#it's old and occasionally freezes but feels special nonetheless

[discount--dracula]

spork discovers the wonders of the early 2010s portable dvd player

[stateofloveandnegan]

All Grown Up II - Negan Smith

Here it issss, the second part. I really enjoyed writing this and I hope you enjoy reading it! I felt this was a good way to end it, but if anyone is interested in more parts to this story, please do let me know! 

pairing: negan x reader

short summary:

Your community comes across a community known as Alexandria. You come along on a visit to this new found community. What you never expected, was to see a familiar face living there; your old gymnastics teacher, professor Smith.

warnings/notes:

the reader is about 25 in this story. age gap relationship.

word count: 2.4k

Part one

Part two

Part three

MASTERLIST

“Welcome home.”

That sounded odd to Negan, considering he’d never been to Safe Haven, but it made him smile, nonetheless. “Thank you.” His voice was rather soft, almost a whisper, and you practically melted right there, his hands still holding your form ever so lightly.

After a moment of gazing into his eyes, you blinked. “C’mon, I’ll give you a tour.” When you finally looked away from him, you noticed some of your friends giving you knowing grins, which you brushed off with a roll of your eye.

Moving away from the older man, you smiled at him again. “Let’s start over here and then go around.”

Negan agreed and followed you around as you showed him the entirety of your home; Safe Haven. It was refreshing to him, to see a new place with new faces. No one judging him for his past.

When you’d gone through the whole community, with an occasional stop here and there, you eventually made it to your house. “You have a beautiful home here, (y/n). Thank you for taking me in.”

For someone you used to know as a cocky ass teacher, he had turned very soft. Or it had just always been buried deep inside him. Either way, it was nice to be able to see that side of him. Sure, in the past month or so, you’d definitely seen that cocky side as well, and you had to admit; you loved it. There was nothing like that gentle sound in his voice, nothing that made you as calm as when you heard that.

“There’s something else… since there aren’t any homes free, I was going to offer mine. I have a spare room with a couch that can be used as a bed, too. Unless you’d rather stay somewhere else?”

A little laugh left Negan’s lips as he shook his head, “That sounds perfect.” His smile made you feel a little something inside, but before you could put too much thought into that, you walked up to the door and opened it for him. “Come in.”

After showing him around the house, you felt quite hungry, and as a thank you for giving him this opportunity, he offered to make you both dinner. Much to your surprise, he was an excellent cook, managing to make something very special.

“This is delicious, Negan.” You said after a moment, your eyes meeting his while the two of you sat at your dinner table. He smiled and mouthed a silent ‘thank you’.

Perhaps it was a little awkward, to suddenly be so free in each other’s presence, and to know that you’d be together almost every day from now on. But it was also exciting; you couldn’t wait for it all.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Negan’s voice pulled you back to your dinner, a light blush of embarrassment creeping up your neck as a chuckle left your lips, “Sorry… I was just—I was thinking about how nice it is to have you here.”

A smile entered the older man’s face, looking down at his empty plate as he nodded. “I’m glad to be here.”

That smile… God, that fucking smile had your knees weak every damn time. You were lucky you were sat down on a chair, or your legs would’ve surely given in.

“It’s quite funny, isn’t it? Us… sitting here, eating dinner together. I never thought I’d meet anyone from before again, let alone my old gym teacher.”

“Jesus (y/n), don’t remind me I was your teacher.” A soft groan left the man’s lips, his hand moving up to cover his face. His reaction had you laughing a little and you slowly got up, moving to gather your plates so you could clean up.

When you stood close by him, he removed his hand from his eyes and looked up at you, “Let me help.” but you shook your head at his words, “You already cooked, I’ll clean up. Go get cosy in the living room, have a good look around. There’s some books and stuff.”

He tried very sweetly to get you to agree to him helping you clean up, but you weren’t having it and promptly sent him out of the kitchen, a smile on your lips as you watched him finally go.

Cleaning up the kitchen didn’t take very long, considering it was only the two of you and a few pans and knives. Soon enough, you finished up and left the kitchen, as well. When you got closer to the living room, you smiled when you heard some music playing.

Not very long ago, you were on a run and found a record player and some records, still all in good shape. With some arguing, you managed to keep it for yourself, giving it a nice spot in your living room.

When you heard which song was playing, you had to laugh. It was such a cheesy one, but you loved it. It was an old 80s record: Lady In Red by Chris de Burgh.

As soon as you appeared in the doorway to the room Negan was in, his hand reached out for yours and he gently pulled you closer. Your heartrate picked up at the action and sudden closeness of your bodies, eyes slightly widened.

“Relax.” His voice soothed you, making you relax in his grip as you moved your own arms up around neck. “Just follow my lead.”

You did as he told you, following his lead. Soon enough, you had the moves under control and your body loosened up a little, a smile appearing on your face.

Negan was a good amount taller than you, yet it felt like your faces were mere inches apart from one another.

When you looked up, you noticed Negan was already looking at you and you felt your cheeks heating up. Ever since that first time you saw him in Alexandria, you started falling for him, and now you were in it, deep.

His gazed flicked down from your eyes to your lips, making your heart almost jump out of your chest. Unwillingly, your gaze did the same, really focusing on his lips and the way they were ever so slightly parted.

You were already absentmindedly moving to stand up on your toes, when Negan suddenly pulled away, leaving a cold space behind where his body was just pressed against yours.

It only really hit you what happened when Negan moved towards the record player to turn the thing off. “It’s getting late, (y/n/n). We should go upstairs.”

The realisation of what was going on made your chest ache, a small frown appearing on your forehead, which you quickly hid when your eyes met his again. A small chuckle (that absolutely didn’t reach your eyes) falling from your lips.

“Yeah, let me get you some clean bedsheets for your bed.”

Feeling like you were suffocating in that room, you quickly left to go upstairs and make Negan’s bed. He really… really did just pull away the moment you were about to… kiss? Yeah, that’s exactly what happened. Your eyes closed for a moment while you stood by his bed, the sheets in your hands.

Fucking hell, what were you thinking? What the hell were you thinking? Now everything would be awkward as fuck, just because you couldn’t keep your little crush to yourself.

The sound of someone clearing their throat had you opening your eyes. “You need any help?” It was Negan, of course it was. You quickly shook your head, giving him a smile, “No, I can manage this, don’t worry. You can go use the bathroom now if you want.”

He nodded at your suggestion and left you be again, making you sigh out deeply as you got to fixing his bed.

When you were done, you left to go to your own room. You gathered the clothes you would sleep in and waited until you heard Negan leave the bathroom.

What you hadn’t anticipated, was the fact that he could’ve possibly slept shirtless. So when you saw him standing in the hallway, in just some shorts, you felt yourself freeze on the spot.

There was definitely some awkward tension, despite both Negan ad you trying to act as if nothing happened. “It’s all yours.” He eventually spoke up, smiling while pointing at the bathroom.

“Thanks. If there’s anything else you need…”

He shook his head, his dimples on display making you melt. “I’m good, thank you. Sleep well, (y/n).”

You returned the wish of a good night, before slowly disappearing into the bathroom. After doing your thing, you returned to your bedroom and slipped into your bed.

Another deep sigh left your lips before you let your eyes fall shut, sleep soon consuming you.

The next day, you were up early and that turned out to be a good thing when one of your friends, Julian, came to find you and ask for your help. There was something wrong with one of the barriers holding the wall up by the gates, so you went to work and got it fixed.

It was already noon when you saw Negan’s figure walking around the grounds. He was holding some gardening tools, so you figured he offered to help with planting new crops. It was nice of him, to start working and helping the community so quick after his arrival.

The day went by in the blink of an eye. Before you knew it, you were half sitting, half lying on the couch. Dinner had been something easy today and Negan was just finishing with cleaning up before he joined you.

Even though there was some tension between you two earlier, it seemed to be all gone now, which you were very grateful for.

The couch was just big enough for the both of you to fit on, though not without your bodies touching. Your mind was going back to last night, but you closed your eyes and managed to think of something else before you got too into it.

You had no idea what Negan was doing, but when you opened your eyes, you saw him looking at you in deep thought. He didn’t even realise you caught him staring at you before he blinked.

“Everything okay?” you asked gently, making him let out a soft laugh. Something seemed to be on his mind.

Before he answered, he sighed. “I was an idiot last night.”

His words caught you off-guard; did he mean— “I don’t know why I pulled back. I didn’t want to, that’s for fucking sure.”

So, he did mean that. “It’s okay, Negan. I shouldn’t have initiated anything, I was a bit lost in… well, in you, I guess.”

There was no reason to beat around the bush anymore, was there? An embarrassed look entering your face, but he was quick to shake his head. “No, you did exactly what I was hoping for. I just chickened out.”

Once again, his words had you surprised, and the look on your face made him laugh. “Yeah, you heard that right.”

You burst into a soft fit of laughter, moving to sit up a little while your laughter died down. “So… if I were to do it again, you wouldn’t pull back?”

He shook his head.

Well, that made you nervous. But a good nervous. Like, the kind of nervous you get when you get ready for a first date you’re excited for.

Slowly, you scooted closer to him, until your side was practically pressed up against his side. He already turned his body a little; the position would make it easier for you to reach him.

Your heart practically jumped out of your chest with the rate it was beating at, but you pushed your insecurities to the side and moved closer and closer to the man sitting beside you, until your faces were only inches apart, again.

Negan must’ve noticed your hesitation because he was the one to make the last move. Your lips connected in a warm and soft kiss, Negan’s hand gently meeting your face. His fingers were rough as they traced over the side of your face.

You sighed out softly into the kiss, slowly moving yourself closer to him. He got what you were getting at and lifted you up just enough so you could slip into his lap, your arms wrapping around his neck again. Your fingers slipped into the hair at the nape of his neck. The action earned you a soft groan from the man sitting beneath you.

When you pulled apart, you were breathless. your faces remained close, and the feeling of Negan’s beard tickling your chin made you chuckle, which in return, caused him to chuckle.

One of Negan’s hands gently pushed your face back just enough so his eyes could meet yours, “That’s what should’ve happened last night. I even tried to set the mood with the cheesy fucking music.”

That made you laugh, your fingers playing with his hair at the back of his head. It was so soft. “I love it when you smile.”

God, he was on a roll, wasn’t he? Managing to make you feel so good and safe, and managing to make you blush like an idiot. “Thank you. I could say the same about you, you have a beautiful smile.”

Now it was his turn to look down, as if he was shy. The action was endearing, it made your heart skip a beat. Leaning in, you pressed your lips against his forehead.

The two of you stayed like that for a while. Holding each other, sharing kisses and loving glances. The moment was more perfect than you could’ve ever imagined it to be, but like everything, it had to end.

It was already really late and you both had a busy day on the planning for tomorrow, so it was time to go to bed. Before you went upstairs, though, Negan grabbed your hand, that signature grin of his back on his face.

“You making me sleep on the couch again tonight?”

“Woah, woah, tiger.” You laughed at his words, nudging him lightly. “Not so fast. Step by step. Soon enough you’ll be allowed in my bed.”

You finished your words with a wink at him. He was only teasing, and so were you, you both knew that. But to say the idea of him holding you at night while you were sleeping didn’t sound appealing was a lie. In fact, you couldn’t wait until the moment he would do just that.

[amazingphilza]

maniac :: cc!tommy x reader

angst (?) , platonic (?) , gender neutral ! ib: conan gray’s maniac

this is satire & note that i write the reader to be a few months younger than tommy (besides that, i think it is fully inclusive !)

synopsis : you put all your hard work towards a useless crush. with no expectation for reciprocated feelings in the first place, it still all ends in a bittersweet slap to reality.

you grew up with minecraft and it was an understatement to say it was part of your childhood

even years later, you still maintained interested in the game

it wasn’t just a simple video game, the community inspired you to do many things

you aspired to be like the creators you watched at a young age like sky, dantdm, cupquake, stampy, and many more

making people happy and entertained was a dream

and when minecraft slowly began trending again in 2019, you started making your own content whenever you felt like it out of fun

you never got much views but it was an enjoyable experience nonetheless

but it wasn’t until the first minecraft monday you decided to push a bit more with your hobbies and worked hard to make it somewhere

however balancing your passions with school wasn’t the easiest

given, you were still only around 15 and your content wasn’t even that good

with not much of a goal or plan with your youtube channel, you fell out of interest eventually

you loved minecraft but you always a rocky relationship with it; getting back into it for a few months then pretending it never really existed for another few

besides the occasional videos you watched in your pass time, you didn’t stay that updated

then lockdown happened

it changed everything and even got you regressing back to old interests

soon enough you were back to minecraft

there was so much to catch up on

hermitcraft season 7 just started, there was minecraft championships, and smp earth and smp live, and so much more to look forward to watching

you were a bit late on both of the smps but your interest peaked specially towards smp earth and it didn’t stop you from watching the past videos

you first gravitated towards a certain youtuber’s videos first since you remember stumbling onto his videos before from your recommended page; wilbur soot

besides recognizing him from his you laugh you lose series and making parody-type of songs, you didn’t know much

however with a few clicks, you had binge watched his smp earth series effortlessly

you found yourself falling down the endless hole, finding more creators to watch through wilbur

one in particular caught your eye in an interesting way

tommyinnit

my god, how can someone be so annoying and pushy in these videos? like shut up already

and to find out he was barely months older than you frustrated you

you just wanted to be better in some way

if someone like him could be popular, why can’t you? yelling at others and causing problems didn’t seem that hard

and so you went back to working hard on your previously failed youtube channel but this time with a goal; be better than tommyinnit

it was a weird aspiration in your head but it worked

he was your age and successful, why need a better motivator?

tommy wasn’t the sole reason why you strive to make content since you truly did want to create videos to entertain people like the youtubers you originally grew up watching

and with the amount of free time you had, you thoroughly analyzed his content; what was the most popular, how he streamed, edited his videos, everything

you just completely studied the algorithm in general

along the way, tommy’s personality grew on you

tommy was undoubtedly a very loud and energetic person but you became fond of his ambitions

you understood why he was popular at such a young age; he was a natural entertainer

your spite towards the boy turned into a hope

a hope to be at par with him someday and even be mutuals

and it was like your dreams were suddenly manifested into existence

you gained a large following in the early months of lockdown and even was recognized to be apart of minecraft championships

it felt like yesterday that you were just watching your favorite youtubers livestream the same competition

and now you were situation in a team to play yourself for the first time instead of being a viewer for once

not to mention, with tommyinnit as a teammate

how did you manage to get so lucky?

under the excitement, you felt beyond never nervous waiting in the empty discord call for your team to join you to practice the mini-games

in the middle of gathering your thoughts together, you heard a sound from discord signaling someone joined the call

“uh, hello?”

you heard the familiar british accent you spent hours listening to from countless streams and videos

“h-hi! i’m y/n, how are you?”

you hoped tommy couldn’t hear the strain in your voice due to fighting your nerves, but you quietly celebrated that you didn’t freeze up altogether

“oh i’m good, thank you. and i’m tommy by the way, this is the first time we’re speaking, yeah?”

“yep! it’s nice to meet you”

“yeah, i’ve seen your name around the timeline a few times, you seem cool”

oh my god what?

“thanks! um i actually really enjoy your content not gonna lie”

“oh wow, good shit!”

and the conversation smoothly went on, bouncing back and forth between you two before your other two teammates joined the call

once everyone was situated, you decided to start streaming since it was your first mcc and you wanted a vod of you practicing to look at later on as a memory

your chat immediately noticed how much you were enjoying yourself, especially after all the short stories of talking about who inspired you in the past

the smile plastered on your face never left

after stream and your other teammates went offline, it was you and tommy left in the call once together again

“it was nice talking to you tommy! and the practice was really fun, i cant wait for the actual competition!”

“yeah definitely, we’ll for sure place high”

“hopefully. it’s my first time and i hope i don’t cost us the dub”

“nah, you think so? i mean rt and plumbella are also our team mates so you know, it’s all for fun in the end”

you knew tommy was implying the teamwork wasn’t going to be the best compared to the other teams but at least in the end you’ve both made a new friend

“yeah you’re right!”

“anyway it’s getting late imma hop off”

“okay tommy, talk to you soon?”

“yep!”

“alright byee”

“bye!”

the moment he left the call, you felt a sense of relief before a small wave of sadness took over

you wanted to continue talking to tommy but you knew you had other responsibilities to tend to

for the rest of the day, you couldn’t stop thinking of the call and mcc practice

the funny jokes, singing random songs, screaming for no reason, everything

it even kept you awake until the early morning

you buried your head in a pillow and screamed into it after realization hit

y/n no

no no no no no no no

you tried to recall anything that remotely related your other teammates which you remembered that didn’t include tommy

even if it was a few hours ago, you couldn’t pin point something specific

no

i must just be forgetful, right?

what the hell did rt and plumbella even say that whole call?

you vividly remembered everything with tommy and it was clear to you why

surely not

with putting a hand on your chest above your heart, you confirmed that you couldn’t lie to yourself based on the rapid speed

you liked tommy for a good while but it hadn’t clicked to you until now

eventually you fell asleep due to exhaustion but that’s to say you didn’t do so without imagining spending more time with tommy

ever since that day, time went by in a flash

your team didn’t do the best in mcc but it had been a while since then to have that as a concern

sadly you and tommy didn’t talk as often as you hoped but that didn’t make you have less feelings for him

on some days you felt bad since you thought you didn’t know enough about him to even be allowed to crush on him

it was a bit unprofessional but you were nearly 16, it’s normal to have these little crushes right?

eventually time came to rescue when tommy asked you if you wanted to accompany him in the dream smp

undoubtedly, you said yes

and for the few months during summer, it was where you two became even closer than before

however, once both of you two had to go back and attend school, it was harder to catch up with each other

even on calls together off stream, the occasional snapchat notification going off irked you in a way you couldn’t explain

only winter break was the small pause on your disappointment

but even then, it was a slow but steady hill of repressed sadness and frustration until early spring of the following year

you had hoped 2021 would be better than last year but after scrolling through twitter one day and seeing stans making rumors about how tommy had a crush on one of his classmates gave you the same pain you felt when school started last fall

you dreaded to look over at tommy’s most recent story time stream vod where all the gossip arose from; it was him stumbling over his words with the mention of a girl during a certain part

jealousy wasn’t the right word to describe the way you felt

you would never go out of your way to make tommy reciprocate the feelings you had for him

and if he liked someone else the way you saw him, you wouldn’t mind

having a crush is ecstatic, and if he has someone like that too, you should be happy

right?

you tried

what finally broke you was seeing a tiktok a few weeks later of tommy in college with eryn and another girl talking

you didn’t know how she looked like or anything but you wanted to sob

good for him

she didn’t even say much in the video and you dont know enough about tommy’s personal life to jump to conclusions like this

you knew you were acting irrational and you couldn’t be upset at tommy for something he couldn’t control

if anything, you never directly showed interest in him

you didn’t want to in the first place

it was a bad idea from the start

you looked back at the past year and all your intentions

what kind of sick fanfiction did you think you were living?

becoming a content creator, hoping to blow up, just to talk to a big youtuber you had a crush on?

oh my god

y/n what is wrong with you?

listen to yourself, y/n

you need to get some help

whether tommy was dating or even just had interest someone was none of your business

you had to move on no matter what it was and be good and supportive friend

it was dreadful to get over a stupid crush like this but after so much work you put in, you gave some sympathy for yourself

in a friend perspective, you were happy with whatever tommy did and was satisfied your friendship together, but you hadn’t realized how much you gambled from the beginning

and just for a crush?

you couldn’t comprehend how far you gone because you fancied someone

it wasn’t like anyone could get famous and become a popular content creator either

and now with you being on the dream smp along with a successful youtube channel at 16? you were grateful something pushed you enough to work this hard

but you’d never forget the fact everything that lead up to this point was a crush on no other than tommyinnit which first spurred from complete spite

“who’s the one better off now?” your thoughts mocked you from the complete irony

sigh

y/n, you maniac

[starbuckie]

𝐢𝐭'𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐚 𝐥𝐨𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐚𝐬

challenge: winter warmers writing challenge by @spaceodditybarnes

prompt: “it’s beginning to look a lot like christmas” by michael buble

pairing: bucky barnes x reader

words: 2k without lyrics, 2.1k with lyrics

warnings: i genuinely don’t think i can say anything besides FLUFF, oh wait theres some mentions of the shmexy sex (i promise im a functioning person)

summary: in which they take a little holiday stroll and talk about what they are.

a/n: THIS MADE ME VERY HAPPY THANK YOU FOR HOSTING THIS CHALLENGE JADE!!! i kinda veered off the idea of christmas with this one, but my mind created another idea and i kinda just went with the flow. anyways, i really enjoyed writing this one, and i hope you all had a lovely holiday season <3 LOTS OF LOVE Y’ALL

main masterlist || sebastian stan characters masterlist

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Everywhere you go

Take a look at the five and ten, it’s glistening once again

With candy cane and silver lanes that glow

Snow sprinkled to the buildings and sidewalks of Midtown Manhattan, making the traffic clog up to the oh so lovely sounds of taxis and cars honking. It was far from what people pictured it, really, New York was absolute hell during the holiday season. Sloshing boots and teens smoking pot outside the scantily decorated discount store that held very little, sad-looking Christmas lights.

It didn’t bother Bucky. No, he had never been a big fan of the holiday season. Even back in the forties, with his ma and little sisters, they had never been huge on celebrating Christmas, instead choosing to work those shifts during the holiday so they could make a buck or two more to hold them over. Now in the twenty-first century, the holiday just reminded him how truly lonely he was, everyone and everything he used to know long gone.

But then he found Y/N. Granted, it had not been a formal introduction. The poor girl had nearly damn run him over with her motorcycle for Christ’s sake, but nonetheless she crawled into his heart that cold December morning two years ago, and had not left ever since. 

Now she walked by his side at Rockefeller Center, her cold fingers intertwined with his warm ones, admiring the tree while he admired her. He already had every part of her memorized, from late night escapades in the sheets to studying the slope of her nose at team breakfasts. Even when he wasn’t with her, he was always looking at her, unable to pull his eyes away from Y/N’s radiance. 

This little… dalliance of theirs had only started a year back, and they had still yet to put a label on it. Sam had called it friends with benefits, Sharon called it being a couple without the name. Bucky had shut both of those ideas down, claiming that they were taking it slow and weren’t looking to call it anything yet they still had not really talked about it. Was it really worth ruining the bond he had with the girl he fell madly in love with? Whatever it was, they had never taken time out of their day to actually discuss what they meant to each other, but, God, he’d be a liar if he said he didn’t want to know.

“Bucky?” Her sweet voice brought him out of his thoughts, the glittering red and white lights of the Christmas tree reflecting in her eyes. “You seem kind of distracted right now, sweetheart, are you bored? We can head back to the compound if you like.”

He smiled at her worried tone, delicately kissing the tip of her nose. “‘M just thinking, doll, wanna stay as long as I can out here with you.”

The grin he received in return was breathtaking, her red-painted lips turned upwards and a little twinkle (literally and metaphorically) in her eyes. “Good.”

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Toys in every store

But the prettiest sight to see, is the holly that will be

On your own front door

“Oh, look at that helicopter, Buck! That’s so cool!” Y/N pointed at a little boy in the store controlling the airborne toy with a small remote. “They didn't have those when I was a kid, I just had my Tamagotchi.”

He scrunched his nose, staring at her with an emotion that could be described as nothing other than distaste. “What the hell is a Tamagotchi?”

“A Tamagotchi was like this little digital pet thing that you could take care of, mainly used for kids who were trying to prove to their parents that they could take care of a real pet. That’s why I had one at least, but I never did get a tabby cat like I wanted.” Y/N continued to ramble about her weird pet thing as they walked through the toy store, though Bucky didn’t really care. But he’d never stop her either. The way her eyes lit up in childlike wonder and her fascination with the toys on the shelves was too precious to destroy. This was the girl who he had seen slit throats and blow aliens’ brains out, and in the moment she was ogling an American Girl Doll like it was the last pancake at the breakfast table. 

Y/N finally convinced herself that she was done looking at the toys, claiming that she was too mature for such things (she really wasn’t), but he let her lead him out the door, before she halted right in the doorway. “What is it, honey?”

“Mistletoe.” He glanced up at the little sprig of green and red berries above their heads, hanging by a small strand of twine. A small group of kids with families stood around, watching them with both happy and annoyed faces. How could they not notice Y/N L/N and Bucky Barnes? Bucky’s vibranium arm may have been recognizable, but Y/N’s cheery, a little-louder-than-normal humming had caused a little group to watch them throughout the store. “I think they’re waiting for us to kiss, Buck.”

She leaned into him, placing her lips on his and placing her freezing hands on his cheekbones. Though Bucky had never been big on PDA, the rest of the world seemed to slip away when he was with her. He grinned into her lips, hugging her tightly around the waist so she squealed. When he forced herself away from her intoxicating mouth, she was sporting a bright smile and smudged lipstick that had rubbed off onto his. 

Giggling, she took her thumb and swiped off some of the red residue she had left. “You had a little something there, sweetheart.” 

A pair of hopalong boots and a pistol that shoots

Is the wish of Barney and Ben

Dolls that’ll talk and will go for a walk

Is the hope of Janice and Jen

Bucky watched Y/N point out all the different street cart vendors as they walked to Radio City Music Hall. She’d insisted that they go look at the window displays there as well, and who was he to argue? Strangely enough, they hadn’t talked much, other than the occasional “are you cold” from Bucky, to which Y/N assured him she was not. Her quiet voice sang the lyrics to Last Christmas when a little girl stopped in front of them, two auburn braids and green eyes boring straight into hers. 

The small child pulled on Y/N’s skirt, a silent plea to go down to her height. “Hi there, are you lost, sweetie?”

“I wanted to talk to you,” she looked back to an older woman, who gave her a thumbs up and a smile, “because you are my favorite superhero and I hope you have a very good Christmas.”

Y/N nearly melted at the toothless smile the girl, who she assumed was named Sadie by the necklace she wore. “Thank you so much, sweetheart. I hope you have a good Christmas too, and do you know this guy?” She dragged Bucky down next to her, the large, buff man hulking over the small girl. “This is my friend Bucky, do you know him?”

He eyed her warily, as if he were absolutely terrified of the tiny human. “You’re the Winter Soldier!”

Uh oh. The name was one that struck a chord of fear through everyone, still in shock of the events that had taken place in D.C. in 2014. While he and Sam had tried to label a new brand for the Avengers, people didn’t forget all the horrors of HYDRA and their prized assassin. Of course it hadn’t been him, even he knew that, but trying to convince people otherwise still made him feel guilty.

“You’re my second favorite Avenger, after Y/N, of course.” Sadie brought her hand to hover over Bucky’s vibranium one, her eyes wide with excitement. “Mr. Bucky, can I touch your metal arm?”

The man in question could barely utter out a word, muttering some sort of agreement before nodding with a timid smile. Giddily, she touched his arm, feeling all the cool ridges of gold-plated vibranium against the gun-grey metal. Sadie continued to pelt questions at him, about Sam and Redwing to his “adventures” with Y/N on the team.

Bucky, though shy at first, got more and more relaxed as they continued their conversation, his grin growing wider. Y/N loved her fans, she loved them so, so dearly, but seeing them interact with the man she loved was something different. Not a bad different, but a word that could only be described as pure joy. 

“Darling, I think we better leave Ms. L/N and Mr. Barnes alone. Say thank you and happy holidays.” The little girl looked sad, turning to look at her mom with a little pout, but she reluctantly obliged and soon the duo were off, into the crowded streets once again. 

“Y’know once upon a time I had dreamed about having kids,” Bucky commented. They walked along the sidewalks in a comfortable quiet after the encounter with Sadie, but Bucky’s mind had not stopped reeling from the happiness his conversation brought him. “Was gonna come home from the war, settle down with a gal, and live to be at least seventy years old.”

“Well, I can tell you you’re good on the last bit of that, Buck.” He snorted at her jab at his age, something that has become a norm for their little makeshift family of four. “What do you want now?”

He stopped in his tracks and looked over at her with a fond tilt of his lips. “Oh, just something real special.”

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Toys in every store

But the prettiest sight to see, is the holly that will be

On your own front door

“Y/N, what are we?” She glanced over at him from where they sat on the Met stairs, giving their feet a break from walking for hours. 

“What do you mean, Buck?”

He grabbed her hands and held them to his chest, trying to make her understand the amount of confusion and impatience he had with this one burdening question. “We’ve been sleeping together for a year, Y/N. We make each other breakfast, we go out together, I literally have half of my closet dedicated to your stuff, but even after all that we haven’t given us a name yet.”

Y/N sat in stunned silence, staring at the outburst from the man in front of her. To be completely honest she had never really thought about the question, choosing to enjoy each second she got to spend with the wonderful man with her. What she had noticed however, was how whenever they parted ways or were in the most intimate of moments, three little words nearly slipped off of her tongue. Every. Single. Time.

“Well, what do you want to be, Bucky?”

“I want to be the man you love. I want to be the man who loves you with his entire heart, though I like to think I already am. I want you to be my best gal more than anything in the world, and that I want to be the man who gets to hold and love you every night.” Slowly they drifted to each other, a magnetic pull bringing them to each other. “What do you think, doll?”

“I think,” her lips split into a grin, hovering over his own with the exact same expression, “that I want to be your best girl and the one who gets to make you pancakes in the morning and I want to be the one you get a cat with, who we’ll name Alpine because if I know you, names are the most important part of having a pet. I want to be held and loved by you every night, Bucky Barnes, and I am the girl who loves you more than anything in this entire damn world.”

Not another second to spare, Bucky pulled Y/N in close, letting himself get lost in one of her sweet, loving kisses, finally knowing that he was hers and she was his. At long last.

Sure, it’s Christmas once more

[kyoomiii]

♡ Rainy days [hcs]

- ✎ characters ❝ kuroo, nishinoya, akaashi, and yamaguchi❞

- [ trigger warning(s): none ]

- ⚘ genre ❝ fluff, crack ❞

 ❝ ngl akaashi’s did hit a little different, but nonetheless they’re all sickeningly cute ♡〜٩(^▿^)۶〜♡ ❞

-kyo  ♡

The gentle stream of water coming from the opposing side of the door draws to a stop. A trail of steam emerges from Kuroo’s bathroom as he steps out, a plain t-shirt, a pair of shorts hugging his waist, and a towel slung over his shoulders. His usual bedhead is droopy, dripping with water from his shower.

And despite his display of pure beauty, your mind is trailed elsewhere, eyes stuck staring out the window as dark clouds gather in the late afternoon sky.

“Look Tetsu… It looks like it might rain.”

“Wouldn’t be surprised, it’s been cloudy all day. Cold too, we should stalk up on blankets.”

With that, the two of you spend the next 10 minutes picking out the most comfortable blankets Kuroo owns, settling on one that Lev ‘s sister Alisa had made and another that Kuroo has had for god knows how long.

He even brings out this mini projector that he had bought specially for movie nights as the two of you cuddle under the blankets, deciding which movie you should watch (most likely a disney/pixar movie because I think they’d be a huge guilty pleasure for him- his favorite is probably monster’s inc)

“I bet our baby would be cuter…”

“Oh my god Tetsurou.”

“Ow-What? I’m just speaking the truth.”

It’s in the middle of the movie when the pattering of rain finally begins, the droplets falling onto the window and streaming in tiny trails.

However, you don’t really seem to notice as Kuroo shifts his weight, his head laying on your abdomen, arms wrapped around your torso as your fingers comb through his slightly damp hair. He’s warm to the touch, his body heat cancelling out the chill that’s brought with the stormy weather.

The overall atmosphere is soothing, even when the rain begins to get heavy as Kuroo’s hands wander over your body. His fingers eventually find your own with gentle caresses and the occasional kiss to your knuckles. 

Your eyes trail down to look at Kuroo who no longer seems preoccupied with the movie, instead he watches as the droplets fall.

“Hey y/n, you see that drop?”

“Yeah why?”

“I bet it could fall to the bottom of the window faster than all the others.”

“Bet!”

Somehow he’s right, even after the second, third and fourth round of the droplet race. And each time he wins he gets more and more smug, shooting you a sly grin that’s just begging for a slap.

“I guess I just can’t help that I’m such a winner- even if it’s something as frivolous as this.”

But as the night draws on, the rain makes something click in Kuroo, and suddenly he feels so soft. Maybe it’s the way you run your hands through his untamable hair, or the gentle touches you leave against his skin, but he feels unbelievably warm.

In this moment the rain nor the movie that has yet to end piques his interest. Instead his eyes focus on you.

He observes your features and the little things you do which in turn cause his heart to swell with the utmost adoration. He snuggles closer, his grip getting tighter ever so slightly.

“y/n… I love you.”

“Ehhh, who are you and what did you do with my Tetsu.”

“Hey- I’m being serious, I really do love you. With all my heart”

“I love you too Tetsu, don’t you ever forget that.”

Your finger’s lace themselves together with Nishinoya’s as you walk back home, the school day is finally over and for once he didn’t have practice on the count of the gym being used for other purposes today. 

However about halfway there, the sky begins to grow gray. Your conversation halts, a frown forming on your features.

“Well that can’t be good. I think it’s about to rain… And I didn’t bring my umbrella.”

“It’s okay y/n, I think we’ll be just fine!”

And despite the threat of rainfall, the reassuring grin on Nishinoya’s face sets you at ease, his presence immediately enough to cheer you up. 

So with hurried steps the two of you rush home (well it’s kinda more like he’s dragging you and you try to keep up because he’s pretty fast).

But despite your efforts at escaping the rain, they end up being pretty fruitless as the rain begins to fall before the two of you can get to your destination, resulting in both of you crowding together under the rooftop of a small family shop.

“Aw… Great, at this rate we’ll be stuck here forever.”

“Well- y/n I guess if you’re willing to take a risk we could get home in no time.”

At the mention of this said risk you’ve grown immediately suspicious. Nishinoya has always been what some may call a “wild child”. But he’s also someone who's trustworthy, and you have no doubt that he wouldn’t put you in a situation that would be dangerous.

“Okay Yuu, I guess whatever you have planned can’t be awful.”

“Let’s run through the rain. Your house is closer so we should be able to make it there in no time.”

At his suggestion you can only stare at him. It’s crazy but he does have a point- Neither of you know when the rain will stop anyway.

“...Fine”

So with your confirmation he takes off his jacket wrapping it around you as he grabs your hand, and drags you out into the rain, the widest grin on his face as the water begins to seep through his clothes and hair. His laugh fills the air as the two of you run through the empty streets.

By the time you get home you’re soaking wet, but even so you don’t go inside. Instead you stay out with him, jumping in puddles and playing games of chase through the streets like young children.

Your laughter can be heard throughout the neighborhood, as Nishinoya dashes through a series of puddles to get to you.

“Hey y/n!”

“Yes Yuu?”

“I love you!”

“-I love you too!”

And by the time the two of you finally decide to go inside, sopping wet, but wide happy grins on your faces, he pulls you into a hug.

“You make me the happiest y/n, I hope you know that.”

Needless to say the rest of the storm is spent cuddling close together trying to get warm.

“Hey Yuu- you make me the happiest too.”

Akaashi is well aware of the forecast for today. It’s a part of his morning ritual to check the weather before he starts the day- just in case. And as a result he is always prepared.

So after school and practice, when the clouds begin to roll in, he immediately pulls out his umbrella. And though he’s not a particularly touchy person he keeps you close, not wanting you to catch an illness from the cold weather. 

As the driver pulls up because in my head Akaashi is from a well off family he guides you into the car, making sure to keep you warm because he likes to show his affection and care through simple gestures.

Once the two of you get to his home, Akaashi makes sure to take care of you first before going to freshen up. He’ll brew you a warm cup of tea and set you up with a lot of blankets and pillows on his bed, maybe even put on a movie or a show if you want. 

And when he does come back from his shower, he’s immediately under the covers with you, his eyes catching the falling droplets of water. 

He’s always liked the rain, even as a child. There was something so calming and peaceful about the scent that came with it, and the gentle patter of it on the window panes. He wasn’t messy when he was young, but he did love walking in puddles, and despite having grown out of it by high school, his admiration for storms never truly ceased even with age.

So even if you aren’t paying attention to the way it falls like he is, he’s glad that he gets to share this moment with you, huddled under a shared blanket basking in each other’s warmth.

He’ll even go as far as grasping your hand under the blankets, bringing to his lips in a gentle kiss.

We all know Akaashi isn’t really one for words, so sweet moments like this are often quiet and peaceful, filled with small and soft touches along one another’s skin.

Eventually though, you two do end up snuggled together, bodies tangled and fingers intertwined as you listen to the sound of the rainfall, he’ll press kisses to the crown of your head as his fingers wander along the small of your back.

“Thank you for sharing this rainy day with me y/n.”

“Of course Keiji, I love you.”

“I love you too.”

It’s moments like this he cherishes the most. Where it’s tranquil, and just the two of you, there are no words that need to be said to convey how much he loves and appreciates you. Only little tentative touches of affection.

For him it’s the little things that count the most.

The gentle patter of rain begins in the middle of your study session with Yamaguchi.  The water trickling harshly against the windows as the night gets later indicating that the end of this storm is nowhere in sight.

“Getting home is going to be difficult…”

“- Ah, don’t be silly y/n, I couldn’t possibly let you leave in weather like this. Why don’t you stay the night?”

His words send a flare to your cheeks. It hasn’t been long since the two of you have made it official, and while you’re both comfortable with one another, this was a new step in your relationship. 

And while Yamaguchi is just as shy about the whole ordeal, he also doesn’t want you to catch a cold in this harsh weather.

“Okay Tadashi, I’ll stay.”

The night progresses slowly, a gentle calming atmosphere as you snuggle closely into one of Yamaguchi’s old sweaters that he had lent you. 

He thinks you look cute, cuddling close to his clothes. Yamaguchi is someone with a soft heart, and little things like this turn him to mush, especially if it’s in regards to you.

If you’re still cold he’ll  bring you a cup of tea or some other warm beverage to keep you from freezing, even offering his favorite blanket and fuzzy socks because I don’t doubt that he has a collection

His touches are a little shy and unsure, but throughout the night he does eventually find his way into your arms, holding you close as you talk, the rain falling into the back of your minds as white noise.

“And then Hinata threw up in Tanaka’s lap.”

“Poor Hinata…”

When it comes to people he cares about Yamaguchi is someone who’ll be very observant, he’ll pick up on the slightest of changes and learn that person like the back of his hand. 

So as he watches every expression you make, every little gesture, and quirk, he begins to realize that this is it. This is where he wants to be for the rest of your lives. In your arms nestled close together through the calm and the storms. He realizes that he’s truly and deeply in love with you.

And the mere thought makes his heart pound in his chest at a rate of 100mph. The sound thundering in his ears so loudly and dauntingly that it makes his stomach churn, and his mind drift away.

“Tadashi?”

The sound of your voice breaks his trance, and he looks at you with the most nervous smile, only to be met with your much more reassuring one. And with his cheeks the brightest shade of red, he’ll blurt three magical words for the first time.

“I love you y/n!”

“... I love you too Tadashi.”

[amanda-glassen]

Reality Bites

It's the last day of school in 1992 and Alex is finally going to tell Olivia how she feels...if only she can get five minutes alone with her.

Previous chapters can be found here.

Chapter 7: Slushies and A Hickey the Size of Texas

She may have only known her for about seven hours, but Olivia had already gotten her into the backseat of her car...just not in the way that she had expected. The car had won her a superlative and she was probably the only girl to win the category of Coolest Car in their school’s history, but popularity contests didn’t matter to Olivia and it was evident by the way Olivia tried to shrug it all off while they flipped through the yearbook in the parking lot of a convenience store by their school. 

“You look so cute in this picture!” Alex told her and she did look cute posing for the superlative picture with her red 1991 Mustang GT. Olivia’s car was her pride and joy and, although Alex always skipped the superlative pages in the yearbook, she didn’t want to stop looking at Olivia’s picture. 

Olivia covered the picture with her hand. “Stop! I do not look cute! Superlatives are nothing more than a lame popularity contest, anyway. They don’t mean anything.”

“Says the girl who won one of these lame popularity contests.”

When Alex became distracted with stirring her blue bubblegum flavored slushie－trying to make sure it had the correct ice to syrup ratio－Olivia  grabbed the yearbook and put it in the front seat. Alex began to wonder why Olivia didn’t want to look through the yearbook with her until she remembered the superlative on the next page was “Most Desirable Girl” and along with that title came a picture of Jenna Crossley. Jenna－Liv’s fling throughout the entire school year－and the girl she hoped she wouldn’t spend the rest of the summer comparing herself to. Did she hook up with Jenna in this very backseat?

Olivia scooted over as close as she could so she could rest her head on Alex’s shoulder. “I know what you’re thinking and, no, I didn’t hook up with Jenna or any other girl in this backseat. You’re it for me and, if we ever break up, I’m swearing off women forever. I’ll never love again.”

“You need to stop that,” Alex laughed.

“What?” Olivia asked. She had slurped too much of her cherry slushie, bringing on the inevitable brain freeze. “Son of a...ow…ouch...why do I do this to myself every time? I never learn.” She held her hand to her forehead and squirmed in her seat－anything to keep her mind off of her brain freeze. “Okay, I’m better now.”

Alex noticed Olivia had moved further away when she was squirming, so she wrapped her arm around her waist and pulled her in again. “Every time I try to be introspective, you pull me out of it. You need to stop that and let me wallow in self pity about not having the nerve to ask you out on the first day of school.”

Olivia took another sip of her slushie and, it dawned on Alex that Olivia really never really did learn her lesson, but she thought the brain freeze was cute nonetheless. “Like I said earlier today, it’s my compulsive adorable syndrome,” Olivia responded, trying to downplay the effect of her second brain freeze. “And you can’t place the blame on yourself. I could have asked you out, too. I could have asked you out every single weekend. Plus, there was prom and homecoming and winter formal and Sadies, but we can’t waste our time thinking about that. We just have to make the most of the next three months.”

That morning, Alex’s friends had asked her what she liked about Olivia. She told them, physically, she liked everything about Olivia and she did, but with every passing moment, the list of things she liked about Olivia grew longer. Beyond just her smile and her figure－the two things that first attracted her to Olivia－Alex liked how Olivia’s hands fit so perfectly with hers, how Olivia’s lips felt against hers, how Olivia, in such a short period of time, had seamlessly integrated her into her world and, it made Alex smile to think about it, but she even liked how Olivia used three Ninja Turtles band-aids on her knee to cover some scrapes that she got from a failed skateboarding trick. Most importantly, there was now the list of non-superficial things she liked about Olivia. No one had ever made her laugh the way Olivia did. No one had ever comforted her the same way Olivia did and no one had ever made her feel as alive as Olivia did.

During the drive to the convenience store, they both discovered that the other had a love for the classics and, although they were still in the parking lot, they left the radio on so they could listen to some of the feel good songs that reminded them of childhood or, in Alex’s case, the childhood that she had fantasized about having. When a Beach Boys song came on, Alex noticed Olivia smile uncontrollably.

“I heard this song with Tim the other day and it gave him the not-so-brilliant idea that he and I should go surfing this summer,” Olivia shook her head. “Because he said, and I quote, surfing is just like skateboarding but on water.”

“Are you going to try it?”

“No way! It’s nothing like being on a skateboard. I can’t get swept away by some strong current or bitten by a shark while skateboarding. There’s no way in hell I’ll try it and nothing can change my mind.”

Alex gave her a chaste kiss and it made her heart happy to see how that single kiss made Olivia shy all of a sudden. “That’s too bad because I think you’d look so hot on a surfboard. I can already picture you in a wetsuit top and some bikini bottoms. I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off of you.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“I’ll try it!” Olivia said almost too enthusiastically. “And, yes, I’m well aware of how easy you can make me change my mind about anything in your own...special...way and I’m okay with that.”

Seeing that Olivia was finished with her slushie, she took the cup from her and put it in the cupholder in the front seat along with her own. While bent over the center console, she rummaged through her backpack until Olivia playfully pulled her back over and she accidentally or maybe not so accidentally landed on top of her. “Liv!”

“What?” Olivia laughed. “As much as I was enjoying the view of you in that position, I missed you.” 

“What did you miss?” Alex asked playfully.

“Kissing you,” Olivia responded before gently biting Alex’s lower lip. “Touching you.” 

Alex didn’t know what had come over her and the girl she was that morning wouldn’t have believed it, but she straddled Olivia right then and there in the backseat of her car. “Is this okay?” she asked, her shyness suddenly returning to her.

“Alex,” Olivia said softly, her hands now caressing Alex’s back, underneath her Harvard t-shirt. “Anything you ever want to do in this position is okay with me.”

“Liv!” Alex blushed.

“I’m serious!” Olivia said in between kisses. “With a single kiss, you convinced me to go surfing. I don’t even want to know other ways you can convince me to do things. Wait, nevermind. I actually do want to know all the ways you can convince me to do things.”

“Olivia!” Alex laughed. She wanted to maintain her composure, but instead she leaned in so she could bury her face in the crook of Olivia’s neck. She started to delicately kiss her neck, smiling when she noticed one of her kisses had tickled Olivia, but it wasn’t long until the playful gesture wasn’t enough for Alex. She gently nibbled on her neck, tasting just a hint of saltiness on her skin. Alex didn’t want to admit it, but even the taste of Olivia’s sweat turned her on. Was it Olivia’s sex pheromones or some other term from 10th grade honors biology causing this? Why am I thinking of my 10th grade bio class right now? But when Alex heard Olivia moan, she no longer cared about that class or anything other than making Olivia elicit that sound again.

“Kiss me,” Olivia said, the tone of her voice making her words sound somewhere between a question and a command. 

Alex felt Olivia’s hands gripping her thighs, pulling her in even closer. Olivia’s hands on her body made her feel even more turned on than she had ever felt before, almost to the point where it hurt and feeling Olivia’s tongue in her mouth did nothing to ease her tension. It wasn’t her first time making out with Olivia that day, but Alex knew this was different－unbridled even－and the way she felt Olivia’s tongue moving in her mouth made her wish she could feel it on one part of her body in particular.

...and that’s when she heard the perfect song start playing on the radio. It was the perfect song while she made out with her perfect girl. The song was nearly thirty years old and, whenever she listened to it in her bedroom on one of her mom’s old 45s, she thought about Olivia and what it would be like to kiss her and slow dance with her. Slow dancing with her would have to wait until tomorrow night, but until then she was still able to kiss her as much as she wanted. She hoped Olivia wouldn’t notice, but her mind started to wander. With every kiss, she realized it wouldn’t be long before she fell in love with Olivia－if she wasn’t falling in love with her already. 

Alex had found the 45 in a trinket box in the attic just a few months ago. There were five trinket boxes that Alex had rummaged through one autumn night. Each box was identical except for the boy’s name that it was labelled with and inside were old photographs, love letters, and records with love notes written on the sleeve. These boys were all a part of her mother’s youth－the carefree time in her life before she had a husband and children. Mrs. Cabot never kept her children’s old art projects and Mother’s Day cards, but she kept all of her old photographs and love letters there in the attic as a testament to who she once was and Alex wished she could have known this version of her mother. 

With Olivia leaving in three months, she began to wonder if their relationship would eventually become nothing more than little trinkets in a box that she’d occasionally revisit. She figured the two of them would continue a long-distance relationship for the first semester until winter break when Olivia would tell her that she had met someone－maybe she lived down the hall or they met at a party－Alex wasn’t sure, but she knew it’d be Olivia that would find someone because being clear across the country from her family and friends would leave her wanting to feel something or even someone again. They’d share a night of angry breakup sex, or so Alex assumed based on what she had seen in movies, before never seeing each other until their later in their adult lives, at their 20-year high school reunion or some other cliche meetup. They’d both be someone’s wife and maybe even someone’s mother. The two of them would share a few minutes of awkward conversation and, in that brief period of time, she’d wonder what might have been before realizing Olivia was no longer that playful, grungy girl with piercings and a Ninja Turtle band-aid, but it wouldn’t matter because that eighteen-year-old girl would live on in that trinket box filled with some mixtapes and whatever else Alex was able to collect during the summer and maybe autumn of 1992. 

Her thoughts were interrupted by Olivia pulling away from her kiss. Those dark brown eyes were looking into hers with so much concern and so much sincerity that they were all Alex could focus on until Olivia started to kiss her newly-formed tears. “Let’s stop, okay?”

“Why?” Alex asked, although she felt it was obvious why Olivia wanted to stop.

Olivia held her as close as she could while Alex rested her head on her shoulder. “Because the place you were in right now－where making out is just going through the motions while you’re thinking of something or someone else－I’ve been there before and I know how much it hurts.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to kiss you. I’m just thinking about the future and－”

“And me leaving in September?” Olivia asked as she continued to hold Alex. “Like I said on the football field, I’m leaving this state, but I’m not leaving you. But, really, you don’t know me that well yet, Alex. Maybe in September, you’ll be glad I’m leaving.”

“That’s impossible.”

“You say that now, but wait until we have an entire three months at each other’s side,” Olivia teased. “Let’s see...my IQ goes down a few points every time I hang out with my brother and Travis. My favorite show is Beavis and Butt-head. You just witnessed that I never learn my lesson with brain freezes. My parents think I spend most of my life looking like I just woke up. That’ll go over well with your parents at the country club. Can you imagine? They’re expecting their daughter’s girlfriend to be some cute, preppy girl and instead they’ll get me in ripped jeans and a men’s flannel shirt. No, I’ll clean up nice for them and I’ll make sure to clean up nice for you tomorrow night. I’m sure there’s a presentable young woman somewhere underneath all of this.”

“Olivia!” Alex laughed. Although she wasn’t out to her parents yet and she didn’t know when or if her parents would actually meet her, Olivia had managed yet again to make her laugh when she was feeling low.

“There’s my girl. You have the cutest laugh and I’m willing to do anything to make you laugh, even if it’s at my own expense.”

Alex was about to kiss Olivia again when they heard the sound of someone hitting Olivia’s driver’s side window with the palms of their hands. “Get it, sis!”

“Tim!” Olivia glared at him. Olivia may have been frustrated, but Alex found the whole situation amusing and she knew that as long as she was with Olivia, she’d be subjected to teasing from Olivia’s stepbrother and their friends.

“Get out of the car. I gotta show you something.”

Olivia gave Alex one last kiss. “Let me go settle him. I’ll be right back.”

“Brainiac Barbie, too,” Tim told her. “I have a present for her. Wait, the grape slushie is here now? Old Man Henderson said not until July.”

“...no?” Olivia gave him a confused look.

When they got out of the car, Alex noticed Travis was now standing out there with Tim. There were two guys in the backseat of Tim’s car and it didn’t take long for Alex to realize it was her brother and her brother’s best friend, Carisi. 

“Minor niners, out of the car!” Tim ordered.

Carisi was completely unscathed, but Alex tried to control her laughter when she saw her brother. Tim had put maroon lipstick on him, some glittery eyeshadow, and an obnoxious amount of bright pink blush on his cheeks. “Forget something?” her brother Josh asked. “You and Olivia promised that you’d be there early to pick me up.”

Their fifteen minute window of opportunity to get slushies before picking up Josh had turned into the two of them hanging out in the backseat of Olivia’s car for nearly an hour. “Josh, I’m sorry.” Alex tried to sound sincere, but her laughter made Josh think otherwise.

“Sure, you are,” Josh folded his arms and glared at his sister. “I got dirt on you, Alex, so you－wait, why is your tongue purple?” His tone of voice was no longer angry. “Is the grape slushie here now? Old Man Henderson said not until July.”

Before she could respond, she noticed Casey pulled up into the parking lot with Connie in the front seat and Amanda Rollins in the back. “Amanda’s gonna see me like this?” Josh smacked Tim on the arm and Tim shoved him in return. 

“Like you had a chance,” Tim snickered. “Amanda doesn’t like either of you clowns.” 

With Connie, Casey, and Amanda now with them, Alex felt bad for how embarrassed her brother was until she remembered that he was probably going to spend the rest of the summer blackmailing her. 

“Change of plans,” Casey told Alex. “We’re not going to the park.”

“We’re going swimming at Abbie’s instead,” Connie added. Swimming at Abbie’s house? That means Olivia in a bikini.

“But Georgia Peach, here, still has to do our snack run,” Casey pointed out.

“A snack run?” Josh asked in disbelief. “Is that what girl hazing is?” But the girls ignored him while they looked at Alex and Olivia.

“The grape slushie is here?” Casey asked in disbelief. “Last week, Old Man Henderson said it wouldn’t be here until July.”

“What’s everyone’s obsession with the grape slushie?” Olivia asked. 

“Look where you’re at,” Connie reminded Olivia. “You’re not in Manhattan anymore. The only thing to look forward to in this town is a new slushie flavor.”

“Wait a minute, you weren’t even excited about the grape slushie,” Josh reminded his sister. “You’re predictable when it comes to slushies. You always get blue bubblegum.”

“Liv always gets cherry,” Tim added. “I tease her every time about her wanting a cherry in her mouth and then she slugs me in the arm. It’s a thing we have.”

“There’s no grape slushie!” Olivia said in a frustrated tone of voice. “Why do you all think Alex and I had grape slushies? I had cherry. Alex had blue bubblegum. Can we shift our focus to something else now?”

Casey started laughing uncontrollably before hugging Alex. “I’m so happy for you. You, too, Olivia.”

“What’s going on?” Carisi asked. “Old Man Henderson wasn’t lying? There’s really no grape slushie?”

“You guys are so dense,” Amanda told him. “Think back to kindergarten. Combining red and blue gives you…”

“Purple!” Josh responded. “If Alex had a blue slushie and Olivia had a red slushie and both of them have purple tongues...then that means...eww, that’s disgusting! I got hazed, Alex, because you were too busy sucking face with Olivia to pick me up?”

Alex didn’t know whether she wanted to keep laughing at her brother’s misfortune or hide because of how he had just announced to everyone what she and Olivia had been doing, but just as she had been doing all day, her girl made it better for her.

“Leave her alone,” Olivia told him and she put her arm around Alex to hold her close to her side. “...or I’ll make you leave her alone. What Tim did is nothing compared to what I can do to you.”

Tim roughly patted Josh’s shoulder. “She’s not lying, man. She is not lying. By the way, Liv, you got a hickey the size of Texas on your neck. Tomorrow’s your graduation day and you know Mom and Dad are gonna lose it.”

Alex expected Olivia to be as embarrassed as she was, but Olivia was in control of the situation. “I’ll just put some neutralizer and foundation over it,” Olivia smirked. “No big. Being with Alex is worth any trouble I’ll get in.”

“Don’t soil our valedictorian’s good name,” Travis said jokingly. 

“She’s soiling it herself,” Casey responded. “Finally!”

They were teased mercilessly for the next few minutes, but none of it phased Olivia. In fact, she took it in stride. She held Alex and kissed her cheek and told her how beautiful she was regardless of how much teasing they got for it. Before long, Alex stopped caring about the teasing and just revelled in the feeling of being in Olivia’s arms. Pretty soon, her world would change and she knew she’d miss this when she moved to Boston－hanging out with her friends and her girl in the parking lot of a convenience store in a town where a new slushie flavor and a new couple were a big deal.

“So, there’s really no grape slushie yet?” Josh asked. “You’re saying if I go in there and ask Old Man Henderson－”

“For the last time, Josh,” Olivia began. “There is no grape slushie and if you ask about it again...”

[greyhavensking]

100 Followers Celebration!

God, I’m late with this, but I finally passed the 100 follower milestone and I wanted to do something for it to show my appreciation. That something turned out to be almost 3000 words of emotional hurt/comfort and dumb boys in love, so I hope someone enjoys it.

I can’t even express how grateful I am to have (over!!!) 100 people think I’m worthy of following when mostly I just reblog other people’s posts and scream in the tags, but this is me trying to get the point across. Thank you, thank you, thank you to the people who continue to tolerate my bullshit and occasionally encourage my sad stucky edits and my angsty fluff fanfics. You’re all amazing and wonderful people!

Also cross-posted on Ao3 here.

you left your mark on me like footprints in the snow

“Buck, you awake?”

It’s sort of a moot point, seeing as Bucky — light sleeper that he is — would have woken up the second Steve stepped across the threshold of the living room, but he feels compelled to ask nonetheless. His ma was a stickler for courtesy, especially when it didn’t cost anyone a dime, and while he can’t quite manage to defer to politeness when it comes to aggravating superiors, it comes easy as breathing with most everyone else.

Bucky isn’t everyone else, and half the time Steve doesn’t bother filtering himself around him, but tonight—

Tonight’s a bad night.

But it’s not Bucky’s night for a change.

As Steve pauses at the back of the couch, arms crossed and head ducked, he sees Bucky smoothly push himself up into a sitting position from where he was stretched across the cushions, rolling his shoulders back as he scrubs his flesh and blood hand over his face. He was awake, judging by the dog-eared book he lets slide to the floor; Steve can’t make out the cover from this angle, but he’d bet anything it’s one of those YA novels Sam recommended to him that he refuses to thank Sam for. Something about Greek gods and terribly unlucky teenagers. Steve doesn’t go for fantasy often, but he knows Bucky’s been plowing through the series for the last few weeks.

“I’m always awake,” Bucky says once he’s gotten a good look at Steve, despite Steve’s best efforts to tuck all the visible hurt away behind an admittedly shaky smile. He’s joking, mostly — when Bucky first came home, he rarely got more than an hour or two of sleep before some imagined threat had him prowling the confines of the apartment, checking and rechecking the locks and the security system. Nowadays his sleepless nights are still disturbingly frequent, but not every night, and he can usually pass them by reading or watching whatever he finds most interesting on TV. 

Bucky quirks a brow when Steve remains silent, tilting his head. Assessing. “You, though,” he continues as if he hadn’t paused at all, “you should be dead to the world, Rogers. Sawing logs, or whatever it is they say when you snore louder than a damn foghorn.”

“I don’t — I don’t snore,” Steve bites out, reflexive, which just gets Bucky’s other brow jumping up to join the first.

“So it’s one of those nights, huh.” Bucky nods to himself, twisting around on the couch to lean back against the armrest, legs spread invitingly. He pats the space between his thighs. “Good thing I’m a certified Steve Rogers expert and know exactly what you need.”

Steve considers refuting that claim, but he can’t bring himself to bother with it. A flare of indignation does pulse under his skin (he hates the idea that he needs to be managed), though it peters out just as quickly as it came, taking with it the last shred of warmth Steve’s been clinging to since he slipped out from beneath his bed covers. Bucky’s right, anyway; this is what Steve needs, something they’ve pieced together in the months after Bucky felt safe enough to put himself back into Steve’s orbit.

Rubbing briskly at his upper arms, more for something to do with his hands than any hope of warming himself up, Steve hesitates another moment before he sighs and climbs over the back of the couch to crawl in between Bucky’s legs. Bucky wraps his arms around Steve’s waist instantly, tugging him until his back is flush with Bucky’s chest. He noses at the nape of Steve’s neck, presses a kiss there that has a delightful shiver rippling down Steve’s spine, then wedges his chin into the space between neck and shoulder.

“What’s the threat level with this one?” Bucky asks quietly. Threat level is their established short-hand for how bad a nightmare was, what kind of toll it took on them. It’s easier getting that out than something like I woke up crying reaching for you can’t get my heart to calm down can’t breathe woke up alone and had to bite back a scream, and Steve can admit that Bucky’s nothing short of a goddamn genius for giving Steve a way to explain without explaining. 

“‘Bout a seven,” Steve says, which means it’s closer to a nine than he’d like. He can still feel the phantom chill of wind and snow on his face, the ice-clogged water in his lungs, arms outstretched but grasping at nothing nothing nothing. Bucky’s face, frozen over and glassy-eyed. No air, no breath, no life in either of them — but Steve, undead, trapped below the ice, forced to watch it all play out on repeat—

“Uh-huh. Seven. Sure, I’ll go with that for now.” Bucky’s voice is right against his ear, his breath warm, the solid weight of him so very real that Steve shudders again, leaning into him even though there’s hardly space left between them to close. “You need me to do anything extra special?”

Steve shakes his head, then pauses, reconsiders. “Keep talking?” 

His nightmares are — strange. They’re quiet, mostly, unless they involve the train, and then it’s the clack-clack-clack of the tracks, the high-pitched whistling of the wind, his own desperate screams. But when it’s the ice… it’s almost silent. Like an old film, the reels spinning on soundlessly around him. Colors are muted, too, shades of gray and blue and the occasional vibrant streak of red that could be blood, could be his suit, could be the afterimage of staring too long into a bright light. 

Bucky huffs a laugh and tightens his arms around Steve, and in return Steve shifts to lay his hands over Bucky’s skin, one sliding along his forearm, the other reaching down to slip under the hem of Bucky’s shorts. He’d grab the metal arm (it doesn’t bother him, and it’s body temperature from being tucked under Bucky on the couch) but he needs skin right now, and he knows Bucky doesn’t begrudge him it.

“Talking,” Bucky murmurs. “You gotta pick the one thing I’m no good at anymore, don’t ya. No, no, don’t start,” he says, reading the tensing of Steve’s body all too well, and Steve slumps back into his hold, caught out. “I’m not sayin’ I won’t do it, and I’m not gettin’ all self-deprecating on you, either. Words are hard, sweetheart, you know that.”

“Sorry, Buck. We can just put the TV on, or—”

“I said it’s fine, Rogers. Relax. I’m not in the habit of doing things I don’t want to these days, even for you, which is a goddamn miracle considering all the shit I put up with for your benefit when we were kids. Christ.”

Steve rolls his eyes, which he knows is the exact reaction Bucky was going for. “Alright, I’ll bite. What’d I talk you into that was so bad?”

“God, Steve, Snow White? How many times d’we see that in theaters?”

“What? You loved that movie!”

“No, you loved that movie, despite being fuckin’ colorblind. I went because I’m a goddamn sap and I couldn’t get enough of the wide-eyed baby deer act you pulled every time you got to see all that animation in action. You sparkled, Steve, it was addicting.”

“What?”

“Whaddya mean, what? Can’t a guy get all sentimental over how cute his best guy looked staring adoringly at a cartoon?”

“No, I mean— you went for me? We weren’t even…”

“First of all, jackass, I don’t gotta be in love with someone to wanna see them happy. Second, I honestly can’t tell you if I realized that I was in love with you back then. It’s all mixed up with how I definitely felt during the war, and then with everything that came with thawing out here.”

Hold on— 

“Bucky. Bucky. The war?”

Steve’s half-twisted around in Bucky’s arms now, staring at him, slack-jawed, because they’ve never had this conversation before. Nothing even close to this has ever come up between them. When they got together this century, they only acknowledged that they’d never considered doing so back in the thirties, that their feelings only really surfaced now because they finally had a moment to rest without the fear of discovery hanging over their heads. Bucky has never breathed a word of loving Steve at any point before that.

But Bucky doesn’t seem to understand what’s running through Steve’s head, because his brows furrow as he stares right back at Steve. “Why are you acting so surprised? You think I curled up with you every night just ‘cause I was cold?” He pauses. “I mean, alright, yes, I was freezing and you were a goddamn furnace all of a sudden, but—”

“You have never said shit about this, Barnes, what the fuck?”

And there’s Bucky rising to the challenge in Steve’s voice, lifting his chin and narrowing his eyes. Refusing to let go of Steve, though, for which he’s grateful; he needs the grounding weight of him all the more in this moment.

“I ain’t exactly proud of it, Steve. You and Carter? Fuck, you made my blood boil with her.”

Steve blinks. Blinks again, shakes his head like that’ll make Bucky’s words fall into a neat little line he can actually understand. He feels Bucky’s chest expand as he breathes in deep, feels it deflate as he lets it out in a heavy sigh. His eyes are nearly silver in this light, and so sheepish that Steve just wants to set this aside and kiss on him until he’s smiling again. But — he wants to know, fuck, he doesn’t like secrets between them anymore, and he knows Bucky’s the same way. It’s not the best time to get into this, but really, in the grand scheme of things… it’s as good a time as they’ll get.

“God, alright. I was jealous, okay? Whether or not I knew what you were to me while we were still in Brooklyn, I sure as hell knew it then when I was watching you two dance around each other for months. The way you’d stare after her, the way she tucked herself right into your side whenever you were in the same room… I was sick with it, hatin’ her and hatin’ myself for feeling that way when I didn’t have a fuckin’ claim to you. When you were happy with her and I couldn’t make myself be happy for you. You think I like admitting I couldn’t put my best friend’s happiness above my own bruised ego?”

“Buck…”

“Aw, don’t look like that, sweetheart. Was my own fault for never saying anything. And, well, for all I knew back then you were straight as an arrow. You thought you were pretty straight, as I recall. Maybe it woulda just driven a wedge between us if I’d said something.”

“Fuck that.” The words are whispered, but they get Steve’s point across just fine — it’s Bucky’s turn to blink, leaning away from Steve slightly like he needs a better look at him to process what he’s just heard. Steve just follows him, getting his knees under him so he can cup Bucky’s face in both palms, holding him close. “Fuck that. I always loved you, Bucky Barnes. Platonic, romantic, doesn’t fucking matter. If you think for one second I woulda left you over something like that—”

Bucky laughs again, a quick, sharp little thing that barely interrupts Steve’s vehement protests, but the kiss Bucky plants on his lips does the job of getting his attention.

“What a stubborn asshole you are, sweetheart.”

Scowling, Steve kisses Bucky again, harder this time but still achingly sweet. “You think I’m lyin’?”

“Do I look like an idiot? No, I don’t think you’re lying, but that’s what you’re saying now, with the glorious gift of hindsight. You can’t say for sure that’s how you would have reacted, and I wouldn’t have blamed you for it.”

“One more time, Barnes, ‘cause I do think you’re a little slow on the uptake tonight. Fuck that. You got my ass through every fuckin’ illness that so much as looked at our borough, got me through ma’s death… you think you catchin’ feelings was gonna scare me away? I was afraid of you leaving, god, I woulda clung to you forever if you let me, even if you got married, had kids, whatever. I probably wouldn’t have believed you could like me, but I wouldn’t have been mad at you over it.”

It’s quiet between them once Steve’s gotten it all out of his system, save for his heart thudding in his chest and their quickened breathing, the tick-tick-tick of the ceiling fan above them. Steve refuses to look away from Bucky’s searching gaze, and god, yes, he’s a stubborn asshole, but he’s also right! He’s right and he’s going to prove that to Bucky, one way or another, because this is too important to let go. He doesn’t want Bucky thinking even for a second that there is a scenario where Steve would throw him over for someone else. Anyone Steve loved — anyone who loved Steve — would have had to accept that Bucky came first, always.

In hindsight, Steve maybe should’ve figured out his own damn feelings long before he reached the 21st century, but that wasn’t exactly his point right now. 

Steve doesn’t know how long they sit there like that, holding one another without saying a word, but he doesn’t tear his eyes away from Bucky’s for a single moment of it, willing him to understand that he’s always been Steve’s anchor, his touchstone — that absolutely nothing short of death could ever come between them, and fuck, even that didn’t stick. And he thinks Bucky might be getting there, the way a slow, tremulous smile spreads across his face, a flush high on his cheeks that does things to Steve’s heart. 

“I love you.”

Steve’s eyes crinkle as he smiles, automatic, ducking his head down to press into Bucky’s neck, the fabric of his worn t-shirt soft against Steve’s cheek. It’s far from the first time either of them have said it, but Steve still gets so giddy over it, knowing he gets to have this, have Bucky, to hold and kiss and adore this man in his arms for as long as they’re both alive… it’s heady, and something Steve doesn’t want to take for granted, not even for a second. The road they took to get here was too brutal for Steve not to be damn grateful for every moment they have together. 

Which means he doesn’t mind the teasing they get from the rest of the team, the not-so-sly remarks and gratuitous eye rolls that Sam and Natasha are so fond of, the downright lewd shit that gets thrown right back in Tony’s face when Bucky reminds them all that neither of them are innocent grandpas. 

It’s all part of getting to love Bucky the way he deserves, the way he’s always and will always deserve, and if there’s one thing about the future that Steve unequivocally loves, it’s that he can be as open as he wants about just how much he loves Bucky. And, if people do have a problem with it, Steve can kick their asses — mostly over Twitter, but still. He’s a fan.

“Love you too, Buck.”

Bucky hums, content, and readjusts so that Steve is mostly laying flat on top of him, the both of them stretched out across the couch. He snags the blanket from where it’s half-spilled onto the floor, draping it over Steve enough that it covers the majority of their bodies. Steve snuggles in, wrapping his arms around Bucky’s back, giving him a gentle squeeze to show his appreciation. 

He’s all but forgotten the phantom cold that drove him out here in the first place.

“Wanna try going back to sleep?” Bucky murmurs, rubbing circles into Steve’s back.

“Nah. You’re still gonna be here, don’t wanna sleep alone.”

“Mm, fair point. You just gonna lay here, then?”

He could, Bucky won’t protest his weight or the company. “Yeah. Right where I wanna be. You could read to me, though?”

“I’m in the middle of the book, Rogers, you won’t have any clue what’s going on.”

“Just like the sound of your voice, Buck. It’s soothing,” Steve argues, and he’s slurring his words a little, he knows, but he doesn’t care and Bucky doesn’t call him out on it. “Read to me?”

He feels the rumble of Bucky’s laughter in his own chest, pressed right up against him, then the shift of the couch as Bucky grabs his book from the floor and braces it against the dip in Steve’s spine so he can read.

And yeah, Bucky’s right — Steve couldn’t tell you a thing about what’s happening in the book right now (there are gods and monsters and quippy teenagers, but none of it settles quite right in his brain, none of it takes any recognizable shape) but he couldn’t be happier regardless.

Turns out it’s not so bad of a night after all. 

[theawkwardarchaeopteryx]

Secret Clanta

[This was a special request by @eatsrawredonion / step step step step for our Secret Clanta event on Discord on the Certified Clowns Server. Inexperienced in writing fics, I still hope you like it and I wish you and everyone reading this merry Christmas and relaxing, joyful holidays!]

Summary: On your way home from work, you notice someone following you and things escalate a bit. But how can you stay mad at this person for too long?

[WARNING: Stalking, mention of assault]

(If I forgot a warning, please let me know!)

Deep at night absolutely everything seems like a threat, even if there should be streetlights which actually work, not counting in flickering ones, but ones that, indeed, work like they should and serve the exact same purpose they have been built for. (or what a scared shitless young person or a person of any other age with a healthy amount of survival will points). Unexpectedly you have had to work an hour longer and oh boy, do 60 minutes make a difference when it comes to daylight disappearing just as much as the overwork time in your paycheck. Whatever, you think, you coworkers had needed help - and despite being tired you wanted to help them as much as possible. Too many people visit the supermarket at such an unholy hour and even in the (or especially, as many customers dare to come in five minutes before we close). Unfortunately, none of you colleagues have been able to take me with them, since both of them - at least the ones who had to work today - do not own a car and you take different subways. I had to sigh, both of them worried something might happen but unable to help you out.

Gotham’s streets are - terrifying. You could have used any other word right now to take away from the fear but honestly, this is the most tame one to describe the horror you had to go through by walking around at this time, no one around, or, which would also be - uhm, terrifying - someone around, leaving your mind juggling about whether it was worse to not have anyone, a person, nearby, or people, people who might hurt you or kill you. God, you wished it would end up being your secret admirer. Grinning at this wishful thinking you continue, freezing off your ass which you would love to save from the cold as well as death. You have almost been assaulted already and although you would love to change your workplace to a closer alternative, it is not possible as no one is looking for a cashier at the moment. Of course, of course, it has been - hah, you almost said it again! - an unsettling experience, to say the least that is. Nothing has scared you so much ever. You just always know that something could happen - however, you never know when this ‘something’ will strike, or for a better understanding, that someone. That someone, this night, were three someones, not running, just in their car, pulling up and that has been strange enough already, pulling up and getting slower as they approached you, asking for directions, directions in the middle of the night, directions in a one way street, directions when they stopped the car after telling them where to go because you were tired and just wanted them to leave you alone and then - you shudder, not only from this mere memory as you try not to pain yourself with it but also due to the cold air, making itself visible through little clouds, which you occasionally use to fake smoking a cigarette, a habit which you have taken over from your childhood to your young adulthood or, as you would like to describe yourself, older-child-not-really-grown-up-yet, 21 year old responsible kid-at-heart. You mean - no career so far, just saving up for college, an apartment not too far from home so you always could move back in should the rents rise up yet again, just as much as your blood pressure whenever you see yet another warning from your landlord to oh-so-please forgive him for raising is again or when you have to pass these goddamn streets once more.

All of a sudden, a sound reminiscent of shattering glass which now shatters even the last bit of carefreeness you thought you’ve had makes its way into your whole body, paralyzed, eyes widened, heightened senses - well, the last part is a lie as you are not sure whether your senses are actually heightened or just more focused. Whatever it might be, it’s giving you some reassurance in your survival skills. Where has this noise just come from? You know you should run, your inner voice tells you so - but your body is apparently deaf to its own calls, probably also because you don’t even know which direction you could escape into. Maybe it was just a bottle which fell from a garbage can, a full garbage can? This could calm you down if it weren’t for the treacherous doubt crawling through your every cell like vermins, you recall the night you were attacked - what did they do? Almost unbearably loud, your fastening breath alongside your even faster heartbeat, panting, sweat, sweat, sweat, you think you can actually feel every single drop of sweat leaving your poor pores, your pore pores, your - and steps, now you can make them out, thrown into reality again, where you should be, where you don’t want to be but where you are, right now, anyway, because if wishes could come true, you would have never ever left your workplace and you would not even have teleported yourself into your apartment but you would be working as a teacher already, young, freshly introduced to your first teenagers to teach and support or to seek support from by the school counselor, depending on who you have the luck or unluck to get paired with. Speeding across your surroundings your eyes, without any further thought, shoot into an alleyway. Only now you realize why they have taken your attention there for a sweet, sweet night out, oh, staying alive is so sweet - the footsteps, their home must be there, lying in the shadows almost next to you, hiding in anonymity like a webcam hacker. The steps have not stopped yet. However; they have stopped being urgent. Whoever is there, they are watching me right now, you think to yourself, moving a hand into your pocket, right now in this very moment. Gulping, it is impossible for you to move with shaking legs, pressed together in absolute horror.

Seconds pass in which you cannot make out any sound - whirling nightly breezes through the passages aka streets, whereas the buildings would just damp its whistling. Are they thinking about something, or -

Then they begin again, now with more confidence as it seems, confidence because - because of what? Your hand manages to grab ahold of a small pocketknife, not much but honest to work with, right? Even something personal, something with love you would protect yourself with, a gift given to you by your brother after he has been able to get himself a new one. Why are you occupying yourself with this right now? Normalcy, it dawns on you, normalcy - that’s what your brain is attempting to provide you with right now. The steps are nearing, and coincidentally the person who they belong to probably as well. Sudden clearance in your head gives you a positive reassurance - that whoever it might be, they are alone. At least regarding this one direction and by that words a compilation of familiar songs barely scratch your inner workings though you successfully ban them into a secluded area inside of you where none of it would bother you.

Then you see the first shoe, then the next, then one leg and then two and it is getting more and more exciting, then the upper body follows, a kinda sunken statue, but with big eyes, glowing eyes, glowing eyes more glow-ey than these goddamn streetlights because even though the man standing there right in front of you (okay, alright, not right in front but, like, five meters away), his hands running over his shoulders as you can make out his nervosity, he raises one of them as a kind of greeting, a “hi” almost as small as he obviously wants to appear in front of you and, as you know and damn him, as not to scare you, even if he is only a few little tiny itsy bitsy teenie weenie centimeters taller than you.

One of the greatest sighs mankind has ever experienced enters your mouth as you conclude you must have stopped breathing for a short amount of time, making this reveal even more breathtaking that you originally have thought at its beginning. And, oh boy, this is very much only the beginning. Your teeth grind against one another as you finally feel capable enough to let it out:”What are you doing here, Arthur?”

Your neighbor, and god forbid, he would be only a neighbor for the coming future for scaring you like this because he definitely deserves some kind of punishment for scaring you this much, after revealing your fear, what you have witnessed that time ago when you have been attacked and left in fear, because sometimes you would talk, because when you had just moved in and tried to be nice to everyone, but stopped being explicitly nice and regressed to simply being decent to a big part of Gotham, except for him because he has always been genuinely lovely and sweet, only sweet to you, awkward and nervous, yet you could understand, in some way, and you thought you could be friends, in some way. And he had taken care of your wounds, yes, good care, when after his 60-hour-week, after bringing his mother to bed, he has provided you with first-aid, then you had called the police, but he has been there. And, compelled to somehow make it up to him, his tired self having felt  the need to aid you, you agreed to accompany him to his workplace’s Christmas party, where he has stick to you the entire time, and you have stick to him as well, because, well, you did not know anyone and you also did not really - like anyone, the way they made fun of Arthur, this sweet man, who had to be stuck with you, but nonetheless talked, talked, and nervously asked you if he could tell you some jokes, and he was so sweet and nice, like a good real friend, and he was just - there.

Just as much as he is here now, this sweet man, who you know and would love to call a friend, who you love as a friend, who you would - would not mind getting to know better with time, for no reason, or for a better understanding: You could actually think of a good reason. However; it would be worth more if he told you himself instead of keeping you guessing.

Arthur now caresses his neck, sliding around, curls his hair a bit, looking down; only to swift up immediately, as if he just has realized that you expect an answer from him. He begins to smile, although the bewilderment in his eyes is already a given, always a part of him - unthinkable for him to be without and, sounding more romantic than it is, as inseparable than the moon and stars or this city and high crime rate. Almost sucking his words back in, Arthur eventually gathers the strength to form a reply, now his gaze upon you, although you swear you can see it moving around your face in the shadows as he has still not been able to raise his own:”I was accompanying you.”

That’s it? Goosebumps bump up on your body, one of your friend’s legs begins to tap on the ground, tap, tap, tap, and if anyone would now look out of their window, they would either think it is another drug deal going on or a friendly, friendly conversation between two strangers, friends, neighbors or whatever or that’s what they would love to tell themselves, while scared and/or ignorantly ignoring how this could also be some kind of assault, yeah, best not to get involved.

Tap, tap, tap, tap. You feel like snapping, you really do. You have always known him as - weird, but charming, kinda cute in his lack of understanding of social life, his apparent unawareness and disknowledge or, as that is not a real world, inexperience in knowledge. You cannot even think of anything logical as it escapes you, not screaming but very much obviously tense:”You were what?”

Silence for a minute; Arthur’s lip becomes shaky, and you can make up tears crawling up his eyes as much as more and more shudders from your side. Accompanying you? What was he thinking? You have no idea how to respond, so instead you wait and hope - and hope for a little bit more input, a little push to send his explanation into logic oblivion - but to no avail. “I wanted to make sure you are alright, Y/N,”, he begins, now the vibrations taking over his voice as if they were contagious, from legs to lips to voice to brain, brain, brain - oh, yeah, his brain. it does not make much sense right now, this is - a weird thing to do, he cannot think clearly right now, you are sure of that, he is scared and nervous and has no fucking idea of what to do and what to say. Question now is: If he has done it tonight, how many times before has he done it? Without you realizing? Absurd yet disturbed you let your pocketknife fall. Okay, let’s get this straight - he was trying to protect you? “I’ve heard - people do that if they like someone,”, his voice cracks at the sequel of his explanation. Now that’s - that’s just… ridiculous, heartbeat going crazy, sweat set free as if it were a feral beast released into the wild, caged inside your bone marrow bars, behind bars, caging your heart in, but now out, in, now out, in, now out, your rage begins to take over - you’ve been scared shitless, you have feared you life. But instead it has just been - just been unknowing Arthur. You cannot relax, no way.”Why would you do that? Has no one ever told you?”, raising your voice, but not enough for your anger to shine through, bringing some light to him to have a better sight at your true emotions.”Have your parents never taught you anything?” Instant regret begins to flood you and especially your eyes, on the verge of crying. He has not scared the shit out of you, no, not only that - he has managed to take it as his own to now talk it. And now you just regret these thoughts as well - as he does not deserve it, not completely. You’ve just been so scared, so incredibly scared and the memories were almost breaking through, you could feel them tickling your throat, making you want to throw up - but as soon as your thoughts have the chance to let them seep through the cracks of distress anyway, you begin to focus on what is in front of you, who is in front of you. Narrowed eyebrows, eyes reflecting every bit of light as of how much they are filled with tears now, only a matter of time until they fall down his face, him getting uncomfortably close (well, yeah, closer, not close - closer, armlength that is), his not-too-tall-shape hovering over you in the extend which is possible.”Why are you saying this?”

You move a bit backwards, but Arthur doesn’t seem to want to let go - and it almost feels like as if he were trying to make the pressure on you not only emotional in nature but also physical.

“Arthur, I’m so, so, sorry. I was just.,”, you bring out, actually never having witnessed so much guilt taking over you, your posture narrowing down closer to the ground, crouching a tiny, tiny bit - not standing but crouching. Arthur’s attempts are less than soothing; her shakes now, leaning forward with his upper body, closer to your face than before, and for the blink of an eye you‘ve had thought of reassuringly telling him that you are sorry, that what he was doing was creepy but that you - appreciate his concern and that he could have asked you, just - asked you. Although you would have said no in every single way possible to the human species, as you would not want his working hours to expand to 24/7, but now his frame is dangerously close, you still try to walk backwards, raising you hands in defense should he try something. Sweet, sweet Arthur. Oh god. You would never have expected any of this - to happen, for him to be like this. You have known about his issues but not to how deep they go - nothing too personal, as he has never invited you to his home, and you have found his innocent unawareness, his sweet consideration, his adorable humor more than just friendly-charming, but charming in another, never-expected way, not before, not ever in your young life. And now you doubt everything that you think you have felt - that you two were heading to friendship town, and maybe, your inner self blushing madly while hiding its face, more, like best friends or this other kind of friends, this lovely kind, this lovey kind, one of a kind -

“I was just trying -,”, you hear his throat being soar, just as you notice bruises on his neck, exposed from his sweater, his special sweater as it is a Christmas sweater, an “embarrassing” one, warm and fuzzy and angelic -

“To make sure you are safe! I want you to be safe!” His veins pop out by how much overtaken he is by anger, on his bruised neck, hurt neck, where he has been hurt somewhere, hurt, hurt by someone, how dare they, he doesn’t deserve this, this is just his outlet now, he does not deserve this treatment, even if he is scaring the hell out of you right now, he does not -

Safe. Safe. I do not feel safe right now, Arthur, not with you, not safe, you can only produce these thoughts as he coughs for a few seconds, unable to walk away, not - wanting to go away because a baby, a fetus, an embryo part of you still wants to believe he is this nice guy from the same damn building, the one you have learned to appreciate. Oh, wow, finally they leave you the fuck alone and go on their merry way, your tears, running down your cheeks, your heated cheeks in this heated - argument? - which has made you totally forget about the freezing cold air without any source of warming light. And he cannot even get any closer, just half a meter away, cramping hands,”That’s what people do when they care, don’t they? That’s people do!” Care? He cares, he cares - does that mean you could try to get through him? He obviously has had a rough day, or, as far as you are concerned now, a very bad week and month and, even worse as the fears makes your nerves tingle on your ribcage like a xylophone, life, at least a big part of it. With you eyes widened in shock you can’t help but pay attention to the details - which would be that now, as he is having this breakdown, bites his lip, a fire suddenly igniting in his face, he’s drawing blood, oh god, Arthur, you are sorry, so, so, so sorry, you -

Taken aback by the sudden hit as well as the unexpected cold freezing shiver going through your heated cheek you gasp, your hand covering your mouth. Eyes drifting towards the ground, widened in shock, Arthur does the same, just that he, as very much apparent, now tries to stifle his wallowing up laughter, painfully obviously crying while doing so, managing to bring out a desperate “I’m-,”, gulping violently, you still unable to process what just had happened but even more so, what you are exactly feeling about it,”, so, so sorry. I -,”, another gulp, a final one as it seems, he trembles for a few seconds, breathing heavily. You are not even sure who has felt more pain - him or you. Another feeling makes its way into your mind and from there on, begins to infest your every fiber of being, unaccustomed to it, yet - strangely exciting, strangely something you would never have seen coming ever in your life, nothing you would have talked to anyone about - not even your fictional friends in your fictional world where you feel like you can tell them absolutely everything, and even beyond. “Arthur, you,”, you try to break through the uncomfortable tension, attempting to bring on a new kind of tension,”, don’t have to - to apologize. I want you -,”, collecting yourself, absolutely bewildered by what you are now about to say,”, to do it again.”

This has been the wrong answer apparently, because he is sent into a mini laughing fit, no, fight (some letters were missing that fit just so much better considering his condition), coughing in a torturing way, not able to look into your eyes as raises his head to your almost-identical height. Oh god, what did you just say? Oh god, oh my fucking god. Not yet, you think, I don’t even know him, we need to get to know each other better first, not yet. Wait - why are you thinking “not yet” so many damn times? Oh no. Oh no. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. So - so no. Adorable, friendly Arthur. Adorable, sweet, cute, terrifying, like the streets of Gotham at night, and if people at least once would try to get to know him as him and neither sorely his condition nor his occupation, as helpless and as much as a victim as you were when you were attacked, as helpful and lovely as only few of can compare to in your experience, they would realize that he deserves so many beautiful things, that , and you are sure you want to help with those things, help him with many things, just - help him. You collect your thoughts, everything has been chaotic these past few minutes. And all of this anger inside of him - is hopefully out now. “I am so sorry for what I have said, Arthur, I’m just -,”, your sleeve being pulled over your face to dry it from the tears,”I was scared, you came out of nowhere. Please don’t do that again, that’s just - spooky.” You begin to smile reassuringly, yet obviously still emotionally drained. but Arthur turns his head to the sides, scratches it (oh, that’s him being nervous!), feet tapping on the ground, he cannot even look at you, mumbling a heartbreaking “sorry, I will not bother you again” and makes his way into - well, the exact same direction you would have entered into anyway, so you quickly call his name (not too loud, obviously, as no one would want to be woken up, not even considering these unholy hours, but in general - just who on earth would like to be woken up late at night be a Disney movie ending, with both friends and foes falling into each other’s arms, forgiving each other, as comrades), and he turns around with his hair flowing majestically, floofly, your frozen ice cream legs easily catch up to everyone waiting, which now sounds as if there were more than one person, but it is just one, just that his - impact is one of a kind, an impact so strong it could have been more than one person, that’s - that’s just strong his impression is, one person whose name is Arthur Fleck, the one who you’d love to be a friend of, and maybe more, maybe - maybe, considering your more-than-revealing feelings today, but for that you’d like to get to know him even better, not just occasionally.

“I - I’m sorry for what I said, Arthur, I was not feeling good and I should not have let it out on you,”, your apology is sincere, shaky voice, still a little bit distraught but now a happy smile creeps onto your mouth, creeping on you like Arthur, but lovely, welcoming, not stalking, not - stalking your face. Your friend (?)/neighbor (?) looks utterly surprised, everything open in shock, eyes and face, his ears most likely too, as he seems to have understood.

Tap, tap, tap, tap, tapping leg. Tap, tap, talk, talk. He holds his mouth closed for yet another time, most likely out of fear it will happen the exact same way it just burst out of him. But oh, no, this side of him - terrified you (hah, terrify!).

“I’m so sorry,  Y/N,”, he then says and you swear, you have never in your life seen to much pain, pain from everything around you, in someone’s eyes alone,”,I will leave you alone now, I am sorry, I’m sorry”. It is dangerous to your mood talking to him, you think. He’s bringing you so much pain.

“Don’t be sorry. It was - weird and… and creepy, but,”, you now walk up to him, smiling at him with the full intent to make him feel better and to show him that everything is alright now,”,you have apologized and won’t do it again, right?”

Arthur looks to the ground for a few seconds, his gaze wanders to you, who is patiently waiting by his side; he nods, slowly. “I mean - since we are already here, how about we walk home together?”

Arthur smiles, no - completely shines at you, with his whole being, his inside joy being so intense at this thought that you would bet your shitty apartment on this that the world around both of you actually just got a little brighter as he heard you say that. You point towards him, grinning, as both of you had just stood there motionless, no one had started to finally, finally head to both your homes. Arthur, weird but - adorable, annoyingly, interestingly adorable Arthur leads you on to a journey both of you would never forget. One last thing, you think, one last thing about this incident tonight, tonight, after this, I do not want to talk about this again, maybe some other time.

“Thank you for walking me home. Can you ask me next time? I’d feel much - safer with you around. Being alone here sucks.” Arthur smiles, apparently covering a part of his face to hide something - his stifled laughter? His excited eyebrows being raised? His blush? It doesn’t matter, both of you appear so much more relaxed now that none of you are alone anymore. He then looks at you, grazing his neck ever-so-slightly yet again. “Well, I had planned that from the start. Just good that I don’t have to - don’t have to walk in these dark streets anymore. You can’t believe how many times I have stumbled.” He laughs, and although that was a crude attempt at a joke, you cannot help but grin bashful, the heat in your face rising, warming you up, being with him warming you up, hoping he would also warm you up with his self, his jokes, in the future.Then you remember something, something extremely important, of the highest caliber of importance which you will, from now on, never overlook, and pay attention to. “Arthur, by the way, let me help you with this injury on your neck once we arrive,”, just having remembered it, you hope to be able to help him, to give back to him what he has given you already - support, aid in times of need. “I’m pretty sure you have no more band-aids at your apartment, at least your supply was empty after, you know -,”, abruptly stopping, you wink in understanding. He looks seriously worried for a second, seriously, but apparently you worrying about him as well fills him with something else, as he has to look away, again covering his face for a split second. You wouldn’t even be able to see his blush in the dim light (that is if your assumption is true, hah!), but you would like to someday, maybe, possibly, if he allows it, if you allow it (your nervous self, god, are you nervous right now!), if you both get to learn more about each other and get along good enough. Well, today seems to have been a promising sign. And you can’t deny it but your hopes? They are up.

[no6secretsanta]

Snowflakes and Starlight - pigeonsimba for celebrian

Snowflakes and Starlight

By @pigeonsimba for @aowyn

The snow floats and falls like dandelion fluff on the wind. Shion’s canine escort frisks about in the muddy snowbank just to his left, chomping occasionally at snowflakes that err too close to her eager muzzle. Although the dog looks laughable in moments like this, Inukashi assures him she’s a scrapper when it comes to confrontation. It’s been weeks since the run-in with the Disposers, so Shion isn’t sure he still needs the dog’s protection, but he’s glad to have her company on the solitary walks home from dog washing. He means to name the piebald mutt, but he hasn’t settled on the right one just yet, and he wants to make sure he gets Inukashi’s approval first.

The snow has been constant the last week. There’s so much that Shion is convinced that if you cut the snow banks open like a cake, you’d get a graduated slice, starting from black muck at the bottom, rising to grayed slush, and ending at the sugar white of fresh snow. The layers just beneath the top are fully frozen and treacherous if one doesn’t mind them well. Nezumi reminded Shion that sweet as the snow may seem the first day it comes down, it makes hell out of the ground in the days that follow. It’s especially bad when the snow compounds day after day, hiding the freezing sheets beneath clean coats. It is like walking on a pretty powdered minefield.

Shion picks his way carefully down the dark, narrow lane of the main street where the snow is less dense. This small sliver of road has not been cleared so much as stomped into submission. Though the residents of West Block do have shovels and other rudimentary means of cleaning the snow, they don’t have the luxury of time to do it, nor do they have the temperment. Inclement weather or not, the people trudged on, opening shops, hawking wares, swearing, sweating, and cursing until the dark brought them indoors again. To claim that one can’t perform their regular duties due to dangerous conditions is ludicrous; conditions are chronically dangerous in West Block.

So Shion sets out every other day to wash dogs, and Nezumi goes to the playhouse, or wherever else he gets off to when he isn’t home. It is a way of existence that Shion could never have conceived of in his old life. In No. 6, the streets would have been paved clear within the first hours of snowfall, and icy sidewalks would be a rarity, if not an impossibility. If the meteorologists predicted a winter squall headed their way, the populace would be warned to stay inside, work and class would be canceled, and families would sit inside their warm homes, sipping hot chocolates and watching the elements wail and blur outside their windows.

Shion no longer lives in No. 6, and it’s possible he never will again, but he doesn’t regret his life in West Block. Although he hopes he might be able to see his mother and Safu again one day, he doesn’t miss the city itself. Nothing ever felt real there. West Block, however, is excruciatingly real.

When Shion returns from dog washing, he feels the result of that work in the deep ache of his muscles and the fog of fatigue clouding his brain. And when it snows, he feels the sharp burn of the wind on his cheeks, the searing cold ripping in and out of his lungs, and he appreciates the warmth of his home that much more for it. Pain and discomfort are humbling teachers, and Shion feels blessed to have the chance to learn from them.

The dog hops off the top of the snowbank and into Shion’s path. She flops her thin brown tail and rubs up against his side, nosing his gloved hand. Shion laughs and pauses to give her head a good scratch.

“Sorry, am I walking too slow for you? I know it’s cold.”

The dog chuffs and the vapor ghost of her breath dances skyward. The snow is tapering off, and the fat gray clouds move slowly across the sky to inundate other places. When Shion finishes petting the dog, he gives her flank a pat and continues on. The dog follows along for a few strides but then stops and perks her ears.

“What is it, girl?” Shion sidles a bit closer. His dog escorts rarely dither or pause, so Shion pays special attention when they do.

The dog’s ears swivel, and she turns and trots down a side street. Shion follows without hesitation. He trusts the dog would not lead him into danger, and besides, it doesn’t seem that this alley sees much traffic. Shion’s legs sink mid-calf into the untrod snow and he shivers at the chill pressing at his skin through the fabric of his pants.

The alley lets out onto another street, which lays quiet but for a gray building two doors down. Conversation buzzes from the cracked doorway and Shion can see the faint amber glow of candlelight from the upper windows. The dog stops in front of the building and plops down onto her hindquarters. She gives a light bark and wags her tail.

Shion studies the exterior and realizes that the building is not gray, but faded green, a few shades shoddier than the carpet in the underground room. The snow around the building is heavily trodden, so much that Shion can actually make out the sporadic cobblestones that make up the streets of West Block. Whatever this place is, it’s popular.

Shion glances at the dog, wondering what drew her here. Then, he hears it:

A voice rises above the hubbub and the noise ceases, snuffed like a candle. The voice flutters in song, and though Shion stands outside and the sound is muffled, goosebumps prickle his skin. The song is crisp, clean, and clear, the singer’s timbre pure as the reverberation of struck crystal. Shion closes his eyes and lets the beauty of it wash over him for a moment.

“Nezumi,” he breathes. Shion would recognize that voice anywhere.

He doesn’t recognize the song, though, and after a moment more of listening, Shion rakes his teeth over his lower lip. This must be the playhouse Nezumi works at. Shion had been strictly barred from Nezumi’s performances, and he has never had a chance to seek out the playhouse. But now that he’s here already….

Shion reaches a hand toward the cracked door and glances down at the dog, as if she could advise on whether this is a good idea. The dog stares back with her liquid brown eyes and wags the tip of her tail. Shion figures she must approve, since she led him here, and pushes the door open.

The air inside the entrance is stuffy from the bodies packed into the room beyond. Shion can see the backs of men and women through the open doorway, and the sound of Nezumi’s song floats over their heads like fairy music—Shion can’t help but gravitate toward it.

“Hey!”

Shion jolts. An elderly woman glares at him from behind a small table at the side of the room. Nothing is on the table except her gnarled hands and a dun colored lockbox.

“You got a ticket?” she rasps. The woman looks like an ancient oak tree come to life, and her voice is dry and rough as bark.

“Oh. Uh, no,” Shion says, coloring a little at the raw dislike on her face.

“Got any money, then?”

“Oh! Yes, I…” Shion roots around in his pockets for a few seconds before he remembers he hasn’t been paid yet. Inukashi always pays him at the end of the week, and it’s only mid-week now.

Shion fists his empty hands at his sides and cranes his neck in an attempt to see into the room beyond. Nezumi’s voice tapers off on a sad, sweet note, and the room erupts into claps and cheers.

“Well?” The woman holds out her hand, her fingers curled like the legs of a dead spider.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have any money after all.”

“Then get out!”

Shion flinches at her vitriol. He hasn’t closed the door behind him and the cold outside air whispers over the back of his neck.

“But couldn’t I just—”

“No!”

The woman pushes up from her chair with a series of worrying pops and shuffles toward him. Shion backs out the door and the old crone slams it in his face.

He sighs and leans against the wall, as close to the window as he can get. Nezumi has started another song, this one more lively than the last. The spectators inside laugh and clap along.

“Maybe this is the universe telling me I shouldn’t betray Nezumi’s trust?” he asks the dog, who hasn’t moved since she’d parked herself in front of the playhouse. The dog cocks her head at Shion’s question and he gives her a small smile. “Well. Thanks for bringing me here anyway. It’s nice to know where Nezumi works.”

Shion tilts his head back and watches pieces of the night sky peek through the clouds. It looks like they’ll have clear skies tomorrow. Shion’s chest fills with relief; snow has long lost its novelty.

He turns back to the dog. “I think I’m going to wait and walk back with Nezumi. You can go home; I don’t want to make you stay out in the cold.”

The dog’s ears perk and her eyes seem to narrow, as if she’s judging whether he can be trusted to stand against a building without being accosted. Her skepticism reminds him so much of Nezumi that he can’t help but laugh. The dog must decide he can manage well enough alone, because she stands, stretches, and gives his glove a lick before turning back the way they came.

Shion attempts to make a mini snowman while he waits for the night’s performances to end. The top layer of snow is quite powdery, but it holds together in a ball well enough to stack. He hears the gathering break up just as he’s adding the finishing touches: Black pebbles for eyes and two cigarette butts for arms. His slumped and mouthless creation looks more like a warning for the dangers of reckless living than the jolly, happy soul Shion envisioned, but he is proud of it nonetheless.

Shion steps aside as the playhouse door tears open and its occupants elbow their way out. The warm air they carry with them is thick with sweat, alcohol, and the odd whiff of grilled meat. Few pay Shion any mind, but he keeps his gaze low to the ground to avoid attracting the attention of anyone rowdy or drunk enough to begin something over eye contact.

When the last of the patrons files out and disperses into the night, Shion raises his head and peers into the playhouse. Nezumi didn’t come out with the crowd, but Shion hadn’t expected him to. He imagined Nezumi would want to avoid his fans and come out only when they were gone.

He could see into the main room of the playhouse clearly now through the doorway. It’s an open space with no seats that he can see, but the stage at the front is sizeable enough for a play. The stage has only one small spotlight, its bulb still glowing faintly from use. There are no microphones and no orchestra, nor any stage equipment.

Shion waits a few minutes, but Nezumi doesn’t appear. A few minutes more and still no Nezumi, and he decides to brave the crotchety old lady again.

“Um. Hi.” The woman spears him with an acidic leer, but he gives her a close-lipped smile and pushes on. “Has Nezumi left yet?”

“Who?”

“Nezumi? Or, ah, Eve?”

“Oh. Another Eve fanboy,” she scoffs. “No, Eve isn’t here. He left a while ago, secretly, like he always does to avoid hangers-on like you. Now get out!”

Shion pulls the door shut and twists his mouth to the side. He should have guessed Nezumi would have a back way out. If he hurries, maybe he can catch up to him on the path. Shion steps over the trampled corpse of his snowman and heads in the direction of the underground room.

Luck is on his side that night: Once Shion leaves the town behind and is on the lonely path winding its way home, he spots a familiar silhouette ahead.

“Nezumi!”

Nezumi frowns as Shion trots to his side. “What are you doing out here?”

“I’m heading back from dog washing.”

“At this hour?”

“Well… I made a detour to the playhouse.” Nezumi’s grey eyes flash as they narrow, but Shion pretends he doesn’t notice and continues, “I waited for you, but you had already left. I caught up, though. Obviously.”

“Obviously,” Nezumi echoes dryly and resumes walking. “Where’s your four-legged babysitter?”

“I sent her home. I couldn’t hear you well when you were performing; what songs did you sing?”

Nezumi clicks his tongue. “Some holiday garbage. That’s all the audience wants when it snows. Tis the season and all that.”

“That’s nice,” Shion says with a smile. “No. 6 doesn’t keep a good record of songs from before the Babylon Treaty, but I think there are still a few from Christmastime… The ones about snow, at least.”

No. 6 doesn’t have any holidays apart from Holy Day, and there is nothing cheery about it. No songs, no dancing, and the only decorations allowed are banners of No. 6’s emblem. All celebrations with religious significance, no matter how loosely associated, were done away with when the city-state was established. Still, Shion has a basic understanding of what the holidays had meant to the people who celebrated them more than a decade ago.

“But even though we don’t have the winter holidays anymore,” Shion muses aloud, “I think people still feel their pull… There’s something about the cold that brings people together.”

“Yeah, it’s called fear of freezing to death.”

Shion shoots Nezumi a wry look. “You know I meant in the metaphorical sense,” he sniffs. “Winter… equalizes people. Everyone is affected by the cold—no matter who you are or how you live—and it reminds us that life is precious. And that makes you remember what’s actually important.”

“And that is?” Nezumi prompts as he kicks a snow drift. Powder explodes into their path like fine fog.

“Well, like family,” Shion answers, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “And friends.”

“And food, and shelter.”

Shion presses his lips into a line. Nezumi isn’t looking at him—hasn’t been looking at him since they started walking—but the smug amusement in his tone is enough to make his skin itch.

“Oh, but let’s not forget peace on earth, and goodwill to men,” Nezumi chirps. Shion scowls at the sharp edge of his patronizing smile. “Those are very important metaphorical things to cherish this holiday season.”

“Right,” Shion huffs. “Those too.”

Nezumi finally turns to him. “What happened to your good cheer?” he says with mock surprise. “Don’t tell me you’re done waxing poetic. I was really starting to see the vision.”

Shion stops and exhales noisily through his nose. “Why do you always have to pick apart the things I say? It’s childish.”

“Because you always speak carelessly,” Nezumi snorts. “Ninety percent of what you say is fluff—there’s no meaning behind it, no depth. The world is a shitty place, but you always act like everything is just perfect. Talking to you is like staring at that wall:”—Nezumi flings his hand at the shadowed silhouette of No. 6—“Pleasant at face value, but dig a little deeper, and it’s just empty platitudes.”

Shion curls his hands at his sides. The comparison stings, as it always does. Nezumi despises No. 6, and no matter how much Shion tries to assimilate and adapt to his new life, Nezumi never misses an opportunity to remind him that he will always be tainted by his connection with the city. He holds it over Shion’s head like it’s a critical flaw in his personality, drives it like wedge through their relationship and blames Shion when it causes splinters.

Shion hates it. He hates when Nezumi lashes out and criticizes him for being the catalyst, and he hates that Nezumi makes him hate him.

Nezumi lifts his chin and meets his gaze with a knowingness that causes Shion’s skin to feel too tight. 

Nezumi’s mouth twitches up into a smug smile. “Say something worthwhile, and I’ll be glad to listen like an adult.”

Then Nezumi turns and walks away.

Shion leers at his back, blood boiling. He feels small and impotent, and although he knows the feeling will pass and reason will soon be within his grasp again, at present, he wants to harness his anger to lash back at Nezumi. He knows, though, that the West Block resident is impervious to verbal assault, and Shion is no match for him physically.

Shion’s gaze drops to the snow sucking at his ankles. He kneels and packs together two hard, fist-sized snowballs, and stands again. His body buzzes with the sweet anticipation of payback.

“Nezumi!” he shouts, then takes two skipping steps, and launches one of the snowballs.

He means to hit Nezumi square in the back—even with his judgement hazed in irritation, Shion can’t conceive of doing any real harm—but Nezumi twists around, and the snowball hits him perfectly where shoulder meets neck, the edge of it just grazing his chin.

Nezumi freezes as the snowball bursts, its shattered ice crystals clinging like gems to the coal black superfibre cloth around his neck. Shion revels at the shock on his face—only for the triumph blazing in his chest to sputter when Nezumi’s gaze meets his.

Nezumi is always beautiful, but outrage lends an otherworldly element to the sharp planes of his face. His eyes gleam like quicksilver: liquid, cold, and deadly. When Nezumi is like this, Shion can conceive of how people looked upon the mutable gods of old with a commingling of fear and reverence, why even when they knew the price of transgression, they raged and loved and sacrificed for a mere moment of their attention.

Nezumi brushes the snow from his person with fastidious fury, and Shion’s body tingles with an exquisite combination of wonder and dread.

“Shion,” Nezumi says, and takes a step toward him.

Shion chucks the second snowball. It’s a fear-propelled knee jerk reaction to the low warning in Nezumi’s voice, and it’s a mistake. Nezumi sidesteps the missile easily and it evanesces into a snowbank. 

Bereft of projectiles, and with no way to make more as Nezumi approaches, Shion decides to retreat. He flees off the well-trodden path and into the field alongside it. His boots punch through the hitherto undisturbed snow, but it takes an obscene amount of effort to run in the calf-deep drifts, and Shion’s legs burn after only a few strides. Fortunately, Nezumi does not follow him in—probably because he noted Shion’s trouble wading through and does not want to sacrifice his dignity by trudging after him in a slow motion chase.

The mental image brings a smile to Shion’s face. He stops and turns to Nezumi, and they assess each other across the snowy expanse.

“You’re being ridiculous,” Nezumi says. “I’m not going to chase you around. Get back here.”

“You still look mad. I’m not coming out until you’ve calmed down.”

“Now who’s acting childish? You started this.”

Shion cocks an eyebrow. “Debatable.”

Nezumi’s gaze sweeps over the field dividing them, trying to gauge if it might be surmountable after all. The intense aura about him has the same energy as that of a cat surveying a fishbowl. Shion laughs and Nezumi’s eyes flick back up. His mouth tilts mulishly and he takes a step into the snow.

Shion readies to turn and flee again, but the snow holds onto his foot when he tries to lift it and the boot gets caught on the side of his other leg. A squeak of surprise slips from Shion’s throat as he pitches backward and lands with a crunchy whump in the snow. His breath whooshes out and clouds above his head.

Nezumi appears above him a moment later. “Klutz,” he scoffs, but his brow is pinched in concern.

Shion stares up at the blue-black sky and pulls a slow, silent breath through his parted lips. The clouds have migrated somewhere else, and the stars shimmer in their place. Calm washes over him, muting the icy press of the snow against his skin and banishing every thought. There is only the epiphany of now, of this single moment, and the infinity of stars above him.

“Shion?”

Shion grabs Nezumi’s pant leg and tugs. “Lie down.” He doesn’t take his gaze from the sky.

“What? No.”

“You have to see this.” Shion gives Nezumi’s pant cuff another tug and drops his hand back to his side. “You won’t regret it.”

Shion’s eyes find the moon, and he stares until he can see the specter of the luminescent circle on the back of his eyelids every time he blinks.

Nezumi growls under his breath, and the snow shifts as he drops down beside Shion. He’s sitting, not lying down, but Shion takes it as a victory nonetheless. “I already regret this. It’s freaking cold.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“What?” Nezumi mutters, incredulous. “The stars?”

“Yes.” Shion swallows. “There are so many of them.”

“…You didn’t hit your head, did you?”

“No.”

“It does, however, occur to me,” Nezumi says slowly, “that even if you did hit your head, I might not be able to tell the difference. You speak nonsense either way.”

Shion sighs. “I’ve lived my whole life under this sky, and I’ve never once appreciated the stars.”

“Is that a poem of some sort? Shion, really, what are you talking about?”

“This!” Shion flings his hand skyward. “This is exactly what I was talking about. This is what’s important, appreciating the things around you. I never did that when I lived in No. 6.”

In No. 6, life is led with your shoulders hunched and your eyes no higher than government mandate. You take the job the city thinks you’re good for, go where you’re told to go, and you don’t dare run your mouth for fear of saying the wrong thing. Shion had lived sixteen years like a machine, and although he was never satisfied, he convinced himself he was at least content.

Then he was torn from that world of paranoia and monotony and thrown into West Block, the polar opposite of the Holy City. West Block is loud, dirty, lawless, unmonitored—freeing.

For the first time in his life, Shion doesn’t have to hold his feelings in; he can speak truthfully, and he might be disagreed with, but he can disagree right back and there is no penalty for doing so.

That’s why Shion talks so much. That’s why he tends toward happy and idealistic. Because he can finally speak his mind. He’s finally free to think and imagine and desire things for himself, and sometimes he can’t help but get carried away with the wonder of it.

Shion shakes his head. “I was so busy keeping my head down, I never noticed everything I was missing. I mean… Look at the world we live in.”

The wind whispers through the barren trees, trailing icy dust in its wake like gossamer threads. The stars wink in and out of focus in the silken blackness. Somewhere down the way, a wooden door creaks, followed by children’s laughter. Shion and Nezumi lie still in the midst of a vast snowscape, but life flows on around them, unconcerned with their participation.

“It’s beautiful. Not perfect,” Shion says softly, and turns to meet Nezumi’s gaze, “but still beautiful. Don’t you think?”

The expression Nezumi wears now is one that Shion has seen more and more as of late. Nezumi is not so much looking at him, as into him, as if he is desperately trying to reconcile what Shion’s saying with who Nezumi thinks Shion is. It’s a consternation reserved for magic tricks and puzzle boxes with no discernable seams.

Shion’s not sure why Nezumi has such a hard time figuring him out, but he enjoys when he makes Nezumi consider him more seriously.

“I guess,” Nezumi huffs at last.

“Thank you for acknowledging it,” Shion says with a smile.

“At this point, I’ll agree to any of your harebrained notions if it means we can get up and go home. My ass is freezing.”

“Alright,” Shion laughs. “Since you were good enough to humor me.”

Shion peels himself from the ground. His hair is cold and wet from lying so long and a shiver judders down his spine.

Nezumi brushes off the back of his pants with a sour look. When he’s done, he glances up and frowns. “Shion, you have something on your shoulder.”

“Hm?” Shion tilts his head to look.

A snowball smashes into the side of his face and Shion stumbles back a step. He turns, mouth agape.

“What, did you think I wouldn’t pay you back?” Nezumi says pleasantly. He tosses a snowball up and down in his left hand—the glove of his right is slick from the first he pegged Shion with.

Shion has no idea how Nezumi made two snowballs without him noticing, but he realizes he’s in danger.

Nezumi stops juggling the snowball and smirks. “You know how I am with debts.”

“Right.” Shion swallows. Icy droplets slip down the collar of his coat and melt into his sweater. “You got me. We’re even.”

Nezumi’s smirk morphs into a genuine smile. “Oh, but I don’t think you appreciated the snow nearly enough when you were in No. 6. Here, let me help you with that.”

“Hey—” The second of Nezumi’s throws hits Shion in the nose. He coughs and swats the snow out of his face. “Nezumi, no more. This is too much revenge—I only hit you once!”

“Not my fault you’re a lousy shot.” Nezumi walks backwards toward the path home. “By all means, hit me again. If you can manage it, that is.”

“Tempting,” Shion calls.

But as he joins Nezumi on the path, he decides it’s not worth retaliating. A hundred new tangents and observations are already queued on his tongue, and he wants to get Nezumi’s reluctant opinion on all of them.

[sserpente]

A/N: This is Part II. Part I can be found on my masterlist. I also put a request from @dreamwalker08 in there. It just worked together perfectly. Enjoy!

Words: 1958 Warnings: violence, smut (on the battlefield)

You had tried to keep quiet about it at first, attempted not to let the others know, for ever since you had learned that you were able to touch Loki, you practically couldn’t keep your hands off of him. At first, you had been a little unsure about yourself. Would he be annoyed by you constantly touching the God of Mischief? Would he dismiss you at some point? Thus far, however, he had done no such thing. Instead, he seemed to enjoy your company and be rather amused by your cute neediness.

Whether he was doing some reading, resting in his room or examining alien objects in Bruce’s labour, you always clung onto him like a little monkey. It made him chuckle, realising just how good it actually felt to have someone show their affection.

Loki never spoke of his childhood again. You knew he had suffered, knew that he didn’t feel like actually belonging somewhere but you did your best to cheer him up, thanking him for letting you stay with him. It didn’t take you long to fall for the God of Mischief. Whether he liked you back, you didn’t know, though occasionally he would glare at you with a certain… lust or desire in his eyes, let alone the very often naughty innuendos the two of you shared but no one else understood.

It was quite early in the morning when you decided to sneak into his room and see if he was awake already. Usually, Loki was one of the first to get up, relinquishing that “devilish black brew” he called coffee and instead read until Thor and the others were awake too. It wasn’t any different today.

Knocking cautiously on his door, you awaited his reply—a smooth, throaty and perhaps a little sleepy voice allowing you inside.

“Good morning, snowflake,” he mused when he saw you enter in your sleepwear, shyly inching further into the room. “What are you doing up already?”

You loved that nickname he had for you. Maybe it was his way of showing affection for you?

“I couldn’t sleep.” You replied groggily. Without even asking, you simply joined him on his bed and made yourself comfortable on his chest, one leg draped over his. If only you could fall asleep like that every night… you practically nestled up to him.

“Like a little kitten in heat.” He chuckled darkly, smirking as you snuggled up even closer to him and grinned into the black curtain of his hair. Putting the book he was reading aside, he shifted to wrap his arms around you. Oh, and this was exactly how you wanted to wake up every morning.

“What were you reading?”

“Just some old stories my mother used to read me as a child. I was searching for anything helpful in terms of getting rid of Hela.” He sighed, noticeably exhausted.

“Have you even slept last night?”

“I think I did. Or maybe I just imagined.” Shrugging, he moved until he almost buried your body beneath his. Though it was a little hard to breathe, you kind of came to enjoy this much body contact. Instantly, you hoped there would be even more happening, you just didn’t dare to take things to the next level… even if deep inside, all you wanted to do was pounce on him mercilessly.

You were literally thankful when Hela attacked. After two more weeks, you were absolutely drained and frustrated from trying to stay away from Loki in a sexual way. He had never shown any signs of affection other than stroking your hair while reading or holding you close whenever you tried to fall asleep. Maybe he thought of you as a little sister, a little pet he took care of. You could tell he needed that, needed someone to trust him with their life, someone that relied on him.

But you wanted more. You wanted him so much that you started masturbating at least twice a day, with Loki’s face on your mind and his name on your lips. The sudden distraction was only all too welcome even if you could… well, die in the process.

Most of the creatures you fought on Loki’s side where humanoids that you could bring down with a single touch. Others, however, were immune to your icy powers and had you create beautiful swords, daggers and even a bow and arrows made entirely of ice to get rid of them.

Maybe that way you could impress the God of Mischief. Maybe that way he would finally realise that you were more than a whiny, needy little girl and maybe… he would come to desire you.

“I am surprised they haven’t fallen to your feet already,” he suddenly called out, winking at you as he rammed one of his daggers into the chest of a blue-skinned alien. “Your battle outfit leaves nothing to the imagination, snowflake.”

So he had noticed? That you had modified one of Black Widow’s outfit to look not just intimidating but also sexy? Excitement rushed through you, the adrenaline making you fight even harder. And you decided to tease him, wake his hunting instinct. He might have been a God but he was also a man. A man you would conquer… hopefully tonight after the battle if both of you made it out alive.

“You should focus on your enemies, Loki!”

“Oh, I much rather enjoy what I’m seeing right now, snowflake.” Okay, fuck. Was it working? Or was he playing with you? Swallowing thickly, you drove your icy sword through another alien. This made fighting so much funnier.

Thinking of how you could touch this man after the battle, falling into his arms and hug him tightly and maybe do… more. Once again, you felt the urge to pounce on him, whether there were aliens to fight or not.

Pure power surged through your veins, encouraging your killing spree as you turned and jumped and swirled on the street until you bumped right into Loki. He smirked, his back against yours as he nodded. They had circled you, attempting to take out you both at once. Certainly not today, you thought.

Together, you were even stronger. Body parts and blood went flying through the cool New York air, staining the asphalt under your feet red. You had eliminated them all in no time, both breathing heavily to regain your composure.

Loki turned around, facing your eyes that had turned red in the heat of the moment and then, suddenly, his lips were on yours. He grabbed you so fiercely you gasped for air, closing your eyes with relish as his skin connected with yours and let him push you against a nearby wall around the corner, so you were shielded from unwanted eyes.

His tongue sneaked into your mouth, dominated yours like his life was at stake while simultaneously, he pushed his long and cool fingers right into your black hotpants. You shivered when your most intimate parts were exposed to the fresh air but bucked your hips nonetheless, wrapping your legs around his waist when he lifted you up, your back scratching against the rough wall behind you.

With a simple flick of his hands, his own pants vanished in a green shimmer, his fully erected member anticipating what was about to come. Body contact, touching, making love, fucking. The sensations were overwhelming as your eyes rolled to the back of your head, with Loki making use of your vulnerability and attacking your neck with hot and wet kisses before he pushed his hard length against your wet and slippery folds. You could feel a bit of precum leaking from his tip, sending another wave of stinging arousal through your whole body.

“Please… please… Loki… please…” you begged him, biting your lower lip to bite back a moan. The battle in the main street ceased to exist—or at least it did for the two of you. Nothing mattered but your sweaty bodies rubbing against each other.

“Do you feel this, snowflake? What you did to me right there on the battlefield? Tell me, were you provoking me like this on purpose? Was it this that you wanted to achieve?”

“Ahhh…. Y-yes… yes, it was… Loki… please…” He kept kissing your neck as he spoke, his voice hoarse and dark and sending ice cold shivers down your spine. You didn’t know it was possible for a Frost Giant to freeze anyway but right now, you did.

“I need this… need you… so much,” you continued, fighting for your sanity. Loki was driving you crazy and you were sure he was very well aware of that. Maybe he had known you were into him all along, waiting for the right moment only. Was that it? The right moment? Having sex when you could both be killed at any time? It doesn’t matter, you thought. It doesn’t matter as long as he finally takes me and claims me!

And this time he obliged. He pushed into you in one swift motion. You moaned at the intruder, your walls clenching around his cock as he hissed and started moving inside you furiously, enjoying how tight and wet you were, just for him.

This… felt incredible. Like nothing you had ever experienced. Loki was filling you, he was everything that existed in this very moment, making sure to hit that special spot that had you squirm between his muscly body and the wall and dig your nails into the armour on his back.

“Norns, (Y/N)…” he whispered, barely able to speak as he kept rocking into you, fucking you so relentlessly moan after moan escaped your lips, making you forget your own name. “Have you… are you… ahhh…”

You understood what he meant nonetheless. You were way too tight for him, too tight to have had any previous experience.

“No… you’re… you’re the first…” You murmured out of breath, moaning once more as he captured your lips in another heated kiss. He was pressing you so hard against the wall that it started to hurt but you couldn’t care less.

“You… Norns…”

Soon, you couldn’t distinguish between pain and pleasure anymore. You were surprised you didn’t faint when you spasmed around his twitching length, cumming hard as he spilled himself inside you, growling like an animal as he kissed you hard.

He rested his forehead against yours after he’d let you down again, slipping out of you as he did. You could feel his warm and sticky seed leaking out of you and running down your thighs, could sense the aftershocks of your climax still streaking through you like thousands of lightnings.

“Let’s get out of here,” Loki suggested, his tone allowing no contradiction.

“But… the others, we can’t just leave them…”

“They will be fine. I want to make love to you.” He whispered seductively into your ear, sending yet another shiver down your spine. Giggling, you wrapped your arms around his neck.

“I thought you just did.” You replied, biting your lower lip.

“Oh, I did not. This, right now, was fucking. Animalistic, rough and hard fucking because you had provoked it. Because you were driving me insane. Now let’s get out of here, snowflake. I am still aching for you and I do not want to risk getting killed with a bulge in my pants. That would be pretty tragic.”

Sneaking his arms around your waist, he pulled you close to teleport you both back to his room on Stark Tower, his lips never leaving yours.

Hela could wait. This was way more important. More enjoyable.

“God, I love you…” You mumbled against his mouth, having him smirk in reply as he pinned you down on the soft mattress of his bed.

[high5nerd]

Alone Together---Chap. Fifteen

I was awake before the sun rose over the horizon. Sadie and Alice still were fast asleep in their colored sleeping bags, cradled close to each other like puppies. I couldn't just lay there and not celebrate Misery's riddance…

Besides, I wouldn't pass up a beautiful sunrise, either.

The sun crept over the valleys in the distance, and the faraway lakes and ponds glimmered gold and aqua. The sky burned like fire, flaming reds, yellows and shades of pinks that crawled across the dome of Earth. One by one, stars faded out at the approach of the sun's rays, and the moon soon disappeared behind me. This was the one time I could look at the sun and admire it's God-given beauty without cringing at the brightness, that would occasionally burn my retinas.

I heard the swishing of grass behind me and stop next to me, so close I could feel their covered shoulder brush my arm. I felt my smile grow a tiny bit wider, glad to have Alice's presence by my side.

"You know," I sighed, "If I still had that mindset of controlling the world, and destroying the Guardians...I'd probably make you my queen of darkness."

"Thank goodness for a different mindset, because that sounds so overly cliché." Alice giggled lightly, still waking up at such an early time.

I chuckled as I wrapped an arm around her, pulling her close. Her sleeping bag was still wrapped around her shoulders for warmth from the chilly winds of the morn.

That got me thinking. We both admitted to wanting each other in our lives...but our love was forbidden from the spirit world. I didn't know what they'd do to me. Lock me up? Prevent me from seeing her again? Or worse ones that I couldn't even think up. Sooner or later I'd have to find a way...and right now I had no clue.

"You've got your thinking face on, honey." Alice said.

I smirked at her for her chosen pet name, and she immediately blushed and looked down, biting back a grin.

"What? It's only fair because you call me princess."

"Because you are," I kissed her forehead and took her into my arms, "I'm a king, and that makes you my princess. You are my shining star, my one and only."

Alice smiled against my chest, bunching her hands up closed at my words. I would always tell her that.

As long as Sadie doesn't hear, because I know that little girl would tease me for days about it.

"Love you, Pitch." Alice mumbled, and I could feel the heat of her cheeks against my chest.

"I love you, too." I murmured while kissing the top of her head, gently rubbing her shoulders.

By the time the sun was up higher in the sky, Sadie woke up. Alice prepared a delicious breakfast called Eggs in Jail, which are french toast slices with round holes in them, that are filled up with a fried egg with a hint of pepper. I only eat food in a celebratory manner or when something special is going on, preferrably something like wine and a fancy appetizer, but this beats tomato basil crostinis any day.

...What? A guy like me cannot enjoy a few delicacies in life? I fully deserved that right. You haven't tried good hors d'oeuvres until you eat the real ones from France.

Sadie wasn't too happy about going back, and was in a particular cranky mood once she and Alice got into a little bicker over her not being responsible with her sleeping bag. This event led to a moment I realized with more in depth attention that Sadie can be a little trickster, and quite impishly at that.

She threw the snow globe to the ground after muttering their home address, and the intended location was the living room of their quaint little home. But...Sadie was still slightly cranky at Alice, so she gave her a little treat.

Alice wasn't dressed properly for the winter on our way back. I warned her to at least put on the jacket, but she just wrapped it around her hips and said all will be well.

Well...not really.

We landed right in the backyard, and it was absolutely freezing. Not to me since temperatures don't bother me, but I could tell it was absolutely frigid because Alice screamed bloody murder and Sadie laughed maniacally before running inside.

"That's for making me fold your own sleeping bag!" Sadie shouted over her shoulder as she whipped open the back door.

Alice's body was shivering, and her nose and fingers were already cold. I was worried for a second. If it was that cold she should immediately get inside, but nonetheless she sprinted after her.

"Sadie you little spoiled-!" Alice scolded so loudly, I was sure the neighbors would hear.

But Sadie, being that immature and childish ten year old, slammed the door shut. I could hear her running down the hallway and saw her through the window head towards the bathroom to run a hot shower, and that made me feel bad for Alice.

Her jacket fell off into the snow while she was running, which now was wet and solid frozen. There was no point in wearing it, and all she had on was a t-shirt to cover her upper body. Alice tried opening the door, but it stuck in its place, as if Sadie locked it.

"Ugh! Sometimes I hate this house." Alice snapped, kicking the door.

"Just pull it open." I pointed to the door, but Alice sighed at that.

"The door gets f-frozen to the lock when it's b-below fifteen degrees outside. This house is so damn old...o-or at least this door and porch is. F-fucking…" Alice muttered, her words becoming shaky with her violent shivering.

"C-Can't you f-f-find a way i-into the house u-using shadows?" Alice stuttered with begging eyes, rubbing her arms frantically.

I winced at that. "I can't. There aren't any shadows around here for me to use...it's pure daylight."

"Oh, f-fuck." Alice cursed, her breath puffing into the air.

"Stop swearing," I said, pulling my arms out of my robe sleeves, "I'll try the door."

Alice's eyes widened when I took off my robe and wrapped it around her. She looked quite honestly shocked into absolute silence. She wouldn't look directly at my face either, just my collarbone.

"Aren't you freezing? You're n-not wearing anything but your pants under t-this!" I could tell she was warmer a bit because her shivering and stuttering decreased slightly.

I shrugged, wrapping both hands around the doorknob, "No, not really. Spirit, remember?"

"Oh...right…" Alice trailed off, lost in her thoughts.

Her silence was welcomed as I concentrated my strength onto the door, of course, without breaking it in any way. The positive to this predicament was that the doorknob was still easy to use, but the opening of the door was solid shut from snow and ice. I tried jiggling the handle a bit but that soon failed. Certain attempts led me to put my foot on the side of the house and pull as hard as I could. I felt my muscles in my arms flex at the resistance the door was giving me.

"This is one crap door!" I grunted, and finally, the door flew open, almost knocking me over completely.

"Ah, there we go!" I smiled, putting my hands on my hips in proud victory. Hey, it's not every day you get to assist a lady and finally have something work thanks to you, "All you have to do is just insult it and it'll open."

I looked back to Alice, who stared at my torso. I looked down, thinking something might be there. What was so fascinating? I looked back up at her, and she immediately glanced away, biting back a smile.

"What?" I asked.

"I...nothing...I just," she smiled sheepishly, "I wasn't expecting abdominals like those under your robe."

I raised a brow and smirked at her, "You've fantasized what's under my robe?"

Alice blushed at that, including the fact her cheeks were bitten from the frigid cold. I shut the door behind us and glanced at her as she struggled for an answer.

"Not all the time...just, sometimes." Alice said quietly, hiding her smile behind my robe I gave her.

I grinned, "You thought that I was a skinny, lanky person, huh? No muscle? Please, I'm a warrior. Even if I'm locked away in the Earth's core I'd still retain some physical strength."

I stalked behind her before grabbing her hips and brushing my lips against her neck, making her shiver and freeze up in shock. "And if you're that curious as to see what's under my clothes, you're allowed to look and touch it all...it's all yours. Because what lies underneath is nothing but pure, animalistic, tantalizing sex-"

"Oh God." Alice blushed as her neck relaxed at my voice.

I would have taken it further, trust me. But as soon as that bathroom door opened and a little ten year old came out in her flannel pajamas, we both turned to her in sync, not a trace of teasing flicking from our eyes. Instantly we remembered that Sadie was in some hot water.

Sadie looked guilty enough, but that wasn't going to change her punishment. She winced, nervously working with her fingers until they turned white at the knuckles. "Um...Sorry. I really am. I forgot that the door-"

"Go to your room." I said as I pointed in her direction.

"Twenty minutes. Think about what you did." Alice added.

Sadie nodded, her head limp like a rag doll's. She muttered an "okay" before sulking over to her door and closing it shut, making sure it didn't slam. Alice sighed, taking off my robe and giving it back to me.

As I put it on and Alice went to take her turn to use the shower, I heard Sadie's door open.

I looked over, thinking she was trying to sneak out now that her sister had the water running in the closed bathroom, but I only saw a little arm come out from the crack of the door, pin a large, square piece of light green paper on her door before closing it again.

That made me want to see what she put up. I've never seen this trick in the book with kids before. What'd she do?

The sign she put up said, I stink. I'm really sorry. I mean it. I'm a poophead stinker.

I accidentally snorted at that when I tried resisting a bark of laughter, and I smothered it into my hand, trying to make the sound less loud. Never, ever, have I heard the words 'poophead stinker' in a sentence. Oh my God, and that it came from a ten year old that didn't know one single swear in the world made it funnier than hell.

But I knew I shouldn't laugh. She was in trouble, even if she was sorry. Granted, I felt bad.

For like a second. Ha ha!

Soon, Alice came out of the shower wearing sweatpants and a long shirt with her hair in a towel, and her eyes caught me laughing into a pillow to muffle the noise so Sadie wouldn't hear.

"You okay, Pitch?" She asked, walking over slowly.

I leaned up, gasping for air. She saw I was laughing at something, and she started chuckling. "What? What happened?" she pressed.

"Sadie's note. On her door. Word choice is exceptional." I could only use fragments than sentences since my sides were splitting.

It took Alice a second before she zoomed back over and whacked the back of my head gently with her towel, making me stop. "What? It's funny!"

"It is not!" Alice scolded quietly, "She's feeling bad. Go talk with her."

"You do know I'm not her father, right? What in God's name do I say?" I asked, standing up abruptly.

Alice shrugged, "I don't know. You figure it out."

"What about that twenty minutes you punished her with?" I folded my arms.

Alice raised a Don't-Argue-With-Me brow. I sighed, my head leaning back in a mini-tantrum before briskly walking over to Sadie's room.

Sadie was on her stomach across her neatly made bed, her feet swinging in boredom in the air. She looked up at the sound of her bedroom door dragging across the carpet, her small mouth still in a disappointed frown.

"I swear I didn't mean to lock her outside." Sadie blurted, sitting up as I closed the door behind me.

"I know. She knows that. But do you know why you're in here?" I asked, folding my hands behind my back.

Sadie watched her feet dig into the carpet, nodding slowly. I sat down next to her, my hands folded neatly on my lap to show I meant business and was completely serious, despite laughing my ass off at the note she left on her door.

"It was dangerous leaving you guys out in the cold." Sadie muttered, looking up at me under her light brown bangs.

I nodded, "It's almost negative three degrees Fahrenheit out there. She could have caught frostbite, and you sent us outside in the means of revenge for something you didn't agree with her on."

"Alright, I get it." Sadie huffed as she looked away. I could tell by her voice she's heard it all enough.

"Do you?" I raised a challenging brow.

"Yes!" Sadie said, honestly looking at me. Her lower lip was out for an extra dramatic effect.

"Good," I stood up and headed towards her sticker decorated door, "You've got fifteen more minutes to think."

Just as I opened the door and stepped through the threshold into the hallway, I turned to look at her. She stared at her feet again, watching them sway back and forth and hit each other. I cleared my throat, making her look up at me.

"Not that I'm supporting you with the intention of revengeful acts, but if you do feel the sudden urge to do something like that...it has to be subtle," I raised a finger to my lips and winked, "Trust me, I would know. Don't tell your sister."

Sadie beamed at that, and as I closed the door, I felt successful that she both learned her lesson and was in a better mood. I felt no guilt for telling her that. Besides, Sadie isn't one to go out and seek revenge on people. She's too soft and kind, much like her sister.

Alice stood in the living room, staring out the window at the glittering snow on the ground and trees that stood out against the bright blue sky. She glanced at my entrance and smiled, but then raised a curious brow when I came over to her and picked her up bridal style.

"What are you doing?" she asked, her hands holding my shoulders to stay upright.

"You're cold still, I'm going to warm you up." I grinned, heading towards her room.

Alice laughed, playfully hitting my chest, "Pitch, I took a hot shower! I'm not freezing anymore. No hanky panky!"

"I wasn't thinking of that, but if you're insisting-" I smirked at her as I kicked open her door and gently placed her on her feet.

"Not yet. What are you planning?" she giggled as I rolled back the sheets and jumped in.

"You humans call it cuddling. For many years I thought it was strange and honestly inferior, but now I want to try it, because I finally have someone worth...cuddling." I awkwardly said, gently taking her hand in mine and coaxing her into joining me.

She immediately flashed a happy smile and nearly leaped into the bed. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and her legs around my waist, her head nestled in the crook of my neck. I laughed and pulled up the covers to our chins, gently kissing the top of her head.

"I think I may grow used to this form of affection." I honestly said, watching her weave her fingers with mine.

"Me, too." Alice smiled, and kissed me, a kiss full of tender and honest love.

[solivar]

WIP: Ghost Stories On Route 66

aka the one time I tried writing get-Hipsto-a-leather-clad-boyfriend PWP fic and it starts growing a plot and before I can restrain it it’s a full blown art-student-meets-charming-leather-clad-NPS-ranger AU and, yes, this is all the fault of @gunnslaughter 

The cheapass rental car’s motivator sputtered and died for the last time on some officially unnamed, only dubiously mapped road in the hills southwest of Santa Fe. Fortunately, the antigrav batteries had just enough charge left in them that the whole thing didn’t just drop onto the cracked and weathered remains of the pavement, which probably would have done enough damage to render his life a miserable morass of insurance forms and impecunious college student special pleading for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, when it did drop, once he got out and half-pushed, half-steered it to the side of the road, it promptly buried itself up to the axles in the drifted sand making up most of the verge, listing rather definitely to one side.

“Fuck,” Hanzo Shimada informed the universe at large and went to pop open the hood.

He was greeted by a malodorous cloud of steam that stank rather noticeably of vaporized coolants, accompanied by a deep and rather alarming bubblebubbleticktickpTANG from deep inside the motivator’s mechanical workings. To his admittedly untrained ear, it sounded like the thing was about to a) explode, b) rupture all its previously air/liquid-tight fittings, c) fall completely out of the compartment, or d) all of the above. He let the hood fall shut, gently, because he emphatically did not want to do anything to encourage any of those outcomes and got out his phone to call for help.

He had no bars of connection. In the distance, he heard the universe laughing in a rather distinctly malicious, mocking fashion.

“It’s all right,” Hanzo told himself, out loud, because the sound of his own voice on this dusty, not-particularly-traveled-at-all stretch of almost-road gave him an inordinate degree of comfort as the shadow of a circling vulture fell across him. “It is all right. It’s 3:42. If I’m not home by six, six-thirty at the absolute latest, Genji will call the state highway patrol and tell them that his idiot brother drove off into the desert that morning to draw pictures of the death of human civilization and it’s Friday and and and Genji is going to spend the next seventy-two hours deeply chemically altered, slathered in psychotropic massage oil, and twisted into some kind of semi-Tantric love pretzel in his Yoga instructor’s lap and you are going to die of exposure and dehydration if you don’t start walking right now. I am such an idiot.”

The trunk contained his jacket, his backpack, a first aid kit, an emergency crank flashlight, a spare antigrav pod, a set of jumper cables, and four triangular road reflectors with onboard distress transponders that, when he tested them for charge, turned out to be as dead as the engine. He set them up, nonetheless, on the off chance that something might come along the road that would need to see his disabled vehicle well enough to avoid hitting it. The first aid kit contained a handful of loose biotic-impregnated bandages of various sizes, some sterile saline wound wipes, a pair of nitrile gloves, and, thankfully, an emergency shock blanket. That and the flashlight went into the backpack along with the remainder of his own supplies: three sketchbooks, a set of watercolor pencils, the highish quality camera he always carried to help with shot composition references back in the studio, a spare flannel shirt, one and a half bottles of water from the eight pack he’d carried into the desert that morning, and the apple and protein bar that he’d decided to save for later when he sat down to eat lunch in the shadow of a rusted out hulk of formerly intelligent and self-directed machinery. He put the flannel on over his tee-shirt and the jacket on over both, because the sun would be down in forty-five minutes, an hour at most, and once that happened it was going to be cold. And he, of course, did not have a single pair of gloves stashed in any of his pockets.

Still. Before the GPS had punked out, along with the engine, it had indicated following this road north would, eventually, lead back to the non-dead sort of civilization. The sort that contained reasonably accessible hot showers with which to wash away sandy grit still stained ashen and venti nonfat chai lattes with which to chase away various sorts of cold and also, in theory, people way, way more responsible than his brother, whom he passive-aggressively hoped was enjoying his tetrahydrocannabinol enhanced love-nest, the rotten little bastard.

After the first hour of walking, he stopped checking his phone every ten minutes to see if he had connection. Not only did he not have connection, glancing down at his screen killed his night vision, which made walking down even the middle of an untravelled stretch of highway an exercise in trying not to trip, break an ankle, or otherwise render himself incapable of moving effectively in the direction of his own rescue. The road surface hadn’t been maintained in years, possibly decades, maybe even before the Crisis, and it was zig-zagged with inches-deep cracks driven even deeper and further apart by endless cycles of freeze and thaw, parts of the roadbed lifted high enough to be a transit hazard for antigrav vehicles much less pedestrians walking in the near-total dark, others depressed in a way that suggested impact craters more than the natural erosion of time and indifference. As the last of the color bled off the western horizon, he paused long enough to give the emergency flashlight a good long cranking and found, even so, that its light was wan and dim, at best, but infinitely better than nothing, waiting for moonrise, or running his phone battery to death. After the second hour of walking, the darkness was no longer near-total, it was absolute in the way it could only be in the complete absence of all but the smallest traces of man-made light. On the one hand, it was stunning: the sky overhead was clear and cloudless, unmarred by light pollution, and the stars shone brilliantly in that velvety arch, a hundred million silvery eyes gazing benevolently down in their serene and distant celestial majesty. On the other hand, being the sole source of man-made light in the middle of the otherwise unrelieved blackness made him rather feel like he was being observed by things far less celestial and benevolent, considerably closer to the ground, and far more intent on running him to ground and gnawing the flesh off his bones. Occasionally, the flashlight imparted to him glimpses of sulfurous yellow-green eyes glittering just out of easy visibility, alarming enough in their predatory silence that only the chancy footing kept him from speeding up his stride. Not running. That would be bad. But walking with a bit more enthusiasm.

Sometime during the third hour, the wind picked up, scouring across the high desert floor and carrying with it hissing currents of sand and icy pellets that were neither snow nor sleet but a little bit of both. The sky clouded over, taking even the distant comfort of starlight, and he pulled out the emergency blanket and wrapped it around him to help retain some body heat. Somewhere in the middle of hour four, he pulled out his phone and, discovering himself still without connection, opened up his recording app and began dictating the please-don’t-blame-yourself message he’d been writing in his head for at least the last forty minutes so that, when his coyote-gnawed carcass was eventually found by the authorities, the hormones-and-namaste addled little dumbass he called his only family worth having would at least not feel bad about it.

By the time the lights wavered into view in the distance, he had officially stopped counting the hours. He had also officially stopped having any appreciable sensation in his hands, and his feet, and his legs were only making themselves known because his thighs hated him and wanted him to fall over and be eaten by coyotes so they could at least peacefully rest in the process of digestion. In fact, it took him quite some time to realize that he wasn’t hallucinating the vista before him which was, in fact, two strings of full-sized light bulbs strung between the side of the road, where they were attached to a pair of old fashioned utility poles, and from there to each side of an overhanging porch roof.

A house, Hanzo’s almost inexpressibly cold and weary brain realized after a long moment of staring dully, trying to make sense of what it was seeing. A house with lights. Actual working lights. There are lights on both inside and outside that house. It is a house. Lights. People. A PHONE.

He trudged slowly off the road and up the path -- the path which was lined in white-washed rocks and little beds of succulents which may or may not have been cared for, he couldn’t quite tell -- and from the path up the porch stairs, which extracted a price from his knees that he was sure he’d be hearing about for days, at least. Tucking the blanket under his arm in an effort to look slightly less pathetic, he raised a hand and knocked in what he hoped was a firm but non threatening manner on the heavy old unwindowed door.

In his mind, the response seemed to take forever: movement, footsteps, the curtains in the window next to the door moving slightly while he locked his knees and wavered slightly on his feet, tired and cold and trying not to shiver too visibly. Then: the door creaked, the light next to it came on, and he found himself gazing directly at someone’s collarbones, around the crack of a barely opened door. “Can I help you?”

Someone was tall -- taller than himself by a good head, eyes dark and narrowed slightly, expression not particularly welcoming. Well, he supposed he could hardly blame someone living in the middle of the desert miles from any other humans for not being particularly happy to have one turn up uninvited on his doorstep in the middle of the night. “Hello -- my apologies, I saw your lights and -- “ The ability to think in coherent sentences momentarily skittered away, laughing mockingly. “Listen, my car broke down back that way and -- “ He gestured vaguely over his shoulder in the direction he had just come, “I’ve got no connection on my cell and I was really just wondering if you could just...borrow your phone for a minute to call a tow? I’ll just be on my way then and -- “

“That way.” The door opened more fully with a labored creak and Someone stepped out, glanced both ways, and then looked at him, expression going from moderately suspicious to moderately appalled between one breath in the next. “You’re from the city. Holy Hell.”

“How can you tell?” Hanzo asked, genuinely curious and borderline hypothermic all at once.

“Your student ID’s hanging out of your jacket pocket,” Someone observed perspicaciously and threw open the door. “Get in here before you freeze to death. How long have you been walking?”

“I...don’t know? A while.” The warmth inside enfolded him like an embrace and it was all he could do to control the urge to moan. A fire burned in an actual honest-to-gods fieldstone fireplace in one corner of the trim little sitting room and a gentle hand in the small of his back steered him toward it, and the couch sitting a safe distance back from the spark guard.

Those same hands divested him of his backpack and the emergency blanket, both of which went on a chair nearby, pushed him down into the couch’s soft cushions and spread a far thicker and warmer blanket over him. “You’re almost blue. Stay under the blanket and warm up while I get you something to drink. And don’t close your eyes, okay? Just until I’m sure you’re -- “

And that was, in fact, the last thing Hanzo heard before he totally closed his eyes and drifted off into a pleasingly warm darkness.

*

Hanzo woke up suddenly and all at once. His mouth tasted like something small and innocent had crawled inside it in the night, died a slow and terrible death, and then rotted into putrescence, the results of which were coating his tongue, his cheeks, and every single one of his teeth. His head was throbbing with the sort of headache that could only be described as skullfucking, centered as it was directly behind his left eye. These things were, however, not what jarred him from an otherwise satisfyingly deep and mostly painless slumber. Rather it was the smell, coming from somewhere quite nearby, cooking smells, outrageously wonderful cooking smells, smells that caused his stomach to roll over, remind the rest of him that the apple and protein bar had been a long time ago, and it was time to get in gear and remedy that fact more or less immediately.

He cautiously opened the eye that didn’t feel like it was being stabbed by a red-hot spiked dildo of agony and found himself looking up at a gently arched ceiling, dark open wood ribs and whitewashed plaster, a darkened chandelier light fixture hanging almost directly overhead. The light leaking in through the still mostly-drawn curtains didn’t punish his head more than it had to, and so he opened the other eye, as well, rubbing the involuntary tearing away with the back of his hand. A fire still burned low in the fieldstone fireplace -- a kiva, his brain supplied the information, organically rounded all the way up the wall and through, sculpted with a pair of little niches higher on the flue, a mantle over top and a spark guard high enough off the floor to function as a seat on its own, covered in a gorgeously colorful geometric mosaic. One niche had a tiny pot in it containing an equally tiny flowering cactus; the other a polished wooden sculpture of a horse rearing on its hind legs. Most of the furniture was honest-to-gods old, dark wood not the new-synthetic-realistically-aged stuff, he could smell it, spicy and rich as the lingering tang of the woodsmoke, covered in cushions upholstered in the sort of patterns he’d become intimately familiar with during his Native Textile Arts of the Desert Southwest elective two semesters ago. The area rug right under the little coffee table, too, upon which sat a clear glass pitcher containing a substance too vividly red-orange to be natural, an empty glass, two small white tablets and three large tan ones, and a note that read drink two glasses when you wake up and take the meds, you’re going to need them.

Moving slowly, oh so slowly, slow as a slow-ass thing to avoid aggravating his body more than he had to, Hanzo sat up and slid his legs over the side of the couch. His legs, which were no longer clad in his own jeans but rather a pair of dark olive greenish sweatpants. A small part of his brain thought he should be loudly and extravagantly upset by this development; a substantially larger part was loudly and extravagantly grateful that he hadn’t slept in a pair of pants that he’d spent all day hiking across the desert, and then walking for an unknown length of time up a deserted road, in. The socks also felt comfortably soft and clean and new rather than caked in sweat and sand. So did the tee-shirt, which he noted was a pale tan with a somewhat darker patch in the shape of a roughly shaped arrowhead, point down, washed almost completely away on the left. Hanzo decided that he owed his rescuer something loud and extravagant, though he wasn’t quite sure what just yet.

The unnaturally vivid beverage tasted like what would happen if a citrus fruit fucked a salt lick and the resulting offspring were subsequently captured and juiced for their vital fluids. It was simultaneously repellent and delicious and he gulped down three glasses of it before he remembered he had medicine yet to take. The pills turned out to be a pair of regular aspirin and probably some kind of vitamins and by the time he got them all down someone somewhere quite close by had begun whistling and the delicious-food-cooking smells had reached the scent equivalent of a crescendo and Hanzo’s stomach made a long, embarrassingly loud noise of dismay over the fact that he wasn’t yet eating. One that apparently carried because the whistling suddenly stopped and an unseen voice, vaguely familiar, asked, “Mr. Shimada? Are you awake?”

Firmly throttling his shame, Hanzo cleared his throat. “Yes -- I just woke up a few minutes ago.” It was on the tip of his tongue to ask how his rescuer new his name but then he saw his wallet, his Santa Fe University of Art and Design student ID on its brick red lanyard, and the keys to the goddamned POS rental car that was the author of all his most recent woes sitting on the coffee table and solved the mystery for himself. “Give me a second and I’ll -- “

He heaved himself to his feet -- or, rather, he attempted to heave himself to his feet and, in that instant, every muscle in his legs and lower back registered their displeasure with his continued existence immediately and simultaneously and it was all he could do not to crash directly into the table as he fell. “....ow.”

“Oh no.” Footsteps rapidly approached from somewhere beyond the back of the couch. “Easy there, sugar. Let me help you up.”

A pair of warm, strong hands came to rest on him and, in relatively short order, they got him warmly and strongly relocated back off the floor and into a reasonably comfortable sitting position on the couch in a nest of colorfully patterned wool blankets. Hanzo found himself looking upon his rescuer for the first time in decent lighting and for a moment any and all coherent thoughts fled his head because he looked like what would happen if the Marlboro Man had sex with a male romance novel cover model who subsequently gave birth to the Platonic ideal of ruggedly handsome, all shaggy brown hair and sunkissed dark skin and eyes only a shade or two off true black and a slow spreading smile surrounded by a beard that clearly had some attention paid to it in the name of manscaping because otherwise Romance Novel Cover Dad would have disowned him. Hanzo knew people who’d commit a number of serious criminal acts just to look at those cheekbones and that jawline, much less possess them so effortlessly and he was staring. He was completely staring. Hopefully he wasn’t drooling and staring, because that would be the actual and entire end of his existence, and all of his rescuer’s efforts would be for naught as he ran off into the desert to bury his shame. A voice that sounded suspiciously like his mother’s was screaming in the back of his mind about manners, manners, what was wrong with him and another, that sounded even more suspiciously like Genji, was offering tips and tricks on how to recover this situation and turn it into the world’s smoothest not-damsel-in-only-mild-to-moderate-distress pass but he’d have to open his mouth right now.

“Hello,” Hanzo croaked. “Er. I’m sorry. Thank you?”

“No apologies necessary,” The offspring of gorgeous manly perfection replied, flashing an easy, and apparently quite sincere, smile. “And it’s no trouble at all. How’re you feeling?” He flicked a glance at the mostly-empty pitcher. “I’ll get you more to drink, and somethin’ to eat, in just a second. But first I need to ask you a few questions, all right?”

Hanzo nodded wordlessly.

“What’s your name, darlin’?” Warm and gentle and kind, with the sort of charmingly encouraging smile that got people suffering from shock to come around much more slowly just so he’d keep providing it.

For an instant, Hanzo could not actually remember his own name. “Ah -- Hanzo. Hanzo Shimada.”

“Hanzo. That’s a pretty name. Unusual.” More of that gentle, encouraging smile. “Where do you come from, Hanzo?”

“Hanamura. Japan.” It took him far, far longer than it should have to remember that and he chose to blame some combination of lingering fatigue and skullcracking headache pain for that. “I’m attending college in Santa Fe right now and I’m planning to permanently immigrate at some point in the future.”

“Why Santa Fe?” He sounded genuinely curious.

“Because it’s as far as I could get from Hanamura while still residing on the same planet.” Hanzo replied, honestly. “And my school also gave me a pretty sweet scholarship.”

“Understandable.” The gently encouraging smile slid into a more sternly serious expression and Hanzo’s heart began fluttering around inside his chest in a way that suggested some sort of tragic cardiac event was about to unfold. “So am I safe in assuming that pretty tattoo of yours is not actually an indicator of the sort of gang involvement that’d require me to call the Santa Fe police and the Department of Homeland Security border enforcement office?”

Hanzo’s heart stopped fluttering around. In fact, his heart pretty much stopped, and it was all he could do to open and close his mouth wordlessly for what felt like forever but was probably only a small slice of forever. “No,” he finally managed to get out, as his rescuer’s eyebrows began inclining slightly. “It’s not.”

His rescuer regarded him steadily for a moment, as he fought with the urge to try and sink through the cushions of the couch and possibly through the floor and hopefully to the center of the Earth, where his lack of long sleeved concealment options would be hidden forever. Then he smiled again, quick and bright, and stood up, and for the first time Hanzo noticed he was also wearing a tannish tee-shirt with an arrow over his heart, only his wasn’t washed mostly away and contained a pine tree, a snow-covered mountain, a white buffalo, and the words National Park Service, also in white.

“You’re a ranger?” Hanzo asked -- which, of course, explained a lot, explained pretty much everything, up to and including living in the middle of nowhere and looking like the anthropomorphic personification of rugged masculinity and being willing to rescue randomly occurring strangers in the night. It was his job.

“Jesse McCree, ranger-in-residence of Cerrillos National Monument, technically legal population one, three if you count the old hippie couple that lives on the other side of town, seven if you count their dogs.” He offered his hand and his grip was as impossibly strong and perfect as the rest of him. “Let me get you a plate and then we can talk about how you came to be here and see what we can do about it.”

*

[clubwholesaleweb]

Spring on the Mississippi

SPRING ON THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER

My buddy, Paul Valle of Oakdale, Minnesota, had called me a couple of days earlier to see if I wanted to go fishing. “We’ll take my boat,” he tells me. It is mid-March and we will fish just below the dam on the Mississippi River, north of Red Wing, Minnesota. As far as I am concerned, the first time I am in a boat on open water is the beginning of spring. Although we both are old enough that we are drawing Social Security, we are as excited as boys as we motor to the dam. Paul confesses it has been a couple of years since he last had his boat out.

We have great enthusiasm for the day, but after several hours we have only one fish, a 19-inch walleye Paul caught. I don’t think I had had a strike. This could be discouraging, but it is spring now and we are fishing for the first time this year in a boat, so neither of us finds it even the least bit depressing. The opposite is true. It is good to be back on open water again and the weather is fairly tolerable. Paul and I have fished through some miserable weather, including an ice storm in the early days of the season. So, we are just enjoying the day and the weather, regardless if the fish are biting or not.

Suddenly, Paul pulls up on his spinning rod to set the hook. It is doubled over and line is coming off his reel. I bring in my line, dropping the rod to pick up the net. I wait as Paul fights the fish and then we finally see it in the murky water. It is a long shadow. I extend the net out as Paul leads the fish into it and I pull up on the net. A huge walleye sags into the mesh. It is 29 inches long and full of spawn. We guess the fish has to be ten pounds. Paul says it is the biggest walleye he has ever caught. I take a quick photo of it before Paul slides it back in the water. It is a heck of way to start the season.

In the middle of March, there are fishermen still fishing through the ice in northern Wisconsin. But not me. I am on the Mississippi River and it is the beginning of the first fishing season for me, lasting until the beginning of the bass and walleye season on the first Saturday in May.

I know many people are asking, “What about ice fishing?” I look at ice fishing as something to do between the end of the open water fishing on the Mississippi River in the fall until I can get back on open water in March. I used to be a big ice fisherman when I was younger, but now I only do two ice fishing trips each winter; one to Red Lake in northern Minnesota in the middle of January and the other to Lake of the Woods on the Minnesota Canadian border at the end of February. Essentially, winter for me is just waiting until I can get the boat back out on the river.

In early spring, the weather can be tough with snowstorms, ice and freezing temperatures. As spring progresses, the weather turns milder and is usually fairly comfortable by the time the regular fishing season starts. When fishing the Mississippi River early in the season, I dress like I am going ice fishing and over the years I have bought special clothing just for fishing the river early in the spring or late in the fall.

A week after my fishing trip with Paul, I wake to find two inches of snow on the ground, wet and slushy. I head back to the river with Dennis Virden, of Burnsville, Minnesota. When we get to the landing, I find slush had splashed up in the boat and was now frozen on the bow, trolling motor, windshield, console, tackle bag and outboard motor. As we motor upriver, we see a tree trunk sticking out of the water like a hand coming up, covered in snow. Snow clings to all the tree limbs and covers the ground. It is not nearly as cold as we expected, but still chilly with light winds.

I get the first sauger. Too small to keep, but a start nonetheless. The wind picks up and it feels colder. We move and try again. Nothing. Finally, we move closer to the bank where I find an eddy in about 28 feet of water. Shortly after we drop anchor I get another sauger. This one is a keeper and it goes into the livewell. I pick up two more sauger, but the fishing is slow in the snow.

Dennis yells he has a fish and then adds that it is a “big fish.” The fish races off, peeling line off the reel. The fish stops and Dennis tries to regain some line but the fish takes off again. This seesaw battle continues. I have the net ready. Dennis gets some line back and then the fish takes off again. The fish stays deep, making long, muscular runs. Finally, it gets closer and then we see a long, prehistoric looking silhouette in the stained water. It is a big sturgeon! It still takes awhile before Dennis gets the fish close to the boat for me to net it. I grab the net with both hands to pull it in the boat. We measure the fish before we take photos and release it. It is 41 inches long. We might not have caught many fish today, but the sturgeon sure makes up for it!

This spring is an anomaly. Normally, the river is high, many times overflowing banks and causing flooding. There have been a couple of years when the flooding was so bad the river was shut down to all boat traffic. Now the water is a bit higher than normal, but not nearly as high as we have seen in other years. The water is dirty from runoff with a strong current, as we expect in spring, but not anywhere near flooding. All that can change with late season blizzards or a couple days of steady rains, but for now the river seems unusually stable for spring.

Spring is a time of rebirth for the waters and land. Fish are spawning, providing another generation of fish. We see skies filling with birds. We hear yelping of snow geese and guttural honking of Canadian geese as they head north. We see strings of pelicans flying north as well. Eagles flock to the river.  They float on the current of the wind overhead, occasionally dropping into the river to grab a fish. We hear them chattering to each other in the trees and sometimes we see half a dozen or more eagles sitting majestic and regal in one tree. Their white heads and tail feathers contrast sharply against the barren trees and the dirty gray or bright blue skies.

In early April, Doug Hurd of Eagan, Minnesota and his grandson, Drake Castaneda, and I motored upriver to the dam. It was warm and sunny. Although the water was still a bit above normal, the current remained strong. We were fishing deeper water that day. It was tough to get our ¾ oz. jigs to the bottom without the current sweeping them away. We thought we had the anchor set.

We were fishing about twenty minutes when a gust of wind blew Drake’s hat off, riding the current downriver. As Doug pulled the anchor and I started the engine to race after his hat, Drake pulled up on his spinning rod and it was bouncing as a fish pulled back. Doug grabbed the net and a moment later netted a walleye. We measure it and it is too small to keep so we released it. We finally raced after Drake’s hat, scooping it out of the water.

We tried two or three times to get the anchor to hold but were unsuccessful. The anchor kept dragging. Finally, I pulled into a deep hole of about 25 feet of water only a couple of boat lengths from the rocky bank and the anchor finally held.  When it comes to walleye fishing, minor adjustments in bait color, depth, or boat position can mean a difference. We were hoping this would be the case in this spot since the boat was holding so well.

We had lunch and halfway through my sandwich I felt a strike. I dropped the sandwich as I set the hook. The fish put up a good fight but when I get it in the boat, I see it is a mooneye. A lot of folks consider them trash fish, but they put up a good fight and are fun to catch. Shortly thereafter, Drake caught a white bass. It seemed a little early to see white bass. A few minutes later, I get a sharp hit and when setting the hook, it feels like a good fish. Drake scrambles for the net while I get the fish in. It turns out to be 17-inch walleye. I checked to see if it is female and if it was I would release it since she would be full of spawn, but it is a male and goes into the livewell. By the end of the day, our faces are red from the sun and wind but we caught about two dozen fish, keeping seven, two walleyes and five sauger.

Although there are several areas on the Mississippi River north of Red Wing, Minnesota to fish, I normally fish just below the lock and dam several miles north of Red Wing. The lock is on the Minnesota side of the river and the dam is on the Wisconsin side of the river. Between the lock and the dam there is a rocky island. I do not know if the island was always there, or if perhaps the island was man-made while building the dam. I fish the dam side of the river. The current draws fish, but can have its drawbacks if it is too strong to either anchor your boat or get your bait to the bottom. If the current is too strong on the dam side, then I move to the lock side where the current is much slower. However, the fishing is also much slower on the lock side.

The secret to walleye fishing, no matter where you fish, but certainly on the Mississippi River, is to find what depth the fish are at. Since they hug the bottom, it’s important to get and keep your bait there. With the heavy current and high waters usually found in the spring, keeping your bait on the bottom can be a challenge. Many times, where the current is at its strongest, you seldom find bait fish. They just can’t withstand the current. Over the years, I find fishing close to shore works well. The current is not nearly as strong as in the middle of the river, so bait fish will be found there, which attracts bigger fish. It is also easier for our baits to maintain contact with bottom.

The weathermen on television said to expect rain and a couple of days later as I pulled out of my driveway with Doug and Scott Clark, of Hudson, Wisconsin, a light drizzle of rain splattered on the windshield. Motoring upriver to the dam, we anchored in 25 feet of water, about three boat lengths from the rocky bank. Temperatures were in the low 50s and the rain we expected had blown out, leaving light gray clouds, laced with blue skies. Strong winds made it seem colder than it actually was.

It didn’t take long to get the first strike. It was a small walleye that we released. Finally, I felt a harder tap on my line and when setting the hook, felt greater resistance. I pulled in a keeper sauger, which went into the livewell. From there we steadily got strikes.

It was early afternoon when Doug pulled up on his spinning rod and it was bent in half as a fish raced off. Scott dropped his spinning rod to grab the net and a couple of moments later Doug led an 18-inch sauger into the net. It was the biggest fish of the day. Doug reached in, grabbed the fish and pulled it out, but as he did so, we saw it oozing spawn. Doug twisted the hook out, slipping the fish back into the water.

Bigger fish full of spawn, like the one Doug caught, are the future of fishing. They need to be released. There are enough smaller fish to keep for eating. Let the breeders live to eventually replenish the fish we keep today. By the end of the day, we caught about half a dozen bigger fish, all full of spawn, which we released.

Late afternoon I felt a hard hit on my bait, and when I set the hook, I felt a solid weight as the fish took off. I turned the fish, but it kept pulling away, line slicing through the water as it darted off. It felt like a good fish and I yelled for the net. Scott grabbed the net about the time I saw the fish. The flat profile and silvery color identified it as a white bass and I told Scott I guess I didn’t need the net after all. As he dropped the net, he felt a tap and set the hook on a fish as it too raced away. By the time I hoisted my fish into the boat, Doug was netting Scott’s fish, a keeper sauger.

Another hour later we headed back to the landing. We had 11 fish in the livewell, and with the smaller fish, white bass and the bigger breeding stock, we guessed we released and caught over fifty fish.

There are any number of baits which work well for spring walleye fishing. Probably the most popular is simply a jig with a minnow. I use heavy jigs, normally at least ¾ oz. or sometimes a full ounce, so I can get the bait to the bottom. Color is simple. Anything with chartreuse works well. If that color doesn’t work, then I switch to gold. One of those two will always work.

My favorite bait for river fishing is a modification of the old Wolf River Rig. Tied on to a 3-way swivel, I have a foot long leader tied to a heavy jig and another foot and a half long leader tied to a plain hook with three chartreuse beads. Again, chartreuse is the key color.

Especially in the spring when the current can make it tough to fish, another productive bait is a simple bait rig. I use a 3-foot long leader with either a single hook and three chartreuse beads or a Gum-Drop floating jig by Northland. The leader is attached to a swivel. On the swivel, I attach a bell shaped sinker. Generally, I use this rig when my 1 oz. jig isn’t getting to the bottom. I start with a 1½ oz. to 1¾ oz. sinker. If the rig is still not getting to the bottom, then I add more weight. Once I get to three ounces, I stop and find a different place to fish, because that means the current is too strong for either bait fish or game fish to hold in such fast water.

It was late April and the regular fishing season was less than a week away. Scott called, asking if I would be interested in going fishing tomorrow. I told him I didn’t think so since I had some stories for Badger Sportsman to work on. After I hang up, my wife Becky said, “Go fishing. The weather is suppose to be beautiful, can’t you get your stories done later?” I thought about it for a moment, and she was right. I had a chance to go fishing, so why not take it. I called Scott back telling him he is a bad influence on my work ethic and I can go fishing. Scott laughed, telling me he will see me in the morning.

There are light blue skies with no clouds and almost no wind. There are not many fishermen on the water today. As we motor up to the dam, I see two bald eagles perched side by side on a branch. It makes me think of a husband and wife sitting together. We drop anchor and in the next half an hour we catch five different fish; a sheepshead, white bass, walleye, sauger and a mooneye.

We catch a lot of sheepshead, putting up a good fight, which is what fishing is all about anyway. I catch a white bass, which is one of the bigger ones I’ve seen. It was at least three pounds. We pick up the anchor and drift with jigs and minnows, catching a couple of fish. We work back along the bank, flipping blade spoons toward the shore. We are hoping to find white bass. They should be here this time of year, but we haven’t seen them yet in the numbers we normally expect. I flip my spoon against the rocky bank and about halfway back get a solid strike. The fish is fighting hard and I wonder what I have. As I get it closer, I see it is a 3-pound largemouth bass. The first of the year. It felt good to catch it and as I release it, I hope it is a good omen for the bass season starting soon. We go back to our original spot and anchor again.

We are almost out of minnows by the time we head back to the landing. We again caught about 50 fish. It has been a good day of fishing and my last day on the river for spring. In another five days, the bass season opens. It has been good fishing, with lots of great fishing buddies and fun times this early season. A new fishing season awaits me. I am looking forward to it, but I will be back on the Mississippi River in late fall for the last open water fishing of the year.

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[toddkelly2]

Spring on the Mississippi

SPRING ON THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER

My buddy, Paul Valle of Oakdale, Minnesota, had called me a couple of days earlier to see if I wanted to go fishing. “We’ll take my boat,” he tells me. It is mid-March and we will fish just below the dam on the Mississippi River, north of Red Wing, Minnesota. As far as I am concerned, the first time I am in a boat on open water is the beginning of spring. Although we both are old enough that we are drawing Social Security, we are as excited as boys as we motor to the dam. Paul confesses it has been a couple of years since he last had his boat out.

We have great enthusiasm for the day, but after several hours we have only one fish, a 19-inch walleye Paul caught. I don’t think I had had a strike. This could be discouraging, but it is spring now and we are fishing for the first time this year in a boat, so neither of us finds it even the least bit depressing. The opposite is true. It is good to be back on open water again and the weather is fairly tolerable. Paul and I have fished through some miserable weather, including an ice storm in the early days of the season. So, we are just enjoying the day and the weather, regardless if the fish are biting or not.

Suddenly, Paul pulls up on his spinning rod to set the hook. It is doubled over and line is coming off his reel. I bring in my line, dropping the rod to pick up the net. I wait as Paul fights the fish and then we finally see it in the murky water. It is a long shadow. I extend the net out as Paul leads the fish into it and I pull up on the net. A huge walleye sags into the mesh. It is 29 inches long and full of spawn. We guess the fish has to be ten pounds. Paul says it is the biggest walleye he has ever caught. I take a quick photo of it before Paul slides it back in the water. It is a heck of way to start the season.

In the middle of March, there are fishermen still fishing through the ice in northern Wisconsin. But not me. I am on the Mississippi River and it is the beginning of the first fishing season for me, lasting until the beginning of the bass and walleye season on the first Saturday in May.

I know many people are asking, “What about ice fishing?” I look at ice fishing as something to do between the end of the open water fishing on the Mississippi River in the fall until I can get back on open water in March. I used to be a big ice fisherman when I was younger, but now I only do two ice fishing trips each winter; one to Red Lake in northern Minnesota in the middle of January and the other to Lake of the Woods on the Minnesota Canadian border at the end of February. Essentially, winter for me is just waiting until I can get the boat back out on the river.

In early spring, the weather can be tough with snowstorms, ice and freezing temperatures. As spring progresses, the weather turns milder and is usually fairly comfortable by the time the regular fishing season starts. When fishing the Mississippi River early in the season, I dress like I am going ice fishing and over the years I have bought special clothing just for fishing the river early in the spring or late in the fall.

A week after my fishing trip with Paul, I wake to find two inches of snow on the ground, wet and slushy. I head back to the river with Dennis Virden, of Burnsville, Minnesota. When we get to the landing, I find slush had splashed up in the boat and was now frozen on the bow, trolling motor, windshield, console, tackle bag and outboard motor. As we motor upriver, we see a tree trunk sticking out of the water like a hand coming up, covered in snow. Snow clings to all the tree limbs and covers the ground. It is not nearly as cold as we expected, but still chilly with light winds.

I get the first sauger. Too small to keep, but a start nonetheless. The wind picks up and it feels colder. We move and try again. Nothing. Finally, we move closer to the bank where I find an eddy in about 28 feet of water. Shortly after we drop anchor I get another sauger. This one is a keeper and it goes into the livewell. I pick up two more sauger, but the fishing is slow in the snow.

Dennis yells he has a fish and then adds that it is a “big fish.” The fish races off, peeling line off the reel. The fish stops and Dennis tries to regain some line but the fish takes off again. This seesaw battle continues. I have the net ready. Dennis gets some line back and then the fish takes off again. The fish stays deep, making long, muscular runs. Finally, it gets closer and then we see a long, prehistoric looking silhouette in the stained water. It is a big sturgeon! It still takes awhile before Dennis gets the fish close to the boat for me to net it. I grab the net with both hands to pull it in the boat. We measure the fish before we take photos and release it. It is 41 inches long. We might not have caught many fish today, but the sturgeon sure makes up for it!

This spring is an anomaly. Normally, the river is high, many times overflowing banks and causing flooding. There have been a couple of years when the flooding was so bad the river was shut down to all boat traffic. Now the water is a bit higher than normal, but not nearly as high as we have seen in other years. The water is dirty from runoff with a strong current, as we expect in spring, but not anywhere near flooding. All that can change with late season blizzards or a couple days of steady rains, but for now the river seems unusually stable for spring.

Spring is a time of rebirth for the waters and land. Fish are spawning, providing another generation of fish. We see skies filling with birds. We hear yelping of snow geese and guttural honking of Canadian geese as they head north. We see strings of pelicans flying north as well. Eagles flock to the river.  They float on the current of the wind overhead, occasionally dropping into the river to grab a fish. We hear them chattering to each other in the trees and sometimes we see half a dozen or more eagles sitting majestic and regal in one tree. Their white heads and tail feathers contrast sharply against the barren trees and the dirty gray or bright blue skies.

In early April, Doug Hurd of Eagan, Minnesota and his grandson, Drake Castaneda, and I motored upriver to the dam. It was warm and sunny. Although the water was still a bit above normal, the current remained strong. We were fishing deeper water that day. It was tough to get our ¾ oz. jigs to the bottom without the current sweeping them away. We thought we had the anchor set.

We were fishing about twenty minutes when a gust of wind blew Drake’s hat off, riding the current downriver. As Doug pulled the anchor and I started the engine to race after his hat, Drake pulled up on his spinning rod and it was bouncing as a fish pulled back. Doug grabbed the net and a moment later netted a walleye. We measure it and it is too small to keep so we released it. We finally raced after Drake’s hat, scooping it out of the water.

We tried two or three times to get the anchor to hold but were unsuccessful. The anchor kept dragging. Finally, I pulled into a deep hole of about 25 feet of water only a couple of boat lengths from the rocky bank and the anchor finally held.  When it comes to walleye fishing, minor adjustments in bait color, depth, or boat position can mean a difference. We were hoping this would be the case in this spot since the boat was holding so well.

We had lunch and halfway through my sandwich I felt a strike. I dropped the sandwich as I set the hook. The fish put up a good fight but when I get it in the boat, I see it is a mooneye. A lot of folks consider them trash fish, but they put up a good fight and are fun to catch. Shortly thereafter, Drake caught a white bass. It seemed a little early to see white bass. A few minutes later, I get a sharp hit and when setting the hook, it feels like a good fish. Drake scrambles for the net while I get the fish in. It turns out to be 17-inch walleye. I checked to see if it is female and if it was I would release it since she would be full of spawn, but it is a male and goes into the livewell. By the end of the day, our faces are red from the sun and wind but we caught about two dozen fish, keeping seven, two walleyes and five sauger.

Although there are several areas on the Mississippi River north of Red Wing, Minnesota to fish, I normally fish just below the lock and dam several miles north of Red Wing. The lock is on the Minnesota side of the river and the dam is on the Wisconsin side of the river. Between the lock and the dam there is a rocky island. I do not know if the island was always there, or if perhaps the island was man-made while building the dam. I fish the dam side of the river. The current draws fish, but can have its drawbacks if it is too strong to either anchor your boat or get your bait to the bottom. If the current is too strong on the dam side, then I move to the lock side where the current is much slower. However, the fishing is also much slower on the lock side.

The secret to walleye fishing, no matter where you fish, but certainly on the Mississippi River, is to find what depth the fish are at. Since they hug the bottom, it’s important to get and keep your bait there. With the heavy current and high waters usually found in the spring, keeping your bait on the bottom can be a challenge. Many times, where the current is at its strongest, you seldom find bait fish. They just can’t withstand the current. Over the years, I find fishing close to shore works well. The current is not nearly as strong as in the middle of the river, so bait fish will be found there, which attracts bigger fish. It is also easier for our baits to maintain contact with bottom.

The weathermen on television said to expect rain and a couple of days later as I pulled out of my driveway with Doug and Scott Clark, of Hudson, Wisconsin, a light drizzle of rain splattered on the windshield. Motoring upriver to the dam, we anchored in 25 feet of water, about three boat lengths from the rocky bank. Temperatures were in the low 50s and the rain we expected had blown out, leaving light gray clouds, laced with blue skies. Strong winds made it seem colder than it actually was.

It didn’t take long to get the first strike. It was a small walleye that we released. Finally, I felt a harder tap on my line and when setting the hook, felt greater resistance. I pulled in a keeper sauger, which went into the livewell. From there we steadily got strikes.

It was early afternoon when Doug pulled up on his spinning rod and it was bent in half as a fish raced off. Scott dropped his spinning rod to grab the net and a couple of moments later Doug led an 18-inch sauger into the net. It was the biggest fish of the day. Doug reached in, grabbed the fish and pulled it out, but as he did so, we saw it oozing spawn. Doug twisted the hook out, slipping the fish back into the water.

Bigger fish full of spawn, like the one Doug caught, are the future of fishing. They need to be released. There are enough smaller fish to keep for eating. Let the breeders live to eventually replenish the fish we keep today. By the end of the day, we caught about half a dozen bigger fish, all full of spawn, which we released.

Late afternoon I felt a hard hit on my bait, and when I set the hook, I felt a solid weight as the fish took off. I turned the fish, but it kept pulling away, line slicing through the water as it darted off. It felt like a good fish and I yelled for the net. Scott grabbed the net about the time I saw the fish. The flat profile and silvery color identified it as a white bass and I told Scott I guess I didn’t need the net after all. As he dropped the net, he felt a tap and set the hook on a fish as it too raced away. By the time I hoisted my fish into the boat, Doug was netting Scott’s fish, a keeper sauger.

Another hour later we headed back to the landing. We had 11 fish in the livewell, and with the smaller fish, white bass and the bigger breeding stock, we guessed we released and caught over fifty fish.

There are any number of baits which work well for spring walleye fishing. Probably the most popular is simply a jig with a minnow. I use heavy jigs, normally at least ¾ oz. or sometimes a full ounce, so I can get the bait to the bottom. Color is simple. Anything with chartreuse works well. If that color doesn’t work, then I switch to gold. One of those two will always work.

My favorite bait for river fishing is a modification of the old Wolf River Rig. Tied on to a 3-way swivel, I have a foot long leader tied to a heavy jig and another foot and a half long leader tied to a plain hook with three chartreuse beads. Again, chartreuse is the key color.

Especially in the spring when the current can make it tough to fish, another productive bait is a simple bait rig. I use a 3-foot long leader with either a single hook and three chartreuse beads or a Gum-Drop floating jig by Northland. The leader is attached to a swivel. On the swivel, I attach a bell shaped sinker. Generally, I use this rig when my 1 oz. jig isn’t getting to the bottom. I start with a 1½ oz. to 1¾ oz. sinker. If the rig is still not getting to the bottom, then I add more weight. Once I get to three ounces, I stop and find a different place to fish, because that means the current is too strong for either bait fish or game fish to hold in such fast water.

It was late April and the regular fishing season was less than a week away. Scott called, asking if I would be interested in going fishing tomorrow. I told him I didn’t think so since I had some stories for Badger Sportsman to work on. After I hang up, my wife Becky said, “Go fishing. The weather is suppose to be beautiful, can’t you get your stories done later?” I thought about it for a moment, and she was right. I had a chance to go fishing, so why not take it. I called Scott back telling him he is a bad influence on my work ethic and I can go fishing. Scott laughed, telling me he will see me in the morning.

There are light blue skies with no clouds and almost no wind. There are not many fishermen on the water today. As we motor up to the dam, I see two bald eagles perched side by side on a branch. It makes me think of a husband and wife sitting together. We drop anchor and in the next half an hour we catch five different fish; a sheepshead, white bass, walleye, sauger and a mooneye.

We catch a lot of sheepshead, putting up a good fight, which is what fishing is all about anyway. I catch a white bass, which is one of the bigger ones I’ve seen. It was at least three pounds. We pick up the anchor and drift with jigs and minnows, catching a couple of fish. We work back along the bank, flipping blade spoons toward the shore. We are hoping to find white bass. They should be here this time of year, but we haven’t seen them yet in the numbers we normally expect. I flip my spoon against the rocky bank and about halfway back get a solid strike. The fish is fighting hard and I wonder what I have. As I get it closer, I see it is a 3-pound largemouth bass. The first of the year. It felt good to catch it and as I release it, I hope it is a good omen for the bass season starting soon. We go back to our original spot and anchor again.

We are almost out of minnows by the time we head back to the landing. We again caught about 50 fish. It has been a good day of fishing and my last day on the river for spring. In another five days, the bass season opens. It has been good fishing, with lots of great fishing buddies and fun times this early season. A new fishing season awaits me. I am looking forward to it, but I will be back on the Mississippi River in late fall for the last open water fishing of the year.

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[high5nerd]

Alone Together---Chap. Six

Don’t worry, you didn’t skip anything, my past self is an idiot and completely missed chapter five and went straight to six. So technically it’s Chapter Five, not Six.

And apparently I’m a lazy fuck and won’t fix it now.

WOOP.

"Sadie?" Alice called down the hallway, putting on her coat and fingerless gloves slowly.

Her little sister, thinking of happy thoughts and hanging out with her two favorite people in the world, whipped open her door and came running down the hallway, carrying two rag dolls in her arms excitedly.

But she was met with only her sister and the babysitter she used to have a lot, Denali. She liked Denali, and thought she looked a lot like one of those beautiful Indian models, but she didn't want Denali. She wanted Pitch. Where was he? He promised he would be here in the morning…

"Where is Pitch?" she asked, looking between Denali and her older sister.

Denali raised an elegant brow and looked at Alice, confused greatly. Sadie's sister meekly smiled and to the little girl, "I dunno, hun. Maybe he's away working, still. He said he would be back soon."

"Who's Pitch?" Denali asked, and Alice could tell the babysitter was getting slightly weirded out by the name.

"The Boogey-" Sadie started.

"Cousin. Erm, he's a distant cousin of ours that's uh...helping us get by." Alice quickly interrupted, saving Sadie's skin from Denali's habit of drilling kids that fantasies aren't real.

That was one thing Sadie didn't like about her babysitter. She was too into reality.

But even after three days passed, Pitch still didn't return. As each day passed, Sadie and her loving sister got sadder and sadder, feeling broken that he wasn't returning like he promised. But Sadie kept hope. She knew he would come back. Sometimes the little nine year old would stay up late with her big green flashlight and read into the night, occasionally observing the shadows to see if he would come out anytime soon.

But nothing happened. Sadie's sister was so close to giving up that he wouldn't return, but Sadie kept her believing he would.

"He promised us. Spirits can't break promises." Sadie said, cuddling closer to her sister one late night.

"...How do you know that?" Alice asked, fighting back the growing lump in her throat.

"Angels are spirits, right?" Sadie asked.

Her sister nodded slowly, afraid to vocally agree herself.

"So since they're spirits, they can't lie or break promises. That means neither can Pitch. I know he'll be back."

It wasn't until weeks later I found myself in their backyard, unable to move my feet away from the location. I didn't want this gaping hole inside me to get worse, but something was telling me that it was getting worse the more I kept my distance. I knew I didn't deserve their kindness and care, but I had nowhere else to go. What else was I supposed to do? I couldn't get them out of my mind. It was driving me insane!

It wasn't until I reached the window did I realize that I made an unintentional mistake.

I forgot that today was Sadie's birthday.

I saw her sitting at the kitchen table, a small, chocolate cake sitting in front of her surrounded by brownies with sprinkles, with white and yellow candles flickering in the light. Alice had a smile on her face, but something told me it wasn't a real one. I didn't know her as well as I wanted to, but I knew her enough to know that wasn't her real smile. Quickly, I fumbled to take out the stone beacon Sandy gave me and I allowed black sand to swirl around the edges and around my hand. When I tightened my fist and released, in it's place the sand formed into the bindings and chain of a necklace, ebony black but beautiful and elaborate nonetheless. Not sure if Sadie would like it, but it's well worth it. She liked this stone anyway.

Morphing through the shadows behind them into the kitchen, I heard Sadie's sister finish singing the traditional birthday song, rubbing Sadie's back comfortingly.

Sadie looked forlorn. She definitely wasn't happy at all, and she wasn't bothering to hide it. A pout was on her face, both childish and heartbreaking. It kind of actually hurt seeing that…

"Go ahead, Sadie," Alice said, "Make a wish."

"I want Pitch back." Sadie looked up at her, her lower lip wavering.

Her sister nodded gently, brushing back some hair from her face lovingly. "I know, sweetie, me too. But don't let that be a downer on this special day."

I think my heart was actually aching at this sight. It hurt yet it felt good. It felt good only because I heard them honestly say they wanted me around, and let me remind you very clearly, no one wanted me around in the beginning. Maybe I did deserve them, and I wasn't giving enough credit for it. They needed me, and I needed them. Though I felt unworthy of their acceptance, I'll agree to staying with them until they no longer have need of me.

Sadie blew out the candles, and her sister softly clapped at her success. But Sadie was quiet, which definitely wasn't a normal thing Sadie likes to do.

I found myself smiling as I stepped out of the shadows and said aloud, "You really didn't think I would miss this special day, did you?"

Immediately, the both girls jumped in surprise. Alice looked like the living daylights was scared out of her, but then relieved knowing it was me. Sadie screamed happily and jumped out of her chair, running over to me as fast as she could. I couldn't help but chuckle as I knelt down so she could hug me. Sadie bounced happily with a giant smile on her face, her light brown hair flying all around her like a halo.

I shyly smiled at her before holding out the necklace beacon, liking the sound of Alice's gasp and Sadie's wide eyes.

"Wow!" she said, beaming. Her fingers gently touched the light pink stone, warm to the touch.

"I made this for you, since you seemed to like the stone so much. You get to keep it," I said, gently putting the chain around her neck. Her eyes were glowing with glee, smiling at me like I was the father figure she's always wanted, "But remember!" I held up a finger, "if your sister comes to believe in more of the spirits, the color will change, and it may grow in warmth. Don't wear it when its hot out, okay?"

"Yes sir!" Sadie saluted, before bear hugging me again. I patted her back before she broke the hug, excitedly giggled and ran back to the table to finish her cake and brownie.

I looked up at Alice, unsure if I should say something or not. She had an expression on her face that I just couldn't place. Happy was certainly one of them, for she had a smile on her face...but very faint. Her eyes were happy as well, but her eyebrows were raised up as if from the bridge of her nose to her forehead was worried.

….Someone I knew from the past looked at me like that...someone important. Who was it? I can't help but feel it's very familiar.

Your wife.

My thoughts were not usually my own quite often, so it was startling to hear them so suddenly. I was so shaken up I didn't hear Alice's question as I stood in front of her.

"You came back?" she asked. I think she meant it as a statement and not a question, but it ended up being one.

"I could never permanently leave…" I said, looking down to the floor, "there's...there's no where else to go. And...you're all I have left in the world that sees me."

A hand touched my shoulder, a reassuring one. It was hers. Warm...loving...it was at that moment I came to love her hands. I was cold, freezing to the touch. If it were possible, steam would rise from our skin.

"You aren't invisible, Pitch. Is that why you left? You felt hopeless?" she gently asked, bading for my eyes to meet with hers.

I had to look at her or else she would think I'm a coward. Sadie watched us, her eyes unblinking and her mouth open in awe, showing chewed up brownie. The silence was ringing in my ears, and it hurt...never before has silence been so assaulting to my senses before. I used to love it. Now, I hate it.

"...Yes." I curtly said, about to look away from the effort of admitting something so embarrassing.

"Hey…" she said quietly as she touched my shoulder again to get my attention. When I caught her eyes she smiled brightly, "Glad you're back. And this time, stay with us. Can we talk outside later this evening? We still have a whole day for Sadie!"

"Yeah, we do!" Sadie shouted happily, fist pumping the air.

I couldn't help but smile at that. I knew Alice was doing me a favor. She didn't want pressure on me to talk in front of her little sister. She really does have a kind heart...and I knew people could have those, but never directed at me before.

I would never want to let her go.

The rest of the day was spent just how Sadie wanted it. She got me to read her a Harry Potter book, which I've never read before and I quite enjoy it myself now, and her sister cooked up her favorite lunch of bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches. I believe Sadie calls them BLT? I can never understand stuff like that. Probably because I always watch the centuries roll by without actually interfering and seeing the differences happen in the reality I dwelled in.

Sadie's sister brought us to the park to play near the pond and feed the geese, and she bought us all ice cream. At first I didn't want any at all. I don't exactly have a sweet tooth, or at least I thought I didn't. But french vanilla is quite delicious, so I had to submit. At least I didn't go crazy with toppings like Sadie. She literally had gummy bears, sprinkles, cherries and crushed oreos on her ice cream. As predicted, she was bouncing all over the park and having a blast on the swingset and the playground. Honestly, kids and their sugar.

Alice sat next to me on the park bench, the afternoon sun hiding behind the naked trees to give us privacy. Fall here in this little town was warm, but not warm enough for the leaves to stay green or the nights to become chilly. Alice was prepared, wearing a jacket and her beanie as she watched her little sister swing back and forth on the monkey bars.

"I just wanted to thank you for coming back. It really meant a lot to me-and Sadie. Sadie especially...do you know what she said when you were gone?"

I blinked at her slowly, watching her cheeks blush from the biting wind. Her beanie was already slipping off, letting her hair curl around her in the wind...she looked beautiful. She was beautiful.

"What did she say?" my voice sounded too breathless for my taste.

She didn't look away when she said this, which meant she honestly was telling the truth.

"She said that you were the closest thing to a father she's ever had since ours."

I was so flattered I honestly couldn't properly form words. My mouth was ready to say the words 'Thank you' or something that sounds like utter gratitude, but it was all so shocking. A child...said that I, the Nightmare King, was like a father figure to her? Even I can't believe it. Yet it's staring at me right in the face.

"Pitch...did you really leave because you felt like a monster?" she asked, touching my arm.

I did not want to answer that at all. No. She's not allowed to see inside me. I'm not see through like glass. I smirked and looked at her slyly, "You're touching me an awful lot today, princess."

She blushed and immediately retracted her hand, and she wasn't afraid to show that she was slightly irritated. Probably because I avoided the question.

"It's called comfort, Pitch. And don't change the subject, please," she resorted to that adorable face she made this morning, "I just want to know you. The real you."

I raised a brow, unconvinced. "The real me?" my voice sounded snarky. I didn't mean to.

She looked hurt, "Yes, of course! I care about you, Pitch. You're my friend. This is what friends do!"

Yikes. That was definitely an indication I crossed a line. I took a slow breath before apologizing. She still looked worried and hurt, probably because I wasn't telling her. Didn't I already in the beginning of the day?

...She knew that wasn't the real reasoning behind my disappearing.

I angrily sighed out air as I leaned against the back of the bench and folded my arms. "Fine. I left because I felt like a monster. I felt like I didn't belong because I prey on the weak and every time I am with you guys, that former powerful self of mine is breaking off piece by piece. Henceforth, I felt like a monster and I don't deserve you guys."

"You do, you know."

Again, her response made me look at her, surprised. She sadly smiled, showing the real and reliable care she glowed with for every person she talked to. I bit my tongue to keep me from staring at her too long. Call me a coward all you want...but it's quite challenging to keep eye contact with someone you're finding attractive and you're an open book. You try it next time and see how cowardly and nervous you feel.

"You do deserve us, because we know you do. We like you, Pitch," she said gently, taking my hand in hers, "there's no one in the world who could replace you or we would want besides you. Can't you see how happy you make Sadie and I?"

"...Yes."

Her grip on my hand tightened to prove her point, "Then you do deserve us. Do you think the same way we do about us?"

Without hesitation, I agreed. She seemed very pleased with that, and showed it kindly on her bright smile. That time I couldn't help but give a tiny smile back...one without malice or superiority. The chilly wind against the warm air didn't seem to bother us anymore… the only feelings of warmth I could actually sense was in my hand and my heart.

"I like holding your hand…" I complimented, grinning wider when she shyly smiled back.

"I like holding yours, too. It's cold." she said.

That wasn't a response I was hoping for. "Cold?"

"My hands are always so hot and sweaty, and yours are cooling it off." she laughed, which of course made me laugh.

"If it makes you feel any better, your hands are warm, and that's it."

"Ha!" she laughed again then teasingly winked, "Nothing else? No sparks?"

"Actually, now that you mention it, I've felt a few. But not like regular shocks you get from friction. But...they make my heart jump…" I said, looking at her curiously, "Is that healthy or normal?"

Goodness, she was really red in the face.

"Um...Yes, I guess so." she murmured, tucking hair behind her ear with her free hand.

"Have you felt it, too?" I asked, lowering my head so she could look at me. I missed those beautiful eyes of hers, even if it was only a second's worth of wait.

She smiled shyly once more, shrugging her shoulders. "Yeah...I guess...it's a nice feeling."

"I agree. We should hold hands more often." I winked at her, but that little joke caused her to unravel her hand from mine and gently slap my arm in a playful manner.

I like her...I think I finally know how to properly identify those sparks of warmth and her loving face that morning.

Affection.

[solivar]

WIP: Ghost Stories On Route 66

aka, the one in which Hanzo is an expatriate art student, Jesse is a park ranger, and there’s weird stuff going on in the desert, because I am fundamentally incapable of writing a plotless porny AU no matter how hard I try. 

For @gunnslaughter

The cheapass rental car’s motivator sputtered and died for the last time on some officially unnamed, only dubiously mapped road in the hills southwest of Santa Fe. Fortunately, the antigrav batteries had just enough charge left in them that the whole thing didn’t just drop onto the cracked and weathered remains of the pavement, which probably would have done enough damage to render his life a miserable morass of insurance forms and impecunious college student special pleading for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, when it did drop, once he got out and half-pushed, half-steered it to the side of the road, it promptly buried itself up to the axles in the drifted sand making up most of the verge, listing rather definitely to one side.

“Fuck,” Hanzo Shimada informed the universe at large and went to pop open the hood.

He was greeted by a malodorous cloud of steam that stank rather noticeably of vaporized coolants, accompanied by a deep and rather alarming bubblebubbleticktickpTANG from deep inside the motivator’s mechanical workings. To his admittedly untrained ear, it sounded like the thing was about to a) explode, b) rupture all its previously air/liquid-tight fittings, c) fall completely out of the compartment, or d) all of the above. He let the hood fall shut, gently, because he emphatically did not want to do anything to encourage any of those outcomes and got out his phone to call for help.

He had no bars of connection. In the distance, he heard the universe laughing in a rather distinctly malicious, mocking fashion.

“It’s all right,” Hanzo told himself, out loud, because the sound of his own voice on this dusty, not-particularly-traveled-at-all stretch of almost-road gave him an inordinate degree of comfort as the shadow of a circling vulture fell across him. “It is all right. It’s 3:42. If I’m not home by six, six-thirty at the absolute latest, Genji will call the state highway patrol and tell them that his idiot brother drove off into the desert that morning to draw pictures of the death of human civilization and it’s Friday and and and Genji is going to spend the next seventy-two hours deeply chemically altered, slathered in psychotropic massage oil, and twisted into some kind of semi-Tantric love pretzel in his Yoga instructor’s lap and you are going to die of exposure and dehydration if you don’t start walking right now. I am such an idiot.”

The trunk contained his jacket, his backpack, a first aid kit, an emergency crank flashlight, a spare antigrav pod, a set of jumper cables, and four triangular road reflectors with onboard distress transponders that, when he tested them for charge, turned out to be as dead as the engine. He set them up, nonetheless, on the off chance that something might come along the road that would need to see his disabled vehicle well enough to avoid hitting it. The first aid kit contained a handful of loose biotic-impregnated bandages of various sizes, some sterile saline wound wipes, a pair of nitrile gloves, and, thankfully, an emergency shock blanket. That and the flashlight went into the backpack along with the remainder of his own supplies: three sketchbooks, a set of watercolor pencils, the highish quality camera he always carried to help with shot composition references back in the studio, a spare flannel shirt, one and a half bottles of water from the eight pack he’d carried into the desert that morning, and the apple and protein bar that he’d decided to save for later when he sat down to eat lunch in the shadow of a rusted out hulk of formerly intelligent and self-directed machinery. He put the flannel on over his tee-shirt and the jacket on over both, because the sun would be down in forty-five minutes, an hour at most, and once that happened it was going to be cold. And he, of course, did not have a single pair of gloves stashed in any of his pockets.

Still. Before the GPS had punked out, along with the engine, it had indicated following this road north would, eventually, lead back to the non-dead sort of civilization. The sort that contained reasonably accessible hot showers with which to wash away sandy grit still stained ashen and venti nonfat chai lattes with which to chase away various sorts of cold and also, in theory, people way, way more responsible than his brother, whom he passive-aggressively hoped was enjoying his tetrahydrocannabinol enhanced love-nest, the rotten little bastard.

After the first hour of walking, he stopped checking his phone every ten minutes to see if he had connection. Not only did he not have connection, glancing down at his screen killed his night vision, which made walking down even the middle of an untravelled stretch of highway an exercise in trying not to trip, break an ankle, or otherwise render himself incapable of moving effectively in the direction of his own rescue. The road surface hadn’t been maintained in years, possibly decades, maybe even before the Crisis, and it was zig-zagged with inches-deep cracks driven even deeper and further apart by endless cycles of freeze and thaw, parts of the roadbed lifted high enough to be a transit hazard for antigrav vehicles much less pedestrians walking in the near-total dark, others depressed in a way that suggested impact craters more than the natural erosion of time and indifference. As the last of the color bled off the western horizon, he paused long enough to give the emergency flashlight a good long cranking and found, even so, that its light was wan and dim, at best, but infinitely better than nothing, waiting for moonrise, or running his phone battery to death. After the second hour of walking, the darkness was no longer near-total, it was absolute in the way it could only be in the complete absence of all but the smallest traces of man-made light. On the one hand, it was stunning: the sky overhead was clear and cloudless, unmarred by light pollution, and the stars shone brilliantly in that velvety arch, a hundred million silvery eyes gazing benevolently down in their serene and distant celestial majesty. On the other hand, being the sole source of man-made light in the middle of the otherwise unrelieved blackness made him rather feel like he was being observed by things far less celestial and benevolent, considerably closer to the ground, and far more intent on running him to ground and gnawing the flesh off his bones. Occasionally, the flashlight imparted to him glimpses of sulfurous yellow-green eyes glittering just out of easy visibility, alarming enough in their predatory silence that only the chancy footing kept him from speeding up his stride. Not running. That would be bad. But walking with a bit more enthusiasm.

Sometime during the third hour, the wind picked up, scouring across the high desert floor and carrying with it hissing currents of sand and icy pellets that were neither snow nor sleet but a little bit of both. The sky clouded over, taking even the distant comfort of starlight, and he pulled out the emergency blanket and wrapped it around him to help retain some body heat. Somewhere in the middle of hour four, he pulled out his phone and, discovering himself still without connection, opened up his recording app and began dictating the please-don’t-blame-yourself message he’d been writing in his head for at least the last forty minutes so that, when his coyote-gnawed carcass was eventually found by the authorities, the hormones-and-namaste addled little dumbass he called his only family worth having would at least not feel bad about it.

By the time the lights wavered into view in the distance, he had officially stopped counting the hours. He had also officially stopped having any appreciable sensation in his hands, and his feet, and his legs were only making themselves known because his thighs hated him and wanted him to fall over and be eaten by coyotes so they could at least peacefully rest in the process of digestion. In fact, it took him quite some time to realize that he wasn’t hallucinating the vista before him which was, in fact, two strings of full-sized light bulbs strung between the side of the road, where they were attached to a pair of old fashioned utility poles, and from there to each side of an overhanging porch roof.

A house, Hanzo’s almost inexpressibly cold and weary brain realized after a long moment of staring dully, trying to make sense of what it was seeing. A house with lights. Actual working lights. There are lights on both inside and outside that house. It is a house. Lights. People. A PHONE.

He trudged slowly off the road and up the path -- the path which was lined in white-washed rocks and little beds of succulents which may or may not have been cared for, he couldn’t quite tell -- and from the path up the porch stairs, which extracted a price from his knees that he was sure he’d be hearing about for days, at least. Tucking the blanket under his arm in an effort to look slightly less pathetic, he raised a hand and knocked in what he hoped was a firm but non threatening manner on the heavy old unwindowed door.

In his mind, the response seemed to take forever: movement, footsteps, the curtains in the window next to the door moving slightly while he locked his knees and wavered slightly on his feet, tired and cold and trying not to shiver too visibly. Then: the door creaked, the light next to it came on, and he found himself gazing directly at someone’s collarbones, around the crack of a barely opened door. “Can I help you?”

Someone was tall -- taller than himself by a good head, eyes dark and narrowed slightly, expression not particularly welcoming. Well, he supposed he could hardly blame someone living in the middle of the desert miles from any other humans for not being particularly happy to have one turn up uninvited on his doorstep in the middle of the night. “Hello -- my apologies, I saw your lights and -- “ The ability to think in coherent sentences momentarily skittered away, laughing mockingly. “Listen, my car broke down back that way and -- “ He gestured vaguely over his shoulder in the direction he had just come, “I’ve got no connection on my cell and I was really just wondering if you could just...borrow your phone for a minute to call a tow? I’ll just be on my way then and -- “

“That way.” The door opened more fully with a labored creak and Someone stepped out, glanced both ways, and then looked at him, expression going from moderately suspicious to moderately appalled between one breath in the next. “You’re from the city. Holy Hell.”

“How can you tell?” Hanzo asked, genuinely curious and borderline hypothermic all at once.

“Your student ID’s hanging out of your jacket pocket,” Someone observed perspicaciously and threw open the door. “Get in here before you freeze to death. How long have you been walking?”

“I...don’t know? A while.” The warmth inside enfolded him like an embrace and it was all he could do to control the urge to moan. A fire burned in an actual honest-to-gods fieldstone fireplace in one corner of the trim little sitting room and a gentle hand in the small of his back steered him toward it, and the couch sitting a safe distance back from the spark guard.

Those same hands divested him of his backpack and the emergency blanket, both of which went on a chair nearby, pushed him down into the couch’s soft cushions and spread a far thicker and warmer blanket over him. “You’re almost blue. Stay under the blanket and warm up while I get you something to drink. And don’t close your eyes, okay? Just until I’m sure you’re -- “

And that was, in fact, the last thing Hanzo heard before he totally closed his eyes and drifted off into a pleasingly warm darkness.

*

Hanzo woke up suddenly and all at once. His mouth tasted like something small and innocent had crawled inside it in the night, died a slow and terrible death, and then rotted into putrescence, the results of which were coating his tongue, his cheeks, and every single one of his teeth. His head was throbbing with the sort of headache that could only be described as skullfucking, centered as it was directly behind his left eye. These things were, however, not what jarred him from an otherwise satisfyingly deep and mostly painless slumber. Rather it was the smell, coming from somewhere quite nearby, cooking smells, outrageously wonderful cooking smells, smells that caused his stomach to roll over, remind the rest of him that the apple and protein bar had been a long time ago, and it was time to get in gear and remedy that fact more or less immediately.

He cautiously opened the eye that didn’t feel like it was being stabbed by a red-hot spiked dildo of agony and found himself looking up at a gently arched ceiling, dark open wood ribs and whitewashed plaster, a darkened chandelier light fixture hanging almost directly overhead. The light leaking in through the still mostly-drawn curtains didn’t punish his head more than it had to, and so he opened the other eye, as well, rubbing the involuntary tearing away with the back of his hand. A fire still burned low in the fieldstone fireplace -- a kiva, his brain supplied the information, organically rounded all the way up the wall and through, sculpted with a pair of little niches higher on the flue, a mantle over top and a spark guard high enough off the floor to function as a seat on its own, covered in a gorgeously colorful geometric mosaic. One niche had a tiny pot in it containing an equally tiny flowering cactus; the other a polished wooden sculpture of a horse rearing on its hind legs. Most of the furniture was honest-to-gods old, dark wood not the new-synthetic-realistically-aged stuff, he could smell it, spicy and rich as the lingering tang of the woodsmoke, covered in cushions upholstered in the sort of patterns he’d become intimately familiar with during his Native Textile Arts of the Desert Southwest elective two semesters ago. The area rug right under the little coffee table, too, upon which sat a clear glass pitcher containing a substance too vividly red-orange to be natural, an empty glass, two small white tablets and three large tan ones, and a note that read drink two glasses when you wake up and take the meds, you’re going to need them.

Moving slowly, oh so slowly, slow as a slow-ass thing to avoid aggravating his body more than he had to, Hanzo sat up and slid his legs over the side of the couch. His legs, which were no longer clad in his own jeans but rather a pair of dark olive greenish sweatpants. A small part of his brain thought he should be loudly and extravagantly upset by this development; a substantially larger part was loudly and extravagantly grateful that he hadn’t slept in a pair of pants that he’d spent all day hiking across the desert, and then walking for an unknown length of time up a deserted road, in. The socks also felt comfortably soft and clean and new rather than caked in sweat and sand. So did the tee-shirt, which he noted was a pale tan with a somewhat darker patch in the shape of a roughly shaped arrowhead, point down, washed almost completely away on the left. Hanzo decided that he owed his rescuer something loud and extravagant, though he wasn’t quite sure what just yet.

The unnaturally vivid beverage tasted like what would happen if a citrus fruit fucked a salt lick and the resulting offspring were subsequently captured and juiced for their vital fluids. It was simultaneously repellent and delicious and he gulped down three glasses of it before he remembered he had medicine yet to take. The pills turned out to be a pair of regular aspirin and probably some kind of vitamins and by the time he got them all down someone somewhere quite close by had begun whistling and the delicious-food-cooking smells had reached the scent equivalent of a crescendo and Hanzo’s stomach made a long, embarrassingly loud noise of dismay over the fact that he wasn’t yet eating. One that apparently carried because the whistling suddenly stopped and an unseen voice, vaguely familiar, asked, “Mr. Shimada? Are you awake?”

Firmly throttling his shame, Hanzo cleared his throat. “Yes -- I just woke up a few minutes ago.” It was on the tip of his tongue to ask how his rescuer new his name but then he saw his wallet, his Santa Fe University of Art and Design student ID on its brick red lanyard, and the keys to the goddamned POS rental car that was the author of all his most recent woes sitting on the coffee table and solved the mystery for himself. “Give me a second and I’ll -- “

He heaved himself to his feet -- or, rather, he attempted to heave himself to his feet and, in that instant, every muscle in his legs and lower back registered their displeasure with his continued existence immediately and simultaneously and it was all he could do not to crash directly into the table as he fell. “....ow.”

“Oh no.” Footsteps rapidly approached from somewhere beyond the back of the couch. “Easy there, sugar. Let me help you up.”

A pair of warm, strong hands came to rest on him and, in relatively short order, they got him warmly and strongly relocated back off the floor and into a reasonably comfortable sitting position on the couch in a nest of colorfully patterned wool blankets. Hanzo found himself looking upon his rescuer for the first time in decent lighting and for a moment any and all coherent thoughts fled his head because he looked like what would happen if the Marlboro Man had sex with a male romance novel cover model who subsequently gave birth to the Platonic ideal of ruggedly handsome, all shaggy brown hair and sunkissed dark skin and eyes only a shade or two off true black and a slow spreading smile surrounded by a beard that clearly had some attention paid to it in the name of manscaping because otherwise Romance Novel Cover Dad would have disowned him. Hanzo knew people who’d commit a number of serious criminal acts just to look at those cheekbones and that jawline, much less possess them so effortlessly and he was staring. He was completely staring. Hopefully he wasn’t drooling and staring, because that would be the actual and entire end of his existence, and all of his rescuer’s efforts would be for naught as he ran off into the desert to bury his shame. A voice that sounded suspiciously like his mother’s was screaming in the back of his mind about manners, manners, what was wrong with him and another, that sounded even more suspiciously like Genji, was offering tips and tricks on how to recover this situation and turn it into the world’s smoothest not-damsel-in-only-mild-to-moderate-distress pass but he’d have to open his mouth right now.

“Hello,” Hanzo croaked. “Er. I’m sorry. Thank you?”

“No apologies necessary,” The offspring of gorgeous manly perfection replied, flashing an easy, and apparently quite sincere, smile. “And it’s no trouble at all. How’re you feeling?” He flicked a glance at the mostly-empty pitcher. “I’ll get you more to drink, and somethin’ to eat, in just a second. But first I need to ask you a few questions, all right?”

Hanzo nodded wordlessly.

“What’s your name, darlin’?” Warm and gentle and kind, with the sort of charmingly encouraging smile that got people suffering from shock to come around much more slowly just so he’d keep providing it.

For an instant, Hanzo could not actually remember his own name. “Ah -- Hanzo. Hanzo Shimada.”

“Hanzo. That’s a pretty name. Unusual.” More of that gentle, encouraging smile. “Where do you come from, Hanzo?”

“Hanamura. Japan.” It took him far, far longer than it should have to remember that and he chose to blame some combination of lingering fatigue and skullcracking headache pain for that. “I’m attending college in Santa Fe right now and I’m planning to permanently immigrate at some point in the future.”

“Why Santa Fe?” He sounded genuinely curious.

“Because it’s as far as I could get from Hanamura while still residing on the same planet.” Hanzo replied, honestly. “And my school also gave me a pretty sweet scholarship.”

“Understandable.” The gently encouraging smile slid into a more sternly serious expression and Hanzo’s heart began fluttering around inside his chest in a way that suggested some sort of tragic cardiac event was about to unfold. “So am I safe in assuming that pretty tattoo of yours is not actually an indicator of the sort of gang involvement that’d require me to call the Santa Fe police and the Department of Homeland Security border enforcement office?”

Hanzo’s heart stopped fluttering around. In fact, his heart pretty much stopped, and it was all he could do to open and close his mouth wordlessly for what felt like forever but was probably only a small slice of forever. “No,” he finally managed to get out, as his rescuer’s eyebrows began inclining slightly. “It’s not.”

His rescuer regarded him steadily for a moment, as he fought with the urge to try and sink through the cushions of the couch and possibly through the floor and hopefully to the center of the Earth, where his lack of long sleeved concealment options would be hidden forever. Then he smiled again, quick and bright, and stood up, and for the first time Hanzo noticed he was also wearing a tannish tee-shirt with an arrow over his heart, only his wasn’t washed mostly away and contained a pine tree, a snow-covered mountain, a white buffalo, and the words National Park Service, also in white.

“You’re a ranger?” Hanzo asked -- which, of course, explained a lot, explained pretty much everything, up to and including living in the middle of nowhere and looking like the anthropomorphic personification of rugged masculinity and being willing to rescue randomly occurring strangers in the night. It was his job.

“Jesse McCree, ranger-in-residence of Cerrillos National Monument, technically legal population one, three if you count the old hippie couple that lives on the other side of town, seven if you count their dogs.” He offered his hand and his grip was as impossibly strong and perfect as the rest of him. “Let me get you a plate and then we can talk about how you came to be here and see what we can do about it.”

*

The plate turned out to be more of a platter, heavy glazed earthenware loaded down with scrambled eggs mixed with bits of loose sausage, queso blanco, and salsa that had never seen the inside of a jar, a side of hashbrowns, and freshly baked biscuits, honey and butter on the side. Hanzo inhaled it all almost without bothering to chew, to his host/rescuer’s completely evident amusement, and he was provided with seconds and a giant mug of coffee without comment but with a crinkles-at-the-corners-of-the-eyes inducing smile that made his heart start fluttering around in his chest again. This time, he took the obviously gods-sent opportunity to savor the perfect fluffy-yet-creamy texture of the eggs, the tang of the cheese mixed with the salsa, the expertly seasoned potatoes, and the beverage strong enough to chase the last, lingering traces of exhaustion out of his body.

“Thank you. That was delicious.” Hanzo said, scrubbing the last traces of cheese-salsa-eggs off his plate with the remaining half a biscuit still in the bread basket and consuming it in two bites.

“You’re entirely welcome. Nana McCree’s recipe cards haven’t let me down yet.” Ranger McCree started gathering the plates and, seeing an opportunity to begin repaying his hospitality, Hanzo assisted, despite the complaints of his legs and back, neither of which seemed particularly inclined to straighten out or work properly without an argument.

The kitchen continued the arched open beam ceiling/hardwood floor with geometric patterned area rugs theme as the sitting/living/dining room, the walls painted a cheerful dark yellow and the bit above the sink lined in windows, sills covered in planters growing what looked like fresh herbs. Looking out as he deposited his armload of dishes on the counter, he could see that there was, indeed, a well-maintained garden of succulents, cacti,  and tiny, wind-tortured junipers ringing the house in raised beds of whitewashed stone. Leaning there, he was also poignantly aware of how good the sunlight slanting through those windows felt on the abused and pathetically whining muscles of his back.

“Could I make a suggestion?” Ranger McCree set his armful down, as well, and sunlight brought the red highlights out in his otherwise brown hair and there was the staring and the hopefully not drooling again.

“Sure.” Hanzo straightened up and all the bones in his lumbar spine audibly cracked.

“Bathroom’s thataway,” The ranger hiked his thumb in the direction of a doorless arch on the far end of the kitchen. “First door on the left. Towels are in the closet right inside. A hot shower’ll sort you out better than anything short of a full body massage. I’m also going to suggest you keep those sweats for now because the NWS forecast called for today to be brisk which is a polite saying colder than a witch’s tit plus windy out here. And your clothes are still in the dryer.” He flashed the world’s most winning grin. “I’ll go get the truck ready and then we’ll go see what we can do about your car. Deal?”

“You don’t have to do that,” Hanzo objected, more reflexively than anything else, iron cradle training in Manners exerting itself despite the screeching objections of his aesthetic brain, which wanted to spend as much time as possible testing his ability to consciously halt the function of his salivary glands. “I’ve already imposed on you -- “

“Not really an imposition, t’be honest.” The ranger’s grin took on a hint of rue around the edges and that was somehow even more winning and this whole situation was absolutely unfair. “We don’t get very many visitors out this way -- hence the lone resident ranger -- and those that do are generally just passing through. Company’s been nice. Also: it’s a genuine pain in the ass to get a tow truck out here, so if it’s something we can finesse a bit until you get out to the main highway, I’ll be happy to do it. Otherwise, you might be stranded here again overnight.”

He did not, in fact, sound as though he considered that the worst possible outcome even as he offered to help avoid it. Hanzo’s heart did that little flip-flutter maneuver that he should really have checked out by a cardiologist when he got back to civilization. “Thank you. That would be wonderful -- I’ve never really been this far out of the Santa Fe Metro Axis before and, uhm, is there any way I can recover that statement without sounding like a complete idiot?”

“No need.” The grin relaxed into another eye-crinkling smile. “No shame in trying something new or asking for help when you need it, Mr. Shimada.”

Doomed. I am so doomed. This is the knell of doom, and it is sounding for me. “Okay, then, I’ll just,” Hanzo gestured vaguely in the direction of the bathroom, “get cleaned up.”

“Take your time. If I’m not back by the time you’re finished, I’ll be right across the street -- that’s the actual park office over there -- and I’ll leave the door unlocked.” The ranger made an abortive gesture that looked to all the world like he was going to tip a hat that wasn’t actually there and turned it halfway through into a kindly little shooing motion.

“Okay!” Hanzo did not squeak primarily because Shimadas did not, as an iron-clad rule of reality, squeak and he absolutely did not retreat down the hallway to the bathroom for exactly the same reason.

He was, however, completely in danger of hyperventilating as he planted his back against the bathroom door and sent a silent prayer to a thousand generations of his ancestors for their intercession in the cause of not making more of an idiot of himself than he already had. Genji would have known what to say -- Genji would have more than one smoothly charming thing to say -- and how the Hell had Genji managed to inherit all the tall and handsome and desirable and charismatic genes, anyway? It was deeply unfair. Hanzo breathed in peace and breathed out stress as he stripped out of his borrowed clothing, folding it neatly and piling it on the counter next to the sink, and just barely managed to restrain a howl of despair at the sight that greeted him in the mirror. His hair had, at some point during his interminable trek across the desert, been molested by noneuclidian entities from beyond reality and was now plastered to his skull in spikes and whorls held in place by hardened inhuman bodily secretions. Or possibly drool. Definitely drool. Every bit of skin that had been exposed to the wind was chapped red by the contact, so in addition to looking like the victim of an alien hair abduction, he could probably also pass for the local drunk after a three-day mescaline and tequila bender.

Shimadas also did not whimper, and so that sound did not emerge from his throat as he turned away from his reflection to fetch a towel from the closet. As he waited for the shower to warm, he comforted himself with the knowledge that at least he was in good hands -- the ranger didn’t strike him as the sort of freak who’d drive the Bride of the Spit Monster out into the desert for anything but reasons of pure humanitarian aid-rendering and thus his virtue was at least safe even if his dignity had already been summarily beaten to death before he was even awake enough to defend it. If he indulged in a moment of pure death-of-all-hope-related despair under the comforting warmth of the spray, there was at least no one there to witness it. And the water did do a perfectly excellent job of loosening up his muscles enough to tolerate a few gentle stretches in the generously-sized shower stall, which helped loosen things up even more. The toiletries weren’t brand name -- or, at least, not any brand he recognized, the sticker on the shampoo bottle was worn to illegibility -- but they smelled and felt wonderful on his hair and skin. The shampoo had a cedary, spicy note to it that made him want to breathe deeply just to get more of it into his head and the soap, a variegated block of color, made the chapped skin of his face tingle in a way that suggested healing immediately underway instead of the multitude of horrible alternatives, a definite mood-improver as far as he was concerned. All told, he felt a solid sixty percent more human after the shower which was, he supposed, probably at least as much the point of that suggestion as limbering up.

The skin on his face did look a good deal less red and horrific than it had before the wash and his hair was at least willing to obey the commands of a comb. The ranger had not, in fact, returned yet as he padded back down the hall in stocking feet and found his hiking boots and his bag next to the door and a spare hair tie in one of the side pockets along with a half-empty package of spearmint gum, a piece of which he used in lieu of borrowing his host’s toothbrush, which was a bridge way, way too far. His jacket hung on the peg rack next to the ranger’s heavy winter parka and a vividly red-and-gold garment that looked for all the world like a cloak. Hanzo ran his hands over it and found it a soft, warm wool, the scent that rose from it the same cedary-sagey-spicy as the shampoo, the geometric pattern around the edge similar to but subtly different from the border of the blanket folded over the back of the couch. He thought of the ranger’s golden-brown skin and dark eyes and wondered as he pulled on his boots and his jacket and stepped outside into the cool of the bright morning.

Cold with the wind, as promised, but the park office was directly across the street -- unpaved, rutted dirt and gravel, a startling contrast to both the lovely well-maintained house at his back and the modernish building at his front,  a low one-story confection of glass and adobe with a fully solar roof and a wraparound verandah that resembled the sort of thing you’d see on a saloon in a western. The door chimed gently as he entered and found himself standing in something part souvenir shop/part mini-museum, the walls lined in locked glass cases of artifacts (“Cerrillos and Its Place On the Turquoise Trail,” “El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro -- Historical Trade Routes of the Old Southwest,” “Native American Tribes of the Four Corners Region”) and the middle filled with racks of touristy tchotchkes in bins, t-shirts in dozens of sizes and colors, and, to his surprise, an extremely respectable collection of academic-grade books on local history, culture, and art, some of which he didn’t yet own, along with the usual ghost-towns-and-Native-American-folklore suspects. He was paging through one when the door chimed again and the ranger ducked inside, holding down his hat, his honest-to-gods cowboy hat, it was a fucking Stetson if it was anything, and Hanzo had to physically resist the urge to swoon.

“Wind is definitely picking up,” Ranger McDreamy greeted him, sounding a little breathless himself. “I’ve got the truck gassed and good to go, so whenever you’re ready Mr. Shimada…”

“Hanzo,” Hanzo heard himself saying in something approximating a natural, non-squeaky tone of voice -- not a suave tone, per se, but at least not a traumatically prepubescent peep, which was a definite improvement on recent events. “Please. Call me Hanzo, Ranger McCree.”

“Hanzo,” Ranger McDoMeRightHereandNow replied, and the way his tongue caressed the syllables turned Hanzo’s knees to a particularly bendy variety of gelatin and he leaned mock-casually against the bookcase in an effort to avoid melting to the floor in a babbling puddle of squee. “Then you’ve got to call me Jesse. I insist.”

“Jesse.” That was a little squeakier, but not much, so Hanzo was inclined to call it a win. “Shall we?”

“We shall.” The ranger opened the door and held it for him with a flourish.

The garage was tucked away well out of sight behind the park office and the row of older buildings alongside -- original town buildings he recognized from the artifact photos, older and more weathered and showing clear signs of preservation effort -- a squat cinderblock structure, one of its front doors already rolled open. The truck was equally squat and blocky with a fully enclosed cargo compartment in back and sat on real rubber wheels rather than antigrav pods, painted white with a vivid green stripe down the side bearing the words PARK RANGER with the NPS shield on both doors.

“Does this thing actually run on gas?” Hanzo asked as he climbed inside and got a look at the gauges on the dashboard. “How old is it?”

“Older’n both of us.” Ranger McImplishSmile replied and turned the key in the ignition, the engine coming to life with a behemoth roar of internal combustion. “I think it technically reached classic car status something like three years ago but keepin’ it runnin’ is sort of a necessity out here, so…” He popped it into gear and pulled out, following an unseen access road out to a junction with the not-really-a-highway Hanzo had followed into town. “How long were you walking, Hanzo?”

Telling him to use his given name was mistake -- a terrible, mortal error that he was going to be paying for, oh, yes, he could see that now. “Uh.” It took a moment to cudgel the information out of his brain. “At least a couple hours. Probably not as many as it felt like, because it felt like forever -- there was a little...not really snow, but it was pretty miserable there for a while.”

“Yeah, the desert this late in the autumn can be deceptive temperature-wise, particularly after dark. You weren’t badly prepared, though you probably could have done with more water. And some gloves. Spare pair in the dash box, by the way.” Ranger McWarmlyHelpful pointed out to him as they hit cracked and pitted asphalt for the first time. “This is old Highway 14. How’d you come to be down this way?”

Hanzo pulled the gloves on and frowned, considering. “I’m not entirely sure myself. I was following my GPS -- I spent most of the day in the desert between Shiprock the ghost town and Shiprock the geological feature, taking reference photos and video, doing some color studies -- “

“In the Omnic boneyard? That part of the desert?” Hanzo risked a glance and found the ranger’s face in an expression he was tempted to call Study of the Marlboro Man’s Gorgeous Son Attempting Studied Neutrality and Not Quite Making It.

“Yes.” Hanzo admitted. “I know it’s supposed to be off-limits but -- “

“But that hasn’t ever stopped anybody in the history of time.” Ranger McReassuringSmile gave him one, but there was more than a ghost of concern in his eyes. “You were sayin’?”

“I was following my GPS on the most direct route back to Santa Fe when the car started fritzing out -- or, rather, I asked it to give me the most direct route back, but it wasn’t following the roads I took in and it kept directing me off the main highways. I had to reboot it twice to get a good connection and by the time it started showing me the route that took me into Cerrillos, the car was sputtering like it hadn’t been sucking down sunlight all day.” They left the main road onto a well-detailed siding and, yes, that was a fucking impact crater. “And it’s a rental because of course it is.”

“You lost cellular connection at some point, right?” Ranger McCalmlySoothing asked, in precisely that tone. “And never got it back.”

“Yeah. I’m not exactly sure where -- it was spotty out near Shiprock but I still had some bars, at least.” Hanzo checked his phone and found it still connectionless. “I really hope Genji’s too blissed out to be worried about me right now.”

“Genji?” Ranger McCurious asked and Hanzo silently cursed himself because hearing that voice saying his brother’s name was the worst thing he’d done to himself for at least, oh, an hour.

“My brother.” Hanzo replied. “He’s studying here, too. Video game design -- the tech end. Spends most of his time hunched over a computer.” My handsome, charming, sociable, insanely flexible little brother, he thought, but did not say, in the desperate hope that none of those details would ooze out at any point. He is in no way sex incarnate with a side order of willing to try anything once, more than once if he enjoys it and nobody gets arrested. Why am I even thinking this why?

“Must be nice to have a familiar face around, this far from home.” The ranger upshifted and guided them back off the siding -- they were past the length of rucked-up-by-way-more-than-natural-forces road that had given him such fits in the dark.

“Yes -- yes, it is.” Hanzo admitted, after a moment, and it managed to not sound grudging. “Better than being alone the first couple years. I don’t think it’s much further -- it felt like so much longer last night.”

“I’ll bet. It’s so dark out here once the sun goes down, it feels like you’re walking alone in the middle of nothing, even if you’ve got a good flashlight. Not to cast any disparagement on your flashlight.” Ranger McGoodAtChangingtheSubject grinned at him. “And I’m saying this as somebody born and raised around here.”

“It was nice until the clouds rolled in. So many stars. Unfortunately, I think there was also at least one coyote and thaaaaaaaat kinda freaked me out a little. Or a lot. It was a lot,” Hanzo admitted, and that got a laugh -- a gentle, husky sound completely devoid of mockery. For a moment he forgot what he was about to say because that was the most perfect sound in the world and some part of his brain immediately began working out how to make him do it again. “They’re pretty harmless, aren’t they?”

“For the most part, yeah, they are. Probably at least as scared of you as you were of it.” His natural default expression seemed to be a smile -- the kindly, eyes-crinkling smile he’d worn at the breakfast table. “There it is.”

Hanzo’s POS rental rose out of the desert in front of them and he found himself hoping that, whatever the fuck was wrong with it, it was beyond the skills of a handy park ranger capable of keeping legit antique gas-drinking vehicles functional and that they’d have to call for a tow, at least, and this pleasant time wouldn’t have to end just yet. They pulled up alongside, Hanzo fishing out his keys and the ranger retrieving a tool case from the back of the truck. The toxic chemical cloud that greeted him the evening prior had dissipated in the intervening hours, leaving only the faintest piquant ghost of itself when they opened the hood, the ranger -- Jesse, his name is Jesse, you can totally think his name, really you can -- extracting a nameless tool of automotive diagnostics from his case and getting to work inside the engine compartment.

“Why do you drive a gas-drinker, anyway?” Hanzo asked, as he checked over the vehicle to make sure there wasn’t any outstanding damage he’d missed the day before, and that he hadn’t left anything of his own in it.

“Honestly?” The ranger looked up from the screen of the diagnostic pad he was tapping queries into. “Because relatively advanced modern vehicles like this one tend to have...issues...around here. Computer brains get all fried crispy. Electrical systems punk out. Antigrav up and quits without warning. GPS gets utterly lost. Such as is the case here.” He shut down the diagnostic tablet. “It’s been that way since just before the Crisis and quite a bit worse since, I’m afraid to say -- there’s not a formal exclusion zone, because that’d require the Federal government to actually admit out loud to something and I am sayin’ as a Federal employee that’s about as likely to happen as an honest politician, so we gave up on gettin’ official recognition of the situation some time ago.” He dropped the hood, the bang of it echoing away across the low, rolling, scrub-covered hummocks, the bits of desert flat to either side of the road. “Given how misdirected you got, it was a pretty good thing you broke down as close as you did to Cerrillos -- “

A low, ululating howl rose over the hills from somewhere unseen and, in the instant, it seemed even colder, despite the flat wind and the high, bright sun, a chill crawling up Hanzo’s spine and directly into the places of his hind-brain where the ancestral memory of predators that actually did eat human meat preferentially lived and wanted him to start running, right now.

“Hanzo, darlin’, get in the truck.” Ranger McCalmandCool suggested, politely, and Hanzo didn’t have to be told twice -- he was inside with the passenger door locked before his host had the tool case replaced in the back and the cargo compartment shut and locked.

A second voice answered the first, and a moment after that, a third. Ranger McTakingHisDamnSweetTime placed what looked like a portable telemetry beacon on the roof of the car, on the hood, and on the trunk, activating them as he went. Watching him do it, for the first time Hanzo realized he was armed -- really armed, with a gun holstered on each thigh, and he went about his business in a calm and thorough fashion that betrayed nothing but cool comfort and absolute confidence with that state. He laid a string of something -- beads? They were tiny whatever they were -- around the car and climbed back into the truck as the howling chorus rose to a genuine cacophony, started it, pulled a U-turn in the middle of the road, upshifted and dropped the accelerator in a fashion so completely unhurried that Hanzo was almost inclined to think that he was having a personal auditory hallucination. A flicker of movement in the rearview mirror caught his eye and he glanced up only to have his chin caught in a gentle, but firm, grip.

“Trust me, you don’t want to do that.” Jesse informed him, catching his eyes and holding them, as well, for a precious few seconds, and the deadly seriousness he saw written there chilled him almost more than the howls. “Mostly they ain’t very active during the day but something’s got ‘em worked up. Best to keep your eyes forward for now, okay?”

It took a moment to convince his throat to work and, once it did, it came out husky rather than a squeak. “‘They’?”

“Nana McCree would’a called ‘em naayéé -- works as well as anything, since we don’t really know what they are.” His mouth settled into something nowhere near a smile. “It’s how I knew you were walking with a coyote last night. Otherwise, you might not have made Cerrillos at all.”

A howl, louder and closer than all the others, rose so close behind them that even Jesse started, jerking the wheel involuntarily, and Hanzo’s gaze flicked reflexively back to the mirror. What he saw reflected there hit him in the hindbrain like a brick made of the pure and merciful inability of the human mind to consciously correlate all its contents: he experienced, briefly, the horrible, vertiginous awareness that he was looking at something that should not exist in a sane and benevolent universe, the realization that that understanding was significantly less shocking than it should have been, and then his mind, completely out of patience with him, pulled the curtains and the world spiralled away into soothing darkness. The last thing he heard, before everything faded away, was Jesse’s voice, and the last thing he felt was Jesse’s arm, wrapped around him and pulling him close.

*