#letting him fill me like jelly in a donut EVERY DAMN DAY

[whimsyvixen]

Imagine telling Rusty Nail you want his babies, why do I feel like it would be a very dangerous phrase though

Dangerous? Oh, honey~ my legs are spread as we speak (˵ ¬ᴗ¬˵)

[clumsyclifford]

you said i should say less about new ace content in general and i immediately understood that as say more so please gimme some ace stuff and please make it fluffy. i don't particularly care about the pairing but i'm always down for lashton and/or malum but any atl ship works for me as well so like just do your thing i guess wow that was a useless sentence this messy ask is further proof that i should go to sleep so bye love you!! -fiancee

well i ran with ace lashton in an interesting way i hope you enjoy it this is not based on real life but maybe it could be. in a better world it is. that’s all i’ll say about that, i hope you like it

read here on ao3

-

Luke likes going to the movies. He likes staying home and having a home-cooked meal. He likes quiet, simple, intimate activities.

He does not like parades.

“But it’s Pride,” Ashton wheedles. “D.C. Pride! One of the biggest pride events in the country!”

“You made that up, and I don’t care,” says Luke. “I don’t want to go. I don’t like parades.”

“It’s not really a parade.”

“Also not true.”

“Okay, but it’s not about the parade, it’s about the gathering,” Ashton says, gently shaking Luke. “It’s about a bunch of queer people all coming together and uniting in one space. Celebrating our differences and our similarities. Celebrating community.”

“That’s beautiful,” Luke says. Ashton looks hopeful. “Still no.”

Ashton huffs. “I don’t wanna go alone.”

“Go with Michael and Calum,” Luke suggests. “I’m sure they’d love for you to tag along.”

“And third-wheel all day? No thanks.”

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you,” Luke says, and carries on setting the table for dinner. If his mum comes home to a half-set table, the blame will fall on Luke, of course. Ashton takes the cue and begins laying out plates.

It’s quiet for a moment. Luke can tell Ashton is trying to come up with a way to convince him to go to Pride, but it won’t work. Luke’s avoided Pride for seventeen years. He doesn’t intend to start now. Staying at home with his boyfriend and watching Rent is about as much as Luke cares to celebrate Pride Month. Maybe they’ll make out a little. Standards are low.

“Okay, how about this,” Ashton says, and Luke sighs deeply. “No, hear me out. And keep an open mind, okay? Think about compromise.”

“I’m listening.”

“What if we go before the parade starts?”

Luke frowns. “Then what would be the point?”

“There will still be people there,” Ashton says. “But it won’t be nearly as many people, and the festivities won’t really be happening yet, so we can still say we went to Pride but we won’t get caught up in the whole big thing.”

“But I thought you wanted the whole big thing.”

“Ah, whatever,” Ashton says, waving him off. “I’d rather go with you than see the parade alone.”

Luke feels bad. It’s obviously important to Ashton, or else he’d have given up already on trying to make Luke go. And as much as Luke knows he shouldn’t feel obliged to prioritize Ashton’s wishes over his own comfort, this makes him want to.

Compromise. “Okay,” Luke says. “Fine.”

Ashton blinks. “Really?”

“Did you think that wouldn’t work?”

“I—” Ashton’s face breaks into a smile. “I don’t know, not really, to be honest. Really? You’ll come?”

“Yes,” Luke says, and the delight in Ashton’s face makes up for the dread pooling in Luke’s stomach. 

Ashton shuffles around the table and presses a warm kiss to Luke’s cheek. “Thank you,” he says, warmth also bleeding into his voice. “I’m excited. You’re gonna like it.”

Probably not, but Luke keeps that thought to himself. He doesn’t need to rain on any more of Ashton’s parades.

-

Luke and Ashton are excited about Dupont Circle for different reasons. Ashton is basically vibrating out of his seat on the Metro as they approach their stop, where the parade is slated to begin at half past noon. It’s only eleven now, but that doesn’t seem to matter to Ashton. He seems confident that there will be enough Pride to satisfy his excitement without overwhelming Luke.

Luke’s just looking forward to the Krispy Kreme at the station.

They take the escalator out, and sure enough, there’s Krispy Kreme to the left. Luke grabs Ashton’s hand and yanks him towards the shop.

“Seriously? We’re at D.C. Pride and your priority is donuts?” Ashton says, but he allows Luke to tug him along until they’re at the door.

Luke turns to him and very seriously says, “Ashton, my priority is always donuts.”

“Yeah, that’s fair, I walked into that one,” Ashton mutters as they enter the store.

Five minutes and two donuts later, both of them exit, Luke munching contentedly on a strawberry-frosted donut (with sprinkles, of course) and Ashton carefully biting into his jelly-filled one. 

“Okay, starting now, we’re at Pride, and you can’t be a Negative Nancy,” Ashton declares.

“I promise not to be a Negative Nancy,” Luke vows. “I swear on this donut.”

Ashton beams. “Yay! Okay let’s go explore.”

You’d think this was Ashton’s first Pride for how excited he gets over everything. He stops at almost every stand, even though they’re all selling different versions of the same thing, and somehow manages to spark up conversation with any passing person who looks queer and interesting. Luke loves this about Ashton, how charming and outgoing he is, how he could befriend a vaguely human-shaped plant. People are drawn to him; Luke’s no exception. Ashton is very much the main character, even more so because he doesn’t seem to know it. He's just Ashton, and Luke loves him for it. Even when it means the halo of Ashton’s spotlight draws attention to Luke by extension.

Luke is not a charming, outgoing person. Luke is quiet and reserved. He’s never cared for the spotlight. Sometimes it’s a good thing that he has Ashton to pull him out of his shell a little. Sometimes he wilts under the scrutiny. It's a toss-up, but Luke appreciates that Ashton never stops trying.

Most of the tables selling merch boast shirts, hats, flags — the kind of thing you’d wear or own if you wanted to be loud and proud about your identity. Luke’s not really that kind of person. Luke’s way of coming out is to subtly slip into the conversation the fact that he has a boyfriend. Before he had a boyfriend, it pretty much never came up. Big, colorful flags have never been his cup of tea. 

And anyway, that’s only half of his identity. The other half never comes up, and Luke’s okay with that. It’s not like being ace is the kind of thing you can casually mention. It has to be a whole thing, every time, and Luke doesn’t want to deal with the whole thing, so he just doesn’t bother. Most of the time it doesn’t really matter. As much as Luke is able to fly under the radar, that’s what he intends to do.

“Hey, pins!”

Ashton is not like that.

“Luke, you like pins, right?”

The table they’ve stopped at is covered end-to-end with pins. Enamel or plastic, every single pride flag Luke has ever seen in his life is represented here, in a variety of shapes and sizes. The kaleidoscopic display is fun to look at, at least. There’s nobody behind the table at the moment, which means in theory it would be pretty easy to steal one, but Luke’s not like that, and even if he was he wouldn’t feel good stealing a pride pin from a small-business owner.

“I don’t really have an opinion,” says Luke.

“Ha,” Ashton says. “O-pin-ion. Haha.”

“I’m leaving you,” Luke says, turning away with a wry grin.

“No, come back.” Ashton grabs his wrist and pulls him closer, so Luke wraps an arm around his waist and rests his head on Ashton’s shoulder instead. “I like pins. They’re a very understated way of coming out.”

“Having a boyfriend is an understated way of coming out,” Luke replies.

"I resent you calling me understated," Ashton says in faux-indignance. Luke giggles.

“I’m so sorry, I had to run and grab some water,” says a voice, as a person bustles around them to stand behind the table. Their pink fringe is pushed back by a bandana and they’re wearing a jean jacket with so many pins and patches that the fabric is practically invisible. A sticker on the front pocket of the jacket introduces them as Alex, he/they :). “Can I help you with anything?”

“Just admiring the collection,” Ashton says brightly. “I love your jacket.”

“Thank you very much,” says Alex. “It’s been accumulating pins for about five years now.”

“Damn,” Ashton says, wolf-whistling. “That’s a good collection. I don’t have a good jacket for pins.”

“Wish I could tell you where I got mine, but it was a gift from my boyfriend,” Alex says. “I’ve heard thrifting is a good way to go.”

“You wanna go thrifting, Luke?” Ashton says, nudging Luke, who shrugs.

“Sure,” he says. He reaches for one of the asexual flag pins, a small enamel rectangle, and smoothes his thumb over the surface. “These are pretty nice.”

“You should buy it,” Ashton says. “Start a cool jacket. Then we could be matching.”

“You don’t have a cool jacket yet.”

“I know, but we could.”

“But neither of us have a cool jacket. So it’s not even—”

“Fine, ruin my fun,” Ashton harrumphs. To Alex, who’s watching them with amusement, Ashton says, “So how long have you and your boyfriend been together?”

“Oh, uh…” Alex’s gaze diverts to the air like he’s counting invisible numbers. “Six years? Almost? I think it’s gonna be six years in July.”

“Six years,” Ashton repeats in mild awe. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah, high school sweethearts, blah blah blah,” Alex says, smiling. They shrug. “Everyone thought we’d break up when we went to college, but when you know, you know. You know?”

Luke swallows. Ashton says, “Good for you. That’s impressive.”

“I like to think so,” Alex says. “What about you? Are you guys together?” He winces. “Should I not have asked that? I’m sorry, to be honest this is Jack’s business, I’m just running the stand because he wanted to go look around a little before the parade started. My boyfriend Jack, I mean. Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s all good,” Ashton says. He hip-checks Luke gently, which Luke takes to mean something like is it cool if I tell him? It’s nice that Ashton is asking, but Luke had kind of figured everyone would assume they were together because, you know, Pride, so he doesn’t really care.

“Yeah,” he says. “For, what, eight months?”

“Eight months,” Ashton confirms.

Alex grins. “That’s great, I love it. What are your names?”

“Ashton,” says Ashton. “He/him.”

“Luke. Also he/him.”

“It’s nice to meet you guys,” Alex says. “I’m Alex. He/they.”

“Yeah, your thing says,” Luke says, pointing.

Alex laughs. “You’d be surprised how many people don’t see it. Or they see it and think it’s just another decorative pin.”

“Do people wear pronoun pins as decorations?” Luke wonders. “That seems strange to me.”

“People are ineffable,” Alex says solemnly. Then he grins. Luke likes Alex. In fact, little though Luke’s actually spoken today, he likes most of the people whom Ashton has stopped to chat up. Queer people are so friendly, is what Luke is learning. It almost makes him happy to be here. 

Except now Alex’s words are ringing in Luke’s head, and he can’t stop hearing them. Everyone thought we’d break up when we went to college, but when you know, you know. 

Ashton’s going to college this fall. Luke’s managed to forget about that fact because it’s only June, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Ashton’s leaving and Luke’s going to finish his senior year alone and what if something happens to them? What if they’re fooling themselves thinking they can do the long-distance thing? What if they’re doomed already and this summer is just prolonging the inevitable?

“Well, personally I would love to buy a pin,” Ashton says. “Luke, choose one.”

“What?” Luke says, blinking himself out of his spiral. “Why?”

“I’m buying you one,” Ashton says.

“I don’t—” Luke bites his lip. He’s still fidgeting with the ace flag pin, and he kind of likes it. Maybe he can subtly come out in different ways. Maybe he can just wear it, and wait for someone to ask. Then it’s way less of a big deal because it’s not like Luke has brought it up. 

There’s enough shame in the world. Luke doesn’t need to add to it.

“Okay,” he says instead. He holds up the ace flag. “This one.”

“Great choice,” Ashton says, digging out a five to give to Alex. He hesitates, then pulls out a ten instead. “Actually, maybe I’ll also get one. Then we can actually match.”

“Right, with our matching jackets that don’t exist yet.”

“You know what, fine, we don’t have to match.” Ashton makes a face at Luke. “You can put your pin on whatever you want. It’ll go great with your all-black closet.”

“Shut up,” Luke grumbles. Ashton laughs.

“Hey, don’t knock the all-black,” Alex says. “Black is the new black. It’s fashion forward.”

“Not in eighty-degree June it’s not,” Ashton says.

“It’s seventy-five,” Luke protests. “And Alex is wearing a jacket!”

“Yes, but Alex is not my boyfriend, and we only just met,” Ashton says, grinning. “Also, their jacket is sick as fuck.”

“It is sick as fuck,” Alex agrees. “But I’m still siding with Luke here. You can’t go wrong with all-black.” For the first time, he seems to register Luke’s shirt, and his eyes light up. “Hey, Green Day! I fucking love Green Day!”

“You should be my best friend,” Luke says seriously, and Alex nods equally seriously.

“Hey,” Ashton complains. “I like Green Day.”

“Thank you for the pin,” Luke tells Alex. “Good luck with the, uh, you know, selling more of them.”

“Of course, anytime,” Alex says. “I’m pretty sure there’s a website on these business cards if you ever want to, I don’t know, browse?” They shrug one shoulder. “This is why I’m not a small business owner.”

“Cool,” Luke says, taking the card. He probably won’t use it, but you never know. 

“Nice to meet you, Alex,” Ashton says, as he and Luke start to walk away, fingers interlaced between them. “Good luck! Happy Pride!”

“You too! Enjoy the parade!” Alex says, waving.

Luke doesn't bother to inform him they're not staying that long; he and Ashton turn away and continue walking, Luke with his new pin clutched in his fist.

“They were cool,” Ashton says enthusiastically. “There are so many fucking interesting people here. God, I love Pride.”

Luke grips the pin tighter. The pointy back starts to hurt where it’s pressing into his palm. “Yeah.”

“Thanks for letting me get you something,” Ashton says. “I know it’s not really your thing, but I don’t know. I felt like we should buy something after we stood there for so long.”

“No, yeah, I agree.”

“On the bright side, they’re pretty cool pins.” Ashton holds his out like he’s assessing what he’ll do with it. “Maybe Michael has an extra jean jacket he never wears. I could ask him.”

Luke hums. Ashton glances over at him, eyebrows drawn together. “Are you okay?”

Luke's not supposed to say anything like this. He’s supposed to be positive because he promised he wouldn’t be a “Negative Nancy” and the sky is so blue that Luke would hate to be the reason for rain, but if he doesn’t say it then it’ll just keep ringing around his head until he can’t think about anything else.

“You’re not scared we’re gonna break up when you go to college?” he blurts out.

Ashton stops short and their hands break apart so Luke’s falls to his side. “Where’d that come from?”

“You heard Alex,” Luke says. “Everyone thought he and his boyfriend would break up when they went to college.”

“But they didn’t,” Ashton says.

“But that’s obviously unusual,” Luke counters. He swallows hard. “I’m just saying…aren’t you worried?”

Ashton tilts his head. “Do you want me to be worried?”

And yeah, a little part of Luke does. Only because if Ashton’s worried, it means he values their relationship enough that it would hurt him to lose it. But Luke knows that’s not really fair, and he knows Ashton loves him, even if he doesn’t seem worried at all.

“No, I don’t know. I just— I don’t know.”

“Are you?”

“I don’t know,” Luke says again. “I had pretty successfully managed to avoid thinking about it, but now…I don’t know.”

Ashton gently pries open Luke’s fist and runs his thumb over the red imprint the pin has left. Sheepish, Luke puts the pin in his pocket. As soon as his hand is free again, Ashton takes it, holding both of Luke’s hands in both of his own.

“I’m not worried,” he says quietly. His eyes are so sincere and his hands are so soft and Luke loves him and likes him and knows that to lose him would be a fate worse than death. “You must have missed the other half of Alex’s sentence. Remember? When you know, you know.”

Luke’s breath catches a little. “Yeah, but…”

“But what?” Ashton lifts a shoulder. “I already know, Luke. I’m in it for the long haul. So unless you meet some other guy who’s even awesomer than me and makes better puns, you have nothing to worry about. I’m not letting you get away that easy.”

Luke gazes at Ashton until the rest of the world falls away. “Oh,” he breathes.

“Okay?” Ashton quirks a smile.

Luke surges forward and kisses Ashton for as long as he can manage without passing out. It’s clumsy and sweet and Ashton’s hands tighten around Luke’s waist and Luke wraps his arms around Ashton’s shoulders and nothing else in the known universe matters except this.

When they finally break apart, Luke cracks a smile. “Okay.”

Ashton beams. He offers his hand to Luke again, and this time Luke takes it and doesn’t let go.

[mwolf0epsilon]

Spooky prompt with Norman x Sammy

Summary: After getting accidentally locked in the studio after-hours, Norman and Sammy feel less alone than they should of...

Closing prompt requests for now! Got something else I want to focus on for a while that I'm hoping you lot may enjoy.

---

[[MORE]]

It was a bit of an inevitability that one day this scenario came to play, being locked in for the night after Wally mistakingly assumed all personal had vacated the premises. What was unexpected was that it happened to two people on the very same night...

The people in question however? What with Sammy's new habit of isolating himself in a secret and tightly locked corner he'd claimed for himself, and Norman's proficiency in getting inside nooks and crannies no one else thought a nearly 7 foot tall man could fit? Definitely the sort to escape the janitor's notice and end up in this conundrum... Especially considering they'd clocked out many hours prior to Wally cleaning up and setting off for the night. If anything, they deserved it for being exceptionally sneaky.

"Fantastic..." The blond composer groaned as he watched the much taller projectionist give up on trying to fiddle with the lock. Cheapskate as Joey was, Mr. Drew seemed to at least invest in some very tight security. Likely a courtesy of GENT when the studio's partnership with the company arose. "Just what I needed, to be kept from my bed another night because Franks decided to go home early."

"N'aw. I reckon it ain't that early... When I was comin' upstairs the clock read 'bout 2:50..." He tapped his chin in thought and snapped the pin of his cravat back into place, no longer needing it to act as a makeshift lockpick. "Must be witchin' hour just 'bout now. Takes these old bones o' mine a while to get up here all quick-like..."

"3AM? Already?!" Sammy worried his lower lip as he realized how sidetracked he'd become. He should get a clock into his sanctuary at some point to avoid something like this in the near future. "Abigail is going to kill me... She must have waited all night..."

"Yous could always just call the landline an' say yous as busy as a one-legged cat in a sandbox." Norman offered with a smile that was bordering on the mischievous "In kinder words no doubt."

"She'd spit fire over the phone if I woke her up at 3 in the morning." He grimaced as he rejected such an idea. "The one thing she inherited from her mother is the capacity to transform into a fire-spitting drake if you wake her up at an ungodly hour..."

At such a notion Norman couldn't help grin and guffaw at the sight of Samuel Lawrence in all his peacock-like might, cowering away from a positively irate 18 year old girl with his tail between his shaking legs.

"Well, slap my head and call me silly! Yous still got your funny bone somewhere in that pile of highfalutin' grouchiness." The Louisianan's smile only grew as Sammy glares up at him. "Hey now, don't yous go lookin' so sour. It's good that yous is still yourself... Even after..."

"I'd rather not talk about that, thank you very much!" The musician knew exactly what Norman was referring to and he cut the topic short immediately. "Lets focus on the fact we're both trapped for the night. I don't know about you but I, for one, am starving and exhausted."

The projectionist nodded, conceding to the fact they should head to the breakroom and see if anyone had forgotten their packed lunch, or if maybe Lottie had left some non-perishables in the cabinets next to the stove. Like canned beans or maybe even canned fruit.

"I'm so hungry my belly thinks my throat's been cut... Tell yous what, if we gots the ingredients I could make us my Nanna's go to dish for when we was lil' tots growin' up." An easy enough meal that was effortless to make, and gave him enough time to see if Grant still had those blankets in his office while his companion ate

"And what's that?" Sammy asked, eyebrow raising.

"A peanut butter and jelly sandwich." Norman winked, which earned him a groan. "N'aw don't you go dissin' my poor Nanna's cookin' she was a skilled lady, but we was several youngins! And we was growin' bigger every day."

"I'll say... You're as large as a breeding bull." With better taste in clothes, albeit often overdressed for the occasion.

"You askin' for a ride, cowboy?" The mischief returned to Norman's grin as he noted Sammy's unusual fondness for boots rather than dress shoes. A more practical choice in his humble opinion.

"Buy me dinner, you pig." The blond dismissed, albeit unable to keep a smile off his face. "A man of my caliber deserves proper servicing, wouldn't you agree?"

Before the conversation could get any bit lewder, a noise downstairs halted their banter altogether. The two instinctively turned their heads towards the stairs, twin expressions of concern as they assessed what they had both just heard. It had sounded like clattering, down in Dr. Hackenbush's tiny little infermary.

"You hear that?" An unnecessary question, as Sammy knew for a fact Norman had. Still it felt better to acknowledge it aloud.

"Somethin' yes... Probably them lousy paper-thin pipes again... I don't know where Mr. Connor is gettin' the metal for 'em but I have half a mind t' tell him off for gettin' such shoddy materials." He looked unnerved more so than curious. Maybe a little irritable as the noisy pipework distracted him just as much as it did Sammy.

"You'd think they were made of flimsy tin...Either way let's uh, let's go eat down in the breakroom." The blond shook his head and began making his way to the stairs. If there was anything in Hackenbush's workspace it's not like it could get to them. The damn thing had been locked for a while, until the Doctor's services were needed. Something about preventing people from stealing his sedatives or whatever.

He was probably worked up over a raccoon either way. The dang things kept getting in through the ventilation. Just the other day Wally had fought one over a donut of all things...And lost.

"Yeah..." The towering projectionist followed, quieter now. Pensive. "Might as well fill our bellies an' get some shut-eye... Tomorrow if we is lucky, Drew might let us go home an' shower."

"Maybe..." Sammy nodded. As reasonable as it was that a raccoon was the likely cause of the strange noise, he couldn't help feel like it might be something more sinister. He was sure Norman felt the same too, as neither were strangers to Joey's... Less than savoury dealings with criminals and charlatans. But the thoughts of a bit of sleep and a shower in the morning were much more interesting and inviting thoughts than to worry about his paranoia. "Maybe not."

"We'll see, now won't we?"

"Guess we will."

That night the pipes sounded louder somehow. It felt like they were calling to them even... Whether or not Norman heard the calls was debatable, as the man was harder to read than a Russian dictionary, but Sammy swore up and down that he could hear his name in the flow... It spooked him terribly.

Never again, he thought, would he let himself sleep over-night in this damnable studio. He already wasted enough time in there after all. Living in it was nowhere in his future. Even if it meant he could spend an entire night or two shooting the breeze with a man that both infuriated him and made his heart go soft.

[esreviun]

extubation (2012)

for myself, five years ago.

I.

An endotracheal tube doesn’t come out very easily. The masses of surgical tape that hold it to your face aren’t there to keep it from accidentally slipping out of you. It’s firmly in there. It climbs up from your lungs out through your mouth and clings to the inside of your throat like something with legs. No the tape is there to keep it from moving at all. Anything— the smallest shift in your position a cough moving your arm too far— can pull a little on that tube and set your throat on fire. It doesn’t hurt— it burns. Every four hours a nurse comes in and rolls you onto your other side “to prevent bedsores.” You want to shout at them to leave you alone. You don’t care about bedsores, you care about breathing. But they still come in every damn four hours like wardens in a jail, making the rounds. It’s worst when they change your diaper. (You can’t afford to feel humiliated that you have to wear a diaper.) They have to flip you over more than once: take off the left side, flip, take off the right side, flip, put on a new one, flip, turn you over to fasten it, flip. With each flip your throat blazes and chokes you. You squeeze your eyes shut your face pressed into that horrible dank standard-issue hospital bedsheet and try not to cry from the pain. Every day. Every night. 

All this and yet when they actually remove the tube you’re terrified. You don’t want it to go. At least while it’s here, you know you can breathe— but they say that you’re probably strong enough to breathe on your own now without the ventilator. Probably?! They don’t feel like waiting until they’re sure? The nurses prop you up and get their equipment set out on the tray beside your bed. The attending makes a point of telling you: there’s a chance this might not work and you might have to be re-intubated. Just so you know. Thanks, you want to say. Thanks for paralyzing me with terror. Your bedside manner leaves absolutely nothing to be desired. She readies herself at the head of your bed and holds onto the end of the tube that’s sticking out between your chapped lips.

“When I count to three,” she says, “cough really hard.” 

She counts to three.

You cough.

II.

i haven’t forgotten i’ll never forget

III.

Junior year is when bad things start to happen, things that scare you for the first time. Pulmonology appointments were just a thing you did, until now. Like any other regular checkup. You grew up surrounded by doctors and hospitals and people poking at you and asking questions. It was normal. Being disabled was normal. You would gripe at your parents after church— after some well-meaning adult told you how inspirational you were or treated you like some paragon of bravery— saying, you didn’t envy birds for being able to fly, why would you envy other people for being able to walk? Reach things on high shelves? Take the stairs instead of the elevator? It’s not a big deal. It’s never been a big deal. Until now.

It’s the summer of 2006. Your doctors want to see you. They start running more tests. They ask you to breathe into a machine. Into another machine inside a glass box. Into another machine attached to a computer. Every time your chest rises or falls it makes numbers on screens. Every time you visit, the numbers are smaller. Your specialists start throwing code words around. Decreased lung capacity. Respiratory decline. More invasive solutions. God, you pray one night in bed, tears pricking at your eyes, please don’t let me get a ventilator.

IV.

Years later in your college dorm room you will write a poem about how it feels to hook up to your ventilator after a long day, how that first perfect breath of air rushes in and transforms you. You’ll sit there for fifteen minutes just trying to figure out how to describe that moment. It will overwhelm you. Eventually you will settle for: all you have to do is sit there and let it fill you all the way up like you’re being changed from a scribble into a sound like suddenly your shape means something but it won’t be good enough. It won’t capture it. So much of your poetry over the next several years will be trying to get another person to feel ventilated. So many of your poems will be coughs.

V.

Over the months, you shrink. September and October pass. In your high school advisory photo, which you still have today you look tiny, a massive brown striped turtleneck sweater billowing over you like you’re a sheep. When you shear the wool off of a sheep the animal underneath is thin and scraggly. When you take off your clothes, you’re skin and bones. You try to explain, to concerned friends, what your doctors told you: the less oxygen you get, the harder it is for your body to keep going. You sleep badly at night. This makes you tired. Your body works harder to keep you breathing. You burn through calories. You become bony. You can’t get comfortable in bed. So you don’t sleep well. And so you’re more tired. And so you lose more weight. It’s a vicious cycle, you say. But your doctors are going to help you break it. You have no idea how.

(You don’t say that.)

You know that to help you sleep your pediatrician suggests Tylenol PM. Every night your mom puts the little plastic cup of golden syrup by your toothbrush on the bathroom counter. You swallow it. It tastes like bitter vanilla. (You will still remember this taste in five years and it will still make your stomach churn.) You know that pulmonologists prescibe you inhalers and expensive medications to make your breathing easier. You know that they’re giving you a lot of things to make a lot of things easier. But you also know the worst part: that no one seems to be able to explain what’s happening. You hear a lot of explanations for the how but very few for the why. You wish you could sit your body down and look it in the eye and ask it to explain. It changes under your fingertips and it won’t tell you why. 

Every day you come home from school a little more exhausted and put your hand on your chest and wonder why you can’t count on your lungs anymore.

VI.

i can trust in your sinew and mystery but— never quite enough

VII.

Sometimes when it’s too much you park your wheelchair in front of the wooden computer desk in the sunroom and you put in your headphones and listen to a mandolin instrumental. The same one, every time. Kneel Before Him. Chris Thile. You’ve played this song in your ears more times than you can count now. You close your eyes and focus on the notes. The mandolin takes you away.

VIII.

You’ll write another poem in a few months about how your body has fought its hardest for you your whole life. And then you’ll write another poem about how your body has been betraying you your whole life. And then you’ll write another poem about how you can’t decide which one it is. And then you’ll keep writing those poems forever.

IX.

A dietician gives you this command: Keep a journal of everything you eat. Every day. Try to eat as many calories as you can. Eat whatever you want, as much as you can hold, whenever you’re even a little bit hungry.

In theory this is the best doctor’s order ever. In practice it’s a nightmare. You have no appetite. It’s wasted away. Early in the mornings before school you eat breakfast in the near-dark of the dining room and while your dad clears away the dishes afterward you scratch ¼ waffle w/syrup, 1 sausage, 2 oz. whole milk onto the next page of the small black notebook you carry with you now in your purse. Your dad makes you eat another quarter of a waffle. It slides thickly down your throat. You can’t remember enjoying food. You try to force down the nutritional supplements— the packets of clear starchy calorie gloop that your mom stirs into your mashed potatoes or mac ‘n’ cheese, the chocolate Boost shakes that are okay, you guess just more…cardboardy than chocolate is supposed to taste. You really try. But it isn’t enough.

They weigh you in February. You can’t stand on a scale so your dad picks you up and stands on it and then the doctor weighs him alone and subtracts the numbers. You measure 4’8”. You weigh 62 pounds. Sixty-two pounds. You’re sixteen years old.

(When you’re older you’ll wonder what the look on your dad’s face was when the doctor read your weight out. But you won’t remember it. You’ll remember the backs of your knees sticking to the rubber edge of the examination table and the weight settling into your chest.)

The doctor says the words feeding tube. You shake your head. That’s not going to happen. Ever. You tell him how on the ride home from school last week you ate an entire jelly donut and it was the first time in your life that you’d ever been congratulated for finishing junk food. The doctor laughs. So does your dad. You wish their smiles would reach their eyes.

You have to go to your mandolin when you get home.

X.

it rests on my lap, indenting the tops of my legs the smooth soft neck of it against my face my right hand gripping the far side of its body i can imagine the inside of that dark, empty body so much like mine hollow, the way the universe was before there were stars

XI.

It was important to you even before this all began, the mandolin. You’d wanted one for years. Your grandparents buy you one for your sixteenth birthday. It’s not expensive and it goes out of tune easily and you’re not very good at it. You’ll only ever learn four or five chords and a couple of clumsy strumming patterns. Your hands are a little too small and your fingers weak and soft. The callouses don’t form quickly. Your fingertips burn. But you revel in it. You’ve never pushed your body to do anything before. You dig those strings into the pads of your fingers so hard that they leave marks that last for hours.

XII.

“When I count to three, cough really hard.” 

One.

XIII.

There’s an afternoon at school when you suddenly have to leave class and go and lie down in the counselor’s office because you feel dizzy and your head is throbbing and you’re so, so tired and you don’t know what’s going on. Your heart pounds. You’ve always been scared when your heart pounds. In eighth grade you remember feeling your heart racing and worrying that something was wrong with you like you might be having a heart attack or something. And when you were a sophomore you would freak out when you felt short of breath even though your parents would always assure you that it’s okay, honey there’s nothing wrong with you you’re fine. You’re just having an anxiety attack. It feels like you can’t get enough air but you can.

In five years you’ll know that some of these times there really was nothing wrong with you and you really were imagining it. But other times your parents were wrong. Other times were preludes to what was coming next. You were right not to trust your body. You never know.

XIV.

i am covered in memorials of the times you have turned against me 

XV.

During the last week of March you’re home from school with a cold. You’ll remember that last day of school. You sat in the empty cafeteria with a book while it thunderstormed outside. The whole wall of the room was windows, and the rain and the dark and the silence of the trees heaving to and fro in the wind made you feel like you were sealed inside of a fish bowl Alex, one of your senior friends, sat down and made some jokes with you. Then you went home.

You’ve never written a poem about that day. Maybe you should.

XVI.

Two.

XVII.

Very early in the morning on Sunday, April 1st you wake up and call your mom into your bedroom to get you a glass of water. Your voice is faint. When she turns on the light your lips and fingernails are blue.

In the emergency room the nurses take one look at you and rush you back into an examination room where they stick a probe on your finger and read that your oxygen saturation is 60% and dropping. Someone gives you an oxygen mask. It seems to help. They think you’re falling back asleep.

You’re not. Your right lung is collapsing. You don’t have a cold, you have pneumonia. It’s spread into your bloodstream. Septic. Hypocarbic. Pneumothorax. Your body begins to shut down. Your parents are rushed out of the room.

(You will remember none of this. The only memory you’ll retain of that night will be protesting no, I’m FINE, just give me a glass of water and let me go back to sleep, Mom, it’s not a big deal, I feel perfectly fine. You’ll laugh when you remember this because you know now that oxygen deprivation can make a person confused or, in your case, a blithering idiot.)

EMTs and nurses crowd your bed. Someone presses a plastic mask over your nose and mouth. You’re long unconscious by now. They pump air into your starved lungs and outside of the room a nurse has to guide your mom to a chair so that she doesn’t pass out.

(It will occur to you long after this that if you hadn’t been thirsty that night you wouldn’t have called for a drink and woken your mom up and no one would have known that your body was suffocating you in your sleep. Your parents would have found you dead in your bed the next morning. Your whole face would have been blue.)

XVIII.

you have been warring me off of this territory since the moment i set foot on it and on the day when you win i will make sure that the last word is mine

i will be riddled with scars and i will not go quietly

XIX.

You don’t die. Remember this. You don’t die. You push your body against that hospital so hard that it leaves marks that last for years. 

XX.

Three.

XXI.

actually the sword is much mightier than the pen

XXII.

No hospital room has white walls— not really— not the ones you stay in with the bad lighting and the dismal curtains and various baffling objects hung up around the bed that look like surely they must do something very important but hell if you have any idea what.

(In two months you’ll recognize them all.)

But for some reason white light is the first thing you’re going to remember. Maybe everything just seems bright to you because your eyes have been closed for so long.

XXIII.

Here is what you remember from week one:

You see your parents’ faces.

They’re crying.

That can’t be a good sign.

You drift.

And drift.

XXIV.

When you’re still sixteen still in the hospital you’ll write a poem called How To Spin Starlight. It will be the first poem you have written in months— months— and it will go like this:

the stars said “spin us” and i took a weary breath and turned the universe upside-down to draw some thread from black, black stars and spin it into glittering

It will be rubbish.

When you’re seventeen one of your best friends will tell you you don’t need the last two lines and you’ll realize she’s right. All the poem is about is being turned upside-down.

XXV.

While you lie there with a tube down your throat and a tube up your nose and a tube up your urethra and a tube sticking into your foot and a tube sticking into your hand and a tube stapled into the side of your chest and a whole handful of tubes buried under the skin of your collarbone, the Easter Bunny comes.

He visits every patient in the pediatric intensive care unit. Even the ones in medically-induced comas. He bends over your pale, prone form in the hospital bed a horrifying specter of pink plush and oversized costumed limbs.

Someday you will see a photo of this.

You will wonder who in their right mind thought this was a good idea.

XXVI.

After about a week they take you off the sedatives and you think it’s Wednesday. You burst into tears when they tell you you’re wrong. You have no idea why. Your parents try to calm you down and explain why you’re here because you don’t remember and you don’t understand. You can’t breathe. You can’t talk. You’re broken.

XXVII.

When you’re eighteen you will write a poem about your mandolin.

i am acutely aware that my horizontal wrist veins and tendons are stretched out against its vertical eight strings and imagine that with a little maneuvering they could be woven together gold and silver strings with scarlet ones

You won’t have played it for years but you’ll remember the smoothness of its body the arch of its neck the friction of its strings. In your poem you will compare it to your body: this instrument which you are not very good at controlling and which sometimes doesn’t behave.

if i lifted my fingertips a quiver might start in the deep places of that body run up along that delicate neck reach the string-tips stay there—shuddering— and release a note sweet into space

It will occur to you two years later that this is wrong. You are not an instrument because when instruments shatter they can’t be repaired. Your fingers still run over the skin of your chest and your side and your hands sometimes over bumps and indentations and rough patches and you think it would be awfully cheesy to compare myself to a poem, wouldn’t it? A poem constantly being revised?

XXVIII.

The nurse’s grip tightens on your endotracheal tube.

“Three.”

You cough.

XXIX.

You’ll try so many times over the next five years to explain what that tube feels like coming out— ripping out, more like it as though it wants to take your whole throat with it. What will be harder, though is describing what it feels like immediately afterwards: the gasping, the choking, the sensation of having lost the one thing that was weighing you down keeping you from floating away and yet at the same time feeling suddenly so unbelievably heavy. The nurses fit a mask over your nose: a C-PAP machine, to assist your breathing. It doesn’t help much. You haven’t taken a breath on your own in two weeks. You’ve entirely forgotten how. They keep saying you’re all right, you’re doing fine but you’re so scared you’re shaking and so finally in an effort to distract you and calm you down someone finds a DVD for you to watch. It’s “Grease.” It’s terrible. You watch it anyway, though because what else are you going to do? Your dad stays in the room with you. It’s dark— it’s the middle of April in Michigan and the blinds are drawn over the one window anyway— and you think, I could die here, sitting in a dark room and watching “Grease.” This could be how I actually die.

XXX.

It isn’t, though.

It isn’t.

[jackblankhsh]

A Blood Red Reindeer Knows

There's a gingerbread man in an alley off Lollipop Lane giving out suck jobs for a candy cane. Lit on sugar stick, poor bastard's got his eyes on the oven.  He wants to go back in.  Came out too early the first time; came out soft.  Now he wants to stay inside until he's good and crisp, maybe even burnt up. Woe to the next Jelly Donut Jon who crosses him.  That fool's gonna get cut open, strawberry filling spilling out everywhere.  The Calico Pimp prancing around in boots, she won't be happy about it, but she'll let it slide.  She'd rather a donut died than her golden throat disappeared.  A lot of coins go down that gullet flowing to her pocket on a river of cream.

 Seeing that, not back in town five minutes, I realize I don't want to be here, but I heard from Vixen. She needs me.  I promised I'd come if she ever called.  

 I notice a car creeping behind me.  It could be any of a dozen rotten eggs I don't care to see.  Still, I pull my motorcycle into a diner on Butter Cream Boulevard.  By doing so I'm practically inviting an unpleasant conversation.  My only hope is they let me have a cup of hot cocoa before things get real.  

 Sitting at the counter I wave to the waitress.  When she comes over she can't take her eyes off my nose.  Most folks can't, whether they know what it means, or not.  I can't get used to it.  It's like they never seen red before.

 Snapping my fingers I say, "Hey, cup-a cocoa.  Extra marshmallows."

 "I'll have that right up."  She hops to it.  Blink of an eye there's a steaming mug in front of me.  I get one delicious sip before a badge sits next to me.

 Glancing over I recognize the copper, "Detective Lorenzo Elfberg, what a pleasure to see you again."

 "Cut the shit Rudy. What the fuck are you doing back in town?"  Lorenzo is from the old school, back when questioning a suspect meant beating a confession out of someone with a frozen hose.  I know. He's asked me a few questions.  

 I shrug, "No reason I can't be."

 "I bet I could find something."  Sliding into the vacancy beside me is a snowman.  

 I ask, "Who's this Frosty?"

 Next thing I know the snowman slams my head into the counter.  A few patrons look over, but as soon as Lorenzo flashes a badge they look away.

 Snowman growls, "The name's Milkshake.  Milkshake Snickerdoodle, and you don't use that word around me, got it punk?"

 Sitting up I straighten my leather jacket.  Now isn't the time to get weird.  However, I've been around.  I know a fishing expedition when I see one.

 So I say, "Didn't mean nothing by it.  Heard it in a snowballer song.  Figured y'all call yourself that now, taking it back as it were."

 Milkshake snorts, "Whatever ya backwoods whitetail trash."

 "Now who's being insensitive?" I say, and take a sip, "You boys ought to have some of this.  It's damn fine.  Might even calm you down."

 Lorenzo plucks a marshmallow off my coaster.  He says, "Whatcha been doing with yourself?"

 "Not that it's any of your business, I've been on the outskirts settled in with my girlfriend, Cari Bou.  Told her I had business in the city.  Only just rode in a half hour ago."

 "She a good woman?" Milkshake asks.

 "The best," I say.  Never meant it before, not even with Vixen, though once upon a time I thought I did.

 Milkshake says, "Then I bet you're in a hurry to get back to her."

 I am, but won't admit it. Watching the cops leave I can't help thinking a strong shove this early -- something is definitely stirring.  A smart person would take those threats seriously, and make no mistake when a cop says leave town there's always a threat in there, but I'm not smart enough to do what's best for me.  

After finishing my cocoa I get back on my bike. The engine growls, and I almost miss the sound of jingling bells, the shimmer of chimes.  Eyes to the sky I see Big Red's sleigh shooting across the heavens. A practice flight every night on the week before Christmas -- some things never change.  Then I notice something isn't right.  The silhouette of the sleigh suggests a reindeer is missing. I can't be sure which, but it puts a cold unpleasantness in my belly.

 So I speed my ass over to Vixen's house.  When I left she lived in a nice part of town, one of the perks of being a flier.  Of course, she isn't the original Vixen. That'd make her centuries old, but she qualified back in the day, got to assume the call sign when the time came. So it's a bit of a shock to see her jelly dot bungalow is a cracked, half melted mess.

 Parking my ride I notice a group of teddy bears loitering on the corner.  They seem to be watching the place.  Discretely getting a gun out of my saddle bag I stash it in a jacket pocket before heading up to Vixen's.  

 Knocking on the door causes it to open.  That's not a good sign.  Going inside I find the place isn't just torn apart, worse, there's blood on everything. Something vicious happened here, but I doubt I've got time to stick around.  Still, there's seconds enough to notice one oddity.

 On a wall there's a poster hanging that says, "Re-elect Papa Nash!"  He's the mayor of this icy burg.  If he gets re-elected that'll mean a fifth term, adding up somewhere near 22 years.  However, anyone with half a brain, not living in denial, knows Papa Nash doesn't run shit. Big Red is the only one with any political power.  Vixen knew that, hell, she taught it to me.  So why the poster?  

 She used to say, "Things have to change, Rudy, but sometimes I doubt they will.  Not with a vote anyhow."

I hear sirens in the distance.  Sensing a frame up is in the works I don't waste time. Hurrying outside I see the teddy bears have converged on my bike.  

 As I approach my ride the largest teddy bear says, "Where you think yer goin'?"

 Instead of chit-chatting I fire a few rounds into the bear's foot.  The rest scatter allowing me to hop on my bike, and ride.  I know where I need to go, but I don't know if there's time.

[seethatgirl3]

Game on //Draco Imagine//

Requested By: @imagelover2 Request: Can you do a Draco Imagine where he pranks Y/n and she gets “mad” so she gives him the silent treatment and he does everything to make her talk to him? Pairing: Reader x Draco Warnings: none A/n: okay so I said I was going to post this on Valentine's Day but it doesn't really have to do with it, so I'm just gonna post it now :) hope you like it! ---- “Y/n! Come sit over here!” You glanced around the room until your eyes landed on your boyfriend, Draco Malfoy. He was waiving his hand and you made your way to the bench beside him. “Hey!” You greeted as you sat down and smiled at your boyfriend. “We made you a plate.” Draco smiled as he slid you a plate filled with eggs, toast, bacon and a cookie with a jelly filling. “No need to thank us.” He beamed and you laughed quietly. “Well thank you anyway.” You smiled. You listened to Draco complain about Granger and her pesky know it all mudblood brain as you ate your toast and bacon quickly. You picked up the cookie and took a large bite, getting all of the jelly in one bite. Although it didn't taste like jelly…. “Draco...what’s in this cookie?” You asked as you examined it. It didn't taste like jelly at all. In fact...it tasted more like… “Hot sauce!” Draco exclaimed before erupting in a fit of giggles. You threw the rest of the cookie onto your plate and grabbed the nearest napkin, spitting whatever was left in your mouth out….but it was too late. “Ohmygod!” You gasped as the spice suddenly hit you. It felt as if your mouth was on fire. You grabbed a glass of water and chugged it down but nothing changed. “Draco!” You yelled through clenched teeth as you stood up and ran from the room towards the Slytherin common room. You ran right into the bathroom and brushed your teeth, not one, but four times. “That filthy pure blood prince.” You cursed as you looked at yourself in the mirror. You brushed your fingers through your hair and straightened the collar of your jacket. You jumped out of your skin when you saw Draco standing just outside the girl's bathroom. “Ok listen Y/n, I'm really sorry for pranking you back there, I thought you wouldn't react so badly to it...forgive me?” He looked at you with puppy eyes. You straightened your back and walked right past him, bumping his shoulder as you passed. “Oh no Y/n. Not the silent treatment. Please don't play this game love.” Draco pleaded but you weren't going to let him win so easily. You walked into the common room and planted yourself on one of the green couches facing the fire. Draco sat down beside you and you turned away from him. “Y/n…I'm sorry...what else do you want me to say?” You stuck your nose into the air a little and Draco sighed. He got up and sat on the other side of you so that you were looking at him. You quickly shifted your body so you were now looking the other direction. “Don't look at me if you love me.” Draco said. You didn't move. “Aha I knew it.” He chuckled. “Don't face me if you don't love me.” Again, you didn't move. “Damn..” he sighed and you hid your quiet laughs. “Y/n if you don't talk to me….I'm going to put my foot in the fire.” Draco said as he stood up and moved towards the fire. You turned towards him but you folded your arms stubbornly. “I’m going to do it,” he sneered as he lifted his foot and moved it towards the fire. “Just one word and I’ll stop.” You didn't even raise an eyebrow as his foot hovered closer and closer to the fire that was raging in the fireplace. He pulled his foot away right before it was about to touch the flames. “Ughh Y/n, baby please talk to me!” Draco pleaded as he moved towards you again. “Please don't make me beg Y/n!” Draco pouted, his bottom lip protruding and his eyes widening just enough to give them a puppy dog appearance. “Fine.” Draco got onto his knees in front of you and pressed his hands together. “Im begging you Y/n! I beg for you to talk to me again! I'm sorry for what I did and you have every right to be mad, but I just hear your serenading voice again or i’ll risk going mad!” Draco pleaded. You didn't even smile as you turned your body away from him again and moved your eyes back to the fire. “Fine.” Draco stood. “You want to play hard to get? Two can play at that game!” With that, he stormed past you and out of the common room. “Game on.” You smirked to yourself as you laid back on the couch and looked at the ceiling. --- It's been two days since the games started between you and Draco. It's been two days of noses in the air, crossed arms, and ‘humphs’. Draco had been holding out rather well, considering he was more than completely obsessed with you and usually couldn't go four hours without touching you, nevertheless talking to you. He stuck his nose in the air whenever he saw you and turned his back towards you. He was obviously determined to win. But you were even more determined. You were at the point where you wouldn't even look at him when he entered the room and you pretended he didn't exist. “This has to stop Y/n.” Pansy told you one day. “Soon the whole school is going to think that you had some tragic breakup. Plus he talks about you nonstop when you're not around.” Pansy rolled her eyes and you smiled to yourself. “I'm not stopping until he gives in. I'm not going to lose.” You replied. “And what kinds of things does he sa-” you ended your sentence short as the door opened and Draco walked into the room. You closed your mouth and looked towards the fire. You heard Pansy scoff. “Good evening Pansy,” Draco spoke as he sat next to your best friend. “I wanted to tell you that Blaise was looking for you. Last I saw him he was headed to the great hall.” “Alright, thanks Draco. See ya later Y/n.” Pansy waved and you waved back. You watched as she left the room, letting the common room door slam behind her. It was just you and Draco now. You leaned forward in the chair and began to stand up but draco stopped you. “You win.” He said to the ground and you froze. He looked up at you, his gray eyes twinkling. “You win. I can't go another day without seeing you and talking to you. I miss your voice and the way you feel in my arms. And it's only been two days!” Draco scoffed. “I'm completely obsessed with you! Please talk to me again. Please?” “That's all you had to say.” You smiled at him and his eyes went wide. “What? I only had to say please? This whole time I could have just asked you and added please!?” You nodded and Draco scoffed. “I got you this by the way,” you said as you picked up a plate from the ground and handed it to him. “A peace offering.” You smiled. It was a Boston cream donut. “Well you're too kind.” Draco smiled at you. He leaned back on the couch and took a large bite. Not even a second of the food being in his mouth, he spit it back out. “Toothpaste!!?” He yelled as he threw the donut onto the ground and began coughing. You burst out laughing, having to hold onto the arms of the chair to make sure you didn't fall onto the floor. “You're disgusting Y/n!” Draco scolded as he picked the donut up and put it back on the plate. You could tell by the playful smirk on his lips that this meant nothing more than a joke to him. “Now we’re even.” You giggled as he stood up and put the plate on a desk. He stood in front of your chair and leaned in so close your lips were mere inches apart. “Yes darling. I guess we are.” He closed the gap between your lips and the two of you shared a passionate kiss. You made a face when you pulled away. “Ew...tastes like toothpaste.”

[rutisup-blog]

Mendocino Magic - Day 2

I wake up at some point in the morning…Is it 9 AM? It doesn’t really matter. There’s people up and at it in the camp-site, and I’m just laying naked in my cozy blue sleeping bag–feeling lazy. Jonny is up, and I can hear that people are cooking something or another–awesome. I could just lay here a little longer…

Eventually I have to get up. I slip out of my nest and put on my outer-space t-shirt and my blue Billabong trunks. Everyone is getting ready to go down to the reservoir and do some floating. I’m pondering if I should drop some acid. Nicole, Chris, and Dimitri are going to do it. I mull it over in my mind…If I can get some more people to do it I can.

Jonny wants help making the punch, so I oblige him. We don’t have a can opener to open the cans of pineapple, so he just takes a knife and stabs the cans, dragging the knife through the lid–that’s one way to do it. The pineapples are really chunky–it’s basically all pulp–so we have to spoon them into the small opening in the container.

This container is a clear 2 gallon container, pretty much twice as large as a ‘gallon of milk’. The opening isn’t much bigger either. This is a slow process–sloppy pulp is getting everywhere. I roll up a pink paper plate and shove it in the opening, using it as a make-shift funnel. I have someone ‘stuff my pink taco’ full of the pulp, and we get it all in there. It keeps getting jammed up with pulp and overflowing. I discover I need to grasp the shaft of the funnel and violently shake it up and down to force all the gunk through that pink hole–the sexual innuendo of it all is making me laugh, taking my mind off how gross this is. Then we dump in two handles of Captain Morgan’s and look at this revolting drink. It just looks gross. We still need to put coconut juice in there, but at that point someone else starts helping and I slip away and leave them to deal with that shit.

It was like how I imagine it would be working at a sausage factory. You wouldn’t want to eat it if you saw how it was made. Pretty much the same deal when we make jungle juice at our halloween parties.

I have some liquid acid left still, and I had planted to seed with some people yesterday. I ask who wants some, and get some ok maybes from Rachel and Liv. Chris(sy) is down, and Nick is a maybe. I make a breakfast sandwich out of cheese, bread, and some bacon Jonny cooked up. Fuck, is it ever nice to camp with people that love to be organized. I find the marshmellows, placing the bag of them on that burgundy colored bench I’m sitting on. The fire from last night is still kind of warm, although long extinguished. I pull out four marshmellows and put them on the bench, and then bust out the liquid acid.  I put a drop on each one of the marshmellows and hand them out, but the girls want to wait. Chris(sy) and I cheers the marshmellows and chow down. They’re sweet AF.

“I’ll set a timer” says Chris(sy), already tapping away at his digital watch. The race against the clock has begun. I want to hustle to get down there. I start getting all of the shit I need together in my CamelBak, also trying to encourage the girls to take the acid. They’re wishy-washy, better let them make their own decision.

The pond beside our campsite, rich with lily pads

I slackline a bit and then 35 minutes in I am feeling a little tingly–ah here we go. The sense of urgency to get moving kicks in, and we rally the troops. We all starting walking down to the reservoir as a huge crew, someone pulling a cart of stuff. I’ve just got my tripper kit with me…My CamelBak with some beef jerky in it, a sweater, pants, sunglasses. What else does a man need? I start walking down, and then there’s this huge ass hill to get up to the reservoir–aaahhh shit.

I lend my muscles to help, and I grab onto the cooler and team carry it up with Dimitri. Fuck, it’s a total bitch to do, but we make some fun of it. We trade sides a few times. We zig zag up this damn hill with it, taking a few breaks. We finally get up that bitch, and then Nick comes in and wants to help. He subs out Dimitri, and then we set up a kind of makeshift camp by Cannonball Camp, where there are some other people camping.

It’s less than ideal, so I talk to the boys.

“I’m going on a recon mission, whose with me?” “I’m Down.” says Nick “Yeah dude. Let’s do it” Chimes in Dimitri.

So the three of us start walking around the lake. We’re doing a recon team schtick, using radio call-signs and all. Nick is Golden Eagle, I’m Red Beaver, and Dimitri is White Russian. We find site ‘Alpha’…not great. Then next we discover ‘Site W’ on account of all the woods…Super steep, but we check it out anyways. At any rate, we’re having a fucking blast. White Russian is on two tabs, I’m on one drop, and Nick is just a little buzzed off of a PBR Tall Boy. We’ve all got a frosty PBR in our hands, and we’re using it to gauge the time. We don’t want to run out during our loop. We find a desirable site near the end of our route, and then we return to base-camp to say where we are moving. The whole convoy picks up and starts to move, but I decide to put some stuff in a cargo tube and float it over–Ojibwe Express style. I kick for probably 25 minutes to transport it, Nickel and C-dog coming with me.

C-dog does the backwards octopus to propel himself, I just kick underwater, and Nickel like jumps up on her tube and kicks wildly with her legs, splashing water everywhere. We all have our own method. We’re taking our time, moving ever-slowly across the reservoir. In the time it took us to get over there, we find out that the group has been invited over to this sweet rock even further across the bay, so we have to move again. I’ve got this Simpsons jelly donut floatie that I’m trying to inflate with my lungs. Every time I feel like I’m getting a good rhythm going some flies land on my shoulder and I have to swat them off. I get frustrated and give up, just walking over to the rock area. I find Liv and Rachel hanging out on a rock just overlooking the water. Liv has a purple flower in her hair, and it looks beautiful. The girls get me a purple flower and we put it in my beard.

It really is a beautiful moment. It’s me, Liv, and Rachel, and I think Chris(sy) as well has joined up later after transporting the cooler. We wave hello to the people that invited us, and they come to talk to us. It’s this petite little Quebecois girl wearing a Batman bikini, and her fairly athletic hippie boyfriend. They live on some land adjacent to this, doing ‘agriculture’, and living in a Yurt type thing that looks like a garlic clove. I mean, clearly they’re growing weed.

Jonny looks like a king, laughing in a huge lazy-boy floatie down there in the reservoir, cup of rum punch in his hand. He’s literally got the floaty for the cooler tied to his floaty–he is the bar. There’s a flotilla of about 10 people in tubes all tied together, and Jonny is trying to get a drink out of that collapsible container full of punch. It looks as disgusting as before, and after seeing him try to handle that flexible container, I can’t help but notice that it looks like a stomach full of bile. He’s loving that stomach juice. Everyone’s having a great time down there.

We chat with the strangers about their fairy tale lives for a bit more, a bunch of working stiffs on their long weekend turnin’ up for the weekend trying to relate to these free spirits. They tell us the realities of their situation, their extremely blue eyes just mesmerizing us.

“It’s cool, but if the wind picks up, we usually stay in town. It’s no joke, if a tree falls over, you’re done” Says the dude, his crystal gemstone sitting low on his chest, suspended around his neck with a hemp string. “Ah…” We say collectively. It’s a little too surreal a moment for us–you know with all the acid, their unconventional lives and the too blue to handle eyes. “Well, we’re headed out, it was great to meet you guys”.

We watch the two free spirits leave, that little Quebecois mouse shrinking off into the distance with her yellow and black batman bikini. So long, gov’na. “Were those people even real? They were too perfect to be real” remarks someone.

Five minutes later this strange Filipino chick rolls up and passive-aggressively tells us–with emphasis on the aggressive–“This is our private campsite, and we were promised it would be our own little private area”

Ah shit. “Oh…we didn’t know. Someone invited us over here”. “OK well this is our campsite and we were promised it would be private” she’s saying. “Ok yeah, well we will move”.

I wonder if those free spirits were even real…this surly chick sure as fuck didn’t think so. It’s kind of awkward, not the shit you wanna deal with while tripping. But no worries, we got a bunch of homies in the water. I take my time and get my shit, and then we walk back over to the new old site, the shady one. I try for like 20 minutes to blow up this inflatable jelly donut, but fail. All these bugs keep landing on my shoulder once again, and then I am with Alison and Brittany who are doing girl talk and I just can’t take it anymore. The tube is only a 1/4 inflated, but I run into the water and try to fill the tube up while swimming. I look ridiculous.

I come in hot like a sea otter, swimming into the middle of the flotilla. I try to grab a glass of punch from Jonny, but he protests a bit. “I don’t have any more cups” he says. “What about this empty one you have right here?” I say, pointing at a clean glass sitting pretty in a cupholder beside the cooler

“That’s for the ice”. “Seriously?” “OK, blow up that floaty and I’ll give you a punch”.

So I try in vain for a while, it’s just hard when you’re swimming. There’s a vacant premium floaty, looking all firm and buoyant. It belong to C-dog, but he seems to have abandoned it for the moment. I hijack his floaty and use it as a base to try and blow it up my floaty. I float over to Jonny, and that pedigree chum was true to his word.

“Stomach juice me” I say. King Jonny takes that coveted chalice out of the cup holder, and throw a little ice in. “You’ve gotta pour it yourself, but here you go, handing me the stomach. “It’s too pulpy to use the valve, you’ve got to take the cap off.

So there I am balancing on a tube with a 2 gallon collapsible plastic stomach of juice between both arms, and the cup held between both of my feet like a vise. I’m doing some sort of yoga pose here trying to get a drink. It’s a precarious move, and I’m able to pour/squeeze the juice out into the cup. All of my efforts pay off, this stomach juice is delicious.

I get a few sips of that sweet nectar, but then C-dog comes back to reclaim his tube and threatens to flip me if I don’t get out.

“I know you can’t flip me, I’ve got the stomach juice hostage!” I chortle. Jonny shoots me a concerned look and says “He’s right”.

Chris is there treading water beside the tube, and I still haven’t even managed to blow up my jelly donut tube. I’m laughing uncontrollably. Chris is getting frustrated.

“Dude, don’t mess with me, I’m like a sea otter. I’m gonna flip your ass”. “Just lemme blow it up and you can have you tube back”.

I can’t stop laughing, which is kind of a blocker when you’re trying to blow up a fucking tube with your lungs. I’m not making much headway on the floaty and C-dog is getting all frustrated.

“At least hand the punch over so someone else can drink it as well”. It seems a reasonable request, I’ve been having fun at this now for about 10 minutes. So I hand the hostage stomach and my cup of juice over to someone so they can drink it, and I promptly get flipped. I deserved that.

Treading water again, and the tube isn’t getting inflated quickly at all. I eventually have Steve help me blow it up, and he does it in like three breaths. Incredible. “I give a lot of blowjobs” he says gayly and laughs. This guy is awesome.

So there I am, floating around and tied into the flotilla with my jelly donut floaty. We keep drifting into the reeds, and people need to kick. This eventually gets a little tiring, and it’s just me Steve and Chris(sy) doing the work. We start to run out of booze and get bored of this, so I untie from the flotilla, tired of pulling ten people. The girls say ok whatever, we don’t need you boys anyways. They promptly float into the reeds across the reservoir. We all laugh at them a bit. I kick back to shore and hang out a bit. The girls eventually come back, and we walk with them.

I walk with Rachel, and I take off my Birks. Nothing better than walking barefoot while tripping. I do feel some pain when I’m walking on the rocks, but my feet are kind of hobo feet at this point anyways. I try to convince Rachel to de-shoe as well, but no dice. We walk down and then we see King Jonny yelling directions at us.

“DEFLATE THE FLOATIES, PUT THEM IN THE TRUCK. DEFLATE THE FLOATIES, PUT THEM IN THE TRUCK. DEFLATE THE FLOATIES, PUT THEM IN THE TRUCK” he keeps repeating, pointing his arms in a windmill motion towards the F-350 parked at the base of the path. He looks like he’s directing traffic–ok let’s be real, he is.

This is working like a well oiled machine–I’m impressed he has the wherewithal do this after all that stomach juice. I’ve ended up carrying the big yellow floatie Jonny was on. After we all deflate those shits and pack them in, we finally make it back to the camp–hooray.

I hit the slackline, and I’m fucking killing it. I jump in my hammock and just lay there, looking up into the branches. It’s beautiful. I sway back and forth a bit. I eat some jerky and the flavor is just so intense–wow. I hop out in search of some strawberries–they’re the best when you trip. I end up grabbing another beer and I’m just drinking and making that transition from trippin’ to drunk. It’s like 3:30 PM. The sun is out and it’s beautiful so I say “Hey I’m gonna go lay in the sun up on the path”. “We could grill up there” says Jonny.

I helped Jonny move the charcoal grill over and I throw my sarong down on the ground and grab some sun while Jonny gets the grill going–we’re starving. We set the beer pong table up, and slowly people start to come up and hang out. Jonny and I play Dimitri and Brittany, and it’s a decent game.

I’m making the joke about the punch looking like stomach juice, and it seems to catch on. We name the stomach ‘Joe’ and it’s now Joe’s Juice or Joe’s Stomach Juice. That shit is fucking GOOD. I can’t stop sipping it. It’s become a good luck talisman now, as I squeeze the sides of it to release a fresh tropical breeze of pineapple aroma before each shot for luck–my version of blowing on your dice.

It was a shame when you had to switch from the stomach juice to some of that Colorado piss water whenever they sunk a ball. We continue playing, and beat out Nickel and C-dog as well. It was close, but we got them. I’m kind of faded at this point, and we get off the table. Chrissy, Rachel, Nick and Olivia are set up on another blanket beside the Sarong, just laying out now. I come and join them, getting some sun.

I’m staring directly up, and there’s a beautiful set of branches just full of young maple leaves above me. Beside us is a manzanita tree. Two pretty different trees, existing together. I love maple trees, but maybe it’s because I’m Canadian. Everyone is looking at these lizards camouflaged in the tree. It’s trippy as fuck, It takes me a while to find them. You need to wait for them to move, and they do a quick move and then freeze. Wow, pretty cool. I’m laying next to Liv starting up at a canopy of maple leaves and talking about keeping a journal and life in general. I’m saying how I’m going to journal this…That it’ll be a 15 pager (way more than that right now).

Posted up like a mailbox on the trail

Rachel is wearing like all black and has this hat on, and we get her to tuck her pony tail through the back. She looks like a lunch-lady. We’ve got a hat heavy crew, and I like it. I read the back of her hat, and I have to do a double-take. It says ‘J. Galt’ and then an address.

“Hey, who’s John Galt?” “What” “Like, who’s John Galt? Why is the sky blue” I say trying to make an obvious reference.

No one really gets it.

“Is that an Atlas Shrugged reference?” Says Chris. “Yeah dude, that hat says, J. Galt. That’s definitely an Atlas Shrugged reference” I say excitedly.

No one else understands or has read the book, but I nevertheless think it’s mad cool that someone has made John Galt branded clothing. C-dog and I proceed to get into a philosophical debate about Atlas Shrugged. “It’s anti-capitalist” says C-dog “No man, it IS capitalism, it’s fighting communism” I retort.

We don’t have much more to say of it, but then 10 minutes later C-dog says “I think you might be right man, I’m thinking about it more, and I think I had it wrong. The book is capitalist”. What a strange turn of events that was, although only C-dog and I could enjoy it.

Jonny is sitting in a little ultralight camping chair beside the grill, and a lot of smoke is starting to come out of it. He’s staring intently at the grill through his sunglasses, but he hasn’t really moved much. He’s sweating profusely–really soaking up the sun. “Is his leg hair burning?” someone chimes in. His left leg is close to the grill, and some of his leg hair has definitely singed off. I cock my head to the side and see that he is actually asleep behind the sunglasses. This motherfucker passed out in the middle of the party, but no one even noticed. He’s supposed to be watching the chicken. Suddenly the smoke coming out of the grill is much more alarming than before.

“Jonny?” I say. He’s dead to the world. I start laughing “Guys check it out, I think Jonny passed out”. We all start checking it out and he’s still asleep. Someone opens up the grill to check on the chicken and it’s all getting pretty burnt. Rachel moves the grill away from him and she takes over and starts cooking. She really looks like a lunch lady now with the baseball cap on, leaning over the smoky grill.

Quickly this turns into something hilarious, everyone camping with us wants to check it out. I figure he will wake up at any moment now, but this mother fucker is still KO’ed! So we do what anyone else would do. We pose and do a group picture with him sleeping at the front! We keep it a secret, he still doesn’t know we have this absolutely hilarious ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ inspired pic with him.

We cook the chicken and eat a little bit, and then like ten minutes later we see Jonny wakes up, but he plays it cool. He just snaps into it and a few seconds later starts bobbing his head to the beat, feeling like no one even noticed his little nap. We let him keep thinking that.

“Whatup Jonny” “Just chillin” “Yeeeeahh have some more of that stomach juice” I say.

So he’s drinking a little more and looking fine, but still waking up a bit from his stupor. A few minutes later he has a bit of a start and says “Where’s the fuckin chicken?” in a panic. We’ve completely removed the grill and served the chicken at this point. Everyone starts laughing and we’re like “Ohhhh Busted!” We tell him how we found him looking like Bernie passed out infront of the burning chicken and just let him be.

Chef Jonny serving up some Zzzz’s

Jonny has another drink, and he’s right back in the saddle. Something flipped with him after that. It’s like he turned into an old British street merchant. “We’ve got the coals, let’s cook all the meat he says”. Suddenly, we’ve got 15 hot dogs on the grill, hamburgers, basically anything he could get on that little 6″ by 12″ charcoal grill.

“Wanna hot dog? This one’s perfect” he says in his Sheffield British accent, pushing a nearly burnt to a crisp dog onto someone. He’s quite the salesman. “Hotdogs? Hotdog? He says, that British accent really sending it home. This guy wasn’t going to waste any food.

There’s some more beer pong, and ultimately most of the meat Jonny cooks ends up in a big metal bowl, aptly referred to as “the bucket of meat”. I give him some grief about cooking all the meat when it’s only 5:00 PM. “You won’t be complaining tonight when you’re drunk and there’s all this meat” he says. He’s probably right.

Some of the girls float the idea of going to catch the sunset up at the reservoir. I’m feeling so lazy, but it just sounds like too good an idea to pass up. Slowly, slowly, people get their shit together–pole pole. The sun is still fairly high, but in about an hour it will probably dip behind those Mendocino mountains. We start to rally.

The whole crew gets it together, and we set off as the sun starts to get a little low. We bring two full bottles of Jamieson with us, passing those two bottles around amongst the group of 15, taking straight pulls. I’m feeling impressed, proud even. It’s not every day you get to go camping with this many people and have everyone down to drink straight Jamieson out of the bottle.

We start to walk up the windy path up the hill to the reservoir, passing that abandoned pumping station. There’s this beautiful Madrone tree on the way up there. There’s a steep AF way to run up the hill, or a windy path. It’s time for a race. Rachel and Olivia start running up the windy way, while Chris, some other boys, and I run up the steep hill alongside a big neglected pipe. We beat them by a landslide.

I look up over the hill into the campgrounds. There’s all these tires that have weed plants growing in them. “Come in overwatch” says Nick in a radio voice, causing White Russian and me to laugh. That was the call-sign for the big eagle we saw flying over the campsite from this same spot. “He’s our eye in sky” says one of my fellow Recon Team Charlies.

It’s decided that this floating dock should serve the best purpose to enjoy the sunlight. Nick and I use a chain attached to it to pull it ashore. “Un, Dos, Tres” says Nick as we time our efforts to pull that thing ashore. We do a few iterations of this and decide that this was ‘good enough’. The whole crew jumps on the dock, and the front part of it sinks in the water a bit. It’s a nice cozy vibe, and we’re all sitting around drinking Jamieson.

This is just way too cozy for Jonny. He’s just a complete hooligan right now. He has a bottle of Jamieson in one hand, and he’s at the end of the dock jumping from one foot to the other, shaking the dock in the water. The old dock is partly submerged in the water as he does this. He’s either trying to sink it or get everyone wet, no one is sure. “No.” “No.” “No.” “No.” Chrissy says to Jonny whenever he tries to open his mouth. She’s had just about enough of his shit today. I’m ambivalent, and C-dog is totally loving it, egging him on an enabling his behavior.

squad

Chris(sy) has his DSLR, and sets up a timer photo to capture us all chilling on the dock. It’s the golden hour of the day, the sunlight just perfect for portrait photography. We all look great.

The sun goes down and Jonny tries to push the dock away. Everyone gets spooked and jumps off. He kind of ruined the moment there, I could have chilled on the dock for a little while now. Oh well. We all head down the hill, ending up near the common cooking area.

It’s twilight, and there’s some groups of people in the outdoor cooking area hanging out, some dogs roam around playing with each other off-leash. Some people are playing cornhole, and our group just sidles up beside it, and the people playing kind of just kill their game, trying to get us to take over. They either have had enough of the game, or enough of being near us. I think it’s the latter.

I lay on this huge hammock made of white tarp stretched between two huge wooden pieces. It’s suspended between two trees. It’s like 10 feet long and 4 feet wide. Several of us are laying in this big hammock, watching all the different dogs play with each other. Nick’s dog Ukiah is facing off with the other dogs, who are trying to intimidate her, but that dog has some steely resolve, completely unfazed by the bigger dogs. “WHAT NOW, WHAT NOW BITCH. WHAT NOW. HUH? WHAT NOW.” I could imagine Ukiah saying to the other dog. Body language speaks louder than words.

Jonny isn’t finished his chaos, He wants to rock the boat–literally. He’s going nuts on the hammock, making it swing wildly left to right. He’s all excited and saying unintelligible British things as he rocks the hammock back and forth. Some people roll off, wanting nothing to do with this. I remain on, and he gets in a bit of a war with Rachel. They’re on opposite sides of the hammock, trying to swing the other one off. Rachel falls off, but has resolve and jumps back on to try to dethrone the king. I’m still laying on the hammock chillin–I don’t mind a little movement.

The rumble begins, and Jonny ends up tumbling off, doing a big dramatic roll onto the ground. All that commotion makes the dogs go CRAZY! They’re all running around in circles, barking like mad. Our group really just rolled in here like a fucking hurricane. With all that pineapple rum, we’re a fucking tropical storm that’s for sure.

After that debacle, everyone walks back to the campsite, but I hang back for a few minutes just to do a comparison of what the campsite is like when we’re not terrorizing everyone. It was pretty calm. Yep, case closed. We’re obnoxious assholes, and I don’t mind one bit.

We get back to the campsite, and Dimitry has his ankle all propped up with some ice. It turns out on the walk back he was dancing, and rolled his ankle RealReal bad. It was swole as fuck.

The camp-fire is raging, and we all sit around drinking and shooting the shit. We’re all a little exhausted from our full day. Rumor around camp is that a live music show will go on at 11:30 PM. A pretty cocky start time, but we’ll allow it. We make smores and drink around the fire until we hear the music fire up across the pond. I’m pleasantly surprised to see that it’s happening.

Most of the group moseys back over, bringing the Jamieson and a 30-rack of Coors. The music is being played in this cool raised wooden area, providing a little dancefloor and stage in the woods–hell yeah. The first act is kind of reminisecent of Crystal Castles, and not bad. Then a second fellow riffs on his electric guitar about having “fridge magnets that don’t stick, so I hold ’em up with tape”. He also had a song about “Where the white things roam” as a sort of ode to gentrification.

It’s almost 1 AM now, and they’re going to stop the music. The last guy that comes on stage is just fucking horrible, so that was our cue to leave. The whole squad does an about-face and walks outta there, feeling somewhat bad about leaving in the middle of the set, but ultimately relieved to be out of there.

The fire is still going, and poor Dimitry is still there hanging out, icing his ankle. We have some more drinks around the fire, running out of battery eventually on the speaker. Slowly, slowly–pole pole–people begin to retire. At some point it’s just C-dog and I.

The stars are so incredible tonight, as they were the night before. Chris and I go out to the grass clearing beside our camp-site, bringing out chairs to just stargaze. I’ve got some of the ‘Thai crack’ menthol inhaler, the Thai herbal version of Vicks.

We don’t last long sitting, and we’re quickly laying down and staring at the cosmos. The sky looks milky with stars, you can see the Milky Way a bit. I’m shining my laser into the sky to try to find constellations. There’s too many stars for me to even identify constellations. So beautiful

I pass out soon after that.

Mendocino Magic – Day 2 was originally published on RUT-IS-UP