#it seems like someone might have dumped the dog cause its like right next to a dead end street and every time a car came up

[jwooyoung]

saw a husky wandering around alone when I took koda for a walk earlier, went back out with the roomie to see if we could catch it, ended up having to leave to go to work so I texted my sister (who has two huskies) and IMMEDIATELY her bf was on the phone like. where is it. how far. send the address. so he's been there for like three hours trying to trap the dog so it's not out all night in the woods 😭

[occult-castiel]

The Same Page

This is my @destielsecretsanta2020 gift for @eclypseaf!!! The request was open, but bonus points for Miracle being present. So I wrote some post empty rescue fic!

This one honestly gave me a really hard time and I have no idea why. I hope you like it and have has an awesome christmas!

[Ao3 Link]

The portal spits them out in the dungeon.

Dean stumbles out first, a half step ahead of Cas. Human, malleable, and very much alive with one of the little dude's arms draped over Dean's shoulder.

Cas stumbles forward. Dean shoots an arm out in front of him, places a hand firmly against his chest. He maneuvers his other arms under his trenchcoat, grips his side firm.

His skins almost cool to the touch — much too cold to be safe. Not for a human, especially a brand new one.

And what if he's sick? Or gets sick and can't get better? Without his grace, there's a whole new set of worries. A bad flu that gets worse until he's gone, a hunt going wrong, fucking cancer. Heart disease kills pretty much everyone, doesn't it?

He takes a deep breath and focuses on the gentle thud of Cas' heart against his palm.

The last eight months haven't been easy. Not between the alcohol Sam eventually cut him off from, and the hunts getting sparse, and Jack being terrifying and gone until he wasn't.

Cas lulls his head to the side. His inky heart sticks to his forehead, and his blueberry-sweet eyes are unfocused but still manage to catch Dean's.

It's achingly familiar, and he smiles easy. "Hey there, sunshine."

Cas pinches his brows together as his head swims to stay upright. He slurs through some half-baked, nonsense question about coral reef bleaching, and Dean's so relieved he laughs.

Cas smiles at the sound, dazed and feather-light, but the joy is unmistakable.

It's the best thing Dean's ever seen. Fuck, he missed him. Missed him so much he didn't know what to do with himself.

Cas winces — what little help he was giving Dean in holding him up falls. He makes up the difference quick. Weak fingers curl around Dean's wrist.

"Sorry —"

"S'okay. Gonna —" he swallows hard. Tries to shove away the distinct pin-prick in his tear ducts that always means he needs to man the hell up. "Gonna get you to a bed, okay?"

Cas grunts, a pitiful noise that's mostly air and entirely feeble. "Tired."

"Rest then. It ain't far. I gotcha, buddy."

When he nods, his hair brushes Dean's neck.

It's not well thought out. The lack of work and overload of carbs haven't done Dean's muscles any favors. His joints creak and protest every step, but his room isn't far, and he'd be damned before he let's Cas feel like he has to do anything alone this time.

Miracle hops off the bed the moment the door opens.

Dean lays Cas on top of the bunched up blanket. Once he's down, Dean slowly works the trencoast and suit jacket off, his hands careful as they trail across the thin cotton of his shirt.

Cas shivers, and Dean wrestles to tug the blanket out from under him, Miracle nuzzling the side of his leg the whole time.

She's probably hungry. Or just wants attention. He hasn't exactly been available the last couple weeks, too busy with his nose in piles of research. But it all payed off.

Cas grimaces in his sleep, and it twists the cords in Dean's chest. He reaches his hand out and ghosts his fingers across the sweat-stained hair stuck to his skin, gently pushing it to the side.

He'd said it once, not more than a month ago, in the darkness of his room, Miracle tucked as close as he could get her.

He said he loved me, and I — I didn't say it back. But I do. God I do.

Dean trails his hand from his forehead to the flushed pillow of his cheeks. The other knuckles roughly at his eyes and comes back wet.

He has no god damn idea what he wouldve done without Miracle to talk to. Cause he could never get it out to Sam. Not those last moments. Not what Cas really means to him. Always too close to an edge of something larger than any apocalypse they've ever dealt with.

He traces down low enough to brush across Cas' wrist, the pained look still on his face.

Dean swallows, his heart hammers hard in his throat. Timid even though the guy is unconscious, Dean grabs his hand.

His mind blanks. Turns to complete static — a jumble of half-formed thoughts about every reason he ever told himself not to.

He's an angel. The worlds ending. Always ending. He doesn't feel that way. Can't, the equipment for it's not there. It's why he leaves, isn't it? And what the fuck could ever hope to start when it's all always falling apart? When they could fall apart.

Everyone leaves.

A flash of cold prickles down his back, and he tries to takes a deep breath. It goes down ragged. There was something he read once, about picking out a sense.

Cas' breath, slow and steady. The clink of Mircale's claws on the floor. A muted buzz from the florescent lights in the hall.

He breaths again, a little easier. His fingers curls into Cas' palm, and his finger twitch against Dean in response. The dent in his brows relax, his jaw goes slack.

"S'okay Cas." He squeezes. "Just... be okay."

When his phone rings, dumped and forgotten on the other side of the room, he isn't quite sure how to let go. Like the ligaments in his hand have cemented in place, forgotten the muscle memory to make the movements happen.

When the second call comes through, Cas mumbles something. Dean's shoulder slack, and he pulls his hands back, clammy and with a slight tremor.

It's Sam. There's a small tug of guilt — he should've called him the moment he put Cas down. He knows he would've been worried sick if Sam was the one that had to go.

Sam's relieved too, promises to buy stuff for dinner on his way back from where Dean went in the Empty about fifty miles out. And he must hear something in his voice, because he stresses to go watch a movie or something and let Cas sleep it off.

Of course he's right. They knew Cas would be out cold. But leaving the room is still hard, and he lingers in the doorway until he gets a good look at Miracle's mess of tangled fur.

He hasn't brushed her hair, since that's practically what the fur is, in weeks.

"C'mon girl."

He grabs the brush from the bedside table, casts on last look at Cas, and takes Miracle to the TV room.

She hops on the couch next to him, tail thumping with excitement.

"You wanna get pretty to meet Cas later?"

She nuzzles his hand, sticks her nose against the brush, and a little bit of the stress from today lightens up.

He flips on some netflix show about baking food, and talks to Miracle as he starts in on her snout.

It's ritualistic to touch on whatevers going on with her, at this point.

As her fur smooths, he tells her about the Empty. Its piss-poor lighting, the mind boggling way directions work, how it has this awful burnt-licorice and gasoline stench clung to the nothingness of its everything.

It kinda makes his head hurt.

Almost two full episodes in, he has all her fur neat and tidy, and his little monologue has circled back to Cas. She'd know a lot about him if she could talk.

"It's hard to believe he's really back. And — and maybe it'll be good. We could, I dunno, get you a yard?" He nods, smiles. "Yeah, I bet your spoiled ass would like that. The bunker ain't a place for pets."

Miracle leaps from the couch, and someone clears their throat from the door.

Cas stands in the doorway, hunched in on himself. Dark strands of hair twist up in random directions, and the casual clothes Dean left him fit snugly.

He looks... comfortable. Like he slipped into humanity ages ago, not this afternoon.

"Cas."

He tilts his lips up, tight and sheepish. "I see you have a dog now."

"Yeah. Miracle. She uh — she helped me." He motions vaguely to his head. "Might not be batting a hundred up here if not for her."

Cas glances down at her, and the tense smile softens. "I'm very grateful then."

Almost reverent, he scratches the side of her ear.

Dean shakes his head. Blinks. Two things he never thought he'd see side by side mixed with the insanity of the day make none of this seem real.

Deep breath.

"She can — she can be there for you too," Dean says. "If you need it. Dogs are great listeners. Even the Madonna types like this one."

Cas gives a contemplative hum. "They are both blonde."

He puffs a breath of air. It's easy to forget Cas actually knows what he's talking about now, sometimes. Even if he does still miss the point by a mile.

"It was your turn."

Cas raises an eyebrow.

"To, uh, pick a movie." He motions to the seat next to him. "If you want."

Cas runs his bottom lip between his teeth and doesn't look at Dean. Doesn't say anything either. Just nods, walks over, and sinks into the couch.

It's a respectable distance. Close enough Dean would be able to sense him, far enough away they won't touch.

Miracle curls up on the other side of Cas, head flopped on his lap, right next to his balled up hands.

"Is it over?" His voice is small.

Dean doesn't have to ask. "Chuck isn't aproblem anymore." Cas sighs, slinks down bonelessly into the cushions. "We figured it out, took his powers. Jack's fixing up Heaven with it. Says he's gunna do that, find a way to put Amara back together, and then come home."

"Good. I don't think I'm up to fighting standards." He rolls his head to the side. They're close enough Dean can make out each muscle in his neck when he swallows. "You didn't have to save me, Dean. I'd — made peace with that fate."

It's bullshit. It's bullshit and Cas has to know it. He almost tells him a much, but if he can't have that talk now, then he never will.

He licks his lips. It doesn't help the dryness.

"Did you mean it?"

It's a dumb question, but one he needs answered.

Cas doesn't miss a beat. "That and more." The serenity in his words is endearing as it is cutting when he adds, "But we don't have to address it. I don't want to make you uncomfortable."

It's Dean's turn to melt with relief. "Good — that's good."

Cas winces. "I understand if you'd like some space —"

He starts to stand up, and panic seizes Dean's chest like a vice grip. He grabs his wrist and Cas freezes.

"No! God no. Cas, it — it wasn't supposed to happen like that."

He looks confused, before some amount of understanding smoothes out some of the worried lines in his face. His eyes flick down to Dean's mouth for an instant. "How was it supposed to happen, then?"

"I thought, maybe on a hunt? Or — I don't know. Just... " some place I could say it back.

Its not good enough, saying it without saying it. Cas gave a speech. He saved Dean's life, saved the god damn world. All without knowing.

He shakes his head. Starts again. He had enough practice between thoughts he couldn't shove away and late night pet-therapy. "I thought you knew. Hell, I've been scared everyone knows. And if they did, you did too, right?"

"Subtly isn't always my strongest suit."

He laughs, and it's almost on the wrong side of sane. "Don't I know it."

He can do direct.

Slow enough that Cas has time to pull back, he runs his hand up his arm, cradles it against the back of Cas' neck. He leans across the small distance and kisses him.

It's clumsy and unsure, and Cas places a skittish hand on Dean's side like he's not sure what he's allowed to have even now, but their lips mesh together in a way that feels better than anything he can remember.

When they part, he's not sure either one of them are breathing. And he can't look at Cas, not when he says it. Not yet. So he presses their foreheads together, keeps his eyes fully lidded.

"I don't know how you could think you aren't worth saving. You — you're it for me."

"Dean —"

He shakes his head, and the tips of their noses brush. "I love you more than I know what to do with. You know that right?"

Bewildered, Cas says, "I didn't."

"Yean, well. Now you do."

He scoots back in place, flushed firm against the cushion. Their hands tangle together, and their knees are touching, and it's too much and not enough. But mostly not enough. Dean dares a glance over. Cas is staring at their hands, a pleased smile on his face.

And they're on the same page.

"I think you said something about a yard when I walked in?"

Instead of answering he says, "We should retire. I'm too old for this shit."

"Entirely?"

Dean shrugs. "A hunt here and there wouldn't hurt I guess."

"We'll talk about it later." He reaches over him, grabs the remote. "I think you said it was my turn?"

Dean grins, full and toothy. "Yeah, just no more romcoms, dude. I can only take so many."

Cas nods, curt and serious. "Of course."

He does anyway, and it's the best shitty movie Dean's ever seen.

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

HASO, “Can We Keep It.”

Sorry about the extended break. Hope you guys like this :)

First officer the Omen Lieutenant Simon waited at the entrance to the cargo bay watching the flaring red light blink continually before the airlock doors. A tone came with it loud and blaring repeatedly crawling its way into her head and making the space behind her eyes throb. She rubbed her head desperate or the sound to stop by knowing she just needed to wait  it out. Her family had always wondered why she chose a job that was so stressful, and so full of annoying and bothersome noises, but she wanted this and was willing to go through all manner of annoyances to make that dream come true.

If annoying noises were the worst thing about her job, then she should feel lucky.

The airlock door hissed open and the group of GA scientists and their accompanying human escort hurried into the cargo bay before the door shut behind them. 

She saluted to the Admiral who hurried onto the deck, “Sir, everything went well I trust.”

Her question was suddenly cut off when she noticed…. Something off.

Simon had never been all that great at reading people, she had trouble distinguishing tonal variation in people’s voices, and sometimes body language flew itself right over her head like a UFO, but this was obvious enough even SHE was able to pick it out.

“Did you gain weight?” She immediately chided herself for being so blunt. She had learned pretty early on that people didn’t like that sort of bluntness, but she had already stepped face first into it.

Admiral vir straightened himself out and quite obviously pulled his coat over his stomach, which was bulging quite obviously, “Bloating is a bitch, I tell you those space berries are really something.” 

“You are EATING random space plants!”

HE shuffled his feet, “Well not eating thm per say, anyway gas, you know that sort of thing. SHould probably head back to my quarters before I bother anyone with my issues.”

He went to walk past her and as he did, she thought he saw his coat twitch right above his stomach.

“What the Fuck was that.”

“Spasms, nothing to worry about.”

“Nothing to worry about! Admiral I should call Dr. Krill down right away.”

“NO NO! No need for that, I can walk just fine. Look, I will swing by the infirmary in a minute and get myself checked out, feeling totally fine. Nothing to see here.”

Simon went to open her mouth but he hurried past her and away, “Lord look at the time, so busy have so many things to do, paperwork, and and meetings and, and gotta call my mom before she freaks out and assumes I have died. Yep.”

Apparently she wasn’t the only one who thought he was acting weird, and she watched him go as the rest of the crew did the same, their heads cocked to the side, their mouths pulled down into a frown. NO one was really sure what was going on, and no one was really sure what they were supposed to do about it.

Simon turned her head to look over at the scientists who looked just as confused, although their leader looked somewhat annoyed about something.

He looked up at her wit an expression even SHE could tell was one of annoyance.

“Next time, we will not be allowing him on our expedition.”

She frowned, “Why is that?”

“Touching everything with his bare hands, marching through the bushes disturbing he wildlife, touching strange creatures, honestly he has no sense of scientific decorum, and if that planet had been even the slightest bit more dangerous, we might all be dead.”

“I will, have a talk with him.”

“Do what you must.” The little creature said, “I need to go lay down.”

He and his scientists walked off, some to the labs and others to do as their boss was doing. Simon was left standing rather confused and staring after them as they went.

She shook her head.

Sometimes she wondered how the Admiral had ever even become an Admiral, but she guessed clearly someone had thought he was qualified.

***

Adam Vir hurried down the hall desperately trying to keep unnoticed until finally shouldering open the door to his room and allowing it to hiss shut behind him. Then finally he leaned his back against the door and sat there as something writhed and churned against his skin. He felt it slither up the front of his chest before Jeffery snaked his way from the top of his jacket and out into open air. He opened his three segmented mouth, likely tasting the air kind of like a snake as he did Before turning his head to look around at the dark room.

Adam patted Jeffrey on the hed, “See, home sweet home.”

The snake-like alien slithered most of the way out of his jacket and went to curl around his upper arm and torso resting his head on top of Adam’s as he showed the creature around the room.

“This is where I sleep, and that over there.” he pointed “Is my dog waffles.”

In the time they had stepped into the room, and Jeffreyhad shown himself, the German Shepherd and poked her nose out from around the side of the bed eying Jeffery with some measure of concern.

Jeffery opened his mouth in her direction and Waffles scooted back just slightly looking to Adam with an expression of confusion and concern. She clearly wasn’t sure that she liked this at all.

Jeffery stretched close to her, his mouth still open holding himself up with great powerful muscles, likely more powerful than your average snake, which was saying something considering earth had plenty of constrictor species that could crush a man to death if they sochos.

Adam held out an encouraging hand, “It’s ok girl, its ok, he isn’t going to hurt you.”

Granted, he hadn’t actually thought this through, and if it didn’t go well, i was going to make his life a lot more difficult than he had originally intended.

He Knelt down on the floor and held out a hand to Waffles, who, as the good girl she was gave him her trust and moved forward, her nose twitching in the direction of the strange alien. 

Waffles had spent a good portion of her life around aliens, so she was used to coming into contact with new and strange creatures. Where other dogs might have barked, growled, or even attacked, she approached with cautious footsteps her head cocked curiously to the side.

Jeffrey, for his part, didn’t seem worried at all, and stretched forward to get a better look at the strange creature he could now sense before him. He closed his mouth after a bit and looked her over with his large green and yellow eye. She stretched her neck forward sniffing at him curiously. Tentatively she took one step forward and then another until she was sniffing the head of the space snake directly.

Her tail came up from where it had been hidden in between her legs and slowly began to wag back and forth.

She took another step forward and tentatively licked at the snake.

Jeffery reared back slightly surprised causing the dog to shrink back a little. For a moment he worried it was going to devolve into a fight, but then Jeffery lowered himself back down and allowed Waffles to lick him some more. He slithered from around Adam’s soldiers an onto the floor in a tight coil.

Waffles dropped her front half and stuck her butt in the air tail wagging playfully batting at the snake with one of her paws.

Jeffery reared up a little an playfully lunged at her.

Adam grinned. It was a lot like watching a cat and a dog fight and he sat back on the edge of his bed to watch the two of them play.

Waffles Lay down with Jeffrey in between her paws, mouth open tilting her head back and forth as if threatening to bite him, though he knew she never would. She played with him like that all the time and had never hurt him in the past.

It Was probably at that precise moment that Adam realized…. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do. It’s not like there were regulations against stealing animals from unknown planets, though there probably should have been. He knew that what he had done was probably illegal in some way or another, though he hadn’t read the manual in long enough to figure that out. He knew for sure that Simon and krill were going to be pissed, and probably Sunny. They would likely turn the ship around and make him take Jeffery back home, but the thought of dumping him off in the forest and then just leaving left a huge pit in Adam’s stomach. 

He had already proven once that he wasn’t going to be able to leave Jeffery behind.

After bonding for the day, he had honestly intended to set jeffery back into the wild. He had even gone down to the nearest berry tree and set him down offering him some of the berries to eat in his cupped hand before turning away and walking off, but then he heard jeffery behind him, and turned around to find the snake following him, looking for all the world like he was sad to see his friend go.

Adam had tried to explain himself as much to make himself feel better as to explain the situation to jeffery, but he just couldn’t do it. Jeffery had looked so forlorn and sad, like he understood what was going on.

Then he had crawled over and wrapped himself around Adam’s leg looking up at him with a big sad eye.

Adam was a weak man.

He knew it 

Puppy eyes, or in this case, snake eye worked on him just a little too well, and he was unable to leave the creature where it should.

At any time, if jeffery had shown a hint of agitation, he would totally have gone back, but he had curled up under Adam’s shirt and rested there through the whole flight like it was nothing, and now here he was taking his new environment and friends in stride.

Adam sighed and rested his head in his hands.

Great, he had gone and adopted yet another alien.

He hadn’t done it in so long that it was bound to happen again, but he really had not intended for it to happen this time. This time it had been completely by accident.

Just then there was a knock at the door.

He nearly fell off the bed in shock and concern as he hurried over to the door. Waffles and Jeffrey had stopped playing as they curiously looked over towards him. He cracked the door halfway glancing out into the hall with a face of concern.

Adam was both surprised and nervous to see Ramirez standing there.

Behind him Jeffery slithered over looking ready to poke his head around the door to see who was knocking.

Adam tried to block him with his foot as he peered through the door.

“Sorry bro, really busy right now gotta go.”

Ramirez frowned and reached out a hand to block the door, “Dude, serious? Like you were acting weird just a few minutes ago and Krill sent me up here  to make sure you were okay.”

Adam gave a stiff smile as he attempted very hard to keep Jeffery back from the door, “Oh yeah, I am totally ok. Very cool, completely and utterly ok, no problems at all.” Jeffery, who had got annoyed at his attempt to block the door, now began to slither up his leg.

Ramirez frowned, “Are you sure you are ok?”

“Yeah Fine/”

He tried to Grab Jeffery but he slithered through, and around the doorway opening his mouth to smell the newcomer.

Naturally Ramirez freaked out almost immediately, “What the FU_” He reached down for his handgun, but before he could Adam lunged forward, grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled them both back into his room allowing the door to slam behind him.

He pinned Ramirez to the floor  as the other man struggled, “What te HELL!”

He claimed a hand over the other Man’s mouth, “Shut Up! Shut UP.”

Ramirez went quiet breathing hard as Adam Sat over him, a hand pressed to his mouth. Jeffer peered out from around his shoulder.

“Don’t scream, and I will take my hand away. Gt that?”

Ramirez nodded, and Adam pulled his hand back.

“What the hell is that!” Ramirez hissed

“This is Jeffery.”

“Jeffery?”

“Yeah…. I may have…. Rescued him from an alien planet.”

“Dude are you kidding me, for a second I thought you were being mind controlled or possessed by some sort of alien brain sucker.” He looked up at Jeffrey and waved a hand, “Waddup.” 

Jeffery opened his mouth again.

Ramirez pulled back a bit, “W-what’s it doing.”

Adam waved a hand, “Oh, I think that is just the way he smells people or something.”

He rolled off to the ide to allow Ramirez to sit up,and reaching out jeffery let Ramirez pat him on the head, “So cool,” he glanced over at Adam, “You know Simon and krill are going to be PISSED.”

He sighed, “I know, I know, but you should have seen the way he looked at me when I tried to leave. I couldn’t handle it….. I am a weak man.”

Ramirez shook his head, “Well now what…. Do you even know what it eats”

Adam paused, opened his mouth and then closed it, “Well I know he eats berries?”

“And did you bring any of those berries?”

“Well I uh…. May have forgotten in the moment.”

Ramirez paused, “Wait here for a second.” Adam watched him as he got up and left the room.

***

The rest of the crew would be very confused to watch Ramirez walk into the mess hall, int the walk in refrigerator and then appropriate a tub of strawberries, some raspberries, blueberries and blackberries before walking back out of the room without saying anything to anyone. He would get some very strange looks as he walked up the stairs towards the captain’s quarters and then vanish walking back into the room and setting the berries down on the floor.

The two of them sat cross legged across from each other and attempted to figure out what exactly it was that Jeffrey liked.

Adam still had no idea how he was going to hide this.

Jeffery was too curious for his own good , and someone was bound to find out eventually

[juleswritesthis]

Roswell NM 3x11 Thoughts (I have a lot of thoughts!!!)

Contrary to popular opinion I really liked this episode. Yes, the science was so made up it was funny, yes certain character choices are hilariously silly, yes there was a lot of scenes filled with exposition dump, yes characters disappearing for episodes not to be mentioned as if they don’t exist is jarring & annoying, and omg yes, the Wyatt arc (if you can call it that) fell flat and was a complete waste of valuable screen time. So yes, I agree with most everyone’s assessment. That said still a very enjoyable and entertaining episode setting up the final concluding 2 hours of the season. Let’s get into it.

Jones is highly entertaining, overly good looking, and sometimes hilarious villain. Nathan shines bringing charm and depth to the role. Its important to note that Jones hasn’t caused any lasting damage to the group. Sure, he has tried to kill various members, he’s responsible for putting Maria in a coma & has kidnapped half the cast basically, kept our heroes busy all season. But when it comes to killing or destruction it’s really been focused on the dregs or racist folks of the town, the poor scientist in Santa Fe (I think it was Santa Fe) & the lady at the university last week. No one of any real consequence to our heroes. Now I have no idea if Maria’s vision arc has concluded because it hasn’t been mentioned in forever, but I’m assuming that there will be a major death by season end. Noah killed Rosa and the 2 other girls, abused Isobel for 10 years and destroyed the lives of all the mains. For Jones to be a real big bad there’s got to be some long-lasting consequences to one or more of our mains. Though I’m going into the final 2 episodes with excitement there is some concern. I don’t think any of the mains will perish but I do worry about Sanders and even Heath. (I’m really worried about Sanders y’all especially after that promo!!!)

Jones negotiation with Liz was bizarre. Why negotiate at all? Wouldn’t he just threaten to kill or maim people…what the heck is Liz’s bargaining chip against an all-powerful, evil dictator? If she doesn’t do what he wants he can just start killing folks she loves. It really is that easy. I get the whole creativity inspiration thing but fear for those you love is a great motivator. I was so amused that after hours of discussion Liz pulls out the big guns… free the sheriff. Was that her wild card? Really Liz? She may be a kick-ass scientist with a boatload of courage and sass, but I wouldn’t have her negotiating any of my needs anytime soon.

Isobel and Rosa scenes continue to delight. I think it’s clear Rosa won’t be in Season 4 much. As much as I will miss her, I’m glad that she will find some peace and joy at art school, she deserves it. Unlike Wyatt who does not deserve any tranquility because his redemption (if you can call it that) was not earned. Instead, his memories were wiped along with it any true feelings of guilt and remorse. How can we believe he has truly changed? What happens if his memories return? So silly and completely wasteful screen time (no offense to the actor who is quite good and likable).

The Dallas and Max scenes were wonderful. Don’t get me wrong I prefer the show not tell method. And Dallas conveniently having the entire Oasis history in a memory from his father then regurgitating those memories to Max (and the audience) was not the best way to convey the story. However, the actor who plays Dallas is ridiculously charismatic and I could listen to him recite the phone book (do those still exist?) and be entertained. Plus, for one moment I truly believe that Dallas had gotten through to the constantly self-sacrificing, martyr that is Max Evans. But as the promo for finale proves with Max asking Michael (why Michael?) to kill him, the words didn’t stick. Oh Max…

Speaking of, I truly feel so bad for Max. He’s had it rough. In a span of couple weeks, he’s been told he is a clone of an evil dictator, he isn’t the Savior but in fact a weapon to bring down the real Savior who also isn’t really a savior but a genocidal maniac (Michael’s words not mine) who slaughtered half his planet. Not to mention the “there has to be 3” doesn’t include him, as he isn’t part of the triad. And that because he is a clone, he doesn’t actually have biological parents or siblings or anything, well Michael, by DNA sort of, maybe? Oh, and he is the only thing tethering the evil, psycho dictator to life. I mean…

My hope for Season 4 is that Max gets to process everything he has learned about his existence. He hasn’t expressed how he feels the entire season and he deserves to. I hope the writers don’t have him get over it by season’s end with one scene or worse just sweep it under the rug. Like being a clone of an evil psycho, to be used as a weapon, without any real connection to Isobel and Michael? That’s got to have some lasting effects…please writers let me see it on my screen.

Speaking of show not telling, Michael’s new powers. I not a fan of Michael telling us a story of how he used his mind control powers accidently when he was 18. Can we please see these scenes so we can feel the true emotional impact?

As for these powers, strap in, this is a doozy (and might be controversial). I, like Michael, feel that taking someone’s free will, no matter who they are is not a good power to have; it’s not fun, it’s not cool. Michael is right that’s some dark shit and a power that needs to be used very sparingly and with a ton of responsibility.

I loved the scene between Sanders and Michael, but I have a couple issues with some of the dialogue. Sanders is the only living person (other than Jones) that knew and loved Nora. Thus, he can speak about her with authority. He is also the only person who is any kind of real parent figure in Michael’s. Thus, him saying Michael has no darkness can be believed. He knows Michael and he knows Nora. However, Sanders doesn’t know what its like to have powers, especially an immense power such as mind control. Though I appreciate Sanders’ perspective (and agree with him about the purity of Michael’s soul) I wasn’t a big fan of him brushing away Michael’s fears about having mind control powers and not wanting to use them. Yes, it’s important for Michael to recognize just because he has Jones’ power doesn’t mean he is or will ever become Jones. It’s not the powers that make a person. But the line about Nora not fearing her powers was not helpful. Nora’s powers were telekinesis, engineering (if genius is a power) and possibly miraculous crop growth. None of these powers take away a person’s ability to control their actions (well telekinesis to a certain point but in nowhere near actual mind control). So of course, Nora didn’t fear her powers.

I wish someone had validated Michael’s fears instead of brushing them away with a few words of you have no darkness or in Isobel’s case you aren’t like Jones/Noah. A person does not have to be evil or bad to misuse a power like mind control & for that misuse to have dire consequences. Can you imagine being able to make people do what you want them to do at any time? Even if your intent is to do good, it doesn’t mean it’s something that should be done or won’t have major consequences. Sort of like the ends justify means conversation between Jones and Liz. What is the line, do you recognize it and what’s to stop a person from inches towards the line and what happens if you cross it?

So, my wish for next season is for Michael like Max is given time to process what he has learned about himself and his powers. My wish is for Michael is to continue to struggle with when, how and if he should use the mind control power. That way even when faced with a racist sheriff that is holding a gun to his friends, he is careful, asks for consent and never takes advantage of this tremendous power. In addition, I do think it would be very interesting to continue to explore these powers and how they maybe could change a person? Take Max’s power to give and take away life force. He killed Noah and used that life force (and his own) to bring Rosa to back to life. Seems like a good exchange but ethically and morally having a person decide who lives or dies? And how would this all fit into religion with Dallas being a priest? These could make for some great conversations and strong character development. Fingers crossed we see some of it and not just get told in passing.

The music in the episode was amazing. The beginning with Nothing Else Matters and Jones is a tux… I mean… Also, the ending with the fight sequence, building the suspense, only for the reveal to be that Jones had wanted them all to come so he could trap Liz, Dallas, and Max along with Isobel and Michael (for extra leverage) in his mind. I’m confused about why everyone was sitting but Michael was standing? Is he able to move or is he able to resist his father’s mind control? I’m really looking forward to next week and for Team Human to come to the rescue (maybe).

Favorite lines of the episode:

Sanders to Michael: “You are just a pair of sad puppy dog eyes and a cowboy hat”

Jones to Team Alien & Liz: “Well, everyone seems a little tense” (LOL I love Jones!)

Dallas (or Isobel) writing on the wall to Jones: “KNOCK, KNOCK”

[keelywolfe]

FIC: Welcome to Backwater ch.14 (spicyhoney)

Summary: Hey, Stretch might hate to see Edge leaving, but he sure does love to watch him walk away.

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Read ‘All In The Jeans’ on AO3

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Read it here!

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Stretch let Edge lead him outside, towards the winding front walkway. But instead of heading down the stone path to where Stretch’s bike was sitting there like a steampunk nightmare invading their gingerbread fairytale, he drew Stretch down to sit on the front steps of the porch. The bricks were soothingly cool beneath him in the waning heat of the day and Edge sat next to him, his knee bumping lightly against Stretch’s.

“You don’t have to rush off just yet,” Edge told him quietly. “There’s still some time before sunset.” He still had a hold on Stretch’s hand and a bony thumb rubbed gently across the backs of his knuckles. “But you looked like you needed some air.”

“yeah,” Stretch agreed, numbly. He stared down at yard in front of him, the riotously colorful flowerbeds amidst rocky outcroppings that led their way up the little hill to the house. It was a little cooler here in the woods out of the stark sun overhead in town, closer to another season than summer or so it felt to him. It was all so inviting, welcoming, and his first thought upon seeing it that this was a trap of some sort seemed a little insulting now that he’d been fed and released. He’d eaten Red’s food, hell, moved right into his home without a qualm, and a well-kept cabin in the woods was where he drew the line?

But then, it wasn’t the house where the real problems lay, was it, it was the people living in it.

Monsters and a Human from another multiverse, again, and not just any Monsters, but another set of mirror images here in the Aboveground. He’d been worried about a Stephen King effect around this place and it turned out he should’ve been more concerned with Isaac Asimov, ‘cause the shift from gothic horror to sci-fi was not one he’d been braced for, with a ‘little invasion of the body snatchers’ vibe tossed in for extra flavor.

Only, that wasn’t fair, was it. Doppelgängers, Edge had mentioned earlier almost like it was a joke, but it was true, just like Sans and Papyrus were and he’d adjusted to them okay. It hadn’t been easy hanging out with someone who wore his brother’s face, but he’d adjusted. And despite the somewhat otherworldly location, these guys had been nothing but kind to Stretch, kinder than the Humans who’d greeted them when they’d popped out from the mountain, for sure.

Hell, Red took him in like a mama dog adopting a stray kitten. The glossy veneer of Stretch’s knowledge-dump panic was cracking and with it his weird sense of numbness, the void it left behind filling with dawning horror.

They were the only three who got out, Frisk said, they’d lost everything and everyone, and fled all the way here, and Stretch was the one about to have a panic attack about it. Exactly what kind of asshole was he trying to be here?

When Sans and Papyrus showed up under similar circumstances, he and Blue opened their lives and homes to them, all tea and sympathy. Well, mostly the tea was from Blue, but still. He was out here in Backwater crying in his soup over a breakup and he couldn’t even dredge up some compassion for versions 2.0?

“i’m sorry,” Stretch blurted thoughtlessly. He turned his hand in Edge’s, shifting to grip his slender fingers tightly. Bare bones against bare bones, weirdly intimate for all that they were only holding hands. He didn’t think he’d ever touched another skeleton like this except his own brother, back when he was little and Stretch was still trying to keep him from running off after every other damn shiny thing he ever saw.

Holding Edge’s hand was a lot different than trying to hang on to his squirmy wormy little brother. Edge only held on just as tight, his brow bone furrowing. “You don’t need to apologize, it’s a lot to take in. You’re honestly taking this all much better than I expected. Theorizing about a multiverse is a great deal different than being confronted with living specimens.”

“no, not that. i get that. i mean—i’m sorry.” Stretch waved his free hand around them vaguely, trying to indicate the entire world with one helpless gesture, “for everything. it must’ve been rough.”

Yeah, nice to see that Stretch’s gift for understatement hadn’t been affected by his personal traumas. Rough was a really great way of describing being the only survivors of their entire world. Next, he’d describe water as slightly damp, maybe fire could be ‘a little burny’.

Edge’s expression cleared, a certain tightness forming around his sockets. “Ah.” He looked away, eye lights rising to the sky where scattered pools of blue showed through the leafy branches. His eye lights were the orangey-red glow of a banked campfire, the crack running through his left socket lent him a sort of strangely thoughtful look. “It’s all right, it was a long time ago for us.”

“about ten years, right?” Stretch winced inwardly, yeah, sure, keep on talking about his painful past, that was a great payback for a yummy dinner. “i mean, that’s what i got from the book you gave me.”

“Yes,” Edge agreed. He didn’t seem to mind talking about it, maybe time really did pad on the emotional distance; Stretch’d have to check back on his own history in a couple years, give his memories a poke and see what bruises came back. “A third of my lifetime.”

Huh. If the math was right, that actually put Edge as a little older than him, who would’ve thunk it, the little brother mythos tipped on its axis, just for him.

Edge slanted a considering glance his way. “We knew other Monsters came to the surface. I kept tabs on the news from the world outside Backwater, just in case—” he hesitated and whatever awful scenario he was thinking about got lost in a shrug. “Well. Just in case. We saw you and your brother on the news with the other Human, and realized you were from a different Underground. They referred to you as Papyrus and Sans then and before you ask, we’d already changed our names before you came to the surface. When we came to this town, actually, and if you ask me why, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. Sometimes in Backwater, certain things simply make sense. One day, everyone started calling me Edge and that’s who I’ve been since.”

He stretched his long legs out in front of him, his slim, bare feet next to Stretch’s grubby sneakers. Edge’d changed out of his grimy gardening clothes before dinner into a fresh t-shirt, still only plain black but the way it clung to his ribcage and along the line of his broad shoulders was worth a second look. His jeans, too, and Stretch was hyper aware of his own baggie shorts and t-shirt that declared he was the taco king of Minnesota, of the differences between them.

“so you already knew about me,” Stretch said, “i mean, before i got here.” There was an unfair advantage if he’d ever heard one.

“In the abstract, yes,” Edge shrugged. “It didn’t seem very important until you showed up in my brother’s living room and tried to hit me with a lamp.”

Fair. Stretch looked back at their feet, at the visibly healed cracks in Edge’s metatarsals, nothing at all like his own undamaged bones. He understood the multiverse theory, wasn’t exactly that complicated. In theory, he and Edge were different version of the same person, each another facet to a complex jewel; that was the theory, anyway. After hanging out with Sans and Papyrus, Stretch had a few theories of his own and the most important one was one he wanted to be sure Edge understood.

“you aren’t really me, you know that, right? not me me.” It seemed important to him that Edge knew that or maybe Stretch had it backwards, maybe it should be that he wasn’t Edge, since Edge was here first by several years. He sort of had dibs, didn’t he.

For some reason, that statement made one corner of Edge’s mouth curled up in a smirk. “That seems rather obvious,” Edge said dryly. “For one, as fascinating as you seem to find my jeans, you wouldn’t fit in them very well.”

“no!” Stretch sputtered, holy shit, abort, abort, do not look at his hips right now, do not do it, “i mean in the context of the multiverse! like how chara and frisk are alike, right? they look alike, but believe you me, chara ain’t like frisk. you and me, we might’ve had the same names once, but we aren’t the same, not really.”

“Chara and Frisk have some ten years of distance between their ages that might account for that,” Edge pointed out, “but I’m no scientist, not even on the weekends. It isn’t me you should be discussing this with.”

Then who…? “i’ve got some data to back it up, i’ve met someone else from another multiverse, you know. two someones, other versions of…well…us.”

Well, now, looked like it was Edge’s turn for a shock, how about that, nice to see it on someone else’s face for a change. “You have?”

“yeah. another set of Sans-and-Papyrus skeleton brothers ended up with us before we ever got the surface. they wanted to stay out of the news and the queen let ‘em.” Stretch shrugged, “i don’t know all their story, they don’t like to talk about it. but it’s been a couple years since they showed up and we definitely aren’t very similar past being skeletons and having brothers.” For one, Blue might not cook as well as Edge, but at least his spaghetti never landed anyone in the hospital with acute food poisoning like some other skeletons who would not be named coughpapyruscough.

But Edge didn’t seem interested in another set of skeleton brothers to add to the collection, not even in the interest of making a full six-pack. He’d shifted to his knees and faced Stretch, his sockets wide, “There’s another Human that fell, then? Into their Underground?” Edge asked, urgently.

“probably, but not that came with them,” Stretch shook his head, “i. uh. i get the feeling their story is a little like yours, only more so and a lot more recent.”

That urgency faded. “Ah.” Edge settled back to sit on the step again. “I see.”

Stretch didn’t ask why Edge was so interested in there being another Human kid, that was a surefire way to wander off the path, but he made a mental note about it. “what i’m getting at is, you knew who i was when you first saw me. what i was.”

“I’m hardly going to mistake the framework of my own face.”

Yeah, see, that was another mark in the column of the differences between the ‘verses not simply being nature vs nurture, but them being different people entirely despite the whole names-and-also-skeleton thing, ‘cause Stretch had been looking at his own face in the mirror for a long damn time and he didn’t look like Edge, fuck no, he’d be the first person to know if he was that gorgeous.

Probably better not to bring that up. “and you guys have been here on the surface for ten years now, taking care of the town, and you never tried to contact anyone?”

Edge only shrugged. “What was the point? It isn’t as if we actually knew any of you. I expected that more Monsters would find us eventually and you did.”

“yeah, by accident.”

Edge slanted him another look, coolly raising a browbone, “You’ve been in Backwater a little while now. Do you truly believe you’re here completely by accident?”

Yeah, okay, that was a pretty good point. “but if you were expecting other monsters to show up eventually, then why didn’t you want me to stay?”

“Maybe because my brother was very quick to adopt a person who is wearing something like my face?” That stung and Stretch looked away, his fingers going helplessly stiff in their shared grip. “Or maybe because the longer you stay, the less likely you’ll be able to leave,” Edge sighed. “That’s how Backwater is.”

“wait.” Hold on, back that up. “you can’t leave?”

“I didn’t say that.” Yeah, and that was a backpedal if Stretch ever heard one. “Frisk has willingly tied their life to this town, and I’m sworn to protect them. I can hardly do that from another city.”

“but nothing is physically stopping you from leaving.” Because if the corn was gonna sprout little legs and come after him if he drank the water here too long, that would be important information to have.

“Where would I go?” Edge countered. “Back to Ebott? Unlike my brother and I, you have ties there. We do not and I’ve very little interest in revisiting the mountain ten years away from it. I have everything I’ve ever needed right here and as for wants, I’ve long since accepted the truth.”

There was a certain bitterness there and Stretch should let it go, he’d already poked that wound enough. He should, but he still ended up asking, softly, “what truth?”

“That sometimes people don’t get what’s coming to them.” The words were so loaded that Stretch winced and hunched down, almost expecting to hear a gunshot. Instead, Edge sighed, let his anger go on an exhaled breath and he sounded calmer as he asked, “Now you’ve heard my secrets. What about you?”

“me?” Stretch snorted. He kept his gaze on the flowerbeds, tracing the flat round stones of the path, and did not meet Edge’s crimson gaze. “heh, you guys are determined to ferret something out, aren’t you. i keep telling you, i don’t have any secrets. my boyfriend dumped me, and it brought me down, couldn’t get past it, so i left town. ended up here…i should be writing this down, it’s like the start of a country song. shame i don’t have a truck.”

“You’d look terrible in a cowboy hat. And your soul?” Edge asked, gentle but implacable.

“that’s not a secret,” Stretch muttered, “i just don’t want to talk about it.” He’d talked about it plenty back in Ebott, for all the good it did him, and he’d hoped to leave those chats behind when he got on the bus.

“Fair enough,” Edge tugged on his hand suddenly, pulling Stretch to his feet, “Come on.”

He barely gave Stretch a minute to catch his balance before he started to run, heedless of his bare feet as Stretch stumbling on after him. His brief, absurd surge of fear that they were, ‘oh, fuck, running from something,’ faded as Edge laughed aloud, pulling him past trees and through flowerbeds, around the corner of the house into the backyard again. Off to the side of the garden beneath a large tree was a massive pile of fallen leaves in a messy sprawl of browns and golds, and Stretch only realized what Edge intended when it was too late to stop him, barely stuttering out a “wait--!” before he leapt and yanked Stretch along with him.

They landed together in a cacophony of brittle crunching and the blinding, whispering surge of leaves launching into the air. Stretch sputtered and flailed, wallowing in the pile that was somehow soft and weirdly crisp at the same time, billowing around him as he floundered.

Somehow, he managed to find out which way was upright again and burst out on the surface, swimming through leaves, and through the madness, he could hear Edge laughing, that deep, rich voice sharing out happiness. For the first time in what felt like an endless dry spell, his soul felt like it was full, joy pouring into it, filling up the empty space in his chest.

“you’re crazy,” Stretch laughed, spitting out a leaf, and watched as Edge flopped back in the leaves, arms and legs moving and sending up another wild swirl of crunchy browns and golds.

“Perhaps,” Edge called, raising his voice over the cronch. “But I made you smile.”

“the technique could use work, but i can’t argue with the results.” He looked up and for the first time, Stretch noticed that not all the trees here were loaded with green. His grin slowly faded. “the leaves are falling.”

“Yes,” Edge’s smile eased down, understanding dawning, and he shuffled through the leaves to Stretch, reaching for him, “It’s a late summer heat right now, but yes. The corn is ripe, autumn is coming and soon.”

Autumn was coming, too fast, and there was nothing Stretch could do to stop it, but that didn’t mean he had to let it go. He was a little sick of letting things just happen around him and Backwater was getting him into the habit of doing something about it. “i want to see edgar allen again. you think if i went back to the field, the corn would give me a pass?”

“I think that a visit can be arranged without that being an issue.” Between the two of them, they managed to wade out of the pile onto solid ground, both of them shedding leaves as Edge headed back into the garden. He skirted the wall of sunflowers, leading Stretch deeper into the rows. Right into a small patch of corn, the tips of the leaves already yellowed and curling.

Stretch stopped abruptly, his sneakers sinking into the soft soil as he stared, “is that…?” In the middle of the little field there was a scarecrow hanging from a crossbar. It looked exactly like Edgar Allen, from the greasepaint face down to the plaid shirt, only now, there was a scarf looped around his neck, the very same one Stretch left in offering.

“It is,” Edge agreed softly. “He is every scarecrow. They awaken when needed or summoned.” He gave Stretch a nudge, hard enough for him to stumble forward a step deeper into the field. “Talk to him. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

Talk to him. Right. Stretch swallowed hard, trying to shuffle aside his sudden misgivings. His voice creaked like a rusty hinge as he managed a weak, “edgar?

Then he watched, fascinated. He could nearly see the life filling those limp limbs, the burlap sack of his head lifting as he raised it, and he knew the exact moment Edgar caught sight of Stretch in front of him.

“Well, hey pal! Good ta see ya!” That croaky voice was the same as Stretch remembered and he smiled helplessly, watching Edgar unwind an arm from the bar that held him up to touch the bandana around his neck, “Wanted ta thank ya for the new gear!”

“it looks good on you,” Stretch managed. The turkey-red fabric was bright against the faded plaid of his shirt and Stretch wondered how long it would take for the sun to bleach it out. Would there even be time before Edgar…ended? Did his clothes vanish with him or was he left out in the field to rot after his seasonal duty? He didn’t know and found he didn’t want to ask. For fuck’s sake, Stretch barely even knew the guy, if he was a guy, and still his soul heavy with sorrow.

“Corn thought so, too,” Edgar Allen said gleefully. “Nattered on ‘bout it for hours. Kept me awake for an age, I tell ya.” For all that his face never changed from that greasepaint sneer, Stretch could almost feel the sudden surge of sleepiness rising in the air, the way Edgar took hold of his support again, and slumped back down, “Still restin’ up from it. Thanks, again. See ya around, pal, give me a call if ya need me?”

“i will,” Stretch said and as he watched, that animation faded, life seeping away and leaving behind a nothing but straw-filled bundle of clothes.

A gentle hand settled on his shoulder and Stretch turned to look at Edge, trying to swallow down the thickness of absurd grief in his throat. He’d met Edgar Allen for a total of ten minutes, tops, and it still hurt.

“It’s difficult for him to stay awake when he isn’t needed,” Edge told him softly.

“yeah,” Stretch managed, blinking hard, his sockets aching. “he’ll be dying in a few weeks.”

“Yes, for the season,” Edge agreed, “It’s not really a death, but it is something like it.”

“that sucks, big time.” He understood it, sure, the whole ghost of gyftmas present sort of visit. Didn’t make it suck any less.

“He’s earned his rest and his spirit will return. Perhaps in the spring you can came back to Backwater and meet his recreation.” Edge held out a hand and after swiping angrily at his sockets, Stretch took it, folding their fingers together again. “Come on, it’s starting to get dark.”

It was, Stretch saw dismally, the sunlight creeping through the trees faded and soft with oncoming dusk. He’d already been here a helluva lot longer than he’d meant and it might be an interesting trip back to Red’s if he didn’t hurry; he’d be wandering off the path simply because he couldn’t see the damn thing and he really didn’t feel up to testing the monster bear theory, not today.

The two of them hurried their way back around front. He’d left his bike on the side of the driveway and before Stretch could reach it, the hand in his that had been faithfully leading him all afternoon betrayed him. Suddenly, Stretch found himself yanked around, a tree trunk hard beneath his back.

He looked up with wide sockets and all he could see Edge looming in front of him, stark crimson eye lights boring into his own and arms braced against the tree on either side of him. They weren’t touching, not quite, but he was close, so close Stretch could feel the warmth pouring off of him and it was ridiculous that it made him shiver in the waning heat of the day, an uneasy trill tickling its way up his spine. Something that was not fear was swelling inside him, not fear at all.

“What is it about you?” Edge said abruptly. His eye lights were burning, bright coals in his dark, narrowed sockets.

“what do you—” Stretch started, too weak and a little lost.

He broke off on a confused sound as Edge leaned in suddenly, tried to jerk back but there was nowhere to go as Edge murmured close to Stretch’s audial canal, his breath damp, nearly as solid as a physical touch, “If you think I haven’t noticed your attraction to me, you may wish to redefine the word subtle.”

“uhhhh.” Not that it wasn’t true but getting called out on it right now was a little unexpected, hell, he hadn’t even been looking at Edge’s ass this time. Any reasonable answer slipped away from his fumbling reach. “that’s…i mean…”

“It’s not that you’re unappealing, but as you’ve said several times, you’re getting over a breakup.” A gentle thumb slid along his cheekbone in defiance of what Edge was saying, making Stretch suck in a sharp gasp of breath.

‘Not unappealing.’ Wasn’t exactly a glowing endorsement but eh, reviews didn’t always match the product.

“yeah,” Stretch said inanely. “yeah, i am.” As if that meant anything, as if he could even think of anything outside this singular moment. Edge was so close to him, the lines of their bodies separated by bare inches as Stretch breathed out a faint, “sorry.”

He didn’t even know what he was apologizing for.

“I’m not. You aren’t alone in this,” Edge exhaled a soft half-laugh. “I’ve felt an attraction to you since the moment you tried to hit me with that damn lamp. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.”

“yeah, uh,” Stretch swallowed hard, trying to add some starch to his voice, but it was so damned hard (fuck, don’t think that, don’t, shuffle that pun right to the end of the queue). Edge was so close, and the bark of the tree was rough through the back of his t-shirt, lighting digging into his ribcage like a goad, urging him to move, to step forward, to complete that circuit. Stretch didn’t move. “i mean, the way the multiverse theory goes, i’m sort of you. or you’re me. something like that.”

A low chuckle filled the air between them and Stretch closed his sockets, holy fuck, that voice rumbled through him like a miniature earthquake, “That isn’t what I meant at all. You don’t want to talk about your past and that’s fine. But that doesn’t mean the effects don’t linger.” The very tip of Edge’s nasal nodule brushed the side of Stretch’s skull as he sniffed delicately, his warm breath gusting.

Slim fingertips came to rest on his sternum over his damage soul and that single light touch affected him more than the entire groping session in the library. “I can smell your pain, such a deep hurt in your soul. I don’t want to make it worse.”

“edge,” Stretch whispered, closed his sockets against the answering whisper of his own name. There was the slightest pressure of a knee against his own and the temptation was there to spread his legs, to give it a place to rest, and he shouldn’t, they shouldn’t, but that warning voice was getting softer, distant, caught by a shepherd’s hook and hauled off the stage. He’d gone through half a dozen shocks since he woke up this morning, added them to the pile he'd gotten since he’d stepped off that bus. What was one more?

“I know all of that. I know it. So why am I so drawn to you?” Edge murmured distractedly, “What is it about you? Why can’t I leave you alone?” He reeled back, shaking his head as if to clear it, then, nearly pleading, “Don’t let me hurt you.”

A warning, a plea tangled together as one, and Stretch lurched after him, arms reaching with purely reckless intent, “you won’t, you aren’t, don’t go—"

The sudden klaxon of a horn made them jerk apart, Edge stumbling back and putting space between them. Stretch looked up see a rusty old pickup truck making its bumpy way down the path, coming to a stop with a wheezy squeal of brakes.

They watched it together, Edge with tight annoyance creasing his face and Stretch with panting confusion, struggling to get his breathing under control. It turned out to be a hell of a lot easier when the window rolled down the window and Red poked his head out, like getting doused with a bucket of ice water as he called with deliberate cheer, “hey, you two.”

“Brother,” Edge said, the greeting coming from between clenched teeth.

“you have a car?” Stretch asked, outraged. Shame was taking a hasty backseat because holy shit, he’d spent all afternoon on that bike when Red already had a set of wheels?

Red only grinned, a slash of a smile with his golden tooth winking in the dwindling light. “nah, i got a truck.”

“you never said!”

“you never asked,” Red countered. “it was gettin’ late and i got worried. didn’t want ya trying to scooter your way home in the dark, ya didn’t add a headlight to that rustbucket. toss the bike in the back and hop in.”

It wasn’t a question and yeah, somehow, he didn’t think Red was gonna buy that he and Edge were only talking, not this time.

Stretch felt a guilty flush heat his cheekbones, meekly obeying. It was for the best, he told himself, holy shit, yes, he should be grateful that Red showed up when he did, no matter what kind of protest his crotch was currently bleating up at him. The last thing he needed right now was any other attachments and not only because he felt like getting into another relationship right around never, (yeah, never worked for him) and rebound sex with the boss’s little brother was supposed to be off the table.

Getting into anything past friendship with Edge was a Bad Idea all the way around, ‘cause when it came down to it, Edgar Allen wasn’t the only person leaving, now was he. Stretch didn’t want to think about it, kept trying to avoid it, but the knowledge still came up in the back of his head, readying itself to bite him in the ass.

Eventually, Stretch was gonna have to find his own way home.

~~*~~

tbc

[undertalethingems]

Bark at the Moon Chapter 9: Setup and Punchline

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Rating, Setting: Gen, Pre-canon

Chapter Warnings: None

Chapter Summary: Terrorizing Snowdin is fun enough, but Flowey wants more--where's Papyrus in all of this...?

Flowey suppressed a giggle as he hid beneath the lowest branches of a pine. Two monsters--a purple deer and a double-eared fox--were hiking just outside Snowdin. Idiots. Didn't they know there was a beast running loose?!

Flowey's smile turned jagged. There was a crack, and plumes of snow burst around the hapless monsters. Withdrawing his vines, he sent them running with a shower of pellets, delighting in their screams. He'd gotten bored of killing, but instilling fear in people was still fun and he had the perfect scapegoat.

Well, more like scape-dragon. His little rumor had done the trick. Even if he couldn't get Sans to attack, the townsfolk were so used to nothing happening it was easy to whip them into a panic. A prod here, a nudge there, a hail of bullets in between, and all of Snowdin had been buzzing within a week. He'd given it another just to really let it set in--and then let his pet go.

Flowey hadn't actually seen Sans in a while now, though he'd noticed his tracks around town and heard him howling at night. To think the toughest opponent he'd ever faced could be reduced to hiding in the shadows and relying on people's trash to get by! Though... that's more or less what all of monster kind was doing... A simple fact of life wasn't the best insult. Flowey frowned, his gloating spoiled. So much for that.

His fun over for now, he left his hiding spot to check in on the latest with the Guard. They usually met around this time to discuss the day's orders now that living in Snowdin had actually become eventful. Flowey liked keeping track of just how much chaos he'd caused, so he popped up beneath another tree and eagerly listened in.

"Undyne should be here soon, right?" Doggo was saying, and there was a rustle--presumably one of the Dogi nodding.

"We're supposed to meet with her at nine sharp. I wonder what our orders will be now that we know the beast is real," Dogamy said, and Doggo growled.

"I don't like it. We can't smell it, barely anyone's seen it--and its tracks just disappear into nowhere! Maybe it did eat Sans and stole his weird... appearing without moving thing..."

Flowey stifled a laugh. How were they all so dumb?!

Dogamy sighed. "Those brothers sure were something... at least Undyne told us Papyrus is okay."

Huh. So someone knew where Papyrus was...

"I've just gotta wonder about Sans after he was so worked up... and then he got sick, and we haven't seen him since. I hope he hasn't... you know..."

Doggo huffed. "Yeah. Damn. Oh hey--there's Greater Dog with the rest of 'em, guess it's time. Undyne's probably two steps behind 'em."

Flowey ducked a little closer to the ground to see better. He could hear the clanking of armor as Greater and Lesser Dogs trotted up with Dogaressa in tow. All the dogs shuffled around each other happily, sniffing and yipping; Flowey gagged as the Dogi kissed each other sloppily. Then someone started the morning howl, and they collectively threw their heads back to cry, their hot breath sending plumes of vapor into the chilled air.

Flowey found it all incredibly dumb.

Metal clanking rose over their voices, and their howls died away as they turned to salute their captain. She returned the gesture as she surveyed her troops, and sighed. She looked troubled.

"Anything to report before I begin?"

"No ma'am," Dogaressa replied firmly, "to our knowledge, there have been no further incidents. What are our orders for the day?"

Undyne nodded. "Right. We need to see if we can capture this... creature. It's clearly not a human, which means it has to be a monster somehow, so I don't want anyone hurting it. Whoever they are WON'T escape justice. Understand?"

"Yes ma'am!" they chorused.

"Good. Now, if it's scavenging from people's trash... that's gotta mean it's hungry."

"I can relate," Doggo murmured wryly, and Dogamy elbowed him.

"Ahem," Undyne growled, then continued. "What I was saying was, we might be able to lure it out with food. Today, I want everyone to scout out places that look promising--where there's been a lot of tracks, places that naturally make escape difficult. We're NOT letting this thing get away."

Flowey quietly scoffed--good luck with that plan. Sans wouldn't be found if he didn't want to be, and he couldn't be caught so easily either. He would know--he'd had to keep him tied up personally at all times just to keep him from disappearing on a whim. This would be hilarious. Even more so if he messed with them the whole time. The guards broke their huddle to get to work, and Flowey followed with full intent to sabotage.

He dumped snow on the Dogi, threw a stick for Greater Dog that sent him skidding across a patch of ice, and kept pulling on Doggo's tail when he wasn't looking; Undyne was harder to mess with, but he still managed to clock her in the helmet with a big icicle. By the time the morning shift was over, he'd made a thorough nuisance of himself and was quite pleased.

"Maybe this beast is actually a ghost, and they're playing poltergeist with us," Doggo growled dejectedly during one of their breaks, and Greater Dog whined in agreement.

"We'll question the ghost cousins if we have to, but I want everyone to focus on our goal," Undyne commanded. "There's already been one incident today. Let's do everything we can to make sure there's not another. Understood?"

"Yes ma'am!"

Flowey had gotten bored of messing with them, so he left them and settled for poking around town to see what other havoc he could cause while the Guard was occupied. There wasn't much--everyone had taken to keeping their things and themselves indoors, so the most he could do was tap on windows and scratch at walls. But not being able to see the fear on his victim's faces took the fun out of it, and he grew bored of that too. He might as well wait for Undyne to get home so he could find out where Papyrus was.

He wasn't sad to exchange Snowdin's ice for Waterfall's mud, popping up in the corridor just outside Undyne's home. He'd hang out here, then maybe catch her attention as she passed by.

The wait was almost unbearable, but he finally heard her clanking down the passage and wriggled with excitement. Finally, he'd be able to question her--wait, where was she going? She'd passed by and continued down the hall. Flowey lowered a brow, and ducked down to follow her. At one point he overshot--she'd stopped somewhere behind him, at a cleft in the rock walls that wasn't really a path. She sprang up, and he burrowed as fast as he could to catch up before he lost sight of her completely.

He came out in time to see her finish vaulting up the walls and frowned. It could take him hours to find a route through the rock... but he didn't want to keep sitting around. He wanted--needed--to know what Undyne was doing, because this pathway was new. He grit his teeth, and sent out his roots to feel for weak points in the rock.

He finally emerged on a landing some twenty feet above the spot he'd left, and muddy boot prints confirmed this was where Undyne had come through. He peered down the corridor they led into, and cautiously made his way forward. There wouldn't be so many places to hide here--but not far from the exit, he found a nook between a few stalagmites and hung back, listening as Undyne spoke.

"Yeah, sorry about that. There's just... a lot going on with this investigation. Nothing serious, don't worry! But it's got the Guard all worked up and someone's gotta keep 'em on task, y'know?"

"Of course!" Papyrus replied.

Flowey frowned. Papyrus was way out here? Why?!

"Are you sure I can't help yet?"

"No, we can handle it," Undyne replied firmly. "We're close to a breakthrough, I can feel it!"

He heard Papyrus huff. "I'm sure your investigation would be over instantly if I helped, but fine... Anyway! You wanted a sparring session tonight!"

"YEAH! Gotta stay sharp, especially now that there's an active threat. Plus, you're perfect for helping me against--" Undyne cut herself off.

"Against anything!" Papyrus supplied.

"Yeah," Undyne agreed. "Alright, let's get into positions... and, whenever you're ready!"

Flowey heard the familiar ping of a blue attack, and Undyne was already laughing eagerly.

"Right off the bat! Hell yeah, bring it ON!"

Flowey listened to them clash, wishing there was some way to watch--but he hadn't found any more weak points in the surrounding rock. Drilling straight through would take forever--they'd be done by then. So he sat back and listened, and flinched at the hum of a 'special attack'. Flowey shook his head. 'Gaster Blaster' was a cooler name than that, but he never could get Papyrus to use it.

"Hah! You're hardly TRYING!" Undyne taunted as she undoubtedly summoned a ton of spears. "Now, dodge THIS!"

He could almost picture Papyrus darting around each crashing spear--but the sounds he heard didn't match. They were scratchy, clicky, came too close together to make sense with his mental image. Flowey furrowed his brow. What the heck was Papyrus doing? Walking on bone stilts?

A raspy yelp startled him from his thoughts.

"Oh geez, sorry!" Undyne called. "Are you okay?"

More clicking sounds, and Papyrus cleared his throat. "Yes! I was simply startled by that arrangement, that's all! It was very good!"

"Fuhuhuhu, thanks! I based it on a thing Alphys showed me--I'm gonna surprise the humans by using their own tactics against them!"

"Clever! It certainly caught me off guard! But soon! I'll be on the Guard! Nyeh heh heh heh heh!"

Undyne burst out laughing. "Not so fast! You gotta get through me first, punk! Come on! Prove you've got what it takes!"

Their sparring match began anew, and Flowey continued to eavesdrop. Papyrus seemed to be using his special attack more often than usual--maybe he was getting over thinking he had to 'save it' to keep it special. But... oddly... it sounded like Undyne was holding back? For all her boasting, he could hear it--she wasn't using as many spears as she usually did.

Papyrus confirmed it. "Hmph! You tell me to go all out! But you! You're holding back on me! You think I can't take it?"

"No!"

Papyrus gave an offended gasp. "You don't?!"

"No! That's not what I meant!" Undyne retorted. "I meant 'no' I think you can! I just! Don't--I don't feel like it! Ngaaaah!"

Well, that sounded like the usual number of spears.

"See! I knew you could do better!" Papyrus cheered when the salvo was over. "I even got hit a few times! But this battle isn't over yet!"

"... I dunno, Papyrus. I don't wanna hurt you anymore."

A huff. "You keep saying that! Or things like it! I know you're a very strong monster--you're the Captain! But! You seem to be afraid of everyone else hurting me too, and though it's true I don't wish to be seen, that is not the same... as being able to handle myself in battle! Nyeh!"

Undyne grunted, apparently taken off-guard by his attack. Flowey pondered his words--he didn't want to be seen? He was Papyrus, he always wanted to be seen...

"That's not it!" Undyne grunted. "It's--attacking you right now... feels like attacking a puppy!"

There was a long pause as the battle ground to a halt, but Papyrus finally spoke.

"... I see."

"No, I mean--it's just--you're already so nice! And then, everything that's happened getting you down--I dunno, it doesn't feel fair anymore."

"Our fights are very fair, Undyne! Perhaps the most fair! I am not, despite appearances, a puppy, but a very capable and dedicated warrior!"

Despite appearances!? Flowey's mind raced. If he was right--no, no, he needed to see. He hoped this little chat would wrap up soon, it was getting in the way!

Undyne sighed heavily. "I know, but... Listen, forget I said anything. You're a great fighter. There's just been a bunch of junk that doesn't make sense lately. Let's head home and get dinner, that'll clear both our heads."

"... Okay. I'm sure whatever feelings you're struggling with will be subdued by punching vegetables!"

"Yeah! Need any help packing up?"

"No, I can manage!"

Flowey cheered internally, then ducked back and waited. He could hear Undyne's armor clanging as she approached, and the rustling as Papyrus gathered up whatever stuff he had. And then, more clicking, a steady rhythm against the cavern floor. Flowey practically vibrated with excitement as it grew louder, nearer. The hall darkened briefly as Undyne filled the entrance then passed, and then it darkened again--though not as much, and Flowey kept his eyes riveted to the opening.

Oh.

OH.

There it was. Flowey watched, tucked in his corner, as a tall skeletal creature walked by with an easy grace, its slender claws clicking on the stone. It carried its long head high, with bright orange eye lights reflecting on the corridor walls. A red scarf was draped around its neck, some sort of brightly patterned sash or skirt wrapped around its hips, and a light satchel was slung from its tall dorsal spines. A long, whiplike tail trailed behind, flicking idly as it walked.

Flowey almost couldn't believe his eyes as he passed by, but there was no mistake. It was so familiar, but different. No wonder Sans hadn't been bothered by threats of Papyrus finding out what he was... because he was like that too. They were both freaks who didn't want anyone finding out. A wide grin spread on Flowey's face, and he ducked out to go somewhere private--somewhere he could laugh freely.

Oh, this was all too perfect! He had to do something with this--and already had the groundwork laid out. Now, to figure out just how to use it...

[chasseurdeloup-retired]

Pour Some Salt on Me || Matty and Kaden

TIMING: Present LOCATION: Soul on the Rocks PARTIES: @likeamattoutofhell and @chasseurdeloup SUMMARY: Matty meets Kaden at the bar and deals with some of his baggage. AKA: Did someone order a Margarita? Extra salty?

It wasn’t often that Kaden spent a free night at a bar that wasn’t the Silver Bullet but he was always up for something new and different. Plus, for all he knew, he could be walking into a prime opportunity for hunting. Not to mention, he could always use a few more drinks to deal with everything that had happened in the past week. Mimes. Wings. Banshees. Werewolves. It was too much. He could use a normal night. The bar was loud. Very loud. It was going to take a lot for him to concentrate on any conversation and not get overwhelmed. He took a deep breath. It’d be fine, as long as he was prepared. He saw a guy at the bar, pretty sure on the end he was supposed to meet him. “You Matty?” he asked. “Kaden. Aka that guy whose dog found a fucking head the other week.” He almost added ‘not a mime-fucker’ but then he thought better of reminding anyone of that before needed. “How’s it going?

So. This had been a day, hadn’t it? Or, well. A night. But, at least some shit didn’t change. Soul on the Rocks was still standing, and nobody gave a crap how you came. Which was good, given that Matty looked a little like a half-drowned poodle, his hair still damp and curling, crazily, from his make-do shower at the pool. Whatever it took. Bit into his budget a little - man, everything cost more, these days - but he was two rounds into the special, and had enough left over for a few more. Solid. He’d just raised a hand for another when some… guy, sleek, sharp-faced, dropped onto the stool next-door. Kaden? Right. Maybe into mimes? According to the internet, but. Couldn’t believe everything you read, duh. “Yeah, that’s - yeah.” The vibes, on this poor bastard. “It’s… going, alright.” Why not shoot the shit? There was plenty of it. “Pipes in my place are, uh. Under reconstruction? Got real messed up last week, full of something fucked, I don’t know. At least the neighbors aren’t, you know, weirder than usual.” Which had been saying something, alright. But he’d draw a line, sure, at suddenly taking up miming. At other people. In the hallway. Matty shrugged, vaguely. “Same shit, different day, around here. How about you, man? What’s up?”

Kaden raised a brow and gave the guy a one over. “I can see that.” The guy looked rough, alright. Soaked and a little bedraggled. “Bad pipes, huh? What happened? Do you live anywhere near the funeral home by chance?” He almost asked if it was vampires or necrophages since that always seemed to be the cause of leaky pipes in buildings. Occasionally pixies. Usually dead things. But he thought better of it. That joke only landed in a hunter bar, really. He waved down the bartender and ordered a beer, wasn’t sure he trusted the liquor to be drinkable let alone mid shelf. “I’m alright. Less severed heads in my life so that’s been good.” A lot more wings and banshees and death but it was fine. He was fine. Everything was fine. He gulped down a sizable portion of his drink. “I mean, yeah. It’s been a fucking week. Got attacked by the wo-- an animal in the woods the other night. Nearly fucking died. So I’m sure yours is going better than that. Least I hope so.”

Funeral home? Matty frowned, faintly, not sure what that was supposed to mean. “Don’t think so?” Hopefully that was a no. Not somewhere he needed, or wanted, to hang around. With actual corpses. “Just some shithole, you know what it’s like.” Fuck, it was a shame you couldn’t smoke in bars anymore. Still had some of that good weed, from Margot, kicking around. And he was itching for something, anything. Matty gave the bartender a seriously grateful nod as the next Moscow mule landed, shaking off a sudden, cold shiver. A bad one. God, he’d have to get ahold of Felix. Soon.

But. A couple drinks wouldn’t hurt, and the company probably wouldn’t. Jury was out, as of yet.

“Solid.” Less body parts flying around in general, the better, yeah? Elbow up on the scratched-to-shit counter, he took a long, needsome drink, hearing Kaden out. The wo-what? His head tilted, there, doing some wo-wondering. Not too much. His week. Where to start? With the waiting to find out if a couple super scary motherfuckers were going to duke it out to the death over at Hanging Rock, come the weekend? Hanging around a psychotic old-ass leech with fancy tastes? Getting thrown out of a tree by a bloodsucking... monkey, with iron teeth, or some shit? No, thanks. “Oh, totally.” Matty tossed off a tired sorta smile, and raised his glass. “Here’s to - death-defying, huh? Life goes on.” Close enough. “The hell were you doing in the woods, anyway? Nothing but crazy and mosquitoes out there, seriously…”

Kaden nodded at his current companion’s words. “Ah, not related to that then. Nevermind. But yeah, I do know how that goes. Surprised I don’t live in a complete dump here, but I got paid a little more than I’m used to when I took the job at Animal Control.” Out of the sheer desperation they had to fill the position. He felt a chill run through him before taking another sip of his beer. Strange, was the door open or something? He looked back but that was stuoid, it wasn't even that cold out anymore. Odd. Must have imagined it. Or the beer was just really cold.

“To deth-defying.” Kaden raised his glass in a toast and gave a small nod. And a wince as he lifted his arm. Side still hurt, he almost forgot, despite toasting his near death. “I was camping. Didn’t want to stay in my apartment any longer.” He gave a shrug. The details weren’t ones he was ready to dig up so soon. Or share in a bar. At least not this sober. “I’m also in animal control so I’m there a lot anyway. Got attacked by an animal.” Explaining what it was seemed unnecessary. Most people accepted “animal” right off the bat, anyway. “You ever had any near death experiences?

Lauren Langley couldn’t stand to watch this any more, this fraternizing with supernaturals that her son kept indulging in. He'd made his choice to turn away from his duty. He didn’t even do a basic check on this man to see the glaringly obvious. The man at the bar was obviously undead. Kaden should have been able to listen and hear the hollow emptiness where his heart should be beating. And yet he sat there, toasting, making small talk. Disgusting. Disgraceful. She could no longer contain the anger raging inside of her. She pushed out her power, let her anger extend outwards and the lights started to flicker, the sound cutting in and out, as she floated towards the man in question, standing between him and her son, glaring daggers at him that she knew he could see, the blood sucking filth that he was.

Animal Control. Okay, then. Matty’s eyebrows slid upwards, but, hey. Whatever paid the bills. Not like he could talk. “Well, hey. Nice.” Did he want to know about… dogcatching, or whatever this guy got up to? Not exactly, but - he’d always been curious. “Seems like a rough gig. Especially in this town, fuck...” Christ knew what kinda freaky shit Kaden had to deal with, on top of bears, and cougars, and rabid raccoons. Had to feel a little sorry for him, yeah?

Cheers, anyway. To camping, too, sure. Whatever the dude was into. “Cool, yeah. I get that, man. Space. Nice thing to have.” Matty drank. And twitched, as the electricity fritzed. Weird. He blinked, throwing an uncertain glance over the rest of the Rocks, watching as the jukebox glimmered in and out, the static sneering into his too-sharp ears. Near death. With a shook-out laugh, Matty turned back to try and field that one  - only to find some lady. Some ghost lady, all silvery; more substantial than most, though. Nobody he knew. Right? No. He was pretty sure. But that stare. The grin was staggering away from him, on its last legs.  “A… a couple…” Leaning back on his stool, Matty cleared his throat. Took another drink. “Animals, yeah.” He was stumbling, quailing under those eyes. Maybe they weren’t, you know, familiar, but. If looks could murder. Violently. “Maybe we oughta take this outside?” Matty winced, suddenly, sliding to his feet. Ghosts got stuck to places, didn’t they? “Just, seems we’ve got some… fucky wiring, in here. I mean, this joint’s probably a total fire-trap…”

Kaden froze, glass at his lips, as the electricity cut in and out. For half a second he wondered if this was just a result of shoddy wiring. This bar wasn’t exactly high end or upscale. But the shocked looks and startled reactions from everyone around him gave him the feeling this wasn’t a typical occurrence. Putain. He really wanted a night off from the supernatural. Didn’t look like he was going to get it. It seemed like his present drinking buddy was looking through him or around him. Hard to say for sure, but it didn’t seem like his eyes were meeting his. Hmm, maybe his near death experiences were a hell of a lot worse than Kaden’s. Shit, might have hit a nerve. “You alright?” he asked, brow raised as the guy started to freak out. “Yeah, I noticed.” Kaden glanced around the place, didn’t see anything else strange, but there was a bit of a cold spot as he stood to follow. “I’m guessing this isn’t normal for here. Got any better suggestions?” Bullet was out so he supposed it was another night at Dell’s. He shrugged as they headed outside, could be worse.

He wasn’t going to get away so easily. Lauren knew he saw her; he must know her feelings as well. Or at least sensed them. And she hadn’t even spoken yet. “Leaving so soon, vampire?” she asked, smirk on her face. “I wasn’t finished here.” Her voice was laced with venom, but it was still and even all the same, cold and poisonous at the same time. Once again, she pulled into her anger and used it to send the unused glasses from the bar exploding out in every direction, but most of the glasses aimed at the vampire. Unfortunately, her son, too. But he could tolerate the pain. And maybe it would give him a hint to either leave this loathsome creature or, better yet, kill it. She disappeared a moment and then flashed back in front of the vampire, spectral face inches from his. “My son may not put a stake through your heart. He’s gone soft, you see, but I sure will. Better yet, I’ll make sure he does.”  

“Me? I’m good, yeah, just...” Haunted. “Honestly, I…” Matty trailed off, a shudder creeping down the back of his neck, all the way. That kind, he realized, now. He’d met his fair share of ghosts. Or, well, his unfair share, depending on how you looked at it. This one was - well, bad fuckin’ vibes, all over, was what she was. Why the hell was the vampire thing her problem? Matty tried to pin his attention down to Kaden, hurriedly tugging his ratty denim jacket on. They’d just fuck off, and he’d try the Rocks again… in a week. Or two. A month from now. Oh, that would blow.

Not as hard as the fuckin’ rain of glass that shattered over them. Matty had heard them rattling just in time to turn, barely soon enough to drop, shoving Kaden by the shoulder, turning his back into a storm of smashing tumblers and sharp edges. Ears ringing, hands shaking - bleeding, somewhere, he could smell it already - Matty gasped out of it, and pushed away across the sticky, glittering floor as the ghost gathered in front of him, face to face. Son? His eyes ticked to Kaden, quick. Back. Yeah, around the eyes, he could see it. Just his fuckin’ luck. Getting in the middle of some kinda family drama.

Wait. Wait, wait. Gone soft? Too soft for staking. Shit. Slayer family drama? Just his fuckin’ luck.

“Listen, I don’t - I don’t know you, or him, or… what your problem is, I...” What he did know, was salt. Salt for ghosts. How, specifically, not so sure. But the salt would be behind the bar - he’d downed enough tequila here to know. Behind the bar, where he was going, fast.

“Shit!” Kaden shouted as he saw the glasses rumble. He raised his hands to shield his head and found himself shoved down out of the way of the oncoming onslaught of glass. White hot pain from his side flashed through him as he twisted and ducked. After the deafening crashes of glass came the screams as patrons started bolting for any exit they could find. Couldn’t blame them. As Kaden stood up straight, his brow furrowed, another wince of a pain, and yeah that was definitely blood dripping along his hands. Fuck. “You o--” He started to ask his drinking buddy as he tried to evaluate the extent of his wounds. Minimal, thankfully. But his words cut short as the other man started speaking to the air.  

“Who are you talking to?” Kaden asked, brows furrowed, and stomach sinking. He had a feeling he fucking knew who the hell it was he was talking to. Putain. Also that meant this guy could see ghosts. Well that narrowed it down a little. Medium maybe? Zombie? Wait what was he going for behind the bar? Shit, time to pull a knife out, just in case. He grabbed a standard blade first but started rummaging in his pockets. Had to have an iron one on him somewhere.

“Oh, how cute. The bloodsucker found the salt,” Lauren smiled and shook her head, arms crossed in front of her incorporeal body. “Do you really think that will stop me?”  Lauren disappeared and sprung back next to Matty’s left, voice slithering right into his ear. “I need you to tell my son something, you filthy animated corpse. Before you turn to dust.” She vanished again and reappeared on his other side, eyes fixed on Kaden even though he couldn’t see her as she spit more venom into the vampire’s ear. “Tell him he should have been better. And that he’s all but proven he’s no son of mine.” Her visage was gone one more for the moment. With a loud crash, half the tables in the bar burst, sending drinks and food tumbling to the floor and wood shards flying in every direction. If that wasn’t a hint for her disgrace of a son, nothing would be.

Shit. Pawing around behind the counter, Matty was doing his best to think, clearly, with blood on the air. Human blood. He’d eaten earlier, but - pig, or something, whatever Nic had drained into those juiceboxes. Not enough to keep the good stuff from being distracting. “Uh…” He stammered, hearing Kaden. Asking a totally sensible kinda question, in the middle of something not sensible at all. There - pinch-bowls of salt. A couple went spilling onto the counter as Matty flinched, that chilling, creeping not-breath riding up his spine again, that hiss an itch across the back of his neck. Tell him.

Oh, this cow could eat it.

“Fuck off, Jesus!” He rasped, flinging a handful of the stuff. Where she’d been, anyway. God, usually ghosts were chill. Why’d he have to wind up drinking with some hunter who had poltergeist-grade baggage? Snatching up another desperate handful of salt, Matty glanced Kaden’s way. Or, almost. Everything went to shit, before he got a good look at the guy. Again. Worse. The back-mirror splintered and sheeted apart as pieces of table and chair stabbed through, into the wall, quivering furiously. “Your mom!” Shouting over the noise, Matty cowered behind the bar, panting hard and panicky from where he’d hit the dirt. “I swear, man - that’s what she says...” Why she felt the need to let him know, well. That, Matty sure as shit couldn’t answer.

Kaden was still fumbling for anything iron when the tables exploded. He dropped down and ducked, once again using his arms to shield himself. Fucking shit. This had to be an angry spirit, right? Shit, he was so far out of his depths here.

He shot up at the man’s words. “My mom?” His brow creased and he looked around, as if he’d be able to see her. “Putain de merde!” he grumbled, rolling his eyes. He had a feeling that was the case. He really wished it wasn’t. Fucking fuck. “Circle yourself in salt!” he shouted

Wait. Did that mean?

No. That. No. It couldn’t be.

As soon as her son froze, Lauren knew he’d figured it out. She’d hoped that he would, maybe a little sooner, but her faith in him had waned. “Do it, mon petitou. Do it.” She whispered in his ear as if he could hear him. All she needed was for him to stake one measly vampire and then she could move on. Maybe.

Kaden shook off his stupor as he felt a chill creep down his spine. There’d be time to evaluate this later. Right now he needed a plan. And to figure out how to stop this. “Want to tell me why the fuck you can see ghosts?” he shouted to Matty. “And why my mother is pissed as shit at you. And me. But you seem like the cause here, too.”

Lauren could feel the rage building up inside her again. Why was he talking? Why wasn't he acting? She threw back her spectral head and screamed, pushing her anger out to shatter all the glass and windows. It lashed out and added more scrapes and cuts to her son’s body. She didn’t care anymore if her son bled. Maybe then this vampire would show its true nature and Kaden would remember that he was meant to fight monsters, not protect them.

Circle of salt. Right. Ghosts, couldn’t cross. Only, then he would be stuck, here, in deep with Langley, who - who, whatever he might be, had shit going on that Matty wanted fuck all to do with, frankly. No offense to the dude, just. No. Kicking some of the wreckage aside, Matty scrambled to draw that circle out, wincing as his supply ran a bit thin. It’d be enough, right? Maybe. He’d stretch it. Did he want to tell Kaden why he saw ghosts? Like hell, if Mama Langley’s hate-on said anything about how she’d raised her son. “It’s, uh - genetic!” Matty shouted back, a little frayed about it. Seemed to work for Nora. Though, Nora was a pretty shit standard for what totally normal people would believe. Obviously. Fuck.

The hot, spattery smell of blood sharpened up, suddenly, tugging at Matty’s teeth until his jaw ached. “I don’t know, man! Maybe she’s just a raging bitch?!” No, the guy didn’t need to hear what mommy dearest was going on about. He shook his head, woozy - a sluggish lick of dark blood dribbled down the side of his cheek, dead and cold. And tried to fix that fucking circle.

Kaden was getting fucking sick of playing duck and cover with a poltergiest. The wounds probably wouldn’t take too long to heal but it still stung. In more ways than one. “Genetic?” Had to be a medium then. Why the fuck was she so mad about a medium? Then his mind jumped to Blanche. Whatever it was, it had to do with her, right? And certainly Regan. There was no doubt there. Fuck. They had to get out of here, but he knew damn well his mother would follow him if they just cut and ran. He had no iron on him. And funny enough, rock bars weren’t exactly filled with it. He looked around on the floor, between the shattered tables and fallen plates, he saw something. A fucking margarita glass. Rimmed with salt. Plastic. Never been so happy to be at a cheap fucking bar. He grabbed it and started swinging it wildly, wielding it like a weapon. “When you see her disappear, fucking run!” he shouted, whirling around the room and waving the salt rimmed glass around.

The hell was Kaden up to? Peeking out around the counter corner, Matty strained to keep his boots in the circle and his eyes on the action. Which was something to see, for fuckin’ sure: Langley, swinging like a drunk playing pinata. Right across his shrieking-mad mom, the spiderwebby substance of her rending apart. And not coming back. For a beat, Matty couldn’t believe it. But, he didn’t have to. Unfrozen, he lurched alive and out - the shattered front window, the shortest path to away from all this. Stumbling wildly into the parking lot, Matty hit the asphalt at a sprint, with a skitter of glass, and didn’t stop. Not until he was far, far away from the blood, and that mess of a bar, and Kaden Langley’s totally batshit mommy issues.

[regular-nessian-trash]

It’s Vegas, Baby - Chapter II

Summary: Nesta goes out to the store and so does Cassian. Classic Nesta, she thinks he’s stalking her. Trust me it’s more interesting than it sounds lol(I hope)

Word Count: 2k

A/N: I'm back on my grind yall *sunglasses emoji*

Nicknames:

Feyby- Feyre(its supposed to be like feyre and baby put together cause shes the baby of the family)

Nestella- Nesta(its supposed to be nesta and nutella. u will learn more later;)

Tiny Ancient One- Amren(kinda self explanatory)

Mor Boobiez Plz- Mor(idk i just thought it was funny lol)

"I'm home!" Nesta calls out to Feyre. She can smell pizza and instantly strides towards the kitchen, where she finds Feyre with a large cheese pizza still in the box, half-eaten.

"Finally! I was beginning to wonder if you and Cassian finally acknowledged the sexual tension between yourselves and fucked."

"Feyre! That is not appropriate to say at all! Cassian and I are barely colleagues, we will never be anything so stop with your meddling!" Nesta replied, trying to will down a bright red blush. Feyre and her boyfriend, Rhys, had this insane idea that she and Cassian were made for each other, it didn't help that Cassian was constantly flirting with her either.

"We're back!" Mor and Amren had just gotten home from some party, with Mor holding Duchess, their shared Chinese Crested Dog. When the four of them bought a penthouse together Feyre and Mor wanted a dog, and Nesta and Amren didn't. After begging and pleading with her sister and friend to please give him away after they adopted him they finally decided to just lock her, Amren, and Duchess in a room together. They all became friends, and they found out that Duchess was, in fact, a boy. They had been calling him Duchess for too long, though, so when they called him Duke he wouldn't reply so the name just stuck. When the rest of their inner circle found out-"the rest" being Cassian, Azriel, and Rhys- they didn't stop teasing them for days. In their defense, he had a very small you-know-what and he was a very ladylike boy.

"Bring my baby boy to me! Oh I wove you so much you wittle cutie pie!" Feyre was letting Duchess lick her face, making Nesta gag. Sure she loved the dog, but seriously, he licks his butt.

"Ugh, Mor, your cousin is working me to the bone! And he won't stop trying to push me and Cassian together! He thinks he can push us together just cause we “have hella sexual tension”! Also, I was thinking about this last night, Rhys is dating Feyre and if I'm Feyres sister and he's Cassians brother, that's literally incest!"

"You know they aren't actually brothers, right? They're just best friends." Mor replied, trying not to laugh at Nesta's flustered expression. She put down Duchess and reached for a slice of pizza. Everyone knew that it was just a matter of time before Nesta and Cassian got together. Nesta and Mor were the only single people in the house, not including Duchess. And Mor was just recently dumped so she was in a big love life meddling mood. Amren was dating some guy named Varian, and Feyre... Well, let's just say that it's a miracle that she's here right now and not out getting nailed by Rhys.

"I know that, but still. They refer to themselves as brothers."  

"So you're saying that if they didn't call themselves brothers you would have sex with Cassian! I knew it!"

"No, Feyre, I am not saying that! Besides, he flirts with everyone so even if I was into him- which I am not - we probably wouldn't become a thing."

"Keyword being probably." Mor says with a smirk.

"Enough of all this bickering, I'm hungry and bored so someone turn on the T.V. while I make some popcorn." Amren quickly breaks them up before Nesta tears off someone's head.

~~~~~

Cassian pulled up at the townhouse he shared with his brothers. All the lights were turned off which meant that Az was sleeping, or not home. The former was more likely because Az usually got pizza on his rest nights and there were three cold slices of meat lovers pizza left. Cassian was so hungry, he ended up eating them cold. He fought back a moan at how delicious the pizza was. He would never understand how Nesta was able to be a vegetarian. Shit. He had been such a dick to Nesta earlier. She was genuinely concerned about him and he had just pushed her away.

Cassian pulled out his phone and checked instagram. Mor had posted a photo of her and Amren with their dog, Duchess, at a party. He didn’t know if he should laugh or cry at the fact that a misgendered dog had a better social life than he did.

~~~~~

“Ugh, Feyre, Tomas and his little gang showed up at work last night.” Nesta and Feyre were chilling in the kitchen, the latter making a breakfast spread that would put Disney Channel moms to shame. Amren and Mor were nursing killer hangovers, so Feyre made sure to bang around a ton in the kitchen.

“Again? A-fucking-gain? Nuthin new, nuthin changed? Same old shit. Same old fuckin shit.” Feyre replied, forgetting that Nesta had no idea what that reference meant.

“I told them to leave and that I almost had the money to pay them back, but Tomas just slapped my ass and said ‘sEe YoU oN yOuR nExT sHiFt’ then he got up and left.”

“You do realize that we could end all of this by just telling Rhys? I know you have this whole thing about your pride and shit, but we could tell Rhys and he could pay off all your debts to him.”

“Feyre, I appreciate it, but I need to fight my own battles. I got myself into this mess, so I sure as hell can get myself out of it. Plus, I don’t like the idea of feeling like I owe my current employer money.”

“Nesta, sweetie, I love you… BUT YOU NEED TO PUT YOUR DAMN PRIDE TO THE SIDE FOR LIKE, TWO SECONDS AND ACCEPT HELP!”

“FEYRE-”

“Okay, can we yell about Nesta's issues at some time other than 6am? Also, is that bacon I smell?” Mor walked in holding her head and wearing one of Nesta's sweatshirts with some leggings.

“Yes, fattie. And it’s like, 10:30.” Feyre slapped Mor's hand away from a stack of pancakes cooling on the countertop.

“And I do not have any issues, Mor. I’m not the one that went partying with a dog last night.”

“Nesta, that is exactly the reason why you have issues. If you went partying with Duchess, maybe you would loosen up a bit. God knows you need it.”

“Brat.” Nesta threw a piece of toast at Mor's head.

“Thanks! Hey, Feyre, pass the butter.” Feyre slid the butter across the counter and cursed loudly when it just slid on the floor at Mor's feet. Facedown.

“Really, Feyre?” Nesta said in an exasperated tone.

“I’m sorry! I thought she would catch it!”

“That was our last stick of butter, you absolute dingbat!” Nesta sighed and picked up the keys to her car.

“Where are you going?” Mor asked, ever the worried friend thinking she had caused a family feud.

“To the store. We need more milk and eggs anyways. Tell me if you guys are gonna go out while I’m gone.” Nesta walked out the door of their spacious apartment and made her way over to the elevator, pressing the ground level button. She stormed over to her car, got in, and slammed the door shut. On her way to the store, she noticed that one of the local book stores was having a sale. She tried to ignore the voice in her head telling her that she had piles of unread books in her room, and all over the other communal areas of the apartment. She would just pop in after picking up the groceries. No big deal. She could restrain herself. Maybe.

~~~~    

Cassian woke up and made his way down the stairs towards the kitchen at 10am.

Hey sorry don’t be mad but here’s the shopping list. I had to go out.

~Azriel

“Unbelievable.” Cassian sighed and picked up the piece of paper attached to Azriel's little note and crumpled it up. Then he uncrumpled it because he remembered he needed to see what it said. Cassian walked up to his room and threw on a sweatshirt, some slip-on vans, and grabbed his keys. He couldn’t remember why they decided to share groceries. He wanted to in the beginning, but now that he woke up without any food in the house because his brothers had eaten all of it he was thinking or re-evaluating that decision. Cassian slid into his car and made his way to the store.

~~~~

When Nesta pulled up at the store she checked her phone and saw that Feyre had sent her a text while she was driving.

Feyby*: heyyyyyyyyy nes can you pleeeeeeeeeease get me some chocolate while you’re out :)?

Nestella*: k. anything else? im walking in now by the way

Feyby: nope! thank you love you! :)

Nestella: love you too

Nesta made her way towards the dairy aisle and picked up some 2% milk, a pack of four sticks of butter, and eggs. She quickly walked over to the candy aisle and began studying all her options, she took candy selecting very seriously.

“Nes?”

~~~~

Cassian walked into the store and quickly picked up all the stuff on the list. Once he got to the last few items written he realized he wanted ice-cream for a movie night with the boys. He walked over to the dairy aisle and picked up a tub of cookies n’ cream right when Nesta Archeron stormed past him towards the candy aisle. He followed her because, well, he wanted to talk to her. But he needed to act like he wasn't stalking her cause she might yell at him.

“Nes?”

“Mother Above, Cassian! You scared the shit out of me don’t you dare do that ever again!”

Oh well.

“How did you not hear me coming? Are you really that focused on chocolate?”

“I’m selecting some chocolate for Feyre, and she is very picky so I was focused on reading what the ingredients were in each bar.” She seemed to have recovered from the scare because she just grabbed a random chocolate bar and stormed past him.

“Obviously you don’t care that much if you’re willing to just grab a random bar and walk away!” Cassian yelled at Nesta. Some other shoppers began to stare at him so he quickly said “Don’t worry, we work together. I know her, I’m not some random creep haha.” That just got him more strange looks though so he just made his way towards self-checkout and paid for the items and skirted outta there.

~~~~

Nesta was so embarrassed while walking away from Cassian. People were staring at her! Ugh, Cassian needs to learn to not yell in public places. She walked over to her car after checking out and loaded her groceries into the boot. She needed a black iced coffee stat. Nesta began the quick drive to one of the local coffee shops and once she arrived she quickly sent the girls a text letting them know where she was.

Nestella: hey bitches im getting coffee you hoes want anything

Feyby: i want a mocha frappe pleeease              

Tiny Ancient One*: just get me a black americano girl

Mor Boobiez Plz*: i wanna iced coffee with whipped cream and caramel

Nestella: okay for everyone except Mor cause wtf that's not even an item on the menu

Mor Boobiez Plz: it is i swear! just ask them for it they did it when i asked!

Nestella: fine

“What can I get for you?” The guy working the register asked in a very monotone voice.

“One black iced coffee, one black americano, one mocha frappe, and one iced coffee with whipped cream and caramel sauce.”

“We don’t do that last one-” Nesta gave him a withering glare and he immediately changed his mind on what he was about to say.

“Those will be ready soon ma’am. Can I get a name for the order?”

“Nesta. Thank you.” Nesta walked over to the opposite side of the counter to wait while their coffee was being prepared.

“That was quite impressive the way you scared him into doing what you wanted him to, Sweetheart.”

“Cassian! Are you stalking me? Go away.”

“I’m not stalking you, I’m just here to get some coffee.” He smirked at her and picked up a latte that was set down beside him. He took a sip and looked Nesta up and down before smirking and saying “Hot.” he winked at her and left before she could yell at him. If he was being honest the coffee was actually the perfect temperature, but he just loved getting under Nesta Archerons skin.    

[iam93percentstardust]

Written for @cap-ironman bingo square: repression, found on AO3 here. Look out for the read more

Steve hates his job.

To be perfectly fair, he’s pretty certain that most people hate their job but he’s equally certain that he hates his job the most because his boss is Obadiah Stane. Steve’s been Stane’s PA for almost five years and Stane still hasn’t bothered to learn his name. He fetches coffee and lunch. He fires people because Stane can’t be bothered to do it himself. He’s worked birthdays and holidays and once, memorably, a funeral because Stane hadn’t gotten around to signing off on his bereavement leave until three days after the funeral. He puts up with Stane’s nonstop patronizing because obviously Steve’s just a dumb jock, right? 

He’d leave if he could but no one seems to want to hire an art major whose most notable show was almost eight years ago in college. And rent in Brooklyn is expensive so it’s not like he can just quit without having another job lined up. Besides, for all of Stane’s faults, Stark Industries has always been known for treating its employees fairly. He gets great health insurance, fantastic dental, and his paycheck is enough to keep him in the apartment he loves.

So what if Stane’s patronizing? So what if he calls Steve by the wrong name? So what if he keeps Steve at work so late that the subway to his apartment no longer runs and he has to walk three miles from the closest one? So what if he dangles the threat of firing over Steve’s head to keep him working like a dog? It’s worth it.

Right?

Sometimes, he thinks that he might just give up and quit anyways if it weren’t for the man at his subway station.

SI is an expansive campus, spanning multiple city blocks with its own subway station intersecting three lines, one coming in from Brooklyn, one from Queens, and one from Manhattan. The station’s got an aboveground portion too because SI has some sort of train system to run across the campus. The train’s got two lines- one going to the West Campus and one going to the East. Steve works in the West Campus, which handles the business side of Stark Industries. The man works in the East Campus, which handles all research and development, or at least he takes the East Campus train every morning so Steve thinks he works there.

Steve first met the man three years ago. Well, he says “met” but they haven’t said more than a handful of words to each other. He still remembers the day vividly. It had been early. Stane had kept him there so late the night before that Steve had ended up sleeping at his desk (Stane hadn’t; Stane had dumped an entire ream’s worth of paper on his desk, needing to be filed asap, and then waltzed out the door) and had just enough time to run back to his apartment to grab a change of clothes. He had been yawning wide enough that he could feel his jaw crack.

“You too, huh?” a voice beside him said.

Steve had jumped and then turned to the man beside him. His first immediate thought had been Gorgeous. The man (or Pretty Boy as Steve sometimes shamefully thought of him) had been about Steve’s age, maybe a few years younger. He had thick brown hair, an intricately styled goatee, and the prettiest Bambi eyes Steve had ever seen. More importantly though, he’d been wearing a bespoke suit that Steve was pretty sure cost his entire yearly salary and so his second thought had been Out of my league.

They’d stood there in silence as Steve gaped at the man. Finally, Pretty Boy had shifted uncomfortably and said, “Well, this is me,” right as the East Campus train had pulled in. He’d given Steve a tiny wave and been whisked away by the train.

And Steve had beaten his head against a pole for failing to talk to him.

They’d run into each other a lot over the following three years, not every morning but most morning, and always on the platform. Mostly, they don’t talk and what they do say was usually pretty inane. Steve doesn’t even know Pretty Boy’s name, just that he works at SI probably somewhere on the East Campus, which is huge.

He does know that Pretty Boy likes to wear makeup, usually just enough to give his cheeks some color and to outline his eyes (though Steve’s pretty sure that more work goes into it than that, judging by Nat’s makeup routine). Every once in a while, though, he shows up with bright red lipstick, winged eyeliner, the whole shebang. Pretty Boy’s always got a sly smirk on his face those days like he’s planning some sort of mischief. He’ll glance at Steve, give him a wink and a cheeky wave, and then disappear onto his train. Steve always just shifts his briefcase in front of him and smiles after him dopily.

So maybe he has to push his feelings down about his job. So maybe Bucky says that he’s repressing himself, stifling his creativity in this soul-sucking work environment. But every time he sees Pretty Boy smile at him, he remembers why he stays here.

Tony wishes he knew Hot Guy’s name. He thinks he’d like to ask him out but he can’t do that without a name. Unfortunately, the time to get that name passed like three years ago. At this point, it would just be awkward for him to ask for it. So instead, he smiles at him whenever he sees him, enjoys the sight of Hot Guy’s blush (and pretends like he doesn’t want to see how far down that blush goes), and resolves that next time, he won’t say something stupid. He never manages to though.

It could be worse though. At least he usually just ends up tongue tied. On bad days, he babbles. Hot Guy always just stares at him with this impossible to place look in his eyes. Tony can’t quite figure out if Hot Guy thinks he’s crazy or just plain weird, not that either one’s any good. 

One time, Pepper offers to go with him so she can see what Tony’s been gushing about it for three years (“He gets you to come in to work early, Tony. I want to see what’s so great about him.”). Tony almost agrees too but then he thinks about all the times he’s called Pepper the light of his life.

“No!” he yelps.

Pepper has this annoyingly knowing look on her face but she doesn’t say anything about it and she doesn’t track down Hot Guy so Tony thinks it works out okay.

He’s on the phone with her this morning, arguing about how he doesn’t want to go to his meeting with Obie. Obie’s been with the company for ages, practically since Howard had started it and certainly since before Tony was born. And Tony likes Obie, he does, but Obie wants the company to keep making weapons and Tony…doesn’t. They’ve been arguing about it for almost six months. Tony’s almost at the point where he’s going to have to pull rank, which is going to go over like a lead balloon, he just knows it. It is his company and it is his name on the building but Obie’s his CEO. Having to pull rank is going to cause one hell of a rift between them.

He’s coming up the stairs to the platform, phone tucked between his shoulder and his ear, clutching onto the files he’s compiled to prove his point to Obie. Pep’s giving him more statistics but Tony’s only half paying attention because it’s windy and his files are trying to escape.

Hot Guy’s standing up there, looking incredibly tired. Tony’s figured out by now that Hot Guy works as a PA for someone in the company but he can’t figure out who. He wishes he knew. He’d totally fire them. Hot Guy doesn’t deserve to look that tired. No one does.

Tony is busy watching him and doesn’t notice that his grip is loosening on the files. He does notice it though when a strong gust blows through the platform and he completely loses his grip on one of the papers.

“Gotta go, Pep,” he blurts out and hangs up to chase after the wayward paper. Fortunately, it blows right into Hot Guy’s arm, slowing it down enough that he can catch up to it when it flutters away. He grabs onto it, tucks it back into its folder, and offers Hot Guy a sheepish smile.

“Sorry about that,” he mutters.

Hot Guy shrugs. “No worries. Didn’t do any harm.”

They stand there in silence for a moment. Tony can’t stop stealing quick little glances at him, looking away when it looks like Hot Guy’s going to glance at him. Then Tony notices the papers that Hot Guy’s carrying. 

“Got a meeting or something?” he asks. He winces as soon as he says it. Of course Hot Guy doesn’t have a meeting. He’s a PA. Although now that Tony’s thinking about it, he can’t help but remember all the times he’s sent Pepper to one of his meetings instead.

Hot Guy doesn’t seem to mind though. “Or something,” he says tiredly but he smiles as he says it.

Tony thinks about saying something, maybe asking what the meeting’s going to be on. Maybe asking who Hot Guy works for so he can fire them. But just as he’s starting to open his mouth, Tony’s train pulls into the station, stirring up another strong breeze. One of Hot Guy’s papers tugs free and blows right into Tony’s face. He’s startled silent.

“Sorry!” he hears and then Hot Guy’s hand is on Tony’s face, pulling the paper away.

Holy shit. His hand is on Tony’s face. This is the best day of his life.

He blinks his eyes back open and looks first at Hot Guy. Then a bright red mark on the paper catches his eye. Tony freezes. He always wears red lipstick on the days that he meets with Obie, mostly because it pisses Obie off, but it’s never backfired like this. He can’t help it. He lets out a helpless little laugh because what else is he supposed to do? He hopes the paper wasn’t important.

Hot Guy looks at him confusedly so Tony nudges his head in the direction of the paper. Hot Guy immediately looks at it. Tony wants to wait to see what his reaction is- this might be the most interaction they’ve ever had- but he hears, “Final boarding call for the East Campus,” over the loudspeaker and dashes for the train. He can’t miss this one. If he misses it, he won’t be able to finish the miniaturized arc reactor in time for his meeting with Obie and he has to have that or else all his arguments on turning the company’s focus to clean energy will be for naught.

He throws one last regretful look behind him as the train pulls away but Hot Guy’s still chuckling over the lipstick mark on the paper.

~

Steve looks up, intending to laugh about the lipstick mark with Pretty Boy- but Pretty Boy’s gone. The train’s gone too, the last car leaving the station as he watches. He thinks he catches a glimpse of Pretty Boy through one of the windows but he can’t be certain.

He sighs, pushes all the warm, fuzzy feelings from the interaction down deep inside so he can obsess over them tonight, and prepares for yet another day with Obadiah Stane.

~

Steve reprints another copy of the lipstick-stained paper when he gets to the office. It’s an important paper, one that Stane needs for some meeting he’s got today, but Steve can’t hand him the one that Pretty Boy had marked. That one’s special. It deserves to be framed or something.

Stane walks through the door at nine exactly. Steve’s been there for almost two hours by that point. “Good to see you, Sam,” Stane booms because he’s incapable of doing anything but boom. Steve grits his teeth against the words that want to break out, insist that Stane calls him by his actual name, but he swallows them. He can’t lose this job. He can’t, not when Bucky’s still being denied his benefits by the VA, not when his rent’s just gone up.

“I’ve got a meeting with Tony this morning over in the East Campus,” Stane informs him.

In all his years of working at SI, Steve’s never met Tony Stark, the elusive owner of the company. Stark supposedly spends all his time down in R&D. He occasionally has meetings here in the West Campus but he’s never once shown up to them, preferring to send his own PA, Virginia Something-or-other, to attend. He and Virginia have laughed about it a few times.

“Tony’s a good kid,” Virginia’s assured him more than once. “He’s just got a lot to deal with.”

Steve guesses he can understand that. He remembers hearing about Tony Stark about six months before he came to the company. Stark had just lost his parents, had just finished his PhD, and now had an entire company thrust onto his shoulders. He’d given a couple interviews for Time magazine and the like. His tone had always come across as a little overwhelmed and bewildered, even in print.

Stane sighs. “You got kids, Simon?”

Steve shakes his head.

“Good. You should keep it that way,” Stane says. Steve represses his unimpressed frown. “I don’t have kids myself but Tony’s as good as, you know? Tony- Tony’s got a good head on his shoulders but he’s just a little too high in the clouds. Needs to come back down to earth, realize that these dreams of his are pointless. We’re iron mongers, he and I. This company was built on weapons and that’s the way it should stay.”

Steve’s read the proposals that Stark sent over for this meeting. He thinks Stark’s proposals would be a big change for the company but a good one. But Stane doesn’t want to hear that. Stane wants to hear that Stark’s an idiot, which he clearly isn’t. He presses back the words and silently hands him the files. Stane doesn’t even thank him. He just takes them and goes into his office. He comes back out and drops a huge pile of papers on his desk. “These need to be taken care of by the end of the day,” he says. “I’m headed out. Be back in a few hours, maybe a few minutes, depending how idealistic Tony’s gotten.”

Steve resolutely does not groan. The stack is at least two hundred pages thick. It’ll take him most of the day and that doesn’t even include everything else that he has to get accomplished. Looks like it’ll be another late night. He tugs the lipstick-marked paper out from under the bottom of the pile and smooths it out on the desk.

Stane keeps it warm in the office (Bucky jokes it’s because he’s the devil and this is his natural environment) so, as soon the door closes behind him, Steve opens the window beside him.

Of course, as soon as he does, the incoming breeze picks up Pretty Boy’s paper and attempts to carry it out the window. Steve lunges for the paper, catching it just before it floats out the window. He distractedly glances out the window. There’s a man in the building just across the street, working on something glowing. Steve’s building butts right up against the edge of the main R&D building in the East Campus and so weird sights and sounds are pretty normal coming from that building. He usually just ignores them.

Today should be like any other but something stops Steve. He looks again at the man. He knows that outline.

It’s Pretty Boy.

Pretty Boy’s window is also open and so Steve can just barely hear every time he swears at the glowing thing. Just as important, he can see the defeated look on his face. Pretty Boy shouldn’t look that dejected. He should be smiling always. Steve wants to make him smile. 

He sits back at his desk. The problem is he can’t just yell “Pretty Boy” across the street. That would be rude and a little bit too much like objectification for his taste. But he wants to make him smile.

He looks down at the lipstick-stained paper and starts to reach for it, the barest traces of an idea coming to his mind. But then he stops. He can’t waste this paper. Pretty Boy touched this paper. It’s special.

He reaches instead for one of the ones that Stane dropped on his desk. Stane’s notorious for giving him busy work and this stack of papers is no different. They’re nonessential; Stane won’t know if they get filed or not. Quickly, he writes out the word Hi and a smiley face on the paper. He folds it into a paper airplane and labels one of the wings with Open me. Then he stands, aims, and launches it out the window.

It goes two feet and then spirals down to the ground.

Steve watches it go, slightly stunned. He’s got great aim. He can’t imagine why he missed this time. He sits down and tries again. This one sails all the way across the street- and crashes into the wall beside the open window.

The next flies into the window just below Pretty Boy.

The one after that gets caught by the man in the office next to him. He opens it, reads the message, and waves eagerly at Steve. Steve weakly waves back. He stops writing the messages after that. He can always write one on the second one he sends after Pretty Boy gets the first.

One gets sideswiped by a flock of birds.

Steve’s getting ready to launch the thirty-fifth- maybe? He’s lost track of how many he’s sent out the window- when the door to Pretty Boy’s office opens. From this angle, Steve can’t tell who enters but he can tell by the look on Pretty Boy’s face that he’s nervous. He considers not throwing this one but, in the time that he’s deliberating, the other person leaves. Pretty Boy’s shoulders slump and he slouches into his chair. The glowing thing gets tossed in the trash where the light flickers and dies.

Steve throws it.

It crumples against the wall below the window.

Above the window.

Into the lamppost a hundred feet away because the breeze picks up.

Two of them manage to sail through the open window but they go right behind Pretty Boy and land in the trash can and he never sees them.

Stane comes back. There’s a look of surprise on his face about how much Steve has seemingly accomplished. The reward is another stack of papers. Steve swallows the words he wants to say about Stane being a bully and sends him a silent prayer of gratitude for the extra paper airplanes.

He keeps throwing them.

They keep missing.

Steve bangs his head against the wall but he keeps trying. At this point, he’s making them practically without looking, instead keeping his gaze fixed on Pretty Boy, making sure he doesn’t leave.

And then his hand bumps into the paper tray, sending it crashing to the floor. Steve winces, anticipating the inevitable flurry of papers flying into the air. But it doesn’t happen. The tray’s empty. Steve stares at it. He’s used up all of them making paper airplanes for Pretty Boy. He doesn’t even want to think about how many paper airplanes are littering the street currently.

“What’s going on out there?” Obie yells.

Steve can’t tear his eyes away from the empty paper tray. He doesn’t even know why it’s so important that he get an airplane to Pretty Boy, only that he wants to make him smile and something is telling him that this is the best way to do so. Inevitably, his gaze slides to the lipstick-marked paper. He takes a deep breath and sits down.

Quickly, he draws out a sketch of Pretty Boy on the platform. There’s only one instance in their entire three years that Pretty Boy had gotten to the platform before Steve. Steve had come up the stairs and there Pretty Boy had been, silhouetted against the rising sun. He’d been the most beautiful thing Steve had ever seen. He draws out that scene quickly, drawing from his memory. He doesn’t have his colored pencils with him here but he can do a decent job of shading with the ink pens on his desk. 

He finishes the drawing, folds the paper into the airplane so that the lipstick stain is on one of the wings, and stands to take it over to the window. He stands there for a moment, taking a deep breath. This is his last shot. This is-

The wind picks up, yanking the airplane out of his hand. Steve desperately tries to grab for it but it soars away and out of sight. He watches his last hope go and then looks up just in time to see Pretty Boy leave the room.

He sighs again, depressed this time. Well, that was it. He turns away from the window and jumps.

Stane’s standing right behind him with another stack of papers and a nasty smile. “Since you’re such a busy worker today,” he says and drops the stack onto Steve’s desk with a thud, “you can do these too. And remember, Sebastian: you’re replaceable.”

Steve thinks about swallowing back his words. But he’s tired of this, tired of taking Stane’s abuse lying down, tired of repressing his feelings and swallowing back his words so he can keep a job he despises. So when he sees Pretty Boy exiting the building across the street, he looks Stane in the eye and says firmly, “My name is Steve. And I quit.”

He grabs his jacket and runs out the door. He takes the stairs because the elevator takes too long, praying that Pretty Boy hasn’t gotten too far away yet. Except when he bursts through the doors, Pretty Boy’s nowhere in sight.

He sprints across the street, glances down a few alleys, but there’s no sign of him. Steve thinks again about the dejected slump to Pretty Boy’s shoulders and runs his hands through his hair. He can’t fail now. He’s come too far to fail. But Pretty Boy’s nowhere around. The only sign of the day that Steve wasted is the paper airplane with the lipstick mark sitting on a mailbox outside the building. Steve glares at it. It’s not special. Not anymore. Not now that he’s failed. He snatches it up and launches it into the air, the way he wishes he could have before the wind had taken it. The airplane soars away, disappearing above the building.

He shoves his hands into his pockets and begins walking toward the train station.

~

In an alleyway some blocks away, a paper airplane with a lipstick stain comes to a rest in a pile of other paper airplanes. It sits there for a moment.

Then it tilts to one side.

It tilts to the other side.

It does a quick little shimmy forward.

It hops.

It hops again, gaining more height.

It lifts into the air and flies around the alleyway, stirring the other airplanes into flight. It lifts higher and higher, moving faster and faster as more and more paper airplanes join it, forming a whirlwind of paper airplanes.

And then, as a blond man stalks by the alleyway, a veritable thundercloud on his face-

The paper airplanes follow.

~

Steve hears a slight rustling behind him but figures it’s just someone walking so he ignores it. But then something presses against his leg, pushing him back. He looks down to see the paper airplane with the lipstick mark.

It’s too little too late. He tosses the airplane aside and keeps going.

The trail of paper airplanes doesn’t like that and five of them promptly attach themselves to his chest, halting him in his steps. He shoves them all away but he can’t even take a single step but more of them fix themselves to him, surrounding him in a cloud of paper airplanes.

They’re shoving him in a direction but he doesn’t know where. He doesn’t know how the paper airplanes are doing this and he’s not entirely certain he even wants to know, less certain that he wants to follow them but they’re not giving him a choice. They push him into the street, bounce him across to the other side, and pull him down another road.

The first of them- the one with the lipstick mark- detaches from his chest, zips around his head, and then zooms away out of sight. The others keep prodding him down the road they want him to follow.

Steve gives a resigned sigh- and follows.

~

Tony’s debating getting flowers for Pepper to thank her for all of her hard work. He knows that the meeting went poorly- God, it went poorly- but she’d done an excellent job. It isn’t her fault that Stane had dismissed everything they’d compiled, dismissed the arc reactor, dismissed Tony.

He’d even patted Tony on the head like he was a misbehaving child.

He’s just getting ready to point to small spray of pansies when a paper airplane flies past his head and lands in the flowers. That alone would be enough for Tony to take notice but then he spots the lipstick mark on one of the wings. He leans closer, intent on a closer look. It can’t really be-

The airplane shivers and then launches itself out of the flowers. It circles Tony’s head once and then flies off. After a moment, it comes back and circles him again. Tony laughs delightedly, not certain why a paper airplane is flying on its own, but it’s too cool an opportunity to miss- so he follows.

~

Steve’s still bouncing down the street. Sometimes, one of the paper airplanes falls away from him but they stay where they land. Steve can’t figure out any sort of rhyme or reason to it. But he does know one thing- it’s irritating being herded across the campus for absolutely no reason.

~

The airplane zips around the corner of the staircase to the train platform Tony normally gets off at in the mornings. Usually, when he leaves in the evening, Happy picks him up so Tony’s never gone up there in the evenings, just the mornings (he never tells anyone that the only reason he takes the train in the mornings is so he can see Hot Guy but he’s pretty sure they all know anyway). Tony follows it up the stairs.

~

The airplanes are tugging Steve up the stairs of the platform. He’s so absolutely confused and overwhelmed and he grabs onto the first post he can, holding onto it for dear life. The airplanes lift him into the air, swirling around him, loosening his grip on the post. He makes a grab for the railing as soon as he lets go of the post but misses.

~

Tony chases the airplane around the platform but it keeps darting out of his reach. The next train arrives. The airplane flies inside and sets off flying down the train. Eagerly, Tony follow, trying to catch it as it moves from car to car.

“Sorry!” he calls as he trips over someone’s bag but it doesn’t stop him.

~

Steve tries to catch the doors to the train as he’s pulled in but the paper airplanes are a lot stronger than he is and he’s forced inside. He sits grumpily on a seat near the doors, arms crossed, wondering what his life has come to that he quit his job and got attacked by magical paper airplanes in one day. 

The paper airplanes are unmoving against him. He thinks about trying for another escape attempt while they’re still but, as soon as he gets up, they come back to life and force him back into his seat.

He crosses his arms again and pretends that he doesn’t notice the young woman three seats away getting up and moving to another seat.

~

The paper airplane has stopped moving, coming to rest on a seat. Tony picks it up and sits down. He’s got the time now to look at it. It does seem to be the same paper that had flown into his face this morning. He smiles to himself. He’d had no idea that Hot Guy was so whimsical.

There’s some sort of sketch folded into the airplane, Tony notices. He carefully opens the airplane to see himself working on the arc reactor, drawn in pen. The artist had drawn him in painstaking detail, making him absolutely beautiful. Tony would have called it lovingly drawn if he’d known anything about how Hot Guy felt.

“Oh,” he whispers. He traces the tip of his finger over the bright red lipstick Hot Guy had given him and ducks his head to hide his blush despite being alone in the car. There’s a message written above the sketch that simply says, “Sorry you had a bad day.”

Tony blushes deeper and quickly folds the airplane back into its shape. They’re pulling into the station where Tony sees Hot Guy in the mornings. The airplane’s still not moving but something tells Tony that this is where he’s supposed to be. He bounces the airplane in his hands as he leaves the train, double checking that it’s not going to take flight again.

There’s a soft rustle behind him and then another paper airplane flies by his feet, followed by a dozen more. Tony turns to see Hot Guy standing there, looking incredibly sheepish and maybe a little hopeful, completely covered in paper airplanes. Tony can’t help but wonder if they were all meant for him.

“Hi,” he says softly.

Hot Guy brushes the paper airplanes away from him and steps closer. “Hi,” he replies. He holds out his hand and then tugs Tony closer when he takes it. Tony goes willingly. After all, this is something that they’ve been building up to for three years. “I’m Steve.”

Tony smiles. “Tony.”

[ajoy3fanfics]

Missing Pt. III

Hey guys! Thank you everyone that has been following along with this story and reviewing! The response was way more than I expected. I have a clear storyline for this in my head, and if anyone is interested I’m more than happy to write it! As always, thanks so much for reading!

Note: I’ve been posting the past two chapters in my one shots ( FF- One Shots) but I decided to make it its own story! I’ll post chapter 3 in the one shots, moving on will post it in FF- Missing 

~.~

He could hear her footsteps rushing towards him, his name falling off her lips in a rush. Even as she began to approach, Inuyasha refused to turn her way, choosing instead to hold Kagome prisoner with his stare. He could see it in her face, the uncertainty, the guilt, like she had done something terribly wrong and had just been caught; as Kikyo got closer to his bed, Kagome waivered, turning her gaze down. He felt rage building up, threatening to boil over as he continued to stare at her, looking fucking ashamed. Ashamed! Like she had done something wrong! She fidgeted, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

Kikyo called out to his name once more, her voice a mix of relieved and sad, trying her best to break him from his daze. “You’re finally-”

A sharp growl cut her off mid-sentence, an animalistic warning, making Kikyo jump back. Inuyasha sharply turned his head, eyes narrowed in anger with a scowl on his face, looking almost feral.  “Leave.” He snarled, fanged bared. The dog demons attempts to scare off the intruder might have worked on someone with a weaker will, but Kikyo was no stranger to the primal side of the hanyou. Instead of running for the hills, she simply frowned, not moving forward, but neither heeding his request. “Fucking go!” He practically barked out, tone severe, harsh.

“What lies have you been filling his head with?” Kikyo demanded, arms crossed over her chest to cut a more imposing figure, a true feat for a woman who measure no more than 5’4. Her accusation seemed to rattle Kagome, who had chosen to keep unusually quiet, her face contorting with anger. “I didn’t do anything like that!” She snapped. Even though Inuyasha was on her side, becauseof coursehe was going to back her up, when she felt wronged her voice could be somewhat shrill; his ears flattened as she continued her assault. “He’s got amnesia. He doesn’t remember us breaking up.”

“Were notbroken up!” He interjected, teeth clenched, trying to make her understand.. Kagome raised her brows, giving Kikyo a rather smug look. “See?” She asked, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “Maybe if you were here, you’d know what was going on with him.”

“He’s been unconscious for a month.” She justified. Inuyasha flicked his gaze towards her, keeping watch between the women standing on either side of him. “I had to work! As soon as I got the call that he woke up I got on the next flight to the city. Not that I have to explain myself to you.” Kikyo added in for good measure. “Why are you even here? I thought you were banned.” Inuyasha couldn’t help but notice that she looked self-satisfied with her last remark.

“Banned?” He echoed, totally confused because how the hell would Kagomeget banned from anywhere?FinallyKagome looked his way, like she just remembered he was in the fucking room; she blushed. Any other time he would’ve found it cute, this embarrassment and possibly funny story, but now he was feeling nothing short of rage. “Banned?”He spoke slower, angrier, making the machines to beep furiously. Great. Another damn spike in his blood pressure.

Another 24 hours in this God forsaken hell. A nurse promptly ran in, her hand readied on a walkie; clearly she had heard tales of his previous outbursts and was ready to call for backup immediately. “What’s happening here?” She asked. Inuyasha was quick to answer that nothing was wrong, but Kikyo felt it was her place to interject. “She’s not supposed to be here.” She said, like it explained the entire situation. “She was banned from this hospital room last month. She’s upsetting him.”

Inuyasha had never felt pure rage before. He’d been mad, furious- sure. Dangerously angry? Yeah, he’d been accused of that. But rage? The kind so potent and powerful that he could take his supernatural strength and snap a neck in half? No, he hadn’t felt that before, but fuckhe was feeling it now. He had never thought it would be directed at his high school ex-girlfriend, but stranger things had happened.

Like everyone fucking telling him he dumped Kagome.    

“She’snot upsetting me.” He ground out, trying to keep his cool. The nurse looked unimpressed, tilting her head to get a better look at Kagome. “Ma’am, is it true you were banned?” Kagome looked down at the floor and nodded. “I was given permission to come today. But I don’t want to cause a problem.”

“Special permission?” The nurse questioned, eyeing  Kagome suspiciously. She nodded again, eyes still downcast.  She considered Inuyasha, looking ready to rip the wires and IVs out of his arms as she questioned the woman on the side of him.  She walked to the monitors, checking his vitals before she took her leave. The room felt stiff and awkward, the task seeming to take an eternity. When she was finished, she recorded the information on his chart. “Whatever your problems are, I suggest you work them out outside of the room. He needs peace and quiet, not a catfight.” Thinking it was best for the patient to give a warning and space, she decided to momentarily back off. “If there’s anymore trouble you’re both out.” She added as she walked out the door.

“I-I should go.” Kagome stammered. Inuyasha whipped around to look up at her, pressing her lips together nervously. When did she start fidgeting so damn much? “No.” He said sternly, but she only smiled at him in response. “I’m really glad you’re okay, Inuyasha.” She leaned down and wrapped her arms around him, giving him a gentle hug. He brought his hands up to her back, feeling more like a zombie than a person as she embraced her. She was leaving? Leaving?

Inuyasha breathed in, closing his eyes as he indulged in the spice of her natural scent and the cherry blossom body was she used. She inhaled and he felt her chest tremble.

This was a goodbye hug.

Panic struck him, that was the only was to describe what he did next. Locking his arms around her back, he pulled Kagome towards his chest. She yelped as her cheek was smushed, causing her lips to pucker. “Inuyasha!” She bucked, trying to get free of his hold. “Let me go!” The hanyou shook his head. “No.” He answered, sounding more like a child throwing a tantrum than a full grown man. “Not until you promise you won’t leave.” He heard her sigh in frustration. “Inuyasha!” She protested, wiggling hopelessly against him.

“Inuyasha, let her go.” Kikyo’s tone left no room for guessing. She wasn’t at all impressed by this show of affection. Nostrils flaring, his fiancé pressed against him in a body lock, he finally felt assured enough to address Kikyo the way his demon was demanding him to. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing here, but I want you to go.” He argued. “She,” he started, moving his right arm to motion to the woman held hostage, “isn’t going anywhere. She’s my fucking fiancé. I don’t know what bullshit your trying to sell, but you need to fucking go.” Kagome struggled beneath his grasp.

To her credit, Kikyo did her best to hide her pain. She processed his words, trying to swallow her feelings. “You- You’re with me now.” She tried, confidence breaking at the sight of her boyfriend gripping onto another woman for dear life. He shook his head, somehow making it look threatening, dangerous. When he spoke, it was low, wild. “Go.” Kikyo looked up to the ceiling, trying to blink back her tears. “I’ll go, for today. I- I wont hold this against you… you’re sick.” Her voice dropped. Finally, she took a deep breath and turned away. Stopping in the doorframe, she spoke, refusing to look back lest she lose her nerve. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

It wasn’t until Inuyasha was sure that she had left that he focused his attention on Kagome; she had stopped trying to fight against him, his demon strength no match for her. “Inuyasha?” She tried. “This- this is really uncomfortable. Let me go?” It came out as a question, pleading.

“I meant what I said.” Inuyasha swept his thumb over her back, trying to soothe her, trying to soothe himself. “I’ll let you go if you promise you won’t go. We need-” Inuyasha stuttered. “We need to talk.”

Kagome sighed beneath him, clearly defeated. “Fine,” she said. “Let’s talk.”

[x-bones-please-x]

Mal Dickens

   I stand before the junk yard, waiting for the little girl. She had come here every night for the last two weeks. I've seen her from my old wooden porch as I eat my dinner. Always there at the same time at night; never too early or late, sometimes meeting other people. I know whatever she is doing is something that is unwelcome in our small community because the little girl seemed nervous. Even from far away I could see that she didn’t want to be at that old junk yard. But I don’t blame her; I wouldn’t want to be there either. It smelled of old fish and rotten furniture, because of all the people dumping their trash in huge piles. Even if you were across the street your nose would cringe at the smell. Each little pile of trash looked like its very own mountain, claimed by the old raccoons that sleep in it every night.    I hide behind a small rusty desk chair that smelled strongly of old metal and wet dog fur. I hover my hands over the sides of the chair; too afraid to touch it in case I get cut. This girl’s secrets wouldn't be worth the visit to the ER. Just like every other night, as it hit nine-thirty, the girl arrives at the junk yard. I hear her small, quick footsteps as she scurries to the edge of the yard. She is wearing a black, oversized hoodie and old blue jeans. She is meeting someone; a tall young man in a green trench coat that hides his face. He is standing right next to the junk yard, pacing. I hold my breath, I hadn't seen him when he arrived. If he had seen me he would know I was here. I would just have to hope that he didn’t notice. The girl went up to the man and quietly spoke to him. She then proceeded to run into the junk yard jumping over different piles of trash. Moments later she comes out with a small cardboard box. She looks around, trying to see if anyone was watching. I quickly duck my head, straining it in a side position to keep it hidden. My knees are covered in dirt and are already sore from staying in one place for so long. The young man quickly takes the box out of the girl’s hand and hides it in his coat. He holds out his left hand, giving the girl a nod and murmuring indecipherably.  I couldn’t hear what the girl responds with but suddenly, they were walking away from each other, trying to make sure no one caught them in the act. It must be drugs. There is no other reason that this transaction would happen. It made sense, why else would they want to hide what they were doing? I wait, I have to make sure that they don’t see me. They were only there for a few minutes, so I couldn’t figure out all that was happening but now I have a general idea. I've been living in an old rundown apartment since I was eighteen. I haven't talked to my family since I moved out. I haven't found a stable job in three years and I'm getting desperate. I need some way to pay rent and if there are drugs hidden somewhere in this old junk yard I could sell them. That would help me get back on my feet for a little if there is enough to sell. I stand up, stretching my arms and legs. I need to find where she is hiding the drugs. I know the general direction of where it's been hidden because of where the girl had run, but if it is under something, it will be obvious that someone disrupted the surrounding trash. I’ll also have a much harder time finding the drugs. I begin to scan the section the girl ran through. Piles of old furniture and trash stood in a line, but I could see a tiny trail of old smooshed trash that lead further into the junk yard. The last thing I want to do is walk through a bunch of old food and furniture, but I need to find the drugs. If it even is drugs at all. I take a deep breath and begin walking slowly through the trail that the girl left behind. I could smell of all the different piles of garbage combining into one the further I venture into the junk yard. I could see different scraps of old bedding laying on top of old kids' toys that no longer had a purpose. They held the memories of old childhoods that no longer existed. This yard was once a clean spot of land until people decided that this looked like a good place to put all their unwanted items. One person left a small pile of toys, causing most people in the area to begin dumping everything they didn’t need in the yard. It wasn’t a problem till the smell started creeping into everyone's homes. It's been years, and no one has done anything to fix the problem because they know it will just start right back up again.   The path went straight into the heart of the junk yard. As I weave through piles upon piles of precariously placed revolting waste, I began to ponder what this little girl was doing possessing drugs. Old dusty furniture and rotten food marked the end of the path. To the left of me is a small, old, red refrigerator that has a small, brown, soil covered trowel next to it. It must be used to dig up the things that she is hiding. Freshly turned dirt sat in front of the old refrigerator, she must be hiding her drugs in there. I drop to my knees and wince, as the ground isn’t exactly soft out here. I grab the old trowel and begin the dig the loose dirt. In mere seconds I reach a small box just like the one the girl had given the other man. I drop the trowel and pull up the small cardboard box. It is covered in moist dirt that smelt of old rags. I open the box carefully. I don’t want to break it, as it is fragile from sitting in such wet dirt for so long. Inside sit a bunch of different drugs, some I'd never seen in my life. The only drug I could recognize was LSD. I knew I would be able to sell all of this for a lot of money. This is exactly what I needed. I stand up, holding the box under my shirt. I need to go home and hide this now. The quicker I sell this the better. I begin to jog out of the yard, attempting not to fall.                                                       *A MONTH LATER* I look outside at the plot of clean land that was once the junk yard. A garden was beginning to form. Little sprouts of tomatoes and flowers were all throughout the yard. People walking around, talking to each other, and I had a front row view to watch it all. I had sold all the drugs a week after I found them. I made enough money to pay for rent and food for a little while, but I am now running out of the cash. Now that food was beginning to grow, stealing some of it every now and then to sell doesn’t seem like a bad idea. It was the people’s fault for letting it stay out in the open anyway, so I shouldn’t be blamed. I walk out of my small apartment and head down the stairs. Taking a few flowers and selling them wouldn’t harm anyone. I walk out of my old red building and jog across the street. Not many people were in the garden, so I think I will be able to take a few things and not get caught. Maybe I can just say that they are my flowers anyway, so I can take what I want. Although that would never work, it’s the only option I have other than admitting I’m a thief. I walk through the garden and spot a section of tall sunflowers. That sat still, looking into the sun’s eyes, absorbing its heat and enjoying its peace. I might be able to take a few of those and sell them for a couple dollars if I get good flowers. It would be risky but desperate times calls for desperate measures. I crouch down and begin twisting one flower’s stem. I need to do this quickly, so I won't get caught. Just as I rip off the first flower I hear footsteps approach me. “whatcha doin’ bud?” I hear a gruff voice demand.  I freeze. I don’t know what to do; I've been caught. I turn around slowly, waiting for my fate. A tall, blond haired boy stands in front of me, a huge smirk plastered on his face. He knows what I'm doing. There is no excuse. “I- I was just-” I tried to begin my lame excuse, but he cuts me off. “Stealing from my garden?” he exclaims, gesturing to what I assume were his supplies sitting next to a patch of sunflowers. “I didn’t expect anyone to come after my sunflowers. Definitely not such a handsome guy such as yourself!” he crosses his arms. His amused grin tells me he’s obviously enjoying my embarrassment. I slowly stand up. I need to leave. I shouldn’t have come here to begin with. Now I’ve been caught by this lad, with his fringe that I wanted to run my fingers through. “I'm sorry, I just- I had to-” I hung my head. There was nothing I could say to fix this. And trying to find the right things to say didn’t seem to help either. “It's okay,” fringe guy said in a cheery voice. “Here, come help me plant some more flowers.” He grabs my arm and drags me to an empty section of the garden. He plops down on the hard-packed dirt, motioning for me to sit next to him. Good thing I know how to plant. We planted for hours on end. Once we started talking, we didn’t stop. We traded stories about life and other uninteresting topics. He told me about his alcoholic mother and taking care of his brother. I told him about how my parents kicked me out because of my sexuality. I listened to every word out of his mouth, paid attention to every detail he said. We could be talking about water and I would still listen to him. It was captivating the way he spoke. The day was declared over when the rain started falling. The tiny droplets transformed into heavy droplets in minutes, leaving us with no choice but to flee to our separate apartments. For the first time in a while I enjoyed doing something. I kind of liked gardening and talking to fringe guy, who I later found out was named Grayson. I might just come back to garden again.                *3 MONTHS LATER* It only took a week for Grayson and I to start dating. We found out that we had a lot more in common than just enjoying gardening. After our first few dates I told him about finding the drugs and what I did with them. He took it extremely well. We are still dating and taking care of the garden. Even though our relationship was new I had a feeling that I would be with him for life. I have started my own little garden full of different flowers next to Grayson and his sunflowers. I made friends with the gardeners around me. All of which are extremely friendly and kindhearted. I saw the girl who was selling the drugs sitting by herself in the garden. I was able to introduce myself and found out that she is doing much better now. Whenever I see her in the garden I always make sure to say hello. She is the reason I'm here now anyways. Since I started the little flower garden, Grayson was able to find me a job at a nice flower shop near my apartment. I was able to get a better apartment because of it and we are planning on moving in together in a few months. This is the happiest I have ever been in all my life. And I have the garden to thank for that.    

[500wordtheology]

Detour: The Good Place Conclusion

    Please forgive me, I’m about to break protocol. Normally this blog is dedicated to theological topics and I strive to keep each post at around 500 words. Today’s post will certainly be theology related, but it is extremely unlikely I will be able to keep it brief. Should you want to skip this post, feel free to click here to advance to the next blog entry.

    The TV show “The Good Place” has now concluded. If you haven’t seen it, close this window and go watch the first season. It’s great. Possibly one of my favorite single seasons of any TV show ever. Genius creative work, and brilliant comedy and heart.

    I cannot say the same for the final season, and especially the final two episodes. That is what this blog post is about, and in case it wasn’t obvious:

    COMPLETE SPOILERS FOR “THE GOOD PLACE” AHEAD.

    I will not recap the show’s four seasons here, nor even the episodes being discussed. This is written for those who have already seen them. Instead let’s jump into exactly how, unfortunately, the conclusion of the show failed both morally and creatively.

    Please understand I do not write this as some stuffy critic. I lived the life of a stuffy critic in my younger days, and while it is a lovely boost to the ego, it is empty and dumb. I’ve learned that much at least. The reason for my critique here is because we as human beings need to KNOW this stuff. We need to not be tricked into shallow thought.

Where It All Falls Apart

    The Good Place made a number of mistakes with the final two episodes. Let’s discuss the errors and try to make clear where things went awry (and how/why they were hand-waved away).

    The penultimate episode, “Patty,” introduced the idea that an undisclosed amount of time in Paradise would cause you to become a boring, intellectually-stunted zombie. Apparently even the greatest thinkers who ever lived who managed to get into the Good Place only ever wanted milkshakes and orgasms, and instantly abandoned all big questions about the Universe for simple Hedonism. (And yes, it’s very true that Hedonism is empty and meaningless.)

    This outcome makes very little sense, and I am unsure if it was a result of running out of episodes (which would be a shame, because the early bits of the final season were often dull and it would have been far better spending more time exploring these later concepts instead of cheap laughs at the expense of stereotypical, hollow characters introduced and then thrown away) or if it was simply bad and unimaginative writing. Considering the fantastic writing of Seasons 1 and 2, and sometimes 3, this is extremely puzzling. At any rate, it shows a serious lack of creativity.

    Here is an important truth that was almost totally avoided in these final episodes: The question “Why?” does not disappear simply because you can conjure up a Coke and some sunglasses any time you want. Those questions remain. They might even move more to the forefront of the mind. Why are things the way they are? Unanswered, unexplored. Not just unexplored by the writers, but unexplored by the characters like Patty who were set up to have been in the Good Place for an undetermined amount of time (but “long”).

    This is the ultimate problem with exploring Philosophy without also exploring Theology alongside. Interviews with the creator of the show consistently have him bringing up things like Buddhism or Hinduism, but strangely absent are Monotheistic religions. Why is this? For starters, I expect it is because many of the loudest voices in the modern Western world do not care for such concepts. They don’t like what it entails. If we are not in charge of our own ultimate destiny, which is the case when God exists and has made you with a purpose of his intention, our ego gets a slap in the face.

    And it should, because that is what our ego deserves when it is out of order, but that is another post.

    Anyway, it is possible this choice was made to avoid ruffling feathers of media and the societal elite. It is easier to play it safe, even for a show that tackled some very large concepts like morality.

    It is also possibly because studying such religions requires a great amount of work. Heaven, in Christianity, is not a fluffy cloud where you get everything you ever wanted (like margaritas and monkeys in go-karts), where you sit and play a harp (or guitar) all day and also, hey look, your childhood dog is there. That is a foolish, childish caricature of Heaven, but unfortunately has become widely accepted as true simply because people refuse to go study further. So mistruths are believed due to ignorance. Cartoonish ideas are thought to be accurate, because non-cartoonish ideas are hard and sometimes extremely uncomfortable.

    It’s more than a shame.

    Not only is Heaven infinitely better than such a stupid caricature, but it isn’t even the final destination! New Earth and bodily resurrection comes after. However that is Christianity, and The Good Place makes its own version of heaven instead. A cartoonish one. Fine. But even ignoring that, the problem The Good Place’s ending faces is in the mantra “Death makes life meaningful.”

    Here’s the kicker: That’s not untrue. And because it is not untrue, we can quickly and easily get extremely confused. In fact, go read some reviews of the final episode from a number of popular websites and you’ll find they herald this truth. Because in our earthly life, it is right to say death makes this part of our existence precious.

    The problem, and it is a HUGE one, is they then transpose the earthly lesson onto eternity. Ignorantly (and forgive me for this is not an insult but a statement of why they claim it, they simply don’t KNOW and I realize even saying such a thing is unpopular) they claim that eternity would be “like this life but longer.” And yes, if that was eternity they might have a point. However even within the universe The Good Place has created that is not accurate! We are shown concepts like The Time Knife, and IHOP, and Janet, and the Judge. These things alone make eternity not simply Earth-life-but-forever. And here arises a major problem, because the writers suddenly go from thinking reasonably large to thinking utterly small, right at the end when thinking big is so important.

    Creativity is boundless. The Good Place was certainly not short on creativity! At least… up until the end. At the end what you had was creative bankruptcy. A nihilistic conclusion that there is no real meaning - except this conclusion gussied up with terms like “peace” and “love” before folks walked off to their annihilation. It is, in fact, the gussying up that I have the biggest problem with. It is a flat-out lie, paraded as some virtue.

    This is detestable. Tricking the viewer into believing such ridiculousness as “if you’re ready to die, you should do it and your suicide is a good thing. The best thing, even. The only way to be happy forever.”

    I am sorry, but this is not only trash, it is dangerous trash. I hope I do not need to go into detail as to why.

Retirement for All

    Let me jump slightly sideways for a second and point out something extremely telling: The “solution” that everyone got on board with at the end of it all was The Eternal Shriek.

    Think about that for a second. That is what their solution was. The thing that in Season 1 and 2 seemed (rightfully) so horrific.

    Now immediately one might say “Oh, no, that is not the same at all! The Eternal Shriek was a forced thing, the pretty gate in the forest was a willful decision.” 

    Really? 

    WAS it?

    This is the response the writers want you to have, and it is one, again, of shallow thinking. This is the trick of the pretty forest scene and the constant throwing around words like “peace” and “calm” and “love” at the end. What we learn from the show is that the Forest Gate ends up being everyone’s ONLY ultimate option. Tahani, after mastering demonic/angelic architecture, will be left with the same ending. She will “be ready” but only because she has no choice but to eventually be ready. It is no longer a choice, but, as Eleanor says in the show itself in Season 2 “It’s a crappy deal, but it’s the only one we get.” Even after all they’ve learned (and have the potential to learn, let’s never forget that aspect) they play God (but far worse, because they are not God) and give humanity the *same deal* they say is crappy and lament how it is the only deal they got.

    You might also say “Oh, no, the Eternal Shriek had all that awful stuff like having your soul scooped out with flaming ladles.” Yeah? What of it? You’re not conscious anymore (otherwise Michael wouldn’t have lamented “no more me” when he had his existential crisis) so the desecration of your esense and the atoms of your body are as meaningless to you as if someone dumps your cremated ashes in the forest vs. in the ocean. Or, yes, even in a rubbish bin.

    Note the throw-away joke of the creature Derek has become. In his final speech (before getting rebooted again against his will) he mentions the heat death of the Universe. Let’s not ignore that. We are left by the writers (manipulated, really) with warm fuzzy feelings as one of Eleanor’s golden particle-thingies lands on a person who then does something decent instead of cruel. But what is not shown (because it would harp on our buzz) is that man will die. Michael will die. They will be annihilated and then, eventually, all humans will die, the earth will die, the universe will die, Derek will die, Janet will die, the Good Place will die, the Judge will die, and the final pretty gold sparkle will no fall on some new person to help them improve, but instead cease to Be entirely and have absolutely no meaning at all. It will all amount to exactly the same in the end as if the Bad Place guys ran things.

    To use the pretty analogy of the show, “The wave will still be water and return to the ocean,” but then the ocean will disappear entirely for no reason or purpose and even the wave and water will be worth nothing. (They don’t note this second half, because that second half doesn’t make you feel good. Yet it lurks there, undiscussed and ready to pounce and surprise.)

    This is the stark, awful truth of a purposeless universe and existence. It is an awful thing, but it is the truth if that is the worldview we’re exploring. (A reminder this is not the truth of God, though. God loves you, and you do not exist for no reason. A necessary reminder because when we start to really dig in and explore nihilism it gets “real dark real fast.” We need to hold onto the Light at such times.)

    At any rate, what then seems to separate the Eternal Shriek from the Forest Door is only that the last fleeting moments are located in a peaceful looking (though ultimately doomed) place. The results end up being identical. The final option of The Good Place ends up being the worst-possible-option of The Bad Place: Annihilation. This is the “solution” the writers came up with. The one they themselves made fun of in previous episodes (rightfully so, because it is terrible.)

    And yes, it is that big and important. The *foundation* of ideas is precicely where they either stand firm or topple and crush everyone around them. We must dig deep when it comes to what we think and believe.

Selfishness and “Love”

    Here I will break and tackle another awful, awful thing these final episodes support: Complete selfishness as somehow compatible with Love.

    Jason is not all that bright. But generally he seems to have a good heart, particularly for those he cares about. Yet after completing a single perfect round of a video game, he chooses to leave the not-a-woman he loves forever. To abandon her, because he just doesn’t feel like sticking around anymore.

    What?

    But okay. It’s Jason. I was willing to suspend some disbelief for the sake of the character, who is a few crayons short of a box.

    Then Chidi does the same thing.

    WHAT?

    This is utterly absurd. Here the writers want to write what they want to write, rather than be honest. It is one of my biggest convictions that an author must be honest. He or she may nudge things in certain directions, but if the author of a story ever forces a character to do something against their character, that is not only poor writing but completely dishonest. It is the lowest form of storytelling to do such a thing. And we find it here.

    Chidi, by his own admission, has a sense of calm and peace. Chidi is just fine. Yet he knows his choice to kill himself (annihilate, really, because we need to be crystal clear on that) will hurt Eleanor deeply. It will cause her extreme pain. He still chooses it.

    My friends, that is not love. That is also not Chidi.

    Love sacrifices for the beloved. And in this case, Chidi wouldn’t even be sacrificing much if he stayed, because we’ve already established he is at peace and internally calm. So rather than maintain this feeling, or even work to be better IF other feelings arose in the future, he checks out on Eleanor. Quits on her. Deserts her. (Leaving her a hedonistic even if hilarious calendar, no less. Fun joke but morally what the fork.)

    Loving relationships in our modern age have taken a severe hit. One reason may be that we think this is how you should treat someone you love. “Me first” has become the battle cry of the age. 

    No, my friends. Love first. Always.

    I anxiously await Heaven and New Earth. But also I love my wife, family, and friends. If I must stay here to support them, I will. Even if “there and then” is better, it doesn’t matter. I love them. I will remain for them. (I will even eat kale and exercise if it means I get to remain here to support them a little longer than if I only ate bacon and browsed Twitter from bed all day.)

    Beyond that, I will remain because God has me here for a purpose. But since The Good Place did not deal with such topics, resorting instead to vague concepts of “helping people is good, so totally do it” and the like, I will even abandon this particular train of thought for this discussion. Even if it was ONLY my wife, family, and friends, they are worth it. Love is big enough to cause me to keep going for them.

    Yes, Eleanor was noble in letting Chidi go. But Chidi was completely ignoble for going when he knew, without a doubt, she wanted him to remain. That she was not ready.

    I think this may be one reason after thousands of years (or whatever a Bearimy is, they keep it vague on purpose and that is very clever of them) Chidi and Elenor are still calling each other “boyfriend and girlfriend.” They REFUSE to commit. Why? Because a husband does not walk out on the wife he loves and we know it. We all know it. Deep inside we know that is not what a husband is meant to do. That would make Chidi a horrific husband. But walk out on a girlfriend? Eh. Sure. Not great, but okay. The world says that’s not so serious. Walk away, dude, no one will care.

    Sorry, Good Place writers, I care. I care deeply.

Why?

    Here is where we get to the meat of it. WHY do I care? (Especially as a number of people point out to me “it’s just a TV show.”)

    I care because I have SEEN what real love brings with it. Bliss. Not hedonistic happiness, but JOY. Ecstasy beyond frivolous ideas like orgasms. Delight beyond mere milkshakes and talking pandas. Glory. Perfection. Eternal Good with no end.

    It is better, and it is worth striving for.

    What happens when we accept and perpetuate ideas like “It is totally fine to abandon people you love as long as it is in your own best interest” is that it degradates our concept of love itself. Love becomes lesser and watered down. This is the same with divorce. Divorce is never easy. Sometimes it is necessary. But it SHOULD never be easy. And honestly? It SHOULD never be necessary. It’s because of our sin that the necessity arises. Here we see the problem not with eternity, but with eternity WITH sin still permitted. Yes, eternity breaks when we are simply “us” but “forever.” (Even if it is slightly-better-than-on-earth “us.”)

    Going back to the idea of love, when we chip away at love and redefine it to mean something lesser we open the doors wide for awful things like what Chidi did and what Jason did. Selfish things. And newsflash, for anyone who didn’t already know, WE WANT TO BE SELFISH. It is in us. We desire to look out for number one, and always have number one be us. This is why the great command is “Love God, and Love your neighbor as yourself.” Because we already know how to love ourselves. Loving ourselves is “I don’t feel like being here in paradise with you anymore, bye.” We are called to do better than that.

    Real love is epic, you guys. Real love is flippin ridiculously good. It redefines GOOD itself. We shouldn’t settle for the “this is nice” false love that is tossed around these days as if that is the bar. That is a garbage bar! Raise that puppy to where it belongs!

    When you experience the utter glory of God and his love, it changes everything. The cheap love the world peddles becomes laughable. But not just laughable: sad. After I watched the finale and read review after review online where people heralded this idea of “eternity would be boring without death” I cried. I laid on the floor and cried for a world that doesn’t know God. That thinks this is all there is, or that boredom could ever come about from true paradise. Forgive me, but what shallow thinking that is! What despair, without even knowing it.

    Alas, this is what people are taught. Let us never forget that Story does not just entertain us, it teaches us. It molds us. This is, sadly, the emptiness The Good Place ends up teaching as its last lesson. “Do good, because it’s good (don’t ask why), but then abandon doing good if it means you get what you want.” Hedonistic Nihilism is the conclusion they offer, spit-shined so you don’t think too hard about it or feel too bad. Yes, feel a little bad, they want you to do that. But not bad enough to really think about how the hope and golden particles of light in a peaceful forest are a trick to shy away from ultimate meaninglessness and selfishness behind it.

    This is the final moral of the show, and it is desperately sad. This is the emptiness of Philosophy without God. And when it is sugar-coated like they sugar-coated it, it is a cyanide pill that tastes great and goes down smooth. 

    You know, until it kills you.

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs “Joke’s on You.”

Thank you to an anonymous reader who requested this prompt. I hope you find it entertaining. 

Krill emerged from his restful trance to the sound of cursing. Violent, aggressive cursing followed by the sound of ruckus laughter. He had been floating absently down the hallways of the ship suspended in his restful trance allowing the natural air currents of the ship to carry him from one end to the other. He was close to the crew’s sleeping quarters.

With a quick hiss, he released the hydrogen from its sack finally making contact with the cold metal floor to scuttle off down the hallway.

He made it to the crew’s quarters just in time to see Petty Officer Ramirez stumbling from bed face and right hand covered in shaving cream. The additional crew sleeping in the room sat on their beds giggling and jeering as the man cursed and stumbled towards the bathroom.

Towards the door Airman Young called, “APRIL FOOLS!”

The entire room went suddenly quiet. Expressions of amused laughter narrowed to deep expressions of distrust and paranoia. A few of the crewmen began glancing under their beds. One of the men even turned over his boot and shook it onto the floor as if he expected to find something there.

Krill didn’t like the look of that, and he didn’t like the sound of that either. He knew what a fool was, but he had no idea what an April was. It didn’t translate, so he couldn’t be sure what was going on. Not wanting any part in this, rill moved on down the hallway just in time to hear screaming from the female quarters of the ship.

Female humans were more likely to use sonic attacks than their male counterparts, plus they were better at it, though this one sounded more like a warning call than an attack, so he hurried over peering in to find Chief Warrant Officer McKay standing in a shower of glitter hands held out to her sides. Her uniform was absolutely covered in the tiny shimmering flakes all of which seemed to have fallen from her cap which she now removed in a glittery waterfall of horror.

“I am NEVER going to be able to get rid of this…. You A**holes.” Though she seemed livid, the anger on her face quickly melted away, and she began racing around the room rolling on the other women’s’ beds and hugging anyone she could make contact with. The screaming and laughing must have echoed down the hallway to the men’s quarters, and now they were cautiously peering out from their rooms testing the ground before them with tentative steps.

One of the men peered in at the glittery carnage and laughed in delight, “Glitter bomb.” He looked down at krill, “Better hunker in in prepare for war, this is going to get ugly.”

Krill stared up at the crewman in confusion, “Why?”

“Why my fine quadruped today is April fools, the day we humans use as an excuse to play mean jokes on each other and laugh.”

That was not exactly a good explanation for Krill, but the humans had already moved on before he could ask further questions, but he watched as the crew slowly moved up the corridor and towards the captain’s quarters. Trying the door handle, they found it to be locked.

The captain��s voice rose up on the other side of the door, “Not this year. No one waking me up with a chainsaw this year. That is not how this day begins.”

The crew looed slightly miffed, but shrugged it off.

On the sly, Krill thought he caught one of the crewwomen grinning evilly behind someone’s back.

A sudden loud clatter from the captain’s quarters heralded another string of cursing and a couple of loud thumping noises. The door hissed open and the captain stumbled against the frame, “Which one of you took the time to make a PERFECT replica of my leg with FOAM and then swamp if for my real one….. Who the hell does that!” In his other hand, he brandished a crumbled looking bionic leg. While the undamaged parts looked impressively like the real thing, the breaks clearly showed its truth. “This is!... Amazing actually really talented, but also its MEAN it steal from the crippled.”

No one seemed all that ashamed, not even when no one came forward to return the leg, and the captain was forced to hop his way down the hallway between bouts of cursing and laughing.

In fact, they all laughed.

Krill was very scared at what this day was to bring.

He honestly couldn’t have known that April fools generally doesn’t get this intense with most humans, but the crew of this particular ship had the unfortunate circumstance of being full of pranksters and misfits. It probably shouldn’t have happened that way, but sometimes the universe rolls an unusually exceptional hand.

When they finally stumbled onto the bridge past the trip wires and motion sensors, they found the entire room plastered with stick on googly eyes. Sizes on the googly eyes ranged from smaller than a fingernail to about the size of the average person’s head. Krill found the effect to be rather disconcerting, though it gave the ship a rather inebriated expression of lopsided misfortune.

The Captain seemed impressed, that was until he tried to sit down on the command chair. Someone had apparently gone in and loosened the bolts, which held the chair in place. Under the captain’s weight, the chair subsequently collapsed and spilled him onto the floor. The rest of the crew found that mightily entertaining until a few unfortunate crew members learned that the same trickster hadn’t simply targeted the captain.

Those chairs that had not been unbolted from the ground had air horns and canisters of silly-string locked into their springs. Krill was honestly afraid to move assuming a bucket of glue or pant would be dumped down on his head, or, somehow, he might step into a bear trap.

The captain still didn’t have his leg back, and seemed to be growing rather frustrated with his inability to move around properly. The rest of the crew seemed about 0% sorry for him laughing at his inconvenience.

But it didn’t end there, oh if only it had.

Someone had plastered clear tape over all the toilets and urinals causing at least two crewmembers to pee on themselves and at least four more to make a mess all over the floor. The captain ended up calling one of the younger airmen into the room, and in his rush, the poor boy missed the plastic wrap tied across the sliding door at about face level. He ran into the wrap, and the door closed behind him trapping him by his face against the door, while the rest of the crew laughed.

Someone somewhere tampered with the crew’s food, and the three crewmembers who had completely forgotten what day it was ended up with lower GI involvement, and at least half a day in the bathroom until Krill came to their aid with a neutralizing agent.

He honesty felt as if he was in a war zone slipping from one room to the next treating minor injuries and poisonings all the while attempting to dodge enemy attacks as the pranking grew in escalation.

Three humans, turned themselves various shades of neon colors when it was determined that the shower heads had been tampered with. The captain claimed responsibility for that one and additional responsibility when two dozen more crewmen had their hands changed color when trying to wash their hands.

Multicolored, and paranoid, the humans moved their way around the ship looking for the rest of the pranks, all while watching the captain as he went hunting for his leg. At this point he had appropriated two younger crewmen to help him as he walked.

Krill stayed at the very back of the group mistrusting every sound and doorknob they came into contact with.

One of the younger women was picked to check the next door, a cleaning closet, and as it opened, a thousand tiny black figures spilled from the door and onto the ground landing in her hair and on her uniform tiny legs splayed outwards.

The scream she let off could have shattered glass, and she danced away screaming and batting at her hair. She stopped once she realized the tiny black bodies weren’t moving, in grudging relief when she learned that they were only plastic.

The captain received a punch on the arm when he took credit for that one.

Similar pranks included rubber snakes tied by wire to cupboards and drawers.

Krill was forced to return to the medical bay for more minor-injury supplies, and was just leaving through the hatch when a low growl stopped him in his tracks. Trembling terribly, he turned and was confronted by a massive reptilian head mouth lined with huge glittering teeth. The high pitch shrill he let off would have deafened anyone were it within normal hearing range. He dropped the medical supplies screaming and running as the creature chased after him massive predatory head swinging and roaring.

He was going to die.

And then one of the crewmen stepped into his path elegantly clothes lining the raptor to the floor. A foot flew free from the raptor shoe, and Krill in his relief found a human encased inside the rubberized costume.

If he had a heart he would have had a heart attack, but there might still be a possibility of him having a stroke.

He still wasn’t sure that he wasn’t going to die. There was a very real possibility that that could still happen. No doubt in his mind.

The engine room was the last place to look. The captain doubted they fouled find anything serious in there, since the room was connected directly to the warp-core chamber, and no one should be dumb enough to mess around near the warp core.

He was partially correct.

They found the captain’s leg, and the captain’s dog.

They found Waffles, poor girl, sitting in the center of the room. The light tan of her fur had been died a bubblegum pink and her usual black collar had been replaced by a glittery bedazzled harness. Whoever had put her here hadn’t been a terrible person and left food and water for her.

With big mournful eyes she looked up at her captain head low tail wagging piteously sitting as she was above his bionic leg, which had been covered in zip ties.

“Hey girl.” He said, “What have they don’t to you, those terrible people.”

She seemed happy upon seeing him and perked up from her mournful state once she realized she wasn’t in trouble.

“Turned my dog pink.” The captain grumbled in annoyance as he examined the dog’s fur.

The expression he gave the bionic leg was not dissimilar to the dog’s mournful expression, “That will take forever to remove.

***

Things died down towards nightfall, and while the captain’s dog was still pink, he had at least released his leg from the zip ties, and was back to moving around the ship on his own power.

Krill was finally coming down from his stress high.

One of these days he was just going to drop dead, and he almost did walking into his office to find someone had plastered pictures of ballerinas all around the room. Everyone knew that they freaked him out, and apparently they thought it would be funny to continue the growth of his potential aneurysm

Krill wasn’t sure the real point of this, “Holiday or Tradition” the humans seemed to think it was downright hilarious, but some of it was pretty mean intended to scare or even hurt the other humans. No one seemed to mind too greatly, and most of them admitted to enjoying the day congratulating others on proper prank execution.

Chief Warrant Officer McKay was still shedding glitter, and admitted doubts that she would ever fully rid herself.

Krill wasn’t totally sure what glitter was, but he definitely hoped the humans wouldn’t realize its potential application for bio warfare. If glitter got everywhere than what would stop someone from using it as a delivery system for terror.

The thought made him shiver.

 Thank you everyone for reading. I was honestly thinking at first that the crew member dressed as a dinosaur would be wearing a costume like they used for the Jurassic park movies, but I realized the idea would be much funnier if they were just using one of those blow-up dinosaur costumes. You know the ones I am talking about

[darkangeldesignstudio]

Dark Horse

Sorry for the late post you guys. Its been hard to actually write these past weeks and I didn't want to make myself do it because I felt it would appear forced. This chapter is pretty long, mostly because of the information dump in the middle about how most of our characters came to be where they are now. But, as promised, we are adding our new character into the mix today. So, I hope you enjoy this chapter as it will be a lead up into more intense chapters in the following weeks. Also, this chapter has not been beta’d, so any mistakes are completely my own fault. Sorry I couldn't get this to you in time @sexykitty96.

Warnings: Angst, Violence, Death, Attempted Rape, Strong Language, Mentions of Animal Abuse, and Eventual Smut and Fluff

Setting: Post Civil War era USA. Marvel Cowboy AU.

Preface: Your home is attacked by the Hydra gang and you are rescued by Steve, Bucky, and their group. The government agency, known as Shield, wants them captured and Hydra wants them dead. With nowhere else to go, you join their ragtag group and set out on the adventure of a lifetime. Helping those less fortunate along the way, your small group grows and so does your affection for these two rough and tumble outlaws. When the chips are down, will you all be able to escape unscathed? Or will the boot drop and leave you heartbroken and alone again?

Song: Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith

Previous / Next

Chapter Eight: Back to the Past

After a peaceful night of sleep, you awoke refreshed and ready for the day. It was time to pack up and move eastward. Back to where your life began.

Dressing for the cooler mountain temperatures, you headed out the door. You were met with a flurry of activity. It seemed you were late to the packing party, even though the sun was barely above the horizon.

“Good morning sunshine.” Nat bounded up to you, a tin cup of piping hot coffee clutched in her gloved hands. Handing it over to you, she smiled as you wallowed in the scent of the dark brew.

“Thanks for this, Nat. Though I wish I would have woken earlier so I could help pack up.” She immediately waved off your melancholy tone.

“Don’t sweat it, love. When Bucky saw how soundly you were sleeping with Soldat, there was no way he was going to let us disturb you. Especially since Soldat looked as if he would rip someone’s throat out if they tried.” She giggled as you felt the blush rise in your cheeks.

“You can’t be serious. Soldat loves Buck.” You felt bad, as if you were turning the pretty wolf-dog against his best friend. You honestly weren’t trying to, and you didn’t even remember falling asleep with the oversized pup. Looking over to the pair now, Bucky packing up Sergeant’s saddlebags as Soldat followed at his heels, it was unbelievable.

“Oh, I’m serious, Y/N.” Nat smirked, examining the two as well. “He growled something fierce when Bucky opened that door this morning. Was even loud enough to wake Steve in the other room.”

You gaped at Natasha’s beaming visage. This was terrible. The last thing you wanted was to cause trouble and that seemed to be all you could do lately. Your hands flew to your cheeks, rubbing them down your face in worry. The rough texture of your gloves on your chapped skin was a welcome punishment until strong arms wrapped around your torso, stopping the motion of your arms completely.

“Stop those thoughts right now, doll.” His gruff voice made you gasp, shivers trailing your spine as excitement and the fear of being captured raced through your body. Peering at Nat, you watched as she walked away with a grin and a little wave, the smell of coffee lingering behind her.

You looked over your shoulder and into Steve’s ocean blue eyes, still holding a bit of the helplessness in your heart. You sighed. “I feel like such a-”

“A burden?”

Sagging in his hold, you only nodded, staring towards the snow-covered ground as tears burned the back of your eyes. You weren’t used to being so helpless. From the time you turned seven, you had always pulled your weight, no matter how slight that weight might have been or how menial the labor, you were happy to do the work. It gave you a reason for living.

You were never going to be some simple-minded woman, only interested in getting hitched and having children. You were a free spirit, looking for purpose in a world that didn’t accept you.

His hold tightened slightly, comforting you as the tears threatened to fall. “Y/N. You will never be a burden to us. I want you to know that. We all want you to know that.”

When you refused to look at him, Steve gripped your shoulders lightly - careful of your injury - and turned you to face him. “Look at me, dollface.”

You wanted to refuse, scared to peer into those eyes and see the pity there. Scared the tears would fall again, make you weak in his eyes.

The toxic voices in your head grew louder with your doubt. You wanted to cover your ears, but Steve’s hold on you made it impossible. Words full of hate and jealousy from your past were roaring through your skull, making your jaw clench at the onslaught. Striking you with their venomous fangs and sinking their inky-black talons into your chest, you began to shake in Steve’s arms.

Then a roar of a different kind filled your ears. Boda’s voice screamed through you, followed by the howl of a wolf and the screech of an eagle, and all of those dark memories fell away like stones. The spirits your grandmother spoke of, they lived in your heart too and they would not allow those thoughts to persist as they were. Your shaking stopped and you were finally able to read his eyes. 

There was no pity in his gaze, only pride. He leaned into you, close enough to kiss if you would only take the plunge. Your face grew hot with his smirk. You couldn’t help glancing from his blue gaze, where little flecks of green lived, to his full pink lips. This man made you uncomfortable in a way you had never known before, in a way that you hoped would never stop.

Your breath came in little pants as he finally gave you a bit more space to breathe, finished with his bit of teasing. For now, at least. Then a deep rumble of a growl filled your ears and made your breath catch.

Soldat stood at Steve’s back, ears pinned and eyes narrowed. The wolf-dog wasn’t too pleased with the way Steve was touching you, a thought made apparent by his baring of overly large canine teeth and his white fur that stood on end down his spine.

Taking the hint, Steve threw his hands up in surrender and took a tentative step back while Soldat stalked him. “Easy boy. I was only teasing.”

Soldat glanced over his shoulder, meeting your eyes before turning back to Steve with a huff. Trotting back into camp and past Bucky, who was slumped at the waist with his hand covering his mouth to stifle his laughter. His amused gaze met yours and you all began to laugh heartily.

Bucky walked over and clapped a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “I would suggest not teasing for a while, Stevie. Seems she’s been claimed by yet another protector.”

Steve huffed out a laugh watching as Soldat left to stand by Boda at the hitching post. “I think you are right about that, jerk. Are you okay, doll? Forgive me, I didn’t mean to make you so uncomfortable.” He turned to watch you with his puppy dog eyes and you waved him off.

“There’s nothing to forgive, Steve. All of that was just my past trying to get to me. It wasn’t something you did.” You smiled fondly up at him.

He felt his face begin to flush red under your gaze. Rubbing the back of his neck, he stammered a bit, flustered. “T-thanks, Y/N. W-well I should probably get back to work.” With that, he jogged back to the wagons and began tossing supplies inside.

Looking up, you caught Bucky staring at you and had another blush rise in your cheeks. “What? Do I have something on my face?”

Bucky chuckled, reaching to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. “No, doll. Just glad to see you made friends with my boy. He doesn’t usually take to others so easily. Took me months to get him to trust me, Steve even longer. It makes me happy.”

Your blush grew hotter as he tapped the brim of your cowboy hat affectionately. It was something your brother had always done, but it seemed different when Bucky did it. His storm cloud eyes shone like jewels as he caressed your jaw, making you shiver with pleasure. He smiled sweetly, removing his hand to point towards Bodaway.

“I tacked him up for you. Once everything is packed, we can be on our way.”

Shaking yourself free of your trance, you nodded. “What road are we taking?”

He shrugged, his large shoulders flexing beneath his dark winter coat. “Was hoping you knew a good path, one less frequent for traffic, but quick and easy enough to get us East.”

“Do you have a map?”

He smiled, taking you by the hand and leading you to the table where Tony and Nat seemed to be arguing over prospective routes to take.

“Berthoud Pass takes us through Denver.” Natasha says, exasperated with Tony’s reckless behavior. “Denver is crawling with Hydra goons, we would never make it out of there unscathed.”

“But the Cheyenne Pass will take an extra week of riding to get through, Natasha.” Tony pinched the bridge of his nose. “We don’t have that kind of time to waste.”

Stepping up to the table with Bucky, you placed your finger along a shorter pass just south of the Berthoud. “How about Cochetopa?”

They all looked up at you with different levels of intrigue. Natasha spoke up first. “The Cochetopa is closer, but it’s a dead end that leads straight into Fort Massachusetts.”

“But, we can bypass the fort if we veer off-trail and follow the Rio Grande Road to Dodge City. There is an abandoned fort along the way that we can take shelter in. Rest the horses before we make our stop in the city for supplies?”

Tony nodded, appreciating the help, even if it foiled his plans to knock a few more Hydra heads together along the way. “Sounds like a plan to me. Thanks short stack.” He petted you on the head as he walked away with the map and joined the others at the wagons.

You scrunched up your face at the nickname. “Short stack? I’m only a few inches shorter than him.”

Natasha chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. He gives everyone nicknames. It’s part of his charm, right, tin man?” She smiled slyly, poking Bucky in the chest.

He grimaced. “Yeah, I still don’t get that one.”

“What about you, Nat? Did he give you one?”

Looking towards your new friend, you saw as her teasing smirk turned to a, particularly evil, grin. “Yeah, he gave me one. And I kicked him in the balls for it too.”

Bucky flinched a bit, reflexively covering himself as he remembered. “Never seen him go down so fast in my life.”

You hid your smile with your hand as Natasha chuckled. “Well, I better get Krasavitsa ready for the trek. Thanks for your help, plotting our route, Y/N.”

She placed her hand on your free shoulder, giving you a little squeeze and a smile as she passed.

Bucky took a step closer to you, to let her pass, causing you to have to look up to meet his gaze. He smiled down at you and placed his hand on your head. “Yeah, thanks for the help, short stuff.”

Growling at him, you popped him a quick elbow to the ribs. He grunted a bit with the force and lowered his arm back to his side, but otherwise didn’t move. His smile was beaming and it made you happy to know he was getting more comfortable around you now, but not happy enough to accept the new nickname without a bit of teasing in return.

“No problem, Buck, but I think your ribs would prefer you not using that name often.” You laughed as you watched his hand skate over the place you had jabbed with your elbow. “Just stick to calling me doll and you’ll come out of this just fine, Bucky.”

Giggling, you left him at the table, a blush starting to color his cheeks.

_______________________________________________________________________

It was midday when you reached the entrance to Cochetopa Pass. A wide road, created originally for railroads to be built, stood between a multitude of Aspen trees, dusted in snow. The trek was fairly easy with the gently sloping hills. You, Steve, Nat, and Bucky rode ahead, scouting for danger while Tony, Bruce, and Jarvis brought up the rear with the groups supply wagons.

Tony was cursing colorfully as his cart horses, Dum-E and U, were goofing off with each other and shaking the cart. Jarvis, who had been sitting stoically beside his friend, looked as if he were struggling to keep his laughter at bay as Bruce and his cart began to steadily leave them behind.

“Sir, why don’t you allow me to drive for a while? You can get some rest in the back and see how Butler and Mark II are doing on the tethers.” Jarvis smiled politely.

“Sure thing.” Tony quickly handed his friend the reins and began climbing to the back. “Thanks Jarvis.”

You all chuckled a bit, even Jarvis had a slight twinkle to his eyes as your group continued along the trail in relative silence.

A few hours passed before you reached the toll road within the pass, veering into the forest, you led the group down a smaller path and onto the Rio Grande Road, bypassing two other government toll roads with the shortcut.

Steve turned in the saddle and realized what you had done and smiled gratefully. “Smart move, doll. We never would have gotten past those tolls without Shield finding out.”

You smiled at him in return. “We still have a ways to go yet, Steve. Why don’t y’all tell me more about your little group? I’d really like to learn more about you all.”

Steve smiled, happy that you wanted to get to know them all a bit better. “Sure, Y/N. I don’t mind spilling a few secrets along the way.” He winked, causing a blush to rise in your cheeks.

Steve does a bit more than spill secrets along the way, though. He fully opens up, telling you all about Shield and Hydra, and how each of them got onto the groups’ wanted dead or alive lists.

Steve, Bucky, and Tony had once been a big part of Shield, working for the government in different areas and degrees for a few years until they took note and recruited them. It didn’t take long for both men to find out that Shield was a different entity all together. At first, they were all for helping the people. Doing what was right to help people get on their feet in the aftermath of the Civil War. They dispatched groups of men to round up criminals and provide the rich and famous with private security and military forces, much like the Pinkerton Agency in Chicago.

But, just when everything seemed to be on the up and up, Steve discovered something they didn’t want him to know. One of Shield’s groups was running as a second entity, causing chaos to keep the Shield agency in business. They tore through the streets, killing innocents in the towns that had become peaceful, creating a bigger need for Shield to come in and “save” them.

“I didn’t want to be a part of that, but then, they took Bucky.” Steve’s head hung low, regret filling his features as he glanced towards his brother. “They used him to get to me. Made me comply, but it didn’t take long for the jerk to escape. As soon as I heard, I deserted the Shield agency, taking a few of their secrets with me.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that. Family should never be pitted against one-another.” Your blood boiled and you gripped Boda’s reins harder, knuckles turning white beneath the warmth of your gloves. “You both have such kind hearts, and I hate that you had to be put through such a thing.”

Bucky reached out, covering your hand with one of his as his knee brushed yours. “You don’t have to be sorry, Y/N. Everything happens for a reason.”

Steve chuckled, reaching out with his booted foot to tap your calf lightly. “Yeah, just think about it, doll. If none of those things happened, you wouldn’t have met all of us.”

You smiled at their attempts to cheer you up, even if your heart still hurt for them. Steve was right, but you didn’t have to be happy about it. Huffing a bit, you began to pout. “I know, but I still don’t have to like what you went through.”

Bucky and Steve just chuckled before going back to the story.

Tony and Jarvis had apparently been part of Shield even earlier than Steve and Bucky. Tony’s father had been a founder of their organization. He was a great inventor, made countless weapons for the government to use in their endeavors, but it seemed there had been no love between father and son.

Jarvis was remarkably close to his young companion, acting as a father figure to the boy when his real father was too busy to deal with him. Tony inherited his father’s legacy when he died, going to work for the government at a young age with only Jarvis as a companion. Many of his father’s associates resented Tony for taking over, they didn’t believe him capable, but his work ethic kept them quiet for the most part.

When Tony had learned of Hydra’s plans, he too cut ties with Shield. Refusing to make any more weapons for them and destroying a multitude of blueprints for future projects. He and Jarvis fled, running into Bruce and Natasha along the way, and eventually Steve and Bucky.

You stared intently as they all spoke of different parts of the story, cutting in when they felt details had been left out or making little jokes at each other’s expense, it wasn’t until they talked about their meeting Natasha and Bruce that you recognized something was off.

Natasha became silent and melancholy for a few moments before joining back into the story and gentle ribbing they were all sharing, but her smiles and laughter didn’t reach her eyes from that point on.

Her demeanor perplexed you, even more when she looked up into your eyes and you saw panic there. “Y/N, why don’t you tell us about you? I think we would all like to know how you came to live with your brother out west.”

You frowned a bit at Natasha’s change in subject, seeing it for what it was. An out. She didn’t want to speak about whatever was bothering her at the moment. You nodded, smiling a bit. “Sure. I don’t mind sharing, especially since y’all have been so forthcoming.”

Looking down the path ahead, you saw the outline of Bent’s Fort on the horizon just as the sky began to darken. “Let’s set up camp for the night and I’ll tell you all about me.”

The group readily agreed, taking only a few minutes once they unloaded themselves to get a campfire started and gather around for your life’s story.

“I grew up in a small settlement on the banks of the Neuse River. My family was close knit, living in a community where most everyone was happy until the civil war broke out.” You stared into the fire, remembering the day everything changed.

Your father had gone to fight in the war, recruited by the Union army. Even though he was a southern bred man, your father had always been a just man, helping those of any background and race. There wasn’t a bigoted bone in his body, but that caused problems among the other circles of people living in the south.

Your mother and grandparents faced many hardships during the war. Sickness and exhaustion taking each of them, one by one, leaving your brother and you to run the farmlands your family owned. When your father came back from the war, he was sick. A bullet had scraped his thigh, leaving an infection in its wake. He advised your brother to go west and make a home there before the government came looking to recruit him. He was only seventeen, but the army wouldn’t have cared about his age, so he left as your father had told him to.

A few months passed by as your father taught you all you would need to know to run the farm on your own. He knew he wouldn’t make it for much longer and wanted to prepare you as best he could for the coming years.

He died not long after, leaving all of his estate to you. This caused a rift between the men that worked for your father. Many of them didn’t wish to be under the employment of a lowly woman and left. Others stayed, taking the opportunity to sabotage operations at every turn and the farm steadily went under.

When the state came to collect, they claimed that an unmarried woman of your “heritage” had no claim to such a fine piece of land and gave you an ultimatum.

“They told me I could wed a man of status and keep the farm, or I could willingly give it up, along with everything on it. Then they left, giving me a week to make my decision.” You looked around to your new friends as they listened to your story. Natasha’s jaw clenched in anger, Steve and Bruce were fairly vibrating with it, but it was the stoic posture of Bucky that caught your attention. His body radiated calm, but Tony was slowly shifting in his seat, putting another inch of space between the two of them just as Soldat began to growl in displeasure.

Bucky’s steel blue gaze was murderous as he stared into the fire. Orange and yellow light reflected in his eyes as he slowly turned his head to meet your eyes with his. You smiled, throwing his words from earlier back at him. “Everything happens for a reason, Bucky.”

His shoulders relaxed a bit and he began to leisurely stroke Soldat’s head, calming him. He smiled. “As you are here now, I’m sure you told those asshats to take their deal and shove it where the sun don’t shine.”

You chuckled at his lazy tone, seeing the anger slowly leave everyone’s body with his quip. “Oh, you know it.”

As that long, arduous week went by, you began preparing yourself for the choice you had to make. You gathered the money you had saved over the years, and began packing it under a board in the stables, along with your father’s gun that he had left you and a few items of clothing.

Then you meticulously began releasing your father’s prized horses, until all of them were freed into the wilderness surrounding your land. All that was left on the premises was yourself and Bodaway when they came for your answer.

So, what will it be little lady? Will you get married, or will you turn the farm over to us?

You had smiled at the sleazy little man before looking around you once more. You took in the sight of the house you had lived in for your entire life, the land you had grown up on, the barn that stood at the back, housing the only things you had left in this world, before turning back to the men and sneering at them.

I will leave, on one condition. The man had frowned at you, but you continued undeterred. I wish to keep my horse and some of my personal belongings with me.

They had tried to fight you, claiming that any horses that were on this land were part of the deal they had made. You smiled slyly, knowing they wouldn’t be able to hold the stallion when his temper blew, but decided to play a little game with them.

You hung your head, an expression of sad disappointment covering your features. Okay. I will fetch him for you. He’s not terribly trusting of new people.

Turning towards the barn, you made your way to Boda’s stall and opened the gate. Hey there, big guy. There’s been a change of plans.

“It took all of five seconds for Boda to trample, kick, and bite at the men after I led him out before they were running for the hills.” You laughed gleefully at the memory, staring across the fire to the sleeping stallion, huddled with the other horses. All power and grace, even as he slept like a baby.

Bucky and Steve looked to one another, not a word passed between them as you finished your story, but the message was clear.

She’s fucking perfect!

_______________________________________________________________________

A few more days of riding landed your group on the outskirts of Topeka, where you set up a temporary campsite within a deep grove of trees. With plenty of game and a small stream nearby, you would easily be able to stock up on meat for the coming trip, but your group was running low on some essential supplies.

“What do you say, Y/N? Feel like making a run to town with me?”

Tony’s suggestion struck you as odd, but you weren’t about to let his destructive butt in town without a babysitter. “Sure thing. Just, let me tack Boda and…”

Tony shook his head and pointed a thumb over his shoulder to where Dum-E and U were hitched to a waiting supply wagon. “No way, short stack. You’re riding with me and the bums today.”

His nickname for you still irked, but you only smiled and followed along behind him. Bucky and Steve looked about to protest your going, but stopped when you smiled a dagger-like grin their way.

“Let them go, boys.” Natasha’s smooth-as-silk voice skated over them, creating goosebumps.

Turning to the redhead they saw a matching smile grace her lips as she regarded Y/N and Tony climbing onto the wagon. “I have an impression she’s gonna teach ol’ Tones a lesson on this little trip.”

Steve and Bucky turned back, watching as you disappeared through the trees with Tony chatting away at your side.

_______________________________________________________________________

During the short ride with Tony, you asked about his past, wishing to know more about him. It really didn’t seem fair to not put in any effort to make friends with the man who seemed so interesting and lonely.

Even surrounded by all the people who cared about him, he just seemed so alone. Jarvis was able to pull him out of that shadow a few times over the course of your trip with the group, and in those moments, he was so charming and bright like a star in the night sky. But, he would immediately retract back into himself as soon as the conversation wavered. It was like a candle being snuffed out in a dark room and it made your soul want to reach out.

“How did you come to find these beautiful beasts, Tony?” You pointed to the two red roan Belgians pulling the wagon. “They are so big and beautiful.”

Looking between the pretty mare and gelding, you were a bit taken aback when Tony began to laugh heartily. Turning to him, you observed that inner light of his begin to take hold of him again. He wiped a few tears from his eyes as he chuckled. “Sorry, Y/N. I’ve never heard anyone say such a thing about these two knuckleheads.”

Tony’s smile was beaming as he told you about the day he found the two. “I was out riding, just trying to get a bit of peace out on my own when I saw two mounds of hair laying next to each other in a field. They were all alone, just two big freezing babies out in the middle of nowhere and without a mother. Seems their mother was a prized mare for a neighboring rancher and when she died giving birth to these two, the owner couldn’t bear to look at them and threw them out on their own.”

“That’s awful.” You immediately began seeing red. How could people be so heartless?

“Don’t worry, short stack. He got what he deserved in the end. Man’s entire herd escaped one night and they never could find who took them.” Tony winked causing you to giggle despite the irritation from his nickname for you.

“So, what? You just took them home with you? How did you manage to feed them?”

Tony chuckled darkly and a bit of light dimmed from his eyes. “Well, fortunately or unfortunately, one of the mare’s my father had gifted me had lost her foal a few days prior, and when I brought these two lugs into the stable, she immediately took to them. Fed them every day, protected them from threats, it was amazing to see. A miracle even.”

You watched as the lightness of his eyes began to fade more and more with every word, but just as you were about to ask him about it, the town came into view. “Well, little lady, seems this is our stop.”

Tony pulled the wagon up to the hitching post outside of the town’s general store and hopped down from the seat. Showing his more gentlemanly side, he helped you down from your seat as well and led the way into the store with his usual swagger firmly in place again.

Entering the store together, you each took a few turns around the interior. The wood floors creaked as you looked through the shop owner’s wares. Oil stained shelves and dusty cans greeted the brush of your fingers as you gathered the things you were looking for. Apples, carrots, and fresh produce came first, with a few cans of beans, peaches, and corn thrown in for good measure. Then came the oatcakes, cigars, and liquor that Tony tried to sneak into the pile before you just as sneakily put the majority back. A few rounds of ammo, medicines, and multiple cans of coffee rounded out your purchase as the shop-keep’s sons helped to carry your purchases out to the wagon.

As Tony paid for the items, you turned to leave and almost barreled into a woman entering the shop. Your breath hissed out through clenched teeth when your injured shoulder connected with hers.

“Oh, dear. I’m so incredibly sorry.” Her voice was soothing and sweet, but it held a nervous edge to it.

You looked to her face, noticing the fading bruise over her cheekbone and her strawberry blonde hair that fell just past her shoulders before waving off her apology, not wanting to cause her any more trouble. “Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

“You’d think a woman with a bullet wound would pay better attention to her surroundings.” Tony’s voice was a bit strained and worry lined his eyes as he looked between you and the woman. He seemed worried about your injury, but he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the beautiful woman in front of you for too long either. You couldn’t blame him, the woman was fairly gorgeous, but something was wrong.

You stepped to the side, pulling Tony with you so the woman would have room to continue shopping without worry and you could study her while Tony checked your bandage. Whoever she was, she was dressed beautifully, seeming extremely out of place in the small town you were currently in. Coupled with the bruise on her face, you could only assume she was on the run from something, or someone.

Tony tapped your hand when he was done inspecting your bandage, deeming it clear of blood, but the look in his eyes said he was more concerned about the other woman now. She was moving quickly and nervously around the shop, glancing about to the men within the store as she gathered supplies akin to what you had just purchased.

Looking to Tony, you realized he had come to the same conclusion as you had. She was running, and you both wanted to help.

Motioning Tony out the door, you sidled up to the woman and introduced yourself. “Hey, I just wanted to say I’m sorry for running into you earlier.” You held your hand out for her to shake. “My name is Y/N.”

She took it tentatively, with a small smile on her lips. “Virginia Potts. Sorry for hitting your shoulder, too. How does a lovely woman like you get shot? I mean, if you don’t mind me asking.”

You chuckled, rubbing the back of your neck as she fidgeted. It seemed she was really feening for someone to talk to, but you had to be careful with what you said to keep from scaring her away. “That’s a long, sad story, Virginia. I’m just glad my friends were there to get me out when they did.”

Taking a few items from her overloaded arms, you helped take everything to the counter. “Would you mind if I helped you take these out?”

She began to fidget again, seeming to become more and more uncomfortable. “Why would you want to do that? Shouldn’t you be getting back to your… husband?”

Shocked, you froze for a moment, your face becoming hot when you realized she meant Tony. Chuckling you waved your hands in denial. “Sorry to laugh. Tony isn’t my husband, just a friend.”

“Oh, ok. Sorry for making an assumption.” Her cheeks were blushed as she shifted her gaze around the room, not meeting your eyes from embarrassment.

You placed your hand on her shoulder, trying to comfort her. “Don’t worry about it, Virginia. Most would assume such to be true when you see a man and woman shopping together as we were, but as of now, I am unattached.”

Smiling brightly, you graciously picked up the first crate. “Now, lets get these crates to your wagon.”

She smiled back, accepting your help with a nod and leading the way to her own wagon and the single cart horse tethered to it. He was a pretty chestnut Ardennes and he nickered sweetly with your approach, causing you to smile.

Loading the two crates onto the small cart, you moved towards the horse at the front and stroked through his thick mane as Virginia climbed onto the driving bench.

“I hope you don’t mind me being too forward with you, Virginia. But, my friends and I are camped just outside of town if you would like to join us. We can keep you safe from whatever you are running from. You don’t have to be alone.”

The shock and fear came first, then shame coated her features and she deflated before your eyes. “I don’t want to be a burden. I-I just can’t marry that cruel man.”

Her tears began to fall and you reached to take her hand in yours. “Who, Virginia? Who hurt you?”

“My fiancé… Obadiah Sta-”

“Obadiah? Obadiah Stane is your fiancé!?” Tony’s angry voice hissed from behind you. Clearly he had prior knowledge of the man that you were not privy to, and from the sound of his voice, he didn’t have fond memories. “So, you are the infamous Pepper Potts?”

Whirling around you saw the anger and awe at war on Tony’s face. It was as if he were trying to solve a particularly hard puzzle and this woman was at the center of it.

“I-I have to go. Thank you for your help Y/N.” The shear panic in Pepper’s voice had you turning back to her and reaching out, but she was gone before you got the chance to say anything. Pushing her cart horse into a swift trot down the bumpy dirt road, disrupting a few of the locals in her escape.

Turning on Tony, you saw the shock on his face as his eyes trailed after her cart. You wanted to be angry with him, but you understood the outburst. He was a man who worked on gut instinct and intellect over all else and if he were to hear an enemy name come up in conversation, he would be expected to react in earnest. Especially if that enemy was a threat to his friends. That’s one of the things that made him such a good man.

So, you couldn’t get mad at him. But, you could settle with irately frustrated.

Sauntering up to Tony’s frozen visage, you stopped by his shoulder and swiftly smacked him across the back of the head. Not hard enough to hurt him, but just enough that you hoped it would knock some sense into his thick skull.

He rubbed the back of his head, blushing slightly at his blunder. “Sorry, Y/N. I wasn’t trying to scare her off.”

“Don't worry about it Tony.” You smiled up at him before walking back to your own cart where he helped you onto the driving bench. “I think she will be okay. The woman has grit, but I wanna know what that was all about. Who’s Obadiah? And why did you go off like that?”

Taking the reins, Tony began steering your cart back to camp. His face held a sullen expression, but his eyes were lit with angry fire when you spoke that name. “He was an associate of my father’s before he began working for Shield. His nephew, Justin Hammer, is a genius. Much like yours truly.”

His mischievous grin made you chuckle as you shook your head. He really couldn’t help himself, apparently.

“When his nephew was passed up to be a lackey working under the Stark name. Obadiah did all he could to sabotage operations. And he started with introducing Hydra thugs into Shield.”

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, scratching through his groomed beard for a moment. “You know… now that I think about it. He was probably one of the main reasons Hydra could take over Shield in the first place.”

You nodded sagely. That was something you would need to talk to Steve and Bucky about when you got back. Seems Tony had mores ins to Shield’s workings than they had originally gathered. “And Virginia? How does she come in to play here?”

“Virginia ‘Pepper’ Potts. Her father is a rich politician, worked in the higher ranks of Shield and was friends with my father before he died. I always had a bit of a crush on her growing up. I never imagined I would run into her out here.” He smiled fondly before a sour expression coated his features.

“Her father died about a month before I stopped working for Shield and she stopped speaking to me. I thought she hated me, and so, I never even thought to ask her what was going on before I was put on Hydra and Shield’s capture list. Then I was too busy running for my life to bother worrying about it.”

You observed as shame began to weigh on his shoulders. Tony really seemed to be beating himself up about it all, and you didn’t want him to suffer that way. He was a good man.

“Tony?” You waited for him to look at you before you placed a hand on his shoulder and gave him an encouraging smile. “Don’t fret about it too much. I believe that we will see her again. Then you can tell her all of this yourself.”

A suave smile crept across his features before you cuffed him in the back of the head again. “Don’t even think about putting the moves on her, though. That woman has been through hell and she will need a while before you can turn that charm on her.”

Blushing profusely, Tony only nodded and rubbed the back of his head.

Turning back to the road ahead, you silently prayed that your words wouldn’t turn out false. Not only for Tony’s sake, but for Pepper’s too.

[comfy-whumpee]

Jack 11: Finale

[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10] CN: mention of minor whump, mouth gore.

The routine was easy, which he was grateful for, because it kept things simple for him. He was expected to recite the names, the apologies, what he’d done, how he would never do it again, and the litany of insults they’d taught him to believe. In return, they fed him when he was right. If he was wrong, he was punished. He hadn’t made any mistakes in a long time. Lindsey was totally, utterly bored of him, and Cat knew the job was finished.

 So it was time to bring in the client and demonstrate how they’d earned their pay.

Mrs Grover was Ronald’s mother. She’d been trying to curb her son’s behavioural issues for years, and had grown extremely suspicious when they’d abruptly cleared up. When the whole situation about Kiera had been revealed, she’d reached out. Not for revenge, she said, though Cat had her doubts. She just wanted to make sure the man never hurt anyone again.

 She was a dumpy blonde, pretty and mild, but Cat recognised the kind of deep, fierce protectiveness she saw in Lindsey and understood how such a normal woman could pay for something like this. She accepted a cup of tea in Cat’s office and they chatted a little about Ronald and the other kids’ recoveries.

 “It’s just such a relief, you know? They thought she might not be able to, but with some physio... God, listen to me. At least it’s only physio. I can’t believe I’m saying that about a child.”

 Cat nodded, all sympathy.

 “I just - I still worry, about them, you know. About trauma.” She said the word like it was sacrilegious. “That’s why...if that man was able to do anything...” She glanced hopefully at Cat. An invitation.

 “Let me put your mind at ease,” Cat said. She flipped her laptop around on her desk, keeping the mouse in her hand. The picture on the screen was of Jack on the first day, the defiant leer and stubbornly jutted chin, shortly after Lindsey had cut him the first time and they’d put him in the chains. “This is how we found him,” Cat said. “That attitude was the first thing to go. We don’t tolerate that kind of behaviour. He lashed out and was appropriately punished.”

 She scrolled to the next image. The stitched cuts on his chest.

 “Let me know if you’d rather not see these,” she said, but Mrs Grover shook her head, eyes tearful but fierce. She needed this.

 “This is how we left him,” Cat said. “He was immobile, barely able to stand. His mouth was too full of congealed blood for him to speak. We didn’t give him food or much water until his attitude was better. Once he was compliant, we rebuilt him.”

 She scrolled again, to the video. In the centre of the shot was Jack, under the bulb, hands strung over his head. He stared dead into the camera, too exhausted to feel shame, and he said. “Kiera. Ronald. Nelson. Jennifer. Safia. Ramon.”

 “We made him say their names,” Cat explained. “He learned by heart who they were and what he did to them. We reminded him when he needed correction that he deserved pain because he had inflicted it. He internalised this rule fairly quickly. We don’t believe he’ll hurt someone again until he’s fully recovered from this. Certainly, he’ll be too physically weak to do so for a couple of months.”

 Mrs Grover didn’t look away from the screen, eyes glued to his bloodied face. She was leaning forwards in her chair, hands tight on its arms. She didn’t blink as she said, “After that?”

 Cat shrugged. “Depends on the person, circumstances, causes for relapse...it’s impossible to say. People change.”

 Mrs Grover sighed. “You’re right. I’m sorry, you’re absolutely right. I just...I wish there was a way to make sure, you know? So that he could never do to others what he did to...”

 Cat remained patient as the mother rambled. There was always an outpouring of evidence before a confession.

 She cut off her own rambling with a wince. “Never mind me. You can...I think there’s something I’d like you to do.”

 -

 After the negotiation of medical treatment, extra pay, the in-house doctor’s requirements, Cat had agreed. Mrs Grover had followed her down to the cellar. Lindsey was already there, checking on the cuts for the last time now that Sasha had taken out the stitches. She smiled at Mrs Grover and took off her gloves to shake the woman’s hand.

 “My partner,” Cat explained. “Lindsey, our client has an extra request for you to take care of.”

 Lindsey nodded, her expression all business, but Cat could clearly see she was excited, her eyes focused and a smile dancing around the edges of her mouth. Lindsey knew that if Cat was going to ask her to do something, it would be because she’d enjoy it. Ever since they’d started this business Cat had only ever given Lindsey jobs that appealed to her. It was like getting presents every day.

 “Cut out his tongue,” Mrs Grover said. The words burst out of her with a desperate kind of need. “Cut out his tongue so he can’t talk, so - so he can’t use - manipulate - other people like he did.”

 Lindsey’s mouth pressed together to hide her grin. Her eyes went to Cat briefly, and Cat smiled back. Lindsey didn’t say it in front of the client, but Cat knew she would have been thanking Cat with all her loving glee right now. This was as good as Christmas.

 She drew her stiletto knife. Jack was only half-conscious, and clearly hadn’t been able to process the conversation, because he wasn’t resisting yet. Lindsey touched her fingers to his jaw and said, “Jack, open your mouth for me.”

 He did, even though it reopened the cuts at the corners of his lips, and his eyes glazed over with tears. “A little wider,” Lindsey coaxed him. “That’s it. Now, I need you to put your tongue out for me. That’s it. That’s it.”

 That was humiliating in itself, of course, seeing a grown man put his tongue out like a dog on command. But Lindsey was too fixated on the upcoming mutilation to pause and savour it how Cat would have done. She took the tweezers from the table and squeezed them around the tip of Jack’s tongue. He made a soft noise of pain but didn’t resist as they dug in hard enough to pierce the skin.

 Then, the knife.

 Jack howled. The noise erupted from him so hard and so loudly that there was no other way to describe it; it ripped from his chest like a wounded animal, a ragged, keening noise that only gave a glimpse of the pain he was in. He didn’t thrash, would never thrash again, but he did stretch himself out as if to tear the scream from deeper inside him, head lifting towards the ceiling, back arched, fists clenched and pulling on the chains.

 Then he gagged and jerked, and Lindsey grabbed his head and pulled it down, so that the blood didn’t choke him. He coughed hard, spluttering scarlet across her overalls, and tried to pull his head from her grip, but she fisted her fingers into his hair. He continued coughing until he’d hacked up all the blood, convulsing as the metallic taste burned his throat; once the liquid was clear he was heaving breath, falling, gradually, to be still, mouth hanging open, blood pouring down his face, head resting against Lindsey’s chest as she stroked his hair.

“Good boy,” she murmured, running her fingers through the matted locks at the nape of his neck.

He tried to speak, to beg by the tone of it, but all that emerged was an indistinct whine of pain.

The realisation seemed only to hit him then. His eyes widened and he tried again to speak, and no words came. He probed his mouth with the stump, figuring out what felt wrong, what Lindsey had done. "Uhhnnn,” he moaned out, blood pouring from his lips with the gutteral noise. “Whhhnnnnnnnnnn!”

“Yeah,” Lindsey said, as if she knew what the wailing meant. She kept stroking, soothing. “You deserved it, though, didn’t you?”

Now in tears of frustration, he gave up with a defeated whimper. His head drooped, an exhausted nod of agreement. He knew this.

Lindsey released her hands. He didn’t move. He hung again, limp as a carcass, eyelids sagging. His breath rattled still in his throat but he didn’t otherwise respond to the sound of the camera.

 He was finished.

 Cat turned to Mrs Grover, who nodded shakily. She opened her handbag and passed Cat the thick envelope of cash. Then she turned and almost ran up the cellar stairs, as if terrified that she would regret it if she thought about what she’d done any longer.

 As for Jack, Sasha would cauterise the stump of his tongue, rinse him down, and then they’d drive him out to the country and dump him somewhere he’d probably be found. They’d keep tabs on him for a little while, make sure he didn’t tell, that he was going to behave. If he made any move to come back for them, Lindsey would bring him back to the cellar, and Cat would make sure he never left again.

-

Thank you for everyone who stuck with this arc, it sure was a long one. The next arc will be half this long because why did I do this to myself and you.

[thingstotellthem]

im sorry for the long submission, feel free to ignore it. (also this has all the necessary tws in the tags but I’ll mention it here too - I go into depth about my emotional abuse from my mom, plus a brief mention of ableism, threats of animal abuse, and suicidal thoughts)

my mom likes to pretend we’ve got a great relationship. when she’s in a good mood, she acts all sweet and nice. she’ll talk to me (or rather, at me - I never get a chance to respond) and make coffee and nice breakfasts and sometimes we have “mother-daughter days out”. (im not a girl.)

i hate these interactions. Talking to my mom is like walking on a goddamn minefield surrounded by other people - it’s inevitably going to blow up in your face, and it might not even have been you that set it off. 

she’s got anger problems. she likes to scream and shout at me, my brother, and my dogs over every. little. thing. yesterday, she asked me to go let the dogs outside. after I was done, I went upstairs to tell her i’d done it. I didn’t speak up right away because she was watching TV and I didn’t want to talk over it. but I’d been standing there for less than a couple of seconds before she turned around and started shouting at me for hovering over her. later she tried to justify it as “a panic attack”. A panic attack. caused by me standing next to her for two seconds. in a spot that I, and everyone else in the house, has stood in thousands of times with no issue. that stopped as soon as she got to berate me. 

last week she got mad at my brother for asking a question. I don’t remember what the question was, it was something completely insignificant and normal like “what’s for dinner” or something. And somehow that escalated into her screaming in his face, threatening to stab him to death, throwing things at me and threatening to call the police on me for it, and threatening to throw my cats in a river. she later justified this as my brother raising her blood pressure. 

on saturday I asked her (politely) to change the subject because she was making me uncomfortable. she went on a huge tangent that I was being so rude, and made up stories about how I got out of my way to stop conversations im not even involved in because im such an asshole. I don’t. I tried to stop that one because she was making me uncomfortable and we were in the car so I couldn’t just walk off. I had no way of knowing she’d call that rude, because she’s never shouted at me for that specifically before. if it were the other way around and she’d asked me to change the topic id’ve been fine with it. 

thats a recurring theme here. something is completely fine, until suddenly one day she decides she doesn’t like it and starts screaming and shouting at us for it. the rules are strict but entirely inconsistent and nonsensical. 

I’ve tried talking to her about it, so so many times. but she’s always got an excuse or a justification. you see, she apologised for it this time! what else do I want from her?! I need to just drop it!!! if I’m allowed to throw temper tantrums all the time, how could I possibly blame her for her ‘panic attacks’? don’t I know that she’d been abused as a kid? how could I treat her this way, after all she does for me?? just yesterday she tried to tell me that it was the first time she’d screamed at me for ages, even though she’d literally had huge episodes earlier in the week and even earlier that very day.

(they’re not temper tantrums, fyi. I haven’t had a temper tantrum since I was a toddler. they’re meltdowns. I’m autistic, I literally can’t help it. she knows this. she makes sure to remind me that I’m acting like a r****ded bitch every time I have one. they’re almost always her fault.)

I’ve got anxiety problems and am horribly afraid of speaking to people in a real life setting. it only occurred to me recently that that’s probably her fault. I have anger problems too and that’s probably from her too. its scary. I don’t want to grow up to be like her, but I can’t help it.

i don’t have anyone to go to. i can’t talk to a teacher because im homeschooled (or rather - should be. my education’s been mostly ignored since I was about thirteen. I’m seventeen now.) i don’t have any trusted neighbours and all of my friends are online and I don’t want to burden them with heavy stuff. I can’t contact my extended family. my dad is only home on the weekend because he works away, but he already knows about the problem and won’t do anything about it. I’ve tried talking to childline over and over again and they’ve not been able to help me. 

I want to move out when I’m older but I’m completely dependant on her. I can’t go to college. not with my education, or my anxiety, or my money. Im not going to be able to get a job because I have no skills outside of drawing, and even entry level jobs like working at Tesco - I’d flunk an interview. I can barely speak to people I don’t know. and even if I got the job, just going grocery shopping is too overwhelming for me. I couldn’t handle it. id be fired. I want to work as an artist but I don’t have any kind of a following so I’d never make a living off of it. they’ve ‘assured’ me that I’m going to be allowed to live with them even as an adult. I’m stuck with them for the foreseeable future. 

I feel trapped and miserable and there just doesn’t seem to be a way out. She doesn’t hit me, so I can’t prove anything. I’ve already gone over why I can’t leave or tell someone. sometimes it feels like the only way out is for me to just die already, but even then I don’t have the means to do it. I’m just stuck being some useless, scared, anxious fucking shutin for the rest of my life and I can’t even cut it short.

I’m sorry for dumping all of this on you. I’m not expecting advice or anything, because I know theres nothing that can be done. I just needed to dump it all on someone.