ache that Richie had gotten used to ignoring. 

“I love you, too.” Mike snorts, and Richie doesn’t have to look to know he’s shaking his head. Fine by him, as long as he keeps touching him like that.

“Mm, your hands are the best,” he slurs into the couch. He will abso-fruitly say anything to encourage him at this point, not that Mike seems to want to stop anyway. His palm pushes delicious friction along his arches, pulling satisfied purrs from Richie with each pass until he’s a good and proper puddle. He might actually be drooling, a little bit.

It’s only when his touch lightens that Richie jerks, and the hand pauses. “Is this okay?”

Bless Mikey’s farm boy heart, asking for consent. Richie’s heart’s gonna burst. “Y-yeah, m’good.” 

And he is. Mike’s fingers trace, feather-light, and it’s like there’s shivers buried underneath Richie’s skin, waiting for Mike to pull the trigger. It feels good. 

It also really, really tickles.

He snags a cushion to bury his smile in, the muscles in his leg going taut every time Mike’s fingertips venture down towards his toes. More than a few times, Richie’s foot twitches away from the tingly zaps before he can stop himself, choked off mirthful noises tightening in his throat until a few burble out.

Each time Mike waits patiently until Richie resettles his foot back in his lap, and then his drifting touch returns, slow like tree sap and unbearably electric. It’s an awful game that forces Richie to expose how much he really wants it, but then again, Mike never plays like that intentionally. He just does what seems right because he’s perfect and a gentleman. 

Richie loosens like an uncoiled spring when Mike rubs his thumb over his heel, whining his loss. 

And because he’s a fucking gem, Mike picks up on it right away and huffs softly. “Sorry.” He scribbles gently at the arch of Richie’s slender foot in apology, earning him a muffled snicker and scrunching soles.

“Mihihike.” 

“Mhm?”

“Tickles.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

Pfft. Richie shakes his head, laughing harder into the cushion when Mike’s fingers drag down to his toes, scritching repeatedly. It’s not fair. He’s still wearing his socks with the pineapples on ‘em, and it’s worse than if he’d gone bare foot. He guesses it’s true that standing around for too long makes them more sensitive, but then, he’s always been this way. 

His knees jerk far more often now that Mike’s put some gusto behind it, albeit a very small amount, but Richie thinks he does a damn decent job at keeping his feet from wiggling away, all things considered.

Still, eventually, he hears the sound of the book getting set aside. Mike stops his gentle tapping at his soles, and Richie realizes as he sags back into the couch that he’s… tired. Like, stupid sleepy. He yawns and stretches again, humming his surprise when two strong arms turn him over.

“Well hello, handsome.” Richie grins back at Mike’s amused half-smile, more than happy to be the center of his attention for a while. 

“C’mon, Rich. It’s late, time for bed.”

“Don’t gotta tell me twice.”

He doesn’t fight it when Mike uses those absurdly strong arms to lift him up, despite being taller than him, wrapping his legs firmly around Mike’s hips and holding on to his shoulders. “Onward,” he yawns with enthusiasm. “Quick now yungin’, before we die of dysentery. Go on now. Git.”

Mike rolls his eyes and adjusts his grip as they head for the stairs. “Yeehaw.”

——————————

Richie tosses his controller on the couch beside him with a pout, watching the letters ‘game over’ flash across the screen. “Man…”

Behind him, he can hear the sound of the kitchen door opening and closing, and with a furrowed brow he gets up to investigate. “If you’re here to rob us, take Eddie first. He’s the easiest to carry.” 

Around the corner, Ben smiles up from where he’s taking off his shoes by the rack (careful, because Stan insists). He’s beaming, actually, and still in his hot little karate outfit that makes him look like a formal dumpling. “You’re so mean to him. What if I wanted to rob you instead?”

“Everybody wants to rob me, Benny boy, get in line,” He hops up onto the counter to watch Ben’s face in the refrigerator light as he goes rummaging for a smoothie. “I’m just saying, if you’re any good at this, you gotta take the valuables first. Bottom shelf.”

Ben chuckles, leans down, and reappears, drink in hand. Richie nudges the door shut with his foot and grins back. “Who says you aren’t valuable?”

“Aw shucks.”

“Besides myself, I mean.”

“Benjamin.” 

Ben laughs at him around a sip of his drink, and Richie couldn’t stay fake mad at him even if he wanted to. It’s really nice that the cheeky fuck has some confidence now, since he’s been losing some extra pounds here and there. He’s not afraid to brush past people anymore, doesn’t shift uncomfortably when his thighs touch someone else’s, and he hip-checks them on purpose with a sly look every now and then. He’s not afraid to take up space now, and all of the losers are proud of him for it, including Richie.

(He’s just, like, super jealous that he can’t have that sorta weight transferred over to himself. Just a little bit, so he’s not all jabby angles and pointy bones. Also? He’s going to miss Ben’s love handles.)

“You seem extra bold today. Care to share anything with the class?”

That happy look from a few minutes ago returns like Ben just remembered something important. “Yeah, actually - hold on…” He turns, fishing in his bag for something before turning back, fingers clutching a bundle of blue fabric. “I, uh, I got my blue belt today.”

“Holy shit!” Richie adjusts his glasses, leaning in to run his fingers over it when Ben offers it up. “You’re pullin’ my leg.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re making it up.”

“I’m not!” Ben’s voice just brims with infectious joy, like a little kid excited to show their first ever drawing from art class. He even has the little jump in his step, too.

“Benny, that’s awesome, dude!” He jumps down to punch Ben’s shoulder, smiling wide at the other’s shy but obvious pride. “And you know,” he thumbs at his upper lip and sniffs. “Not to fuck my own ass or anything, but I’m something of a dōjō master myself.” 

“Really?” Ben smirks, pushing back when Richie continues to push at his shoulder with his knuckles, bouncing on his heels anime fighter style.

“Really really. Call me Sensei, ‘cause I’ll teach you to mess with me.” He dodges with a surprised bark of laughter when Ben grabs for him, ducking and bringing his hands up to defend himself as they tussle right there in the kitchen, play-wrestling – Richie’s favorite thing.

Well. Almost favorite.

“Oof!” Richie hurumphs when the quick scuffle ends with him caught in a headlock, twisting back and forth fruitlessly. “Oi! Unhand me you fiend! You scoundrel! I’ll have you nicked, I will!”

Ben, not even winded, slaps his hand away. “Admit that I won and I’ll let go.”

“I’d rather bloody perish.”

“You’d rather perish?”

“Aye.” Richie grunts, straining against the hold. It’s like trying to empty a lake with a bucket. It just ain’t happening.

“Okay.”

Ben’s free hand digs into his side and Richie collapses back into him instantly, like a buck learning how to walk, except he’s really fucking bad at it and giggling maniacally. “Ben!” 

They crumple to the ground together, though Ben anticipates it, wrapping a solid arm around Richie’s waist as his other hand snakes up under his shirt to scribble at his ribs. 

Richie himself is a pale pile of squirming limbs, pushing back into Ben’s chest and squeaking with each sneaky pinch to his side. He tosses his head back against Ben’s shoulder in helpless snickering, tugging at his arm. “Ch-cheater!”

“I don’t hear you complaining!” Ben shoots back, fingers darting to where his shirt rucked up at his stomach to lay ticklish waste there. They move in a constant clawing motion, gentle because Ben is always gentle, but sadistic in the best worst possible way.

Richie convulses with how hard he laughs. He’s trapped in the most backwards tickle hug to exist, socks slipping on the tile of his kitchen floor, getting tortured by the group’s designated teddy bear.

A wayward finger brushes over the curve of Richie’s hip, sending him jolting even farther into Ben’s lap, tittering. 

“C’mon, Trash mouth. Fess up.”

If Ben thinks he’ll ever tap out, he is sorely mistaken.

“Never!” Richie cries, and then dissolves into cackling when Ben goes straight for his momentarily unprotected armpit.

Neither of them notice when Stanley steps into the doorway and promptly turns to walk back out, not once looking up from his phone.

——————————

Every now and then, Richie forgets that he might actually come off as attractive to the other losers. He’s always jokingly attractive, obviously. ‘Who wouldn’t want a piece of me?’ or ‘Golly, buy me dinner first!’ Are a few easy phrases to throw around, usually with a suggestive cock of his hip or an over exaggerated flutter of his eyelashes, which gets him a laugh now and then.

But like, for realzies? Richie isn’t hot hot, not like Mike or Bill with their big shoulders and mouth-watering biceps, Jesus Christ on a stick. He doesn’t have that cute allure like Eddie or Ben, either. Richie’s just a scrawny friggin beanpole, lanky, unlike the elegant way that Stan and Beverly manage. 

Being so gay is hard sometimes. Everyone looks hotter than you. 

“Rich?” 

He startles out of his musings and comes firmly back to himself where he’s reclined next to Bill on the trampoline, reminded of how his train of thought had gone that route; they’d been messing around until they weren’t, until Bill had cupped his face and brought him into a kiss, and then a fuzzy little parasite called insecurity reared its fugly head.

Richie squashes it down around a dazed smirk, seemingly quelling the momentary unease on Bill’s face. “Yowza.”

Bill snorts and rolls his eyes, plays with the hem of Richie’s “Support Whale Sex: Use Shampoo” shirt. “I thought you weren’t in the mood, for a second.”

“Vat?” Richie cries incredulously, shifting upwards and straddling Bill’s lap. “Bullsheet. Lies.” As if Richie could ever resist a man with legs like that. Damn.

Bill’s smile is genuine when he pulls Richie back down into another kiss, their lips meeting sparking a whole new wave of something in Richie’s chest, so intense that he’s pulling back within a few seconds, “Ven you look like zat? You lift, yes? Vat kind of –“ 

A hand covers his mouth, and Rich realizes that Bill is furrowing his brows at him. “Why are you doing a Voice right now?”

“…I’m nervous.” He apologizes, muffled. 

Bill snorts again as if to say ‘yeah right,’ but his expression softens when Richie doesn’t say anything else. “Nervous, huh?”

Richie nods, then licks Bill’s palm. He pulls it away with a disgusted chuckle, and then.

Then Richie is suddenly on his back, looking up at two dark, mischievous eyes. “Hoo shit.” He whispers. They are not in Kansas anymore.

“You should be.” 

That’s all the warning Richie gets before devilish fingers attack his sides, letting loose a bout of hysterical giggles from somewhere deep in Rich’s stomach. It’s like opening the floodgates every time. A head rush and a half. He squirms immediately, laughing harder when Bill drags him back down and pins him with one forearm against his own.

“Where are you going?” He muses, fond, and Richie’s face blushes ten different shades of crimson.

“B-Bill, please!” He wriggles, fingers clawing uselessly against slick fabric. If he struggles any harder, there’s a good chance the trampoline might start bouncing them for real.

“Please what?” His fingers are skittering up his ribs now, because Bill knows Richie just can’t stand that, and he’s smiling down at him like Richie makes him the happiest he’s ever been, and Richie can’t stand that either.

He squeezes his eyes shut, laughter coming freely the more that Bill tickles up his sides and over his stomach, curling up. Bill doesn’t seem to mind his lack of answer or the way Richie’s knees jerk into his hips, content to pull an endless amount of loud snickering from his partner.

It’s only when Richie arches away with a desperate wheeze that Bill stops what he’s doing, hands rubbing firm circles into the hips he’d just been scritching at - probably a routine he knew well from getting revenge on another particularly bony little shit they knew.

“You’re so - so mean. Gah. I’m taking you out of my will, Billiam.” Richie breathes, reaching up to wipe behind his glasses. 

Bill just chuckles at him and leans down, and they share a soft kiss that makes Richie’s heart flutter in his chest all over again.

——————————

 Kerplunk, sploosh. Kerplunk, sploosh. Kerplunk – 

“Fuck!” Richie jolts with a quiet hiss of surprise, shifting his attention from the lake to the offending pen that had just jabbed his side. Bev, sitting next to him, giggles and points to his textbooks with it. 

“Focus.”

Richie sticks out his upper lip, dropping his handful of pebbles in the grass at his feet. It took him, like, a whole twenty seconds to find those. “I was focused.”

“Focus on your homework, ding dong.” She gestures with her pen again, not looking away from her own book, which she holds easily in one hand. Show off.

Richie grumbles and hunches over, scrubbing a hand over his face. He makes it through two paragraphs before he fidgets again, making to reach in his shirt pocket for a smoke before he realizes, oh, yeah, I’m giving those up. Shit. 

Sometimes character development is just not worth it.

Bev appears to notice the gesture though, because she gently elbows Richie this time, gesturing to the book. “It’s really not so bad. You’ve already gotten through a few pages.”

“Yeah, with like, a bajillion more to go.” He huffs, flipping through the pages one more time before sitting up straight and slapping the table. “That’s it! I quit college.”

“Mhm.” Beverly is far too nonchalant but she can afford to be, since she’s heard the exact same statement fourteen times since the beginning of the semester. Two weeks in and going strong.

“I’m serious this time! I don’t need a degree to be funny, I’ve got that part in the bag. Also, capitalism? Who needs it.”

“Do you really hate classic mythology that much?”

Richie groans and drops his head against the picnic table. “Yes.” He’d thought that it would be cool! Gods and Goddesses and monsters (oh my), but instead he has to bear through three whole paragraphs of a list of men, all sons of other men, because any of that is just so integral to the understanding of the Trojan war. Everyone knows that Achilles was the only real bitch on that battlefield, okay? Literally nothing else matters.

He jumps again, this time snickering, when Bev scribbles at his side. “Hehehey!”

“Cheer up, Tozier. Your vibes are ruining our study date.”

Richie eyes her up, adjusting his glasses. “Are you saying that my vibes are off, Marsh?”

She nods sagely. “They’re atrocious.”

“I’ll have you know that I’ve never failed a single vibe check in my life.” And that isn’t going to change today, no sir. Just ask Eddie, the last time he tried to pull something. 

“You’re gonna fail more than just this vibe check if you don’t do your reading.”

“Not true! I know the stuff, I just… don’t like it.” He’s of the philosophy that memorizing shit just makes it harder to remember. Richie can go over some of the professor’s notes online and be just fine. 

Heaving a sigh, Beverly gets up. She pushes at Richie’s back. “Scoot in.”

“If you say so, ma’am.” Though Richie just complies because he wants to see where this is going. When Beverly slides in behind him, legs on either side of his, he can kinda feel her boobs pressing against his back. Nice.

“Oh hello.” Richie grins, feeling free to press back into her. She smells nice - changed her perfume for some reason - and her presence is a welcome warmth, inviting and –

She blows a raspberry against the back of his neck.

– and a fucking trap!

“Bev!” He jerks forward instantly, shoulders hunching. She follows, nuzzling into the space behind his ear, and Richie shivers violently. “O-oho my gawd, why?!”

“I’m just making sure you pay attention.” She teases, weaving her arms around his chest so that her fingertips rest at his sides, making Richie tense. But nothing comes, yet.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Tickling him is definitely not going to make him want to read more. It’s going to make him want to be tickled. It’s like trying to punish an addict with cocain.

Bev snorts, fingertips wriggling briefly enough to get a squeak and a weak squirm out of him. “Just keep reading. If you slack off, I’ll bring you back!” 

Ah! So simple! Haha! Wow. Genius. 

Richie sighs heavily to indicate how much he turns his nose up at this frankly childish behavior, but reluctantly opens his book back up to where he was before. Admittedly, having Bev close might help his attention span, just slightly. He can feel her cheek resting against his back, ankles brushing his every now and then, and her arms are a soothing weight against his chest. Like the fancy weighted blanket that Eddie uses on his more fidgety days.

That doesn’t stop his attention from drifting occasionally, of course. When he takes a little too long to turn the page, Beverly tweaks his ribs or snuffles at the side of his neck until he lurches forward in a bout of giggles, holding on to the wooden table for support. And sometimes, when his leg starts bouncing of its own free will, she smooths her hand down his thigh and starts squeezing his knee, earning stronger fits of squirming and yelping that even gets her to laugh. What a meanie.

“You have your own stuff to read, you know.” He huffs after a brutal attack to his hips, having nearly torn his page in half. Richie immediately regrets it though, because he doesn’t want her to stop. He silently prays that she doesn’t move, and whoever’s listening grants him a little mercy.

“I know.” She says, nudging his head with hers. Richie reaches for her hand, thinking he might off himself if she doesn’t take his back, but she does, and they sit like that together for a while, listening to nature do its thing.

“Hey, Rich?”

“Yeah?”

She uses her free hand to get at his stomach, and Richie chokes.

“Do your fucking reading.”

——————————

They’re barely three steps through the door before Stan is on Richie like strippers to a pole, pushing him up against the wall and staring him down with so much intensity that Richie doesn’t have enough breath left to ask the obvious question: what the fuck?

He grips his bag with his work outfit inside of it and tries to remember if he did anything particularly annoying on the drive home, but nothing comes to mind other than when he tried to poke Stan’s jaw and he swatted him away. Richie wasn’t actively pursuing anything because that never works with Stan. He’s like a fucking cat that way; if he gets even the slightest bit ruffled, he leaves the room, all indignant and huffy. 

Hence, his confusion at this particular stunt.

That doesn’t last long though, because Stan shakes his head slowly and pulls Richie’s hat off his head, tossing it aside without even looking to see where it goes, which is a very unlike-Stan gesture.

“Stan –?“

“Shut up.”

“Shutting up.”

They look at each other, and Richie nearly trips over himself when Stan starts moving them both backwards, towards his room. Normally that might raise some flags, but they’ve been through scenarios like this before. Richie doesn’t really mind getting pushed around (in fact he might even like it a little bit if his first childhood crush is anything to go by) but not knowing the reason is… fishy.

Stan kicks the door closed behind them, still walking Richie backwards, but grabs a hold of his shirt before he can go tumbling back on the bed. “Here’s how this is going to work.”

“Uh –“ Richie’s already on board.

Stan’s grip tightens, and then Richie’s world goes scrambled for three seconds when he gets pushed - fucking pushed, the nerve - onto the bed, Stanley following after him easy as pie and hovering over him, predatory, focused. “I’m going to tickle you.”

Richie can’t hide the way his body almost seems to curve up at that statement. If his body was a temple, it was a temple to some very traitorous limbs. Stan deciding he wants to do anything even close to roughhousing is a special treat, but this one in particular has Richie’s name on it

He realizes after a beat that Stan is waiting for him to say something, and Richie, in true Richie fashion, momentarily forgets the English language. “Uhm - yes?”

“Good. Put your arms up.” 

That’s not going to last, but Richie does it, and Stan leans in like the sexy Mr. Rogers that he is and… plucks his glasses off his face, sticking them in his shirt pocket. Friggin thief. When did everyone in this house get so bold? “Hey –“

“Can’t risk breaking them.” Stan answers, fingers already slipping under Richie’s shirt to flutter at his sides. Richie wiggles and his complaint trails off into a snicker. Can’t argue with that anyway he guesses.

Stan tickles him like he does everything else: thoroughly, and with dedication. Quick and nimble fingers drill into the spaces between Richie’s ribs, blunt nails scritching down to his sides, then pulling at his jeans just enough to expose his hips, and Stan’s ducking his head and Richie can fucking see those curls, almost, through his blurry, tear-stained vision, helpless with laughter already, grabbing at the head-board -

– And they pause. Stopping is so much than starting. Richie can feel Stan’s breath against his stomach, where his shirt is rucked up, when he speaks. “When’s the last time you took a shower?”

Through giggle-heavy breath, Richie struggles to answer. “Uhm, like, y-yesterday? Wh- fuhuhUCK!” 

He squeals when Stan’s tongue joins the mix, starting at his belly button until he meets the curve of his hip, nibbling along his V-line with so much enthusiasm that Richie thinks he must actually taste like the coffee he smells like. That’s the only explanation for such an assault.

Richie curls in on instinct, hands going for Stan’s hair, but he must anticipate this because he sits up instantly, grabbing Richie’s wrist and glaring at him. Or, he’s probably glaring. He looks like an angry blur at the moment.

It’s…. pretty hot. Not gonna lie.

“I said keep your arms up.” He growls. When Richie slips obediently back into place without question, Stan moves down even further, hoisting Richie’s calve over his shoulder and setting to work again. 

The sweeping motion of his fingertips is not as aggressive as before, though it’s probably because they don’t need to be. Even through the denim, that light swishing motion from his thigh to his knee and back again has him cackling, all reserve flying out the window as he scrambles, pulling at the sheets.

Stan pulls at him in response, taking a firm hold of his ankle and scribbling in a relentless, spidery motion at the back of his knee.

Richie 1. Screeches, then 2. Does his best impression of a hula dancer having a seizure.

Apparently breaking the arm-up rule no longer matters at this point, because Richie is just beside himself in the agonizingly sweet, tingly jolts running through his nervous system, spasming on the bed and doing anything within his physical power to get away from it.

Stan doesn’t let go, though, only moves with him, tickling and tickling. Yes, Richie thinks. Please don’t stop. This has to stop. Don’t stop. Don’t let go. Oh god, this is the fucking worst this sucks this is so good, don’t stop, don’t stop – 

By the time Stan has thoroughly decimated Richie’s thinking capabilities, having seen to it that both legs have received proper attention, Richie is a curled ball of silent, wheezing laugher in the center of the bed. He takes a deep breath only to let out another fresh peal of laughter, shaking, as Stan lays beside him to rub his shoulder.

“Don’t.” He sighs after a few moments of cool down, as if exasperated, but it sounds fond. 

“Oh I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh while you were killing me, I’ll take note of that for next time.” Richie snarks, sniffling and wiping at his eyes.

“No, I mean don’t whine like that.”

Richie whined? “Like what?”

“Like the minute someone stops touching you, it’ll never happen again.” Stan explains patiently, like it’s obvious, twisting one of Richie’s curls around a slender finger and, for now, neglecting to mention how he needs a hair cut.

Oh, that… that – “You don’t know that.” He defends feebly, accepting his glasses when they’re pushed into his palm. Sometimes he forgets how easy it is for Stan to just look at him and see him. It’s unnerving how perceptive he can be, and possibly just as unnerving how much Richie wants to be seen, scary as that might be. He’s had killer clown dreams that terrify him less, and yet.

“I do,” Stan disagrees, making room for Richie to turn over. Neither of them are surprised when Richie ducks his head to hide his face in Stan’s button-up, cheeks burning pink from more than just exertion. “You make it painfully obvious, but it’s a ridiculous fear. There’s six other people in this house. No one’s going to stop touching you unless you ask them to.”

Richie snorts into Stan’s chest. Fat fucking chance.

Still, there’s always that lingering Voice - the one that sounds most like himself - asking him if six people will be enough. Richie Tozier has not one, but six partners and he still wonders if that attention is enough. Talk about high maintenance.

Richie closes his eyes and just enjoys Stan’s hand in his hair, trying not to think about that too much, even as he counts down the seconds to that touch stopping too. “Is it…annoying?”

“That you like tickling? No.” Stan scratches at the base of his neck and Richie hums, pressing closer. “It’s only annoying that you think it’s going to go away.”

Well fuck him, Richie can’t just control how he feels about it, okay? It’s not like he hasn’t tried before. It’s hard, he doesn’t want to think about it, he doesn’t want anything good in his life to ever end, and he especially doesn’t want Stan to stop tracing the curve of his ear like that.

Two fingers tilt his chin up, and Richie blinks back at Stan’s surprisingly soft eyes. “It’s not going to stop.” He murmurs, then kisses Richie’s forehead. 

It hits him harder than a baseball bat to the gut. How did Richie Tozier die? It was the curly twink in the bedroom with unconditional love.

That being said, it’s not like he doesn’t appreciate the reassurance, even if it makes him the slightest bit vulnerable. Just a little too open. A little too raw. Tickling allows him to be like that for a short while, and maybe that’s why Richie likes it so much. Instant satisfaction, zero commitment, and it’s fun too. No arcade game or cold shower can scratch an itch for something like that.

He smiles back up at Stan and took his hand so he could kiss the back of it. A moment of mushy, romantic weakness if you will. “Aw, Staniel. You make me blush. If you wanted to woo me so badly you could have put on some judge Judy and those cute little pajama pants, maybe with some ice cream - no, definitely with some ice cream -“

Stan sighs but indulges Richie in his rambling, fingers trailing through his hair all the while. Things have already shifted back into normal territory, but there’s this new, unspoken truce between Richie and this obsession of his - the confirmation that each of his partners knows what he needs, when he needs it, and that they’re not going to drop-kick him out of their lives for asking for it one too many times. It’s nice to have something consistent in his life.

But if those six losers think they don’t have the same exact fate lingering over their heads, they have no idea what force they’re reckoning with. Richie is nothing if not a giver, and he intends to deliver their due retribution.

In full.

[harmonie-writes]

Spells and Quirks pt. 1

BNHA x Harry Potter crossover - Midoriya x witch reader

Key: (y/h) = your house, (y/p) = your patronus, (y/h/c) = your house color, (y/h/e) = your house emblem

AN: You are a fifth year at Hogwarts, I believe that you start attending school at the age of 11? You would be around the same age as 1-A so roughly 15-16. Things in italics will be recaps and internal thoughts. This is will be a long series, and I’m not sure how many parts yet but there will be more action in later parts! I just have to get everything set up! (:

Warnings: wizard type cursing, cursing (cough Bakugou looking at you)

Spells and Quirks Introduction I Spells and Quirks pt. 2

----------

Recap:

“I believe you asked for these?” You hand Midoriya the glasses and put your wand back into your boot. This boy is shocked and flustered, shaking hand moving to take the glasses from yours. “I think that I was wrong about the fire bases quirk earlier…” Midoriya answers. Both you and Uraraka are sharing the same splitting smile as you can see the gears in both boys heads start turning.

“You’re a witch aren’t you?”

----------

Iida looked like he was about to faint, but Midoriya continued to stare at you with wide eyes and an open mouth. Leaning forward slightly you pressed your index finger onto the bottom of his chin closing it. “You don’t want to catch flies do you?” you smiled while he tried to hide his now hot face. “This is a, um.. surprising?” Midoriya was still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that actual witches and wizards do exist. 

Getting it together, he quickly pulled out his hero notebook and was erasing some of his previous assumptions he made about your “quirk”. Midoriya started spouting questions that you weren’t given time to answer because he quickly thought of another one; this turned into his usual muttering. “Is.. is this normal?” you whispered while leaning away from Midoriya and back to Uraraka who was trying to stifle her laughter. Choking down the laugh, “Ah, yeah yeah this is just normal Midoriya for you,” Uraraka managed to reply.

-Iida.exe back online- Snapping out of his own thoughts on this unveiling Iida managed to get a question out. “You’re a witch.” “Yes.” “So, much like we have hero schools, you have um, magic schools?” “Yes.” “These one worded answers are barely answering my questions!” Iida gestured with his hands to get you to further elaborate. “I know, but Uraraka mentioned something before about how you do wild things with your hands and I wanted to see if that was true to any situation. So far I would say yes.” You grinned at the fact that you threw your friend under the bus for the idea. “I do not move my hands wildly.” Iida stated all while doing frantic hand gestures, and you just stared at his hands. 

“Anyway... well yeah, we have schools that teach young witches and wizards. The school I attend is well known in the wizarding community, it’s known as Hogwarts. As a first year you get sorted into a house based on the Sorting Hats choosing.” “Wait, wait, wait... you get placed..by a hat?..” Iida asked incredulously. Both boys gave you a look like you grew a second head. “Well it’s complicated but this hat openly speaks on your character traits and also takes into consideration your own opinion on a house you might be placed into,” listing on your fingers, “There are four houses Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff. Gryffindors are known for their bravery, Slytherin are cunning, Ravenclaw are intelligent and Hufflepuff are loyal but that doesn’t mean that their traits don’t overlap with each other.” 

Midoriya and Iida both looked at your uniform emblem. “So what house are you apart of then?” Midoriya asked while continuing to scribble the information you described into his notebook. “Oh, I’m a part of (y/h), and it’s my fifth year at Hogwarts!” “Your fifth year?!” “Well we start attending Hogwarts when we are 11, and then graduate when we are 18,” you stated as if this was obvious. 

Midoriya stopped writing for a minute and looked up at you, his flushed face gone and trying to figure out this puzzle. “If there is this large community why haven’t we ever seen anything wizard like?” Midoriya gave you this look that had a vibe of “I want to know more about your world!” 

Letting a breath out through your nose you answered, “The Ministry of Magic keeps the wizarding world a secret from muggles because they don’t understand, but that doesn’t mean every muggle doesn’t. Muggles typically think they see things and are going crazy which is why things are the way they are.” 

Uraraka glances at the clock and sees the late time. “It’s almost curfew guys,” she states looking towards the guys, “we can continue discussing this more tomorrow, and (Y/N) you can meet the rest of the class tomorrow. Just remember we can’t tell them she is a witch.” Nodding the guys say good night and leave the dorm. “Aizawa knows you are staying here for a couple days and I have already filled out your visitors forum,” Uraraka gives a you tired smile.

----------

Sunshine started pouring in through the crack in the window into your eyes. Scrunching up your nose at the sudden light you try blinking away the sleep. You look up from your cot on the floor at Uraraka who is still out like a light. Just for good measure you get up and poke her cheek, “Bloody hell... I was going to ask where the washroom is.” Going toward your trunk by the dresser you pull out a pair of jeans, sweater, towel, wand (you never go anywhere without it) and other necessities you’ll need. “I guess I will have to find it by myself,” you chuckle to yourself taking a look over your shoulder at your best friend. Shaking your head you head to the door and open it quietly. It’s still early and you hope no one is awake yet. Seeing that all the doors are closed and it’s quiet you slip into the hall. Shivering slightly at the cold floor you close the door softly to not wake your friend. Walking past some doors you find the washroom towards the end of the hall and walk in to get ready for the day. Unbeknownst to you, a door that was already creaked open now knows of your presence and how you are not one of the students. Tip-toeing towards the women’s washroom he is stopped by the sound of crackling. “It’s too early for your shit sticky hair,” grumbles a frustrated blonde who was heading towards the men’s. 

“Ah, come on Bakugou. There’s a girl here!” Mineta practically drooled while holding a shaking hand towards the women’s. “No shit there’s a girl. We have a co-ed dorm you dumbass,” the blonde huffs and lets out another small pop from his hands. Successfully spooking the perv back into his dorm. Making sure that his door closed Bakugou continued on with his morning routine.

----------

Uraraka woke up to the sound of her dorm room closing and see her friend re-enter. “Ah.. I forgot how much of an early bird you were,” Uraraka stretched hearing the satisfying pop come from her shoulders and back. “No, you just sleep like the dead,” you laugh at her bed head. “Alright, alright fine maybe you’re right,” she gives, “let me get ready and we can go downstairs and make breakfast.” Giving a nod you slip you wand into your boot.

----------

Walking into the kitchen you see that Midoriya and Todoroki are sitting at the island with tea. “Good morning,” both you and Uraraka greeted the two. “Good morning,” Midoriya smiled back, although it was more towards you. Todoroki hummed a response and gave Midoriya a slight eyebrow raise asking the question of “who’s the girl?” Walking up to Todoroki you stuck your hand out with a small smile, “Hi, I’m (Y/N), I’m Uraraka’s friend.” “Todoroki, it’s nice to meet you,” he gave a polite smile and released your hand. Todoroki was pleased that you didn’t make too big of a deal about his hair or eyes.

“Would either of you like some tea?” Nodding you sat down in the seat next to Midoriya while Uraraka went to find food for both of you. “So Midoriya, Todoroki how many of you live in the dorms?” you asked so you could prep yourself for all the new names and faces you’d have to remember. “Twenty of us, and you already know four,” Midoriya stated. “There is one person who is invisible, floating clothes are normal here,” Todoroki looked at you, “If you don’t mind me asking, what is your quirk?” Stiffening ever so slightly the only person who noticed was Midoriya, but you still responded, “Oh, this is embarrassing,” you covered your face trying to buy time to think of an excuse, “well... I’m actually quirkless. I’m just here on holiday to visit.” Todoroki’s stare was intense (when is it not?), but he seemed to buy it. I guess it wasn’t a complete lie. I don’t have a quirk, but I’m not a muggle either. 

“Todoroki what is your quirk?” trying to get the spotlight off you since you knew you would be stuck in it again later. “Half ice - Half fire quirk,” was his response. “That’s a cool quirk being able to have two,” you smile, you have no idea who is father is or his story. “I prefer to only use my right side,” Todoroki isn’t upset but there is a slight frown on his face. “Did I say something wrong?” leaning into whisper in Midoriya’s ear although Todoroki still heard. “No it’s fine its not important though,” the two toned male shook his head softly. “Ah, I’m still sorry if I said something that might have offended you,” you apologize giving him a small smile, Todoroki nods acknowledging it though.

----------

The five of you are sitting in the common room sharing stories (Iida is with you at this point), when you hear more voices making their way to the common room. Slightly panicked at being in a new setting your hand makes a fist in your lap, you trying steeling your nerves and Midoriya notices setting a hand on your shoulder giving it a small squeeze. You give him a shy smile appreciating the gesture. You know you have at least four people to help make you feel comfortable. 

A group of five entered the common room, almost immediately all eyes fell on your figure on the couch. Everything fell silent for about two-seconds, giving a sheepish grin at the new people you waved. “Uh, hi?” you offered. The pink skinned girl ran up to you engulfing you in a large hug, “Ohmygod you are cute! I’m Mina!” A red-headed boy came to pry her death grip off you while giving you a sharp smile, “I’m Kirishima.” Once released you sucked in a breathe of much need air before responding, “I’m (Y/N).” Kirishima pointed over his shoulder at the other three, “The guy with black hair is Sero, the dude with the lightning bolt in his hair is Kaminari, and the angry blonde is Bakugou.” The guys known as Sero and Kaminari waved at you, which you reciprocated, but Bakugou just huffed and crossed his arms. 

“So your round face’s friend that she has been talking about the last couple of days?” “Round face?” you questioned looking at your friend. “He gives everyone a nickname, and doesn’t call us by our actual name,” Uraraka whispered to you. “Oh,” looking at Bakugou, “yeah I’m her friend and I’m visiting for a few days.”

“I bet I have a stronger quirk than you,” Bakugou stated confidently. “Kacchan... she-” “Shut up shitty Deku! I wasn’t talking to you,” Bakugou glared at the greenette. “But I think it’s important that you know-” Midoriya tried again to cover for you. “Shut it Deku this doesn’t invol-.” Bakugou’s glared focused from Midoriya to you as you cut him off. “You obsolete dingbat! That’s no way to talk to a friend!” you stood up angered at the fact that your friend was being treated poorly. The room went quiet and all eyes looked at you and a fuming Bakugou whose palms were crackling.

----------

Cliffhanger until next time!

[wheremytwinwatches]

[Where My Twin Watches]: Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood Episode 41

Last time: Armstrong the Great got a promotion, Beardless grew a beard, and Teacher got a surprise surgery. Onwards!

The Mining Crew is still going through the tunnels towards Fort Briggs, it looks like Al hasn’t caught up to them yet. Whoops, Winry just tripped over a box of - gah, dynamite!

[Yoki]: “Nah, these are all sopping wet. Relax, they wouldn’t blow up even if we wanted them to.”

Wow. Yoki being the Voice of Reason. Times sure have changed.

Scar snaps at them to keep moving, “they could already be after us.” Yeah, but if you dwadle long enough then Al can catch up! So please May, keep up with the freakouts!

Back in Baschool, the storm’s passed so Sideburns is back to plotting against Kimblee. Aw, come on. I get shooting Kimblee from the get go, but why do you have to kill his other two guys (I’m assuming Chimeras like Toad and Boar). Keep them alive, they can join Al’s Chimera Army! Ed is understandably shaken at these KOS orders being thrown about.

Episode 41 - “The Abyss”

See, I hear “The Abyss” and I immediately think about the staring quote. Is Sideburns going to get a last-minute change of mind about killing all three, decide to be better than Kimblee? Not like that’s a high bar to clear, but still.

Ed’s trying to argue for taking Kimblee alive for questioning, Sideburns says he’ll never talk. As for his men? Maybe they’re being forced to serve Kimblee, but Sideburns thinks it’s too big a risk to bet on that. First Law of Briggs: The Careless are the first to die.

[Sideburns]: “We aren’t going to be careless. We’re killing Kimblee. And the two men with him.”

Walking down the hallway, Sideburns and the two Briggs soldiers talk about how Ed’s chosen the more difficult path of trying to keep his enemies alive. Their attitude seems to be “Admirable, but foolish.” Come on Ed, prove them wrong!

Back with the Mining Crew, Marcoh’s getting translations from Scar (finally), seems the current passage is about a “miracle drug” that extends life and transforms all metals to gold. Damnit, so it’s the Philosopher’s Stone, so much for the notes giving an alternative. Ooh, Xing culture lesson! Apparently Xingese refer to immortals as “a true being” oh Leto DAMN IT it’s right back to that smirking Truth. Whatever. Anyways, “True Beings” are considered perfect souls so they’re compared to the perfect metal gold (yeah, Winry and the Chimeras are totally lost by this point).

[Marcoh]: “So in other words, an immortal person is seen as a golden being.”

[May]: “In a sense…”

*camera shifts to Beard*

Oh. OOOOOOOOHHHHHH!

Keaton said:One thing of note is that all the people of Xerxes have gold hair and gold eyes. And I do mean gold, because there's no black outline that blonde people in the series have.

[May]: “It comes from the man who brought Alchemy to Xing.”

Wait, where are you going? Beard you’re walking away from one of the most badass fighters in the entire show and her husband, team up with them and you’ll be unstoppable! Whyyyyy.

Winry remarks that the Xing teacher of Alchemy having golden hair and eyes sounds like Ed and Al… hold on, I need to check something.

*rewinds to Ed standing in room* *returns to Winry, pausing at Beard along the way*

Huh! So Beard has the Xerxes no-outline blond hair, but Ed has almost this blend between Xerxes and Amestrian hair, he has an outline but it’s not as pronounced as Winry’s. Neat!

Finally, the exit! Scar must have been feeling a bit cooped up since he just kicked the door down. Yoki relishes his newfound competence and takes the lead nope instantly falls into massive snowdrift. I knew it couldn’t last. Aw, Boar sees how deep the snow is and immediately offers to give May a piggyback ride! And Toad says they’ll go first to make walking easier for the rest.

Walking through a winter wonderland… wait, is that Al? It is Al!

[Winry]: “That’s Al!” [May]: “THAT’S MY HUSBAND?!”

Jeez May, chill. No I didn’t mean rub your face on Al’s arm, Winry may have frostbite-proof earrings but Al was literally just buried in a snowdrift, you’re gonna lose your cheek at this rate! Al reports on the occupation of Fort Briggs, they’ll be walking right into their hands. So now what, do they just go back to the mine? Wait a minute, Scar just walked off and is staring all mysterious-like at the mountain range… are they going to Drachma? Scar says there’s a mountain village nearby (no idea how to spell that name), there are some Ishvalans living there. Toad and Boar are skeptical, but Yoki’s all too eager to give leadership back to Scar.

Oh shoot yeah, Al did kind of just run off on Kimblee. Do they even have an excuse for that, or is Sideburns just banking on Kimblee being dead before the absence of an Elric brother becomes an issue?

...Ed literally made another suit of armor and is making a Briggs soldier puppet it around. Wow. And the voice? Kimblee, come on. I was just starting to think that you were a valid threat again. Stop disappointing me.

As “Al” struggles with stairs, Sideburns is trying to set up his assassination. Seems Kimblee’s suspicious of the Briggs soldiers (gee, I wonder why) and is planning to search the mines with just his two flunkies. As Sideburns prepares the snipers, Ed runs ahead.

Kimblee orders his guys into the mine to look for tracks as a sniper lines up his shot… until he sees Ed approaching. Ed tries claiming that Kimblee would get lost searching the tunnels- nope, Kimblee’s already clued in on the assassination plan. With an attitude and past like his, he can practically smell the murderous intent. Sideburns tells the sniper to line up the shot and nope Kimblee pops a steamcloud.

Ooooh shoot he’s going into the building with Sideburns and the snipers, isn’t he? Quick Ed, I’m totally ok with the mass murderer getting sniped but if you can still take him alive then never mind, that was a claw strike and a nonhuman fist, flunkies confirmed as Chimeras.

Hey, it’s the Lion and Gorilla from the end credits! New potential recruits for Al’s army, please don’t kill them Ed. Also, I am having major OPM flashbacks now.

Mid-ep pictures of Kimblee (wait, didn’t he already get one of these?) chewing on a Stone, and Edward getting ready to pummel some Chimeras.

While Ed is otherwise occupied, Kimblee strolls down into the mineshaft and wait what? How are there tracks? The Mine Crew left right before that huge snowstorm that Al could barely read street signs in, how on Leto’s depressing planet were these tracks now obliterated by that storm?

Fighting Music starts up as Ed faces down Lion and Gorilla, he can’t see them but at least they can’t see him but animal hybrids, remember? They’ve got superhuman senses and if sight fails then they can probably hear and smell him with ease. Yup called it. An armknife to the Lion gets Ed free to dodge Gorilla’s attacks, the Briggs troops reach the street but can’t see through the steam to help Ed. Not like they could do much against the Chimeras.

Whoops, Ed dodged a bit too much and walked straight into the mineshaft. Ouch. Now he’s going to stunt his growth even more!

[Ed]: “Dynamite, huh? There’s one perk to fighting in a mine.”

Aw, Ed baby. You’re about to try something that even Yoki knew wouldn’t work, aren’t you?

The Chimeras jump down to continue fighting Ed, who brandishes the sticks in their direction. But they just laugh at him? Aw, they know about dynamite being worthless when damp. So much for that attempt-

Nitroglycerin. Nitroglycol. Ammonium Nitrate. Nitric Acid and Ammonium. YES

By the power of Chemistry, Ed with his silly little nose-plugs and shit-eating grin has turned your superhuman sense of smell into a tactical disadvantage!

Kimblee looks up to see a stinky explosion and his two flunkies down for the count, now without a hostage in play it’s just the Fullmetal Alchemist and the Crimson Alchemist. Ed demands that Kimblee spill the beans, but Kimblee isn’t inclined to cooperate. Saying he’ll speed things up, he pulls out a Philosopher’s Stone.

Alright, here we go! Ed vs Kimblee, the Stone Seeker against the Butcher of Ishval, our hero facing against the very power he once sought, and a true Philosopher’s Stone at that unlike Cornello’s pale fragment. This is gonna be

are you fucking kidding me.

Kimblee. Kimblee, you stupid incompetent trash-talking eternal disappointment. I thought your “fight” with Scar on the train was as low as you could go, I thought that with you easing back into my good graces you would earn recognition as an acceptable villain. But nooooo, you have to boast that you’ll end this quickly and then stand there like a dolt as Ed nyooms around you and kicks your Stone into the mineshaft. And then he slices your palm so your TC tattoo is useless.

You. Utter. Failure.

Don’t bother trying to continue dude, I know that you’re just gonna pull out your second Stone to try and keep fighting but come on. That was just embarrassing. Just stop, please.

Alright so now he’s got those glowing red eyes like Bradley had when he was blabbing at The Great Armstrong, boasting about how Ed’s mercy just gives him another chance to kill. He spits out his second Stone and wow ok that was a big explosion. The tower over the mining shaft collapses in a huge cloud of smoke, the Briggs troops are knocked back and the Chimeras fall through the shattering floor (noooo, come back, Al hasn’t had a chance to recruit you yet!).

We’ve got the Somber Music playing as the last pebbles fall in the ruined mine shaft, Ed is down at the bottom a little worse for wear. Hey, it’s Lion and Gorilla! Quick Ed, rescue them from the pipes that have them pinned so we can… uh… that’s a lot of blood. You feeling ok, buddy?

OW. Uh, so when Ed fell down into the mine shaft he landed on a beam. And the beam went through him.

The camera’s shaking and going in and out of focus as Ed tries to pull himself off the beam, but the shock’s setting in and he collapses twitching on the ground eye rolling up and getting obscured by his hair Leto this is not good

Al just collapsed?! Aw hell no he’s getting another pull from his body? Bad timing, Al’s body! The girls are panicking and the Chimera’s are wondering what’s wrong with General Armor Guy, Winry’s doesn’t know what to do and Al’s motionless in the snow not even with his usual glowing eyes stop it

Ed? Ed’s not moving and there’s too much blood finger twitch! He’s still breathing but he really needs to figure out Roy’s flame technique to seal his wound soon.

[Ed]: “I won’t make her cry…Especially not over something this stupid!”

Ok so through the Power of Love Ed is overcoming the shock to Transmute part of the beam away, then Earthbend the rubble off of the Chimeras. They’re not too happy with their boss destroying the building they were in, so heck might as well join up with the kid who dug them out.

So Ed’s helped up by the guys he was enemies with five minutes ago, Lion notes that if he pulls the beam out then Ed’ll bleed out. But Ed has a plan, bioalchemy! He totally read about it before, he’ll be fine. But with all the damage he’ll need the power of a Philosopher’s Stone

well isn’t it convenient that he knocked one down the mine shaft just a little bit ago, huh?!

Wait what, he’s going to “use his own life force”? Take a few years off his lifespan what. Ok, so I’m supposed to just go with the idea that the kid who has no real bioalchemy experience beyond the failed Human Transmutation is going to manage to concentrate as a beam is pulled out of his guts and harness the power of his own soul in a way that’s never been done before. Just spend a minute or two looking for the shiny red gem that’s down there with you! Fine whatever, Protagonist Powers away.

Look I’m sorry I know that this is a moving scene and all with Ed accepting the cost of his mercy and screaming as the bloody beam is yanked from his intestines and visualizing himself as a Single Soul Philosopher’s Stone but come on we clearly saw the Stone fall down and you’re just going to ignore it. Fine whatever I’ll try to move past it. So Ed grits his teeth and managed to ok thank you for not making it perfect, he’s patched up his organs and stopped the bleeding but it’s only a temporary fix, he’ll need some professional help. Not that he plans on getting any, he’s up and raring to keep fighting Kimblee nope he’s out for the count.

Lion and Gorilla look over their rescuer, knowing that he can’t fight their former boss as beat up as he

there it is!

Apologies for the rant about the Stone earlier, Lion just found it and decided to not give it back to Kimblee. They’ll just head out and let the madman think they died in the explosion. As for Ed? They’re off to find the kid a doctor. (Oh please let this go where I think it’s going… *knock knock* [Lion]: “Hey, so we hear you’re a good doctor, and we’ve got this kid who’s a bit beat up…” [Doc]: “Oh come on!” pleasepleaseplease)

[dialux]

dawn is coming, open your eyes

Inspired by this picset, from ages and ages ago.

But where, exactly, this story comes from is very strange. It’s... a very long and very winding story into a Percy Weasley after the war, figuring out his demons and fighting past them and learning to be happy in his own skin, which... might or might not hold some personal demons.

Warnings for familial issues! Death also features prominently because it’s immediately post-war! And politics, as per the usual, because this is My BrandTM. Hope y’all enjoy!

...

there is a kind of love so filled with rage that i can’t even look at your face even as it exists in my mind.

...

“Hello Percy,” says Luna.

Your eyes are red. Your cheeks are raw from scrubbing hard enough to scrape away the top layer of skin. Your hands shake, when you think too much; they don’t shake at all when you forget, and somehow that’s worse.

Fred is gone.

It’s not your first thought in the morning when you get up, and that feels like a terrible kind of sacrilege.

“Hello Luna,” you say, and sit down besides her.

...

It isn’t-

It isn’t like that.

But you’re mourning, and you’re learning that you aren’t a quiet mourner. Things tend to explode if you stay still long enough to remember that Fred is- not here. As if he’s passed his love for explosions onto you with his last breath.

Nobody seems to understand, though. Everyone walks around you on eggshells, until you take your wand and a cloak and walk out of the Burrow one morning, skin itching something fierce. You walk and walk, feet blistering in your boots, hands sweating on your wand, eyes streaming with something other than tears.

“Hello Percy,” Luna says, slipping beside you as if nothing were amiss. “How are you today?”

You’d always ignored Luna, more than anything else. It felt kinder than to shout at her for her strangeness.

“Fine,” you grunt. “I’m just- fine.”

“Good,” Luna says, and lifts her wand, reaching out to you. “Because I have a job for you.”

You twist through a tiny, airless tube for endless moments, and finally land on a cold, dreary island before you can say anything more. It takes you a beat to realize, and then you do: it’s Azkaban. Horror clutches at your heart.

“You sent people here,” Luna says, softly, when it’s clear you’re unable to speak. “You-”

“I know what I did.”

“Then you’ll fight back.” She looks harder, brighter, than any Luna that you’ve ever known. You remember, suddenly- she’s lost a father where you’ve lost your brother, but Luna has no other family to hold her, or grieve beside her. “There are cells the Death Eaters sealed, here. Someone has to unseal them.”

“Sealed-” You break off. It’s been weeks since the end of the war; if they sealed them off to only outside influence the people inside might have had a week, at most, what with the lack of water and food. If the Death Eaters also sealed off the air, as most wards tend to do...

“The people inside must be-”

Luna nods. “Dead.”

Then why? You want to ask, before she smiles, sad and small.

“They deserve burials,” she tells you. “Burials in better places than this.” Luna swallows, and there’s a brief glimpse of a girl with sunlight hair in that motion; a girl whom you hadn’t ever loved, a girl you miss, suddenly, with a fierceness that surprises even you. “Flowers and tombstones and grass. Warmth. Wands.”

Oh. Oh, if their wands were taken- they must be-

“Muggleborns,” you whisper.

“Dead,” she repeats. “And you helped send them there.”

Ginny would have flung accusations at you, eyes shining like a hundred swords. Ron would have glared until you gave in, and then acted sanctimonious for all of a few minutes before forgiving you. Fred- he’d have probably painted your face with some week-old blood, trying to make his point and horrify you as always.

Luna doesn’t say anything more, but the undercurrent is clear to you: you can go back home, you can wallow in self-loathing and misery and continue to blow things up whenever someone startles you. Or you can try to fix what you’ve done. You can be of use, and it looks like no one else wants to do this job so it’s not like you’ll have to talk to many people.

You’re a Gryffindor at heart anyway.

“Let’s go,” you say, through gritted teeth.

...

That’s how it starts.

Luna asks, and you accept, and it hurts like you’ve got a splinter the size of a fist digging into your chest; but it feels good, too, in it’s own way.

There are a hundred people in Azkaban whose cells were warded properly when the Death Eaters fled. It was a mix of panic- the Battle of Hogwarts happened so quickly- and idiocy and bureaucratic mix-ups, but of the almost six hundred muggleborns that were locked up in Azkaban over the course of the year, more than five hundred escaped. Those who didn’t were the old, the weak, the quiet; from what you’ve been able to deduce, some people even sacrificed themselves to keep holes in the wards open long enough for others to flee.

It’s not like you’re the best warder Luna could have gotten. Hell, Bill’s better than you by a long shot; this is his actual job- but your mother’s always depended most on Bill and she actually needs him, now, what with- Fred. Charlie’d flunked Ancient Runes in his third year and taken up Divination instead; George might be better than you, now, but he’s too... something.

Broken, you think, and the thought burns inside of you, enough that you hiss out, flick your wand at an innocent bit of stone and watch it explode. Like a clock.

A hand settles on your forearm. “The nimbopaths tend to be stronger here,” she says. “Maybe we should drink some tea?”

“Just- thoughts,” you say, quietly. Nevermind that neither of you have brought tea with you; what’s important is that her hand feels very warm, and there’s something scarily like guilt rising up your throat. “I’ll finish this ward myself, don’t worry. There’s another one in the left hallway, if you want to map it out.”

Luna leaves. You knead your forehead and get back to work, carving runes with both wand and knife, carefully cracking the barrier until you can get to the gaunt corpse behind it.

You don’t scream when you see the bodies.

(You haven’t screamed since you saw Fred die.)

...

Nobody asks where you go, which surprises you more than you’d think. But they just accept that you disappear- even George, who’s been spending the most time with you. It’s regular, at least, insofar as that you leave at dawn and return only past midnight. The only people who see you are Harry and Ron and Hermione, and the three of them are strange enough that they don’t seem to find anything out of the ordinary in your wrinkled clothes or shabby appearance.

Finally, a week- or two, or three- later, Charlie sits you down.

“You need to rest,” he says, quietly. “You’re running yourself into the ground. Kingsley wouldn’t want that.”

I don’t give a damn about Kingsley, is on the tip of your tongue. I’ll run myself into the ground if I want to, is marching right behind it. I deserve this, is what echoes behind it all.

“There’s things I have to do,” you say instead.

Luna’s found a spell that keeps the bodies from decomposing. There’s a long line of them, now, arranged in one of the better-aired corridors of Azkaban; corpses in stasis that you both need to find graves for, names for, wands for. One of them had hair the color of a sunrise, streaked with a dye that sits next to your shaving cream in the store in Diagon Alley. You’d almost broken down three days ago, when you saw that purple box.

When you left that store, there was a box with Wott’s Ever-Changing Dye, Spec. Ed: SUNRISE! emblazoned on it, hidden with your daily supplies.

Maybe in a few months you’ll stop dreaming about your sins.

“I never even see you,” Charlie says. “You’re gone before I wake up, you come back after I fall asleep, you’re looking like a ghost. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with you, Perce, but you’d best stop before you break down. Mum can’t handle you going off your rocker, alright?”

You jerk away. “I’m sorry,” you say, precisely, each word crisp as the apples that grow in fresh spring, new and green and tart enough to draw tears to the eye, “that I am inconveniencing you.”

“Shit,” you hear him mutter, before Charlie launches himself forwards; but it’s too late.

You cross the kitchen’s threshold, and there- sitting, like a fucking mosaic of pieces that, through your tears, looks almost like Fred- is George. George and your mother and your father and the rest of your family, but Fred isn’t there, he isn’t there, he’ll never be there to tease you or frighten you or love you, not anymore.

“I’m fine,” you say, and it’s not a lie, though you can see that nobody believes you. “I’m fine,” you repeat, and Charlie’s behind you and he puts his hand on your shoulder and it’s not fine, but you’re fine, you’re fine and it’s the world that’s not fine at all.

Fred’s gone, and you’ve got a list of sins that you’ll spend the rest of your life scrubbing.

I’m not even twenty-five, you think, and I’ll never do anything great.

“I am,” you say, and this time it is defiant, as foolishly defiant as ever Fred had been, “fine.”

A shrug of your shoulders, and before Charlie can catch you, before anyone can believe that you’re going to do this again, the son who had loved rules more than he’d ever loved family- you’re gone.

...

The cliffside is cold, and you don’t have a cloak or the will to perform a warming charm.

You don’t cry, but when it rains, you don’t wipe your face either.

Your eyes are red.

...

“You haven’t told them?” Luna asks you the next day, when you show up in sodden clothes and hair as tangled as Potter’s on a bad day.

“Three more cells,” you reply. “We’re almost done.”

You reach for the doorknob, but it clicks shut with a finality that makes you whirl back to Luna. She looks back at you with a look in her eyes that makes you want to wince, her wand held high and stiff between you two. It feels like someone’s made you swallow ice.

“And after that we need to find names, and ground to bury them, and wands.” Her lips, already thin, depress further. “This will not end, Percy. Every day there will be something more, and you have to-”

“You don’t get to tell me what I have to do,” you whisper.

It’s nothing but the truth. Luna brought you here, but it’s your decision to actually do something instead of mourn. Your guilt is your own; no one, not Charlie, not George, not Luna- not a single person in the world gets to tell you that this guilt is lessened by coming here. They don’t get to do this to you. And if you want to spend the rest of your life righting the wrongs of a war that you were on the wrong side of, then there is nothing that will stop you.

“You need to tell them what’s happening,” Luna says, reaching out to place a hand on your shoulder. “They’re going to worry. Percy- Fred wouldn’t want you to do this.”

You step away, and slash your wand down, once, twice, thrice. The door falls into pieces, stripped wood, and you step out into the corridor. The wind catches at your cloak and hair, still soaked through. You don’t shiver.

“I signed forty-three documents,” you say softly, watching her, waiting for the inevitable horror, revulsion, hatred. “Did you know that? I signed away forty-three people’s lives. Fred’s the least of my sins.” A breath, and wood crunches under your feet as if they were bones, dried and dead. “You can tell my parents that, if you want to.” The ice in your throat spreads to your arms, to your fingers, to your heart. “But I’m going to break Azkaban’s wards today, and tomorrow I’ll find a burial ground for the dead, and the day after that I’ll find out how to make wands, and you can help me bury these people if you want to but I’m not going to stop, do you hear me?”

...

You’ve always been good with charms. Penelope’s always been good with potions.

The summer of ‘96, you have a long, explosive fight with her. You hadn’t been living together, not exactly; you’re both too independent for that. But you have an extra towel and toothbrush in your bathroom and the particular brand of rough-grain bread that Penelope likes in your kitchen, and it’s the closest you’ve come to sharing your life with anyone else.

She’s afraid.

You’re not just a Gryffindor, she says, blue eyes shining, face earnest, please, come with me- there’s other places you can succeed. It doesn’t have to be here, you-

I’m not going anywhere, you say, and you’re terrified, of course you are, you’re angry and grieving and alone and-

And you have done a lot wrong, in your life, but you haven’t run. At least in some small, aching way, you belong to Gryffindor for reasons other than your blood.

Penelope doesn’t say goodbye.

You find a thin vial resting on your bed that night- black and glittering, like the night sky ground into a liquid. You recognize it, of course. By all rights, you should turn it into the Ministry. By all rights, you should put her name on a list of criminals, for brewing one of the most dangerous potions in the world.

You pocket the vial instead.

...

(Your best subject had been charms.

But you’re even better at paperwork. It’s why Crouch takes you on- they mock you, your brothers, your family, but he took you on and he kept you on because you were good at what you did.

Forty-three people suffer for that.)

...

Azkaban surrenders the last of its sealed cells quietly, and you levitate the last body to the corridor where the rest have been lying for the past fortnight. Luna is there- her hair looks like moonlight-purified water, colorless and pure in the dull darkness.

She has a new wand, one that Ollivander made for her after the Malfoys took hers. It’s too temperamental for your taste; it reacts more to Luna’s emotions than to her words, and the results can be unpredictable. The day after you both uncovered one of the younger victims, it had only released saltwater for the full day, no matter what else Luna tried.

But it also matches Luna’s personality. Like right now: there’s a glittering charm bracelet that she’s woven out of light and some old metal scraps lying on the floor, and it shines around almost twenty people’s wrists and throats, pale blue or sparking purple or glowing yellow, like a strange string of faery lights.

"The stasis spell goes from darkness to darkness,” she says, folding one boy’s fingers open slowly, massaging the cold flesh.

You bite back the first words you think of, the acid bite of your previous meeting still concentrated. “What does that mean?”

“You have another three weeks,” replies Luna, softly. “Then the graves will rise up and swallow them once more.”

The stasis spell will fall, you realize. That’s what she’s trying to say. The spell will last from new moon to new moon, and it will fall soon and the bodies will rot, and that means-

“Graves,” you say. “Wands. We’ll need-”

“No,” says Luna. “Not us.”

You.

It had slipped your mind, but- yes, now you remember, Luna and Ron and Ginny and Ron’s friends- they’re all heading back to Hogwarts. Another week and they’re going to leave, and you’re going to have to do this alone.

Alone.

You know how that feels. You have it scored straight into your bones.

“I’ll handle it,” you say.

...

The Ministry is silent when you enter it.

It’s too early in the morning; fog still lines London’s streets, and the streetlights are still lighting up the city. The tips of your robes are damp. Your footsteps echo on the marble stone.

(The last time you were here, you killed sixteen men.

Yaxley had asked for tea, and you’d felt some shift in the air- you’d nodded docilely, you’d made the tea with careful, even hands, and then, when they were ignoring you, while they were casually discussing some crime on humanity, you’d poured Penny’s black, shining poison straight into the dark liquid.

You’d waited patiently, calmly, as they dropped.

Thirteen men like that- and then you left, quietly, and sealed the door shut. Three more men had chased you, up and down the hallways, and you’d killed two with quick wandwork but the last- the last you’d captured and carved, slowly, with your careful, even wandwork, and you hadn’t stopped until he sputtered out the truth of Hogwarts’ siege.

Nobody knows, of course. You couldn’t stand it if they did. But when you apparated to Hogwarts, it was with the blood of sixteen men on your hands.)

Kingsley’s in his office. It’s not the room where you tortured a man, not even on the same floor, but your hands tremble all the same.

“Minister,” you say, as you enter.

Kingsley looks- drawn. His bones are sharp under his skin, but he burns brighter than you remember from before, as if the pared flesh has revealed some of the fierceness beneath. When he waves you to a seat, it’s a sort of kindness.

“Percy,” he says. “I wondered when I’d see you in here.”

“Ah. I’m...” you think, for a dizzy moment, that you’ll just accept, that you’ll take the opening Kingsley offered and slide back into your old position as if nothing has changed. The nausea that rises with the dizziness clears your head, firms your voice. “I’m afraid I’m not here for the reason you think.”

“Oh?”

You swallow. “Do you know about Azkaban?”

“I read a report on it a few days ago, yes,” says Kingsley, spreading his hand on one of the stacks of papers currently crowding his desk.

I could file that, you think, abruptly seized by a desire for it. I could sort out this mess. I’d be good at it. I could-

You could. You’d reshape the nation. And you’d be scrupulously fair, viciously, steadily, fair. You’d know it, because you’d have all of it in the palm of your hand, you’d be the one doing it.

But there are other ways of doing good.

You know that now.

“Someone from Hogwarts is working on clearing it,” says Kingsley. “It’s going well, according to- ah, yes, I think it was Xeno’s daughter- a good girl, with her head in the air, perhaps, but- she’s smart, and got through a stint in Azkaban herself without breaking. Is there a problem with it?”

“No, no problem,” you reply. “But I’ve been working with her on clearing it.”

The world doesn’t stop turning when you say it out loud.

So you continue.

“We’ve recovered forty bodies. Muggleborn bodies. We’ll need place to bury them, before the stasis spell we’ve put on them starts to breakdown.”

Kingsley pauses. “Ah. I’d wondered- I thought you’d be here the day I entered, you know? But then I remembered your brother. When was his funeral?”

“Months ago,” you say, through clenched teeth, desperately trying to keep yourself from twitching. “A month after the Hogwarts- battle.”

“You’ve been excavating Azkaban all along, Percy?”

The kindness drags along your nerves. You don’t want kindness. You want professionalism, and crisp agreements, and not this- this stupid hurting rage.

“Not for very long,” you say, though, because Kingsley’s being kind while still remaining within the bounds of professionalism. “It’s going faster than I’d expected. But the stasis spell works only from new moon to new moon.”

“Did you have any particular rituals in mind?”

“I had some ideas.” You swallow. “There’s- I think, sunlight. That’s something they deserve.”

“Not something we have a lot of here,” says Kingsley mildly.

“There’s charms for that,” you reply. “And I thought- think- there’s an island. Off of Azkaban. It comes near enough to the anti-muggle wards that we won’t need to do anything complex. It’s abandoned, and...”

Perfect, you think, but don’t say. Nothing’s perfect, is what you’ve learned. It’s all just piece-meal attempts at cobbling together a vision that might, if one squints, look vaguely acceptable. But you’ve visited the island and it’s small and rough and scarred and still: perfect.

“I’ll see what I can do,” says Kingsley.

You force yourself to nod back to him.

“Percy,” he says, when you’ve gathered your coat and almost managed to leave, “your office remains empty. I look forward to seeing it filled soon.”

You freeze. You force air into your lungs. You say, without turning, “I’ll offer you a list of meritorious candidates when I get some time, Minister.”

“I need help,” says Kingsley, and his hand closes on your shoulder. You shudder. “You’re one of the few people from the old Ministry who hasn’t been arrested, you know, and we need the experience.” He pauses. “And you look like you could use the work.”

“I’m fine,” you say automatically. Then, slower, “And I cannot help you, Minister. I would be far greater a burden than an aid.”

“Percy-”

You shy away from the contact. Pull your robes around you. Nod, grimly, politely, and grind out, laboriously: “I thank you for the opportunity, Minister. But I... there are some things that cannot be- undone. Sometimes, people- people cannot be trusted. Not after they’ve- not after what they’ve done.”

“I know where your loyalty lies, son,” says Kingsley, but he doesn’t try to touch your shoulder once more. “We know where you fought when it mattered.”

Your lips twist in a facsimile of a smile. “All of you keep saying that,” you say, in a voice too low for addressing the Minister, but you don’t care. You don’t care. You are not off the rails completely, but you can taste that wildness and it is heady as much as it is frightening. “As if this war’s lasted for all of one battle. There has been a war in our country for three years, Minister Shacklebolt, and there has been a battle waged in every wizarding home within our borders. I know where I stood for too long- and I know that there are things that cannot be forgiven, no matter what else is done after the fact.”

Kingsley looks- old. His face is set in taut, narrow lines, and his eyes shine in the morning light, almost-gold. “I know this war, Percy.”

“It doesn’t feel like it,” you say recklessly, before drawing yourself up. Breathing in. This, at least, you can offer. Advice, if not the work of your hands. “Children died, Minister. Muggleborns. Halfbloods. Purebloods. We all bled for a madman, and the answer that our government has for us is to sit tight. Is it any wonder people sit in their homes and ask when the next Dark Lord will rise?”

“Voldemort is gone.”

“Albus Dumbledore kept secrets,” you say. “And now, so does Harry Potter. History is set to repeat itself, Minister- and it is set to become as we once were, led by Lords and Ladies. Where do we, the common man, lie then? The chattel between lords at best. The victims, at worst. What we lost when we elected to turn our heads and bite our tongues and let a one year old boy become our savior...”

You trail off. Your hands are shaking, now, and your head is aching. There’s a small crowd surrounding the Minister, just a little ways off, but you can see the flash of a pink string quickly moving out of sight. Extendable Ears.

So now your political stance is solidified.

Nausea builds in your gut. You look at Kingsley, and regret swims before you. That he was caught even listening to your near-treasonous words might spell the end to his brief tenure as Minister. It’s quite a shame- you rather like him, even if he’s too willing to return to the status quo.

“I’m sorry,” you breathe, and turn, and flee as quick as you can without actually running.

...

After, you get drunk. Roaringly drunk. As you’ve never done before in your life.

Impotent anger and bitter hatred and caustic self-loathing. It all melts underneath the touch of the- whatever- that the bartender gives you. At least you’d had the knowledge to go into muggle London, where there’s nobody who’ll report you to your mother; otherwise you’d be waking tomorrow to a howler from your mother and a quick, apologetic Hangover Relief from your father.

Only that’s how it might have been, once, for Charlie and Bill.

Now. You doubt your mother would even notice your absence. Even if she did, why would she care about one son drinking away his night when another’s buried six feet under the earth? So. No howler from your mother. No potion from your father either, though, and that’s a shame. Thank Merlin you probably have one stored away in your potions cupboard, just in case.

“One more,” you say to the bartender.

He shakes his head. Anger flashes through you, so hot it hurts. It reminds you of when you were a kid- your accidental magic had only ever come out when you wanted the twins to be silent. Once, you’d managed to silence the entire Burrow for a glorious three hours.

Fred and George had gotten you back for that, with interest; but you hadn’t cared.

“C’mon,” you say, levering yourself up those last few feet. “C’mon, you know I’m good for it, I need-”

The bartender shakes his head one last time, final, and the fragile bridge holding you to- sanity, or normalcy, or maybe just that land of reason that you’ve clutched onto your whole life- shatters. You lunge forwards and drag the bartender closer to you, and something is glowing at your feet so when you look down you realize that it’s not something but it’s you, and that glowing thing is coming from your fingers which are dripping fire.

Then there’s hands around your shoulders, dragging you away from the bartender. Hands that remain firm and tight all the way until you push through the door, and you’re stumbling, you’re choking on all the air you need but aren’t getting.

“Fuckin’ hell,” you hear from what must be the man who’s holding you, “can’t say I’ve ever seen-”

His voice wavers in and out, like a bad connection on the Floo. You vaguely register that it’s familiar; you don’t pay much attention to anything other than the blessedly cold air in your lungs and the rough stone beneath your shins. You feel sick.

“Weasley,” you hear, and it makes your chest want to shrivel up. “Weasley, hey, the fuck’s your name- it was- Percy, yeah, Percy, you hearing me? Up, Merlin, get up, would you? Obliviators’re on the way. Best if we aren’t caught here- Percy, hey- Percy!”

The world goes dark, and you don’t even regret it.

...

You do regret it when you come to the next morning.

Sunlight’s spearing through the butter-yellow curtains straight into your eyes. You make a mush-mouthed sound and flap your hand at it ineffectually. But trying to turn over hurts your head even more; you just flop backwards in the end, and close your eyes.

“Weasley?” you hear from a distant corner.

“Hnngh,” you say.

“Weasley,” sighs the man, entering your line of sight. It’s a man you vaguely remember- you’ve seen him around, though you think he was a Ravenclaw back in Hogwarts. A prefect, you’re fairly certain, below you. His hair’s damp and he’s wearing a loose tracksuit and he looks... unfairly put together for the misery you’re currently feeling. “D’you remember what happened last night?”

“Mmph.” Painfully, you swallow. Then, still aching, you lever yourself upright. Like hell’re you going to speak to a Hogwarts prefect lying down like an invalid. “Kind of. Fire?”

“You were dripping it,” agrees Prefect. “It was a miracle you didn’t burn the pub down.”

You wince. “I. It. I thought.” Then you pause, take in the entirety of your situation- you’ve just crashed on a stranger’s couch because you were too drunk the previous night after spending a full day getting wasted in a muggle pub and trying to burn it down, all because you chewed out the Minister for something that isn’t even his fault. There’s really only one thing you can say. “I was stupid.”

Monumentally stupid.

Unfathomably stupid.

“Mm,” agrees Prefect. He walks away, then comes back with two things: a copy of the paper, and a fizzing blue mug. “Drink that first. And- you are Percy, right? Percy Weasley?”

“Yes,” you agree slowly.

“You’ll want to read that paper, then.” Prefect’s eyes are sharp on your face. “You don’t remember me?”

“Prefect, right? Ravenclaw?” You shrug. “Don’t remember your name.”

“Roger Davies.” Davies nods to the paper. “Read it. And- Weasley?”

“Yeah?”

“Not all of us liked your brothers,” he says evenly. “Not all of us made the right decisions. A lot of us were- not brave. But we survived.” He pauses, and there’s something in his eyes that makes you want to swallow- something bright, and fragile, and perhaps brighter for its fragility. “A leader should know that.”

“‘m no leader,” you say, sighing as you sip the hangover relief. It blazes down the back of your throat. A good hurt, though, so you barely even grimace.

Then you look up, and Davies is frowning at you.

“Shame, that,” is all he says. “Think you’d do a good job at it. Always did.”

“Thanks for the relief,” you tell him, before you rise to your feet.

You shake his hand as firmly as you can manage. Stumble to the fireplace, mumble your address and manage three steps into your home before you collapse from the dizziness. When you open your eyes again, the paper’s crumpled tight in your fists. You let go. Smooth it out.

Your breath is snatched right out of your lungs.

“Fuck,” you whisper. You don’t like to swear, but there isn’t any other way to treat this. “Fucking fuck. Oh my fucking god!”

Hungover or not, you have to go home. You have to make sure your parents know-

Know what?

That you’re not a traitor? That you’re not the radical revolutionary the paper paints you as? That with a two minute speech to the Minister, you’re suddenly not the poster child for change from the top to the dregs of society?

Percy Weasley: Radical or Traditional?

You steel yourself. Get in the shower. Shave. Pick out some crisply folded robes. Comb your hair back. By the end of it, you’ve made your decision. Then you stand in front of your fireplace for a good five minutes, dithering, before you call out, “Roger Davies’ home!”

You don’t walk back into his home, just call and allow him the ability to pick up or decline. He does, after a pause so long your knees start to ache.

“Yeah?” he asks, wandering into view. “Forget something, Weasley?”

“My manners,” you say wryly.

“You said thanks already.”

“I know.” You swallow. You can still back out. But if you say the words, if you give them a voice... you can’t take them back. You can never take them back. “But I told you that I’m no leader. I’m not, you know, not a general. Not a Lord. I’m the normal one.”

“Yeah, I got that,” says Davies.

You tilt your head at him. “I don’t know if I’m the best for this. But... I think I can help you.”

...

You don’t return to the Ministry. But nobody stops you when you start clearing shrubbery to make a proper burial service, so you don’t stop either. You’ve told the Minister your plans, anyhow, and if someone has the temerity enough to attempt to stop you you’ve got his name ready to drop with a flatly insincere smile.

Luna comes to your flat two days later, Ollivander twitchy but at her side. She doesn’t mention the Prophet article, which you’re grateful enough for that you forgive her interference with your family.

(It’s not like you don’t understand, you soothe yourself. Everybody wants a happy ending, all the hurts smoothed away. And for Luna, who’s an only child, who has been such a source of strength to her father- it must seem even stranger, even crueler, for you not to desire with all your body and mind to return to them. Have the Weasleys not suffered enough? Why are you so fucking incapable of kindness?

But war has pared something away in you- worn down those pieces that wanted things with hard desperation, cut away those parts that made you want love or approval or appreciation.

What is left of you now?)

Ollivander hems and haws and looks increasingly insulted at your desire to bury wands with the Azkaban muggleborns; it’s very rare to lose wands like that, and usually done only for people who have nobody else in the world. No family, no friends. Nobody who’ll take or remember these people.

You don’t care.

These people had wands, but they were yanked out of their fists. There’s no way to track that down, now, and the injustice of it bubbles in your chest every time you feel exhaustion dog at your heels.

“The- the waste- it’s unconscionable- how can I-”

“Waste?” you ask mildly.

Luna leans back, starlight-hair glittering. She doesn’t look away from you, eyes level and warm. You straighten your spine and dig out the boy who’d bargained with pureblood supremacists, words cajoling; gaze unflinching.

“Their old wands will sit in some old pureblood vault for decades,” you tell Ollivander. “We cannot retrieve them; those records have been destroyed, or perhaps never maintained in the first place. If ever they see light of day, they will be in the hands of the very people who took them away.” You lean forwards, and take no joy in the subtle flinch of Ollivander’s shoulders. “We are burying wizards and witches, Mr. Ollivander, and they shall be marked as such. They will be given that dignity.”

His pale, silver eyes say everything he’s too polite to say.

Traitor, radical, fool.

Too angry to be any use. Too stupid to be quiet. Too cruel to be part of the Light.

Well, that’s fine. What use have labels been to you anyways?

Why do you care so much? sneers Ollivander, silent, wordless.

And you do not answer: Because I could have blown up the Ministry if I was pushed, and I don’t know why I didn’t push myself. Because I let the war pass me by and my family is made up of people who cannot forget that, even if they will forgive me. Because I am here, and I can, and so I will.

“I cannot make wands for people I do not know,” says Ollivander finally.

“I have their profiles arranged,” you reply, hand resting heavily on a stack of parchment. “Take your best guess.”

“I have not made wands in- months. The process- I cannot- the speed will be too low to-”

“Then I will help you,” you say lowly, and watch the flash of irritable defiance in Ollivander’s face flare and fade out. “Forty wands. We’ll get this done before the month is out.”

It’s going to be a challenge, of course, but you have never shrunk from honest, hard work before, and you won’t start now. Youngest aide to an official in the history of Britain; sharpest Weasley in a family that you had to claw distinction out of; the face of a burgeoning radicalist movement through the nation. You’ve done it all before, and you’ve done it well, and you’ll do this too, properly.

Beautifully.

[unfortunate-stranger-losers]

Six Baudelaires AU, Part Three {AO3} {Masterlist} {Part One} {Part Two}

Chapter Eighteen → in which Solitude catches a cold

After a while, Solitude found a box of crackers and peanut butter, and called for her siblings and Fiona to come eat with her. They sat around, and Lilac said, “I’m beginning to think this is a fool’s errand.” 

“We’re finding nothing but junk.” Solitude huffed. 

“Maybe not.” Klaus said. He held up the poetry book he’d found earlier. “Most of this is too damp to read, but the title page says Versed Furtive Disclosure. Meaning that these poems might have secrets or codes.” 

Fiona paused, before digging through her pile of items. “I found an envelope earlier. I didn’t open it because I was looking for the Sugar Bowl, but maybe it would be useful.” 

“I found a newspaper scrap.” Lilac said. “I, uh, read a bit. Maybe we could discuss what we’ve read while we eat.” 

Klaus was already flipping through the book. “Most of these pages are soaked- here’s something! Verse Fluctuation Declaration.” 

“Whazzit?” Solitude asked. 

“You substitute words in poems.” Klaus said. “There’s an example in here- if you use the poem ‘The Last Duchess’ by Robert Browning, but spell it, ‘My Last Wife’ by ‘Obert Browning’, that would communicate ‘Duchess R.’” 

“It’s a substitution.” Lilac said. “Like Aunt Josephine used.” 

“There are lots of different codes in VFD.” Fiona sighed. “I don’t know them all.” 

“Codes are nothing more than a way of talking so some people understand and some don’t.” Klaus said. “We used VFD phrases to talk to Quigley in the cave.” 

Fiona slid forwards, smiling as she skimmed the letter. “Maybe we should make a code of our own.” 

“We could use food as codewords.” Lilac said, glancing down at the bottles Solitude had collected. “We’ll draw up a list of foods, and bring them up in conversation so our enemies don’t know anything.” 

“Like… ‘poached egg’ means ‘half the battle.’” Klaus said. “Remember when Nick used that metaphor and we punched him for it?” 

“Violet punched him for it. We just watched.” 

Fiona narrowed her eyes. “I, um, hate to interrupt, but… this letter certainly is interesting.” 

“What’s inside?” Lilac asked, scooting over to look over Fiona’s shoulder. 

“It’s addressed to Gregor Anwhistle, the guy who ran this place and then died.” Fiona said. “By a woman named Kit. According to her letter, Gregor was involved in something called a schism. What’s that?” 

“It was a big conflict within VFD.” Klaus replied. “Quigley knew a little about it, but not much. Everybody chose sides.” 

“What side was Gregor on?” Solitude asked, shaking the wasabi jar. 

“I don’t know.” Fiona said. “Some of this letter is in code, and some of it in water. It sounds like Gregor was involved in something called Volatile Fungus Deportation.” 

“Who was moving unstable mushrooms?” Klaus asked. 

“VFD.” Fiona said. “During the schism, Gregor thought the Medusoid Mycelium might be useful. Kit said, ‘The poisonous fungus you insist on cultivating in the grotto will bring grim consequences for all of us. Our factory at Lousy Lane can provide some dilution of the mycelium’s destructive respiratory capabilities, and you assure me that the mycelium grows best in small, enclosed spaces, but this is of little comfort. One mistake, Gregor, and your entire facility would have to be abandoned. Please, do not become the thing you dread most by adopting the destructive tactic of our most villainous enemies: playing with fire.” 

Klaus took out his commonplace book, writing fast as Fiona read. “So Gregor was planning to use the mushrooms on the enemies of VFD.” 

“He was going to poison people?” Lilac asked. 

“Villainous people,” Fiona replied. “But Kit thought that using the poisonous mushrooms was equally villainous. They were working on a way to weaken the poison on Lousy Lane, but she still thought the Volatile Fungus Deportation was too dangerous.” 

“And now the center is gone and the mycelium remains.” Lilac said. 

“Was Gregor a villain?” Solitude asked, cocking her head. 

“I think he was volatile.” Fiona answered, putting an arm around the child. “Like the Medusoid Mycelium. And the writer of this letter says that if you cultivate something volatile, then you’re playing with fire.” 

Lilac bit her lip. “We’ve been volatile recently, I’m afraid.” 

Fiona put a hand over hers. “Everyone is, I think.” 

Solitude looked over their shoulders, and said, “Waning.” 

The mushrooms were indeed starting to sink back into the sand behind them. 

“Soon it’ll be safe to return.” Klaus said. “We must’ve been here all night.” 

“It must be a short cycle.” Fiona said, looking excited at this new information. 

“We’ll… discuss this newspaper later.” Lilac said, pocketing it. “Next time we’re somewhere boring.” 

“My brother always had a deck of cards with him.” Fiona said. “In case he was in a boring situation. He invented this game called Fernald’s Folly, and we used to play it together when we had a long wait.” 

“Fernald?” Klaus asked. “Was that your brother’s name?” 

Fiona nodded, not noticing Lilac flinch, and then said, “Soli, why don’t you hand the food to one of your siblings, it should fit in their pockets.” 

Soli nodded, passing Klaus the wasabi and Lilac two cannisters, and soon they put on their diving helmets, suiting up for their return journey. Solitude hmmed as Fiona helped her put her helmet back on, saying, “Sand’s inside, I think.” 

“It’ll wash out, don’t worry.” Fiona assured her. “Lilac, if you get tired of holding Soli, you can try to pass her to me.” 

“Or me.” Klaus volunteered. 

“Or I can swim.” Solitude said. 

“The current’ll be too strong for someone of your size.” Lilac said. “But we better hurry, before our siblings get into too much trouble.” 

“Violet. Violet. Violet.” 

Violet sat up, rubbing her eyes. It took her a second to get her bearings; her and Nick had fallen asleep, still hugging; he was groaning at the moment, also blinking sleep from his eyes. 

Sunny was sitting on top of Violet, pushing her to try and get her to move. “What?” Violet sighed. 

“Sola.” “We’re alone.” 

“What?” Violet sat up a bit straighter, helping Nick sit up. 

“Senso-orario,” Sunny said, which meant something like, “I fell asleep in the kitchen, and when I woke up, Phil and Widdershins still hadn’t returned, and now I can’t find them anywhere.” 

“What do you mean? They’re gone?” Violet asked. 

“Where are the others?” Nick bolted upright, terrified. 

“Not back.” 

“They’re not back?”  

Violet leapt to her feet. “We have to check the hatch. See if Phil and Widdershins left, or if the others have returned.” 

The three siblings raced out of the room, with Nick holding very tightly onto Sunny. They ran to the ladder that lead up to the hatch, and jumped when they heard a pounding. 

“They’re knocking.” Violet said. “That is, unless it’s someone else-” 

“Open it!” Nick said. 

“I have to activate the valve!” She ran to the side, looking at a control panel. “Shit, shit, shit… here!” 

As soon as they heard the valve activate, Violet raced up the ladder and threw open the hatch. And after a second, Lilac leapt down, let out a cry, and threw her arms around Violet, hugging her tight. 

“Wow! Fuck! What happened?” Violet said. 

“Get inside!” Nick called. 

Klaus leapt in, carrying Solitude, and followed by Fiona, who shut the hatch behind them. When they finally descended into the hall, Lilac started to take her helmet off, saying, “What took so long? Where’s everyone else?” 

“We don’t know.” Nick admitted; he’d run forwards and thrown his free arm around Klaus and Soli. “We woke up and everyone was gone.” 

“That can’t be right.” Fiona said. 

They headed down the hall, as Fiona and Lilac started to call for Widdershins and Phil. They made their way to the main room, and stopped. 

“Where did the balloons come from?” Nick asked, looking ahead at three balloons, decorated with VFD. 

“VFD balloons?” Klaus looked very confused. 

“That doesn’t matter.” Violet said. “Where are Widdershins and Phil?” 

“Maybe they’re taking a nap.” Lilac said, as she moved to help Klaus remove his helmet. 

“No, they’d have wanted to watch you. You would’ve shown up on the sonar.” Violet said, moving to the screen. “They would’ve wanted to make sure you were coming back.” 

“Oh no.” Fiona whispered. 

They turned, watching as Fiona removed her helmet, shaking slightly. “Fiona?” Lilac asked.

“Their helmets are gone.” Fiona said, numbly. “They had diving helmets here, in case of emergency. They’re… they’re gone. They left the Queequeg.” 

“No.” Klaus shook his head. “No, they would’ve waited for us.” 

“Not if something else came up.” Fiona said, her voice choked up. “He wouldn’t hesitate.” Lilac walked over to her, putting a comforting hand on her arm, and Fiona carefully leaned onto Lilac’s shoulder. 

“Maybe they were captured.” Nick shuddered. 

“And their captors left balloons?” Klaus asked, placing Solitude on the ground. 

“Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out.” Lilac said. “Just get Solitude’s helmet off, and we can find some sort of clue. There’ll be something, there’s always something.” 

Klaus reached forwards, and then froze. 

For a moment, he was blank. And then his eyes widened in horror. 

“No.” he said. 

“What?” Lilac looked over. 

“No.” Klaus said. “No, no, no-” 

“What?” Nick sounded like all his nightmares were hitting him at once. “What is wrong with her?” 

“No.” Lilac realized, and she and Fiona ran forwards and stared, terrified, at the toddler. 

Inside Solitude’s hemet, stalks and caps were starting to sprout. 

“It’s the Medusoid Mycelium.” Fiona said. 

“No.” Violet said, stepping back. “Oh no!” 

“No!” Sunny screeched, starting to wail. 

“Get her out!” Nick cried, reaching forwards. “Get her out-” 

“No!” Fiona said, grabbing onto Solitude and placing her carefully onto the table. “If we open the helmet, the fungus will spread. The entire submarine could become a field of mushrooms!” 

“We can’t leave her in there!” Nick screamed. 

“She’ll be poisoned!” Lilac shouted. 

“She’s already poisoned.” Fiona said, and as she said that, Solitude started to cough. 

“I can’t-” Soli began. 

“Don’t talk.” Fiona knelt in front of her. “The mycelium has destructive respiratory capabilities, so you need to save your breath. The fungus will be growing inside your throat, and we only have an hour at most. It would be fascinating if it weren’t so horrible.” 

“No! No, Soli, no!” Sunny screamed. 

“Fiona, please! Get her out of there!” Nick begged, running towards his little sister, gripping so tightly onto Sunny that his knuckles were white. “We can’t lose her!” 

“What can we do?” Klaus asked. 

“I…” Fiona shut her eyes. “Violet, Lilac, fire up the engines. Klaus, Nick, I need you to help me research an antidote. Sunny, we’ll need you, in case the antidote is culinary.” 

“We should help you research. We don’t need-” Violet began. 

“No!” Fiona shouted, and she whipped around, and they realized that she was crying. “I am the captain now and that is an order! Get us out of here now while we save your fucking sister!” 

Everyone froze, staring. 

And then Lilac nodded, and sadly said, “Aye-aye.” 

“Lilac-” Violet began. 

And then Nick said, “Oh no.” 

They turned to him, and saw that he was, shockingly, not watching Solitude, but the sonar screen. He had put Sunny down, which was lucky, because he was now stumbling backwards, his eyes wide. He reached for his arm, and then dug his hands into his pockets, shuddering and struggling to breathe. 

“No, no…” he said. 

They felt a lurch, and the siblings turned towards the sonar screen, to see what had hit them. 

Large, metal tubes had grabbed onto the edge of the Queequeg, and it was slowly pulling them out of the cave, and towards an Octopus-shaped submarine. 

Solitude coughed again, and everyone felt their hopes shatter.

[dilfhakyeon-moved]

coffee shop au 4 (the one with the different names written on the coffee on different days) with ralbert? :)

disclaimer: don’t give me shit for their names i am TERRIBLE at names

but yea here are the sappho de lesbos stans

Once again, the ‘mystery customer’ was striking.

That sounding pretty ominous, it was nothing that serious. It was just that every week, always on a different day, they’d get that girl coming in. And she’d come at times it was pretty dead, most likely to get the same barista. There she always went, leaning on the counter, giving these soft eyes and these sweet words, and she’d leave with her order. It was never the same order either, she just… drank of everything, apparently. Your fave could never.

Somehow, she was indeed having an effect on that barista she was messing with, but that didn’t make her any less frustrating to deal with. Yeah, the flirting was nice, but if she had a set name it’d just be so much easier, wouldn’t it ? Because giving a different name every week was getting a little old.

Of course, the barista would get quite frustrated after some time, how couldn’t she ? It’d been going on long enough. And the list of names… were similar, for some. Sometimes just complete unrealistic jokes. She could remember them all - Race, Racer, Racetrack, Antonio, Anthony, Tony, even Edmund and Ed,… Pretty Girl, too. Maybe this one was fitting, but Berta absolutely refused to believe any of these other names were that “pretty girl’s” name. For one, some of these weren’t names, and well… the others were masculine, and judging by that last nickname, she wasn’t a guy.

Either way, the redhead had a hard time staying calm as the blonde began babbling, her oddly squeaky voice fitting so well with her messy accent and pronunciation, her tripping over words and her obnoxious giggle sounding somewhat endearing… Okay, maybe she totally wasn’t paying attention to what she was being told and she got too busy getting lost in thought, but who could blame her ?

… Right, herself.

Once she woke from this kind of weird daydreaming phase, she tried to harden her expression a little. “Okay, yeah. And the order ?” She said, maybe a little harshly. But it didn’t bother her customer, whose grin widened despite her cheeks perhaps darkened a tad.

Quad venti blonde breve latte, extra hot, no foam, four pumps vanilla, three pumps cinnamon dolce, two white mocha, stirred, light whip, extra cinnamon topping.

This was ridiculous. Once again, the girl’s order had to be ridiculous. Maybe that was one time too much, and that “one time too much” the barista didn’t bother waiting for the girl to give her a name. No, she was choosing it herself. It was obvious to see on the blonde’s face that she wasn’t exactly expecting that, but did she really have a choice ? No.

“Look at it once you’re outside,” Berta muttered, groaning quietly when the girl smiled again and poked her cheek before making her way out, whistling pretty loud - and getting looks from other customers, although admittedly there really weren’t that many. It still grabbed some of them’s attention, enough for them to notice the  barista quickly yet quietly following after her, letting her coworkers take care of the place if even just for a few minutes.

Keeping sight of the blonde wasn’t the hardest task. She hadn’t gone far, just walked a few metres away and was now reading the name written on her cup with some sort of surprise.

Endearing, the shorter girl would tell you.

Casually enough, she made a few steps until she was close enough to the girl, before pausing and more or less working up the courage to talk. She wasn’t all that good at communication all the time, but she still tried. “So, Foxy,” she called out, causing the other to jump and turn around. Her gaze was always as captivating, perhaps due to how obviously emotional it was - reading her mind was impossible, but her state of mind was all too obvious at all times. What really got Berta though, it surely was how evident the blush on her face was. Striking, such a contrast with her blue eyes and her blond curls, that pink really fit well. Made her look softer, and maybe a little less insufferable.

Her lips moved incoherently for a few seconds before she frowned, and pointed at the cup. “Y'ain’t wrote that, it’s ‘Vixen’ on it,” she protested, getting the other to raise an eyebrow. Maybe it’d been easy to guess making that flirty girl flustered wasn’t hard at all, but it still gave her some satisfaction. Oh, and also it was cute.

“I know what I wrote and I know vixens are foxes.” That sure wasn’t the answer that girl had hoped for. Berta could see her bite down on her lip as she thought of a reply.

“… Yea, but– still. Why’s that anyways, I 'on’t look like a fox !”

“Reminded me of one.”

Could the girl make it any more obvious that she clearly wasn’t used to being teased ? Or, flirted with, depending on how she took it. Either way, just one more endearing, sweet thing about that cute fellow, and it kind of made the former more confident.

This time though, maybe she actually put some thought into what she was about to say. Nothing crazy, but she’d always worked on that “speaking before thinking” basis, pretty much ; having to really work out some sort of appropriate response, or even question for the situation. Because in the end, that barista had ended up following her outside, there must’ve been a reason. Yes, that’d be her question.

“So… What’s ya doin’ here ? Ain’t ya workin’ ?” She uttered, her accent somewhat worsened. Oh, maybe because she was chewing on the… the cup. Was that a stress reliever ? Whatever.

“I wanna get your name.”

“What, I gave–”

“Your real name, so I don’t sob to my friends about a cute girl named Anthony,” Berta insisted, almost mockingly - although that was all light-hearted. The poor girl seemed to whimper after “cute girl”. Haha, she found her cute, she could die happy was what the whimper meant.

“Well… 'f ya want my name, then I bet you should invite me for a sleepover some time !” The blonde tried. It probably came off as silly, even if Berta just thought it adorable.

“A… sleepover ?”

“Yea, like… the best kind'a date.” She continued, managing to sound genuine about it. “It ain’t too fast if I’ been comin’ to your shop for two months. We can totally have a sleepover.”

“But I could be a murderer an’ kill you in your sleep.”

“Bitch, wha’s the issue here ? I’d die a happy death.” She retorted - maybe a little too quickly. A chance she hadn’t pulled out the whole “oh, crush me with your arms” or any sort of stupid stuff she looked like she would totally say. And the redhead clearly wasn’t wrong about that, that kind of answer had definitely come out of that girl’s mouth a few times… Maybe she shouldn’t be thinking about it.

“So, name ?”

She seemed embarrassed to say it. “Anya.”

“That’s a real pretty name.”

“Yea, shut ya’ trap, spare me the compliments.” Anya groaned, her gaze wandering elsewhere. “ ’S just a name.”

“Sure, Anya,” Berta answered with a chuckle, shaking her head. “So you said a sleepover ?”

“Yea.”

“Then gi'mme your phone number or something.”

“Ya wrote yours on the cup.”

“… Ah, I did that.”

“Yea.”

It was her time to be embarrassed again, it seemed. Had she really forgotten so easily ? That was a shame for sure, but Anya wouldn’t be too bothered by it, she could tell.

“Anyway, I’m… I’m gonna need to go back to work. Maybe come more often. Oh, and you don’t have to run away everytime, you can drink it at the shop,” the shorter girl offered. But she was met with a head shake, and that bright, quite shit-eating grin the blonde always wore. Back to normal, huh ? Couldn’t stay away too long.

“Nah, I’m a busy gal ! Gotta get goin’ as well. I’ll catch ya later.”

“Oh, well…” Was that sadness ? Yes, maybe she’d have liked to talk to her some time, at the shop. But if she was busy, then… “Talk to you soon.”

Anya waved, blew her a kiss and then… ran away. And Berta watched her, frankly smitten. What a goddamn rowdy… cutie.

|Text| to: she alt deleted my ovaries

> hey> pretty girl here

|Text| to: pretty girl

> oh hey.> how do you spell yr name ?

|Text| to: she alt deleted my ovaries

> howevs u want idc> yknow if i didnt have no decency id have said such bs> like huge

|Text| to: pretty girl

> like ?

|Text| to: she alt deleted my ovaries

> crush me w ur arms

|Text| to: pretty girl

> oh my god> shut up> or i will

|Text| to: she alt deleted my ovaries

> pls do> >:3c

|Text| to: pretty girl

> you’re impossible

|Text | to: she alt deleted my ovaries

> ur used to it now suck it up> im even funnier thru text> i send memes> n shit> hey?> also> cats have three lips

|Text| to: pretty girl

> hey you know wht maybe u should sleep !

|Text| to: she alt deleted my ovaries and my heart

> lol maybe!!!!> wish me gn

|Text| to: pretty girl

> goodnight. dont dream of people crushing you

|Text| to: she alt deleted my ovaries and my heart

> hdskjdghsdh> ill update u on that

Tag list:@well-the-kids-do-too@racetrackcook@i-got-personality@imjusttheoutgoingsidekick@thatfancyclam@we-dont-sell-papes@ben-cook-can-cook@not-your-cigar@nverkept@jackhasdreams@racescoronas@suddenly-im-respecsable@purplelittlepup@hopeful-broadwaybaby@broadwayandbookblog@crazymecjc@maiawakening@awwwwwwdang@albertdasillva@daveys-pet-snake@be-more-chill-evan-hansen

[richiefuckfacetozier]

Chapter 6: Take My Breath Away

Story: It’s Not My Fault

Title - Take My Breath Away by Berlin

Note: I commissioned @slashpalooza to make the photo above based on this chapter of my fic!

For other chapters - | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |

Eddie’s lost his mind. Which Richie knew would happen eventually. His small and carefully controlled boyfriend (well, controlled compared to me) was bound to go crazy sooner or later.

Eddie vowed to be a disgusting couple while they were in Vermont to punish their friends, which Richie did not take seriously. Eddie will not even hold hands in public, there was no way he was going to KISS me too.

Wrong party of 1 under Tozier. The first day at the slopes Richie and Eddie waited outside for the others to rent skiing gear or buy other supplies. Eddie was bundled in a blue ski suit that engulfed him, the hood popped up with his goggles around his neck. He was rubbing his gloved hands together and bouncing from one foot to the other trying to warm up. Richie went to hold Eddie’s hand (to test the waters of course) and Eddie snatched it away automatically. I knew he wouldn’t do it. Then something seemed to click with Eddie.

“Shit...wait...we don’t know anyone here,” Eddie said gazing at Richie. Those brown eyes with flecks of grey in them darkened like he had a secret, a small smile played on his lips as his eyes flickered to Richie’s mouth.

Richie was about to make a crude comment (as one does) when Eddie grabbed a fistful of his ski coat and pulled him down. All his words were lost against Eddie’s mouth. He tried to kiss Eddie gently, carefully, but it wasn’t gentleness Eddie wanted. Eddie knotted his fists in Richie’s coat, pulling him harder against him.

It was like something ignited in Eddie that had been bubbling right below the surface. It was exciting and terrifying for Richie. Eddie was trying to deepen the kiss and Richie willing obliged. He tasted minty as their tongues collided. He craved the moments when Eddie was this affectionate that it seemed dreamlike. Almost crave it as much as when I get Eddie angry, hee hee hee.

Eddie kept deepening their kiss completely taking charge. This exchange seemed to breathe life into Richie. He was usually the one initiating everything that he did not know what to do except give in and melt into it. He wrapped his arms around Eddie’s jacketed waist to gain a little control and sighed in content. Eddie always made Richie feel calm and focused. It was like nothing else existed, just Eddie and him.

Eventually, Eddie needed to pull away and catch his breath. His ski hood had fallen down revealing how flushed his face was. They were both panting, their breathing mingled together staring at each other in surprise and excitement. Richie sometimes could not believe Eddie and him were even together then a kiss like that reminded him how real they were.

“You smell like coconut?” Eddie said in confusion bringing Richie’s face forward to smell the top of his head.

“Oh, I borrowed Beverly’s shampoo this morning because I forgot to pack some,” Richie chuckled as Eddie hummed appreciatively releasing his face. Richie ran a hand through his curls smirking, “Do you like it?”

“I didn’t say that,” Eddie took a hold of Richie’s right hand refusing to look at him. Even through their gloved fingers, this made his skin tingle.

“You didn’t have too. Your face is an open book sometimes.” Richie brushed his lips lightly against Eddie’s cheek. Eddie tried to glare but he just laughed. “A book I could read all day, my peppermint.”

“You are seriously still doing candy pet names for me?” Eddie said rolling his eyes but with a cute grin plastered on his face.

“Of course lovely licorice.” Richie bopped Eddie on the nose which just made him crinkle his face in annoyance. “Fuck, you’re so cute.”

“Shut up you stupid sap,” Eddie said before kissing him into silence.

“You both make me want to kill myself,” Stanley said coming out of the ski store.

“Should have thought of that before you pulled a Judas,” Eddie said flipping Stanley off. Bill and Mike walked out next with bags of supplies.

“Just keeping you honest. You get jealous with Richie. Like a green-eyed monster.” Stanley smirked.

“Richie gets more jealous with Eddie.” Mike pointed out. “Well, he gets needy is more accurate.”

“Mikey is right about that. But it is because I’m always needy and horny for you.” Richie pulled Eddie in to kiss his cheek.

Eddie pushed his face away, “Don’t be gross.”

“What? You can be gross and couplely but I can’t? Double standard.” Richie protested.

“You make everything sexual,” Eddie complained.

“Also, couplely is not a word.” Stanley piped in. Richie rolled his eyes. Spelling police.

When Beverly and Ben came out of the store, they all headed to the slopes. “I’m so excited! I haven’t gone skiing since...um...since,” Eddie could not get the words out.

“Your dad?” Bill finished quietly. Eddie nodded solemnly. Richie squeezed his hand and Eddie returned the gesture.

Eddie quickly tried to change the subject, “Oh Beverly, if you get motion sickness. Let me give you one of my pills. You might get nauseous going down the trails.”

"My boyfriend is so caring and perfect," Richie bragged. Eddie hip checked him but did not argue like usual.

“Thank you, Eddie!” Beverly said gratefully as he went into one of his pockets and handed her a chewable pill.

“Can someone do the easy course with me? I really don’t think I can do this.” Ben said nervously. He was holding his gear awkwardly, clearly anxious about learning to ski.

“No can do Benny Boy,” Richie said. “I want to do the black diamond course.”

“Richie, you should do an intermediate level and work your way to black diamond.” Eddie insisted. “That way you don’t get bored of the black diamond course.”

“You know me so well.” Richie cooed.

“He knows how to p-p-play you is more like it,” Bill said from behind them and Stanley let out a laugh.

“What was that Big Bill?” Richie shouted sarcastically. “Could not hear you over my love for Eds.”

“Don’t call me—” But Richie planted a kiss on Eddie’s lips before he could finish. Eddie kissed back then bit Richie’s lip.

“You bit me!” Richie said pulling away and licking his lip to see if there was blood. It was definitely tender but no blood. “That was so fucking hot.”

Eddie blushed furiously clearly horrified at what he had just done. “Shut up, I’m not hot.” I beg to differ. “Come on Ben, let’s go to the easy course.” Eddie let go of Richie’s hand, “Anyone else coming?”

“I will!” Mike said following the other two toward the beginner trail. Richie watched Eddie walk away already feeling a pang of sadness at being away from him. I miss him when he’s not around. Is that a gay thing to think? Oh wait, I am gay.

Bill grabbed Richie’s arm to guide him toward the ski lifts that would drop them off at the intermediate course. Bill was laughing as he said, “Richie, don’t p-p-pine. You’ll see him in a c-couple of hours.”

Richie threw his head back dramatically. “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND MOM, I LOVE HIM!” Richie made a high pitched voice that echoed all around.

“He’s going to start an avalanche,” Stanley huffed out. “Well, as long as we lose him in it, then I guess that is alright.”

“You always make me feel so special Stanny,” Richie wiped away a fake tear as Stanley punched him in the arm.

When they got to the lifts, Beverly and Richie grabbed a chair together. They had their skis on, helmets fastened, and goggles secured on their faces.

“I like the pink goggles you have,” Beverly laughed at him.

“Eddie dared me to get them, so I bought matching ones for us.” Richie looked down as the lift slowly brought them up the mountain. The ground was getting further away and Richie’s adrenaline was kicking in.

“You two are cute when you don’t have to hide your relationship,” Beverly commented. Richie looked at her, but could only see his face reflected in her goggles. “I’ve never seen Eddie so relaxed and…”

“Happy.” Richie finished. “It feels really weird, but I am also completely obsessed with how much he has been kissing me and letting me kiss him.”

“Oh, I am sure you are.” Beverly bumped him with her shoulder and he bumped back.

“What are you implying?” Richie smiled innocently.

“That you are a Hound Dog,” Beverly accused pointing at him with the top of her skiing pole.

Richie shrugged, “I just know what I want and go for it.”

“At least you are careful with Eddie. He certainly wants to be a lot bolder than he actually feels comfortable with.” Beverly warned.

“Trust me, I know,” Richie said. I am always the one to cool us down when we are going too fast. Eddie can’t control himself at all, which just makes him all the cuter. A sign indicating they were almost to the top came in view. “Looks like we are almost there, race you to the bottom!”

Richie lifted the metal bar and was off. The rush of passing obstacles and speeding down the hill was giving him the biggest high. He felt weightless and free as if he had no problems. It reminded him of the first time he kissed Eddie. Or rather when he kissed him shyly and Eddie grabbed his face as he tried to pull away and continued the kiss. It was electric and he felt like he was flying.

Stanley, Bill, Beverly, and him did the intermediate hill three more times before taking a break. Richie went over to the bunny slopes to find the others. Eddie was still teaching Ben how to properly ski with some difficulty. Mike, on the other hand, was flirting up a storm with a teenage instructor. Richie tried to assist Eddie but was shooed away so he could concentrate on helping Ben. Well, better go bother Mike.

“Oh hey there Mikey,” Richie came up behind him slinging his arm around his shoulders. “Who is your new friend?”

“Richie this is Eliza, Eliza this is Richie...the bane of my existence.” Mike poked Richie’s side and he retracted his arm.

“I think he means the best thing to come into existence.” Richie corrected with a toothy grin.

Eliza laughed at his antics, “Well, aren’t you a piece of work.”

“Best artwork you will ever see,” Richie made a Roman Statue pose stretching his arm out trying to look smooth. This made her laugh harder and Mike groan in embarrassment.

Mike shook his head, “Eliza was just saying there is a party at her place this weekend because her parents are out of town. She has invited us to go if we want too.”

“Fuck yeah! I will have to ask my other half first,” Richie turned to see if Eddie was nearby. He saw him picking Ben up off the snowy ground. “Hey, sour patch! Can we go to a party this weekend?” Eddie finished helping Ben up then started trudging over to them.

“Damn, you have a girlfriend? That’s going to disappoint a lot of my friends.” Eliza pouted. “You don’t have a girlfriend do you, Mike?”

“I don’t,” Mike’s voice wavered at her flirting. “And neither does Richie.”

“Then what does he mean by other half—”

Eddie came up next to Richie not even looking at Mike or the girl and pulled him down for a kiss.

“Oh my god is he your boyfriend?!” Eliza squealed. They both looked at her in alarm. “That is so cute. You two HAVE to come to my party.”

“What party?” Eddie asked warily.

“Eliza here is throwing a teenage rager and inviting us losers to come, my dear Eddie,” Richie said playing with the goggles around Eddie’s neck absentmindedly. Eddie looked at him clearly not interested in going to a party.

“I just realized you two have matching goggles, I want to cry.” Eliza put her hands over her mouth giddily.

Eddie gave her a sweet, slightly uncertain smile, “It is nice to meet you, Eliza. Why don’t you give Mike the details for your party and we will hopefully see you there?”

Eddie yanked Richie away to give Mike some more time with her. They walked over to a sitting area that allowed them to take off their footgear. Richie stretched out his legs, already sore from skiing.

“She was kind of weird,” Richie blurted out. “But I want to go to her party.”

“Don’t be fucking rude, she seemed nice.” Eddie hesitated a moment, “And also far too into us being a couple.”

“Maybe in Vermont, they actually like gay people.” Richie shrugged. Eddie leaned his head against Richie’s shoulder comfortably. Richie placed his hand on Eddie’s knee and watched all the kids (and Ben) learning to ski. They stayed in a friendly silence just being happy they could show simple forms of affection.

“We can go to the party if you want to,” Eddie sighed out.

“Well, don’t hide your excitement from me,” Richie grinned as he kissed the top of Eddie’s head. Lavender soap as perfectly usual. He kept his face in his locks for a little longer nuzzling his face there.

Eddie moved his head away to look at him pointedly, “Are you trying to not so subtly smell my head?”

Richie grinned at him, “You smelled mine earlier! Can’t a guy bask in your scent without being judged?”

Eddie frowned at him disgusted, “Don’t say scent.”

“Would you prefer fragrance? Odor? Arrrrrroma?” Richie purred the last word bringing his face close to Eddie’s so their noses touched.

“None thanks, ya freak.” Even with the insult, Eddie brought his lips forward to lightly kiss him. Richie wanted more but felt a hesitancy, so let himself stare at Eddie’s kind face. He was smiling except it did not reach his eyes. Richie was trying to read what he was thinking but could not figure out why Eddie was not over the moon happy. Unlike me, who has never been so thrilled.

“You want to tell me what’s wrong?” Richie asked taking Eddie’s gloved hands in his own.

“Just wish this weekend could last forever,” Eddie whispered.

“Me too.” Richie smiled warmly, “I’ll never get the chance to do as much PDA with you again once you decide to stop punishing our friends.”

Eddie’s smile broadened and this time his eyes twinkled, “I kind of keep forgetting I’m doing it to punish them because I just like kissing your stupid face.”

“My stupid face is all about it.” Richie laughed kissing Eddie’s nose, forehead, and cheeks.

“Stop sucking face! There are children around.” Came Mike’s voice from a distance. Eddie kissed Richie full on the mouth both of them flipping off Mike as they did.

“Now, shall we do the black diamond trail?” Richie said when they pulled away.

Eddie shook his head vigorously, “No way in hell. I’ve already got an arm susceptible to breaking a second time.”  They started to put their gear back on.

“Come on candy corn, it’ll be fun!” Richie got up first and put his hands out to help Eddie up.

Eddie let himself be hoisted to his feet, “No Rich, I’m not comfortable doing it.”

“That’s not what your mother said last night,” Richie wiggled his eyebrows.

“And a sweet moment destroyed once more by Trashmouth. Bye asshole.” Eddie made his way over to Ben who had finally managed to stay on his skis long enough to do a bunny hill.

Richie went looking for Beverly before heading to the black diamond. He found Bill and Stanley talking while glaring at a small crowd of guys. “What’s up losers?” Richie asked looking at the Vermont boys curiously trying to figure out why they were glaring at them.

“See those guys?” Bill said still glaring.

“I do have eyes and can see them but why do we give a fuck—” Richie stopped talking when he realized Beverly was in the center talking to these strangers. She had taken off her helmet and was blushing a little from the cold. Or maybe she was blushing for another reason. A knot of jealousy formed in Richie’s stomach at seeing his best friend surrounded by anyone other than the Losers Club.

“Um, fuck no.” Richie breathed. He began to march over to his redheaded friend.

“Richie! Wait!” Stanley hissed. He ignored him and kept trekking. Richie could hear Stanley and Bill stumbling after him. Good, the more back up the better.

Richie shoved his way through two of the guys. He heard a “What the fuck” from one of them.

“Hey Bev,” Richie threw his arm around her shoulders and kissed her cheek.

She looked at him in confusion, “Hey Rich, everything ok?”

He shrugged not taking his eyes off her to acknowledge the others, “Totally fine. Bill, Stan and I are ready to do the black diamond course. Shall we?”

“Absolutely!” She grabbed her helmet and began buckling it on.

“We were all going there too, Bevvie.” Chimed in one of the guys. Desperate much?

She seemed to debate something in her head. No one would have noticed if Richie did not know her so well. She smiled at the guy and said, “Oh! Cool. Why don’t you come with us?”

Richie turned his face toward them, “I’m Richie Tozier, and who the fuck are you?” Richie could feel Beverly’s gaze burn into the side of his face but she stayed silent.

“I’m Kyler—”

“Nice to meet you, Tyler,” Richie put out his hand to shake but the guy did not take it.

“It’s Kyler. Do we have a problem?” Him and his friends straightened up a bit, looking ready for a fight.

Bill stepped in between them like the leader he is, “D-d-don’t mind Richie, his n-n-nickname is Trashmouth for a reason. I’m Bill and this is Stanley.”

“What’s wrong with you?” One of the other guys said.

Stanley walked forward, “Nothing is wrong with him. He has a stutter. What’s wrong with you?” Bill placed a hand on Stanley’s shoulder to keep him calm.

Richie slowly stood next to Stanley in solidarity. Richie felt like he was in a movie where the action is slowed for dramatic effect. The other guys seemed older than them, but Richie and Bill were taller. We could take them. Richie waited for Bill to take the lead. None of them moved, they just stared them down.

Beverly poked Richie’s back so he would move aside. “Alright, now that everyone has shown off their dicks can we go to the black diamond trail?”

The scene came back to reality immediately. They all looked embarrassed, trying to shrug off the encounter as if nothing had happened. Except me, I’m never embarrassed. I ooze confidence. Richie followed Beverly toward the lifts, everyone walking in a deathly quiet.

The Myler guy broke the awkward silence, “We were telling Beverly that there is a party tomorrow, which you Maine kids can come too.”

“Same party hosted by a Miss Eliza?” Richie said keeping under control.

Beverly laughed, “Why am I not surprised that you’ve already been invited?”

“One day in Vermont and he’s already the most popular guy around.” Stanley drawled out from behind him. Richie turned his head and blew Stanley a kiss.

Bill bumped him good-naturedly, “Maybe he n-n-needs to be k-k-kicked out of the Losers Club. Clearly too good for us.” 

He grabbed his heart in horror, “You can’t kick out the President of the Losers Club!”

“Bill’s the president, not you,” Stanley argued.

“Rude,” Richie said.

“What’s the Losers Club?” Jyler guy popped in.

“The four of us plus three other losers. We are best friends.” Beverly explained.

“That’s cool.” Byler guy nodded trying to get next to Beverly. Richie made sure he was right up against her. Despite her clear frustration, she let him be protective.

“We are the farthest from cool, but thanks,” Beverly said. Richie could feel the tension from before ease a little and they settled into a banter with the Vermont boys.

When they got to the lifts, Richie surprised everyone by saying, “Are we racing down the mountain...um...I want to say, Wyler?” Any way to keep him away from Beverly.

“It’s KYLER. And you are so on Maine.” They stood next to each other in line, ready to board the lift. The other Vermont boys went together. Stanley boarded with Beverly and Bill got a lift by himself.

They hopped onto the seat and brought the bar down. Richie pulled his goggles over his eyes. He took the chance to look over this guy. He had dirty blonde hair and fairly attractive features. Some acne on his chin, which he seemed to be trying to cover with a patchy beard. He is definitely a douchebag, I have a sense about these things.

Nyler guy looked over at him and asked, “So are you and Bevvie an item?”

“I wouldn’t call her Bevvie, man. And she’s basically my wife.” Richie responded.

“You’re married?!” He asked confused. "Oh man, I am so sorry I didn't know."

“What? No! I have a boyfriend.” Richie said. “The cutest guy here.” This guy is an idiot too. 

Hyler guy let out a nervous laugh, “Oh you’re gay. Great.”

“I’m bisexual, but why is that great?” Richie asked glaring. Not that he can see my glare through the goggles, but I know it is there. That’s what counts.

“Come on man, you must have guessed I am into her.” He said chuckling. They were almost to the top. Richie braced himself, ready to beat this jerk off.

They lifted the bar up and as Richie landed he said, “She’ll eat you for breakfast.” This guy would learn soon enough that Beverly is not to be messed with.

Richie zoomed down the mountainside. He knew his recklessness was coming out because he almost hit a tree and a person. He was going faster than he had ever gone before. His mind went blank for a moment as the feeling of blissfulness was so real and overwhelming. When he reached the bottom he started to do a victory dance.

I won the race of course because I’m the best around. I AM THE CHAMPION MY FRIENDSSSSS. AND I’LL KEEP ON FIGHTING ‘TIL THE END. Oh look, it’s my boyfriend.

“Hey eds!” Richie called as Eddie made his way over clearly laughing at his dancing. He gave Eddie a huge hug lifting him off the ground.

“Don’t call me Eds,” He tried to fight Richie but ended up laughing too hard. Eddie put his hands on Richie’s shoulders to gain some balance.

Richie adjusted his grip around his legs, so Eddie would not tip backward, “Whatever you say, Eds. I just creamed a guy on the black diamond course. It was amazing.”

“My champion,” Eddie grinned down at him.

Richie’s mouth opened in awe, “Ok, that’s super weird. I was just thinking about the Queen song.”

“I know Richie. I heard you singing it.” Eddie giggled then planted an open mouth kiss on Richie. Richie felt on top of the world.

“GET A ROOM!” Bill’s voice could be heard somewhere.

They laughed and when Eddie pulled away he patted Richie’s cheek, “Now put me down, I want food.”

Richie plopped him on his feet unceremoniously, “We have to get Ben ‘N Jerry’s every day we are here.”

Eddie gained his footing frowning a little, “It’s freezing dipshit.”

“It is never too cold for ice cream!” Richie grabbed Eddie’s hand and dragged him along.

  ...To Be Continued

[sending-the-message]

Matchmaker by Ilunibi

After the events with Miranda the RA and her uncontrolled summoning of one of the most powerful Earls of Hell, I won’t lie and say I didn’t have my suspicions about Cereal Girl. She was always just there, always in the right place at the right time, conveniently a witness for every threat Miranda threw at me and each exchange I left pinned back on her door. A sliver of me was convinced that she was the real culprit, framing Miranda to throw me off of her trail and delighting in my misguided attempts to stop her.

Cereal Girl, however, turned out to just be an insomniac, 4/20 enthusiast named Erika Dolores Ellison.

Or “Eddie,” if you will.

She was half my size and stayed camped in the hall’s kitchen, an omnipresent fridge goblin who spent every waking moment functionally baked and cramming food into her mouth. She had a girlfriend attending an art institute in Georgia, came from an affluent family who she figured would be in debt by the end of her already faltering college career, and was accidentally the eyes and ears of our floor. Which, honestly, suited her fine. Freshmen girls were petty, their drama was hilarious, and she couldn’t help but be amused by the weird, metaphysical battle between me and Miranda.

Both of us were still floundering freshmen who never quite pulled out of that awkward loner phase, struggling to make friends we connected with or finding a place where we belonged. Most people avoided her like the plague because she had no filter or shame, just like people avoided me because I’m awkward and unintentionally abrasive. She watched my back when I was out of the building, and I taught her small little tricks here and there that she couldn’t possibly fuck up while high. She even got in good with Dead Coyote, to the point he started selling her some of his weed when she ran out.

My one point of contention with Eddie, though, was that she was a bit more, well, libidinous than I was. Not that I’m a prude--I grew up with Dead Coyote, and he had a library of sex magic notes that I accidentally found when I was ten--but she had a weird obsession with my lack of an active love life. After glancing across a few things about the left-hand path on the internet, she became absolutely convinced that I must be doing something wrong because “evil” spells were powered by the sheer power of dicks. After a week or two of convincing her that hypersexuality really didn’t have anything to do with petitioning demons, she decided it was still a national tragedy that I was a single virgin and made it her solemn mission to hook me up with anyone that had two legs and functioning reproductive organs.

The pool she drew from was shallow. Being an outcast on campus, she basically would invite me out to “parties” with “friends” she made off of school grounds, each and every one of them hauntingly similar to Dead Coyote’s old customers. I could tell that she was a bit annoyed that I’d escort myself out before taking one of her potential Cassanovas to bed, but honestly? They reminded me too much of bad times and I’m a woman with actual standards.

Thankfully, she seemed to have gotten over it by the time spring break rolled around. I’d not heard a crack about needing somebody to keep me warm at night since winter ended, and she hadn’t invited me out to one of her white trash hookah parties in over a month. Most of our conversations usually revolved around what JRPG she had been playing that week, what weird shit I’d experienced over the previous days, and how much we mutually hated our required Gen Eds. Getting me laid seemed to be the last thing on her mind and I was one hundred percent okay with the fact she’d given up since it wasn’t a huge priority for me anyway.

The day that break started, she stood with me outside as I loaded my bags into Dead Coyote’s trunk, asking a thousand questions about why it was him and not my mother that came to pick me up. I didn’t know how to tell a girl who grew up in an actual, functional family that Dead Coyote had practically raised me so I didn’t have to raise myself, so I shrugged it off and told her that we were just really close. There was a knowing spark in her eye, the corner of her mouth curling up in a saucy smile as she tossed a handful of M&Ms into her mouth.

“‘Close.’ Yeah. I get’cha.”

A part of me was offended and wanted to say something. That part of me shut up when Dead Coyote slammed the trunk shut.

“Oh, yeah, Eddie. Didn’t you know? Me and Seymour’re secretly married on the astral plane or some shit.”

“You can do that?” she asked incredulously.

“Fuck no.”

She took being shut down in better stride than most eighteen-year-old girls, nearly choking on candy and snorting a laugh as she hugged me goodbye and told me to give her a call if I needed anything. She didn’t plan on going back home because she liked her independence too much and had one more disc left of Final Fantasy VII before she was finally done, and that game had become a personal quest. Besides, she couldn’t get away with being stoned all the time if she spent the week with her parents.

It felt nice to be back at Dead Coyote’s apartment an hour later, throwing my bags on his living room floor and collapsing on the couch that had been my bed for four years.

For the first couple of days of my spring break, things went pretty swimmingly, as though there had never been a gap in the time that I lived on that sofa. There were trashy talk shows aplenty, gossip on every street corner, and frozen gas station pizzas stacked to the top of an otherwise bare kitchen freezer. Dead Coyote confessed, rather bashfully, that he’d been trying to work with essential oils because he found out the scent of lavender snapped him out of some lesser jitters. He offered me my first beer, and after I downed four of them we mutually decided that essential oils were for pussies and he was getting soft in his old age.

Day three was when things started to get weird.

It began with dreams, weird and slimy dreams that slithered through my mind like serpents and left me awake in a cold sweat, my stomach twisted, and my thighs pressed so tightly together that I’d have made a good mermaid. Sex dreams, wild ones, but wild in a way that was terrifying and scarring. A wet, coppery tongue against my neck, and I could wake up and still smell it in the air. Something rough and cold running down my back, claws digging into my hips, sensations I could feel when I’d snap out of it. The heat was awful, not a warm and sensual heat, but like sticking your face in front of an open oven door.

The first night, I ignored it. You see, occultist or not, I’m always hesitant to blame things on paranormal sources because a lot of the time, your world and your own brain can be ten times more unpredictable and strange. My eyes snapped open on the couch and I sat there, shaking in the dark, until I remembered how stressed out and pissed off Eddie had made me over the course of the semester with her constant attempts to hook me up. I told myself it was probably a combination of being a new drinker and having lingering frustrations about that whole mess. I forced myself back to sleep.

The second night was more intense. No licking, no claws, but I was nine years old and laying on the ground in the alley by Dead Coyote’s apartment, watching a blurry stranger with a knife talk about how tight he thought I’d be. I instantly recognized it as the same goddamn scene with Joseph Shepherd, but when my vision steadied and I looked up to see who was kneeling in front of me, Dead Coyote grinned back at me with eyes like obsidian stone. His teeth weren’t human. It was like somebody took the teeth of a dog and crammed them in a person’s mouth.

I woke up screaming. Loud, baleful howling that I couldn’t even stifle with my pillow. Dead Coyote--real and in the flesh--actually fell down the steps tripping over himself to get to me, though the adrenaline pulsing through me told me to get away from him as fast as possible. I was locked in the bathroom when a concerned neighbor came over to ask what the problem was, Dead Coyote awkwardly trying to convince him that, no, he hadn’t killed anyone and, no, he actually had no idea what was going on either.

When he finally coaxed me out from underneath the sink, I felt nothing but awkward shame explaining my nightmares to him. He didn’t seem scandalized more than concerned, and we spent a good twenty minutes playing armchair psychiatrist while I sniffled into my blanket. He figured it was a mixture of alcohol and hormones. He also conceded that he had no idea what he was talking about, but it made sense logically. Probably. If you squint.

“Either way, princess, if you want, you can sleep up in my room,” he offered with a tired shrug. “Maybe that’ll help.”

So, I followed him upstairs. I knew the offer was just because he was exhausted and didn’t want to deal with me crying anymore, but the idea of having somebody nearby made me feel safe. I curled up on his mattress on the floor, back-to-back with him, swearing up and down that if alcohol was the culprit that I’d just not drink anything the following day. That had to fix the problem, right? I dozed off with wet eyes and a renewed resolve, and I kept to my promise.

I didn’t drink.

But Dead Coyote did, and the more he drank, the more I realized that something was off about the way he was behaving. Mid-conversation, he’d stop and stare, almost like there was something strange or different about me and he couldn’t figure out what it was. Occasionally, if he thought I was distracted, I’d catch him gawking at me like a slack-jawed frat boy at a strip club, but the expression on his face was odd. There was a light on in the attic, a conscious effort he was trying to make not to do what he was doing, but whatever had a hold of him wasn’t going to let him turn away. I was convinced it was because of the fact he’d been downing vodka like a Russian warlord, but after the fifth or sixth time he caught himself, he grabbed a pen, opened his hand, and practically carved a banishing sigil into his palm.

When I asked if he was okay, he flatly told me I’d be sleeping in his room the rest of my stay. When I asked why, he told me he didn’t have a clear answer for me, but he was going to figure it out.

He was the one who didn’t sleep through the night that evening. I was out like a light when I heard him growling profanity just behind my head and felt him sit up and climb off the bed. I listened as he paced and mumbled to himself, as he walked downstairs to get a glass of water. He wandered around the living room a bit, then meandered back upstairs and disappeared in the bathroom. I heard pills rattling around in a bottle and secretly prayed they were legal before he finally laid back down and struggled to go to sleep. His twisting and turning and cussing kept us both awake.

“A bad dream,” he told me the next morning. He paused for a moment, considered his words, then added, “Same dreams you were having. Sort of.”

“Sort of?” I echoed. He ignored me.

“That shit ain’t normal. That shit ain’t natural. Princess, it was like somethin’ was fuckin’ my soul. Or like somethin’ that ain’t got a clue what fuckin’ is was trying to fuck my soul. Bullshit. Pure fuckin’ bullshit.”

He decided that it had to be his fault, somehow, and that maybe he had messed up a ritual and invited something in by accident. With an exhausted sigh, he had me go get his holy water from beneath the kitchen sink and went to dig his leftover sage out of his closet. Our morning was spent cranking the radio up as loud as it could go to keep ourselves awake, smudging every corner, crevasse, and crack in his apartment, and then collapsing on the couch to eat cold fridge pizza and watch Maury. Dead Coyote ended up on my shoulder, asleep and drooling on my hair by the time the show’s host got to the first paternity test result.

No offense to Dead Coyote, but he’s capable of slobbering like his namesake and his spit had the distinct odor of garlic, Listerine, and death. I let him get in a nap, albeit begrudgingly, but the second I could shake him awake without feeling like the world’s biggest bitch, I nudged him off of me and excused myself to take a shower. Hair clung to the side of my neck. I grimaced and hoped there was enough shampoo in the apartment for the both of us.

Now, are you one of those people who gets scared there may be somebody behind the shower curtain while you’re bathing? Like, maybe you’ve seen Psycho one too many times and now you feel the need to check every three seconds to make sure a serial killer isn’t creeping up on you? I used to not be like that because I used to think I wasn’t a coward, but after we cleansed the apartment and I was in the process of cleansing myself, I kept getting this sinking feeling in my stomach like I was being watched. That slight, weird pressure that makes the back of your neck tingle like when somebody is standing directly behind you.

But it was coming from everywhere, and it didn’t stay slight. My face dropped when I realized I could physically feel something beating down on me like the air had become ten times heavier, that I could taste something sour whenever I inhaled, that my brain could pick up on a force, a personality that I couldn’t see. The shower was hot, but the bathroom grew hotter, and my mind raced back to when I was thirteen years old and I fucked up summoning Marchosias. When I opened my eyes when I shouldn’t have.

I peeked out of the shower.

Dead Coyote greeted me. Except not. I knew those eyes and that incorrect smile. I had seen it in my dreams and in that summoning circle all those years ago, and there he was: Not-Coyote, just standing there. Grinning. Strangely enough, he wasn’t very threatening, but he seemed to be enjoying the fact that I was paler than normal and about to piss myself.

I yanked the shower curtain down and nearly brained myself scrambling for the door. I felt something rough drag across my side as Not-Coyote reached out to touch me as I flew, naked and screaming, down the stairs. I had no time for shame or dignity or anything, only enough time to glance up the stairs when I hit the bottom and see Not-Coyote tilt its head and calmly walk from the top of the stairs to Dead Coyote’s bedroom.

Dead Coyote himself, having dozed off again, sat up like Frankenstein’s monster when I hit the bottom landing. He stared at me, nude and dripping with shampoo still in my hair, his brows knitted together in confusion. For a good, long minute he was absolutely silent, stuck in between being puzzled and mortified. When I had yelled myself hoarse and the same good samaritan neighbor from before was banging on the door and threatening to call the police, he finally found his voice.

“Uh, princess? You, uh, you forget what pants were for a minute or, like, is this some kind of weird white girl mating ritual I’m not aware of?”

I ignored him, instead pointing up the stairs and screeching at the top of my lungs, “Glasyalabolas!”

After I was walked back up the stairs to rinse my hair and dress myself (because I sure as hell was not going up there alone), and after Dead Coyote spent thirty minutes trying to convince the police that this wasn’t a case of domestic abuse, we sat outside on the stoop of his apartment staring at cars because I didn’t want to be inside. I hadn’t really realized just how scarred I was from my first tryst with Glasyalabolas until that moment, that very brief moment where I fucked up envisioning his polar opposite and brought forth a monster that got a kick out of stealing Dead Coyote’s face. The dreams couldn’t have been helping, either, with the alley scene replaying over and over and over in my head like a fucking movie trailer.

“Didn’t Miranda threaten you with Glasyalabolas twice?” Dead Coyote asked dryly, practically inhaling his cigarette. I didn’t look at him, instead looking at the neighbor who called the police, watching me from the sidewalk as he dragged his garbage to the curb. He still looked suspicious and I was absolutely humiliated. I thought back to my first, disastrous summoning and how I’d felt so much safer just physically feeling Dead Coyote’s presence in the circle. Like a little girl, I grabbed his hand and gave it a squeeze.

“She did,” I finally answered. My voice was still cracked.

“I seem to remember tellin’ that bitch I’d end her if she fucked with you, yeah? And she ain’t just fucked with you. She messed with me. Ain’t sure which one I’m more mad about.”

He exhaled smoke out of his nose and made a growling sound in his throat.

“It’s been awhile since I’ve ruined someone, princess.”

We barely discussed a plan. I waited outside, clutching a beer in my hand while he went through my belongings to check for any sort of talisman that could have been hidden in my things. When nothing turned up, he quietly walked back out, locked his door, and escorted me to his car.

The car ride was silent. He didn’t even turn the radio on. I stared blankly out the window, angry and embarrassed. How many times had I done rituals and how many times had I called upon spirits and how many times had I proved myself useless in the face of anything more powerful than a disembodied spirit? I couldn’t help with Furfur, I nearly killed a kid with a raccoon bone in sixth grade, and now I was trembling and shaken over a demon I’d actually encountered before. Even though I tried to convince myself it was a reasonable response to the patron demon of murder, I couldn’t help but compared myself to Dead Coyote.

He fought Furfur. He was going to go fight a girl who summoned Glasyalabolas. The man knew no fear. I desperately wanted him to be proud of me, but I felt like trash.

Also, he’d seen me naked, and that shame made it hard to make eye contact with him.

The parking lot in front of the dorm building was mostly empty, save for Eddie’s car and a couple of others. He practically pulled right up to the door and barely waited for the car to stop rolling before he jumped out of his seat. I quickly reached over to throw the car in park and turn it off, tucking the keys in my pocket as I tailed him inside. The lobby was a ghost town, the RA office predictably empty and ninety percent of the denizens having fled the campus for greener pastures. Dead Coyote’s footsteps echoed through the nothing as he stomped up the steps to get to my floor.

He punched in the security code. He entered the dorm hallway. I huddled down as I glanced at the cameras hoping that campus security or a hiding RA wouldn’t come running him down to try to pick a fight because, with Dead Coyote on his warpath, I knew it would end with him arrested. I tried to hide my face as he stopped dead in front of Miranda’s room, glowered at her tacky cork board covered in well-wishes from friends, and punched the door.

Not knock. Punch. As hard as he could. The door rattled, the sound echoed down the hallway. I waited for anyone to poke their head out to see what the fuss was about, but it seemed that the place was entirely abandoned. Except for--

“Miranda’s not here.”

The voice was calm, steady, muffled, and punctuated with crunching. It was a shock, a shock enough that Dead Coyote short circuited for a moment, standing there with a blank expression on his face and his fist still raised to strike. Standing in the middle of the hallway and clutching a bowl was none other than Eddie. She smiled and waved a spoon at us. It was Cocoa Puffs this time.

“She went to Florida, I think? Other RAs are taking her shift or something, but I think they skipped out, too. Fuckin’ assholes, right?”

She chewed, she swallowed.

“What are you guys doing here anyway? You got, like, three days before you gotta be back, Seymour.”

Exhausted, embarrassed, with dark circles ringing under my eyes and my hair a mess, I told her everything. About the dreams, about the weird way Dead Coyote had briefly acted, about the fact I felt so unsafe that I couldn’t sleep in the living room. I told her about the dog-toothed Not-Coyote that chased me out of the shower and that the neighbors called the police and that my only guess was that Miranda had stepped up her game. Dead Coyote had come to wreck her shit, but now we’d driven all that way for nothing and it was going to be a royal bitch to have to go back home and purge the apartment harder than we’ve ever purged anything before.

“It would have been easier to make her fix it herself,” I groaned.

The more I spoke, the more the color drained out of Eddie’s face. She kept shoveling cereal into her mouth, but there was this wide, wild, fearful look in her eyes like a deer standing in a hunter’s crosshairs. Dead Coyote noticed it first; he clapped me on the shoulder and stared her down like he was trying to will her to spontaneously combust. When she drank the final drops of chocolate milk out of her bowl, she wiped off her mouth with her sleeve and shook her head.

“Oh. Fuck. I didn’t know it would do that.”

I said earlier that I taught Eddie how to do small tricks and charms that she couldn’t fuck up while she was high. What I didn’t know was that Eddie had also been doing research of her own, mostly using Wikipedia and New Age websites manned by folks who didn’t really do any hard studying. It wasn’t that she was wanting to do anything malicious more than she thought it would be a nice gesture if she used what I taught her to try to “help” me out since I wasn’t receptive to her more normal attempts. After all, every college girl wants a guy who could make her walk crooked the next day, right?

She was worried, she said, that the reason that I wasn’t actively looking for love is because I was comparing every man I met to Dead Coyote. That there was unrequited love there, and that I was lonely and sad and unfortunately un-laid because I was holding out for the golden trophy that was a thirty-year-old Honduran man with unkempt hair and neck tattoos. And maybe, just maybe, she could surprise and impress me by playing demonic matchmaker with all of the cool stuff she learned to save my love life and keep me from being such a bitter, frigid person.

“I didn’t expect it to fuck up so bad,” she practically whined.

When the door to her dorm swung open, I couldn’t help but be impressed by her set-up. Even Dead Coyote let out a murmur of surprise at the expertly placed and drawn sigils drawn into the carpet with fabric marker, the assortment of candles all in the correct color, the lights dimmed appropriately, and even tokens she’d collected from us: one of Dead Coyote’s cigarette butts and an old tube of lipgloss that I thought I had lost. As angry as I wanted to be, I was actually kind of flattered that she took the art seriously enough to get it right, even if most of her source material was lacking.

Especially in terms of Glasyalabolas. Because Miranda had never drawn the damn sigil right and Eddie herself had the memory of a goldfish, she didn’t associate the threatening notes with her own helpful ritual. She just knew that Wikipedia said that Glasyalabolas was a big, mean dog who could play matchmaker if you asked nicely, and that she vaguely remembered me telling her that I didn’t like the alternative: “Thor Deer.”

“The fuck did you ask him to do, chica?” Dead Coyote finally asked, after a moment to admire her attention to detail. Eddie shook her head in shame, but after some prodding, finally looked up and squeaked a response.

“To have her naked with you, in your bed, and you both up all night.”

There was silence, then Dead Coyote exploded into laughter, laughter so hard that he sank to the ground in tears, snorting like a feral pig. He told her that, why yes, her request had been fulfilled, that Glasyalabolas had done his job, but not in the way she would have hoped. He had kept us up with godawful, painful, terrifying sex dreams. He had left me so scared to be by myself that I slept in his bed. He did scare me out of the shower while I was undressed so Dead Coyote got a look at me that he, quite frankly, wasn’t expecting.

“You have to be literal,” he explained. “Why didn’t you just ask Glasyalabolas to coerce us to fuck or somethin’?”

“I felt awkward saying it that way.”

We spent the next couple of hours helping teach her how to release spirits and dispel hexes, over the top of her apologizing again and again, nearly in tears because she didn’t realize that magic could backfire so badly despite how many times I had told her it could. It was a bit of an ego stroke to hear her tell me that she didn’t actually think it was possible because she never seen me fuck up so badly, but whatever confidence boost I had was marred by Dead Coyote listing off a lengthy series of things I had ruined, destroyed, killed, cursed, and broken over the course of my illustrious career. By the time I got to helping her scrub up marker from the carpet, she was laughing at stories of me making my first animal sacrifice (it was a pigeon, I cried, it escaped inside his apartment). It was as though she thought she hadn’t messed up at all.

It didn’t stop Dead Coyote from giving her a pretty stern warning on the way out. One that involved breaking both of her arms if she ever tried to summon anything ever again. The only reason I was spared from being chided for teaching her how to do anything in the first place is because, even with the knowledge that Glasyalabolas should be gone, I was still secretly shaken, nauseous, and way too embarrassed about being caught in my birthday suit to actually look Dead Coyote in the face.

With three days left of my break, I sucked up my fear and decided to head back home milk my time off with my favorite person for all it was worth. Besides, even if I was going to forgive Eddie, I still needed time to get over how unbelievably stupid she was. The inside of the apartment still smelled faintly of sulfur and I could occasionally still feel the prickle of an unknown presence tingling down my spine, but it was weak enough that it was obviously residual. Dead Coyote even coaxed me into relaxing about my streaking incident, reminding me of the time I found him passed out in his bathtub in high school.

In his words, “We’ll call it even and never speak of it again.”

But even with the awkwardness and even though I knew we cleaned up pretty well, I kept thinking of Glasyalabolas’ face and the dream about when I was nine. It was forgotten during the day--during the times I was actually enjoying myself--but in the dead of night the first day we got back, I found that I couldn’t take being alone in the living room. Shit would just loop in my head, a highlight reel of trauma, again and again until it propelled me to get up, drag myself up the stairs, and knock on Dead Coyote’s door.

I slept back-to-back with him on his ratty floor mattress for the rest of my spring break. It made me feel like I was a four-year-old but it was worth it to sleep soundly, to feel safe. I just knew I could never tell Eddie whenever I finally spoke to her again.

She’d never let me live it down.

[equalized9]

in 2016 I read the best comix at the publix libraxry

2016 was an idiot year for me because I started a local interest blog, and a bunch of local events happened and I didn’t go to none of them. 

And the ones I did go to, I couldn’t figure out how to use my camera (like at the violent trump rally started by milo vaginopolis. I saw the aftermath - there were cops at the Upper Sproul Plaza gett’n paid marching in circles and formations for a few news cameramen - it was weirdly reminiscent of the whole TV facade of Hunger Games), but i’m a writer so i guess just an appearance and some attention is worth something.

Anyways in 2016 I read some of the greatest comix of my life thanx to the Berkeley Pubic Library (sic lol i’m talking about the grimy bathroom on the 2nd floor Downtown - no fault of the janitorial staff, or even patrons, it just gets used a lot). the NEW LEAGUE was BOMB (all 3 installments in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century and the new Nemo Trilogy).

SPOILER ALERT

As a Purveyor of the Strange I appreciated Mina Murray’s astral drug trip gone wrong, one instance of Kevin O’Neil’s illustrations, normally contained by strict parallelograms, breaking free of their rigidly rectangular boxes in a colorful and metallic “technicolor” dreamscape (obvious remark). The story also looks at the problem of demonism and dark occultism in music and youth culture, which interests me as a new-agey music guy - I mean really, evil does damage people. Harry Potter as the antichrist, hilarious.

I can’t say enough good about these books because of the personal meaning they have for me. (Fer example, The Bonuzz Minions of the Moon sci-fi story features an actual illustration of a field of skulls, which interests me as someone named Skolfield.) But, I also realized, as a total send-up of old man books ca. the 1900s and earlier, they play on some pretty prejudiced cliches, like the brown-skinned pirate princess Nemo, my new favorite fictional mass murderer. She’s such a beautiful strong woman, but also a unhesitating preyer of innocents.

The Downtown Library had Volume 3 of the Nemo series (Roses of Berlin) hidden in the back, and I imagine the young black female library employee thinks I’m some kind of pervert after my personal request for the book - featuring a 2-page center spread of exploding nazi femme-bots - an illustration (and book) brimming with pseudo-swaztikas and fragmenting female body parts.

Which leads me to the amazing work of Warren Ellis - Desolation Jones (begins when the protagonist is hired to recover stolen Hitler porn, as in graphic, sexual movies featuring the actual Hitler - and that’s the least freaky / seedy / hardcore / underhanded / conspiratorial part of the story), Global Frequency (so gritty, so contemporary, so hi-tech, so much blurring of reality and Speculative fiction - better than movies or TV), and the cyberpunk masterpiece Transmetropolitan - I felt like such a kewl antisocial punky guy reading about Spider Jerusalem and listening to Drum n Bass on the bus - the book says “I HATE YOU” with a sardonically grinning white man on the cover. Transmetropolitan - strangely cartoonish, yet revoltingly real - is appropriate reading during any presidential election, but was especially so in this strangely cartoonish yet, revoltingly real era of the Trump vs. Hillary vs. Bernie campaign.

I am totally a wannabe Spider after reading this - xcept mo #natural and straightedge maybe even mo#smart. My assistants will be administered a very different compulsory cocktail of psychoactives. No ketamine, no tobacco, gross…

Grant Morrison Doom Patrol, Flex Mentallo and Sebastian O - more connoisseur of the strange fare. Doom Patrol is DC’s surrealistic reject superhero team - theirs is a topsy-turvy story in an already topsy-turvy world. Topsy-turbo, you could say ;) thanks spell check. There’s a villain team (with a germaphobe member whose power is everything you didn't think of) who threatens to trap the world in a painting, and other spooky threats, like an impossible floating crystalline city made of shifting bones, powered by a riddle, infested with inter-dimensional marauders called scissormen, who speak in anagrams.

Flex Mentallo, features a villain who leaves dud cartoon bombs in hi-value locations, the tormented hero ripping through marble floors of banks and subway stations trying to catch the phantom. Reminds me of British government assassinating citizens during war on terror? 

Self reflexive comic where a rockstar - reminiscent of the author - is haunted by cartoon characters invented in his childhood. An existential meditation for a darker age where superheroes are in support groups instead of fighting crime.

Trump’s presidency is a lot like Lex Luthor taking the White House.

One wonders, where are the heroes?

Where's Spider-Man, for real.

Who has the balls or the power to save us?

One of my favorite comic book scenes of all time appears in Flex Mentallo, when, in a race to save the world, the hero stumbles into a superhero sex club, where the world's saviors are distracted having beautiful, impossible sex. And the sidekicks are relegated to roving gangs of boy wonders.

As a writer you're dealing with the basic building blocks of meaning, and at a certain point it's like you're hacking the genome, coding reality itself with language, like a computer coder guy writing a program.

The satisfyingly mind-bending questions of abstraction and metaphysicality I encountered in these comics reflected the Grant Morrison I knew from prose, in his history of comic books Supergods, which reaches into mythic realms, positing the superhero as an arbiter of history, and even a living force, almost like Jesus. But he's a storyteller at heart, and is only evangelizing comics themselves, and the human spirit, if anything. It's very nitty gritty and pragmatic pop prose - some of the best I've read.

I also knew Morrison from YouTube interviews, sometimes alongside the likes of the My Chemical Romance singer, discussing his daring or foolish forays into occultism. For example, ahile experimenting with sympathetic magic, Morrison afflicted his character Spider, modeled after himself, with a brain infection, and reportedly developed the same health problem.

Sebastian O is some crazy Victorian alternate history shit with a prison break and practically nonstop mortal battle by a super-sexual, super-fashionable dandy superassassin with a clockwork house and perverted friends and some guy going nutso over virtual reality. Crasy shit! Connoisseur of the strange, appreciator of the weird.

(Ok I gotta explain this “connoisseur of the strange” phrase I keep repeating. I realized one of my specialties/interests has always been the “weird” or “different” - im a “risk taker” and a trendsetter and a contrarian, opt for bright colors and clashing patterns, always have loved sci-fi/fantasy, my shows circa 2002 were So Weird and Invader Zim, always especially appreciated the surrealistic or drug trip episodes, like when Homer goes through an interdimensional portal, or the Ed Ed n Eddy that's all dreamscape. This interest is part of my fascination with VR & cutting-edge science - I wrote a whole piece about it, so I'll leave it at that for now.)

I read summo but those were some of the ones I remember immediately. I read some of the best comix of my life in 2016. Thank you Public Library.