#just imagine Whirl starts dancing like crazy afterward

[blitzy-blitzwing]

Hallelujah!!!

[chudleycanonficfest]

Day 27, Post #2 by @booksforevermore13

Author: @booksforevermore13

Summary:

"Well, considering the fact that you just asked me out - “

“and the fact that you turned me down,” he countered.

“- why not? she finished, grinning broadly. “And-and, if I had turned you down,” Ginny added, “I wouldn’t be going with you now, would I?”

“Fair enough."

Ginny’s spent the last two hours alone in a coffee shop. Luckily, a handsome stranger steps in

Pairing: Harry/Ginny

Prompt:

Meet-cute

Coffee Shop AU

Rating: T

...

“Sorry I’m so late love, traffic is crazy right now,” he said loudly, overly loud to be called normal. Ginny looked around, sure the entire cafe could hear him from where he was standing. Not to mention he was an unnaturally handsome man, and men like that tend to grab a lot of attention in a coffee shop.

Did she mention she had never seen him before? 

Ginny watched him glance around and glare at a man staring at them, then bend down towards her. She almost automatically leaned away from him, and in all likelihood, she supposed he could see that she was uncomfortable, for he made sure to keep a safe distance between them.

Somehow, she felt that he was going to do that anyway.

“I’m Harry, just go with it, yeah? Whoever didn’t bother to show up is a git.”

Ginny frowned, dawning on her that this man she’d never seen in her life, who could essentially be a serial killer for all she cared, was trying to save her from the embarrassment that would follow when she got up after her two hour long wait in solitude.

Okay, fine. 

She lied.

Her boyfriend, no, she’d not considered him one for months now, but anyway, the git stood her up. Technically, he’d always been a git, but she’d thought he’d have the least decency to at least call. 

 Not that she hadn’t suffered the quiet glances enough, but she particularly didn’t want to see the pity that followed her when she got up to leave.

The self-respecting part of her wouldn’t have waited after the fifteen-minute mark, but she’d stuck around for the sole purpose of being miserable, because there really wasn’t anything else to do. And of course, for the hope that when and if he finally showed up, she’d enjoy giving him a piece of her mind. In the middle of the damn shop.

So, Ginny couldn’t help but smile for the first time that evening, because whoever this stranger was, he was doing a damn good job at turning her evening around.

She watched as he looked around the cafe, and pulled out the chair opposite her, stumbling while trying to sit. He didn’t make eye contact, but when he did, Ginny very nearly was taken aback by the dark green of his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, “I wouldn’t have sat here hadn’t it been for the - “

“It’s okay, I don’t mind.”

 This close, she could see a lighter green coronary around his iris and try as she did, Ginny couldn’t help the blush spreading across her cheeks.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she told him, and though she was glad he did, she was slightly embarrassed he had had to.

“Sure I did,” he replied while grinning, and it was one of those grins which were infectious enough to make even the likes of her smile. With one hand, she watched as he brushed his hair back, a few strands still over his eyes and Ginny struggled to keep the red away as their eyes met.

“I’m Ginny,” she said. 

“It’s nice to meet you,” he replied, and Ginny, for a second there, was overcome with how much of a gentleman he was. Surprisingly enough, she found herself knowing the meaning behind the word, the first time she’d happened to do so, for Michael had been everything but.

“You know,” she shrugged, “if you want, you can walk out right now, right now, and you don’t need to—”

“Why do you assume I want to leave?”

Ginny blinked, taken aback by the interruption. “I just thought,” she stuttered, “you’d, I’d- I just thought you did this out of pity, which is what is expected but —”

“I didn’t...”

“I don’t need it,”she continued, “trust me, I am well aware the person who left me hanging was a git but — hang on, what?”

And Harry laughed, ducking his head, and Ginny felt like she was eleven all over again, blushing at the slightest laugh, riling up at the smallest comment, her hormones all over the place.

“I’m not doing this out of pity,” Harry said, and then he blushed, much to her surprise, red spreading down his neck, and cheeks. “I did this because, I, uhh,” he fumbled for words, and became even more flustered as Ginny raised an eyebrow at him. “It’s nothing actually.”

“But?”

“You’re beautiful.”

She laughed at that, relaxing into her seat, enjoying how he’d riled up at that, his face completely red. 

For the first time that day, let herself relax, breathing out a sigh of relief. Was it relief or all of her pent up emotions at once? She didn’t know, but all she’d felt for the last few hours had been anger, annoyance, hurt, though the latter she refused to admit. She could only feel so much at once, she knew that, yet Michael had only added to her troubles and Ginny had let him.

She hated herself for that.

A moment later, she spoke up again, leaning towards Harry, still enjoying how he got all flustered by her words. Clearly, he wasn’t as smooth as she thought he had been.

“Can I ask you something?”

“What?”

“Who’s that girl sitting back there,” she gestured, “the one who’s been looking at us for the last few minutes from over her menu?

Harry whirled around, and then started chuckling. The girl in question dropped down again, and Harry turned back.

“That’s Hermione,” he said. “She’s my sister, friend,” he rubbed his neck again, “best friend.”

She shrugged. “Fair enough.” 

Ginny had sat through Luna’s entire date with Rolf, she really couldn’t comment on it. 

A moment later, Harry spoke up again, as if he’d thought of something important and wanted to get it out of the system. “Can I ask you something?” he said, repeating her words from before.

She smiled, sitting back in her seat. “Fire on.”

“I think now would be a good time to order something,” he said quietly. “That waitress over there has been giving us the stink-eye since before I sat here.”

“Can I tell you something?”

Harry nodded.

“She’s been doing that since the last two hours.”

He started laughing again, ducking his head again, and Ginny joined him, shaking her head in disbelief. She was still having a hard time believing that she was this relaxed around a complete stranger when she couldn’t even be this close with her family.

Nevertheless, she called the woman over here, who introduced herself yet again as Alicia, and then proceeded to rip their orders down in her notepad, stalking away afterwards. When she disappeared behind the counter again, Harry looked at her again, amusement dancing in his eyes.

“What’d you do to rile her up like that?”

Ginny grinned, returning his look. “I don’t blame her, really,” she said and chuckled, “if I was the one with a customer sitting for two hours straight without even drinking one measly coffee, I would have done more than glare.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt it.”

Ginny looked at him, an eyebrow arched. “You think you’ve got me all figured out, don’t you?” she teased and Harry scoffed.

“Not even close. I’m trying to, though I don’t think I ever will.” 

“Good that.”

Behind him she saw the girl, Hermione, get up, and as Harry followed her gaze and turned, the girl looked at him, and smiled in reassurance, leaving a dollar note on the table and leaving. 

“Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah.”

“She’s the one, now you be honest, she’s the one who pushed you to meet me, isn’t she?”

He had a sheepish look on his face as he shrugged, and Ginny threw her head back in laughter.

“How did you figure that one out?”

“You’re not as smooth as you think,” she teased, and Harry winced again, ducking his head as he smiled, and Ginny was glad she wasn’t the only one in their interaction behaving like a complete tween.

She took her time, observing him as the silence came after. It felt….comfortable, sitting with him, joking with him. There was a particular ease between them, one she hadn’t failed to notice, one she hadn’t shared with Michael or anyone she’d dated before.

He was handsome, Harry, with his lopsided glasses, and his green eyes sparkling behind them. If she could be so poetic herself, she’d have described it as a storm brewing in his eyes, the green of the forest across her house.

But she hadn’t failed to notice how it was slightly odd that he’d been here at the same time as she, and it was weird because it was a Monday, the busiest day of the week. He wasn’t an athlete, no athlete could be this charming and this flustered at the same time, and she didn’t know any other professions where they had a day off on Monday. 

“What were you doing here?” she asked suddenly, and then winced, wondering if her question had been a bit too forward. 

But Harry only shrugged. “Nothing of importance, really. I had a day off, so I decided to get out of the house for a change.” 

“Sounds reasonable,” she replied. It was quite a mundane reason, nothing like she’d imagined. Nevertheless, she didn’t push him, didn’t ask for details, though that was partly because she knew it wasn’t her place. But over the years, with Michael and Dean and every other bloke she’d been with, constantly nagging her for details, where she’d been, whom she’d been with, why she’d been there with whomever she’d been with, that she knew better.

And she had a strong feeling that Harry appreciated it too.

When their eyes met again, she couldn’t help but smile. He cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck again, and then leaned forward slightly.

“What do you want to do now?” he asked, and it was, if she could be so honest (a trait she didn’t possess) concerning that the very first thing Ginny thought was how much of a damn charmer he was and the second: she couldn’t wait to tell Luna.

Not for the first time, she found herself thinking she needed to get a life.

Ginny shrugged. “You’re the one with the plan. I do whatever seems fun at the moment.”

“And what exactly seems fun here right now?”

She looked around, giving a once-over of the place before shaking her head, shrugging.

“Nothing, nada. This is a most literal garbage dump.”

“Then how about we just talk?”

She arched an eyebrow at him, as if contemplating the great mysteries of the universe, before they burst out laughing, her eyes glinting with anticipation. It had been long since she’d felt this, this ridiculous fluttering in her stomach, this tingling she felt every time their fingers brushed together.

God, they were like two giggling teenagers. No wonder everyone was looking at them.

When she checked her watch under the table, it was six in the evening, and night was setting fast, their surroundings already a dusky blue. The door of the coffee shop was open, and every other minute, a huge gust of wind blew in, cool against the summer sun. Other than the two of them, there were only three other people in the shop, and one was just about to leave.

“Can I ask you something?”

Ginny smiled.

“You play for the London Dragons?” 

She frowned, slightly taken aback by how he knew that piece of information before he pointed out her jacket.

“Oh,” she chuckled drily. “Yeah, I do. It’s my last year in college.”

“I see.” 

Consciously, she tugged her sleeves down, clearing her throat in earnest. One minute she wanted to twirl around the cafe twice, giddy with excitement, and the other she wanted to jump twice in her chair in fear and anticipation.

Michael hadn’t been good for her emotions.

“Okay,” she mumbled. “My turn.” She cleared her throat, and Harry raised an eyebrow, to which she wiggled hers.

“Wh…. do you, um, do that?” She asked.

He looked at her in confusion, a slight smile playing on his face. He was adorable, and Ginny was having a hard time keeping herself from smiling too much.

“Do what?”

“This, when you laugh, you duck your head. Why do you do that?”

“I…..uh, I have no idea. It’s habit, I guess.”

“I see.”

They both solemnly looked at each, and then shared a smile, Ginny still feeling quite tingly in her fingers when they touched his. The couple sitting a few chairs away from them shot them a look, after which they had to shut down their sneaky-glancing contest, but that didn’t last long.

“So,” Harry shot her a mirthful smile, “tell me something about yourself.”

Ginny raised an eyebrow. “You save me from a dateless evening and now, you’re letting me talk about myself? Seems like I should be glad I was abandoned.”

“I think you should be more impressed by the fact that I know nothing about you.”

“And why is that?”

“So the chances of me mansplaining are next to none.”

Ginny laughed, sitting up straight in her chair. She folded her hands and looked at him. “Okay, one,” she started, “I, uhh...have six brothers, older, mind you and all of them are dolts of the highest calibre. Two, I have a dog, named Daisy, she’s a Husky, and the one being I love most in the world, and three, I am currently…. single.”

“Three things?”

“It’s your turn now.”

Harry laughed, and then copied her as he too, sat himself in the same position, his hands on the table, fingers drumming to a noiseless tune. “One, I have no siblings,” he clicked his tongue, and then continued. “Two, I….uh, I am an officer in Scotland Yard, under training though,” he said hurriedly as she looked at him in surprise, “and three, I’m twenty three, and single.”

She smirked, sitting back, satisfied, and trying to ignore the fact that he was single too (and failing miserably). “I didn’t know we had an officer in our midst,” she said.

“Under training.”

“Ah, well, potato, potahto.”

Harry chuckled, shaking his head in exasperation, and they sat up as Alicia, the waitress came to their table, holding their order, which she, by all accounts, slammed onto the table.

“Oh well, she’s a pleasant one,” Harry muttered and Ginny smiled into her coffee.

She blew on it and took a sip, before blatantly making a face. “Oh,” she put her coffee down. “That-that’s not good at all.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s bitter. It’s very bitter.”

“Oh,” Harry passed her a sugar packet, one which she graciously ripped open, dumping it’s contents into her coffee, stirring it, as she looked up at him.

“Can I ask you something?” Ginny gestured at his hair, and consciously, he ran his hand over it, as if he knew what she was talking about.

“What’s,” she hesitated, “that scar under your…your hair?”

She knew she’d messed up at that, for his eyes hardened, and he looked down at his plate. It was clearly a painful subject for him, one he wished to keep private and Ginny felt herself thinking she should have kept herself shut.

“I was in an accident,” he explained as their eyes met and Ginny nodded hurriedly, not asking more. She looked away, though she could feel his gaze on her long after she had turned. 

“I have a feeling you want to ask something,” she smiled, and Harry nodded as he shifted in his seat.

“He, the person who didn’t show up,” he started, “he didn’t call?”

“No,” she replied sharply, before sighing. It was an awfully personal question, but she felt he deserved at least an explanation for why he had had to step in as her faux. “Michael, the boy, the git, and I,” she clicked her tongue, “well, we are too far gone to do something like that.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Harry said quietly and Ginny shrugged. She’d never broached the subject before, her and Michael’s relationship, if she could even call it one, partly because she hadn’t bothered, and partly because she didn’t know what to feel about it. 

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I overstepped, I’m sorry” 

“No that’s alright,” she said, and waved her hands haphazardly around as if they could prove her point. “I mean we were broken up long before this. Four months, actually. This was basically grasping at needles in a haystack.” 

That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

“Why didn’t you break up then?” Harry asked and Ginny couldn’t help but laugh. If she had figured that one out, she’d have put an end to this long since.

“I’m a bad girlfriend,” she chuckled drily. “He’s a bad boyfriend. We deserved each other.”

Harry didn’t ask more.

 It was a few long minutes before either of them spoke. Her brain was completely blank, one of those times where she didn’t say anything, didn’t think anything, just stared aimlessly at the sugar dissolving in her coffee.

“You know that gets me thinking,” she started, “why the hell did I date that jackass  in the first place?” Ginny looked at him, a smile playing on her lips, and a need to make the conversation lighter. “The answer to that question— well, I don’t exactly know— but, well, maybe because we were attracted to each other,” she said, nodding mockingly.

“But then that gets you thinking. I am, for example and this is completely hypothetical, attracted to pie,” Harry raised an eyebrow, hiding a smile, “or this coffee for example, but that doesn’t mean I feel the need to date it.”

She looked at him, and he looked at her, as if he didn’t quite know how to respond, and just like that, they burst out laughing again, as if they hadn’t been talking about her sorry excuse for a love life the very other second.

“I think that neither of us are drunk enough for this conversation,” Harry said between chuckles and Ginny laughed harder.

They paused as Alicia, the waitress shushed them from behind the counter, and looked at each other, both of them struggling to keep the chuckles in.

In a fit, she sipped on her coffee, immediately regretting it as she coughed, spitting the coffee back in the mug again.

“This is worse,” she coughed, gulping the water in. “This is like mud. Like bitter mud and sugar.”

Harry looked at her, slightly concerned before he pushed his chair out and stood up. “Okay,” he said. “That’s it.”

Ginny frowned in confusion, as he pushed the chair back in, slightly disheartened by what he was doing, but he only smiled, holding out his hand for her.

“Care to join me?”

Ginny tilted her head, trying out those words in her head and then laughed, shaking her head in disbelief. 

“Where are you going?” she asked, and Harry looked at her, she was yet once again, captured breathless by his eyes on her.

“Anywhere but here,” he said, and Ginny felt her cheeks heating up.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were asking me out on a date.”

“Would that be so bad?”

“I literally just met you!” she exclaimed, chuckling in disbelief. Harry was still looking at her, and she found herself pausing, hesitating and then asking.

“How about, as two people who just met?”

“How about as friends?” Harry countered. 

She shrugged, and then smirked. “Fair enough.” 

So, when he offered his hand again, Ginny took it, and let him pull her up and as Harry smiled back at her with that grin of his, she couldn’t help but grin like that. In a moment of irony, she realised that had Michael not been a bad boyfriend and her, not the essential definition of the Mad Hatter, they would have never been standing here.

He let go of her hand as she stood up, though it lingered near hers long after he’d left it. Ginny didn’t pull away. She didn’t want to.

“Can I ask you something?” he asked, smiling, and both of them, completely ignorant of the fact that Alicia was now staring pointedly at them.

“Well, considering the fact that you just asked me out - “

“and the fact that you just turned me down,” he countered.

“- why not? she finished, grinning broadly. “And-and, if I had turned you down,” Ginny added, “I wouldn’t be going with you now, would I?”

“Fair enough.”

...

[alstanfordart]

Surprise

Story under cut. Usual warnings.

"C'mon, get these," Liam orders as he tosses a bundle of white taper candles and holders at Josh, who fumbles as he catches them. "These will have to do. I ain't driving down to Bangor now. And these are the only ones they got."

They were in the candles and fragrance section of Rite-Aid. Standing beside them is Josh's younger sister Christie, decked out in a dark green crop top, denim jacket and skirt, chewing loudly on Skittles candies she boldly ripped open in front of a store employee sweeping the floor. The gangly young man had simply shrugged and kept moving along the aisle, pushing the wrinkled scraps of wrappers and dirt crumbs along the stained and scratched cream tiles.

It was Halloween night, and everyone else was out trick or treating or partying, so the store was almost empty.

"Shouldn't we use black candles? That's what they usually use, right?" Christie pipes up, tucking a tendril of wavy blonde behind her ear.

"They don't have them here, and I don't think we need them." Josh replies as a spiked-haired young man with a septum piercing and cartoonish-looking tattoos emerges from the snacks aisle with three bags of pretzels piled high in his arms.

"Someone's gettin' high tonight." Liam mutters, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his leather jacket as they watch the young man pay the cashier and exit.

"Hey where's Lucas?" Josh queries. "Thought he was coming?"

"Stuck at his girlfriend's. She goes to church and all that and thinks we're all a bunch of heathens." Liam grins, his neck-length greasy hair tumbling over his dark sunken eyes as he continues to scan the shelf, before blowing a sigh throw his nostrils.

"Hope he don't make that uptight bitch my sister-in-law. Would hate to see her every fucking holiday," he pauses. "Yeah, we're done here." he announces as he gives a quick flick of his hand, scarred with cigarette burns, motioning for Josh and Christie to follow him.

As a song by New Kids On The Block starts blaring over the store speakers, Liam sends a taunting grin at Christie as he begins a comical flailing of his limbs in the aisle, weaving his lanky frame, trying to mimic the dance moves of the boy banders.

"Hey, I'm Joey McIntyre. Ain't you into them Christie?" he says as he starts to snap his fingers as he does a shuffle up to her. With a disgusted visage, Christie sticks her palm out, blocking him from coming closer.

"God no," she says, her face looking as if she'd just taken a whiff of the worst-smelling garbage imaginable. "Fucking Greta Keene listens to that shit. Not me."

Greta had taken to hanging out front of Derry Middle School, waiting for Christie, and along with Sally Mueller, started chucking rolled up paper balls, juice boxes and empty soda cans at her as she passed by. She'd been a target since she'd walked in on them tormenting a girl named Beverly Marsh and promptly cussed them out. They then began targeting her. It had become a ritual at this point.

Liam halts his dancing, his mien dropping to a more serious one. "C'mon man." he says, sniffling loudly, running his left index along the thin black mustache that aged him at least ten years. He didn't look like a young man of eighteen, but rather a thirty year old you might see working Derry's seedy bar scene. Compared to Josh's more boyish, youthful appearance with his short dirty blonde hair, stonewashed jeans and Derry High School jacket, they made an odd match in terms of friends.

The young cashier looks nervous as the three approach, with Liam digging into the back pocket of his trousers, presenting some wrinkled up dollar bills and loose change.

"Hey, got money tonight man," Liam gives a leering grin to the cashier, whose cheeks are now flushed a light pink. He nods rapidly as he quickly takes the money from Liam, snatching it from his palm as if worried he might contract a disease by touch.

"See ya'," Liam continues his lurid grinning as he makes a finger gun with his hand, pointing it at the timid cashier, clicking his tongue. "Later dude."

After all three pile into Liam's red Pontiac Firebird, Josh tosses the plastic bag of candles into the backseat beside Christie. As they cruise along Kansas Street. Josh snaps on the radio, with Liam loudly belting out the lyrics as Josh cranks up the volume.

"You're motoring, what's your price for flight, in finding mister right, you'll be alright tonight!" he sings in an deep, exaggerated intonation, sending glances back at Christie over his shoulder. She loudly groans as she slinks down against the backseat.

"Why do you always have to be such a dick?" she sighs as she gazes out at the street lights blurring past. She huffs, folding her arms as he continues his taunting crooning, turning in his seat to face her, placing a hand dramatically over his heart.

"Babe, you know, you're growing up so fast, and mama's worrying-"

"No she ain't." Christie sternly cuts in, pushing the plastic bag aside as she shuffles in her seat, kicking the empty beer cans along the tacky floor with the toe of her sneakers. The odor inside the car nauseating her with what she suspected was a combination of weed and vomit.

They pass by a bar with patrons loitering outside. She points.

"Ma is probably in there."

Their mother Melanie certainly wasn't worrying about anything or anyone other than her next lay.

"I hate that fucking song." she adds.

Liam abruptly stops his warbling as they come to a stop in front of their destination; 29 Neibolt Street.

"Ah, fuck yeah!" Liam hits the breaks and leaps out, making his way to the trunk. Throwing it open, he removes a large heavy item, wrapped in a grimey brown cloth, along with a couple of flashlights. Slamming the hood, he approaches Josh and Christie.

"Here it is. It's big enough. We're gonna do this, man. And it's gonna be fuckin' cool!" he exclaims excitedly as he pounces towards the front door of the run-down mansion, long rumored to be a haven for every tweaker in town.

As well as ghosts and the occasional Satanist-a crowd that Liam ran with. It was his idea to come to the most infamous house in Derry to perform a seance. They'd let Christie tag along for the ride.

As Josh duly follows. Christie pauses, holding the plastic bag of candles, staring up at the circular attic window. She remains there, her hazel disks focused on the tenebrous just within the foggy and cracked glass.

She gazes over at the police tape draped along the wrought iron fence that had been torn, a sign that others had trespassed along the property.

"What a shithole." she mumbles beneath her breath.

A pair of large hands violently shove her forward. She nearly falls over, catching herself against the wooden beam of the porch, feeling a pinch against her thumb as a splinter pricks her skin.

"Ow, shit." she gasps as she whirls around, certain that asshole Liam or Josh were pranking her.

But no one.

She quickly runs inside, trying to work the splinter from her flesh, a tear of red blood forms, pushing it out.

"Someone just pushed me," she says as she shuts the rickety old door behind her, trading her gaze between her brother and his friend, trying to decide who was the culprit. She drops the plastic bag to her feet as she snatches up a flashlight, shining it on her finger.

"Maybe it was the ghost!" Liam cackles, his jeering grin a hint that maybe it had been him. Christie glowers at him.

"It's not funny. Someone came up behind me-"

"You just tripped," Josh interjects dismissively. "We were both in here. Liam was with me."

"Yeah," Liam agrees as he switches on his flashlight, aiming it at his face. "I told, you it was the ghost. This place is haunted like a motherfucker. You know by that piano teacher."

"Edna Cotton?" Josh inquires.

"Yep, lived here around 1906," Liam continues, "She was banging Joseph Mueller. He wouldn't leave his wife. So, one day, she invited his wife here for tea- and the wife had no clue about the affair- and then she crept up behind her with an axe and pow!" he swings his arms as if holding an invisible weapon. "Blade went into the back of wifey's skull. They found Edna wondering the streets afterwards, covered in blood. They hanged her a week later. They had to do it quick, since they were afraid the Mueller wife's family and friends would get to her first. "

"Wow." Christie says, her arms scissored around her, feeling a stark chill suddenly pulse through her, goosebumps prickling along her skin. The mention of the Mueller name made her think of Sally.

She glances to the front door.

No, no ghost. Just Liam being a douchebag and tying to scare her. Maybe she did trip. Pushing it out of her mind, she moves to stand by Josh.

"Alright, let's do this," Liam positions himself before the cloaked item, yanking away the material to reveal a large oval-shaped mirror. He traces a callused fingertip along its golden frame. "Mirrors are portals. Gateways."

Josh snatches up the bag of candles and pulls out his lighter, igniting each and lining them up around the mirror. Christie lowers herself to sit on the icy floor.

"Think this will work huh?" Josh queries as he stares at his reflection. Liam nods, keeping his eyes glued to his own.

"Legend has it The Brotherhood of Nineteen used to hold seances here," Liam says. "They also used to do mirror gazing, trying to contact the dead. I read one of them went crazy after he stared at a mirror too long and his reflection morphed into something inhuman, a demonic pigman or something. Now close your eyes."

Liam starts to recite an incantation under his breath, but neither Josh nor Christie can decipher what he's saying. The room is quiet, dark, save for the soft light of the candles.

Christie decides to peek, opening her lids and watching, eyes widening as she sees a pitch black fog that resembles liquid start to spread along the mirror, drowning out their reflections. She inhales sharply at the unexpected sight.

The black fog quickly vanishes as she does so. Liam growls, "Hey what the fuck?"

"I saw something. In the mirror-"

"It was working? Dammit! Don't fuckin' talk! Shit!" Liam hisses as he gives her a murderous glare. Josh places a hand on Christie's shoulder.

"It's okay. Just keep them closed." he offers gently as Liam keeps his intense brown irises on her.

"Again." he states coldly as he turns back to face the mirror, and, once again, recites that indiscernible invocation. Christie keeps her lids squeezed shut. For a moment she heeds Liam's order. But something was telling her to open them again. A tension begins to envelope her tiny frame, her chest tightening, heart thumping against the tightness forming in her throat.

And she looks.

What she sees is not an inky fog cloud this time, but...a clown. Clear as day. His round face outlined by the golden of the candlelight. His pupils two flaming smooth yellow rings. His grin is trimmed in dark red stripes that cut across his white cheeks. The most startling thing of all are his teeth; sharp and pointy, like a demon out of the horror movies.

"Oh my God!" Christie shrieks as she scrambles away on her hands and knees, coming to a stop near the staircase.

"Fucking Hell!" Liam roars as he bolts up. "You can't take her anywhere! Fuck!"

"What is it?" Josh crawls over to his terrified sister, her gaze on the mirror, bottom lip trembling as she leans her weight against her palms. The weird clown face has vanished from the glass.

"There was something in the mirror. A face in the mirror. Like...a clown's face." Christie breathes, her voice dripping with panic, her chest heaving rapidly. Liam gives a disgusted scoff, his hands on his hips as he hangs his head, shaking it.

"Can't bring her anywhere," he grumbles. "A fucking clown? What the fuck even?"

Wham! Wham! Wham!

A pounding starts from beneath the floor. Continuous, growing louder. More ominous. Even Liam looks startled at this. Josh eyes the floorboards, eyebrows knotted as he wraps an arm around Christie.

"Sounds like it's coming from the basement." he offers.

"Gee, ya' think so huh?" Liam states sarcastically as he stares downwards for a fleeting moment before he grabs up a flashlight and storms towards the kitchen in the direction of the basement door. "Probably some fuckin' crackhead. If it is, they're going to get their ass beat. I'm not in the mood for this shit."

Josh follows, with Christie close behind, her finger clasping the hem of Josh's black and orange high school jacket. Liam and Josh both charge down the basement steps, flashlight beams searching along the dusty warped steps. They both pause halfway down to glance at the darkness, a runnel of moonlight is cutting through the cracked and stained basement window.

"Who the fuck is here man?" Liam shouts as he keeps the light pointedly on the well, holding his forearm against the lower half of his face to shield against the odor of rotting wood. There is no answer, only the aged pulley that dangles over the well entrance begins to squeak as it swings, ever so slightly.

"What is-" Josh begins before he's cut off by the basement door slamming. He and and Liam bolt back up the steps.

"Hey Christie, the fuck you doing? Open it," Josh pounds on the door. "Hey! Open!"

Then, in between flesh striking the wood, they hear it. A loud bubbling growl emitting from the dark of the basement corner. Josh halts his pounding as he and Liam both turn their attention on the well.

Rising up from beneath is a creature, humanoid in appearance, save for its face. Its features were only somewhat visible in the dim light of the room. The blue-white moonlight gleamed along the tusks protruding out from its snarled and twisted mouth. It gave another growl, a snarl mixed with a squeal.

Like a pig. Its eyes were like two burning balls above its snout, devoid of any pupils, pointedly on both of them. The odd ruby stripes down its cheeks distort as it continues to snarl.

"Shit, the fuck is that?" Josh manages, grabbing Liam's elbow. The young man remains frozen, seemingly hypnotized by the creature's blazing corneas. Josh violently shoves him aside to resume frantically banging on the door.

"Christie! Open it! There's something fuckin' in here man! Open it!" he shouts, not removing his sight from the pig-like monster. "Fuckin' open you little bitch!"

Suddenly, the beast is behind them, moving with lightning speed at the bottom of the steps. Liam screams as it yanks him down by the ankles, he flails backwards, landing with a loud thud and a groan.

The beast then speedily leaps up and tackles Josh, the front of his skull cracks against the door. He falls to the ground, with the beast's demonic swine features becoming more blurry as he's rendered barely conscious, he feels the bopping of his head along the steps as he is dragged down the stairs.

"Hello, goodbye." the monster growls before it tears into Josh's throat, with Liam still knocked cold beside him.

Outside the door, Christie is staring blankly at it, hearing nothing. Just a stark silence. Her mind is hollow. Numb.

Christie.

A maniacal giggle follows.

Christie.

Another giggle.

She slowly turns around, looking up to the second floor balcony. Without giving much thought to what she was doing, she saunters up the steps, still hearing a soft insidious giggling amid the creaks of her soles along the wood. She comes to a halt in front of an open door to a room filled with clown dolls.

In the corner is a dark-haired woman seated on a rocking chair, facing the stained glass windows. On her lap, one of the clown dolls wearing a yellow and blue outift, with orange pom poms down its front. Its large eyes were turned downwards, and for a fleeting moment, Christie could swear she sees it blink.

"He said he loved me." the woman offers quietly. Christie sucks in a deep breath, her mouth becoming dry, a thump thickens in her throat. Her heart races against her rib cage.

"Who?" Christie squeaks as the woman suddenly turns to look at her. Christie's heart now feels as if it could stop beating completely at the sight she sees.

The woman's face is but a half-skeleton, bits of flesh dangling from her chin, her eyelids non-existent, leaving her bloodshot eyeballs exposed like two small moons. Her irises like black holes. As she rises, the front of her dress comes into view, caked in dark dried blood.

"He said he wanted me!" she screams as she presents an axe, splattered with blood streaks. Christie screams hysterically, falling against the door as the woman comes at her. The giggling starts again, and Christie, to her utter shock and horror watches as the clown doll that was sitting on the woman's lap becomes animated, moving on its own. It painted features now drawn into an evil glare.

All the dolls in the room were moving, waving their hands and giggling. A chorus of laughter chases after Christie as she takes off down the hallway, the insane woman following behind. She can hear the axe cutting through the chilly air as the woman swings it at her, barely missing Christie's back.

She bounds down the stairs, almost stumbling, grasping the shoddy railing, cobwebs catching along her fingers. She runs to the front door, jiggling the handle, finding its stuck-or locked.

There's no time to comprehend which, the crazed woman is coming for her. Only now, she has red stripes down her cheeks along the rotted flesh and bone. Christie dodges the swinging axe, making a play back up the stairwell. Still in shock, she holds in another scream, concentrating on finding refuge, running inside a room with a large leather chair, desk with a single lamp that was aglow, vintage record player and coffee table.

Inside, after she has closed the door and locked it. She stands, tears coursing down her beet red cheeks, a headache throbbing through her skull. Her whole body is trembling uncontrollably as she sinks to the floor, holding her knees, rocking.

If she could get to Josh. Or even asshole Liam would do.

Somebody. Anybody.

She remains in the same position for a few minutes, sniffling, tense, as she keeps her attention on the door, until she hears a crackling sound as the old dusty record player begins to play;

'You're motoring, what's your price for flight, in finding mister right, you'll be alright tonight.'

When the verse plays a second time, the needle begins skipping, the phrase, "What's your price" repeating on a loop. Christie tightly covers her ears, tucking her head down.

"What's your price?" the man in the red truck asks Melanie, whose leaning against the door. They're in the driveway of Melanie's house, and it's just after midnight.

"Whatever you got-" Melanie says in between her loud gum chewing. The man then nods behind her.

"Hey, we got company." he mutters. Melanie turns to see Christie in her pale lavender nightgown, clutching her Raggedy Ann doll.

"Mommy...?"

"Get your ass back in bed!" Melanie roars as she stalks towards her, pushing her up the porch steps.

Christie darts up, screaming as she runs at the record player, knocking it to the ground, stomping the shiny black of the record, smashing and cracking it. She continues to angrily pummel it with her soles, kicking the pieces aside. Her fury does nothing to drown out the forest of giggles she hears as she does so.

"Who is there?" she asks forcefully, feeling a new strength come over her. Her anger, her fear, were now colliding, blending, erupting in a powerful adrenaline rush.

She was done with this crap.

"Who the fuck are you?! Where's my brother, you fuckers?!"

The voices quiet, hushing each other, trying to hold in their mocking cackling. The room is dark save for the tiny lamp, and the only thing she can make out are the feet of her assailants moving stealthily along the shadows of the corners of the room. Charily, they begin to present themselves, each clown doll stepping forward, each one different than the last, tall, short, inching out into the weak light. Their giggling starts up again.

"No," Christie gives a small shake of her head. "No, this isn't real. You're just a dream. You're the pizza and ice cream I gorged on last night. I must have fallen asleep in the car. Because this isn't real."

This instantly silences them. They all glance to each other, their worn and aged features almost looking...scared. Or worried.

"I wouldn't say that. You'll make him mad..." offers the one who was perched on the lap of the crazed woman with the axe.

She wasn't real either. Just a ghost. A junk food-induced hallucination.

Christie, the emotionally intelligent girl that she is, now decided to wield her new power.

"You're not real. You're not fucking real." she points a taunting finger. "You're just imaginary. Just stupid dolls. I'm not scared of fucking dolls!" she finishes, almost laughing as she brings her fingers up to her mouth.

The room then starts to rumble, like an earthquake. The dolls all clamor back to the shadows, seemingly disappearing into the ratted and torn wallpaper. One utters an audible, "Uh-oh," as they vanish from sight. Accompanying the thunderous shaking is a raspy roar, echoing around Christie as she runs to the room's door, flinging it open, instantly being met with the axe woman.

"You're not real!" Christie shouts defiantly, the woman shrinks back, lowering her axe. Christie takes the opportunity to then jump down the stairs, the edge of her sneaker catching on a piece of broken railing that is protruding from a step and tumbles, flying down the stairwell, landing at the bottom and rolling to the center of the living room. She remains there, until she opens her lids, feeling the warmth of the sun upon her color drained features. She gradually raises her head, before she pushes herself up and heads to the door. Stepping out in the brightness of daylight, embracing the warmth, she makes her way home, just a block away.

Standing in the bathroom of her bedroom, she observes her tired features.

It had been a dream. A very vivid one. But a dream nonetheless.

Josh and Liam had left her there clearly, not that Josh hadn't abandoned her before. He would normally not have done that, but Liam's influence was strong. Maybe when she passed out during that silly little seance Liam wanted to do. Or maybe in the car ride. But, didn't she see something? She could have sworn she did. In the mirror. Or was that part of the dream too?

Oh well. Whatever happened, she was home now. Josh would turn up sooner or later. He was probably off smoking weed with Liam.

Assholes. Both of them.

She switches on the tap, gently splashing her face with cold water. She opens the medicine cabinet to retrieve the aspirin. She shuts it, and in the reflection, standing right behind her are Josh and Liam. She screams as she takes in their bloody and chewed facial features, Liam grinning his mocking leering grin. Just as the aspirin bottle hits the floor, she jolts awake.

Awake. Cold. Head pounding as she lay on the floor of Neibolt at the bottom of the stairs. She groggily lifts her aching body up, moaning in pain, placing her palm to her forehead. She lets out a defeated whimper as she sits, gazing around as the oval mirror that still sat leaning against the wall begins to roll out in front of her. Christie gasps, keeping her eyes on it as it comes to a halt a few feet away from her. Her heavy breathing is audible as she stares at it.

The surface of the mirror begins to ripple, her reflection fading as a massive white gloved hand emerges from the watery silver, wiry fingers wiggling, deep, rasping chuckles drifting out along with it as the ruffled sleeve of the hand appears. Then a bulbous head topped with fiery orange tufts of hair. Christie's mouth is agape, her eyes bulged as she tries to inch away from Pennywise, who has now pulled his entire upper torso out of the mirror, bells jingling. Leaning on his fists, he grins, those familiar stripes distorting as he sneers,

"Time to float," he growls before his features darken. "You are scared now, aren't you?" he loudly sniffs the air. "Yes, you are. Real, delectable fear."

He crawls out a little further, his visage becoming more irate, saliva strings dangling from his lips. "What a shithole." he says, mimicking Christie's voice.

Crippled with fear, Christie begins to scoot away, a tearful grimace forming, her legs kicking along the floor, before Pennywise's hand shoots out, coiling around her ankle.

Christie shrieks as he drags her towards him as he retreats back into the mirror. With a flash of light, the surface is normal again, save for a few small orange electric bolts shivering along the glass.

As the mirror tips back over, the faint sounds of giggling begins, filling the rooms of the house.

[spark-gem]

Tag Game

I started a new thread

Pick 5 shows, then answer the following questions. don’t cheat. tag 3 or more or as many people as you want afterwards.

Transformers Animated

Transformers RID2015

Beast Wars

Transformers Prime

Transformers Cyberverse

This is a TF blog what did you expect?

1. who is your favorite character in 2?

LISTEN. I’ll say it once and I’ll say it again. They could’ve done so much with Fracture and the writers didn’t! You don’t hype me up for introducing a handsome, interesting, purple motorcycle with two gremlin minicons, a rivalry with Drift FOR THE MOST BASIC REASONS AT THAT!, have him speak and appear for probably 15 minutes in length, and then have him in stasis for what? Trespassing? When he was following orders to the pack and even before that when the Autobot’s mission was just recapturing prisoners from the Alcammore?Didn’t even offer him some sort of deal since he was just doing his job because he’s a freelancer.

2. who is your least favorite character in 1?

Its like a hard tie between Ultra Magnus and Sentinel Prime. I don’t need an explanation for Sentinel but Magnus is because he basically doesn’t really regard the safety or care for his Autobots.....Jettwins origin being a good example to me at least.

3. what is your favorite episode of 4?

Harder,Faster,Stronger. 

Its a heavy Ratchet oriented episode and while it makes me want to cry because of what Ratchet does because of the synthetic energon (because I’m concerned for his well being)....I did really enjoy the noises he was making. Anytime I imagine that ‘hooah!’ or ‘yip-yip-yip!’ it makes me giggle.

4. what is your favorite season of 5?

Cyberverse is still on going but I’ll go with season 3 because its the newest season and I don’t want to say anything that might be a spoiler....

But I truly enjoyed blind Perceptor and animated Whirl.....also SoundRod if thats the pairing name

5. who is your favorite couple in 3?

While Beast Wars had a few pairing, none were my favorite but I guess Blackarachnia and Silverbolt (shrug).

6. who is your favorite couple in 2?

Gonna be honest ever since I got that Grimlock x Strongarm request, I kinda like it.

7. what is your favorite episode of 1?

WHAT ISN’T MY FAVORITE EPISODE....maybe Headmasters Return or Sari No One’s Home. I love hearing Optimus laugh and a Sari focused episode.

8. what is your favorite episode of 5?

I don’t know the exact episode but the one where we get that Optimus dancing.

9. what is your favorite season of 2?

Season 1 because everyone is getting introduced!

10. how long have you watched 1?

IDK....10 years?

11. how did you become interested in 3?

When I was in middle school I stumbled upon TFwiki and it had a list of all TF related shows. I liked animals, I liked robots I decided to give it a shot. I still like it to this day.

12. who is your favorite actor in 4?

I know my answer will sound clique and there are too many amazing VAs but.....Peter Cullen, Steve Blum, Kevin Michael Richardson, Jeffrey Combs, Tony Todd, Nolan North, Daran Norris, and so many others.  

13. which do you prefer, 1, 2, or 5?

Transformers Animated

14. which show have you seen more episodes of, 1 or 3 ?

Beast Wars technically has more episodes so...that one.

15. if you could be anyone from 4, who would you be?

Ngl my first thought was Megatron. I would have all his strength but not be crazy with Dark Energon. Treat Starscream with respect, rescue Breakdown( ensure his safety and Dreadwing’s for the assassination of Airachnaid), MECH would be viewed as a threat, and since I wouldn’t be in a coma because I would be watching my spacebridge from my ship THEREFORE PREVENT STARCREAM FROM RAISING SKYQUAKE FROM THE DEAD (BETTER YET MAYBE NOT EVEN BE DEAD) THAT WAY DREADWING COULD LIVE.

16. would a crossover between 3 and 4 work?

Hmmm maybe. They introduced Predacons in TFP but I think it would be equally interesting if the show introduced Maximals and Predacons in statsis like they did with Skyquake. That way each side would get some more allies and the audience would get some more Earth-Cybertronian history.

17. pair two characters in 1 who would make an unlikely but strangely okay couple.

I’m really about to invent a crackship aren’t I? IDK maybe Blitzwing and Wreckgar......Wreckwing?

I have no reasons at the moment except they both seem like they would be interested in learning Earth culture together but Wreckgar sort of twists up the names and concepts of everything introduced to him....then teaches it to Blitzwing, who just accepts it at face value. A ‘we’re boyfriends enjoying our days and being idiots together’ vibe.

18. overall, which show has the better storyline, 3 or 5?

Cyberverse is still on-going and I got a couple of theories on how on how this could be a cool story line its not set in stone yet. 

I’ll go with Beast Wars for this

19. which has the better theme music, 2 or 4?

Transformers Prime

Alright! Time to tag some people:

@eliaswrites @bootyshakerkegrimm @land-of-forgotten-one

[lunar-lair]

LAMP Headcanons

LAMP is just. So Good. I need more of this

Logan has a specific pet name for the other three. Patton is his sun, Virgil is his moon, and Roman is his star, though he modifies them a bit for better names, like sunshine or Leo for Pat (lions are affiliated with the sun in alchemy), starlight and stardust for Ro, and moonlight or Luna for Virge. He uses 'love' and 'darling' a lot for all of them, because they're basic and get his point across. Plus, they feel right for him.

Virge doesn't really use pet names very often, but he usually uses 'sweetheart' or 'satellite' for Lo, the first just because it makes him blush a lot and the second in reference to Lo calling him his moon all the time, 'honey' and 'my angel' for Pat because they feel right and Patton is just. He really is an angel. And he uses 'love' and 'my Prince' for Ro a lot because again, first makes him blush, and the second is just. Right. Yknow? He uses 'darling' for all of them though, because they are dear to him. And it feels right.

Roman and Patton just use all kinds of nicknames for all their boyfriends, including each other. And when it's just those two together, they'll make it a battle and see who blushes first. Roman loses a lot, because yes, he is romance, but he also loves being romanced. Like. Well it makes sense to me

Really in most situations Roman is the first to blush. He just gets so flustered so quickly, because he loves all of them so much oh my Go d. Virgil is next, because God I love them how did they choose me?? And then Pat because God I love them they're all so sweet and then Logan because God I love them but I'm bad at processing it. Logan is last purely because he's the best at holding it back.

Whenever one of them is sad, they get together on the couch and cuddle with some tea so they can talk it out. It usually ends up with a lot of tear-stained faces and many, many kisses. All the kisses. So many.

Roman really likes sneaking up behind the two with glasses and pulling them off by reaching around, whirling them around, and kissing them. Sometimes he picks them up bridal style. He does this with Pat a lot more often since it's easier to steal his glasses since he can just reach down a bit.

He also really likes sneaking up behind to give kisses on the back of their necks when they aren't paying attention. This usually ends up in Patton giggling, turning around, and kissing back, Logan chuckling and doing the same, and uh. Okay so they all just kinda laugh and kiss back but shh. But whenever he does it to Virge he really telegraphs it, and makes sure it's gentle. The first time he did it he scared the hell out of Virge, so he tries to be careful about it now. He sets his hand on Virgil's shoulder really slowly, and usually comes in for a backwards hug, different to the other two, as he usually just pecks their neck real quick. But he keeps it quiet with Virge, usually asking how he's doing.

In general, they keep things a little less energetic with Virgil. They don't treat him like glass-they learned their lesson after the first time they saw him have a panic attack-but they try their best to keep him calm. Of course, if he's happy and energetic, they'll be bouncy with him, but ya gotta know what level he's at. They all have this special voice, just for him, one that's nice and calm, especially when he's more anxious than usual.

They don't like keeping secrets from each other, but Virgil does it the most. He feels like he's bothering them with his 'stupid' problems and keeps it to himself, but then he feels guilty from keeping it from them...yeah. Eventually the others will notice and movie nights will become an immediate order.

Roman and Patton love to fluster the hell out of Virgil and Logan. They just team up and start spouting all kinds of pet names, and they make it a game to see who flusters whoever they've set their sights on first.

Logan, Virgil, and Roman have absolutely written poetry about their boys. Virgil's often has a theme of 'how did you get to loving me?' and about how he's the luckiest in the world, Logan's and Roman's also sharing that sentiment. Logan's also goes over how well they fit together and stuff, using his pet names for them and then puzzle metaphors a lot. Roman has a lot about their beauty over all, just the usual 'god so amazing' dashing prince stuff he's good with. Roman has just one or two about the prospect of losing them, but Virgil has...A Good Bit. He's terrified to lose them, to break everything for them, too, just cause of his stupid ass saying something wrong or taking something wrong.

Speaking of that, Virgil tread so, SO lightly when they first started dating, oh my god. I'm going with they started dating all at once because I Cannot handle just one or two of them left out. (Side-eyes Superfluous (yeah. Yeah, im talking to you random-slasher. Come catch these ha nds-)) But he apologized even more than he usually does, and said 'yes' to everything, that kind of thing, yknow? They had to have this whole conversation about it, how they weren't dating him for pity, and how he didn't need to be so careful.

It also took Virge an awful long time to understand that they wouldn't leave him. Even after those first few weeks of crazy bad fear over breaking things, he still tread lightly rather often. The others had to say outright, again, that they loved him so much and they would never leave him. Every now and then he gets doubtful again because of something he accidently did or did in the past, and everyone gives him extra love all around for weeks afterward.

Virgil is also depression, as we know, and when he gets depressed he locks himself in his room so he doesn't 'bring them down'. The others often pull him out of his room for food, cuddles, sleep, and other necessities he had been ignoring while depressed. Of course, it doesn't make it disappear-nothing can-but at least it makes him a bit happier.

If Patton expresses any amount of sadness, he is likely to immediately be tackle hugged. This goes for all of them.

When Roman's feeling bad about his work, they have one of their famous cuddle piles and praise all of the amazing things he's made and how amazing he is.

When Logan works for days on end, they pull him into a cuddle pile with tea and have Virgil sing. Virgil's voice is so amazingly calming, especially to Logan. That's not to say Roman's isn't, but it seems Virgil's is made to be used in lullabies.

Over all, they're all there to support each other and it's great. (Al so. Thomas summons them and they're just all in a cuddle pile and they appear on the couch. It's adorable.)

Back to the dashing prince stuff, with all the complimenting, Ro can be found at least 80% of the time complimenting his lovers, Patton easily complimenting back. Lo and Virge just blush a lot and stay silent and say thanks quietly respectively, though with rather similar happy, love-struck smiles on their faces.

Their standard sleeping position is Virgil and Patton on the inside and Logan and Roman on the outside. Patton rolls off the bed and Virgil sleeps better with someone on both sides of him. It makes him feel safe. This changes depending on problems and emotions, obviously.

Virge and Pat are a bit shorter and definitely tinier than their boyfriends, and so they steal their clothes so. Damn. O f t e n. They'll even trade stolen clothes. Lo and Ro don't mind a whole ton, tho, considering their bfs look fucking adorable. Speaking of The Tall Troupe as Virge calls them, they swap clothes, too, but just. The normal stuff. And so do The Smol Squad as Ro calls them, considering they're closer in size.

Speaking of the clothes trading, Virgil is officially permitted to sneak into the tall two's room whenever he needs to to get a big, comfy hoodie that smells like one of his boyfriends to calm him down. Of course, Patton welcomes him as well, but Virgil just rather enjoys the larger size.

Every now and then, they go stargazing in Roman's realm. Virgil finds the sky calming, Ro and Pat just think it's beautiful, and Lo just really likes astronomy. The other three's real favorite part of stargazing is watching Logan's eyes light up, and learning about the stars. They eventually know enough that they trickle in fun facts in convos, and Logan's so proud.

They also go into Ro's realm for adventures, though it's far more likely they're there to see fae and other creatures as they are imagined by Thomas. Virgil adores foxes (pretty and cool. Long and like wolf cats), Pat loves ferrets (they're so long and adorable! Look at it's little eyes, Ro!!!) and Logan thinks frogs are fascinating (they change shape. Isn't that amazing, Ro? And they're just...i dunno. They seem...cool, you could say) and Ro thinks wolves are awesome (they're like dogs but cooler! They howl!!!!). And Ro conjured up a little cottage a long time ago that he used to stay in, alone, when he needed to be, but now he conjures up said cool animals, they go for a walk with those animals and some others all around them and beautiful scenery, and they snuggle on the couch in the cottage and hang out. In winter, he conjures the ones that can live in the cold (white foxes, white wolves, ferrets are still normal!!) and they marvel at the beautiful snow and the pines and have hot chocolate and wear cute sweaters. When they decide they want a nice rainy day, they dance in the rain and take walks and swim. And at the end of the day, before they get out of the imagination to go to sleep or watch a movie marathon, they watch the sunset together and snuggle on the hill the cottage is on, and they return to their warm home with their sweet lovers and they look at each other with this love in their eyes, and they know they made the right choice to get together, and it's all always so soft and nice :'))

(Akslddl sorry abt that I got rlly sappy there,,,,,)

Virgil took a long time to admit he was also depression. He was so scared they would throw him away, (back to the dark sides and the mean and the dark and i love them they can't can they?? Yes they can and they will god they'll think you're terrible, don't tell them. They'll mock you for so long, and you can't go back. It's better you die now-) and he kept spiraling and he started to avoid them. They noticed, and they kept pursuing him, and they finally cornered him and...he broke down. He finally admitted it, admitted it all, how the others treated him and each other, and how he didn't want to go back there. None of them understood and tried to scare him more, and it hurt Thomas, but their goal was Thomas becoming a horrible person rather often, and if that meant making him depressed, won't that make him bitter? A perfect plan, and a perfect storm to follow. But they promised they would never, because they wouldn't. Of course he would always have doubts, he's anxiety, but that didn't mean they couldn't remind him as often as possible.

This leads to Logan researching as much as he could about depression (he had done so concerning anxiety long ago. He could do so again, for his moon.) and made sure to inform the others as well. Soon both Virgil and Thomas were feeling a lot better, much like when they learned and helped even before they knew they loved each other.

Speaking of that time, after Accepting Anxiety, they did all they could to learn, to help, to convince. They did all they could, and Virgil was certainly thankful. Them caring for him in that way is what really made him realize he was in love in the first place.

Virge was actually the one to confess to the others. He was already crying halfway through his sentence, but he wanted to get it out of the way so he could get over it faster if he got thrown back to the others, the darks. Patton tackle hugged him and the others surrounded them, all three confessing in turn as well. They all cried tears of joy, and ended up cuddling on the couch the whole night.

Roman holds most of the talent of the group, of course, but the others hold it at least a little, and Virgil's voice is absolutely amazing. As said before, he is the protector. Personally, something I do to calm down from anxiety is sing, and since, in a way, Virgil protects the other's from the brunt of the anxiety he holds, it would make sense he could sing. ...right? Idk my logics been faulty for years now. Of course, singing is also how Roman calms Virge down, but Virge is there for all the others. He sings low and deep, using the bottom of Thomas's range the most, and has a lullaby-like voice. It knocks them all out in seconds, and it does the same for Virge, eventually, since all the others are asleep.

Virge is known among the others to not tell them when he's uncomfortable or sad, etc. since the anxiety insists it's dumb and they'll think he's dumb for thinking it. Logan found this out in the process of looking things up concerning anxiety, and so from the beginning they always ask him when he seems slightly off. Again, they learned, so they keep it low-key, though Patton goes a bit over board sometimes. Virgil knows he's just trying to help, though. Over all, he's just so grateful for their concern.

Logan, at times, is still terrible at understanding emotions. It infuriates him, because if he can't understand this warm feeling in his gut how does he express it? How does he express how beautiful the others are to him? And so he does so by way of physical affection. It's the only way he can think of. Before, he wasn't very touchy-feely but now he hugged them and peppered their faces with kisses and kissed their cheek when he stopped by and he realized this was what he needed all along. He quickly understood just how much he loved these men, and it overcame him. He had never truly felt something so powerful-love, the thing that permeates all logic. But he certainly didn't mind. One day, he found words to explain it, and for a long while he would tear up while with the others. At first they were concerned, but it wasn't long before they understood he was merely overwhelmed.

Over all, they just run through all their insecurities together and it's wholesome and nice. Some Good Shit, if I do say so myself, which I do.

Virgil cannot properly sleep in his room, and for good reason. After Accepting Anxiety, they realized it was most likely near impossible. Virgil hadn't realized, but once he slept in one of the others' rooms, he was like 'huh.' so he started sleeping there instead, on the floor at first. Not long after Accepting Anxiety, however, he confessed, they started dating, and he started sleeping in the beds. Being with the others was even better. He often sleeps with Ro, since singing calms him down, but he sings when they all sleep together.

Soooo this has been in my drafts for a like...a month bc I kept editing it like...every night. But now I'm getting random bursts of inspiration, and this is already like...fanfic kinds of long so I am officially releasing it!! I wanma see feed back and stuff so. Yeah!! And I'll just rb it whenever I get some inspiration again. I'm also probably gonna make a general headcanons list so watch out for that, I guess. Maybe a meta list, too. I have a few pages for that stuff in my writing note book. Anyways, Sanders Sides has given me the most inspiration for headcanons literally ever, and the most inspiration for writing since the last time I was in the Phandom (Danny Phantom fandom, if you kids don't go there) and it's amazing!! Sorry for the splitting up of the ships and emotions and stuff, but that's how my brain works. It separates stuff, y'know?

Also, a fourth of this stuff is stuff I've heard with a spin on it. Sorry about that, I guess. And sorry this whole thing is such a mess; like I said, I wrote it over the span of like...a while. Anyways, hope you guys liked it!!

Edit: Oh hey it's shorter now. Cool.

Give me validation-

[imagine-loki]

The Sound of Silence

TITLE: The Sound of Silence CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 17/47 AUTHOR: nekoamamori ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine you are mute, and Loki comes to Avengers tower for the first time. Loki asks you a question and you answer through sign language. Loki looks at you crazy and thinks your making fun of him, he starts yelling saying that you should respect him since he’s a god and prince.  RATING: T+ NOTES/WARNINGS: Also on AO3 Click here

    The mission went exactly as planned…for once or so you’d been told. A clone of Loki stayed behind to keep you company. That’s what he said anyway. You were pretty sure he was guarding you instead, but you didn’t mind the company.

    “Siren, you’re up!” Cap called over the comm device in your ear. You got up from your seat on the jet and made your way to where the battle had been with Loki’s clone at your side. He was definitely guarding now, especially as you looked like a civilian.

    The Hulk was looking desperately for something else to smash now that the bad guys had been defeated. Loki’s clone vanished when you were close enough. The Hulk hated Loki. Hulk’s attention caught on you and he relaxed some; he liked you. You were pretty sure you were his favorite person. You smiled at him and began to sing. His attention focused entirely on you and he sat down to listen to your song. A minute later the Hulk was gone and a dazed Bruce was in his place. You rushed forward with the robe in your arms to wrap around him. His pants had survived the experience, but Bruce was shy and appreciated the gesture.

    “Thanks, Y/N. Are you ok?” he asked as you steadied him with an arm around his waist. You nodded and walked with him back to the jet. Neither of you were needed here anymore.

    “Great job today, Y/N,” Cap said after everyone was back on the jet. You nodded in reply. Everything had gone according to plan today, until Jarvis made an announcement.

    “Sir, someone took a video of Siren singing and posted it online,” Jarvis told Tony. He always addressed Tony first unless someone spoke to him directly.

    “Shit, can you pull it?” Tony demanded.

    “I’m sorry, sir. All of the news outlets have already received the video and they are airing it,” Jarvis replied. You blanched. That should not have been posted. Tony and Cap started planning out damage control, though in reality it wasn’t so bad. The world had to know about your powers if you were to continue living with the Avengers anyway. The ability to calm the Hulk was the most palatable of your powers.

    The video remained popular for weeks. Even a recording of your voice kept a very small piece of your power. You heard that a lot of parents had started using the video to get their kids to sleep.

    *

    School got better after the first day. People began to respect your silence, though it took a few weeks before they’d stop asking you to sing. Your grades were good and you earned the respect of your teachers with your work and attitude.

    *

    You went on more missions with the team over the next few months, mostly keeping back and soothing Hulk at the end of the battle. Once you used your singing for crowd control; the crowd was helpless against the siren’s song holding them in place. Once you used your newly found power of persuasion to get all of the bystanders to go home. Once you’d had to knock out the entire battle, the rioting was too bad for the team to do anything and singing wasn’t working.

    *

    Your 18th birthday came with a huge party thrown by Tony. The party room of the tower was filled with your friends and family, laughter, and fun. Plus way, way too much food and way too many presents.

    *

    You took Loki to the homecoming dance a couple weeks after your birthday. It was so much fun to dress up with him. Your dress was gorgeous and his suit was perfectly tailored. You danced with him all evening, and traded teaching him the electric slide for him teaching you to waltz. The DJ looked perplexed as to why a waltz was playing, but the kids were giddy and thought it was a silly bit of fun as they tried to do the dance.

    *

    It was all going so well until a mission where you were fighting enhanced. Hulk looked excited to see you at the end of the battle and sat down patiently waiting for your song. You smiled at him and began to sing. No one else was paying much attention. The enhanced were all contained, the battle over, and the white noise from Jarvis over the comms kept them from being affected by your song.

    None of you saw one of the enhanced fight through the haze of your song. They were all too slow when he grabbed one of the SHIELD agent’s guns and fired off a single shot. You shrieked in pain as the bullet went through your side. The wound was just a graze, but even a graze was a lot of pain, and bleeding. The entire team whirled at the sound of your shriek. The Hulk roared in rage, lunging for the enhanced who had hurt his favorite person, but even he was too late. Loki caught you before you hit the ground, cradling you to him while he threw daggers at the enhanced, killing him instantly for daring to injure you.

    Loki lowered you gently to the ground and lifted your shirt enough to see the wound. “It’s just a graze,” he said, relieved as he placed a bandage against your side. The rest of the team had run over to help. You touched Loki’s arm, your teeth clenched as you fought against the haze in your mind. He saw the glazed look in your eyes and the blood on his hands and he understood. “Fight it, darling, not here, not now, there are too many eyes,” he bid you softly, urgently.

    “Fight what?” Cap demanded, slower on the uptake of what your bleeding meant.

    “Get her to the jet. Now! We can patch that wound up there,” Nat snapped the order, understanding what Loki had and what Cap had not.

    It was too late, though. You couldn’t fight it, couldn’t fight the haze of visions, couldn’t fight the pain demanding you speak. You tried. You really tried, but the visions overtook you and you had to speak what you saw.

    You were laying on a bed in one of the medical rooms of the tower when you became aware of your surroundings again. Your mind was so hazy and fuzzy and it took a lot of blinking and way too much focus to finally realize where you were. “Easy, darling,” Loki’s voice came from beside your bed as you struggled to sit up. He rushed over to help you as you bit back a curse at the pain in your side.

    [What-?] you started, not remembering much of what happened after you’d been shot.

    “You’ve been trapped in visions all night, love. Lady Natasha had to stitch that wound closed,” Loki told you softly. That explained why your brain was so fuzzy and why you woke up so exhausted. Every puncture of the needle would have driven you to more visions.

    [How bad is it?]

    “The wound will heal in a couple weeks. The media…” he trailed off and you blanched. This was exactly what they wanted to make sure didn’t happen.

    [How bad?] you demanded.

    He offered you a hand in reply. “Let’s go to the living room and you can watch the footage for yourself.” You looked around the room concerned about leaving before someone told you that you could. “They said you could leave as soon as you woke,” Loki explained when he caught your expression. You nodded and with his help slowly got to your feet. He bit back an offer to carry you when he saw your determined expression. You weren’t weak just because you’d been shot. Hell, Clint got shot nearly every mission and he didn’t just lie in bed afterwards.

    It was a slow walk to the living room, but it was worth it to see the relief on everyone’s faces that you were up and moving. You tried to reassure them that you were ok.

    You curled up on the couch between Loki and Thor to watch the footage.

    It was as bad as you were expecting. The news had shown up to film the Avengers as usual. The public ate up anything involving the Avengers, so the news showed up to any battle involving the team as fast as possible. They had gotten a close up on you when you appeared in the battle and made your way to the Hulk. They’d wanted to catch your song. Instead they had closeup footage of you getting shot, Hulk’s rage, Loki’s rage and obvious love and concern, the team running toward you, Cap’s and Nat’s orders.

    There was even more close-up footage of you speaking prophecies and visions of the future. Your words were clear, the meanings behind them not always clear, but your attention kept shifting during the clip, to various teammates, so you figured your words were for them. It wouldn’t have been even that obvious, until you looked directly in the camera and clearly announced the Powerball numbers.

    You were so doomed.

[shadowsfiguresfigments-blog]

A good place to die Chapter 17 ( Light smut)

Warning: Harsh language, violence

When my phone rang for the fifth time at half past three, I cursed myself. Barely enough awake to know what I was doing, I answered the call. Penny’s squeaky voice greeted me (what a surprise), and he ranted fast and loud about something to do with “floating”. Unfortunately my mind was still so drowsy I didn’t manage to understand what he told me, but for the sake of it I mumbled encouraging things like “mhm”, “yeah”, “sure”, “oh” and the like. Then, when I was about to string a coherent sentence together, he hung up on me.

I had figured my present might backfire on me, but it still was a little much. Not that I was angry at him, but I felt terribly tired and sick. Worrying for Bee had drained me quite a lot, and nowadays my dreams were so vivid I didn’t feel well rested when I woke up.

Penny first called me at half past eleven to tell me I shouldn’t eat popcorn anymore. Then, at a quarter past midnight he informed me I should give up on sweets too, because they all tasted terribly. At one o’clock he talked excitedly about his plan to torture and eat any wrongdoer I named him. And at two o’clock he told me he wanted me to kiss him, which was actually very sweet, but I already was so tired I could barely answer him.

Of course, now I was awake. I dragged myself to the kitchen to pour me a glass of milk and sat down at our shabby table. The past day passed before my tired eyes, and I felt my heart grow heavy again when I thought about angry Penny. Yet there was something nagging me, something that had been strange but got lost in the moment. I guess I understood a little better why people were terrified by him – his rage form had certainly been impressive. Still, he didn’t actually hurt me (not counting my ribs, they weren’t broken again after all) and in the end I had spent almost two hours reading to him from a cheap paperback auntie had picked up years ago and left at the hospital for Bee to read. She had insisted I take it, and when I read it to Pennywise it had become clear why. Cringey and very badly written, with stupid characters who constantly did the same shitty thing only to have sex right after they swore to never see each other again. Every side character was either a walking, talking stereotype or completely lacking any personality.

I had shut the book twice, with the firm intent to never open it again, but Penny had insisted I continue. And what choice was there? He had curled himself around me, resting his head on mine while gently stroking me the entire time. Eventually I became drowsy, and even fell asleep.

When I woke up again, I was lying in the pouch of a freaking huge, rabid kangaroo. Though foam dripped from its mouth and its red eyes glared at me, I felt warm and secure. Its fur was impossibly soft, and it carried me swiftly through the night. The cold air felt refreshing, though the motion was somewhat strange to experience. Every leap carried us forward several yards, and though my ride landed gently, the ups and downs were just a little nauseating. But I could feel its muscles moving beneath the soft fur, cables of steel stretching and contracting, and I have to admit, despite being tired as fuck, I felt lust surging through me. But the kangaroo carried me right to the front of my door, where it helped me to climb out. Then it pecked me swiftly on the mouth before disappearing into the dark. Penny didn’t tell me where he was going, so I assumed he might try to hunt or do whatever a clown living in the sewers has to do, and went straight to bed.

And that’s probably what I should be doing now.

I downed the last bit of milk and made my way back. My bed was still warm, and sleep came back rather quickly. Just before my consciousness drifted away I remembered something else. When Pennywise had roared at me, I could have sworn I saw the faintest glimmer of some kind of light in his throat. But before I could elaborate on that I was asleep.

 Breakfast was a very tedious affair. Auntie had actually woken up while I was on the phone, and of course she had to ask me who called me. I was getting somewhat tired of all these half-lies, but what should I do? Oh, it was just this shape-shifting clown who lives in our sewer system. How old is he? Oh, probably centuries or more, I haven’t asked. What he does? He feeds on fear, and I suspect on humans too. And he drives me nuts. How our relationship does? Great, actually, I taught him (and me) how to kiss. And I had sex with him and then we quarreled for the first time, but we made up. And I didn’t even get make-up sex, which really frustrates me. So, how is you sex life doing, auntie?

“Uhm, it was actually Benny. He had to finish a presentation for school and asked me a couple of things which he has forgotten.”

“In the middle of the night?” I could tell she didn’t believe me.

“Yeah, he’s in a lot of stress right now, and it’s pass or fail depending on this, so…”

She shook her head. “That’s still very rude. You look like you haven’t had a single minute of sleep, for Christ’s sake!”

“It’s alright, auntie. He has done the same for me, so I owe him.”

Her eyebrows went up so high I wondered if they’d disappear in her hairline eventually.

“He helped me out with my biology project, you remember? About the plants in the Barrens? He identified some of them for me. He actually knows a lot about plants.” The more I rambled on the more stupid I sounded to myself. Imagine Penny sitting next to me in the Barrens, a tiny leaf in his enormous hands, and examining it with a magnifying glass…

But auntie’s angry frown gradually subsided and was replaced with a somewhat desperate look.

She sighed deeply.

Uh-oh.

“Listen, I know you like this Benny guy.” She flushed. “And I know you’re a responsible girl, but… there’s still something we should talk about, you know.”

Now it was my turn to flush. Well, that’s too late…

“You know, like, uhm… using the proper protection… and…”

“Jeez, auntie, can we please, please not have this conversation?” I couldn’t even look at her anymore.

“But… this is important. And we haven’t even… properly talked about this issue…”

I just wanted to die (haven’t felt like that in a while now), and groaned.

“Listen, I am aware of… protection issues. I know what can happen and how to prevent it. Please, can we end this? It’s so embarrassing.”

She nodded, my relieve mirrored on her face. “Just… be careful, okay?”

“I will.” From now on…

 Since it was Saturday, I decided to do some laundry first and go shopping afterwards. After another two cups of coffee I went to my room and phoned Penny.

He didn’t pick up – or rather, the signal didn’t go through.

Unnerved I looked up to balloons that were still floating around the ceiling. “When did life become so complicated?”, I asked the ‘I love Derry’ balloon.

“And why would that be?”, a familiar voice giggled into my left ear. I turned around so fast my feet caught each other and I tumbled head first into a silken embrace. Penny picked me up, whirled me around and very nearly crashed my head into the ceiling. He looked so much bigger in my little room. Meanwhile, Penny continued giggling like crazy, dancing across the floor with me in his arms. His exuberant joy was contagious, but auntie could probably hear him, and I really had no idea how I would explain the situation.

“Penny, please be quiet, auntie will hear us…”

He didn’t care, cackling on, and pulled me into a tighter embrace. There was only one thing I could do to shut him up – granted, that was just a pretext – and so I kissed him enthusiastically. The moment our lips met I didn’t care any longer about being found out. His skin was so impossibly smooth, and his taste nothing short of addicting. I playfully dragged my tongue over his buck teeth, than bit down ever so lightly on his plump lower lip. A growl started within him, vibrating through his body right into mine. Hungrily he thrust his tongue into my mouth, going so deep I almost started gagging. I fumbled at his jacket, desperate to feel the warmth of his body, while Penny pulled up my baggy sleeping shirt and massaged my breasts.

God, I was fucking horny.

The familiar heat and moisture built up in my pussy, and I could also feel Penny becoming hard. I was just about to pull down his pants when auntie called for me.

“Are you alright, honey?”

It took me second to answer her. “What? Oh, yeah, everything’s okay.”

“You sound weird. Are you sure?”

I could hear her coming up the stairs. Not good.

I climbed down from Penny and desperately dressed me as fast as I could. In my panic I threw my soaked pants under my bed, but auntie was already heading to my room. I turned around to look at Penny, desperately pleading with him in my mind to hide himself, and stared at a stranger.

[kurtchristenson]

TWENTYSIX: The Kinetic Kid Blues A THRUSTisHere Short Story

"He's robbing the world of its magic!", the protester cried out one sunny morning outside the McAllister building. "Don't believe his lies!" I took a few seconds to gawk before unfolding my trusty spiral notebook from my back pocket. I jotted down, 'There's never a dull moment in this city of improbable possibilities', before zipping on down Forty-Second Street in a blur. I hit my last few deliveries and blew by the main office. I needed some cash and the bossman owed me big time. I looked over the cover story on the Post as I sat patiently for my pay to be scrounged together. The headline read: 'MILLIONAIRE MASTER OF MACHINES' and showed the slick image of Jordan McAllister unveiling his newest gizmo. Some useless wad of tech that could do everything from capturing audio and video to doing your taxes. Sure, it'd be nice to store every song I've ever heard into the same device that I make my monthly phone call to my mom with, but there should be some limit to these things. I was interrupted mid-ponder by the slapping of bills into my palm. "This should make us square kid. By the way, nice rush job on that McAllister drop off this afternoon. Not sure how you did forty blocks in fifteen minutes, but I admire that hustle Chuck." Joe Medley was the kind of boss people would follow into battle. A square jawed hombre hardened by a lifetime in the delivery business. If he would just shave that ridiculous moustache. I step outside and the thunder begins to pound on the grey skies above. An ominous smearing of the day's blue enormity. I slid on my glasses, retied my bandana and adjusted my cap before leaping off into the swirlling cityscape. A gentle flip off of a ledge and a swift pounce from a nearby flagpole and I was sent gliding along the metro-magnetic pulse. My mind caught hold as I soared through the streets, surfing the city's invisible veins faster than any pedestrian's eyes could follow. But not faster than hers. Helena, or Ms. Mercury as she refers to herself these days, came floating by as if I were swimming in slo-motion. Her faux innocence seeped from her sly stare. "Hey Charles." That damn slight curling up at the corner of her mouth. "Hey Helena." "Did you forget about tonight?" "Not yet. I'd remember open bar." "We have to see the exhibit this time. And try not to throw up on the V train again." "I'm not making any promises...are they going to have the little sandwiches this time?" "I'm not sure sweetie. Gotta run. See you at 7!" and with that, in a blink of an eye, she kisses my cheek and dissappears down 23rd St. I'm not sure if it's jealousy but I liked it better when she didn't have superpowers. We met outside the museum that night at 7:10. It's hard to believe any respectable superhero can make it on time to date, let alone two of them. We walked the exhibit arm in arm, and headed out for a drink. "It's great the things you can get free.", I shouted over the music at the lush Midtown bar. Some company or another had sent her a card for two complimentary drinks. Her sliver sandals shone brilliantly in the blurred cityscape light as it danced among the flapping of her black skirt. Her earrings sparkled as we blazed across town. Afterwards we zipped over to Jersey City where my friend's band were playing at a local bar. The sound rocked our internal organs and the cheap booze made us stumbly, so we decided to hoof it home like regular folk and leave the superpowers out of it for a night. The wait for the train is usually a panic inducing, claustrophobic, nightmare of a wait for one with speedy powers such as mine. But tonight I hardly noticed the thirty-nine minutes it took to finally come. We were finally Manhattan bound, when, after a few sloppy kisses and through slurred speech, she presented me with a gift. "It's an iWorld." She smiled up at me expectantly. My confused look elicited a further explanation. "It's the cell phone, instant messenger, mp3 player with GPS and a digital camera that also records video and audio." That druken haze in her eyes didn't match the tone of her voice. Suddenly, when discussing this gadget, a company salesman had taken control of my girlfriend. "Thanks baby." Something felt off, but I accepted the gift. I hugged my appreciation as we fumbled to the side nearly falling from our seats as the train screeched to a halt. As I activated the camera function on my new toy, I turned and snapped a picture of her as we ascended the subway stairs. The LCD screen caught the dramatic lighting of the moon as we stepped outside, illuminating her hair, draped alongside an inebriated smirk. As the days passed I tinkered with my new gizmo. Seems it truly does it all, which kicked in my suspicious nature. If this thing catches on like McAllister's numerous other expensive junk, available worldwide, then everyone will be capturing everything everywhere. Recording life around them and going back to it later to confirm it. Rather than just live our lives, we'd all just be directing a slideshow of images complete with soundtrack and then emailed off to family and friends. Isolated in our heads, viewing the world instead of interacting with it. Television is only the beginning. My head started to pound and my nose began to bleed. "Whoa, I gotta remember to watch the crazy talk.", I said to myself. The following Saturday Helena and I danced through the ballroom they call New York, spinning and leaping as we soared along with the city night frozen in an instant below us. I spun her out, but as she pounced from a traffic light, I saw a misstep. She began to arc too far as she twirled about like a whirling dervish, spinning wildly towards a display window. Instincts drove my body forward, letting my mind figure out the plan for itself. Two kicks had launched me towards the light post, and pausing horizontally for just a millisecond, I supercharged my next leap. I rocketed across the street, rotated as I skimmed across the hood of a taxi, and ricocheted off a mailbox, just catching her in my arms as she swooned and fainted. My feet grinded to a halt on the pavement, and instantly time popped all around me as my sneakers exploded into shrapnel. "What's happened to you Helena?" I cradled her in my arms as we glided home across the Williamsburg Bridge. She didn't wake until she was tucked in her bed. I applied the cold compress to her forehead and smiled down at her. She smiled back but it felt sad somehow. "How you doing kiddo?" I held her hand. "I'm fine. I just need some waffles..." she hoarsely whispered. "And OJ, and toast..." I kissed her hand as she drifted to sleep. I went to look for my iWorld to see what I could do. Once I found it, I couldn't imagine who to call, who would know how to help a sick superhero. She tossed and turned the whole night and despite her wishes, I decided to bring her to the emergency room. On the run there, she looked up at me with hopeless eyes. I never felt so useless. The doctors took her from me and told me not to worry and to get some rest. I couldn't sleep so I paced around the neighborhood, then jogged around the city and eventually ran the entire state. This wasn't something I could outrun. I grabbed a coffee at a rest stop somewhere in Pennsylvania. The caffeine wore off somewhere in Ohio and I slept on a bench in the lounge for an hour or two. I popped a caffeine pill and made it to Lake Michigan as the sun rose up behind me. My mind began to decompress as the tension drained from my body. Why was I running? What had happened to Helena? Why did I feel such overwhelming guilt? I took out my iWorld and began recording. I went over the details I could remember. Seemed as if I was stuck in a high gear for the past week. Oddly enough I wasn't able to produce many memories since that delivery to the McAllister building. I began to think of Helena and scrolled through the pictures I had taken of her. Over four hundred digital images were stored on the small piece of plastic in my hands. And as I flipped through I began to notice something. She was fading away. That very first picture showed Helena for the true beauty I knew her as. In each consecutive picture she looked weaker, her skin growing more pale, and that lovely smile never extending quite as far as it did that night. Was it this device? Was it me? I sprinted back to New York City, hit the library and began searching for anything related to the iWorld or Jordan McAllister. As the newsites popped up, everything seemed straightforward. Budding inventor brings together a team of other brilliant minds to make a great leap using the technology of the times. Each year their device had evolved, from the iHear mp3 device, to the iDrive multimedia player, to the iDream cell phone/PDA. The iWorld was the most highly advertised and therefore, desired, electronic device in the history of modern society. From billboards to rap videos to coffee chain tie-ins, the presence of this gadget had surrounded us before we even had it resting in our hungry palms. I guess I just wasn't paying attention as I blew through the city each day. Probably missed the TV commercials due to having only an old 13" b&w set at home with barely functioning rabbit ears. I was just having too much fun and, well, I suppose I was a bit out of touch with reality these days. I left the library more than a little distraught. Where could I turn now? I couldn't head home. I'd just wind up feeling sorry for myself. I couldn't just burst into McAllister's office and demand that he tell me the connection between Helena's collapse and his damned toy. "Why not?" The voice came over my headphones and I spun around. I checked out the iWorld expecting to have accidentally called someone from my address book once again. But it was off. "Drop on by the office. I've been expecting you." I remembered moments like this when, as a kid I'd ride my bike around the neighborhood listening to cassette tapes. The ambient background noise would make me suspiciously glance over my shoulders every few seconds, really implanting that paranoia. Tucked into the shadows of the East Village, I questioned my sanity as the voice kept creeping out of the headphones. I ripped them out and began to hyperventilate. The random soundtrack of the city funneled into my ears and grounded my brain for the moment. But I could still hear the tinny tone of the voice as it crept from out of the tiny pieces of plastic and wires in my hands. I tossed the device into my ski cap and stuffed the whole thing deep into the pocket of my army jacket. I closed my eyes and imagined myself outside McAllister's office, smashing through the front doors, leaping through the lobby, and slamming floor by floor up to his lush penthouse suite. I imagined myself destroying his happy and rich life, starting with his art deco decor and ending with his throat in my grip, suspending him outside the center floor-to-ceiling window of his decimated office. "Do it. Kill me son." I hesitated and came to my senses. I dropped to my knees. With several long, deep, drawn breaths in I could see that my momentary wish had become a reality. The entire span of McAllister's multi-million dollar chunk of real estate, with that spectacular view, was now leveled completely. The windows were all blown out, and the remaining shards of his luxurious lifestyle spread around me in a ring as if a bomb had been detonated in the center of the room. "It's so disappointing that you're such a failure." McAllister, mere inches from a two hundred story drop, looked severely sad. He took off his blazer and tossed it out the window. Unbuttoning his cuffs, he rolls up his sleeves, before kicking me clear across the room with an Italian loafer to the chest. "I only ask that you end my life and you can't even imagine that." McAllister began to pace around the room, the splinters and shards crackling under his steps. He brushes his hand through his hair and walks towards the last of the standing walls. With his other hand, he gently waves as the wall begins to disappear, replaced with a large metal womb. "Okay Chuck, here's how it goes. I'm the villain of this piece. I know, how post modern of me to mention it straight up like this. So clever, right?" McAllister grabs the womb and drags it closer. "Fuck clever. I'm your goddamn devil, child." I had finally caught my breath and my threw myself across the room into a defensive position. My arms crossed before me in an 'X', my front foot thrust forward, and my back foot at a 90 degree angle, bracing for impact or prepared to launch. My Quasar vision dazzled around the scene absorbing all the light in the room in nothing more than an instant. "Let's finish this." I couldn't believe the cliched battlecries I heard coming from my mouth. McAllister's hand is on the womb, gently raising it's liquid metal covering. His eyes are locked onto mine, and he holds me there with his magnetic-repulsion-rays. A smile is lifting the corners of his mouth as I shake my sight free. A small mob of young men, trapped beneath the next generation iWorld, the iSoul, roar into the room. Their eyes are blank, their ears full, and their minds empty. In their hands runs the current of power emanating from the womb. The surging fractal lightning pulsed around their fists as the iZombies stomped forward, bloody screams of battle on their breaths. I strained my crossed arms against the paralyzing effect McAllister was emanating upon me, and at the very last second, mere millimeters from the wildly swung punch of an iZombie, just then did I snap out and into action. I was like a breeze between the pack, darting low beneath their grasp. The burning edges of searing raw cosmos nipped at my hair as I slid behind them. My fist rockets right and throws half the bunch down and out. I whip my right around again and fire it like a piston into the back of another, before unleashing a southpaw shot to two more. My fists pumped forward, the muscles acting almost on their own behalf, and by the time I slowed them down the room was a bloody cocoon. "Perfect. And now the for the kicker." I swung around mad-eyed and frayed, tachyon fire streaming from my mind. McAllister had raised the womb's cover and inside I saw that it was her. The quicksilver shine blinded me and forced out tears. Before my eyesight returned though I knew who it was that lie there naked and fetal. And I knew it was my fault. It was the silvery scorched body of Velocity Girl. I had stripped her of her form somehow, weakened her. I was the one that charged after her, trapped her, gave Helena her powers. Helena?! My god. Where was Helena? "You hit every cue my boy. Brilliant!" Ms. Mercury smashed into the office with the force of a thousand furies. The glass and twisted metal danced and glittered all around her as she just absolutely dazzled with that golden glow. Her furrowed brow was so cute, and she was making that angry face. My god. This is why he had loved her. The way she looks right now is everything I saw in her and everything I had ever loved about any woman ever. I'm not sure if her fist hit me or if it was the shockwave of compressed air that hairline fractured my cheekbone. I was sent sailing to the floor in a one knock out punch. I don't even know if her skin touched me. And I don't even have time to hit the ground, cause as I drift down her foot comes up under my rib cage and fires me straight through the roof of the building and high into the night sky. It's beautiful out. The air is warm and mild. Just enough wind to carry you about. And the city is out and lit up and alive. It's a stage with lights, camera, and action abound. But it's all getting further away. Ms. Mercury glides upwards past me and I gaze at her amazing figure as it caresses the edges of a moonlit Central Park. Her leg stretches straight up to her chin and down across mine. Plummeting so fast, thinking isn't possible. Until I slam into time and space expands into my mind like blood into cracks of concrete. It's beautiful inside this silence. Crackling into my psychic ear, snow like fuzz of memories brushed aside to make room for McAllister's thoughts. I try to squeeze him out of my mind. But it's no use. He has a hold and he places in his reality. "I want you to realize that you must defeat her and stop me. I'm not sure if that's clear by now. Everything I do, I do for you." I felt him crying. Then I felt like a sack of mail snatched by a speeding train. A sack of potatoes dragged from a cropduster. The parachute behind a dragracer. Then spinning in a circular spin somehow elliptically spun until I was mentally undone and then I vomited as I was pitched full speed into and through the offices of fine and hard working individuals, that actually enjoy their jobs. She caught me on the other side and my vision had now returned. Sight smacked back into me, I now saw blood streaming behind us as the city blurred away. My face felt wet and sticky and syrupy. I was groggy and attempted to turn around. My stomach lurched and I dry heaved myself into a coughing fit, nearly letting my lungs collapse. I drew into myself and coiled up in my body. Tightly wound stone charging of my internal thrust. Fired aloud, I popped free from Ms. Mercury's grip and carved myself through the undercurrents towards Wall Street. I grasped my forehead, hoping to close the gash across my third eye. I was karma blinded and without a guidance system now. And the bleeding's stopped. Bouncing across the ledges and pouncing from the empty office views of Downtown Manhattan, I was ricocheting to a safe haven, where ever that was. It was then that my senses were finally coming back to me and I saw how aura destroyed I really was. I couldn't outrun her. I couldn't outpower her. I couldn't out fight her. I was screwed. So I tried to run anyways, skipping along the tops of the West side. But she was always more familiar with this side of town. Damn! She taps me with an uppercut I don't see coming. I try to brace for impact and curl into a fetal position. A million swats dribble me down to Canal St. before she kicks me into the Holland Tunnel at a hundred miles an hour. My body is broken as it rattles against the tiled walls of the tunnel. Ms. Mercury cascades up next to me as she prepares to bounce me off the walls. I have only one thought as she unleashes her venomous Valkyrie vengeance, only one solitary things crosses my mind at that exact moment. She looks so happy. I catch glimpses of dirt, and water and metal, and garbage and smoke before finally hitting something that catches me in it's warm embrace. I can't feel anything beyond my mind. My body must be shattered, along with my spirit, but my brain hasn't died yet. But consciousness fades and before it does I see a single sentence that seems so odd, yet so familiar set before the apocalyptic background around him. 'Welcome to New Jersey.'

[blueboobutterfly]

THE DAY HAS FINALLY COME

Hallelujah!!!