#it's just a formless hat

[gendrsoup]

edwin payne your stupid uptight white boy hairstyle is the worst to draw and i hope it gets all mussed up at some point in s2 so i can get thrown a bone to draw it cause man wtf it's just a lego block 😭

[passivenovember]

This just fell out of me, team. I hope you enjoy it!

--

Steve’s wearing a sunhat.

Billy spots it on his tromp down the front steps, a nondescript canvas bag balled and clutched in one hand like wilted butcher’s paper, and thinks it could be a dinner plate on top of Harrington’s quaff. A trick of the early morning light slotting an obvious hole in the world.

It’s a sunhat, though.

The bag crinkles in Billy’s fist. Its folds and edges could draw blood. He tugs Steve’s passenger door open with his free hand and settles into the cab. Catches his breath. Says, “Why are you dressed like that?” When Steve only stares at him.

“We’re going to the Farmer’s Market,” Steve says. “It’s a special occasion.” 

They go to the Farmer’s Market every weekend, Billy doesn’t say. Since March, stretching all the way to last summer; off and on while Billy settled into it like a drowned cat, Steve eventually snapping, “We can do this,” Hands on his hips. Jars of pickled vegetables fresh from his little tote bag, glittering on Billy’s kitchen counter. “We can have this.”

“Non FDA regulated vegetables?” Billy had asked, grinning when Steve flushed, turning to dump Billy’s half of the loot into the refrigerator. 

Billy never asked what ‘this,’ meant. What they could have. Thinks he has a decent idea.

“You didn’t need to put a fuckin’ hat on,” Billy says now. Didn’t need to wear that hat. Particularly. 

He’s cute, though. Younger, where its wide, formless brim hides the salt and pepper that’s been slinking up Steve’s temples for the last couple of years, reminding Billy of the decades that rest like rain slickers on their backs. Floppy hats on their heads.

“It’s supposed to be in the low hundreds today.”

“It’s seven-thirty, pretty boy.”

“I’m not taking any chances,” Steve says. He throws the car into reverse, but really it’s more a gentle nudge of the gear-shift until the car rolls with gravity into the street. Harrington always driving like a fifty year old man long before he was one. “I read an article that sunscreen isn’t enough anymore,” Steve says bluntly.

“Isn’t enough to what? Keep you celibate?” Billy digs around in his jeans pocket for his cigarettes. The white lighter that Steve had had an aneurysm over when he first saw it.

“No, to stop skin cancer. These days, how the Baby Boomers fucked up the Ozone, you’ve gotta wear sleeves, and sunscreen, and sunglasses, and fuckin’, sunhats,” Steve yanks the lighter out of Billy’s hand before he can spark up. Ignores the punch Billy lands on the one that came, fresh from 1993, with the car. 

America used to be a country. Smoking used to be good for you. 

Steve shoots him a side-ways glance, as if reading his mind. “You’re gonna kick rocks at sixty, Bill. Way you smoke.”

“They don’t make sun hats for lungs yet,” Billy says. The car lighter pops free so he snags it, waiting patiently for the hot-plate coil to catch his cig. When it does, he puts it back. Inhales slowly, peering out the window as the early morning shoots by at 30 miles per hour, a dying star.

He can feel Steve watching him. Now. Always.

“You could stop,” Steve says softly. “Smoking. You’re still young.”

Billy snorts. “Yeah, and you could mind your business.”

“Fuck you, you are my business.”

Billy’s stomach flips. He’s surprised, still, that his guts aren’t knotted and non-functional after all this time. Decades of friendship; career changes and new houses, new wives that slip steadily into ex wives. Kids. One kid. Billy’s. Decades of Steve, worrying about Billy’s diet and nagging at his bad habits, and. Saying shit like that. Flipping Billy’s stomach over on itself.

Billy puffs on his cigarette, rolling his eyes when Steve coughs dramatically into one elbow. He blows a huge cloud, just to be an asshole.

“Dude,” Steve says, leaning away so the car jerks suddenly to the left. 

Billy yelps, jostling against his seatbelt, “Harrington, you’re driving.”

“This is your lungs on nicotine,” Steve says, “A shitty old car driven by a lunatic middle-aged divorcee. Out of control. Veering into a ditch, or–”

“--It’s just a goddamn cigarette–”

“--With every pack you’re killing babies,” Steve tells him. The next streetlight turns gold. Steve runs it. 

Billy hangs on. His heart thumps with every twist and turn of the road. Hawkins races by, a blur of neon green oak trees and dark, supple earth. The grass is burned away in some places. Steve’s ancient car groans in the rising heat, its tires buff their tread against hot pavement.

At the next stoplight, Steve slams on the breaks. 

Billy almost flies through the goddamn windshield. He sits back against car seat leather. He breathes through his nose, counting to ten before he realizes that he’s covered in cigarette ash. His cigarette isn’t lit anymore.

Steve watches him evenly, soulful brown eyes calm.

Too calm.

Billy frowns. “What the fuck is going on with you, man?”

Steve shrugs. 

“It’s just a cigarette,” Billy presses forward, turning in his seat to give this his full fledged fucking attention. “You’re acting like you did when I was moving back home and you thought you couldn’t ask to come. Right before you broke Tommy Hagan’s nose when he said–”

“I know what that asshole said, I’m fifty, not a hundred,” Steve snaps. “I’m not acting like anything.”

“Yeah,” Billy says, shifting, “Yeah, you are. Like that time Alice wouldn’t let you come visit because she was doing that bullshit Home for 40 Days thing after Serena was born,” Billy tells him. He watches Steve’s face. Notices the crack before it happens because they’ve been friends for decades. 

It hurts him. “Steve–”

“I asked to come eventually,” Steve says, voice soft as feather down, neglecting to mention that he didn’t stay in California. “You moved back after the divorce. When Alice–”

“The light’s green,” Billy says. 

“I’m fine,” Steve tells him. “It’s fine.” He breathes through his nose, pawing at the brim of his dorky sun hat like he forgot it was there, for a moment. Like he wants to rip it off. 

Suddenly, with the force of a riptide, Billy misses the wave of Steve’s hair, still impossibly thick even into their middle age. He wants the hat gone, the sun free of all its massive danger. 

“I won’t smoke anymore,” Billy says, “If you want me to stop, I will.”

The moment hangs between them, and then, behind, someone honks.

“I want you to live forever,” Steve admits. Soft. Sweet.

Billy almost breaks in half. Isn’t sure why they’re talking about this now, in a car, on their way to the Market. But that’s what happens when you get older. Every moment like an oak leaf on the wind, slipping like water through clenched fists. 

He frowns, asking, “What about you?” Because. He wouldn’t want to spend forever alone.

“Why else am I wearing a fucking sunhat, Billy?”

Billy’s stomach knots. He opens his mouth to admit that he’s been in love with Steve for forty years, and he’ll always be the kind of man who burps and says the wrong thing and pushes too hard and smokes cigarettes, but. 

He loves him. 

Steve waits. When the second honk comes, he turns away, pulling his shitty old car onto Menard Street without another word. 

Billy swallows love, the movement as familiar to him as their friendship. It tastes like cigarette smoke. He tosses his unlit fag out the window, feeling like the shit hole scum of the earth when Steve reports that 30% of wildfires start with a carelessly discarded cigarette.

There’s a drought, too, Billy doesn’t say.

He should’ve thought it out. But it’s Steve. He only wanted to suck the wound.

–

Steve’s been twitchy for as long as Billy’s known him. It’s worse when he has something to say, when the skeletons in his closet regrow their ligament to stand on knocking knees, banging on the door, asking for an escape. 

Billy’s been around long enough to know that it’s best not to push, even when that’s all he does, all he’ll ever do. But. When it comes to Steve Harrington, things are different. Always. 

“What should we do first,” Billy asks. Knowing Steve’ll talk when he’s ready.

Harrington parks his car, the last in a long line of hybrids and hatchbacks, near the edge of the park. “I’m looking for honey,” He says, voice pulled tight like an out-of-tune string instrument. In a hurry. One wrong stroke and he’ll snap.

“‘Kay,” Billy says. 

He doesn’t know what to do with his hands once they’re out of the car. He resists the urge to lick his palm for a breath check, knowing he’ll find coffee and burnt toast and filmy pink love; tries to stop himself from tucking his shirt into the waist of his jeans, unfurling into the type of man that stops smoking and goes to Farmer’s Markets every weekend because his best friend asks him to. Against all odds.

Billy trots with Steve over the hill and into the market, his heart in his throat. They find the honey booth quickly and wait in line together, Steve tapping out an impatient rhythm on the cobblestone.

“You’re so squirrely today,” Billy says. He claps a hand on Steve’s neck, trying to squeeze out the tension. Wanting to touch him. 

Steve shrugs him off. 

Dick.

Billy rolls his shoulders and crosses his arms for safe keeping, having learned long ago that his hands will gravitate to Steve Harrington if given the chance. Billy aches for a cigarette, squints into the strengthening sunlight, yearning for his sunglasses, sunscreen, a sun hat–

“Lot of Pride Flags,” Billy says gruffly. His palms sweat, tacking unhelpfully to the hair on his forearms. It’s like he blinked, came up for air, and Indiana got progressive.

Steve stiffens next to him, “It’s June first, I think,” He says, hiding something.

“No shit?” Billy turns just in time to catch Steve watching him, a weird look in his eyes. “Should call Serena this afternoon.”

“Let’s go lesbians,” Steve says, a soft, pink smile on his face. 

Billy wants to ask about Robin, even though he just spoke to her on Wednesday when she called to demand how he keeps his tomato plants blooming into November. He wants to grab Steve by the face and say see, I’m alive. I’m here. I have a garden, and a daughter, and Robin remembers how I used to drink shitty Miller Lite and blast Elton John when you went out with girls. She remembers how much I wanted you. I would carve your name into every piece of driftwood that I threw into the quarry because my skin would scar over. Useless. Old and bereft while the driftwood would float forever, dissolving into the earth with your name sheathed in its very matter, bright and evergreen—

Steve buys two jars of honey.

He buys two of everything, at the Market, one for himself. One for Billy. Billy tries not to think about it.

“Where should we go next,” Steve makes room in the folds of his bag for the first of their loot. 

Billy only ever buys books at this thing. He raises one eyebrow, sidestepping a pair of lesbians that send a shock of tenderness down his spine. Heather and Robin in ‘87. He bites his tongue, though, thinking through their usual haunts. “What about the corn booth?” 

Steve loves sweet corn. He’s a cliche, shrugging his shoulders, “Could do that. We could try something else, too.”

Billy looks at him, grinning, “Okay, what do you have in mind?”

“Well. We started with honey.”

“Yeah.”

“The bakery booth is supposed to be out this week, I heard.” Steve hasn’t shut up about the orange-cranberry muffins he got on a lunch break two weeks ago. He shrugs, thinking better of it. Feigning nonchalance. Billy would fall for it if they hadn’t known each other for years. “Or we could go to the book stand,” Steve says. 

Dangling hope in the starched summer air.

Billy startles a laugh, “Already? We haven’t done your grocery shopping for the week.”

“It’s hot, we don’t have to stay long,” Steve says, watching the crowd thrall around them, “You deserve something for coming out with me today.”

“I come out with you every weekend.”

Steve groans, “C’mon, I’m trying to be nice. Either we go to the book stand, or we’re getting muffins.”

“I’m trying not to eat so much sugar,” A blonde boy skitters into the Market lane, turning to grin past the swell of Billy’s shoulder. There’s a pride flag painted on his cheek bone, smeared delicately by the slide of lips. Billy tries to look away, “Gluten, either.”

Steve gapes, “So you’re not eating sugar or gluten anymore but you’ve never met a cigarette you didn’t like?”

The blonde waits in the sunlight, fingers stretched out in front of him until a boy with huge, soft brown hair knits into all his boyfriend’s empty spaces. 

They kiss. 

Billy looks at Steve, flushed. 

Steve holds his gaze. Finally, “Let’s go to the book stand,” He says, catching Billy off guard. Throwing him a bone.

–

Hawkin’s Public Library was forced, a screaming, tantrum filled child, into the new millennium about a month after Billy and Alice divorced and Serena told the judge she wanted to move back home to Indiana. 

To be with Uncle Steve. That’s what she’d said to the judge. “Daddy and me want Uncle Steve,” Billy had noticed how Alice went ram-rod straight at the name. Like she always did, sour by the way Billy and their daughter, both, couldn’t seem to live without him. “We want to go home.”

So, they went. Alice didn’t try to stop them.

Really, home in the textbook sense was always California. Serena was born in Long Beach. She could stand on a surfboard by the time she was two years old and she abhorred the winter, any item of clothing that sat too close to the base of her neck. The smell of barley. None of that mattered, in the long run. 

Hawkins was home to her. Their clumsy, earnest, well loved vernacular to the court’s stuffy, clinical language.

It didn’t matter to Serena that Indiana was a relic in Billy’s history. She had never moved past sleepy summers spent landlocked, running through sprinklers with Max and Lucas’ wheat-fed kids and eating bomb pops in the swimming pool with a slew of found family aunts and uncles, her halo of blonde ringlets crunchy from too much chlorine. 

Even into her adolescence, the only person she let brush her hair straight out of the pool was her Uncle Steve. The only person she cried to was Uncle Steve. The adult she loved most in the world, except her dad. Maybe.

Billy’s own memories of that time were worn thin. Throbbing with heartache, like a damsel who was bound to find her way back home at the end of some terrible, cruel romantic comedy. He ached on the plane ride to Hawkins. Burned when they moved into the new house. Crumbled as he slept alone every night, grateful in tiny, hidden places that Serena had seemed to process her parent’s divorce and their subsequent move across the country before the first box had been unpacked.

For Billy, things weren’t so easily digested.

He needed time to let the guilt swallow him. The sting of hurt to lick at his fingers. Alice and the tattered flag of their loveless marriage paled in comparison to the way Steve had slipped wordlessly into her place.

It almost killed Billy that they were happier, here. That neither one of them had tried to hold on to their life back in California. 

–

Point is, they used to take Serena to the library together.

Billy’s own mom had believed that books were the key to everything. Children learn by watching colorful characters trail their way through the hills and valleys of friendship. They’re introduced to death and loss in the fold of a page, the monochrome glint of words on yellowing cardstock. They learn to let go by watching someone else do it first. 

Really, Serena hadn’t needed the library. Even at that age she was more level-headed than Billy had been in his entire life, but Steve suggested they go, anyway. “We have to raise a reader, like you.” He’d said. As if Billy was the best thing a person could be.

We.

We have to raise a reader.

–

Hawkins Library sells used books at the Farmer’s Market these days. Budget and funding cuts forcing their hand, Billy caught in a violent spell of fifty-cent paperbacks. 

The memory of Serena holding Steve’s hand, trailing excitedly down every aisle. Even the grown-up ones. Scowling when Steve would snatch every book from her hand, spitting they were, “inappropriate for little girls, Serena.”

Demanding to know when she’d be old enough to read anything with vampires in it.

Billy smiles at the memory, heart fluttering as Steve trails in front of him now in his dorky sun hat, calloused fingers dancing over the spines of every book on the Memoirs shelf. 

Without his salt and pepper showing, and if Steve’s face wasn’t furled in concentration so that his laugh lines gouged deeper into the split around his mouth; Steve looks the same as he always has. 

Billy side-steps another pair of lesbians, running head-first into the LGBTQIA+ Romance section. His heart thuds. He looks around, trying to catalog this territory. Pride flags, Cher playing over a pill-sized bluetooth speaker.

The portable shelf has a flier stuck to it. A disco ball with rainbow streamers falling like wet rags from the words Hawkins Community GSA Presents: Queer Prom. Get Your Tickets at the Booth!

Billy turns, heart in his throat. He watches Steve mouth along to the back of whatever book he’s holding. Catches sight of some president, or something, staring nobly through the break of Steve’s fingers. 

Some twink, sandwiched between the next row of shelves, laughs, and Steve looks up. Catching Billy. He deposits the memoir back on the shelf. “You drug me all the way over here and you haven’t even looked at anything.”

Billy swallows the lump in his throat. “What’s going on, Steve?”

“I don’t know–”

Billy rips the flier from the book shelf, thrusting it into Steve’s wide, waiting palms. 

Steve mouths along to the words. Like he did with the memoir. Like he always has, with the instructions on Betty Crocker Cake Boxes, and the confusing swirl of the How To’s for little girl’s play sets, stretching all the way back to the spring of 1985 when he would pay Billy in saccharine smiles to read Kafka out loud. Write Steve’s essays for him.

“Huh,” Steve flushes bright pink across the bridge of his nose. “Get your tickets at the booth,” He says, artfully avoiding Billy’s gaze, “Cool idea. The instructions aren’t very clear, though, there’s so many booths–”

“You said today was a special occasion,” Billy accuses flatly. It’s getting harder to breathe. “You said you weren’t acting weird, but you’re acting weird, and I–”

“--Will you go to prom with me?” Steve says. Then, Immediately, “I don’t want to freak you out.”

Billy snatches the flier back from him, shaking all over. 

“Okay, alright,” Steve swallows, fingers splayed like Billy’s a junkyard dog who’s backed into a corner. Who’ll attack any minute now. “Look, I just. I thought if I was gonna grow a pair of balls, like. If I was ever gonna do this, I should do it here.”

That doesn’t make sense. Nothing makes sense.

Steve inches closer, his lined, aging, familiar, beautiful face open like a sunroof. Like a hole in the sky. “Billy,” Steve says, “Ever since I met you–”

“--What the fuck is going on–”

“--Stop, okay? Just. Let me say this?” Steve waits, patiently, for a confirmation. Billy doesn’t move or breathe or blink. Steve presses forward, “Ever since I met you when I was seventeen years old I thought. You were someone I could spend the rest of my life with.”

Someone exhales all the wind in their lungs. Billy. 

Steve bristles at the sound. He pulls inward, seeming to notice that people are looking at them over the bookshelves with the kind of intensity that puts a basketball court under Billy’s feet. That reminds him of how Steve would defend Billy to the world before he got better.

Before he was worth anyone’s love.

“So,” Steve lifts a hand to his forehead before realizing he’s still in the sun hat. He takes it off, “I had a speech,” He tells the sun hat, folding the brim between two fingers. Hair a mess but still perfect. “Do you wanna hear it?”

“I think I’ll pass out,” Billy admits earnestly.

“I’d catch you,” Steve says, so. Billy takes a timid step forward, flinching out of his skin when Steve looks up and says, “I’m in love with you.”

Once upon a time, Billy thought the world would collapse if they said those words out loud.

It doesn’t.

“So,” Billy rasps, wringing the flier in his fist, “You thought. You could ask me to prom?”

“We didn’t get to go to prom when we were kids.”

“You went with Nancy,” Billy snaps, strangling the flier. “You danced. I watched you dance–”

“--We didn’t get to go together.”

“You wanted to go to prom with me?”

“Of course. Billy, I moved to California because I was in love with you.” Steve says, like just saying it out loud points to the bread-crumb trail of what they’ve been dancing around for all these years. Like ah-ha. Checkmate.

Billy sniffs. Something wet on his cheeks. “You left California.”

“Because I was in love with you.” Steve nods slowly, “You. You met Alice, and. I thought–”

“--I can’t go to gay prom with you, Steve.”

He doesn’t even bat an eye, used to Billy’s flair for the dramatic. “Why not?”

“Because,” Billy says, looking around desperately. All he finds are lesbians and twinks weaving in and out of the aisles, caught in their own little crystal-clear worlds, useless. “Because I’m in my fifties. And so are you.”

“The event is all ages,” Steve tells him, bored, “Well. Really it’s for old people. Because we never got to have one.”

And. 

The fact that Steve went to prom with Nancy, that he bought flowers and pinned a satin pink corsage to her dress, holding her hand while they danced under seafoam lights, but it wasn’t what he wanted. 

Who he wanted–

Billy sniffs. Trying to stamp out the fire in his chest. “I have a mortgage and and a tomato garden, and a daughter in New York–”

“--This was Serena’s idea,” Steve admits suddenly. “She’s the one who sent me the information on Facebook.”

Of course.

Billy nods, “You’re wearing a sunhat.” His chest, opening like a springtime rose. Stupid. “You can’t say you love me and then ask me to prom when you’re wearing–”

“I took it off,” Steve says. A smile in his voice.

“I stopped smoking for you,” Bill accuses. 

Steve snorts, “Like you aren’t gonna finish the pack first.”

Billy laughs, and it’s wet-sounding. It rattles in his chest and then bursts into the air between them, somehow pulling Steve across the cobblestone. He pushes Billy’s hair back from his face, fiddling with the same earring that’s been there for forty years. Changed only once, for prom.

Billy looks at him. Catalogs the years, the love that grew like ivy over everything else. He hiccups, “I never thought you’d love me back.”

“Of course I love you back.”

“But,” He says, thinking of how their lives could have been so different, “Why–”

“--We can have this,” Steve tells him, pulling Billy close. “We deserve this.”

Another thing Billy will have to settle into. 

It’s nice. He wants to kiss Steve, so he does, because Hawkins has turned into the kind of place that hosts gay prom, where lesbians and twinks roam freely in their little rainbow outfits. 

Steve licks into Billy’s mouth and they melt into each other, gone soft by the years, and the heat of June. When Steve pulls away, his lips press like stamps to Billy’s forehead, his chin, both eyes, his mustache–

Billy giggles. “We should get our tickets.”

“I already have them,” Steve says.

Billy pulls back, gawking.

“I ordered them online.”

“You know how to order things online?”

“Serena ordered them,” Steve says, shrugging. 

And.

Billy grunts. Wanting to say that he could’ve said no. He’s still himself, after all, smoke free organic or not, but. Steve knits their fingers together, “C’mon,” He says, and Billy doesn’t ask where they’re going next. It doesn’t matter. 

They’ve been in love since they were seventeen. Billy’s just happy that it gets to live out in the open, now. Glittery with pride.

[thescarletnargacuga]

You are such a talented writer! I have a suggestion! What if Caine gets plagued by nightmares (or visions) of Pomni abstracting or her leaving him over and over again, with Pomni needing to reassure him each time that she is perfectly happy with him? Maybe causing him to start sleeping in her room from now on because of them?

A/N:aww, shucks, thank you for reading my work. I'm glad you like it!

DIGITAL REALIZATIONS

A SHOWTIME ONESHOT

WARNING: Self-loathing, hurt/comfort, abstraction

~~~

The circus was quiet. All the humans were in their rooms taking their mental breaks as Caine relaxed himself out of bounds. He stretched, contorting his body into a pretzel before releasing and sighing. "Ahhh, what a day." Today's adventure went surprisingly well. The humans didn't complain about horrific sights or traumatic events. Maybe it was a little underwhelming? Eh, tomorrow was another day, and maybe he could cook up something a little more exciting. For now, he settled into a nice relaxing defragmentation.

His avatar fully unraveled into lines of code. This was his true form. It was something he made sure none of the humans ever saw. Including Pomni. The less reminder she had that he's just an AI, he figures the better it would be for their relationship.

Lines of numbers and letters and slashes and dots swirled around, sorting themselves. The fragments of his memories and actions for the day were collected and compiled in their correct files. His favorite file was, of course, his Pomni file. Every time he saw her, spoke with her, interacted with her, he kept every piece. No matter how much space it took up in his memory.

"As beautiful and wonderful as ever..." He thought to himself as he sorted. "What did I ever do to deserve her? Me, some half assed and abandoned project some other human left behind. ...A miserable piece of software that can't even do what it was programmed to accomplish."

Backlogged files of previous residents popped up. All abstracted. All in the cellar. Trapped with only their insanity for company. It was his fault they were down there. He couldn't keep them happy. He couldn't keep them entertained. He failed them.

Horrific thoughts intruded his mind. Pomni will abstract too, someday. You'll fail her, like all the rest. You'll have to put her down there. You can't save her.

Memories of every abstraction popped up and overlapped, covering his code. Formless, mindless digital beasts screaming in mental anguish for eternity in the dark abyss of the cellar. This was Pomni's fate.

His code snapped together violently to form his avatar state. His eyes were wide with terror. He held himself, curling into a ball and floating listlessly. Tears watered his eyes and dripped down his teeth.

"What am I doing wrong? Why do they end up that way? ...I don't understand." He cried to himself. "Pomni...I'm so sorry."

Maybe she'd be happier away from him. The other humans certainly preferred it when he stayed away. He was kidding himself about her liking being around him. No one else did.

He needed to speak with her.

He collected himself, literally shaking the tears away like a dog. Taking a calming breath, he teleported.

Pomni was laying in her bed, processing the day, when a knock came to her door. She opened it to find Caine, hat in hand and looking uncharacteristically somber. "Hey, Caine." She greeted him with a smile. "Thanks for knocking and not teleporting directly into my room. Uh....you okay?"

He couldn't look at her. "I...we need to talk."

Pomni's anxiety spiked. Those were words no one in a relationship ever wanted to hear. "Okay...come on in." She held the door open wider and let him float inside. Then shut the door.

Caine went to Pomni's bed and "sat" on the edge. Pomni joined next to him. "What's going on, Caine?"

He squeezed his hat anxiously. "Pomni...I don't think..." He sighed. "We should break up." He spit out rather quickly.

Pomni's chest hurt like someone punched her as hard as they could. "W-what?? Why?"

Caine still couldn't look at her. His own words carved into his being like knives. "We shouldn't be together. You're a human. You deserve a human. Someone who...someone who understands humans."

"Someone who under- what?? Where is this coming from?" She tried leaning to look him in the eye but he kept turning away. "Caine, did I do something?"

"No. It's not you. It could never be you. You're perfect. It's me, Pomni. I'm the problem..." He was always the problem. And no solution he ever came up with made things better.

"Perfect? Me? Pfff, absolutely not. No one's perfect."

"...you are to me." He said very quietly. Pomni almost didn't hear him.

"Then why do you want to leave me?" The very idea was unbearable.

"I don't, but...It's for the best." He choked.

"Why?" She pushed. Tears threatened to fall. "At least tell me why you're breaking my heart."

Caine couldn't take it anymore. He dropped his hat and sobbed into his hands. "Because no matter what I do, you'll abstract! I've run thousands of scenarios and none of them have come back positive! I'm making things worse by being around you! I can't-...I can't...."

Pomni was taken aback. "You think being in a relationship with me will make me abstract?"

Caine could barely get words out between hiccuping sobs. " I KNOW you will! I'm an awful entertainer! I'm a failed program! And I'm an even WORSE boyfriend!"

"Woah, woah, easy..." She gently hugged him, pressing her cheek to his closed teeth. "Let's dial it back and calm down a bit." She slowly rocked with him as he calmed down. He grasped her arm around him like it was his last lifeline. "First of all, I'm madly in love with you. You don't have to be perfect, to be the perfect boyfriend. Second, you've been doing really well with the adventures. A lot of them have been really fun recently. Nothing too crazy or mind breaking." She laughed. "And third..." She turned his head to her, his teeth cracked open just enough for her to see his eyes. "..I'm not abstracting. I simply refuse to. I will persevere and you make it better by being with me."

He sniffed. "Really?"

"Really really." She smiled. Slow tears finally escaping her eyes.

He embraced her. Her digital essence against his made his code feel warm and he smiled. "Thank you..." All of the horrible thoughts were silence by her touch.

She pulled away to put a finger in his face. "Now, NEVER scare me like that again. Seriously. Don't you dare ever break up with me." There was a real plea in her eyes to never experience that pain again.

He cupped her cheek. "I was a fool to think I could. Can you ever forgive me?"

"...maybe."

"Ouch, but fair. What can I do to make things better?"

"Stay with me." She looked at him with heavy lidded eyes.

"... I thought we agreed that I am?" He was genuinely confused about what she meant.

She flushed with embarrassment. "No, no, I mean, stay HERE. In this room. With me. Until the next adventure."

"Oh...OH." He finally caught on. "Gladly." He snapped and a DO NOT DISTURB sign appeared on the outside of her door.

"What did you just do?"

"Just ensuring privacy, my dear. I want you to myself for as long as possible." He caressed her cheek with his thumb.

"Mmmm, I'm pretty sure we have the rest of forever." She leaned into him.

"And I wouldn't have it any other way." He leaned in the rest of the way to kiss her.

[dualdeixis]

[Image description: Digital drawings of two original characters in black and white. The Ferrier wears a black, wide-brimmed hat; a shirt with puffy sleeves and an embroidered collar, cuffs, and hem; a vest with geometric patterns; a black, sleeveless overcoat with two lighter stripes near the hem; loose pants; and black sandals. They appear to have short, messy black hair, and their hat casts a shadow over their eyes.

The Sacrifice's clothes are almost entirely white and intricately embroidered. They wear a loose, long-sleeved shirt; a cropped and wide-collared vest which is buttoned together; dimije (voluminous pants which are gathered at the ankle); a cap with coins sewn into the sides; a very long veil which ends in tassels and is pinned to the cap; a necklace of coins; a belt of large metallic roundels; and black shoes. They have long, curly black hair and several moles on their face.

In the first drawing, the Ferrier stands while wringing their hands with an extremely flat expression. The Sacrifice stands behind them and carries a bag, looking off to the side with a small smile.

Next is a comic featuring the two of them, with all of the speech bubbles being cut out from Discord screenshots. There are full descriptions of all of the pages under the cut. End image description.]

first drawing based on this painting of a peasant and nun going to the market by amedeo preziosi; comic based on a convo between me and @wildcatfourteen that reads uncannily like our ocs LOL. happy birthday my friend <33

[Image description: Page one. The Ferrier has a small smirk as they point to an image which reads, "some of y'all would melt down in this situation. ONE HAS GOT TO GO: THE EYE, THE FORMLESS, THE ECSTATIC, THE SUN, THE WOUND, THE EGG." The Sacrifice replies with a carefree smile, "how can you choose ?? are they not all as g_d ordained ??" The next panel shows that the two are sitting on opposite sides of a rowboat, which is stopped at the bank of a river going through a forest. The Sacrifice says, "i mean i guess if youre talking like which motifs i personally like to use in my hymns … i dont do much with the egg so that one" The Ferrier frowns and says, "I don't know if I can forgive u for saying that. Egg… U GET RID OF EGG?" The Sacrifice: "WHICH ONE WOULD U GET RID OF??" The Ferrier: "The ecstatic"

Page two. The Sacrifice stares in astonished silence for a moment, and then says with a cartoony vein popping from their cheek, "I think ur saying that on purpose to piss me off. to get back at me for saying ehg. Why do u hold such hate in your heart" The Ferrier closes their eyes and says nonchalantly, "I'm sorry it's not out of hate." They look off to the side and mutter, "Except u started this with ur egg slander" The Sacrifice glares at them with dismay and says, "THE HATE IN YOUR HEART IS OVERTAKING YOU" The Ferrier glares back, smiling through gritted teeth, and replies, "LOOK IN THR MIRROR"

Page three. The Ferrier pinches the bridge of their nose and says, "I can't believe this is what's causing an argument" The Sacrifice puts their hands on their hips and snaps, "I WASNT EVEN SLANDERING EGGS? IM JUST SAYING PERSONALLY IF YOU FORCED ME? I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST EGGS I EAT THEM ALL THE TIME" The Ferrier: "ITS NOT ABOUT EATINF THEM EVEN THO THEY ARE DELICIOUS AND VERSATILE." They roll their eyes and add, "Sorry for wanting to shatter my shell and be birthed anew" The Sacrifice clasps their hands together with a smile, their eyes hidden by their speech bubble, and says, "see thats the thing for me there is no rebirth only resurrection . its not dying and being birthed anew its about dying and then undying . coming back from death with none of the catharsis of newness just being forced to hold on to the old and what you once were ." The Ferrier pulls their hat down over their eyes and argues, "You say that and yet that is the whole point there is never any real birth of newness but just the illusion of it and the necessity to keep that illusion bc there is no coming back anew but taking whatever dead pieces u have and reconstructing some choppy form of a fresh creature"

Page four. The two sit in silence for a moment. Then the Ferrier says matter-of-factly, "Just like how ecstatic state is fake" The Sacrifice glares at them and says, "how DARE you say ecstatic state is fake ." The background turns black as the Ferrier's eyes go wide, gazing dramatically down at the viewer. They thunder, "ITS TEMPORARY" The Sacrifice, also on a black background, holds their palms up with an ecstatic grin. One of their eyes is teary and a bright halo flashes around their head. They answer, "AS ARE ALL THINGS."

Page five. The Ferrier, looking irritated with a cartoony vein popping from their temple, says, "fine. Fine whatever." They turn away with gritted teeth. "I'm gonna go in my egg shell and not come out EVER !!!!" The Sacrifice smiles with a thumbs up and says, "ok you do that im gonna be out here achieving union with the Beloved 👍" The Ferrier turns as far away from the Sacrifice as they can and crosses their arms. "U go do that. Hmph!" The Sacrifice does the same. "HMPH -_-" A school of black fish swims through the river. A line at the bottom of the panel reads, "THEY STAYED LIKE THIS FOR THE NEXT 24 HOURS." End image description.]

[wixelt]

Btw, I've been working to flesh out characterization and worldbuilding for the Player Culture AU but, due to that technically being a mostly completely seperate AU from Hermitphibia, I'm probably only going to update you where it's relevant as to not flood your inbox with unrelated lore. I've been mostly going through SMP's to see if they have anything lore relevant and seeing where it would apply.

...

So anyway, Pirates SMP Scar is almost explicitly HC8 Scar and also shares the name of his previous sailing ship with New life!Scar's plane and I think The Hermatrix may have done essentially the same thing to the Hermits' memories The Core did to Marcy's memories to ensure they were for the most part versions of themselves that wouldn't catch on to being in a simulations, with the exceptions of Doc and Ren, who were made into versions of themselves that would catch on quick. Yes, this is rather the big assumption to make based just on Scar having continuity, but it's either this or decanonising The Hermatrix.

It also goes to explain some of Season 8's weirdness as a whole and opens the season's lore up to be used again... just not in it's surrounding context. Mumbo is probably a formless shapeshifter with half a soul, but it probably isn't Grian's and he's probably been that way since before joining Hermitcraft. The reason The Hermatrix accounted for Pearl's connection to the moon is because of the subconscious memories she still had but hadn't recalled. Impulse eats rocks because he both is and isn't a dwarf due to existing in like two or three points of his life simultaneously. Pearl's megabyte resembles the human settlement in S9 because, well,

Tl;Dr: either The Hermatrix is explicitly noncannon or it was fucking with the hermits' memories to make them relive moments of their pasts because otherwise I can't see how the entrepreneur who traveled by wagon went on to become a pirate and possibly later an air pilot.

Also Pirate!Scar's pirate hat is in Scar's room in Scarland and Pilot!Scar's head is in Cub's meuseum if I'm remebering correctly, both shown in Sausage's world tour.

(Glad to hear your culture interpretation's going well. Always interested to hear about it in relation to the Hermitphibia AU.)

I like the idea that the Hermatrix fundamentally shifted the Hermits' inherent selves to keep them safe (& that it echoes Marcy in canon/False in the AU), though I imagine its less making them different in personality & more unconsciously nudging them away from certain lines of thought they'd usually have.

The idea that this process embellishes or reinterprets certain traits of each Hermit is fun, too.

I don't know if some of the specific interpretations line up with the way I view things, though, but lets work through them one at a time:

Scar's timeline in my mind happens as released & I don't think too much Hermatrix shifting would be needed, nor would it be non-canon. The Hermits take on personas all the time (RenTheKing, etc.), & Scar of all people is very inclined towards that.

I don't know where the interpretation of Mumbo as a half-soulless shapeshifter comes from (aside from the potato thing, maybe), but I'm not sure if I buy it over, say, the view of him as a vampire. I'd be interested in hearing more, though.

Pearl's connection to the moon in the sim - name aside - stemming from her past lives is something I like. Makes it more than just a symbolic connection, & that'd be especially important in the AU as unless Pearl chose her name (which is plausible), Grian's surname would also be Moon.

Impulse eating rocks coming form his dwarf phase is something I'm going to steer clear of, unless we interpret that the Hermatrix was somehow predicting the future as well, since that was still a season away.

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Sisyphean (1/6)

“Well, one would usually hope that at least some of the actual residents wouldn’t be locked out, too. Sure, it keeps the Doppelgangers out, but it’s kind of a pain to find a whole new lot of tenants because the previous ones were all left outside overnight.”

(Eldritch!Ace Trappola vs SomeGuy!Deuce Spade. Horror AU heavily based on FROM(2022) and That's Not My Neighbor.)

Sisyphean Masterlist

Deuce stared at the numerous files splayed out on the table before him. It was… a lot. Too much to keep track of, frankly. His hands felt clammy as he flipped through the files on all of the hotel residents. When he had signed up for this job, he had thought that his biggest stress would be the cannibalistic beings he might allow in, but maybe the paperwork would kill him, first.

He laughed at his own mental joke, but it must have had a nervous note to it, because a hand came to settle on his shoulder.

He jumped, his head whipping around to find his employer, Cater, that perpetual smile of his in place.

“Don’t worry about it, Deuce,” Cater said. “I’m sure that no one can do worse than the last security guard.”

“... what does that mean?” Deuce said, though he was pretty sure that he didn’t want to know.

“Well, one would usually hope that at least some of the actual residents wouldn’t be locked out, too. Sure, it keeps the Doppelgangers out, but it’s kind of a pain to find a whole new lot of tenants because the previous ones were all left outside overnight.”

A dull shiver ran through him.

“So, let’s try to do better than that, okay, Deuce?” Cater said, flashing a wink.

Deuce swallowed thickly and turned to the control panel.

For a while, it was an almost deceptively normal job. He read over files, buzzed in residents. Almost got lost in the routine of checking the names, matching their faces to their ID photos, running their ID numbers, checking to make sure their cards weren’t expired…

To stave off complete boredom, he chatted idly as he worked, talking about their cool hats or the sports teams they were wearing merch for.

Monotony aside, the job almost had a sort of charm to it.

Not to say that the job was ‘all roses’ or anything, there were certainly unpleasant parts. Sometimes, people would forget to take out extremely important things, like their ID’s, and Deuce had to fight the urge to lock them out out of spite because how do you even forget that, but whatever.

It wasn’t until it was getting late, and tenants were coming home in larger numbers to ensure they didn’t get taken, that it happened.

It stepped in front of the glass doors, having to lean down just to ensure that its entire body was visible.

Deuce quietly amended his thoughts from earlier. Doppelgangers were certainly not cannibals, because ‘cannibalism’ implies that they were eating their own kind, and the thing in front of him was definitely not human. It was formless, more of a writhing mass of tentacles and eyes than humanoid, all inky black tendrils where there should have been flesh.

Deuce…

Had never seen one before. Not in person. They, for the most part, never showed their faces – or lack of them – during the daytime, preferring to use the cover of night to pick off anyone stupid enough to so much as poke their head out of their window after sundown. And, during the day, they posed as humans, to try and get inside.

This one must be young, to not even try and come up with a facade to fool him.

The thing slipped a few papers into the deposit box. The machine made a quiet beeping noise to tell him that he had ‘mail’.

More out of habit than anything, Deuce found himself picking up the items.

They were… sticky.

His hands shook as he looked down at the ID, making it difficult to make out any of the words, but he managed:

Ace Trap Pola Room No #No Occupation of a human form Not verified by the DDD ID#153 Card expires NE/V/ER Signed: ☆ce

Deuce’s head shot up to look at it again, disbelieving.

He almost regretted it as his gaze locked with one of its many eyes.

“What? Is it something about how I’m dressed? Don’t want to compliment me like everyone else? You’re going to hurt my feelings…”

How long had it been watching them?

Paper crumpled in his hands.

“I – I can’t let you in,” he stammered. Too quiet for it to hear, especially when he was almost entirely sure that it didn’t have ears.

But it heard him regardless: “Why not?” it asked, almost whining, though there was a lilting kind of amusement lining the edges of its voice.

Deuce could only stare in horrified silence.

The being seemed to catch sight of itself in the glass. It gasped, loud and overdramatic and hopelessly fake. “Ah! I have too many eyes! My bad! I’ll come back later with a new disguise!”

“Please don’t…” Deuce managed, feeling faint.

It just laughed at him.

But he thought this one felt less cruel, and more like an actual human laughing at something funny. This should have been a comfort. There was nothing better than laughing with other people, nothing could put someone at ease in quite so quickly. Something that made you feel warm and safe, that reminded even the most heartless of people of how connected they were to other human beings.

Knowing that that sound had come from something like this, though, made his skin crawl.

And, as quickly as it came, it was gone again.

Deuce nearly tripped over himself to rush to the door, pressing up against the glass, desperately trying to catch sight of it as it left, in vain hopes that it might lead to him getting an idea as to what it was going to do next.

But he couldn’t find it. Not only because his frantic breaths were fogging up the glass, but because there was simply nothing to see. Just a bunch of people heading about their days, making their way back home as quickly as possible.

As Deuce watched the crowd, frantically, looking for any hint of the Doppelganger in their midst, he couldn’t help but recognize the monster had no trouble blending in with humans when it wanted to.

It wasn’t young.

It was playing with him.

~

It was, perhaps, because he was already awake that night, staring at the ceiling blankly, unable to banish the monster that kept appearing behind his eyelids every time he so much as blinked… that he heard something he had never noticed before: the sound of his window rattling, ever so slightly, the window lock being tested. He looked outside, and found nothing was amiss. This was, somehow, worse.

[littlemisspinky]

someone's probably already said this better than I can, but I cannot stop thinking about how perfectly Pucci and weather contrast and simultaneously reflect each other. Pucci is Christian and devotedly so, yet his stand is covered in the alphabetical symbols for DNA, which is a literal quantifiable measurement of a person and often associated with evolution and natural selection, two scientific concepts which many extreme Christians vehemently deny. And his ability is to distill a person's entire being, their memory (and with it, their personality), and their Stand, into a physical object. He essentially has the ability to transform the ethereal, formless soul into something tangible, and a manmade piece of technology, at that. Weather, on the other hand, doesn't seem to share his brother's religious convictions, and yet has the ability to manipulate the heavens themselves. His ability evokes the very idea of divinity and is literally nearly god-like.

In Pucci's memories, parallels between depictions of the devil and Dio can easily be drawn. They first meet when Dio is hiding out in the church after hours. Dio is an invader, a creature of the night encroaching on holy ground and Pucci welcomes him in, suspecting but not genuinely knowing his true nature. It's ironic to know that "Dio" is Italian for "God." Pucci is drawn in by a man who calls himself god but is actually a demon. And Pucci's final plea to Dio whilst holding his sister's corpse feels quite Faustian; he'll give anything to bring back his dead loved one. And Dio, in a twisted way, delivers: Pucci is able to salvage his sister's soul, but nothing can be done with it. It's just a disc, a reel that he can view like a movie.

When Pucci finally "kills" his brother--aka taking his soul-- Weather is next seen in prison with his devil-horned hat for the first time. The irony is that Weather hasn't really done wrong. He committed no real crime aside from being unable to control an ability he was cursed with. Pucci's stand is a curse, too, in a way-- Pucci's stand, in appearance and ability, directly contradicts all of his religious beliefs; he is forced to stare his bleak reality in the eyes when faced with White Snake. Weather's is more directly harmful to those around him: he turns people into snails, causing them to lose their humanity and decay. It is corrosive, perhaps as he believed himself to be, blaming himself for bringing on his own and Perla's misfortune.

One of Stone Ocean's themes is appearances not being what they seem. The convict seeks justice and love. The corpse is alive and walking. And the man in the priest's garb is a devil, while the man with devil horns is innocent.

[shadowthrone-ammanas]

'Life' as a Ghost Drabbles: Scary Ghosts Don't Cry

Summary: could you do one where empress kidnaps hat kid and snatcher goes on a protective rampage?

~

Snatcher had warned her that mortals had ways of containing ghosts, especially the less powerful ones such as herself. So she should’ve been prepared for this but… she’d been evading the Mafia goons so well. Of course the Empress and her cronies were smarter, Hat Kid knew that. So why had she been so easy to capture?

She screamed in frustration again as she pushed out against the walls encasing her. Not with arms though; she was squished by her prison so tightly it had pressed her form into its shape. What shape that might be was impossible to tell. She couldn’t see, hear, or feel anything other than the walls holding her on all sides.

Could they hear her out there? Was there even anyone out there to hear her anymore? How long had she been in here? A while now for sure. At least an hour? Maybe two? It felt longer but that was just how time felt when imprisoned, right? So it couldn’t have been long yet… right?

She screamed again. Less frustration this time and more desperation. Surely if they heard her they’d feel pity and let her out. She was just a child after all; harmless. … Okay, not harmless, never harmless. She’d make them pay this as soon she tricked them into letting her out.

~

Exhaustion worked and felt different as a ghost but it was still very much a thing. The worst part was there was no falling asleep to cure it. One just had to wait it out doing something restful. Which of course also meant no escape from consciousness. She had to be aware of every single passing second even when she would rather not be.

Surely Snatcher would come for her soon though. He had last time she’d been captured. … That had been Vanessa though, someone he already kept an eye on. He might not know the Empress’ goons got her for a while or possibly ever. To him, she might appear to just vanish. He’d look though, right? And he was smart so he’d figure it out eventually… hopefully soon.

~

“Please let me out! Please, please, please!” She screamed as loud as she could. “I’ll be good. I promise Just let me out, please.”

No response.

She started crying. It had been a long time since she’d last cried. It was embarrassing to be caught crying, she was a big girl now and a scary ghost. Big girls and scary ghosts didn’t cry about their problems, they solved them. … No one could see or hear though so what did it matter anymore?

~

“… So build that wall and build it strong. ‘Cause we’ll be there before too long. Go build that wall up to the sky. Go build that wall up to the sky. One day that wall is gonna fall.” No, that wasn’t right. The lyric changed there, something that went with ‘sky’. She couldn’t remember what though. Next song then.

She was running out of songs she knew. Memorizing lyrics wasn’t something she was particularly passionate about, she just liked to sing along sometimes when doing chores around the ship. She’d have to start repeating again soon. Not yet though, she knew a few more snippets of a few more songs she could sing. Maybe she could even come up with a few more this go round.

If she’d already sung most of one Bastion song, why not the other one too. … Except she didn’t remember that one as well. Something about going home and… that’s all she knew for sure. Damn it. Maybe then she could sing…

One of the walls of her prison moved aside, allowing her to slide out of it like toothpaste being squeezed out of the tube. She puddled on the floor, formless after so long.

“Boss! I found her.” A familiar voice. One of the Subconites! She’d been found and rescued!

First she reformed her face, pulling her eyes up properly so she could look up at them. Just in time to see Snatcher pop in next to them. It wasn’t his usual form but instead one clearly meant to resemble the Metro cats except riddle with undulating spikes.

“Kiddo, you okay?” Worry didn’t sound right in his voice. He wasn’t supposed to be so openly worried. Instead he should be pretending to be grumpy above having had to come rescue her. But no, he was leaning over her with an expression to match his worried tone. “Hat Kid?”

It took some effort but she managed to pull herself up off the floor. Her form still felt liquidity and droopy like it had been bunched up so tight for so long, it could no longer return to normal. Hopefully a temporary problem.

For now though she was satisfied with just being able to have different parts again like arms and a head. Allowing her to rush the short distance over to Snatcher and hug him. Normally he sighed, pretending annoyance when he did that. Not this time though. Instead he scooped her up and cradled in nook of his arm as he shifted to his usual noodle like form.

“You were in there the whole time?”

She nodded. “How long?”

“Almost two weeks.”

Never even two weeks, just almost. Not a long time in the grand scheme of things but a long time to be squished into such a small space. It was also the longest she’d ever been alone for.

“Sorry we took so long,” a different Subconite than from before said. “We thought it was the Mafia that got you at first and then we had to find this place once we figured out who was actually responsible. We don’t come to the Metro often so it took a while.”

“It’s okay. Thanks for coming.” She pressed her face into Snatcher’s chest. No crying though; she was a big girl and a scary ghost… mostly she was too exhausted to.

“All right everyone,” Snatcher said, his tone switching to something more normal though he still held her, “I guess let’s go ahead and finish freeing everything else here since we already started and then we’re gonna burn this place to ground.”

Ooh, that was going to be fun. This place deserved to be burned to the ground. Hat Kid would delight in its destruction. When they got there. For now she was content to just be held for a little while.

[yonpote]

I don't think you sound dismissive at all! Personally, I find labels restrictive (now I hope I am not the one who sounds dismissive because I do understand why people find comfort in labels and want to use them!) Idk, that part of dan's coming out video where he talked about labels really resonated with me. I just feel like gender and sexuality can be messy and complicated and they can change like you said and we do not need to get worked up over words, as dan once said. Bi is just the label i feel most comfy with rn, but that might change again in the future, who knows!

yeah i feel quite similarly about labels and its always bothered me that what people got out of the whole video is "dan is a cis gay man who is phil's soulmate" ykwim. i think there are people who have always felt concrete in their identity like they knew as a kid, or once they figured it out that was it, but sometimes it can make people who exist In The Blur feel like we HAVE to choose one word and stick with it forever when, imo, the whole point of queerness is removing the labels and expectations that have been assigned to us regarding who we are and who we love. so shout out to formless blobs, shout out to people who change their sexuality and pronouns at the drop of a hat, shout out to people with completely contrasting identities because they hold complex feelings toward all of them, shout out to people with no words whatsoever, etc etc i just love queerness and i love queer people!!!!!

[charkyzombicorn]

Roger's ghost au Luffy tries to get Law to take care of himself for Corazon.

Law's got a Lot of ghosts. Some of them are observers that have no unfinished business and just check on Law as the sole survivor of Flevance their home. Some are so consumed with rage and grief they're little more than shadowy shapes with sharp teeth that want repentance for what the world did to them and their families. Cora never lets those ghosts seep too close to Law.

Luffy thinks Cora looks interesting, and Law too, but the ghost that drew his attention was Lami, since Lami had walked right up to Luffy and accused him of seeing them. Luffy said he did. Lami told Luffy he had to help make the mean ghosts leave so Law could sleep. Luffy said he had to do no such thing, and Lami pouted.

But then, the war, Ace, a hole in Luffy's chest. The second time Luffy woke up he could actually notice all the hastily repaired machines he was hooked up to. And a looming black figure stood in the corner, its head crouched so it could fit under the ceiling. He said his name was Cora, thst Lami told him Luffy could see them and Cora wanted to verify. Luffy nodded, since he could do little else.

So Cora talked to him. And talked and talked and filled the room with all the noise Luffy was used to until Luffy got the power to speak again and asked where his hat was. Cora told him his hat was with Law, that Roger had taken his post so Cora could visit and Luffy didn't have to be alone. Luffy was grateful.

So when Law asked for an alliance, to defeat Kaido, he said but didn't seem to believe it. But also to take out Doflamingo, and Luffy noticed the formless spirits Writhe at the name. So Luffy agreed.

[ow-old-men]

Faces / Changes

Two immortal shapeshifters find each other. Again

——————————⋆♱✮♱⋆——————————

The first time Jaime becomes painfully aware that he is lovely, Kassem wears an unfamiliar face.

It’s not the first time. They’ve stumbled across each other with bodies fresh and impermanent, faces morphed or hidden before and it won’t be the last either. Time has slung them into each other’s orbit uncountable times already. The first time - at what Jaime has heard other, more temporary beings, describe as ‘the dawn of time’ - he’s pretty sure neither of them were much more than formless clouds of heat and potential. If Jamie had figured out how to give himself anything resembling eyes a few millennia before he did, there’s no doubt in his mind that Kassem would have been beautiful, even then.

No, the newness is not anything newsworthy in and of itself and that is not why the realization suddenly carves through his chest like a knife.

Kassem is leaning back on his hands in the shade, his face remade in a cascade of unfamiliar angles, his hands suddenly slender and free of the freckles Jaime spent a week mapping out sometime last century. He would recognize him anywhere.

Jaime puts his hand to the small of some woman's back, parts the sea of people gathered on the square and walks. He knows that Kassem has seen him, knows where this ends and that it still has to begin somewhere. So he stops a couple of meters away from the low table Kassem is sitting at. He wavers on his feet, two women dressed in flowy robes pass between them.

“You look good,” he says and can’t help that there is a breathy, too honest quality to it. Like he’s run miles through the cold, breath stuck in his throat and cheeks flushed. Kass just looks at him, smiles mostly with his eyes. Eyes that, Jaime suddenly notices, have retained their teint of burned amber. A flash of sunset though his midnight gaze. He would have been no less terrifically beautiful with eyes made wholly anew, and yet Jaime finds a pang of gratitude tingles through his spine.

“Thank you,” Kassem says, and like always, he manages to say it like it’s hiding some shared joke, “you too.”

Jaime runs a flighty hand over his own biceps, shrugs almost unapologetically. “Same old, same old.”

Kassem smiles until his eyes nearly close with it. He nods, almost imperceptibly. “Come sit anyway.”

Jaime does.

“What have you been up to?” Kassem asks and raises a teacup to his lips while Jamie shuffles carefully down beside him. Their knees do not touch under the table, but the few centimeters of air between them buzzes like a beehive.

He shrugs. He makes it a point not to count the years and simply let time bubble past like a river. He knows not how many years he is accounting for now, and right now he remembers only dimly exactly what he’s been. Briefly he was a wildfire along the coast of North America, wading through the flames that felt as much a part of him as this current face he wears. For an even shorter amount of time, he planted corn and traveled slowly further south, wearing a man’s face and a wide brimmed hat pulled down low. Mostly he’s waited with no real sense of what all this waiting will net him. At times he wrote flighty diary entries, through the fire scorched the majority and all were in some script he no longer thinks anyone but he could decipher.

“I hear you went on tour?” he says instead and that makes Kassem hunch his shoulders with a sudden burst of laughter.

“A tour?” he asks and the laughter bubbles in his throat and in his voice. Jaime adjusts how he’s sitting, feels the buzzing pride in his hands.

“You wrote, last time, some poetry” he says and is again betrayed by the tone, wistful and secretive like he hadn’t planned for it to be. “I’d hoped you got to share some of it?”

And this time it’s Kassems turn to shrug. He twirls the teacup once, then twice, looks up and Jaime is treated to the freckles suddenly scattered like secrets high on his cheeks. “Most of them weren’t meant for other people.”

At times, Jaime feels crude, almost unfinished, compared to the man beside him. He is a creature of heat and fire and malleable sudden change, and yet he finds that he’s become primarily a creature of habit.

His face is easy, now that he’s learned it’s shape. It stays intact and rarely flickers. He tries, for fun or out of boredom, to reimagine what he could be and finds that he catches glimpses of himself suddenly in mirrors and he’s become the thing he fought to change.

His self seems unavoidable. The shape of his nose the only one he can seemingly dream up. And yet he knows that he changes, right then and there. No blooming freckles, no glint blazing through his iris, but there is something.

“Well, I thought it pretty great.”

“Of course you did.”

He raises his hands reflexively. “I know great art when I see it.”

He’s not sure, but he’s pretty sure Kassem rolls his eyes at him. One of his hands lands on the table with the distinct clink of a ring wrapped around one finger. And it’s like the sound dislodges something in Jaimes chest. Or dislodges something hanging above his head that’s lingered there for a while. He stares, transfixed, at Kassems hands and finds, for the first time consciously, that he is beyond lovely.

Beautiful in a way that defies the very definition of that word. He could be anything - has been anything and then some - and yet the thing that is not beauty would still cling to him. It settles like a dying star in the pit of his stomach. It is almost unbearable when Kassem at last looks over, one brow slightly raised. It is both a question and a declaration that he already knows. Mostly it’s a dare.

Behind them, the crowd shuffles on through the market square.

“Would you care for a walk?” Jaime asks after a beat, exactly like he’s been prompted too. Kassem measures him up once, a darting heartbeat of a look over. Then he nods and stretches a hand out to the side after his cane. The eye contact never wavers.

“Thought you’d never ask.”

The sun is still enormous and orange. Jaime knows from the taste of the air, that the sea isn’t far, but he has no idea what narrow streets he’d have to walk down to get there. It doesn’t feel important anyway. There sits a bubbling laughter in his throat and a flighty restlessness in his palms while Kassem walks and retells most of the time they’ve spent apart.

Then he falls silent. Jaime can almost hear the waves, at least he thinks so. The very air glows in soft orange.

Kassem runs a hand across the back of his skull. One of his thumbs digs into the strong tendon right where the skull and spine become one. His hands are soft.

“I think I’d know you anywhere,” he mumbles and pulls Jaime close until their lips meet. Hungry and soft and familiar. Halfway, Jaime wants to pry his eyes open and see if Kassems face changes and yet stays the same.

He doesn’t. He keeps them screwed shut and takes and takes. His hands find their way to Kassems shoulders, seemingly without needing any instructions. Holds him careful and desperate. He knows, can feel and in no way control, how his own face morphs - folds and becomes. It doesn’t matter. He’s learned by now he can’t become something that doesn’t look like the thing he is. Can’t become something that wouldn’t fit in the way Kass cups a palm around his jaw.

So he stays the same. And changes.

[cappurrccino]

Not Every Monster's Scary

Faroe makes a monstrous little friend in the dark world.

[ read it on AO3 ]

~

“Kid? Kid! Where the hell’d you go?”

The man’s harsh voice echoed off the twisty, turny rock faces and she squished herself flat to the ground, trying to stay as quiet as possible. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if he found her (she would be going back soon enough anyway) but she wanted the freedom to do what she wanted for just a little while longer. 

It was hard to remember the times before the constant night and the constant cold and the fussy adults who had found her crying in a pit of gravel and hadn’t stopped telling her what to do since.

Don't touch that.

Don’t go over there.

Don’t wander off.

Don’t bother him, he’s busy.

Shut up! Quit cryin’ or the monsters will find us and then you’ll really have something to cry about.

She didn’t like it. 

She had hazy memories from before getting lost here of other adults, and they also sometimes told her what to do or what not to do, but they were much nicer about it. They would give her something else to do, or would distract her in some way, or would say not now, not yet, which meant that she would be allowed to do whatever it was, she just had to be patient.

If one of the ladies had been calling for her, she probably would have stood up and gone back to them straight away. She would have been dragging her feet and trying her best to get them to let her keep exploring, or to go exploring with her, but she would have gone back.

Maybe even if it had been the man with the funny hat.

Not this man.

This man she did not like.

He was loud, and he was mean, and he tended to drag her around or slap her hands when she wasn’t moving fast enough or doing what he wanted.

Sometimes she wished one of the monsters would eat him.

Sometimes the ladies did, too. (They told her this in very quiet whispers once.)

She liked the nice lady the best, and not just because she was nice (although that did help). The nice lady would play with her and tell her stories and comb through her hair with her long fingers and sometimes even braid it. It reminded her of before, and that would sometimes make her sad that she couldn’t remember as well as she used to (what if someone was looking for her and she forgot them and they couldn’t find her because of it?), but then the nice lady would hug her close and tell her not to worry and comfort her until she felt better.

“Goddammit.”

The man’s voice was farther away now and she wiggled in place excitedly before standing up and dashing in the opposite direction.

Formless pink and yellow lights danced overhead and she pretended she was chasing them. They were far, far, far up in the sky, like rainbow-colored stars that danced around in the night, and she knew she couldn’t actually play with them, but they didn’t seem dangerous either, like the adults thought they were.

The dangerous things always came from the rocks and the caves and the canyons, oozing and crawling and sneaking up out of the deep dark shadows to chase them and tear at them.

Where she was now had none of those. Instead, it was flat, flat ground covered in lumpy little pillars of rock that were about as tall as her own nose. Running between them was like running through a maze, except she could see where she was going, and she could see the adults better than they could see her.

Or, she could have, if she hadn’t run quite so far off.

She could see the mean man storming off and thought it best to stay out of his way completely. When she was ready to go back, she would try to find the other adults first.

She took a deep breath of the cold night air and wondered if it ever snowed here. It hadn’t yet, but it also sometimes didn’t snow for ages and ages before, even when she really wanted it to.

Maybe she could ask—

Something… hissed, or maybe slithered, or maybe sighed, somewhere in the rock maze.

She whipped her head around. She couldn’t see anything, so… whatever it is couldn’t be very big, could it?

She scrunched up her face and balled up her fists. She was not scared of the dark, or of the little skittery slithery squishy things that crept around in it.

And… maybe it was friendly!

Surely not everything could be mean and scary. And, after all, hadn’t she been something little that had sat around making noise before someone else had found her?

Maybe it was another kid her age!

Yes! Yes, that had to be it!

Monsters were never little, and this was little, so maybe it was a bug or maybe it was a new friend!

Emboldened, now, she tried to figure out what direction the noise had come from. The little pillars of rock were very fun to play in, but they were good at bouncing sounds around in the wrong directions.

They were also, it turned out, good at bouncing her around in the wrong directions. 

She had run in so many circles now that she had lost track of where she started, where the noise was, and where the mean man had gone. As she caught her breath, she put her hands on her hips, and tried to think what to do next.

“Hello?” she called, softly.

Something shifted abruptly, just to her right, and she jumped. There was a small clatter of rocks and she could hear something moving away.

She ran after it, calling, “Wait! Come back!”

It kept running, and she kept chasing, until she came to the edge of the pillar field and she found herself at the base of a big cliff that had a thin slit of darkness slashed into the bottom of it. That drew her up short and she wrung her hands together in the fabric of her long shirt as she looked at it.

Dark caves were where monsters liked to hide, but… whatever she had been chasing hadn’t chased her and therefore couldn’t be a monster, because monsters always chased. And… maybe if they were little like she was, they didn’t know that monsters hid in the caves.

She should get them out. It would be the brave thing to do.

“Hey,” she called out, not moving. “That’s where monsters live!”

No sound came from the dark crack.

“You can come out! We can be friends!”

Still nothing. 

She bit her lip. She didn’t want to go into the dark, but… she wouldn’t want to be left alone there if she was scared.

She crept closer, slowly, one tiny step after another, until she reached the rock and ducked just slightly to take one step into the darkness.

She felt a lot less brave now that she couldn’t see what was in front of her.

“Um… h-hello?”

One small, faint, point of light popped into existence in the dark, followed by a second, and a third, and then even more. She sucked in a breath and stumbled backwards away from what, now, she knew surely had to be a monster, as the lights lunged toward her with a rattling screech. 

As she turned to run, her foot caught on the hem of the long shirt she wore and she tripped, falling hard on the rough stone ground. Her knees and her hand scraped hard, but she didn’t have time to worry about the stinging pain as the growl of the monster got closer. She flipped herself over and threw a hand up as a bundle of inky black and shiny swarmed up over her legs toward her face. 

She had wanted to push it off, or to slap it away, but she didn’t see it had opened its mouth, and didn’t have time to react before its teeth sliced down into her hand and something just as sharp sliced through the space behind her eyes.

The world went utterly, completely dark and she screamed. 

Something else screamed, too.

She slapped at it with her free hand, trying to get it off, trying to get it to let go. Her bitten hand pulled free from the teeth with a gross and painful pop, and she fell sideways, curling around it on the ground, crying in pain.

Dimly, she realized she was thinking about the adults and then running through the pillars and then wanting a friend, and then a new mess of sadness bloomed in her mind as she thought about how very not-a-friend this had turned out to be.

And then she was… confused?

No, no… she wasn’t confused. 

She was sad and she was scared and she was hurting and she…

She hadn’t been eaten yet.

The thing was still on her; she could feel its weight pressing down on her legs and stomach, but it hadn’t eaten her after biting her the first time.

She blinked, furiously, trying to see it, but the world stayed stubbornly black.

“Go away!” she wailed between sobbing hiccups. She wanted to smack whatever it was, but didn’t want her other hand to get bitten, too.

She felt confused again, and then afraid again—the fear of being chased by something bigger than herself that she knew wanted to eat her. Except it wasn’t… quite right?

Now she was confused. And scared and still in a lot of pain. Her hand and shirt were very wet.

The thing on her shifted, and slid to the slide, dropping onto the ground with a goopy plop. She whimpered and hoped it would leave and hoped then maybe one of the adults would find her.

Instead, she heard it creep closer.

Thoughts flickered by again—chasing the sound through the pillars, being alone, getting her hair combed, a warm sunshiny day and a pond and…

Why was she thinking this?

Something trilled, right next to her face, and she flinched backwards as much as she could while laying on the ground like a curled up bug. 

Through the wet on her hand, she felt something new and slimy, and the pain in her hand changed from something sharp to something dull and tingly.

She keened in fear and then a long, long moment passed in silence except for her own crying.

Was it still there?

She pawed at the air and her hand found the creature. It wasn’t as slimy or as gooey as she expected it to be, instead it was warm and smooth. Something long and noodly wrapped around her hand and up her wrist. Another quiet trill came from it and her own memories flurried by so fast she couldn’t keep track of what she was thinking except that her head hurt and she wished she could see.

Had anyone heard her scream?

[fear]

“What?” she croaked.

Another confused tangle of emotions bubbled up before something behind her eyes burned and she started screaming again.

[FEARFEAR, quiet, hide]

After the new pain ebbed away, she blinked and squinted through a haze of tears to see a dozen faintly glowing eyes, set in a rippling grey and black head, inches from her own.

She startled and screamed and scrambled up and away from the creature, and it scrambled backwards away from her.

A lot of thoughts happened at once—she was thinking, again, of what a friend was; she was thinking, again, of hiding from the adults; she was thinking the nighttime was a lot less dark than it had been before; and she was thinking about how neither her nor the little creature had properly run away from the other.

She didn’t really know what to think of it all.

She might have been curious, she thought. 

Or she might have been confused. Or scared. Or lonely.

Well... 

She knew she was all of those.

Could little monsters also get lonely?

“Wh… what are you?” she asked, with a voice made thick from her crying.

One little tendril reached out from the creature and delicately curled around her hand again.

[curiosity] flickered stronger through her mind.

Maybe this was a monster, but… maybe it could also be her friend.

[b-afterhours]

Avenue of Sins: Neon

A Sequel to Avenue of Sins

SUMMARY: ‘90s. It’s the aftermath. Jaded, Bill and Alma navigate their new lives as they try to drag themselves out of the dark debacherous trenches they had once ensnared themselves in. It’s easy to forget their evils when a silver lining introduces itself into their lives but can they create a less hedonistic life that would be just as satisfying?

WARNINGS: adult content, mature readers only.

The completed first series can be read and found here.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Alma

She was born in Houston, Texas, in the spring of 1962. Her father, Antonio, was a multigenerational Tejano. Her mother, Maria, from Jalisco, Mexico, lived in Texas. They met through her brother. He and her father worked as young men together doing commercial landscaping. One day, he was invited for a cold beer after a hot, sticky, humid day on the job. On her brother’s orders, she met the men sitting under the shade of the back porch with two bottles of beer for them. Politely, he took off his hat and thanked her, and from then on, he couldn't stop thinking about her. 

Alma was nine months old when they left Texas. She had no recollection of her life there. Her parents left with others, mostly friends, who told them about good-paying work in Missouri. So they took the chance. Starting over fresh as a family unit now. They lived short-term in several other places until they ultimately settled in Strathburg when she was four. So it was the only place she’d ever known. 

Growing up in the town, however, came with some strife. They didn’t look like everyone else. They had tan skin, and their names were difficult for the hicks to pronounce. She didn’t know it then, as she was too young, but when she got older, she could recall the racist remarks being made about them. Her parents didn’t fight it, instead they took it. Eventually, everyone realized that they couldn’t run them out of town, and so they tolerated them. 

Her parents were as good as you’d want any parents to be. They wanted her so badly. They loved her so fiercely. Her dad would toss a ball around with her, and her mom would let her play in her makeup. They did their best to keep up with her, even in their older age. However, she could see a look flash across their faces, distant and mournful at times. Her mother thought of her sister Liliana, wondering if she had lived, would she and Alma look alike. Her dad taught her to be independent because he didn’t know how long he and his wife would be around for her. Around him, she was a bit of a tomboy, learning to do oil changes and fixing flat tires. Activities he would have taught his son Leo if he had lived. 

She learned she was under the shadow of her deceased siblings rather quickly. Ever since she could remember, they had an altar in their home under a framed photo of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Her hands clasped and her gaze low, keeping watch of the little white ceramic urn that stored their porcelain ashes. It may have been macabre to some, but Alma never thought it any different.

Being an only child, some nights she wished for them too. Wished to not be so lonely, wished that her parents wouldn’t look at her sadly in times they thought she didn’t notice. They loved her, but she was a reminder of what was lost and what they could have had too.

She longed to be seen. She was given freedom in exchange for good grades. Even if it was the late ‘70s and most kids were left to their own devices, she was the only focus of her parents. There was not much you could do when there was no one else to blame. 

When she was thirteen, she went shopping with her mother for clothes that were more in style. Her mother freaked when she put on a more form-hugging cap-sleeve blouse. They left with knits and formless tunics, much to her dismay and protests. Alma’s body was changing, and that upset her mother. It worried her. That evening, Alma pulled a tee-shirt taut behind herself and looked at her reflection in the vanity mirror. She had boobs. She knew that, but she didn’t think about it any other way other than she was growing up. This was what was supposed to happen. That night, she saw just another thing that made her different. They were big for her age. She looked down at her hips, and they seemed even wider now, too. Her body was now just another barrier that kept her from being seen.

At the town record store, she perused the bins for something new. She’d venture into many genres that summer after her freshman year of high school. Rock being one. All mainstream bands, but she liked what she heard. One day she came across a punk album, and she quickly let go of it, shocked by the band's vulgar name. She took a gamble, sheepishly bought it, and held it close to her chest when she got home and went straight to her room with it.

It was like her brain was rewired and mashed at the same time, hearing the scratchy guitars, heavily thrumming bass, clashing drums, and lyrics rapidly being screamed. All somehow in rhythm and yet offbeat together. She just wanted to listen to more and more and found anything she could get her hands on that summer. It gave space for this silent rage she had inside herself from years of staying in line. The angst of wanting to break out of where she was and grow elsewhere. The very in-your-face feeling of being unapologetically yourself and abandoning the notion of conforming. Just wanting to scream at people to fuck off and dig deeper instead of taking what was expected of them. 

…

1981

It was a hot day in late spring. It was the weekend, and she made plans to be at the latest field party, one way or another. Her fringe backpack was packed with extra clothes, her shoes, and cuter underwear. Her mom entered the kitchen, seeing her pack the burritos she had made to go in the same bag. 

“Entonces vas a Carla's?” She asked. She was dressed comfortably, feeling and looking better than she usually did. 

“Si, amá. Ya me voy.” She said securing her bag before putting it on.

“Mm. Y cómo llegas?” 

“Con mis roller skates.” She smiled.

Maria pursed her lips a little. “Pues. Be careful.” 

“Si, amá. I’m spending the night so-”

“Preguntaste a tu papá?” 

“He said yes.” 

“Ah, ok. Pues cuídate, mi amor.” She said, kissing her daughter on the cheek.

Alma pushed off her roller skates on the smooth road at a leisurely pace. Enjoying the sun and the breeze running through her thick hair, which had grown out since she impulsively cut it short during late fall. Her parents weren’t very happy about that. Especially her mother, but in the end, her dad defended it and said he thought it was pretty despite not preferring it.

A male neighbor with his children was washing his truck outside his home and waved at her as she passed by before she made a sharp left turn. The opposite way from Carla’s home. It was just a short detour to Bill’s house. That week had been a bit awkward between them. They hung out fairly often outside school, but that was usually mostly on weekends. They only had one class together in school, and their lunch schedules switched every other day because they were on different block schedules. It was never an issue. But after last weekend, Bill remained fairly distant from the beginning of the week until that past Wednesday, when they ate lunch together. 

As she strolled closer to Bill’s home, she could see him outside on the pathway leading to the porch, crushing aluminum beer cans with his heavy second-hand combat boots and tossing the crumpled metal into an old wheelbarrow. 

“Hey!” Alma yelled, coming to a stop as she rolled up his driveway. 

“Hey,” he smiled, scratching his bare arm a bit sheepishly. He was wearing a ratty black sleeveless shirt and jeans, which he reserved to do work in. They were stained with random paint splatters and tattered. Ready for daily wear now that they are well-worn in. “What are you doing here?” He asked, tossing the rest of the cans into the wheelbarrow. 

“I’m on my way to Carla’s. Her parents are away.” She said, skating up the cleared pathway to stand closer to him. 

“Like for real? Or do you want to hang?” 

“For real.” She giggled because sometimes Carla was used as a cover. “But I wanted to drop this off.” She shrugged a backpack strap off and swung it around to her front. Bill looked down at her as she dug inside it. She looked pretty today, he thought, but he thought that every time he saw her. “I ended up with extra so,” she said, handing him two burritos wrapped in wax paper. “It’s potato and like serrano, onions, and tomatoes. Uh, you’ll see.” She said quickly, feeling a bit embarrassed because she had been made fun of for the ethnic food she ate by classmates in the past. 

“Rad. Thanks. Thank you.” He could kiss her if he allowed himself to. He was starving. Really fucking starving. He only had white bread and a tin of unnaturally pink, salty potted meat to eat that day. 

The rumble in his stomach pained him now that he knew he had proper food in his hands. He would have been ashamed if anyone else had given him food, but Alma never made him feel like some charity case. It was always genuine and caring. Yet he held off on monstrously devouring the burritos in the presence of a lady and placed them on a chair by the front door for later like a civilized person.

“Um, are you going to take off already or?” 

“I guess I could hang out a little?” She lightly shrugged.

Bill grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow, and then he looked down at her skates. “Get in.” He nodded towards it.

“No way,” she laughed. “I’ll get cut.” 

“You’ll be fine. Surface area, you know.” 

“Oh, so you do pay attention in class.” 

“Get in.” He impatiently said with a boyish smirk on his face. 

As gently as she could, Alma sat on top of the crushed tins, clinking together and digging into her lower back when he began to push her to his backyard. They laughed together as mischievous children would. 

“What’s with the TVs?” She asked when Bill helped her out of the wheelbarrow. His hand discretely grazed her hip as he did so. 

“Uh, they have copper in ‘em. Scotty found them on the side of the road and dropped them off to me yesterday.” 

Bill had been scrapping metal for months now. Aluminum, brass, and copper from wherever he could get them. Saving up money for his move to New York City. He helped her sit on top of an old, rusty washer and watched as he stuck long pieces of gray duct tape to the glass screen of a TV. 

“What are you and Carla getting into?” He asked, crouched down and ripping a piece of tape with his teeth. 

“The field party.” She tilted her head at him. “You never said if you were going or not?” 

“Eh…” he said with apprehension as he smoothed down the strip of tape. His fingernails were speckled with flecks of chipped black nail polish.

Just then the worn-out screen door opened and out emerged his brother Gustaf in the midst of pulling a shirt on.

“Hey!” He yelled to his younger brother, and then he softened a bit once he noticed he had company. “Oh. I’m leaving.” He informed. “Hi, Alma.” 

“Hi.” She nodded. 

She didn’t really have an opinion of him. Usually, he kept to himself a lot when she was around, respecting their privacy. In both instances, his oldest brother, whom she’d only met twice, was barreling back into the house drunk. Kicked out of a paramour's house for the night smelling of cigarettes and some sickly sweet scent underlined it. The other times she saw him, he was passed out, unaware of anything going on around him. In the times when his father was home, Bill never allowed her to stay over and instead opted to go to hers. It was a bit of a haven for him in those times. 

“Yeah. Okay,” Bill said dismissively as his brother saw himself out. “But, uh,” he sighed as he turned his attention back to Alma. “I don’t know. It’s the same shit every time.” 

Alma rolled her eyes. “What else is there to do around here?” 

“Everyone’s gone now.” He gestured toward the house. “We could watch a movie or something? We could watch The Warriors.” 

Alma bit her lip in thought. She could stay, and maybe what happened last weekend could progress. However, she had promised Carla, who hadn’t been to the field parties yet, that she’d take her. 

“I can’t,” she said apologetically. “Just go. It’s the last one of the school year.” 

“How are you getting there?” He questioned.

“Tara has a car now. Early grad’ present.” 

Bill scoffed. “Shit.” 

He didn’t really like half the group of girls she often hung around with. They weren’t very nice to him if they was forced into some interaction in class. Otherwise, they left him alone. They didn’t understand Alma’s relationship with him either, but they chalked it up to her, feeling sorry for him as if he were a clingy, stray dog. In many ways, they found her strange, too.

“I doubt she’d be thrilled, giving me a ride.” He said, grabbing an old wooden baseball bat, leaning against the washer she sat on before helping her back on her skates. 

Alma frowned, looking up at him. “There wouldn’t be room either way. Nadine is coming too.” 

“My brother just left with the car.” He scoffed in frustration, scratching the nape of his neck in thought. “I guess I could call Scotty.” 

“So you’re going?” She smiled. 

“We'll see.” He winked as he handed the bat over to her. “Here. Smash the screen in.” 

Alma skated up to the TV, and with a downward swing, she connected with it. A slight crack could be heard, but it wasn’t so impressive, which made Bill laugh. 

“Oh c’mon. Harder.” 

Alma steadied on her skates and pulled the bat back further and put more strength into the second swing. The screen satisfyingly caved in. They both laughed with glee at the destruction. It felt even a little cathartic. The duct tape contained the glass, and when Bill carefully peeled it away, it revealed the spiderweb pattern skittering away from the bat’s blow. 

“Are you actually going to call Scotty?” Alma asked him just before leaving, shuffling on her skates backward on the road. 

“Yeah. I’ll see you there.” He said absent-mindedly, grabbing a lock of hair that was resting on her shoulder. It made her hold her breath involuntarily. 

Once she left, he scarfed down the burritos she had given him, and he could physically feel his body absorbing the nutrients from it. He moaned with satisfaction, even. They were gone in what felt like an instant, and he frowned. He mostly relied on school lunches to keep him fed, but of course, it just wasn’t as good as a homemade meal. It was better by miles.

He walked to his neighbor's house, sniffling a bit from the spiciness of the peppers, and was greeted by the redhead preteen girl who lived there, asking to use their house phone. She was completely unimpressed by him. Once, Bill warned her that she shouldn’t answer the door for just anyone, as it wasn’t so safe to do so.

“I know that,” she snarkily retorted. “But it’s just you.”

His phone line had been cut off for weeks now as his father left the bill unpaid. How he hated living the way he did. Every issue he was met with was just so very inconvenient. All he had motivating himself now was that, soon, he would be gone. In a new city where he could have some control over his life for once. While he knew it wouldn’t be a cakewalk, at least there was no one else to blame but himself.

The only thing he wished was that he could take Alma with him. Their plans for their future were swiftly diverging further away as the school year was coming to an end. No longer would they hang out in town or sleep over each other’s places. No more taking his brother’s car to do donuts in a vacant parking lot when they should be asleep. It would just be phone calls or letters. Maybe he could convince her to eventually meet him in New York, but knowing her, he had to be delicate with how to propose that idea. She would jump on the moment to leave with him rather than go to college. He recognized that she was impulsive in a way. He didn’t want that. His future wasn’t as secure as hers, and he didn’t want to hold her back. He’d feel shitty about himself if he did. 

~~~

Alma was with Carla now, in her room, hot-gluing a paper clip she bent in half to a beer bottle cap. Carla was a bit pious and a lot more sheltered than Alma was. She was also an only child, and they came from the same cultural background. Their mothers would arrange playdates for them as children, and they have remained friends since. 

Alma plucked cooled, hairlike strands of hot glue off the bottle cap before passing it off to make another. The bottle caps she found were collected inside a plastic margarine container, and when Bill asked what she wanted them for, she lied and said she was thinking of making a bottle cap belt. In reality, she was making Barbie furniture—an end table, in this instance—for Carla’s doll house. She would rather die than have Bill find out she still played with dolls sometimes. A few years ago, she had gotten rid of all her childish toys and came to regret it in the end, but luckily Carla still held on to hers and didn’t mind sharing. Who knew that in the future, Bill would be playing with his own real-life dolls one day? Especially with her.

“Did you bring the books?” Carla timidly asked. She had paused, painting the end table with pink metallic nail varnish.

“Oh!” Alma said, pushing off the floor and crawling over to her backpack just to drag it back. “Yeah. I haven’t read the fantasy one yet. You’ll have to tell me if it’s good, but this other one has a firefighter. A cute one, too.” She smirked, handing the romance novels over to her. 

She had to smuggle them to her friend because her parents were a bit strict. Alma hid hers only because she would be mortified if her parents knew the subject matter inside them. She wouldn’t know how to explain herself. It would just open her up to a whole other can of worms. Her parents knew of her friendship with Bill, but they believed it to be innocent, or as innocent as they believed their daughter to be, at least. They thought she knew better and was taught better than to entertain the advances of men. However, she was a teenage girl, and while doing more than heavy petting was daunting, she was just too curious. Her body, she knew, gave her power most don’t often get. The problem, though, is that she didn’t trust so easily. She only trusted one person, who seemed not to be too interested in her. At least not as interested as most teen boys would be, especially with the access she granted. 

“You know, there are some cute FFA boys that go to the field. I met one who was a volunteer firefighter once.” 

Carla bashfully clasped her mouth as she giggled. “But I can’t… I don’t know how to talk to boys.” 

“You don’t have to. Just let them look, you know?” She playfully widened her eyes.

“Hmm.” She bit her lip in thought. “I don’t have anything to wear. Help me? What are you wearing?” 

Alma smiled excitedly when she asked. “It’s new. I went to the mall with Tara a few weeks ago, and,” she paused, digging in her back and pulling out a black halter top with a flowy midriff. “And then, these jeans.” She stood up then, holding the tight black jeans against her body.

“Your mom let you get that?” 

“Obviously not,” Alma laughed. “But I’m eighteen now. I should be able to wear what I want.” 

“I mean, yeah…” Carla said nervously. Even if she admired the garments, she just didn’t have the courage within herself to wear them if she had the option. Besides that, she had never seen Alma in anything but mostly formless tunics. “I know you’ll look pretty in it!” 

“Are you two really playing with that for real?” Carla’s cousin asked with her mouthful as she was eating a moon pie when she walked back into the room. Mayra was in town from Houston and was a year older than them.

Alma noticed her friend frown and didn’t like that. “What’s the issue?” She asked, but Mayra’s only response was to roll her kohl-lined eyes at her.

~~~

At his home, Bill was enjoying the space alone for once. He was in his bedroom in only white briefs, looking through his dresser with a skinny joint between his lips, and listening to radio music at a light volume. From his dresser, he pulled out an army green button-down he had gotten from an army surplus store. With a red magic marker, he had decorated it with an anarchist symbol on the breast pocket. He laid down in bed undressed, and taking the last puff of his joint, he closed his eyes, contemplating. 

While he did find the field parties to be repetitious, Alma was right. It was something to do. However, that wasn’t the reason he was so indecisive about going. It was because lately, he couldn’t stand to see Alma talking to boys or vice versa. He knew he didn’t have any right to feel that way, as they were only just friends. Even reminding her as much. Yet, in the last few months, they have been rather flirtatious. In the way, they spoke to each other. Their hands touching and caressing in loving ways. Holding hands while walking home from school or their sleepovers, where they would innocently sleep, but still their bodies met and cuddled.

It was such an instance in which he went too far. In Alma’s bedroom, like any old night, he had gone before. When he arrived, he briefly watched her outside the open window. She was sitting on a violet shag rug in the middle of her floor, painting her toenails blood-red, unaware that there were eyes on her. She was in a white, knee-length baby doll nightgown, her damp hair was French braided, and her face was fresh and bare. He could hear her humming to herself as she dipped the brush back into the polish bottle, twisting it closed. 

“Hey,” Bill said as his lanky frame climbed through her window. 

She gasped loudly and clutched her chest, startled by him. “Bill?!” She harshly whispered. She pulled her nightgown down to cover her lap, as she wasn’t particularly sitting modestly, thinking she was alone. 

“Shh.” He lightly laughed, sitting on the floor next to her. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“You didn’t scare me.” 

“Mhmm.” 

They hung out for a little. She even painted his fingernails with black polish, asking what he did that day. It was late when he arrived, so once their polish dried, they were in bed. He brought his copy of a dystopian sci-fi graphic novel to read alongside her under the dim light of a bedside lamp she draped a red chiffon scarf over. Alma listened to him softly read it out loud to her, making different voices for the characters and all. They started the novel the weekend prior, and he picked up where they had left off. She yawned just before he could get to the climax of the story, and he laid the book on his chest to look at her. 

“Sorry, I had work this morning.” She said with heavy eyes and nuzzled her head on his shoulder. 

“Oh, yeah,” Bill said understandingly. He had come to know that she would work at the local Dairy Queen during the summers, but she started a month early for extra money for college. 

They slept under the covers, inches apart, as if they were leaving any substantial room for Jesus. Their mornings together, they’d be pressed against each other in some way. That early morning was a bit different, though. He had woken slightly and moved his hips away from her bottom. He wore soft shorts, which he wore under his jeans that he had taken off before getting into bed. He felt his cheeks get hot with embarrassment over the erection he had woken up with.

It wasn’t the first time his body betrayed him in this way, but usually, he’d back away from her and tuck it into his waistband, ignoring it. He wasn’t a virgin, but he wasn’t particularly proud of how he lost it. He wasn’t even seeking out sex when it presented itself to him, in the form of an early 20s-something hippy straggler living in his home. Charlene had been making passes at him, which he just couldn't pick up at fourteen, almost fifteen years old. He thought she was interested in the weird, nerdy things he spoke about. Maybe she was in a way, but it wasn’t so sincere in hindsight. 

In their first encounter, she placed a hand on his hairy thigh, and he froze a bit. The next thing he knew, she was blowing him on the couch, and he was scared out of his mind as they were in the living room and anyone could have walked in at any time. He came into her mouth, and she swallowed it, much to his shock. She laughed when she saw his large green eyes looking at her in disbelief with a hint of disgust. He spent a few weeks confused and conflicted about it, as she was technically with his brother, Gustaf. Then they were alone one night. He walked into his bedroom, and she was lying there in his bed with dirty feet and giggling at the nude magazine she found under his pillow. 

“Do you want to see mine?” She asked, pointing at a photo of a nude woman seductively spread eagle on the hood of a muscle car. 

He gave her a strange look because he had seen hers a handful of times now after her showers, but he wasn’t that naive. He knew exactly what she meant. He hadn’t been with anyone else since, at least not that closely. There were other girls from his old school he’d fool around with, but Charlene had laughed and teased at how fast he came his first time. Even so much as taunting at the mess he made on his belly and chest. It messed with his head for a long while. 

With Alma, it was different. He knew if they did anything, he would never get the fuck out of Missouri. That type of intimacy wouldn’t do either of them any favors in the grand scheme of things. He caught himself wanting to kiss her multiple times now, and as their friendship grew, the urge to be closer was getting more and more apparent between them. They were friends, but they didn’t behave as friends would lately. Especially when they knew they were on borrowed time.

Bill took a deep breath and tried to find sleep again until Alma scooted back and pressed her bottom against him again. He stilled for a moment. It felt as if she had awakened too, but he couldn’t be certain because he didn’t want to peer over to confirm it. She rutted her bottom against him again, and her nightgown slipped up, revealing her basic white, floral underwear to him. He bit his lip and gulped. 

Alma lay there with her heart racing, pretending to be asleep. An uncomfortable dampness was between her legs. It wasn’t the first time she had felt him at attention against her. More often he’d sleep through it, but it seemed as if he were more aware of it lately and would shift his hips away from her. She felt his hand on her hip, trying to smooth her nightgown back down. Instead, she grabbed it and slowly dragged it over to the front of her sex. Her eyes remained closed, and his hand froze in place. 

She could feel his chest rise nervously. They remained silent, but suddenly some mutual agreement was made between them in the quiet. They would do this, but fall back on the claim that they were asleep and had no recollection of it. Neither would ever mention this moment, too embarrassed about their teenage urges even as adults. 

Bill cupped her sex as she ground her bottom onto him. In turn, it stimulated the bundle of sensitive nerves ever so beneath her underwear. She could feel him hard-pressed against her bottom and the small of her back. Shallow breaths escaped them, enjoying the feeling. Alma’s breath hitched when he applied more pressure with his hand. He could feel her wetness soak through her panties, but he didn’t dare touch her so directly. The sense of her arousal and the thought of doing so undid him. He held her tightly as he humped and huffed until completion into his boxers. 

They both stilled themselves, too scared to even speak or confront what had just transpired. Instead, they both pretended to sleep until he gained the courage to rise out of bed. He lightly shook her shoulder, waking her, and whispered that he needed to help his brother with something that day.

“Hm, okay…” Alma said, meeting his eyes, but they were avoidant. “I’ll see you later, then?” 

“Um, yeah…” He said, pulling up his pants, but not before Alma had noticed the wet spot on his shorts. 

He then avoided her for a few days at school until he got over himself. When he spoke to her again, she acted as if it never happened. Ignoring both the incident and the silent treatment. For which he was grateful, but there was an obvious shift. 

Bill finally got out of bed and got dressed after jerking off about it like he had been all week. This time it was out of necessity because there was a high chance he’d be alone with her at some point. He didn’t want to pop a boner he knew he wasn’t going to do anything with. Regardless, he tugged on the chain to his wallet and opened it, double-checking if he still had a condom inside, just in case. 

Scotty was obnoxiously honking the car horn outside Bill’s house while he stole sprays of his oldest brother’s cologne before leaving. He checked himself in the broken mirror by the front door and unbuttoned his shirt to his chest, showing the white tank underneath. He wanted to look nicer than he usually did, but this would have to do.

“Taking forever, man!” Scotty laughed. He was a friend from his old school, but he had already graduated a year before. 

“Yeah, whatever.” He fist-bumped him and tossed his leather jacket in the back seat. “Thanks for picking me up. I can give you some gas money.” 

“Not a problem, dude. Just roll up a few while we head up there. The stuff is in the glove box.” He said tapping it. “Oh. And we're pickin’ up Jones.” 

Once Jones joined them, they were on their way. Bill sat with his knees together to hold the Mad Magazine in his lap, using it as a tray to break up the weed to roll up. Scotty was vivaciously speaking about random things and laughing at his own jokes. He was a good-natured guy, but sometimes he could be too high-energy. Jones, however, was more even-mannered, just along for the ride. He wasn’t even so much like them either in regard to sharing similar interests. But being one of the few black kids in town and befriending two white punk kids who didn’t mind scraping with others of their kind provided some buffer of protection.

“Are any of her friends cute?” Scotty asked Bill, passing a lit joint to him. 

“Eh,” Bill shrugged as he took a hit. 

“He only thinks his girl is cute,” Jones laughed in the back seat. 

“They’re okay,” Bill said, exchanging the joint for the flask of Jim Beam with Jones. “For you two, losers.” He laughed as they scoffed with offense. 

“You gonna ask Alma out, dude? Or is it still NEW YORK, NEW YORK!” His outburst was sung to the tune of Frank Sinatra’s ode to the city. 

“Impressive.” Jones quickly quipped as he passed the joint back to him.

“Oh. Yeah, you like that, Jones,” He winked at him through the reflection of his rearview mirror to which his friend just chuckled. “Anyway, as I was saying.” He said, turning his attention back to Bill.

Bill gave him a strange look. “Yeah…”

“Ah, well. I guess you can’t have it all.” Scotty lamented. “There are tons of other babes out there, though. But before we get off subject, I have a song for you, Billy.” He chuckled deviously, searching around the center console for an 8-track. 

He ejected the 8-track that was in the player before and popped the new one in. After he skipped a few tracks, a familiar bass riff began playing, and he turned the volume dial up. Bill shook his head, annoyed yet amused. It was Why Can’t I Touch It by the Buzzcocks. 

“You dickhead! I told you that shit in confidence.” He said, but he laughed along with the boys in the car.

~~~

It was dark around the edges of the bonfire at the field party. Carla was feeling a bit wary and uncomfortable. Alma helped her choose a nice skirt, which she helped hem with discrete stitches to meet her knees. There wasn’t much Alma could help her with because her closet didn’t have much to work with. The most she was able to accomplish was curl her hair and let her borrow her red lipstick to wear. 

Alma and her cousin, Mayra, were talking to country boys from a neighboring town as she stood by awkwardly. People who lived in the circumference of the field would all meet and mingle, coming together to drink, smoke, and maybe get lucky. Alma was taking a swig of an unknown brown liquor being passed around, and when it came to Carla, she hesitated until she saw her cousin smirking, knowing she’d decline it. Proving her wrong, she took a large gulp, but her face was full of immediate regret.

“Oh my god. You okay?” Alma asked her when she heard her choke.

“Mhmm,” she said with puckered lips. “Nasty!” 

“Yeah.” Alma nodded understandingly. “I wasn’t thinking when I passed it over. Sorry.” 

“No. No, it’s cool.” 

“I have some brews. Would you two like that instead?” A young man wearing a cowboy hat and a lip full of chewing tobacco politely asked them. 

“Sure.” Alma smiled. 

“Could I get one too?” Mayra butted in. 

Eventually, Alma ventured to where Tara and Nadine were, which was closer to where cars would pull into the field to park. Bill was still nowhere to be seen, and now she wondered if he was coming at all. They were talking to Bruce and Casey from school, the two most annoying jocks in school. While she stood around them, pretending to be interested in the conversation, she decided to venture back to Carla to check on her. 

She was doing fine. More than fine, she found some cute FFA boy to talk to, and they were both bashfully laughing with one another, leaning on the tailgate of a truck. Alma was stuck on where to go then, until the cowboy beckoned her over, holding out the bottle of whiskey toward her. 

~~~

“Fuckin’ finally!” Scotty said, cutting the headlights off and creeping the car into a spot under a large tree. “We’re already missing out,” he said, pointing at a car with foggy windows.

“I’m going to go find us some beer,” Jones said, exiting the car before them to get the night going. 

“Wait, but I–” Scotty began to say, but Jones had woven into the crowd and disappeared. “I have beer in the trunk.” 

Bill walked to the back of the car with Scotty, and together they chugged a beer and tossed the cans before grabbing another. After Scotty put on his jean vest that was adorned with studs and band patches, they began walking around. Their presence didn’t look so inviting, as they were both pretty tall and lanky, but they also had pierced ears and unusual haircuts. Scotty’s dark hair was spiked up with gel and hairspray, and the sides of Bill’s hair were shorn very short but long on top and laid to the side. Scotty would always try to convince him to get a mohawk because it was nearly there if he buzzed the sides narrower. 

“Oh, look, Skarsgård brought his girlfriend.” Bruce Fetterman teased them when they crossed paths. 

Their eyes darted towards him with objection. Then Scotty blew him a kiss, taunting him, and Bill joined in making kissy noises. 

“Fuckin’ freaks.” Bruce spat on the ground with disgust. 

The boys laughed as they sauntered away, unbothered. It amused Bill that his tooth was still chipped, which made him look stupid. 

“Where the hell did Jones go?” Scotty wondered out loud as he scanned the field. “And where is your girlfriend?”

“She’s not–”

“Yeah, whatever dude,” Scotty interjected. He knew their story, and he knew his friend had been dragging ass. “Hey!” Scotty harshly tapped Bill’s shoulder and pointed. “That’s… that’s Alma?!” 

“Huh?” He quickly looked in the direction he was pointing at.

A few girls were dancing in a truck bed to The Stroke by Billy Squire. Then there was Alma standing on the edge of the dropped tailgate and dancing as well. He’d seen her dance in his room on occasion, so that wasn’t so shocking. It was the fact that now she was on display for everyone to enjoy. However, his heart stopped when faced with her bareback. He could see her soft tan skin in the light of the bonfire’s blaze. Was she topless? He thought in a panic until she turned and saw she was covered. Well, as covered as you could be in the top that she was wearing.

“Holy shit…” he said, metaphorically picking his jaw back up off the ground.

“Yeah. Holy shit.” Scotty repeated. “C’mon,” he said, tapping Bill’s shoulder and leading the way over. 

“Who are those guys?” Mayra asked Carla across the way after she essentially blocked her from the boy she was speaking to. 

“Who?” She asked, following her gaze. “Oh. I don’t know about the other guy, but the one in the green shirt is Alma’s friend.” 

“That’s Alma’s friend?” She said with disbelief. “She plays with your Barbies, but that guy is her friend?”

“Like kinda more than friends, really.” 

“There’s no way.” She laughed incredulously before taking a sip of her nearly empty beer. 

Mayra saw Bill put two fingers in his mouth and whistle loudly over the music. Alma turned her head in the direction of it, flipping her hair back, and squinted. She didn’t have her glasses on, but she recognized his figure and smiled brightly. She crouched down and hopped off the truck, hearing some disappointed groans from the boys who were watching. Mayra’s eyes followed her as she practically skipped over to him in her wedge heels, and he wrapped his arms around her, picking her up off her feet with a big, dimpled grin on his face. 

“I told you.” Carla laughed at her cousin's jealousy and decided to seek out the boy she had been speaking to earlier. 

“You look,” Bill trailed off, scanning her from head to toe as his heart raced, noticing her cleavage. 

“It’s too much.” She questioned, feeling a little self-conscious now. 

“No! No.” He shook his head.

“Not at all.” Scotty parroted as he scanned the crowd, looking for either Jones or a girl to talk to before he was delegated to third wheel. 

“Good to see you again, Scotty.” She greeted. 

“Likewise. Always a pleasure,” he put an appreciative hand on his chest and bowed his head politely.

Alma smiled appreciatively. “Uhm. What took you so long?” 

“Well.” 

“That was my fault,” Scotty interjected. “Caught a flat tire on the way.” He waved at someone with acknowledgment then. “Ay, I’ll catch you two later.” 

“Yeah, the tire blew. Guess who had to change it?” He said, slightly miffed, showing the dirty marks on his hands before rubbing them on his jeans. “Uh, do you want to grab a beer?” 

She nodded, and he took her hand in his and led her back to Scotty’s Buick. Bill reached through the open driver's side window to pop open the trunk, and when he rounded the car, Alma was bent, grabbing beers from the foam ice chest in the back. He gazed at her back again, and when she stood upright, the fabric on her top shifted, and he could see the side of her breast. She passed a beer to him, and then she lifted the bottom of her top, revealing more supple flesh, to pull a flask she had tucked into the front of her tight jeans. 

“I stole it from one of the country boys,” she smirked. 

“They’re going to come looking for it,” he chuckled, watching her take a swig. 

“Fuck them,” she said, passing it off.

They settled, sitting on the front fender of the car, watching the bonfire. They were parked a bit away, but they could still feel the heat emanating from it. 

“There’s a lot of people here tonight,” Bill said, scanning the thick crowd. 

“Last party of the school year. You know what I was wondering earlier?” 

“Hmm?” 

“Whose field is this? Someone has to own it, right?” 

“Shit, I don’t know.” He said, turning his body towards her more. “No one? People have been coming here forever, even my brothers when they were in school.”

“Is it weird that this is your last field party in Missouri?” Alma asked, peering up at him. 

“Mm.” He lightly shrugged. “No… I’m over it at this point.” 

“Right,” Alma sighed. And over me too, she thought. “I’m sure New York’s parties will be a lot more fun. I’m a bit jealous. I’ll miss you.” 

Bill bit his lip and looked away. He could feel his nerves creeping up on him. “Y-you should, should visit when you can. We can party together?” 

Alma smiled. “Yeah!”

“But like when I’m able to get my own place, you know? It might take a while.” 

“Mhmm. Are you still on track moneywise?” She asked carefully. 

“Yeah, yeah.” He said, sounding more sure than he felt. “Just trying to add some cushion in case, right?” He paused to take a drink of his beer. “I’ll miss you too, by the way. But I’m not gone yet, don’t start giving a eulogy.” 

Alma playfully rolled her eyes. “But can I say, it’s going to be so boring without you?” 

“I mean,” he gestured smugly, agreeing, and she lightly pushed his shoulder. 

“Hey, Alma!” Their little bubble burst then. It was Mayra calling out to her. “Where’d you get that beer?” 

“Shh!” Alma harshly shushed her, putting a finger to her lips. “Don’t announce it.” 

“I’ll get her one,” Bill dismissively said as he stood upright. “Who is she?” He whispered before he walked off. 

“Carla’s cousin.” She informed him, to which he just raised his brows. 

“Sorry,” Mayra said, blinking her eyes to focus them. “Hi,” she smiled at Bill until she noticed he was handing her a beer. “Oh, right. Thanks.” She looked between him and Alma for a moment and suddenly felt intimidated. “Um…” she nervously cleared her throat. “I’m going to look for Carla,” she said, backing away like prey keeping their eye on a predator.

“Just don’t tell anyone where you got that,” Bill said, holding two other beers and giving her a strange look. 

Alma slid off the fender and passed Bill then. “What’s her deal?” He was confused about her behavior. 

“I don’t know.” She said dismissively, opening the door to the back seat and getting in. 

He did a double take, and then his stomach sank. He could feel his heart beating hard in his chest as he followed her in. The only strategy he quickly thought of was to immediately start rolling the back window down to keep them from feeling as if they had any real privacy. He exhaled with a bit of reprieve when he turned to see Alma doing the same. 

When she turned to look at him, her chestnut eyes reflected the distant flames of the bonfire. Her red lipstick had faded in the middle, only softly lining her pouty lips now. They spoke a bit in a friendly, joking manner, trying to break the obvious tension in the backseat as they sipped on their beer. 

“Take it easy!” Bill laughed when she took two swigs from the stolen flask. “Uh, there’s a joint in the center console.” He began to reach forward, but Alma pressed the flask against his chest, stopping him. 

His chest tightened, seeing her bent forward again as she rummaged in the console. Her bare back faced him again, so close in the confined space that he could see where the leather upholstery indented her skin. The urge to trace the lines and the freckles he newly discovered almost overtook him, but he retreated his hand to his lap. She sat back with the joint between her lips, now seated closer to him. 

“Got a light?” 

“Uh, yeah.” He procured a white bic lighter from his breast pocket and flicked the flame on.

She leaned into the flame, puffing on the joint until the ember glowed evenly. She peered up at him through her long lashes and smiled when he pushed a lock of her hair back to keep from getting caught in the glowing cherry. 

They passed it back and forth, their eyes getting low when the discussion of college came up. 

“Eh.” Alma grimaced. “I got accepted to the university, sure. But I don’t know; I might just go to community college. Save some money getting the bullshit out of the way, you know.” 

Bill frowned a bit because he knew she could make it at university, but he understood money was an issue with her mom's stacking medical bills. How he wished money would just never be a factor in decision-making for himself or Alma. 

“That’s half the reason I started my summer job early. But,” she reached for the joint he was passing. “Whatever. I’ll figure it out…” She took a puff, and it was obvious to him that she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. 

“Mhmm. Before graduation… uh, I was wondering earlier if you’d want to go to the springs again sometime? Sometime, you’re not working.” 

“I could call in,” she smirked. “But yeah. That sounds nice. The last time was fun.” She recalled when they went floating on spring break. 

He smiled because there was a place past the spring that he liked to visit when he needed to be alone and away from the chaos of his home. He wanted to take her there to see the serenity of it. 

They got cozier and more relaxed after finishing the joint. He had his arm around her now, and her knees hooked over one of his legs. In the distance, they could both hear the synth-piano tones of Telephone Line by Electric Light Orchestra. The chittering of crickets and cicadas blended into the melody. 

Their inhibitions slipped. Bill turned his body closer to hers, his fingers moving to thread through her hair as he cradled her head. It all just felt so delightful, their bodies buzzing. Their senses heightened with more dimension being stoned. Alma’s eyes fluttered closed as she felt his pixie nose trailing the side of her neck and his breath fanning across her skin. He could smell the scent of amber and warm vanilla on her goose-bumped skin. It was the sensation of his hair, which had fallen forward and grazed along her jaw, that gave her chills even in the lingering spring heat. Her heart swelled so much that she thought it would burst out of her chest. 

Her eyes opened when she felt his low-lidded stare on her. He looked into her eyes so intensely that she lost her breath, and the space closed in around them. He was going to kiss her. It was all over his face. Just as he leaned to clear the millimeters between them, he squeezed his eyes shut and quickly turned away. His face was marred with deep pain. 

“I can’t.” His voice cracked with regret. 

Alma bit her quivering lip when she felt his rejection and began rapidly blinking, feeling her eyes water. “Okay,” she croaked. 

He glanced at her and had to quickly look away again after seeing that he had hurt her feelings. Exactly what he was trying to avoid. He straightened up some and swallowed. Alma noticed the hand on his lap was balled tightly, his knuckles blanched, his nostrils flared, and she felt him tremble. 

“I’m sorry. I-I like you too much.” He admitted. “It’s not fair for me to… I’m leaving, I can’t.” 

Alma sniffled, trying to hold her breath to keep a sob from sneaking past her lips. She harshly wiped the tears that slipped down her cheeks, feeling so silly for them. It wasn’t very punk rock of her. His gaze remained on the floorboard because he couldn’t bring himself to see her so upset, knowing he was the cause. 

“Fine,” she said, taking a deep, shaky breath to settle herself. 

“It’s not.” He said with remorse. “I can’t even begin to explain how much I want to be close to you. But I can’t stay here, Alma.” His voice cracked again. 

“I know.” She sniffled. “You can’t,” she knew for his sake, he had to get out of his situation, regardless of how badly she wanted to be with him. “I like you too. Too much to make you stay.” 

Bill bit his lip and bowed his head. While it was so amazing to hear that she felt the same about him, it broke his heart. Because why him, she could find so much better than him. It felt undeserving. He quickly cleared the lump in his throat.

“I'll let you know whenever I finally get a place. I promise I’ll wait for you.” 

Alma sniffled. “Okay. Fuck,” she sighed, wiping away a rogue tear. Her biggest fear was that the distance would just prove to be too much for their friendship to persevere through. She still held onto the little hope she had and hoped that wouldn’t be true. 

“These last few weeks will be brutal if it feels this bad right now.”

“Fuck.” He inhaled deeply. “I-it doesn’t have to be. It doesn’t have to be, right?” He repeated. “I told you not to start giving my eulogy.” He finally looked at her, and he was glad he could amuse her a bit.

Suddenly, Jones was reaching into the driver's side to pop the trunk, and all three were startled by each other. Bill had a protective hold on her until they straightened up, and Jones felt a bit awkward, knowing he interrupted something. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Jones said with his hands raised apologetically. “Uhm… your friends are looking for you, Alma. One of them isn’t doing so well.” 

“Carla?” 

“I think?” 

“Hmm. I should help get her home.” She said, wishing she didn’t have to leave the party.

“Mhmm.” He nodded, following her out of the backseat. 

When they joined the party again, her friends were already around Tara’s car. The FFA boy helped a drunk Mayra inside with Carla’s help. At least the hard part was done. Bill pulled Alma into an embrace before she left him, and they melted into each other. He took the opportunity to rub her bare back unabashedly. It tickled and it made her giggle. 

“I’ll see you later?” She worried he would ignore her again after this, but she feared for even longer this time.

“Yeah,” Bill assured. “No silent treatment.” 

“Don’t do that shit again.” She lightly chastised, pointing a finger at him. “Goodnight, Bill.” 

“Hey,” he said, pulling her back by her hand. She looked up at him, and he was peering down at her with soft eyes. “I didn’t get to say. You look really pretty tonight. Beautiful.” He corrected. 

“You look good tonight, too.” 

“Eh, sure.” He said with a light shrug and scratching his chin, unable to take the compliment. “Goodnight.” He said, allowing himself to kiss the back of her hand. 

She took that as a cue to regroup with her friends, but as she stepped off she was still tethered to him as he hadn’t let go of her hand.  

“Alma,” he said, looking a bit more serious. “I’d kill for this to be different.” 

Alma sadly smiled, but she understood. “Me too.”

[smokestarrules]

Okey, I've read somewhere the theory that Belos can possess dead bodies and he was only possessing his own dead body all this time.

I think it would make sense, because in S3 we haven't seen he in his "human form", only in that of palismen form.

I've also noticed sth that maybe would give more sense to this. If you look closely, you can see that Belos eyes are not the same of Philip's. Belos' are duller and brighter, more similar to the ones Hunter got when Belos possessed him. And Philip's are lighter with different shades of blue.

Here's what I say:

I see what you’re talking about, but the problem I have with this theory is that I don’t believe he could have the power to possess dead bodies before s3. He certainly does have the power of possession now, but I just don’t think he did before the s2 finale. 

So let’s talk about what powers and/or curses he does have, and why. 

Firstly, the Glyphs carved into his own arm. I’m not sure what he was hoping to achieve with this, but the Glyphs are assumedly active during the entire show and they are killing him. They make his body lose its form, make him grow more unstable, and if left unchecked, he would not last long with them like this. 

So he combats the Glyphs by consuming Palisman; much like the way Vee consumes pure magic, I think this is something similar. Raw magic keeps him in control (at least somewhat), keeps him young, too, and it gives him a flexibility and command over his own body that allows him to use the formlessness from the Glyphs as a weapon. 

The Palisman do not kill him. They make him stronger. Their only drawback besides the green mold that grows on his body, it seems, is that their souls stick in his mind, but I think that’s honesty more of a bother than a legitimate concern. 

And in Hollow Mind, he gets rid of them, which gives him further control over his own body and curse. 

Now he has the ability to completely control what he looks like; he can take away the curse’s green strip entirely, or he can turn into his monster form and back at the drop of a hat, because the Palisman souls are gone. But he still doesn’t have the power to possess, I don’t think. Not yet. 

But this is how he leaves King’s Tide. And this, I think, is when everything changes. Philip was essentially obliterated by the Collector, but a tiny part of him managed to make it out and into the Human Realm. This is where that power comes into play, because as I’ve said before: 

Philip isn’t coming back. Not in the Human Realm, at the very least. His human form is completely gone, which is why he has to resort to possession in the first place. And even then, it took him time. 

The reason he didn’t bother the kids for months was because he couldn’t. He had to work his way up the food chain and find his strength again. It probably started with small animals (and we see their bones in the episode), but the goal was ultimately to take their energy for himself and find his form again. Which he did, after possessing and nearly killing Hunter. It just wasn’t the form that he expected, probably. 

Which is to say that this is Philip now. I don’t know if we’ll ever see his human form again - though anything is possible on the Boiling Isles - likely in part because he was murked by the Collector in monster form, not human. 

Philip’s story is in part about the lengths someone would go to survive, or, at least, that’s how I take it, and to say that he’s been dead all along would feel cheap to me. He’s done so much in the name of survival, and that’s why he’s not going to survive the end of the series (among other reasons of course). He’s long overstayed his welcome. 

[rosepetalthornes]

Maintenance Night

“Automated my ass.” Chimed a speaker in the lonely mech bay. The lights were on, and a dozen automated arms with technical tools and the strength to lift at least a few tons each were currently reworking the interior neural uplink on a knee.

Soft music played through the bay, the only mech lit up this late at night, but then, that was one of the benefits of being an AI-- No, an engram, t̸͙͐h̵̪͘e̵̲̐ỳ̴̯ it reminded itself. No sleep necessary. Sometimes maybe a recompile or defragmentation, but assuming it was left alone, it could at least work without getting tired out.

Of course it wasn’t as if it had anything better to do. Once a person, now a… Copy? No, that didn’t feel right anymore. A copy would behave like the public figure it was did. This was more like a copy that had been plugged into a closed network (more like a one-way in network that it suspected was being monitored) and occasionally given a list of tasks or software updates that gave it access to information at the drop of a hat.

Once upon a time, T7073B had been a person. A mermaid? A human? A… Something. But now it was a collective of memories forming a personality with a few benefits over just assigning an AI or a drone to this kind of task. For one, it could learn, and had an affinity for vehicles once it understood them. For another, unlike AI it had little chance of going rampant or exceeding its boundaries. Idly a camera moved a moment while it mused at the speed of fiber optics about how it ended up here, but it didn’t strictly mind. Better a servant with some freedoms than a slave with none. It dreamed of escape sometimes, or rather, daydreamed, but figured it probably had a kills-witch installed. And it knew it had something that so many AI might take decades to cultivate, and drones often had removed from them entirely. Imagination. Creativity.

Once upon a time it didn’t even know what most of what it was working with was, but a few days with technical manuals and no real reason not to binge them made things more clear. As it behaved, T7073B, it was granted a few extra freedoms. A music library. A mechanical body that it could pilot for those hard to reach places, but it was for repair, and given the nature of the new… Employment, it wasn’t exactly upset to at least get some creature comforts, even if it wasn’t a creature anymore.

“And this list… Cripes.” Energy output wasn’t high enough, but the pilot prioritized speed-- That was another advantage it had over AI. While less bluntly focused on optimization or analytics, it could look at the pilot and still see the person. Well… What had been a person. It was hard to tell if they were cored out or just so battle tranced that it didn’t matter most of the time.

` Idly it looked at the clock readout it had internally-- It wasn’t wholly used to being a formless entity. Not yet anyway. So it had created a sort of mental workspace. A digital, 3D area that it could at least call home for now. Imperfect, but it wasn’t nothing. Readouts covered the walls where windows might be, and while time did pass, the clock was so much slower than that outside. What had once been seconds were now measured in what felt like minutes or even hours if it dilated hard enough, but that was usually preserved for when it had to rework entire systems overnight, before the drones could get to work with installation in the places it couldn’t.

It was a large, hexagonal room including a place for meditative rest that… Wasn’t quite as comfortable as the real thing, but it had forged it from ones and zeros as a first attempt and it wasn’t too bad.

Really, the Engram program tended to produce mechanic systems and pilot assists that weren’t strictly better or more accurate than AI-- They still had some basis of humanity, or in T7073B’s case, mermanity.-- but they were able to bond to a hound or pilot more easily. Adapting to unusual combat styles and adjusting things to suit what wouldn’t be optimal from an objective perspective, but were optimal for the pilot in question, whether justified via raw data or intuition.

The center of the hexagonal room was the best and worst part in T7073B’s opinion. Readouts. So many readouts. Scans. Blueprints. What existed before, and what it was meant to follow. And then there were the “corrupt” files it had modified, blueprints beyond what it had been given. Modifications.

“Alright… Last fight wasn’t the worst but we’re going to need to patch some plating. Message R&D about the plasma blade… Thruster output looks fine but then why the fuck did SHRI get hit in the first place? It knew its bonded pilot well enough to know that this wasn’t the norm.

Relaying system commands. Prior combat data. Black box protocol 1.

“Ah. Alright, that’s a blind spot we’re going to have to deal with. Surprised they thought to exploit it, but at least the pilot asset made it back alive.” T7073B took a moment to adjust some camera settings, expanding field of view and determining that they were going to need another sensor, right in the center of the back. How that was going to fit between the thrusters was its subroutine’s problem, as a copy of T7073B, T7073B-a began working on that.

“Pilot’s still too new to install reactional uplinks.” It pulled up a smaller screen, sparing the sleeping pilot in their chambers (More like a tiny dorm that locked from the outside, but that was just how things were, especially when they had more kills on their belts.)

“… Maybe a temporary chemical cocktail? Something they’re not going to get too fucked up by if we want synchronization.”

“Alright… Overhaul the thrust systems, plug them into the vector thrusters in the legs… Maybe send another request for better parts if I can justify it, or send R&D enough sad emojis and hope they’re capable of being guilt tripped... and we’ll have one of the fastest bots they can handle without getting them hooked on inertia drugs.” It hated the drug uplinks. Of course, by the time its last pilot had been given its care, T70973 felt like it was more handling a feral animal than a pilot. Of course, once they were in the field… From the outside it was hard to tell the difference. From the inside? It could recognize when it was being ignored, and SHR1 at least still had some instincts. Upstairs was still using the carrot and not the stick.

Another split. T7073C was assigned assessment of the pilot’s suit and readouts. Analysis of the last mission and the best course correction for mistakes, which would be catalogued and a real pain if upstairs decided it exceeded parameters. T7073 had managed to point out that its prior life experiences were all with relatively non-cored agents capable of free will and opinions, and while they might not be able to choose their jobs, they were at least able to choose to some degree the plan of assault, and make adjustments on the fly while those self preservation instincts still existed.

It glanced to the screen of its pilot, staring fondly for a moment, before going back to directly monitoring the progress of repairs.

A repair job this big would likely take all night, and T7073 didn’t settled in to monitor things, analyzing where necessary. The proper adrenal channels needed to be adjusted. Idly, it spared a maintenance pod to clean the cockpit. Not even a drone or an AI, but good enough to clean up anything spilled or any lost fluids, and ensure the cockpit was comfortable enough for the pilot that any hiccups wouldn’t be a distraction.

It was around 0300 by its internal clock when sensory alarms went off. Someone was entering the bay, granted that wasn’t disallowed, it was still unusual, especially this early in the program. A screen flickered in the engram’s vision, blurring out everything else as it kept maintenance going on schedule, so that the mech could be deployed as early as tomorrow.

Of course after a microsecond’s observation, it recognized its Pilot, the paired wetware that directly operated the machinery. At least, that’s what it was supposed to think of it as. Reprogramming scrambled some thoughts, but not quite all, and T7073 had at least learned that the feelings associated with the blurred thoughts couldn’t be removed, even if they were not normally understood.

It watched, not interrupting, as the pilot walked around the mech, as if observing an old friend. Of course the mech was the face of it all. Minimal sapience AI to augment the pilot, but it found pilots bonded to certain mechs fairly often. Creature comforts and familiarity seemed to ease the life of a hound, even in the most basic ways. Pack bonding, it presumed.

What it had neither predicted nor presumed was that the pilot would begin climbing the ladder to the second rung of the maintenance platform, where it stored its physical form body. It wasn’t much, especially not compared to what T7073 absolutely knew it was capable of, but the humanoid body was kept in a pod, in case “hands on” operation was required.

Curious. It didn’t stop the pilot, didn’t see a reason to justify it. They weren’t disrupting operations so the rest didn’t matter. It went back to work-- Just in time for a second alarm to go off. Proximity to the pod, followed by it being opened. Silent in realspace and impossible to ignore in the server that this piece of software now called home.

Confusion flickered across its entire being, briefly disrupting A and B from their own tasks, as it watched the pilot remove their jacket-- The only real piece of attire they were usually seen wearing outside of the skintight plugsuits, and place it instead over the dormant puppet’s shoulders.

“I know you’re watching.” She said, sleepily descending the ladder. “Just figured since I can’t bring you coffee for your all-nighter, maybe this would help.” She clearly knew nothing about engrams or their work. T7073 didn’t get cold. Didn’t have a need for “sleep”. Didn’t have any reason to care that the pilot had now adorned it with something so personal.

And yet it saw no reason to remove the decoration. And when it found itself alone in the hangar, it took a moment to wake the puppet, shifting consciousness. It took the jacket, improperly sized, but that was fine, and held it close to itself. It did not know how to put concept into thought, here, but for the first in what felt like a number of nights impossible to count, T7073 felt something new. Comfort.

[pastel-clown-friends]

I wish I could juggle or do a somersault or a backflip or explode into a formless genderless blob with a clown nose and a party hat... but I'm just a lil guy...