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good-and-colorful · 5 years ago

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why do spacex suits look so dumb

This is probably a lot longer than the answer you were looking for but I started reading about them and got really angry and this happened. Sorry.

tl;dr: It’s entirely fashion over function.

Our first article gives some details on the suits, as well as this flattering side view:

The suits, to SpaceX’s credit, do have some pretty useful features:

- There is only a single umbilical that connects to each astronaut’s seat, so that the amount of time spent fiddling with hoses and wires is minimized. It’s not a perfect picture of redundancy, but I get where they’re coming from, both from a convenience standpoint and a fast emergency egress standpoint.

- Like the Boeing suits, the glove fingertips are touchscreen compatible. SpaceX worked with the astronauts themselves to develop this feature to be as user-friendly as possible.

- The ugly neck thing and the helmet shape are meant to give the astronaut better range of motion in their head. (Credit here to SpaceX for sticking with a harder helmet design, where Boeing decided that head protection was not a priority and went for the fully soft helmet).

- They are heat resistant, form-fitting, customized, and have built-in hearing protection.

So I suppose they get points there. [1]

But then there’s this part:

In 2016, Elon Musk reached out to a Hollywood costume designer to create these suits. He actually held auditions; this was the guy that made the coolest looking helmet. That was the criteria for a spacesuit designer. The winner, Jose Fernandez, admits to not even knowing what SpaceX was when he was hired.

And if that bothers you a little, this will bother you more:

“[Fernandez] ended up working with Mr. Musk for six months to design the suit, which was later reverse engineered to meet space travel requirements. The tuxedo associations are not an accident.” [2]

The last part is in reference to an earlier note that the spacesuits look like they were designed by Tony Stark for James Bond on the Starship Enterprise.

So if that has you fuming, welcome to the club. During that six months, Elon kept stressing that they should look like tuxedos. That was his sticking point: they needed to look nice.

A lot of the defenses for this process mention that the Mercury suits were painted silver for the same reason. While yes, the silver was so that they looked cool on TV, that was the last step in the design process for those suits. FIRST you glued them together, sewed in the zippers, fitted the padding and hooked up the life support systems. You tested the things endlessly. THEN you painted them silver.

Most of these articles take a few paragraphs to dump on the NASA suits, calling the orange launch suits “duds” and “pumpkins.” They refer to the Apollo EVA suits as “Michelin Man” suits. They praise Musk (and Boeing for that matter) for creating suits that are an homage to the romance of human spaceflight and a nod to the history of the fashion industry. One goes so far as to mention that they accentuate the “idealized human warrior body.” Which article? Oh, just the New York Times. [3]

Now, I love talking about the spirit of exploration and the greater meaning of human spaceflight. But there is a place and a time for that: it’s when the astronauts have landed safely, the mission is complete, and we can celebrate our accomplishments. It is NOT when we are designing and building the hardware that will take them safely up and bring them safely home.

If these people did any research into the suits, they would understand that those “pumpkins” are meant to be high-visibility for safety. They would see that the bulkiness of the Apollo EVA suits was because they contained life support systems, communications, a camera mount, a Mary Poppins amount of pocket space, and a waste collection system. That thing needs to act as a small spacecraft for the duration of time a person spends on the lunar surface. It needs its own cooling system, it needs radiation protection, circulation, traction, a sun visor, drinking water storage, back pressure tanks for the oxygen system. It needs to support the weight of its own backpack. If NASA wanted the things to “look nice” we would still be on the ground.

Plus, tell me this thing isn’t beautiful in its own right:

NASA and the Air Force have always prioritized safety in their designs. If you had uttered the phrase “idealized human warrior body” in the presence of any NASA employee from 1959 through the shuttle program they would have dropkicked you into the south Atlantic.

NYT drops in this comparison to try to illustrate their point. They cite the “pop culture comic con continuum” of NASA’s suits (while somehow also bashing them?), but look at these things:

Those Mercury suits were carefully assembled by a group of old ladies with glue pots. Yeah, they look a little clunky. It was 1959. We were in the middle of a politically-fueled race to space. There wasn’t time to call up Hollywood and take care of that pesky pressurization issue later. That picture almost didn’t happen, simply because there were more important things to be done at the time.

The suits on the left were designed by a Hollywood costume designer under the instruction of a spoiled billionaire whose only goal appears to be maintaining his Twitter following. That is not a nod to the “magic of space exploration.” These men don’t look like they’re going to space. They look like grade school children walking to the bus in the rain.

This obsession with sleek design is further illustrated in the chest of the suit:

I see the worm logo in the center, the meatball on the left shoulder, and the American flag and the astronaut’s name on the right shoulder. And that’s generous: earlier designs left the chest entirely blank. The Shuttle launch suits tell a different story: The NASA meatball, the astronaut’s name, and the mission patch design are displayed prominently on the front of the suit. The American flag is on the left shoulder, allowing it to be displayed non-mirrored. You look at the Shuttle suits and you see that it’s so-and-so flying Expedition Whatever. You look at these things and all you know is that they’re SpaceX. If every part of this design is as intentional as they make it out to be, Elon sure is a self-centered asshole hell-bent on putting himself in the history books. Patches on a suit should not be seen as “detracting from the aesthetic” of the design. If anything, they’re an integral part of it.

Plus the boots are stupid.

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insomniac-dot-ink · 5 years ago

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The Breakdown Ch1

genre: supernatural gay ghost story

rated: M

words: 4.3K

summary: What do you get when you combine an urban legend turned real, a psychic hick, and bunch of ghost hunting Yankees? A bad time.

All Kevin Lampton wants to do with his summer is stop The Lady in White from killing anymore road trippers in the middle of nowhere Kentucky. Unfortunately, a group of ghost hunters looking for answers makes his job a lot more complicated.

Chapters: One, Two

Website⭐Ko-Fi ⭐Patreon ⭐ WordPress⭐Twitter

Prologue

Technically, no one agreed on its name. It had no name and no place on the maps- faceless as a cliff smoothed over by time and as anonymous as a stranger in a New York City subway at rush hour.

The dirt road peeled off highway US 68 halfway between Lexington and Springfield in the dusty empty guts of Kentucky. There was no hint of its existence except a dinky gas station on the corner that didn’t even sell hot dogs and required a pair of clunky keys to enter the fly-infested bathroom. The turnoff itself was only indicated by a little green arrow on a rusting metal pole.

Kevin had tried several times to kick down that green arrow and put up construction cones across the mouth of the road. That had worked a couple times before “Destruction of Public Property” letters started showing up in the mail. He tore up the letters first and then the next green arrow.

The unnamed road eventually breached the tiny town of Reginald. Its long bumpy neck skirted around the boxy houses with battered tires out front, ownerless dogs barking at the burnt sky, and dried grass the color of eye-crust. After Reginald it breached into “nothing land,” land that could be anywhere at all in its tired and timeless way.

It raced for thirty straight miles after that- no bends, no twists, no turns. It was as a straight as khaki pants at an old navy sale and guys in bars who would rather sleep on concrete floors than even brush the skin of another man.

It surged perfectly lonely toward Hillsboro. Hillsboro, population barely 100, was like Reginald except with the aftertaste of even more broken satellites on each roof and burnt trash since the garbage trucks wouldn’t come out that far.

Some people called the road between the two towns “Hillsboro Road” or “Reginald Lane,” each town denied such names and spat on the ground at the mention of it. An old man with a handsome nose half the size of his face and a bite for every other word called it “Catpiss Trail.”

It was yellow in the sunlight, and tinted brown in the night, ground that took on whatever color suited its mood. The dirt was loose and dried, easily sludgy in the rain, and a scourge to tires everywhere as the rubber flung stones into the air like rapid-fire projectiles. It was the type of road that was just another nameless dirt road in a nameless corner of the world.

Nevertheless, someone swore on their mother’s grave that there used to be a sign next to it, just a wooden post with white lettering. The post had read “Sumpter Road.” Kevin agreed on it being Sumpter Road. It was a thirty-mile lick of dirt that connected the very empty bits of a middling world. Sometimes a field or two bordered its edge- owned by men in ties that had never stepped foot in Kentucky. They grew grain or corn or somebody’s next sandwich. But mostly, it was grass, dry grass the color of yellows-lesser-cousin, a decayed yellow that had given up on its goals a long time ago.

You could drive for miles and miles alongside that wilting yellow, across flat plains with only tiny white shacks off in the distance and rusting red pickup trucks abandoned off to the side. It was junk and nothing all at once. Empty, lonely, ugly Sumpter road.

Locals of Reginald and Hillsboro used different options other than Sumpter. They knew not to travel on that road, not at night, not during the full moon, not during the crevice moon or no moon, and especially not during the summer. There was a conscious little heartbeat that traveled from mother to cousin to old great aunt back down to second cousins twice removed: don’t go on the dirt road off highway US 68, you know the one.

They knew not to go there, Kevin knew not to go there, and despite their collective best efforts, somebody wasn’t listening. People in Subaru's and Honda’s and family minivans, always in the lean months of summer with the faint smell of sweet heather and somatic cow filling the air.

They appeared as the sun roasted the dry earth and sucked the color from the sky until it was such a fragile, wilting thing you wished to drag your finger across the silken bottom and taste it.

Kevin knew those summer’s well, and he was sick of them.

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Chapter 1: The Blue Toyota

Seven miles from the highway, fourteen minutes from the closest house, twenty miles from the nearest public restroom, Kevin Lampton snapped open a folding lawn chair. The chair had been his roommates, but his roommate claimed it had been left in their backyard from the previous owner.

Strips of worn cloth draped across it from one metal limb to the next, the stripes had probably once been bright teal and red and clean white. Now it was just a faded peach and wheezing blue, it was rusted around the screws and held his weight with a reluctant groan.

But it had been free which was perfectly within his budget.

The headlights of his shitty 1990 Hatchback blew up his lumpy shadow across the ground and was the only light for miles except the teetering mix-drink stars up above. The headlights streaked valiantly across the dark ether and cut out a little life there. I’m wasting so much fucking battery, he reminded himself bleakly, but it was better than waiting in the dark.

He used headlights since flashlights always made him feel like an amateur that was just asking for someone to knock it out of his hands and kick him in the nuts for free. He wasn’t an amateur.

He slouched in the chair and the hungry heat crawled across his flushed skin, it was technically May, but it had the teeth of July- beating down on his brow and dripping long damp fingertips down his spine. He had on a white tank-top, one that made him look like he stored a shotgun in his trunk and didn’t know how to give his consonants any backbones.

Which was all true. But usually he didn’t want to show it. However, summer didn’t play by any judgement structured by how much PBR you drank or how much army camo print you owned. It was too hot for t-shirts and he settled.

He remained in his ragged slouchy jeans though, not even the murderous undead deserved the sight of his knobby gawky knees in shorts.

Kevin blinked up at the night sky, a vast unreadable thing, and listened. Crickets chirped in all directions and a few coyotes cried woefully to each other in distant places, but nothing more. Sometimes he thought he spotted blinking lightning bugs just above the tides of grass, but he usually chalked up to his imagination.

He slipped the cracked screen of his Samsung phone out of his pocket and just barely registered the time: 10:32. He sighed again. Kevin Lampton was big subscriber to sighing, he renewed it every year and regularly added: wrinkling his mouth into a tiny scrunched frown and running a hand pensively through his shaggy brown hair.

He needed a haircut. He needed to clip his nails. He needed to get back to his tiny motel room and throw out the milk in the mini fridge- it was at least five days old. He needed music.

He sighed again and instead craned his neck back and went over notes in his head: perfectly inelastic: the price stays the same regardless of the quantity demanded. Demand curve is a vertical line.

Elastic: if price elasticity of demand is greater than 1, quantity reacts to price…

He traced the vocab words on the arm of the plastic chair and occasionally mumbled to himself. He lost track of time, there was no other choice at that point in the night but to lose track of it.

11:00, 11:30, 12:00, coffee break, piss break, cursing at his cellphone as its battery drained, 12:20.

Kevin got all the way up to his anthropology notes and classifying primate bones. Orangutans: lesser apes, globular head, longer forelimbs.

It was 12:22 and the night split open like a ripe melon bashed with a baseball bat. A horrifying guttural scream pierced the air. He didn’t exactly hear it with his ears, which always seemed stupid if he thought about it too hard, but it pierced through his mind in a flurry of sickening bites. Yellow jabs, cloying blows, gut churning, and body seizing sensations.

Kevin let it hit him once, twice, before bursting to his feet and digging his hands into his stuffed pockets and patting the contents. He extended his senses outward: sending soft feelers toward the bleak oceans of anyone nearby. “Shit.” They were two miles up the road, further up than he expected, but ghosts were dreadful about being reliable.

Another shriek bristled from behind him and Kevin tossed his chair aside and dove back toward his car, “Shit!”

He hopped into his shitty hatchback, stalled the ignition in a reckless moment, and then backed all the way up. His tires threw up dirt as he accelerated with the devil on his heels and he took a U-turn that as more of a V-turn.

His car groaned for a moment, but had enough soul left to take off with a high-pitched growl and dramatic skid. He gunned the gas and fishtailed across the night, “Come on baby.” He sped, there was no speed limit out there, but he had no way of knowing what ‘fast enough’ was going to be.

He got close enough to recognize the robust shape of a car pulled off crookedly to the side of the road, headlights splashing across the ground and two pale figures sitting rigidly in their seats. The sound of someone twisting the key in the ignition with careless jamming motion crackled through the air.

Waves of spiky sticky fear pierced Kevin’s stomach and knew he was in the right place, obviously. That’s also when all the life went out of his car.

It didn’t stall or sputter or curse at him in any known electric language, it simply rolled to a perfect limp-boned stop. As it always did when he got this close.

Kevin scrambled out of the car and locked it just in case, you know, just in case.

“Stay calm!” He shouted across the way as they kept revving the engine and going absolutely nowhere. He started running. It was a shiny dark blue Toyota with a handsome finish, the plates were from out of state.

A woman with chin-length stiff red hair sat in the passenger seat, wild-eyed and chest heaving, all the blood drained from her face and hands braced on the dashboard. She was wearing a college t-shirt and looking at nothing.

A man with black glasses and a dark stubble beard sat next to her, eyes on the steering wheel and muttering curses in jagged uneven breaths. They looked like a young couple that were either lost, wayfarers, or their GPS had general murderous intent. It didn’t really matter at this point.

Kevin swung around to the passenger side door. This was the tricky part.

“What was that?” The woman’s voice was shrill, frantic and formless. “What the fuck was that Robert? Tell me you saw that Robert.” Robert did not respond.

Kevin hesitated; he had tried this part before with varying results. Quickly he decided on a new combination of methods, first tapping on the glass lightly and then simply opening the passenger door and hopping inside.

She always left the doors unlocked by that point.

The woman let out a shriek like bloody murder and jumped to the side, and the man looked up with empty-eyed terror.

“Don’t worry folks!” Kevin put his hands up and realized maybe ‘wife beater’ wasn’t the ideal outfit in this situation right then. He cut to the chase. “When’s the last time you saw Her? One minute ago, five?” “Ahhhh!” None of his methods seemed to work very well.

The man snapped out of his stupor and balled his fist up, “Get behind me Julie!” He put his arm out in front of the woman’s chest and offered impractically. He was plastered to the back of the driver's seat and Julie wasn’t getting behind anything. Kevin raised his hands up even further, “I’m here to help.” He winced as Robert raised his fist, “Wait, wait, you don’t want to punch me! I promise. I’m your lifeline.” They both stared at him, dumbstruck, the girl hyperventilated, “WHAT the fuck is going on?”

“Is this some sort of sick prank?” The man’s face bubbled red hot, “Tell me if you think this is some sort of practi-” “Not a prank,” Kevin’s eyes roved around the back of the car and an inconspicuous cold gently seeped through the air like mist rising off early morning grass, “I swear.”

“Don’t tell me...” The woman wrapped her arms around her body and shivered- she felt it too. “Don’t worry,” Kevin explained quickly, “You’re lucky I got here in time, now… when’s the last time you saw the lady in white?”

“What, what are,” the woman stammered. He was too late. There had been too much talking. Kevin was too late.

He was still working on this part.

He saw the movement before he saw the shape itself. Skin as white as crushed daisy petals, hand small and childlike one moment and then tendril thin and clawed the next. Kevin’s breath stalled in his chest, the white hand slithered out from the backseat, just by the driver’s side window and hovered for a moment.

It stalled in place, like the second before a giant metal airplane with no feathers or hollowed bones or thousands of years of aerial evolution pressed off the hard earth and into the sky anyway: a certainty of the impossible.

The hand lunged, fingers spreading impossibly wide, impossibly quick, and it clenched around the man’s neck with no ceremony or preamble and squeezed. His head hit the headrest with a swift jerk and his glasses slunk down to the end of his nose.

“Sir!” Kevin barked, but the hand was already latched on. The blood drained from the man’s face like there was straw attached to his neck and sucking. His skin squished in like silly putty being molded and the smallest of choking noises escaped his parted lips, barely a noise at all.

The woman didn’t move, Kevin internally complimented her for not pissing herself… yet.

Kevin reached into his large pockets. He was getting better at this part. When he first started, he used to quote bible lines like “the power of Christ compels you” and “in the name of the father, the son, and the holy spirit, be gone.” However, it didn’t seem to make any difference.

“Fuck off!” He shouted in its place and didn’t turn around; he knew better than that and continued yelling. “Get back!” He dug out salt rocks from his pocket and tossed them wildly into the back, flinging them over his right shoulder with abandon. A guttural growl answered, like a barely rumbling thunder cloud or the echoes of a tumbling rock fall in a canyon. A warning.

He caught her eyes in the rear view mirror.

He wouldn’t dare turn around, but he could do this much. She was positioned in the middle seat perfectly so and staring unblinkingly ahead.

Her skin was as pale as bleached bone and tendrils of lank black hair fell around her face. Her eye holes were surrounded with ragged black eyelashes, burnt ground around white, a white with no irises, a white with no pupils, a gaping emptiness with bruises underneath. Deep shadows and sagging skin, unslept and unwept.

The eyes themselves were nothing, empty fissures, otherworldly, but the bags under her eyes spoke of something human, something real, skin gathered and drooping mundanely. A suggestion of a person in the worst way, and it made his stomach heave.

“Fuck off!” He yelled again and threw another handful of salt, a hissing came right by his ear like the hiss of pipes just about to burst, animalistic and inhuman.

He reached into his other pocket and silently apologized to the upholstery. The man was choking, gasping, eyes bulging out of his head and spit dripping down his chin in glistening strings. The woman Kevin was squished next to remembered to scream.

“It’s got him, it’s got him!” She babbled and twisted around in her seat to look. The second she turned a new scream etched out of her insides, primal and broken. He took note for future reference: shoulda told her not to look.

He held up a pouch over his right shoulder.

Kevin squeezed the cold plastic bag furiously and aimed without looking, like he was trying to splatter abstract art somewhere and hated the canvas itself. The blood squirted out of the little tube in a perfect arching stream and the sound of liquid hitting fabric followed. He waved it back and forth until it sagged empty and deflated in his hands.

Kevin’s arms goose-fleshed and the overwhelming scent of bog rot and frost flooded through the car’s vents, a hissing like rattlesnakes and tortured cats joined it. Julie stopped screaming to cover her nose and mouth and she gagged on the waves of rank air.

Robert on the other hand started hacking and drawing desperate breaths of air, the type of sound you hear in the wards of newborns or from ailing vacuum cleaners.

Kevin braced himself, grabbing the handle above and shoving one shoe against the car door and the other against the dashboard. “Hold on.” He advised, but it was lost to the violent gagging of the woman and the man besides her attempting life.

The car shuddered like it was going through turbulence, rocking forward and backward as a bucking bronco trying to dislodge them, tipping wildly in some unseen ocean.

Kevin squeezed his eyes shut as their impromptu roller coaster trip shook the life from them like rag dolls in the hands of a vindictive toddler. Julie crashed into his side while the man gasped for air with a certain reverence and loving devotion.

Kevin exhaled from somewhere deep within himself when the tipping settled and the temperature in the car quickly climbed like a morning birdsong at dawn.

The woman clawed at the dashboard in a move Kevin could only wonder at and she twisted in her seat to look behind them again, teeth clenched and whole body trembling. A vein popped out of her forehead like a rather elegant blue engraving in her skin.

Kevin released the tension rippling through his nerves and exhaled. It was over.

He shifted in place, he was now positioned directly on top of the plastic middle island between the seats and tilting his head up toward the ceiling. He closed his eyes for a moment and listened. It was quiet except for crickets chirping. The scent of blood seeped through the air, but that was his fault.

“Where is she?!” The woman said louder than strictly necessary. “Where the fuck is she?!” She reached for the door, ready to do the logical thing and bolt.

The man felt at the red-marked puckered skin on his neck and wheezed in response.

“Don’t worry,” Kevin remembered he had to do this part too. “She’s gone. Don’t get out, she’s gone for the night.” The couple in the car both turned to him at once, as if seeing him for the first time and clearly not being pleased.

“You,” the man spoke first, still laboring for the breath and his voice faint as a crushed soda can. “You,” he seethed, “What is this?” He spat, “Who are you?” The guy who just saved your life.

“You can try the car now,” Kevin said instead, “it should start.” They both eyed him warily, mutely trying to process the existence of the evil undead and also this sunburnt white kid in a wife beater sitting in the center of their car. “I’m Kevin,” he looked between them, “I stop stuff like this.” He didn’t elaborate or add only on this road and with this particular ghost. “I came to help.”

He could still feel the anxiety and adrenaline rolling off the couple. It was a vivid electricity that clogged his chest and made his teeth ache. However, they hadn’t tried to hit him again- which was a fabulous perk for that night.

“Are you,” the girl poked at his cheek the way you might poke a strange stray dog collapsed on your porch, “are you real?” Kevin knit his brow together. “Yeah, I am,” he struggled to explain, “I, uh, she’s the only other thing on this road.” That didn’t seem right either. “In Kentucky.” He frowned, “Okay, maybe just on this road.”

The man mutely grabbed for the keys and tried the ignition, the car easily murmured to life with no complaint, you’ll want to check the shocks later. Kevin didn’t add that yet.

The woman held her chest and stared off into nothing, “What was it?” She finally whispered.

“Was that real?” The man had turned the car on but was still feeling at his abused neck. At least he dropped the idea it was a prank, you know, the murder kind of prank.

Kevin realized he was stuck between the both of them in the car, a dinner party he was not invited to nor wanted to attend. “You shouldn’t drive on this road ever again.” He said darkly, “Not ever. She might remember you.”

“What is this road?” The man asked, tasting the weight of each word and staring at Kevin with an even keel.

Kevin nodded, because that was the right question, “Sumpter. Just try to remember it.” Kevin said plainly as exhaustion finally peeled off him like soggy tree bark from a dead oak. They looked back to him, “What did you do?” The woman asked, flatly and not particularly kindly.

“I just stop stuff like this,” he repeated, “with a little lamb’s blood and salt.” You’ll need to get the back reupholstered- he didn’t say that yet either. “You’re okay now, really, like I said she won’t come for you again tonight.” He met the woman’s eyes and managed to extend a small scrape of reassurance toward her. “It’s over.” Kevin glanced over to the door handles to indicate his job here was done.

They both were still looking at him, “And what the fuck is it?” Robert growled.

“Ghost.” Kevin stated flatly. He waited for their disbelief, their rejection, their grappling with wild powerlessness and the simply thought of something more to all this. Kevin pushed out another wave of reassurance and another long moment passed. He cleared his throat, “The Lady of the Road. The Strangling Demon. The Lady in White depending on who you ask.”

Julie’s entire body shuddered at that and she curled inward like a roly-poly poked with a stick and buried her face in hands. It was a long fertile moment, hanging in the infinite, and then she started crying softly, without any pretenses or filter.

“Uh,” Kevin scratched the back of his neck, “I should go.” He didn’t look over to her; he already felt enough of her trembling shock waves of mortal despair. “I’m just… yeah.” They ignored Julie as she had her private moment and Robert turned to him with strangely piercing dark eyes, “How did you find us?” Kevin licked his cracked lips, “I’m from around here. I know she sometimes attacks people on this road, I come out a few times to stop it.” It wasn’t entirely the truth, but he needed to get out of here. “I should get going.” The man was frowning so hard it might as well have been an indent in his lower face, he reached for his door handle and silently stepped out. This was the point where some people gave Kevin cash or a hug, but it wasn’t one those nights.

“Wait,” the woman’s hand strangled the back of his shirt and stopped him, “How do you know she won’t come back?” Kevin didn’t turn to look back at her, “I just know. It’s the rules, it’s only on this road and only once, promise.” A long silence stretched thin, the man’s eyes shifted outside the car and the woman’s weepy voice clung to him. They focused on him, “Where does the road end?” Kevin just pointed, “When you reach the highway, then you’re out.”

The man and woman exchanged a glance. “And you get rid of her? That’s your job?” The man asked steadily, feeling his neck again.

“I mean, yeah, kinda. It gets rid of her for a little while.” This was Kevin’s least favorite part.

The man got back in the car and closed the door, “I’m Robert, that’s Julie,” he grunted, “Show us the way from here?” Kevin sighed deeply, and sometimes they asked him to stay with them. “Sure.” He would have to walk back to his car later. It was going to be a terrible night.

The couple didn’t say anything more with the scent of lamb’s blood drying and the air-conditioning left off. He rode silently to the highway with them in the blue Toyota, his thoughts dripping out his ears and falling to the ground like unfolded laundry. He didn’t bother pick them up again.

They’re alive tonight. Another car is going to be okay. He reminded himself gently, now just 90 more days of this.

Ninety more days, another summer, and however else long it took to make sure no one else died because of The Lady in White.

Kevin would make sure of it no matter how many times it took.

Next Chapter =====>

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Hey! Being a writer is a tough business and I put the “ah” into st-ah-rving artist so if you enjoyed the story please consider donating to my ko-fi or subscribing to my website or patreon

#ghost story #supernatural story #mlm #urban fantasy #original story #urban legends #novel #my work #original writing #the breakdown #LGBT fiction #original novel

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hoodoo12 · 6 years ago

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The Old College Try

Barkeep has her sights on Tailor Rick. Spoiler alert: she’s got her work cut out for her. Extra thanks to @porkchop-ao3 for letting me play with her character! Due to some references made in my story, it is set after her great Charlie Foxtrot (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). Mature.

⁂

It was a hopping busy night. You ran back and forth between patrons, supplying fresh drinks, clearing empty glasses, making small talk and filling server’s orders nonstop. Something major must have happened on the Citadel, because there were more Ricks patronizing the place than normal, and more of them than not were focused on getting plastered. But when that uppity Rick who’d burst into the Bar months ago, the one who’d wrecked your chances with Ice Cream Rick, you vowed to yourself to spend some time with him.

He was as well-put together as the time you’d seen him before: a smartly fitted teal suit, an equally fitted shirt with the faintest hint of a baroque pattern woven into it, an expertly knotted tie, and--here you leaned over the bar to look--the same leather wingtips polished to a high shine. You also didn’t miss how well his trousers fit. They had to be tailored, to support and emphasize the bulge at his crotch.

The color of his suit didn’t do much for you, but the way his blue eyes seemed to dismiss most of his surroundings did, and you grinned to yourself at the challenge he was going to be. It’d be an extra sweet victory to get him into your bed.

He moved smoothly through the crowd, twisting so he didn’t touch any of the other patrons. He steadfastly ignored them too, whether they cursed him when there was an accidental bump or called to him in recognition. It was obvious his goal was a seat along the table built into the side wall, where he’d be able to look over the crowd, but someone else slid into it before he could get there.

Knowing you were going to regret saying this, you called, “Rick!” just over the buzz of the bar.

The noise level dropped immediately as so many of them swiveled their heads to you. Pointedly you ignored them but kept your gaze directly on your target. He grimaced. Not exactly the response you were hoping for, but you smiled at him anyway and tapped the bar in front of a lone stool.

With a resigned sigh that you could almost hear, he made his way over.

Normal sounds of the bar--the crack of pool balls, bragging, laughter--started up again as he sat down.

“Hey,” you said in greeting, setting a napkin in front of him. “Nice to see you again, Rick.”

“Don’t call me that,” he said, looking over the crowd instead of at you.

Even though he grumbled, he sounded sophisticated. You hadn’t forgotten he was one of the only Ricks you’d met with a British accent.

It was on the tip of your tongue to point out that “Rick” got his attention a moment ago, but you let it slide. “Okay. What do you prefer? Richard? Mr. Sanchez? Daddy?”

That got his attention even faster. He spun around with a startled expression that melted into a snarl of distaste when he saw you grinning at him.

“Did I get one of them right?”

He ground out, “I’m called Tailor,” in a definitive tone.

You shrugged. “Whatever you’d like. I would have expected Mr. Sanchez. Or maybe Sir Richard Sanchez, habadasher to the Queen--”

You cut yourself off with a chuckle.

“Your mirth is misplaced, since you obviously have no clue that word has different meanings in England versus the Colonies,” he interrupted coldly. “I do more than simply sell clothing. I design and create high fashion for men and women. Therefore, Tailor. Not that I expected you to be familiar with even that word . . .”

He finished by making a show of looking you over, taking in your standard work outfit: a tank top and jeans. He couldn’t see your feet, thank god; he’d probably have a heart attack if he saw you wearing clunky server’s shoes! With the least amount of self-consciousness you could manage, you slipped your thumb under your bra strap--it had slipped!--to situate it properly on your shoulder and under the strap of your tank again.

He waited expectantly for your reply.

You narrowed your eyes and decided you couldn’t wait to fuck him. You’d win when you both were yanking each other clothes off. You decided maybe you’d keep one of his jacket’s buttons as a souvenir.

Laughing out loud, you said, “Tailor, I like you. Let me buy you a drink! What’ll it be?”

Tailor didn’t return your laughter. He simply told you he wanted a whisky on the rocks. You made it a double in a more expensive brand, and let your fingers linger on his as he accepted it from you.

He didn’t jerk back or scowl again, so you figured that was a chink in his armor.

Leaving him be for the moment, you decided round one was yours.

⁂

There were plenty more Ricks to flirt with; just because you had your eyes on someone specific tonight didn’t mean you wanted to close the door on others who may be back later. Most seemed more interested in drinking steadily, but some flirted back. Any other night you’d have taken one (or two, or three) home, but your sights were set on Tailor.

You kept him plied with drink and tried to carry on a conversation with him when you had a free moment. His answers were curt at first, but looser after a few glasses. You got out of him that the correct name for the color of his suit was Caribbean Blue, not teal; that he had designed gowns for the Queen and several other Royals as well; that his assistant was a nice woman but much too smitten with someone he called Mr. Whippy; that he usually didn’t come to places like this but he’d been in the neighborhood and--

Tailor, who’d not once given you full attention even as he tipsily spilled some of his guts, broke off his own sentence. Glancing in the direction he was looking, you saw a few members of the Council of Ricks enter the Bar: Riq IV, Maximums Rickimus, and Zeta Alpha Rick. The door almost closed again when Rick Prime came through as well. They were easily recognizable, even in new outfits you’d never seen before.

Tailor threw back the remainder of his drink and asked for another without turning to you.

He wasn’t the only Rick who’d stopped and stared at the Council members as they came in. For the second time tonight, the Bar fell oddly quiet.

“Where’s the rest of the Council, assholes?” someone shouted. “Too afraid to show their faces after that farce?”

“Suck my dick!” Riq IV spit back indiscriminately to all the patrons. Then, reverting more to the politician he was, his gaze seemed to meet every single person’s--including yours--in the place, like he was talking to everyone personally. “Our ruling stands. If you don’t like it, fucking run for Council yourself. For everyone else who’s not a complete fucking idiot, a round of drinks on me.”

A cheer went up. Whatever went down on the Citadel, free alcohol could smooth things over. You called a couple of servers over to help pull taps for the crowd, while you poured another double for Tailor and set up a vodka martini for Riq IV, who accepted it from you with a nod before heading to the table the other Council members had taken over.

You carried the new drink to Tailor, who was staring hard at the Council.

“Some Ricks seem a little anti-Council tonight,” you said conversationally.

“They better not get sloppy in those suits,” he groused, not taking his eyes from them, and not in the least replying to your statement.

Your gaze drifted to them again. You had to admit their new outfits were less obnoxious than the previous ones; they still declared “official” and “high-standing” but with subtlety, without the over-the-top gild and frippery that you were accustomed seeing on them. Or in the case of Riq, on your bedroom floor.

“What are they thinking, wearing those here? They could have worn burlap sacks and everyone would still know who they are! That fabric is hand woven and bloody expensive! If they fucking spill beer on it, who’s going to be the one getting the call to have it cleaned properly? Goddamn me, that’s who!”

It dawned on you that Tailor was muttering angrily to himself.

“So those are your designs?” you asked.

He shot you a look that advertised he couldn’t believe how stupid you were. “Of course they are! I’ve been after them to allow me to redesign those horrors they’d been wearing--they finally let me, and now they’re parading them around in a shit hole like this?!”

You took a second, then said, “I like them. They’re not so ugly. And it looks like the fabric is more substantial. Those other ones were pretty thin.”

“Yes they fucking were--” Tailor replied automatically, then cut himself off to appraise you with a keen eye. “How do you know the weight of the fabric from their old monstrosities?”

“Oh, you know. Just a guess,” you answered mildly, waving your hand. You knew you had a reputation among Ricks, but you weren’t sure if this particular Rick would be more disgusted than eager about it.

“You know them?” he asked sharply.

You nodded. “I’ve met a couple.”

“You’ve met a couple, and were able to feel how thin their robes were,” he said, as a statement of fact.

You shrugged and smiled, but didn’t elaborate.

Calculations were going on in Tailor’s head. You could tell. You had no idea what they may be, but you were called away again before he could say anything more. You hoped whatever it was burned him up, and he’d be more excited when you returned.

⁂

Typically with a Rick that you had your sights on, you’d flirt, you’d play up your cleavage. You’d joke and flatter; Ricks tended to eat that up. Occasionally, you’d be more up-front, but with your reputation and Ricks’ standard willingness to get down and dirty that wasn’t common. This Rick, however--

Tailor was either obtuse or a eunuch. Those were the only two explanations you could come up with for him repeatedly brushing you off. You dismissed the idea he may be gay; you supposed it could be possible but you’d never met a Rick that didn’t swing at least a little bit both ways.

So you turned on the charm. You were flattering, you were witty, you continued to ply him with doubles and made sure to lean far enough over the wooden bar to display your boobs whenever possible. He remained steadfastly annoyed with you.

The rest of the patrons seemed to loosen up regarding the Council being there--free booze helped--but Tailor continued to stare them down with laser-like intensity. The Council themselves seemed to be having a grand time laughing and swaggering. Several times Riq IV caught your eye; he raised his eyebrows and smirked at Tailor too. He also elbowed the Council members near him and made it obvious he was talking about the Rick at the bar. Each time that happened you noticed Tailor scowled and took a bigger mouthful of alcohol.

You decided to try and use whatever hatred Tailor was feeling towards them to your advantage, and once more struck up a conversation with him when work slowed down a little.

“So those new Council outfits. Tell me about them.”

He replied with only an eyeroll, to demonstrate how little he thought of your attempt to engage him.

Undeterred, you continued, “Did you have to take individual measurements, or could you just work from one of them?”

That ridiculous ice-breaker of a question made him pause and gulp for some reason. You thought maybe he didn’t hear you, or you didn’t phrase it correctly.

“I don’t know much about sewing,” you continued. “I thought that for tailored clothing all these measurements had to be taken, to get all the seams or whatever right. With Ricks, though, most of them are pretty much the same body type, so maybe it’s different? You could even just take measurements of yourself and work from it, right?”

Tailor closed his eyes for longer than a blink and his lips moved a little. You swear he was counting to ten. When he finally turned back to you, you could tell he was trying to keep his cool.

“Working from a mannequin or my own personal measurements doesn’t take into account variations of individuals. Yes, we’re all Ricks, but we’re not all the same. I’m sure you’ve been able to note the differences between the multitudes?”

It was meant to be a stinging shut down, and truthfully, it did hurt a bit. But eyes on the prize! It wasn’t enough to make you wilt.

“I have,” you admitted, leaning in close. “So you’ve had your hands on at least the Ricks that make up the Council members. Wanna go back to my place and compare notes?”

In the middle of a dismissive sip of whisky, Tailor choked. You laughed while passing him a handful of napkins, plus a glass of water; you always liked to be able to catch Ricks off their guard. You rubbed his shoulder soothingly as he caught his breath.

The slight commotion he caused made a few other patrons, including the Council, look your way.

“You okay?”

Even though his eyes were watering, Tailor managed to pull himself together and radiate distain. He slapped your hand away, not caring he was in front of an audience.

“I-I-I’m fine,” he stuttered in a croak.

There was an aura around him now, something dark and angry and it dawned on you there was a line you weren’t aware of but crossed. You get the sense he wanted to storm away, make a scene, but with people still looking over he cleared his throat and slipped off the barstool with a grace you knew he had to fight for due to how much he drank. Once standing, he pulled at his jacket to straighten it, and tossed a handful of folded bills on the bar.

“Good day,” he told you, barely moving his lips, in a tone that inferred the opposite.

He grabbed his tumbler and stalked away.

“Huh,” you said out loud, mostly to yourself.

Apparently it was loud enough for some co-workers behind you to hear; they were twittering, and more than one of them lay a hand in mock sympathy on your shoulder. Bruce, the bouncer with a mouth as full of teeth and wide as a shark’s--you couldn’t pronounce his real name in whatever his native language was; you just nicknamed him Bruce after the mechanical shark in the movie Jaws--even came over to whisper how disappointed he was you didn’t take Tailor home. He had money riding on you that you’d succeed.

You knocked him in the shoulder. Even a light punch made your knuckles ache.

Oh well. They can’t all be winners, you consoled yourself. Licking your wounds, you continued to flirt with the increasingly drunk Ricks still seated at the Bar, but none of them were going to be good companions for the rest of the evening.

As the night wore down, the Bar started leaking patrons. Maximums Rickimus--whom you had a hard time talking to after how your evening ended with him the last time you took him and Riq home--left. Other Council members peeled off their original group to speak to other people. You caught sight of Tailor sidling up to and chatting with a Council member you only knew by name. Rick Prime. You watched him straighten the other Rick’s jacket across the shoulders and swipe his hands down the other man’s back to smooth the fabric. You didn’t miss him giving a subtle squeeze to Rick Prime’s ass, and it all became clear to you why you couldn’t close the deal with Tailor.

Growling obscenities to and at yourself, mindless that there was still a bit of time till last call, you set yourself up a gimlet and drank half of it in one go.

“Not just downing a s-shot?”

“This is classier,” you snapped at Riq, who’d made his way to the bar. “And it’s bigger than a shot, so I get two swallows out of it.”

You proved yourself right by finishing it off with one more drink.

“Much classier,” he remarked drily. “Get me-set me up another vodka martini, so you don’t have to drink alone.”

Grumbling, but quietly, you complied. You didn’t give Riq his glass until your next gimlet was prepared. When you finally passed his over, he lifted it in a silent cheers to you, and took a sip. You took another large mouthful of gin and lime, staring daggers at Tailor and Rick Prime, who seemed to be sharing a private joke at the moment. Tailor hadn’t taken his hand from Rick Prime’s lower back.

Riq’s eyes slid over to the object of your attention, and he grinned.

“Ah,” he said in what sounded like sudden understanding.

With that one syllable it suddenly struck you that Riq had watched you all evening trying your damnedest to get with Tailor! You dragged your gaze away from Tailor back to him, and you exclaimed,

“You knew all along! You knew I was wasting my time!”

Riq’s grin widened, and he agreed easily, “Yes.”

“Goddamn it!’ you pouted, but it was more towards yourself than him. He heard that.

In faux sympathy, he put his gloved hand over yours. “I’m sorry you struck out with Tailor. I would have been happy to tell you he only hooks up with other Ricks, and that he’s been itching to get Rick Prime in bed . . . but what fun would that have been?”

“Oh, you’re a prick.”

“I’ll drink to-to that. Let me buy you another, and I’ll fill you in on all the shit that hit the fan today on the Citadel.”

Whatever victory it was that put him in a chatty, generous mood, it was fine by you. Anything to take away the anger at yourself for not realizing you were barking way up the wrong tree with the British Rick known as Tailor.

fin.

#fan fic #Rick/reader #Tailor Rick #Council of Ricks #the bar at the end of the universe series

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