#liminal jumpers

[exjumpervernon-reports]

What is HQ

HQ is the headquarters of the LSRRO that exists in a none liminal manmade pocket dimensions which is a 9 story building that is where I work from!

Floor 1:

Dorms for on site workers, cafeteria, locker rooms, showers, personnel medbay, leisure facilities

Floor 2:

Medical, Gym, Labs, Engineers, Storage

Floor 3:

Archives, Offices (I work here), HR

Floor 4:

Mutation Studies Lab, Medical 2, Containment Cells

Floor 5:

Arcade, Shops, and "vacation" dorms

Floor six is only storage. It's nothing important. Floor Six is not important

Floor 7:

Training Grounds, Junior Dorms, Lecture Hall

Floor 8:

Liminal Vet Clinic, Park, Natural Pool

Floor 9:

Bossman's Office

I may go more in depth on the floors some day.

[dyk3tastic]

missed me

victoria neuman (the boys) x reader

genre: smut (with feelings), nsfw

summary: you and victoria reunite in your kitchen, seeking escape and comfort In each other. can be read as a follow up to my other fics, can’t have both (part 1) and friends (part 2), or as a stand alone.

warnings: smut, language, weapon

a/n: many thoughts,,, head full😵‍💫. thanks for all the love on my other fics v appreciated. hope u horny milf lover pervs enjoy (the call is coming from inside the house).

touching her again after what felt like a lifetime of distance burst something inside you like a dam. need flooded you like she was everywhere; her warm hands gripping slightly too hard on your skin, teeth sharp against your neck, tongue soothing bite marks. she was in your head, consuming your every thought, any memory of betrayal or brutality erased by your longing. neither of you had spoke since she kissed you, wanting to remain in the liminal zone of closeness and falsehood together for as long as possible, pretending like nothing had ever gone wrong. the kitchen counter dug into your back as she kissed you fervently, the sound of both your heavy pants filling the room. you kissed along her gentle neckline, pride rushing through you at the whiny high pitched noise she lets out as you nip that spot where her shoulder meets her neck. upset by the loss of her wandering hands you look down to see her fumbling out of her jeans, discarding them on the floor alongside her jumper and your glock.

flipping your positions your hands grabbed her ass, down the back of her supple thighs as she hopped into your arms, allowing herself to be placed on top of the counter. pulling you in between her legs by the waistband of your underwear, you could feel the heat radiating from her centre. your kisses were wet and slow, her hands lightly scratching their way beneath your vest, up your stomach. stopping beneath your chest, her fingers tickled the skin there.

“d’you still want me baby?” she breathed out, small unsure smile tugging at her shining lips, a million questions at once. nodding you tugged her by her shirt down towards you, but she wouldn’t kiss you, eyes poercing into yours, waiting for an answer. you wondered if she was making fun of you, just wanting the satisfaction of hearing your incessant want for her; how could she possibly not know that despite it all, your answer was always yes?

a moment of stillness as you cupped her face, fingers tracing its contours. you see nadia in her eyes, wishing you could save her. “of course” you simply reply, wholeheartedly the truth, “everyday”. the expression on her face overwhelmed you as you kissed down her body, dropping to your knees on the hard, cold kitchen floor.

the mere sight of you, gentle eyes gazing up at her was enough to make her let out a soft “fuck”, voice gravelly and dry. legs spread, resting over your shoulders, victoria’s hips bucked hard against your face as you kissed over her clothed core, her underwear soaked. you continued to pepper kisses between her legs as she whined, grabbing your hair to hold you firm, “don’t tease”. you wasted no time pulling off her underwear and covering your face in her wetness. as you sucked her wet clit, lapping at her like she was edible, her thighs clench around your ears, your nose squashing up against her whilst she holds you close by your hair, grinding against your face. you moan against her, noise vibrating through her cunt as you mindlessly grind against your foot, underwear sticking to you, wet. mouth sliding against her you could feel her thighs start to tighten around you head, tension begging to be released building in her body.

a pause in a string of expletives she groans “you’re so fuckin’ good at that”. slightly slurring, her usual collected clarity disappearing she continues, “always so ready to make me feel good”. looking down at your rutting hips with hooded, dark eyes she smiles, a genuine smile that feels like homecoming. her stream of consciousness becoming more desperate and unintelligible by the second. “i love that you could cum just like this, just by making me cum. so generous, hm? so- fuck you’re so-“ her trail of affection is cut off by a silent cry, a quiet wrecked sound of need. she cums around your face, slicking your nose, dripping from your chin. she is beautiful, thick eyebrows furrowed, nose crinkled as a dusky blush covers her cheeks and neck.

its only when u stand to kiss her, guided by her fingers stroking your slack jaw, that you realise your knees are throbbing, bruises already blossoming. “want me to make you cum baby?” she asks soft, fingers playing across your hips, toying beneath the band of your underwear.

“come on vic” you grunt, impatient. she spares you from making you ask nicely, from getting you to beg, desperate to touch you and cautious not to push her luck. her long slender fingers find your clit, grinning at your wetness.

“when you opened the door in nothing but that top and this silly underwear this was the first thing i thought about” she smiles. circling your clit she uses her free hand to lift your vest, mouth sucking over you nipple. your ceaseless moans embarrassed you. “don’t be shy” she breathed cool over your wet nipple. “let me know you’ve missed me. please” she swallowed. you were completely malleable under her words and touch, chasing your own pleasure to show her your affection, your devotion.

you languidly rolled your hips against her hand, head foggy, eyes locked on hers. “i missed you every day vic, all the time.” your words spilled out, mixed with aching breaths. “hated myself for how much i missed you, missed your face, n’ your laugh. missed your lips, missed talking to you, missed makin’ you cum.” you came hard as she sucked against your neck and muttered a “thank you baby” as she deliberately worked to leave a mark.

[thenightfolknetwork]

Helloooooo!!! I hope you’re doing well. I’ve been listening for a while now, but I haven’t written in before.

So! I’ve done ballet for a little over ten years. I started when I was six and a half, and I’m almost seventeen now. I probably won’t dance professionally, but I love it. A lot. The culture surrounding ballet has a… history of mistreating the liminal community—I mean, aside from the obvious body-based exclusion, there’s also the horrible appropriation in the so-called “romantic” period—but luckily, the ballet school I attend is founded and run by a fellow person of the night, and it’s very accepting of all sorts of creatures. People tend to assume that I’m Sapio when they first meet me anyway, but it’s still nice to be able to talk to the mice and cockroaches and not get strange looks, y’know?

And, two years ago, I finally convinced one of my best friends to start taking ballet classes! It’s been great. We review choreography together, help each other with different skills—I’m a jumper, she’s a turner—get enlisted by the costumers to do what we like to call “grunt work” (I am an expert at sewing buttons)—we even go to the library to check out books on stuff like "the use of physical motifs in ballet" and "creature traditions in classical repertoire." It’s really, really wonderful getting to be with someone who’s as excited about the art form as I am.

That’s not my problem. My problem is that she’s… she’s better than me now. Despite starting at 14 in something where being 9 is considered old, she has incredible turnout and gorgeous lines, never gets winded, is picking up épaulement far faster than really anyone ought to be able to—I could go on like this for a while.

You see, she’s a shapeshifter. Proud of it, too. One time when we were 12 or so, our painfully Sapio history teacher very nervously asked if anyone knew what it was like to be from “a genus with so-ma-tic var-i-a-bil-i-ty”—I swear he was looking at notes on his hand—and my friend kicked her scuffed converse up on the desk, said, “No, but I can tell you what it’s like to be a shapeshifter,” and then gave herself extra teeth while smiling. That’s the kinda control she has over it.

And she has a lot of options when it comes to which shape she wants to take on any given day. Since ballet is easier for certain bodies, she, very understandably, chooses a form for class that’s naturally flexible and strong and has exactly the required musculature and is easy to balance with and that’s fine. There is absolutely nothing wrong with her being comfortable and confident in her identity, and, by extension, her body. She doesn’t rub it in, or act like she’s better than the rest of us, or anything like that.

To be clear, she is a hard worker. I don’t want to dismiss that. She writes down notes after class and helps the teachers with the really young groups and takes the lower level’s class on Tuesdays and Thursdays to work on her technique and is generally doing everything right. But so am I! I do all of those things with her, heck, I'm the one who taught her how to seek them out! And I’ve been doing this for ten years! And when you come from a genus that rarely lives past 100, ten years isn’t something to sneeze at. It’s not fair. It’s not anybody’s fault that it’s unfair, but it’s still not right! Please help. I love my friend, and I want to be happy for her, but whenever I see her do a freaking quadruple pirouette in pointe shoes and then balance (because of course, sure, why not, it’s soooo easy) before landing, I just feel furious.

Oh, reader. This sounds extremely difficult and frustrating. You've worked very hard over the last ten years, and as you rightly say, that is not something to sneeze at – especially when you take into consideration how young you were when you started.

You talk a lot towards the end of your letter about what is and isn't “fair” or “right”. I would like you to take a moment and consider the alternatives. Would it be more fair for certain genuses to be prohibited from taking part in your classes? Would it be more right that your friend should sublimate her natural abilities in order to take part?

Or perhaps you would simply not allow anyone to participate at all if they seem to be more naturally flexible, or have better balance, or a stronger core than… Well, here is the other question. What is it we're comparing to? The national average, the average ballet dancer – or simply, you?

Did you know, in the world of professional cycling, there is one trait which is most likely to affect a cyclists chances to reach the upper echelons of their chosen sport? More than height or weight, more than time spent training, more even than their genus. This trait is: being born at high altitude.

But that's not fair, you say! It isn't right, that a simple accident of one's birth should lend such an advantage. Perhaps we should set a cap on natal altitude in such competitions. And what of the second most impactful trait – the wealth of one's birth country? Do we have different leagues for rich and poor, high and low altitude?

I hope you can see how ridiculous that sounds. Life is not a mathematics equation. You can't just add time and effort and get success. There is so much luck involved – lucky births, lucky bodies, lucky brains and lucky bank accounts.

You aren't doing anything wrong by happening to have been born into a family that supports your interests. So too, your friend isn't doing anything wrong by happening to have a body that makes ballet more accessible to her. It is simply the luck of the draw.

Furthermore, 'being good at ballet' is not a finite resource. Your friend isn't taking anything from you by doing well, and her accomplishments in no way diminish your own.

These feelings of jealousy are natural and normal. But they are not healthy emotions, or helpful ones. Acknowledge them, then let them go. Concentrate instead on what you love about ballet, what you love about your friend, and in taking pride in your own achievements. You have worked hard and accomplished a great deal in your own right, and those accomplishments deserve to be celebrated in their own right – not only in comparison to someone else.

[For more creaturely advice, check out Monstrous Agonies on your podcast platform of choice, or visit monstrousproductions.org for more info]

[palladiumfragments]

liminal spaces, paradoxes, and conundrums of growing up

it came without warning, like a red flare in stygian darkness, and i’m supposed to hit the ground running or i’d waste away in the very shore that tenderly held the hopes i carried around in a bindle. i must have not seen it coming because there are wounds from my youth i'm still trying to close, things i'm still trying to come to terms with. but it doesn't matter now because it's here and i've dragged my heels long enough.

growing up is a series of last times, little deaths, fumbling for familiar feelings, and listening to the same songs over and over again refusing to admit it's a prayer just to feel at ease with your skin again. despite the years that have graced this body i am still a child, leave me to my own devices and i would just constantly breathe through things that are bruising me and live with the exhaustion. how do i gracefully let go?

i'm thinking of the time my mother picked me up from school and neither of us knew it was the last time. i wonder if she had the same thoughts when she was my age. there was a day i wore that particular jumper for the last time, put away my toys for the last time, said goodbye to a friend for the last time. i wonder if i would've done anything differently if i knew. but there's something anachronistic about childhood that there are moments you feel 10 again before you blink and you're back to being 22.

the things i swore i wouldn't get over from, like the boy from high school who doesn't know he made me a poet or when my sister had to leave to get away from our vampire of a father. it's not that we do not mean forever, it's we say forever but it is as long as nothing changes, but god everything changes and we have no control over it so we learn to whittle down a particular forever into something we can lower to the ground because the sky shouldn't fall and we have school tomorrow.

i didn't want to leave the cliff that looks out to the sea in Bali because i couldn't believe there are places where breathing doesn't hurt. i'm drawn to places vast and infinite, the ones that show me how small i am in comparison, that this life is over before some god falls out of love. the labyrinth beneath my skin shifts when the perspective changes. did i tell you Billy Joel's Vienna and Taylor Swift's You're On Your Own, Kid feel like comforting words from a stranger in a train station you'll meet once in your life?

at 18, i met a boy. i told him of the anger i inherited from the man who sucked the life out of my mother. how it turns me into someone like him, how helpless you'll become when you are the beast and the cage together in one flesh. he didn’t pretend he could save me, he knows what i'm made of and he’ll be there when i blow this prison up. i wonder why i rarely say “i love you” to people i actually love. i think i’m doing a bad job at showing them too. it must have been the bite.

the truth is i didn't have the nerve to leave the scene of the crime, it just collapsed in on itself that summer around midnight. but not before it cut to the bone, not before i could take back the curious little girl who took in stories like a lungful of country air. i'm sure she would've made me kinder. the basilisk in every mirror i look at wouldn't exist. but her skeleton lies in my old closet, buried under a heap of blankets that will never warm her again. forgive me for turning my chest into a graveyard, the first funeral i attended was mine.

i blinked and that was six years ago. i'll be out of school soon, and my life after that is a delicate subject i try to avoid in conversations. this is the longest stay i had in a liminal space and i think it's haunted. the waters are murky, something moves in the shadows, and the rules have changed. i spent my first year in college living on autopilot and the rest in front of a screen because the world has dirt in its lungs, a year later i emerged to a place i can barely recognize. i guess some things you wanted so much when you were 12 don't seem half so wonderful when you get them a decade later.

but maybe our early 20’s isn’t about seeking answers to million-dollar questions or losing our minds over the complexities of our existence. maybe it's simply about making sure i'm getting enough sun and recognizing pomegranate seeds from the underworld when i see one. maybe it's okay to eat pasta straight from the pan when i'm too sad to even swallow and watch Dead Poets Society again and pretend it's the first time. the thing about this kind of melancholia is you cannot let anybody in. it's just you despite the warm words from the people on the porch. maybe you just need to repeatedly cross some lines until it stops being the feeling you dance around to and vomit into poems.

sooner or later it will make sense why i had to leave to stay or break to become whole or die to live. but if it doesn't then that's okay too. i'm not burying anything this time. i'm here and i'm scared but that also means i'm alive— a mosaic of moments, memories, feelings, and dreams. for the meantime i'll sift my fingers through that new book, get that coffee, take a walk at twilight, and when i find a lonely lighted window i'll softly slip into its warmth.

[thewyrdsidepodcast]

Move over summer, folktale fall is on its way!

Please find below three reasons why ‘The Wyrd Side’, should be the first audiodrama in the queue for your cozy autumn/fall listening this year:

1. Did you wear your fuzzy woollen sweater out even though you knew the day was going to warm up and you were going to be too hot? No worries! We have a medieval cold case to chill you to the bone… And great jumper by the way.

2. We’ve got immersive folk story retellings that make for great listening as the weather turns stormy and the pitter patter of rain on your window encourages you to curl up near the warm embers of your dying fire, hot cocoa in hand.

3. And who doesn’t love crisp autumnal walks, complete with some atmospheric fog, crunchy leaves, and the discovery of a long forgotten bog body in the local mire? Another perfect folktale fall activity.

In conclusion, on the cusp of the spookiest season, when the liminal spaces shout the loudest and your messages travel the furthest into the beyond, give The Wyrd Side a listen!

[lucianowrites]

Why Do I Like Jumpchains?

I have been creating jumpchain content for a bit now. It has begun to color what I'm known for in some spaces. In the Reddit community over jumpchain enjoyers, I'm actually not unknown, due to my passion for this community and the contributions I've made to forcibly expanding and growing our audience and community. But why do I like jumpchains? That's a good question.

For me, jumpchains remind me of the wonder I felt when I first started playing video games. They allow me to feel what it is like to live in another world, another time, sometimes even another country. In doing a jumpchain I don't just think of the powers I/my jumper get or their cool gear, I think of the sights they get to see.

As a child, one of the things that I loved the most about video games were the sights I got to see. Getting to see even things as simple as Kanto region in the original Pokemon games was incredibly exciting to me. Getting to see Yoshi's Island was exciting to me. Nowdays seeing things like the eerie pool rooms and liminal spaces in Anemoiapolis and seeing the dragon filled skies above Skyrim in TES:V excites me. For me, creating a jumper is, in a sense, giving someone else the chance to feel that wonder. I actually like creating jumpers who don't have meta-knowledge or genre-awareness so they can experience the wonders of these places for themselves for the first time.

Another thing that I really like is the freedom jumpchains offer. Video games are inherently limited by the fact that they are programmed and thus have limits (though ones that are being stretched and improved every day) that imagination and imaginary games like jumpchains do not. If you ever wanted to wander Hyrule as a dragon but knew that no Legend of Zelda game would let you do that, well... Jumpchain. If you ever wanted to ride through the Mushroom Kingdom on a F-Zero machine... Jumpchain. If you have *thoughts* about how someone in a Metroid powersuit would do in Castlevania... Jumpchain, baby!

On a more personal level, I also strongly enjoy jumpchains as a sort of escape. I don't mean that in a way that is super depressing or anything, but I'm physically disabled and I'm also chronically ill. My health will... never be good. For the rest of my life. But with a jumpchain I can allow myself to become someone who can do cool stuff that I can't do. As a kid I was a martial artist with formal training in Taekwondo and Karate and less formal training in Muay Thai and Silat, and I LOVED martial arts. I may not ever be able to do the same kind of martial arts shenanigans I could once do, but I can with jumpchains. Between basic perks in jumps like Generic First Jump and full jumps like Generic Fist, I can envision myself doing cool stuff that is beyond my real-life capabilities. I don't often do self-inserts in real, sketched out, chains but I sometimes daydream about self-inserts doing a few jumps. I like to imagine getting the parkour skills of the mario brothers from the Super Mario 64 jump, and spending time on Isle Delfino in the Super Mario Sunshine jump, or spending a decade honing my skills as a martial artist in the Generic Fist jump.

Why do you like jumpchains? If you see this post, and you feel like engaging with it but aren't a jumper yourself, what do you think it'd take for someone to persuade you to try? I'd love to know what could convince you to try out a chain yourself.

[pjplayground]

Tragic Mystery

There's a familial mystery afoot, I can smell it.

Bio: Paperjam is an aspiring thespian in their prime. They spend most of their free time working on stuff for their school's current play. They accentuate this eccentric interest with an eccentric wardrobe to match. Recently, his family moved into an old mansion that's apparently been in the family for generations, and his life is about to get dramatic - how fitting for a theater kid.

Basic Info Full Name: Paperjam Bonrad McFadden Age: 17 Height: 6' Gender Identity: Genderfluid (he/they preferred) Sexual Orientation: Pansexual (preference for masculine people) Medical Issues: Anxiety, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (PoTS) Can't Leave the House Without: Gum, jacket, beanie, salt shaker key chain, phone, earbuds

Relationships Ink - Father, fairly good Irene - Mother, have conflicting views Undyne - Friend, teases him on the daily Alphys - Friend, they info dump together Burgerpants - Friend, background set buddies Napstablook - New friend, totally does not have a huge crush on them

Miscellaneous Little Facts - The little pins on his hat are little references taken from various spooky/horror movies, can you identity them all? - His favorite flavor of gum to chew is honeydew. - PJ LIVES for salt and vinegar flavored things - especially chips. - They wear a large, old t-shirt for pajamas, and nothing else besides boxers. - When he was a kid, he would take the wax out of candles and mold them into little wax sculptures. He was a weird kid. - The story of Tragic Mystery was inspired by a horror movie called "The Ritual", as well as shows like Gravity Falls as said by Crispy Koala. - PJ's anxiety gives him what he calls an "anxious tummy", making him extremely gassy and his bowels very irritable. Meaning it's not uncommon for him to fart when he's anxious or nervous. - They refuse to eat at any restaurant that doesn't serve some form of chicken tenders and french fries. As they should, honestly. - He has three little pet Cotton Puff Bats named Lock, Shock, and Barrel. - Lock, Shock, and Barrel are fed all sorts of treats by PJ, their favorite being white dragon fruit. - PJ has a mini salt shaker key chain that he carries around on his backpack or belt loop for food emergencies, because he loves salty stuff. - In his closet, he has a pile of old busted up notebooks filled with years of stage play ideas. - He likes listening to music that fits within the umbrella aesthetics of Liminal Spaces and Weird/Dreamcore. - On top of the pins on his hat, he also has a variety of pins that he's collected which he adorns all over his backpack. - PJ plays on an old gaming system - the Cloud Jumper 94 - that his father used to own. He has newer gaming systems but he prefers to play on the old console. - He had a really, really embarrassing goth phase when he was between the ages of 13 and 15. - Due to the severity of his condition on some off days, PJ is a part time wheelchair user. - His mother Irene is a lawyer who believes PJ should work towards a more "sustainable" career. You can imagine how well they get along. - PJ loves horror movies, and doesn't scare easily. - The reason PJ always has gum in his possession is because he concentrates better when doing a minor motor action. - PJ and his friends were all dubbed the weird kids by their peers, so they stuck together. - PJ tries to keep a very collected and aloof demeanor around his friends and everyone else, but that all gets thrown out the window when Napstablook is within ten feet of his sight. - He's very passionate about all forms of art, including painting. But theater is his specialty within the arts. - From PJ's point of view, Blook seems oblivious to his crush on him. Which may or may not be the case... - He stumbled upon his family's potentially dark history by accident while snooping around the new house.

Tragic Mystery was a story created by my friend @thecrispykoala, and may have more content dedicated to it in the near future.

[aniron48]

It's WIP Wednesday!

This WIP Wednesday, I'm returning to my beloved 00Q with an excerpt from a fic I'm writing that focuses on liminal spaces and times, and the things that grow between us in those moments. Finished work to include sunrises, sunsets, terrible airport sandwiches, Q's couch 👀, and probably a metric ton of feelings™️. Excerpt below the cut:

Sure enough, when the cab dropped Bond off in front of Q’s house, he was already at the door.

“Do I want to know how you knew exactly when I’d be pulling up?” Bond asked as he stepped inside.

“The wonders of the surveillance State,” Q said, locking the door behind him. Despite his earlier assertion, he looked as if he’d only just rolled out of bed. His hair was adorably mussed, and he was still wearing a pair of flannel pajama bottoms, and a grey t-shirt that said “Han shot first” on it in yellow block lettering. As they walked into the living room, he reached for a thick navy blue jumper draped over the arm of a chair, and pulled it on.

“Sofa’s just here, as you can see,” Q said, his voice temporarily muffled by the jumper. “I’ve got some blankets and a spare pillow, if you like.”

“No, I’m all right, thanks,” Bond said. “I won’t sleep. But don’t let me keep you, if you can squeeze another hour in.”

Q smiled and shook his head. “I’m awake.” He walked through to the kitchen. “I’m just going to—“ he gestured to the kettle.

“Let’s see this coffee maker, then,” Bond said. It was a run of the mill model—nothing fancy, but more than adequate to the task at hand—but the unopened bag of beans next to it, a specialty blend from a local roaster, would have been a splurge.

“Which one of the ex-boyfriends had the champagne taste in coffee beans?” Bond asked, holding up the bag.

Q’s cheeks pinked. “None of them, as it turns out,” he said. “Moneypenny mentioned that this was the kind you like, when you have coffee together.”

“I’ll have to thank her next time I see her,” Bond said.

Q poked him in the ribs. “You can thank me, now,” he said.

Bond smiled. “Thank you, Q.”

They worked in companionable silence for several minutes as Q boiled the water for his tea, and Bond set to work brewing the coffee. As they finished, Q gestured to the kitchen table.

“There’s a good view from there, if you give it a moment,” he said.

“A good view of what?”

“Look,” Q said, pointing out the window. 

cc: @mi6-cafe

[angsty-prompt-hole]

Character Introduction: Manor/Cavalier Cove Residents

WIP: Roleplay characters, but a lot of them have WIP canon versions or appear in my WIPS as cameos.

All of these characters live in or around the Manor in Cavalier Cove, a collaborative liminal space roleplay world shared by me and a whole bunch of others. I’m not going to try and tag them all because I will most likely forget someone. They’ll see this though; I know most of them follow this blog.

Cavalier Cove, as mentioned above, is a liminal space in the form of a coastal town in some undefined region, and as a result it is a very strange place to live. Supernatural creatures walk around in broad daylight and many of the people living there are actually from other worlds. Just outside of the town proper is the Manor, which to outsiders looks to be abandoned. Inside, however, there is a whole group of people living there. They are, unknown to all of them, watched over and protected by a group of supernaturals who call themselves the Founders. The Founders have never revealed themselves to the residents, and as a result most of the Manor residents just assume the Manor is living, or that the strange things that happen there are the result of a singular source of magic.

Casey “Creek” Strader (nee Beck): Creek has had a hell of a life. All of her troubles started when she was possessed by the demon known as Red. Another demon, named Illyria, then also possessed her in an attempt to save her from Red, which sort of just made things worse. Creek was forced to flee from her hometown after Red took control and killed a few people. Eventually, she was un-possessed, but almost immediately after that, the eldritch entity known as Forest started influencing her, and then possessed her, which sparked an event that we call the Eldritch War between Forest and the Forsaken, an entity who is possessing Creek’s friend Alice (owned by @divine-champion​). Alice ended up killing Creek, which slingshotted Forest out of her, but she has been left with a black sclera in her remaining eye and an inability to die. While at the Manor, she met Derek Strader and ended up falling in love with him. Thus far, they have adopted three children, a former phoenix named Fey, a werephoenix named Rilan, and an undead phoenix named Jocyn (all owned by @nebula-starlight​ ).

Evan Forrester: Creek’s best friend, he tracked her down after she fled from their hometown, convinced that she was innocent of murder. He is insanely smart and extremely adept at anything involving technology, almost to a supernatural level. When he arrived at the Manor, he had no idea what he was getting himself into. He met a demon by the name of Maribel (owned by @divine-champion​ ) and they ended up falling in love, and he ended up pseudo-adopting a qualit (a dragon-like species created by @nebula-starlight​ ) named Vipro. At one point, he and Creek were kidnapped and experimented on, which resulted in him losing his right hand (also the incident which took Creek’s right eye), which Vipro replaced with a functional permafrost prosthetic of sorts. He has almost died on at least five separate occasions, but that doesn’t stop him.

Lucent “Mallory Perrault” Ran’kai: You can read her WIP canon blurb here. In the CC roleplay timeline, she accidentally opened a portal in the forest outside the Manor and ended up falling from the sky. Wanting to hide from the other dimension jumpers for a bit, she decided to stay at the Manor for a while. Here, she ended up meeting Cascadia, a Nyrix from the world of Valymis (owned by @eldritchnebula​ ). After discovering that Cascadia had just escaped from some bandits who had captured her, Mallory took it upon herself to help. This adventure took her to Valymis and gained her an adoptive daughter named Trinity. Her best friend Alonya and her pet skitnik (basically if weasels were interdimensional nuisances made into a unique species) Jannik are also at the Manor with her.

Lysanna Payne: A Winter Court fae who fled from Faerie and ended up as one of the Founders of the Manor. Her past is a mystery to most everyone except for a couple of the other Founders, and she refuses to speak of it. She maintains the mental ward, an area of the Manor meant for keeping various villains or residents who become a danger to others and/or themselves contained, and oversees everything related to that sort of stuff. She has a distinct set of abilities revolving around mental manipulation, which she uses to try and help the traumatized residents heal. She is no-nonsense, blunt, and more than willing to force you to take care of yourself.

Illyria: After possessing Creek, she dubbed herself Creek’s personal protector, and after being separated from Creek and given her own body, Illyria decided to stay at the Manor. She was also fast friends with a qualit named Nether, but was forced to let him die when he ended up being driven insane and became a threat to the Manor as a whole. She ended up pseudo-adopting Nether’s son and Vipro’s twin Talno. While at the Manor, she was also reunited with her lost mate Essix, and together they have three children: Seraiah, Brine, and Nevena. She also has a WIP canon version, but no intro has been written for that set of characters yet. It will be linked when I do.

Red: The cause of about 50% of Creek and Illyria’s problems, Red wants nothing more than to gleefully murder everyone she encounters, and she finds it’s more fun when she is possessing someone else and making them do it. When not possessing someone, she often takes the form of a massive ginger cat with yellow eyes. No one in the Manor likes her, and after she was forcibly separated from Creek, it was thought that she was gone for good. But the cat always comes back, doesn’t it? Red is also in a good chunk of my WIPs, but her character introduction has yet to be posted. I will link it here when it has been.

Pyre Blight: Pyre is a Duus’ire, a glitch demon species created by @eldritchnebula​ . They were created when some servers glitched due to a forest fire. They are more than a little obsessed with fire and are a general menace to their “brother” Arcade, a Duus’ire who has tasked himself with overseeing many of his fellow Duus’ire siblings.

Quinn Thalin: Quinn is an Everlight, a being that feeds on electricity and is some wacky embodiment of light. He’s a bit of an airhead and is oftentimes more focused on whatever weird experiment he’s thought up than anything else. He is never far from his Shadowcaster counterpart Theo, and is often the ray of sunshine to Theo’s grumpy pessimist.

Theo Raidus: Actually a shrika who has replaced a Shadowcaster, the counterpart to an Everlight. The shrika took on Theo’s name after switching with him, and thus far has successfully masqueraded as the dead Shadowcaster. Unfortunately for him, he has become very attached to Theo’s friends and has started to embrace Theo’s life. He’s moody and unpredictable, but Shadowcasters usually attach themselves to an Everlight (all light sources cast a shadow, and Shadowcasters are beings of shadow at their core), and predictably, Theo is never found far from Quinn.

[insert reference here]

Ian Wright: Wright is a Machination, a person who was forcibly converted into a clockwork cyborg and essentially sold into slavery. After being sold to someone from Cavalier Cove, Wright escaped and stumbled upon the Manor. He struggles to see himself as anything more than an abomination, and he struggles to see himself as someone with agency and free will.

[insert reference here]

Christine “Chris” Hardwell: Chris is a werewolf who was born and raised in Cavalier Cove. She’s always been content working at the dog pound and she even considers the dogs there her pseudo-pack, but lately she’s been catching the scent of an unfamiliar werewolf, and the scent seems to be coming from the dilapidated Manor on the other side of the forest. Her insatiable curiosity and burning desire to know everything going on around her lead her to investigating the Manor.

[k00281262]

Home

This afternoon, I was very tired, so I decided to take it easy in terms of artwork and instead do some artist research.

As I lean more into the theme of home, and exploring what that means for me, I am looking more at artists that focus on home, domesticity, and what that means for them.

"Jean and Table Top (Girl in Yellow Jumper)", John Bratby, 1953-1954

Bratby was a part of the Kitchen Sink Painters, a group of four painters active in the 1950s whose work was concerned with ordinary lives of ordinary people (often with socio-political undertones)

"Early Portrait of John Bratby", Jean Cooke, 1954

Cooke was married to Bratby, and the feminist in me can't help but notice the contrast in their depictions of domesticity. Where his work feels constructed and masculine, hers feels much more at ease.

"Kitchen", Liza Lou, 1991-1996

Lou's installation is made entirely out of glass beads, and its laborious process of creation is a commentary on unsung domestic labour. If women belong in the kitchen, we might as well make the kitchen look pretty.

"Femme Maison", Louise Bourgeois, 1945-1947

Though she's best known for her spiders, Louise Bourgeois was also known to use architectural imagery as a symbol of both security and entrapment.

"My Bed", Tracey Emin, 1999

I really could have chosen any of Emin's pieces here- the raw intimacy of her work invites us into her world and gives us a glimpse into her inner world. For a while, this bed was her home.

"The Dream (The Bed)", Frida Kahlo, 1940

Speaking of beds! Kahlo was bed-bound for much of her adult life due to a tram accident she suffered as a young woman. This painting depicts the bed as a liminal space between life and death. As someone who has often been bed-bound myself due to ongoing illness, her work really speaks to me.

"Silueta Works in Mexico", Ana Mendieta, 1973-1977

What does "home" mean? Mendieta's work was often inspired by her displacement from her native Colombia at a young age. She explores the connection between body and earth.

Untitled, Doris Salcedo, 2003

This piece isn't strictly about the theme of home but it's one of my all-time favourite pieces and I felt a need to include it. Much of Salcedo's work focuses on the feeling of displacement, using domestic items as symbols for people. Here, people displaced due to war are represented by humble kitchen chairs.

[k00280973]

Draw, Redraw (stopmotion) Workshop- 07.11.22

I did the stopmotion workshop today, we started by mark making into the sand to see the different types of textures that can be made. There was emphasise on the idea of using anything really when markmaking with sand. I used by keychain to create footprints in the sand and the wrapper from popping candy to create the lines on the man's jumper. We worked in groups, my partner and I decided to depict a man drinking a cup of tea. I think we chose an appropriate composition for the short period of time we had. It gave us a chance to experiment and decide if its something we want to work with. I was intrigued by the artists shown and their take on stopmotion, and made a note to research further into glass stopmotion using paint. I think it could be integrated into my projects concept, maybe a stop motion incorporating liminal spaces with the hint of a colour for emphasis. I prefered the sand and light box to the sugar on the black paper as the dispersed sand gives off a grainy look.

[exjumpervernon-reports]

PSA: IF YOU SEE FLICKERING LIGHTS IN YOUR OFFICE YOU HAVE THE LEGAL RIGHT TO SQY "FUCK THIS SHIT IM OUT"

[lunaccult]

𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐓𝐄𝐌𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐀𝐑𝐘. beta editor in use. prioritizes plots & worldbuilding. info below the cut, to be expanded upon. 𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐅𝐅 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐃 𝐒𝐎 𝐈 𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐊𝐎𝐍 𝐈'𝐌 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐋 𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐀𝐃.

INFORMATION. // SIDEBLOG.

MOBILE MUSE LIST:

abigail arcane. avatar of the rot. written in second & third person concurrently. from dc. mixed media influence, primarily headcanon based.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

allison argent. goddess of the moon & wilderness. written in third person. previously @queenwolf. not compliant with mtv's teen wolf, strictly anti-canon with original lore.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

*anakin skywalker / darth vader. the chosen one. written in second & third person concurrently. voice testing (specify whether you want anakin or vader). canon compliant, influenced by film, tcw, & the film novelizations.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

anya morovoza. lone vampire elder. written in third person. previously @morovozanya. original character influenced by several sources of vampire media including original lore.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

*azriel. shadowsinger & spymaster. written in third person. previously @singerblade. from the acotar series. strictly anti-canon & anti-sjm.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

bai fengxi. queen of qingzhou. written in third person. voice testing. from who rules the world. canon compliant.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

chad meeks-martin. survivor. written in third person. voice testing. from the scream franchise. canon compliant with divergences peri-sVI.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

chani kynes. desert spring. written in third person. previously @sihayni. from the dune universe. book-based with some influence from the web series.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

don diego de la vega, aka zorro. vigilante. written in third person. voice testing. written with influence from several media sources, including the original urban legend.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

*elizabeth "libby" galdur. fae witch. written in third person. previously @witchwretch. original character influenced by faerie and folklore with an original story dealing in resurrection.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

hades. the unseen one. written in third person. previously @cthoniac. from mythos with inspiration from several media sources. based in the modern world of dc's gotham.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

*hiccup horrendous haddock iii. the chief. written in third person. voice testing. multi media influence.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

isabella "bella" swan. painfully human. written in first person. previously @delightedends. from the twilight series with divergences post new moon. non-twilight vampire lore compliant.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

jude duarte. high queen of elfhame. written in first person. voice testing. from the folk of the air. post canon compliance.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

kaz brekker. dirtyhands. written in third person. voice testing. from the grishaverse. book-based. MOVED TO @BARRELBORNE.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

*kenji kishimoto. resistance. written in third person. voice testing. from the shatter me series. post canon.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

margaret galdur. evil matriarch. written in third person. original character influenced by faerie and folklore with an original story dealing in resurrection.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

mieczysław "stiles" stilinski. trickster forest demon. written in second & third person concurrently. previously @lesziye. not compliant with mtv's teen wolf, strictly anti-canon with original lore.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

milo mckiernan. reality jumper. written in second & third person concurrently. original character influenced by the concept of liminal spaces with an emphasis on religious and parental trauma.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

milo thatch. explorer. written in third person. voice testing. based on atlantis: the lost empire. focused on exploration, anthropology, & preservation.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

*mitch rapp. retired hitman for hire. written in third person. previously @noretribution. from the american assassin series. based in the world of john wick with inspiration drawn from his original book & film canon.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

nesta archeron. lady death & dread trove wielder. written in third person. previously @silvreflames. from the acotar series. strictly anti-canon & anti-sjm.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

*percy jackson. son of the sea. written in first person. voice testing. book based with mythos influence.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

persephone. receiver of many. written in third person. voice testing. from mythos with inspiration from several media sources. based in the modern world of dc's gotham.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

peter kavinsky. lover boy. written in third person. previously @dearkvnsky. from to all the boys i've loved before. post-canon with influence from both the film & book series.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

peter parker. spider-man. written in third person. tasm & headcanon based.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

r. poetic heart. written in first person. previously @wrmbody. from warm bodies. post-canon with influence from both the film & books.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

*raven roth. the teen titan. written in third person. voice testing. from dc. inspiration from several media sources.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

*satoru gojo. sorcerer. written in third person. voice testing. from jujutsu kaisen. not yet compliant with the latest leaks. possible spoilers present.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

*scott mccall. true alpha werewolf. written in third person. previously @wolpha. not compliant with mtv's teen wolf, strictly anti-canon with original lore.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

*vivienne duarte. half fae, half ache. written in third person. voice testing. from the folk of the air. post canon compliance.

VISUALS. // MUSICAL SCORE.

* = indicates by request only muse

[whltlock]

The Cosmic Horror of Gotham City

CHAPTER TWO / ONE / Subscribe on AO3

Pairing: Jason Todd/Non-binary!Reader

Summary: You learn more about Gotham and its weirdos and have some fun. Red gives you a nickname. Tags: Non-binary Reader, Dick and Reader are Roma, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Fluff and Angst, Body Horror, Post Arkham Knight, Tall Reader, jason goes to therapy fr, do i project my disabilities onto everyone? yes i do, i make dc and marvel kiss a little, i just love writing about jason learning to give and accept love Word Count: 7956

The liminal feeling of the space was broken when your eyes landed on a hulk of a man in red.

Red Hood looked out of place, uncomfortable—but the kids? They didn’t seem to mind his presence. Some even threw him a passing cheer or fist bump. An attempt at one, at least. He was bad at matching the intensity of their greetings. You smiled lopsidedly.

Your staring didn't go unrequited for long. He probably felt it, since his helmet flicked up in your direction. He reacted, quick and tense, as his back straightened and his arms fell to his sides. He held your gaze, gauging the situation. He was always searching for the threat.

The moment you took a step forward, he slunk away. Red glided down a passageway of games and out of sight. You didn’t know what possessed you to follow.

“Are you running from me, Red?”

A/N: Thank you for those who've taken interest in the story!

Can you tell the exact moment that I fell in love with Roy while writing this?

I made a Pinterest board for the vibes.

By the end of the night, you met the mellower side of Roy. His mischief was more palatable when Donna reprimanded him with a side-eye.

Your gaze settled on her as she laughed at something Roy said. She was pretty with wavy, dark hair and a weird, glittery glow about her. Peeking back at Roy, you thought he might think so too. Despite the arguing, they complimented each other well.

You liked how quietly certain she was of herself. And Roy made you feel, well—not safe, or like you could necessarily trust him yet—but nevertheless welcomed with his antics.

It was comfortable. You had relaxed into the overworn seat and happily contributed to the conversation here and there. You managed to avoid the tough, all too personal questions.

The two had even told you what a library page was.

“Ugh, my best bud went on for weeks about one of the page’s shitty organising,” Roy moaned. “He reordered an entire section by himself.”

Donna snickered. “Yeah, serves you right for collecting nerds.”

Later, they’d also tried to explain the layout of Gotham to you, but the information had taken the first exit out of your brain. The Narrows? Iceberg Lounge? It sparked nothing meaningful. Oh well.

Roy’s face lit up with his next idea. “Let’s celebrate again tomorrow night. After your first day!”

“No can do, bucko,” Donna said with an apologetic look shot your way. “Sorry.”

With a nod, you told her it was fine. You hadn’t expected anything more from them. Even if the invitation made you feel spry.

Roy was quick to ask, “Huh? Why not?”

“Got a wedding.”

Perking up at that, you pushed forward onto your elbows. “Oh?”

“I’m a photographer,” she clarified.

“What’s that like?”

Donna thoughtfully considered the question. “It’s weird. You’re basically an intruder on a pretty special day... but, it’s nice. Seeing everyone happy.” She continued, “It’s kind of a buzz, actually. And the family loves you afterwards.”

“That doesn’t sound half bad,” you hummed a little dreamily, reimagining the scene. “Do you ever take cake home?”

Roy laughed. “You betcha. She even shares sometimes,” he said with a cheeky nudge.

She snorted. “Only when there’s no Bridezilla.”

Smiling into your glass, the emptiness of it prompted you to check the time. Phone slipped from your jumper’s pocket, you let out a muted sigh when you saw how late it was.

Donna raised an eyebrow. “Do you need to go?”

Warily, you met her gaze. “Yeah.” Not wanting to come off as ungrateful, you added, “It was good to meet you two.”

Roy grinned. “S’all good. We’ll do it again, don’t you worry!”

Donna nodded her agreement.

As you rose, her hand atop yours made you pause. You itched to retract from the touch, but held still, eyes levelled on her. It was hard to miss how warm her fingers were in comparison to yours.

“Do you have a ride?”

“Oh. Um, no,” you said.

She looked to Roy as she said, “One of us can walk with you.”

You glanced between them, frenzied uncertainty twisting your nerves. “It’s alright, you don’t need to.”

“No hard feelings if you wanna go with the pretty lady,” Roy winked, subtly encouraging you to accept their help. “I’d choose her too.”

You noticed how Donna had to fight off the blush rising up her neck as he embarrassed her.

Swallowing harshly, you made a rash decision. “You can both walk me to my block. That’s it.”

Donna regarded your cautiousness with a curt nod, proud of you for setting boundaries so quickly.

“Deal,” Roy said, leaping up. He hollered a goodbye to Francine as the three of you departed.

The conversation was minimal as you walked, instead appreciating the brisk night air and how Roy soloed a show tune under his breath. Your new acquaintances stopped where you had agreed, then said their cheerful goodbyes.

You left them with a look over your shoulder and a small wave. The pair stayed on the corner, under the only light bulb, keeping watch till you disappeared. They’d be downright shitty heroes if they let something happen in front of them.

Nine-fifty AM.

Early enough to seem committed, you thought. You stepped into the library, awkwardly making a stop to flatten out your clothes once more. You hoped what you were wearing would pass the visual test.

With a final deep breath, you made your way to reception. A different person manned the desk this time. You slapped a customer service-friendly smile onto your face.

Their eyes moved from the computer to you as they asked, “Hello, what can I do for you?”

Briefly, you looked over their clothes. Casual. That was good.

“I’m meant to meet Dorothy at ten,” you said. They nodded.

“Just a moment. Let me grab her.” Rising from the swivel chair, they wandered through the STAFF ONLY entrance. A moment later, they returned with Dorothy.

“Ah, there you are,” the elder woman said. “Good to see you showed up!” She moved sideways along the desk, pointing to a flimsy divider. “Come around, come around.”

As you passed through the small area, Dorothy launched into her spiel. “Now, this is Tia. She’s a junior librarian. She works here most days.”

Tia smiled at you kindly. “Welcome to the library.”

“Thank you,” you said. She nodded at you two as she sat down again.

“You need to fill in some boring ol’ forms,” Dorothy said, signalling for you to follow her into the office. She grabbed a clipboard and a pen and dropped it onto the table. “I’ll make you up a lanyard in the meantime.”

“Alright,” you agreed, falling into the nearest seat. She left the room the way she’d come.

The stack of paperwork made you nervous, but you soon realised that only the first page was relevant. The address part had you stuck, though. You left it blank for now.

When Dorothy returned, she gave you your lanyard. Your name had been printed on the plastic in bold lettering and underneath it was LIBRARY PAGE. An odd sense of pride trickled in.

“That doubles as a key, so don’t lose it,” she warned, eying you up. You nodded, looping it over your neck.

“Dorothy, I—”

She brushed you off immediately. “Oh, please. Just call me Dotty. Everyone else does.”

“Okay. Well,” you tried again. “I’m new to Gotham, so I don’t have a permanent residence yet.”

She hummed. “Yes, that’s fine. We can add it later.”

“Great. I’m done, then,” you confirmed.

“Excellent. Tour time.”

*

As Dotty led you through the rows of shelving and tables sighing about this and that, you absently trailed your fingers along the delicate books. It smelt kind of musty, but also... cosy. It was pleasantly quiet. And apparently, you were allowed to tell people to shut up. In those exact words. That would add some spice to your day if you needed it.

“That section over there is where we’ve been planning to start up kids time,” Dotty said. “We don’t get much funding, you know, but it would be good for the children.”

Her outstretched arm directed your attention to an assortment of bean bags and small toys. It was near where you’d sat on your initial visit.

Speaking of, that hoodie looked familiar. A deep red amongst the dark cushions. Huh. You were quite sure that guy had been here, too. He must have been a regular.

No more than a second later did you realise that he squirmed under your gaze. You averted your eyes and sent a telepathic apology into the air. You turned away to hurry after Dotty, barely managing to catch the last of what she spouted.

She took you back through the swing gate.

“This is your trolley,” she said, hands clasped over its rails. “You’ll need to sort these books during your shift. There’s also an afterhours chute by the doors. Sometimes that will have books, too. Just check it every couple of days.”

Her watchful eyes gleamed down at you to make sure you were listening. You acknowledged the look with a polite, “Of course.”

Satisfied, she continued. “If anyone asks for help, just send ‘em to the desk. Helping isn’t your job.”

You nodded again.

“Make sure the doors are locked if you’re ever last to leave.” She tapped her chin as she tried to remember what else she needed to say. “Oh, yes. You can have your break whenever you would like, but only half an hour.”

“Thanks, Dotty.”

*

A few leisurely hours passed by as your first ever day as a library page. Choosing then to take your break, you wheeled over the empty, stainless-steel trolley to its rightful place. Dotty had replaced Tia in the reception seat and you shot her your most cordial smile. It got you a curt nod in return as she waved you off.

With a breath that you hoped summoned a bout of confidence, you shuffled into the staff room. Tia lounged in one of the cushioned chairs, legs slung wildly. She scrolled through her phone while she munched on something.

Her eyes lifted when she heard you come in. “Hey, newbie,” she greeted.

“Hey.” As a means of continuing the conversation, you asked her, “When do you become a senior librarian?”

“Whenever Dotty decides to drop dead,” Tia said. You stifled a laugh with the palm of your hand.

Eyes going wide, you realised, “Oh, you’re not kidding.”

She smiled ruefully. “Nah. At least she brings in treats and stuff for tea time.” She poked the pile of biscuits on the table. “And they’re not even stale.”

“There can only be one of you?”

“City can’t afford to pay more,” she said, a dejected frown tugging at her mouth.

You mulled the day over, thinking back to your interactions with Dotty. “She seems a bit... paranoid.”

Tia scoffed. “You haven’t noticed the loaded shotgun under the counter?”

There was a lull in the conversation as you contemplated it. You figured it was only for when situations went bad, right?

Noticing your pensiveness, she nudged you with her foot. “Anyway, eat up before she chases you down. I think she has a stop watch set for all of us.”

It pulled another laugh from you but you took her sound advice. Hungrily, you snatched a giant cookie from the plate of goods. You would bring lunch when you had some actual money.

The first thing your eyes landed on when you walked into Pauli’s was Roy. Just like he promised, he was sprawled out in the same booth as yesterday. He was slouched over the table from drowsiness.

The waitstaff greeted you with nods and you smiled back. As you walked past the counter, you basked in the yellow hue and soft jukebox music. It was fairly empty. Must be too early for dinner.

When Roy uncurled, his hair stuck out in different directions. There was also a pink indent pressed into the side of his face. In what daylight remained, you saw the cute smattering of freckles across his cheeks. He rubbed at his eyes with his knuckles, brightening when he recognised you.

“Hey!” he welcomed, gaze on you as you slid into the seat opposite him.

“Pre-game nap?” you asked, placing your hands on the table. His green jumper really made him stand out.

“I like the way you think.” Roy dragged over the menus that had been pushed to the brick wall, probably to make way for his slumber. He passed one to you.

You murmured a soft, “Thanks,” then copied his motions, reading over the options. It was all rather cheap but the change in your pockets felt too light. With a muffled sigh, you looked up at him. “Hey, Roy?”

He hummed, barely glancing away from the list that made him salivate.

“Can I pay you back next week?”

“Sure, don’t worry ‘bout it...” he mumbled.

You tapped him with your shoe under the table. Finally, his head lifted, brows raised.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” he smiled shrewdly, jostling you back. “I’m all about charity, remember?”

You tried to mask your amusement with a frown but failed. Instead, you chose to hide your face behind the menu. “Ass.”

He snickered, then he reverted to whining, “C’mon, pick your poison. I’m starving.”

Rolling your eyes, you focused once more. Sandwich? No. Pasta? Hm... no. Pancakes? Not tonight. “Soup?” you considered aloud, cheekily trying to get a rise out of him for his earlier jab.

Roy glared at you. “That’s like paying for water. Eat a proper meal.”

With a dramatic sigh, you said, “Fine. I’ll have a ‘Bacon Mushroom Burger.’”

“And a thickshake?” he prompted.

“Roy,” you lamented. “I’ll have... a coke float.”

The jerk of his chin proved he was satisfied with that. His mouth curved up into a grin as he called over Francine. You didn’t think she was as ecstatic to see him, biting back a laugh when she schooled her dismayed facial expression.

You had a moment to dwell as Roy chatted up the older waitress. In the two days you’d known him, he’d been incessant about your eating habits. You looked down at your hands, speculating whether they were so obviously bony to everyone you encountered. Blue veins floated close to the surface of your skin.

The reflective exterior of the booth caught your eye. You leaned forward, peering into the sheen. Dismally, you noticed how uncomfortably prominent your features were. No wonder the Red Hood hadn’t wanted to share your pizza. And it explained why Roy was trying so hard to fatten you up.

Begrudgingly, you could admit that you needed it. To look healthy again. To feel it, too. Sleep hadn’t washed away the deep aches and twitchy tendencies.

Francine’s stare jolted you from your reverie. Roy must have said something about you because she looked like she anticipated an answer of sorts. You glanced at him, confused.

“I was telling Francine that you’re new to Gotham,” he said.

“Where’re you comin’ from, darl?” she asked.

There was that pet name again. You flinched, arms involuntarily retracting into your lap. The words had lacked the same viscosity of evil, nevertheless—

Your answer was vague. “Europe.”

“I know they got gangs in Europe,” she tsked,“but don’t be foolish, darl. You’d do best to avoid the hotspots here.”

You tried to think back to the places Donna and Roy had mentioned previously. You threw out a random name to appease her. “Uh... Iceberg Lounge?”

“Mhm,” she said. “Don’t forget Crime Row.”

You looked at Roy, having no idea what she was talking about. He presented no help.

“Probably should avoid gettin’ too close to the river, too. Someone might push you in for fun,” Francine mused. “Seen too many bodies float up there.”

Oh, okay, you thought, eyes bugging a little. That was something to take note of.

“It helps to have a muscley guide like this one,” she said, finally shooting a toothy smile Roy’s way.

His laugh was warm. “I’ll walk you home any time you need it, Fran.”

She nodded, snapping back into her usual, tetchy self. “Did I get all the order, then?”

“Yep,” he said, popping the ‘p.’ As she spun on her heel, he shouted after her, “Don’t you dare forget the sundae!”

She didn’t acknowledge him as her heels clicked against the floor.

Roy’s eyes slanted your way as he assessed your expression. “Don’t worry too much. I’ll draw you a map later.”

You nodded, knowing that would be useful. “Thanks.”

“Here, gimme your phone. I’ll put my number in,” he said, flipping his palm face up on the table. You scooped it from your pocket and deposited it into his hand.

“Woah, this is ancient,” he scrutinised. Roy tapped the old, small, cracked phone on the booth table. “No one is gonna snatch this, at least.”

You shrugged. “It does the job.”

You watched him drum away at the screen before your gaze trailed to the patrons that had begun to filter in. Some of them looked rough while a few wore suits. There were grumpy exchanges all around as Francine attended to them. An absent smile blossomed on your own face.

Looking back at Roy, you found that he still played with your phone. As he pointed it in your direction, it dawned on you that he’d started taking photos.

“Hey!” you protested, reaching for it. Roy yanked it back before you could.

Twisting in the chair, he held it high and threw up a peace sign. Eying the screen, you saw that he’d captured you in frame. An involuntary laugh escaped you.

He laughed too, then handed it over while beaming. “That can be your new background.”

“Uhuh,” you replied, tucking the phone away. You probably would make it your new background, just to cheer you up in the mornings.

Roy moved until he rested on his elbows. He struck you with an intense stare as he launched into interrogation mode. “Tell me how your first day went, moneybags.”

“It was good, I think.” You recounted the shift in your head, searching for the interesting parts to share. “Looks like you guys saved the day. I didn’t have to Google anything while I was there,” you praised. He nodded seriously, waiting for you to go on.

“The head librarian is a paranoiac who likes to bake,” you said. “And I’ve only met one co-worker, so I don’t know if there’s anyone else. I forgot to ask. But she’s... nice.”

Interested by your choice of words, he prompted, “‘Nice’?”

“Yeah. She says whatever she wants and she’s funnier than you.”

He harrumphed at that, kicking you under the booth.

“Ow!” you huffed, trying to get him back. Somehow, he was able to dodge every strike in the enclosed space.

“Now, now, children,” Francine interrupted, carrying the tray with your food. “If you spill this you’ll be lickin’ it right up.”

You and Roy both giggled. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Thanks.”

She divided the plates and glasses between you two.

“Thank you,” you repeated.

As soon as she turned away, you shoved a fistful of fries into your mouth. Roy’s booming laugh followed. “Stop that, you uncivilised freak,” he tittered—only to do the same thing.

Once you swallowed, you asked him, “So, I know Donna’s a photographer, but what about you?”

He grew somewhat antsy with the new question. Looking down momentarily, his arms withdrew from the table and he scratched at his forearm. It took him a bit to offer an abashed, “I do youth counselling. Lotta stuff with drugs and crime.”

“Huh,” you said, giving him a curious onceover.

“What?” he demanded, watching you watch him. Could you tell he was an addict? Roy wondered. Ex, he reprimanded himself.

You gave him a soft smile. “I bet they really like you.”

“I like to think so,” he recovered, trying to feel in control of himself again. He heaved a breath before patching it over with neutrality.

“At a school?”

“Sometimes,” Roy nodded. “Mostly at the kids centre.”

He chewed his food at a slow pace, hoping he hadn’t made things awkward. He was relieved when he observed no real change in your demeanour.

“Can I see it sometime?” you asked, desire building in your gut to explore Gotham. There had to be more good people to meet and things to experience.

“Sure,” Roy agreed. He looked over to the counter as one of the cooks topped their banana split with a bounty of whipped cream. His smile widened and he let out a dreamy noise. “That looks good as shit,” he said as he pointed to it.

Your eyes followed. It was God damn humungous.

Roy met your disbelief with a maniacal sound. “We'll knock it back halfsies, no problems,” he insisted.

You sunk into the cushioned seat, knowing a bellyache awaited you.

*

After you’d downed too much ice cream and could barely move, Roy pulled out his car keys.

“C’mon,” he grunted, tugging you from your seat.

You moaned. “That was one of your worst ideas yet.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled, towing you out the door. He didn’t even bother to wave to Francine tonight.

He led you to a rust-orange pick-up truck and climbed into the front seat. With a dramatic shake of his arm, he urged you to get in. You heaved the door open, trying to grapple your way up. Thankfully, Roy threw his hand over the console to grab yours. He helped you into the cab. Regret filled you wholeheartedly when the movement upset your insides.

“Shit,” you said with a groan, a hand on your stomach. “I might puke.”

He eyed you through slits. “Not in my truck,” Roy warned.

“You deserve it,” you said, smushing your face into the seat.

At your request, he dropped you near the motel. You were glad he didn’t ask any questions about it. Maybe another day you’d tell him, but right now...

Ugh.

By the time you were tucked into bed, belly slightly less bloated, Roy had sent you the promised map. It was Gotham, professionally laid out, but he’d scribbled over it in different colours. Red for bad, green for safe before dark, purple for fun, along with some other nonsensical comments.

The diner had been circled with ‘Puke Central’ written above it.

You thanked him with a snort.

Back against the bed, you shivered even with a blanket wrapped around you. You’d done your best to cocoon yourself inside as you gnawed on a protein bar and an apple, one in each hand. You felt the juice dribble and the crumbs scratch at your legs.

Unexpectedly, your phone buzzed from atop the bedside table. With a groan, you remembered where it was. Putting the bar aside, you threw an arm up against the wood, feeling your way to it. Instead, you accidentally slammed your fingers into the device which sent it tumbling into your head.

Ow. That was going to bruise. You rubbed at the bump in frustration before picking the phone off the floor.

NW: How’s it hanging?

Nightwing was checking in again. You hummed to yourself, unsure what to make of his motivations.

YOU: I got a job

YOU: So I can pay u back

NW: No need))

The response made you queasy. You didn’t like owing him.

NW: I paid 4 the motel 4 another week BTW. Just in case!

Your frown deepened. His kindness had been on your mind on repeat, cementing your worries. Why? What do you want? Are you watching me?—

YOU: What’s in this for you?

You’d sent the text before you really thought it through. Shit, that was stupid and ungrateful. You decided to add more.

YOU: Sorry. Someone told me Gothamites aren’t usually so helpful

NW: Unfortunately, they’re right

Now you definitely didn’t know what to say.

You shelved the conversation, allowing a different thought to take over. You’d been to work three days this week and done little else. What was next for you?

Retrieving some scrap paper and a pen that you’d stolen from the library, you decided to list the things you wanted to buy when you could afford to.

A laptop might be useful. A new, warm jumper. Food. Your stomach grumbled at that one. A fluffy pillow, you sighed, thinking of your future space.

Your phone tore you from your homely daydream. It was bizarre enough to meet a vigilante; even more so that he kept in touch.

NW: Been in any trouble?

YOU: No) U talk to red?

NW: No((

Your version of sympathy was to send him back a sad face. You sighed, wanting to smack yourself upside the head, though you remembered you’d already injured yourself once today.

Suddenly, a shadow past the window made you freeze. Immediate panic settled in as it became obvious someone hovered on the doorstep.

There was a knock.

You could text Nightwing about it, but you’d be dead by the time he got here.

They knocked again.

Slowly, you stood. You didn’t drop the blanket. At least if you died it wouldn’t be cold and undignified. You shuffled to the door and opened it with bated breath.

Only to find an entirely normal-looking postman standing there, eying you. His weight shifted from one leg to the other. “I don’t usually deliver to motels, but...” He held out a card to you.

Hesitantly, you took it from him. You looked down. It was in fact addressed to your room. “Um. Thanks,” you said softly.

He nodded. “You oughta get dressed next time someone comes a’knockin’, ya know,” the man warned. “It’s dangerous out here. Don’t go tempting fate, ya know.”

You frowned at him, wondering if fate was tempting him. “Thanks,” came your flat reply. Then you took a step back and slammed the door in his face. Asshole.

Still leant against the frame, you scanned the postcard. The front was a beautiful photo of what you assumed was the New York skyline at dusk. Turning it over, you noticed the only address included was yours. The message was written in your native language:

Hi honey,

Hope you are staying safe. We miss you lots.

P is getting into so much trouble.

The handwriting changed there.

She is full of lies.

Anyway, you would like the trouble ;)

We will see you soon. I promise. Hang in there.

Love W & P.

Your heart swelled.

You held it to your chest as tears washed the food scraps from your face.

Neon green and red strip lights blinked theatrically along every wall and crevice in the Beet Street Arcade. Each game had its own colourful, compelling glow. The wicked brightness somehow managed to outrun the pitch-black that swallowed the floor. Kids raced about the hall, waving their prizes around or shouting about whose turn it was next, all while bumping into other strangers. The smell of popcorn and cotton candy swept past you, pressing a sweet kiss to your cheek on its way.

It left you disoriented, although you’d long since decided it was in a good way.

You weren’t sure if you’d been here for five hours or five minutes, but it was a welcome relief from the monotony of fear and uncertainty you’d been living in. Even if the games took more of your money than the tokens they spat out. It didn’t matter, you’d had your first pay day!

You let out another whoop of encouragement for Donna as she absolutely destroyed the whack-a-mole machine.

Jesus Christ, you thought, watching her biceps flex as she frantically smashed at the bopping animatronics. She was excellent, but you were determined to be better. Your hands itched at your sides as you waited for your turn.

This weekend she’d decided to show you around outer Gotham. First up had been the Diamond District. Not that the borough name conjured much beyond wealth to you, but it sounded fun. You were happy to oblige her and spend time outside of your room, and preferably not in some kind of a hostage situation.

Donna whined when the machine made a sad noise and flashed GAME OVER. It started to vomit out her winnings. It kept going. And going. And going.

What the hell?

You laughed, watching the tokens all pile up at her feet. “You’re complaining about that?”

She pouted sourly. “I want a good prize.”

You bumped her aside with your hip. “Well, let me have a go.”

She began to babble about form techniques as you picked up the hammer. “Yeah, yeah,” you laughed, waving her off. “Don’t distract me!”

To your annoyance, you finished with slightly less tokens but did your best not to look sullen. Donna remained triumphant with your failure. You tried to flick her as she danced around you, however she easily jumped out the way of every attack. You sighed loudly, making sure she knew how discontent you were.

She just grinned before telling you she was going to get some food. “You want?” she asked.

“No,” you grumbled with your arms crossed. Donna rolled her eyes at you before prancing off.

The liminal feeling of the space was broken when your eyes landed on a hulk of a man in red.

Red Hood looked out of place, uncomfortable—but the kids? They didn’t seem to mind his presence. Some even threw him a passing cheer or fist bump. An attempt at one, at least. He was bad at matching the intensity of their greetings. You smiled lopsidedly.

It morphed into a more neutral, slightly confused expression when his body language changed. Like he was talking to someone that you couldn’t see. He lifted a hand to his helmet, as if reaching for the bridge of his nose in annoyance. He turned away from whatever had bothered him with his head hung.

Maybe he had one of those Bluetooth ear-things?

Your staring didn't go unrequited for long. He probably felt it, since his helmet flicked up in your direction. He reacted, quick and tense, as his back straightened and his arms fell to his sides. He held your gaze, gauging the situation. He was always searching for the threat.

The moment you took a step forward, he slunk away. Red glided down a passageway of games and out of sight. You didn’t know what possessed you to follow.

You skirted around the other side of the racing car machines, taking two steps at a time in order to match his hasty strides to the exit. To your own disbelief, you darted around the last game and skid into his path.

Abruptly, he came to a stop but his armour grazed you. He reeled back and matched his height to yours, meeting your expectant gaze. He was only a little taller than you, you noted.

“Are you running from me, Red?”

You realised how close you were then; you hadn't meant to take such an aggressive stance. He bristled because of it. He was probably ready to throw you out of the way like he’d done to—

“You don’t want to see me,” he said, stiffly. “And maybe I’d rather not see you.”

You couldn’t stop the amused twitch of your lips. Nonetheless, you took a step back, giving him some space. His posture relaxed a fraction as you graced him with that tiny offering.

“I have all the time in the world for my saviour,” you mused. You waited for him to knock your dumbass out.

With a grunt, Red tried to side-step you. “Move,” he ordered. Unfortunately for him, you copied his stance annoyingly, blocking him in.

“Hey,” you reached out, although dropped your hand at the last second as you remembered Nightwing’s attempt to touch him. “Are we in trouble?” you pressed, concern coating your tone.

His chin lifted from your frozen arm to your face. “No,” he warbled. He regarded you carefully for a long moment. “I’m just... checking in.”

You swallowed the anxiety that filled the cavity of your chest. “The kids?”

He didn’t reply and you hated it. He still surveyed you. It felt like he had taken a paring knife to your brain and turned it into an apple slinky.

With a sigh, you moved out of his way, wanting to stray from his observant gaze. You muttered an, “Okay,” shuffling another step.

“You better not be here alone.”

Arms crossed, you spun around. You didn’t like the implication. “Why? You don’t take personal calls?”

“You don’t have protective custody money, sweetheart,” Red snorted. The noise sounded almost as odd as—

Sweetheart? It made you pause. That was new.

But the moment you felt him start withdrawing, you scrambled to say something to cover the awkwardness you both projected. Narrowing your eyes, you pretended this wasn’t weird. “How would you know?”

“You’d be at the casino gambling it if you did,” he said matter-of-factly. He had a point. Although he’d shrunk back, he stayed put.

You hummed. “So, no taxi rides?”

“No.”

Silence fell over the two of you. What the hell did you even talk about with a masked vigilante?

You tugged at your sleeve, pathetically acknowledging how you were wasting his time. “Do you ever play?” you blurted out then, throwing your arms out towards the arcade games.

His head tilted and he moved weight from one foot to the other uncomfortably. “Sometimes. When the kids beg,” he said quietly. “Keeps ‘em out of trouble.”

A soft smile spread across your face. Even if he beat the shit out of people, at least the children were excluded from it. From what you’d heard so far, caution was necessary around this man.

“What if—?” You were about to challenge him to a match of something when you felt the atmosphere change and the words died on your tongue.

Red Hood’s head raised. It was so impeccably slight that you almost missed it, but he definitely looked over your shoulder. Instinctually, you turned around, wanting to know what had caught his attention.

There was Donna, not far off, clutching her popcorn and cotton candy. She wore a frown, forehead creased as she stared the two of you down. You looked back to see that Red had disappeared. You should have expected it. That was such a superhero thing to do.

You walked back over to her, spirits a little dampened.

“Cute costume, huh?” she asked, though it sounded stilted. Her steely eyes settled on you, searching for something.

“Yeah. These kids are crazy talented,” you agreed, unsure if that was the right thing to say. You tried for a smile and then reached for some of the pink fluff. “Thanks for sharing!”

“Hey! You said you didn’t want any!” Donna cried, pulling the cotton candy away from your reach.

“Well, I lied,” you said plainly, trying to grab some more. You argued that, “You have enough to share.”

“You’re as bad as Roy,” she said as she held it up high. “God, I’ll just buy you one! I’ll buy you two if you stop it.”

“It just tastes better when it’s stolen.”

You beamed at her scoff. She kept the food above your head.

Wind swirled past the locked windows of the dark safehouse; the small, blinking dot on the Wi-Fi router the only illumination.

Jason ripped the covers off the bed as he awoke. His trembling was not the fault of Gotham’s frost. The sound of the crowbar being dragged across the rough ground continued to ring in his ears long after he shook off sleep.

Clank.

Clank.

Clank.

Closer and closer.

Purposeful, letting him know what came next.

“Oh, the anticipation!” Joker had wailed.

His grip tightened against the mattress. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep—to give in to the nightmares—but he was just so tired. Jason’s eyes were scratchy and dry; he’d closed them in search of relief.

He bit back bile, trying to swallow the agonising sensations that flooded him. Shifting, he became aware of the shooting pain that ran down the outside of his legs. It was like being jabbed with a hot poker—something he’d know about.

Jason tugged at his curls, fighting the urge to give in. His face felt hot with unshed tears. His nerves burned and for once it overpowered the marled mark on his cheek. He bitterly wondered if this was normal burnout or PTSD related.

Call Roy, his brain screamed to drown out the metal clangs.

Roy knew.

He knew the pangs of death come and gone.

He could talk to him.

Jason didn’t call.

He just stared into the darkness. The sounds of his own demise repeated relentlessly.

He kneaded his thigh muscles, attempting to soothe the searing pain. Enough so he could curl back into himself.

Eventually, his eyes drifted to the window. The little twinkling lights of the city that brought him comfort.

And below them, the endless crime, came the sour thought.

He wasn’t sure the Pit fixed anything, really.

Dick carried a persistent feeling of unease throughout the entire day. It didn’t stop when he finished work, or after his patrol, seeing the Titans, or a frighteningly hot shower. It chased him into the next day, too.

When he awoke the morning after, he knew he needed to do something to quell it. Even if it was only for his sanity. He wanted to get Jason a gift, he decided. He wasn’t sure if Jason still read these days, but he used to love doing that, so it was worth a try, right?

It was just a bonus that it meant he could check in on you in person.

*

Dick swooped the aisle like a man on a mission. His baby blues affixed to you with precision, tracing the careful movements of your hands as you re-shelved books. You drifted in between the rows with a practised flow, seeming at home with the monotony of it.

He felt bad for ruining it, especially with how it took only fifteen seconds to disrupt your concentration. Rotating from the rows of spines, you eyed him distrustfully. Your fingers clenched around the novel you attended to. For a split second, you looked across the library in search of your colleagues.

“Hi,” Dick spoke then, wanting to put your fear to rest. He took a couple of steps forward. “I’m looking for a book.”

At those words, you slowly loosened. “Oh,” you said, moving to nudge the object into place. “Sorry, you’ll have to go to the desk for that. I just put books away.”

One of his most endearing smiles snuck onto his face. “But you look like just the kind of person that can help me.”

You turned around, brows raised in bewilderment. For some reason, the gesture reminded him of his biological family, however faint a memory. Really, the more he looked at you, the more he found an odd familiarity in your being.

“Sorry?”

Why couldn’t he pinpoint your accent? Dick wondered offhandedly. There was something about it—the way you inflected certain tones...

Sheepishly, he scratched at his nape. “Sorry, I mean—well, I need a peace-offering for my brother, and I feel like you might have some good ideas.”

It took a moment, but amusement crept onto your features. “You know you have to return them, right?” you asked funnily.

Dick laughed. “Don’t worry, I know this isn’t a gift shop.”

You nodded to yourself, running your fingers over the shelves as you deliberated his conundrum.

In an attempt to persuade you, he said, “Any suggestions? Read anything good lately?”

You glanced at him before rummaging through the cart. You passed over a novel. Dick had to withhold a snort as he saw the title My Sister, The Serial Killer.

You mistook it for apprehension. “It’s not as serious as it sounds.”

Dick looked up. “No, this is great. Thank you.”

You shot him a small smile. “Remember to bring it back,” you teased as you resumed the task at hand.

*

Nervously, Dick dropped off the book at Jason’s latest haunt. Once he’d returned to the Manor, he stared at his phone, drumming his fingers over the screen. He contemplated what to send, despite how his most recent texts had gone ignored.

DICK: Hi

It was a simple in. But when he got no response, he prayed that Jason hadn’t changed his number yet again. He sent more messages, reprimanding himself meanwhile.

DICK: Hope UR OK

DICK: Did U get my surprise?

DICK: LMK if U like it

Shockingly, Jason replied.

JAY: You mean the trash on my doorstep?

The corner of Dick’s mouth twitched, but he still sighed.

DICK: :(

DICK: The library rec’d it

His brother said nothing more. He felt frustrated, like his small amount of hope had been dashed.

DICK: Are U coming to Donna’s bday?

JAY: No.

A few minutes passed before Dick’s phone sounded again.

JAY: When?

He grinned. That was something!

DICK: 2 wks. Sat nite at the manor

DICK: She would luv 2 C U

Dick didn’t wait for a reply he knew wouldn’t arrive.

But he felt better, finally. Like the world could keep on spinning and he wouldn’t lose it.

“Hey, someone’s asking for you.”

Dread filled you as you heard those words. You inched around to face Tia. “I’m not allowed to help, remember?” you tried to brush it off lightly.

“I think they know you,” Tia explained with a sly smile.

“Stop it,” you groaned at the hidden meaning, pushing past her. You exited the staff room and found Donna waiting at the front desk.

“Hey,” she smiled. You greeted her with your own.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” you asked, surprised.

She held up a paper bag and gave it a shake. “I brought us lunch to share.”

“Oh,” you said, touched and slightly taken aback. Tia watched from behind with her beady, calculating eyes. You shot her a glare over your shoulder.

“Yum,” you said then as you passed the divider and noticed the logo on the bag. “Do you want to eat outside?” you suggested, hoping to escape Tia’s nosiness.

A knowing grin skittered across her face. “There’s a modicum of sun out there. Of course I do.”

A quick but quiet tapping sounded throughout the small safehouse. Jason sat stiff in a wheeled chair at his version of the Bat-Computer, scanning through potential locations to stake out.

Irritation took over as he was nicked out of his research when his desk vibrated. He tried to ignore it, intent on finishing the task at hand. Lives depended on it. However, his phone continued to blow up. With a frustrated huff, he took a peek.

ROY: U want a bite?

ROY: I’m going to that coffee shop on the corner. The real dodgy one, uno?

ROY: Come if u feel like it

ROY: They make a good ass croissants tho

It was Roy, instead of Dick, sending him a million texts for once. His stomach betrayed him by grumbling as he read the messages over again.

Jason looked back at the computer. His eyes watered, feeling the strain of focusing on it all day. The room was dark apart from the screen and a dim lamp. Alfred’s reprimands were clear in his head because of the inadequate working conditions.

He neatened up the bunch of scribbled-on paper that lay scattered beside the keyboard. Carefully, he stared at them again, hoping that something new would jump out. He needed to keep going—to find answers for the street rats of Gotham. Far too many children had gone missing recently, with very little trace left behind. The witness accounts were shoddy too.

The guilt was eating him alive. He'd barely managed to find any leads. And meanwhile, those kids were suffering, or worse yet...

Dead. Just like he was.

Jason tugged at his hair, pulling it into his face. He rubbed it into his eyes and skin, using the sensation to distract from the surmounting aggravation and sorrow. If Donna were here she would have scolded him for disregarding the skin care routine she’d set out a long time ago.

The reasonable part of his brain argued that he could run this past Roy for more ideas. But he didn’t want to go out. He felt embarrassed at the thought of needing help; at seeking a conversation with someone besides a barista or a mixed-up civilian.

Jason’s mind drifted to you for a moment, of how your encounters seemed inexplicably different. He saw plenty of Gothamites on the regular, but you...

His knuckles met the brand on his cheek, digging into it. Unease rocked his stomach. He didn’t like this line of thinking. He wanted to slam dunk it in the trash can next to his bed.

You were lonely and looking for friends in all the wrong places, he justified. He needed to make that clear next time.

Jason’s bleary gaze drifted back to the phone. He was a sucker for a croissant.

*

A decrepit excuse for a café had been shoved into one the backstreets of the Narrows a long time ago. The roof was half caved in, with asbestos walls peeling, but none of the patrons ever seemed bothered. It was a perfectly uncouth place for criminals and those criminally-adjacent to meet without prying eyes. The sound of constant chatter and clinking glasses covered any potential scheming.

“You got something planned for tonight?” Roy asked, appraising Jason’s movements. His friend was hunched into himself, shying away every time he thought someone looked at him. He still wasn’t good with crowds.

“No.”

“Liar.” Roy’s mouth curved sadly, watching his friend’s face twitch in annoyance. “You need help?” he prodded, leaning onto the table. It wobbled. “I’m up for anything.” He mostly just wanted to see Jason and figure out how he was coping.

Jason folded his arms and rested deeper into the chair, forcing more space between them. He kept his eyes downcast as he said, “No,” again.

“C’mon,” Roy groaned. He wanted so badly to call him ‘Jaybird’ or any nickname, but bit his tongue. He knew not to push Jason’s tenuous boundaries too far. It was a miracle they were meeting unmasked in a dark corner off Fuck Knows Lane.

He draped himself across the table dramatically, wanting to pester Jason into revealing more. Jason just met his begging look coolly, one eyebrow raised.

Stalemate.

Roy peeked out from under his eyelashes, meeting his vigilant gaze. He propped his chin onto his arms with a defeated puff. “Tell me something, at least? What have you been up to?”

Jason seemed to have an internal panic at that line of questioning. He was good at hiding it but Roy had known him too long. Jason breathed out a little heavier, fists clenching. Dark bruises faded into the dimples of his knuckles, Roy observed.

Jason considered telling him about you. The stranger that couldn’t seem to help but stumble into his path consistently. It reminded him that he hadn’t seen you in a while, actually. He wasn’t entirely convinced it was a good thing either, but maybe you’d found Nightwing to bother instead.

Roy saw the loud thoughts that plagued him and looked away, giving him the room to methodically work through it.

Finally, Jason spoke lowly, “Some of the kids at the arcade told me they’ve been going missing.”

“Shit,” Roy perked up. “It’s not organs again, is it?”

“Dunno,” he glumly answered. “I can’t—” He made a noise, cutting himself off. “Can’t find much.”

“Alright,” Roy said, noticing his frustration. “Show me what you got?”

Jason fixed him with a stony stare, scrutinising his interested posture. Roy returned it with a smile, hoping to placate him.

Eventually, Jason held out his phone. Roy scrolled through the documents, mulling over the notes.

“You thinking the Bowery?” he mused. Jason was mute; just kept his eyes on him, waiting. “Let’s check it out then,” Roy said, handing the phone back.

Jason stayed quiet. After a few more moments of contemplative silence, he gave a stiff nod in agreement. This was what he needed, he reminded himself.

Slowly, he pulled the small plate with the pastry closer, satisfied enough to take a few bites in front of Roy. However, he grew annoyed as Roy’s grin bloomed wider. Jason was going to stuff the croissant into that gob of his and choke him with it if he didn't quit smiling all happy soon.

[jackiebrackettt]

ALSO. um. Honest opinions onnnnnnnnnn gimmeeeee a moment I’m thingingggg uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh COLD WEATHER. Like cold weather or. Well specifically like cloudy skies, rain, thunder, stuff like that not just the cold. Could he warm too. I want your opinions on “dreary weather” GO ☕️

hi :]

i like umm okay so cold weather is SO HARD to get out of bed to bit overall nicer - i like wearing hoodies and long pants and layering up but alsooo i have a bunnch of shirts i’m not able to show off bc it’s toocold. peak weather for me is when it can be short sleeved weather but i can still wear long pants and maybe accessorise with a jumper or layers

LOVE cliuds ^_^ rain is sooo nice jnless i have to go ourside in it. rain outside when i’m in a biilding thag isn’t my house or a house in general feels so liminal space to me i tbink it’s coded in from school bc when it rained your general day structure wojld Change judt a little (<- like being allowed tto sit indoors)

anyway i like dreary weather i ljke rain asmr but it will put me inxa headspace ( <- not necessarily a bad one just One) so sunny days are always a good balance

[pippki-writes]

Duck à l’Orange [Chef Andre - Part 5]

NOTES: One of my friends got me to join an e-fed, and even though I know nearly nothing about wrestling, I do feel confident in my ability to write fairly entertaining nonsense. And I’d love to share that nonsense with you lot too!

(Chef Andre Poêlon, Toddrick, and other non-wrestler side characters are mine. The other wrestlers—the Time Jumpers/Ciela and Dionysus in this installment—belong to their respective creators.)

(Andre’s appearance is based on Chef Gordon Ramsay. I’m so sorry Chef Ramsay. Here’s your alternate French-American life)

WC: 3.8K

Installments: Part 1 (The Recipe); Part 2 (L’Aperitif); Part 3 (L’Entree); Part 4 (Fish)

An arm swings toward his neck. This should all be instinct by now, actions processed quick-time and with certainty, the response shaking down from the most muscle-memory primitive parts of his brain to the stubborn extremities that will carry out his movements. He’s practiced until the patterns have been rewritten into reactions, no higher order thinking required. But an arm is heading towards his neck. His thoughts are thick, and too slow for what’s coming. Move, he tells himself, in thoughts beyond language, move move move, to the left to the right to hell to the mat don’t just stand there!

This wasn’t how the match went, but dreams don’t care. In reality, he wasn’t the only one taken down in the ring by Ciela’s 630 splash—he’d just been unlucky enough to be the closest man to drag in for the pin.

Knocked down, dragged out, and lost.

The loss had been for their whole team. But he had been the body taken down to net the loss. All the logic in the world—he’s new, their team new, the Time Jumpers have worked together longer and their third man was a veteran with even more experience to bring, he didn’t get the best night’s sleep beforehand, he’d simply been closest, Dionysus had been laid flat just as badly as he had—all meant little to Andre’s guilty subconscious. He had lost. He had been the one to let the team down.

And so his brain had taken to conjuring dreams with only passing resemblance to the actual match he’d lost. The dreams weren’t helpful, and weren’t going to bring him any closer to the redemption of a victory.

Two weeks to Vegas—less, really, with each passing day. He should have been training with Dionysus every day, to make a win a certainty.

Instead he stood under the glare of the cheapest fluorescent lights that a Waffle House franchise could buy, listening to the sizzle of onions as they sautéed for the latest order of hash browns in the early morning hours. Early morning, late night—the same liminal space where one day had become the next, technically speaking, but didn’t quite feel like either. That was how Andre felt. He had been a chef. He had technically become a wrestler. Somehow, with his murky record, now he didn’t quite feel like either.

“Don’t quit your day job, Andre.” That was all his mother had said, when he’d laid out over the phone the bare bones of his latest career move into wrestling. She didn’t exactly know that he was working at a Waffle House either. Not that you could call the Waffle House a day job—he only saw the sun as he left, and it barely paid enough to be considered a job.

But it paid enough to keep his meager savings account from hemorrhaging hopelessly each month. More like a slow and steady bleed, the long-con death of the capitalist laborer toiling away his life and never making progress. Mon dieu, thought Andre. He had been listening in on the late-night college student rants too much—even now, a group was over in the corner, not the Toddrick Squadron but another group of students with too much alcohol and money and ideals. They were making their points with wild gestures, punctuated with a pour of syrup or a slap of the table as they spoke.

Andre didn’t make enough money to have the energy to consider how little money he made. He herded the short chopped strings of potatoes to mingle with the now-golden onions, and tried to ignore what sounded like an impassioned denunciation of the billionaire class (“—instead of FIXING anything,” he heard over the hiss of the grill, “they’re flying their DICKS into BARELY EVEN SPACE—“ and Andre dumped another round of potatoes on the flat top, drowning out the discourse), until a ketchup packet bounced off the side of his head.

“Oh shit!” came the squeal from the corner table, as a young woman ducked behind one of her compatriots to hide. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t trying to hit you sir that was for this absolute idiot friend of mine fucking fanboy billionaire stan—“

Andre turned to look at the corner table curiously. He’d been so deep in his own head, he barely cared about the condiment. But before he could wave it off, the group of them started peppering first him and then one another with questions and comebacks.

“Why do you look familiar?”

“Hey isn’t he that chef? The one from the video?”

“The cast-iron killer?”

“Nobody calls him that.”

“Did he kill that guy? The wrestler?? I thought the wrestler was fine! Ugh that is so problematic, I would never have watched the video if I had known the guy died.”

“Jesus Chriiiiiist, the guy didn’t die, what is wrong with you!”

“Oh my god, don’t you wrestle now too? Doesn’t he wrestle now too?”

“More like cast iron killed, yeah I think I saw it on Tik-Tok he got his ass handed down to him on a plate in his last match.”

“Who the hell watches wrestling?”

“I told you I saw it on Tik-Tok!”

“Do you think he smacked the wrestle-powers out of that guy and took them, and that’s why he’s wrestling now?”

“You should tweet that.”

He should have been training with Dionysus, but instead he was here, back in Indianapolis in the days leading up to the pay per view, listening to a bunch of opinions he had no need for. There weren’t enough potatoes in all the stock trucks in the world to drown this nonsense out.

“Je m’excuse,” Andre barked out, lying through his teeth, because he wasn’t the least bit sorry. “Je ne parle pas anglais.” To the great amusement of his manager, Andre managed to continue to pretend he couldn’t speak English until the group, only mildly disappointed they would get no further from Andre, finally left.

Roll, juke. Flurry of punches. Move, dip. Get out of the way. Dodge, last minute, as more of Toddrick’s friends had joined the late-night lunch break cause to help Andre. A young woman with bulletproof biceps and a long history of rugby wins bounced off the side of the dumpster to try to tackle Andre yet again. These weren’t Time Jumpers, but the closest substitute Andre’s corner of Indianapolis could offer to train against. Better than nothing.

A fist went sailing towards Andre’s skull, and he ducked, weight shifting to drive his head instead into her sternum, remembering at the last minute to hold back and temper the blow. Practice, practice but not enough practice. Don’t quit your day job, Andre thought to himself.

“Damn,” mumbled Toddrick from his perch on top of the dumpster, checking his watch. “Time’s almost up. You gotta get back to work.”

“Real work,” added Andre, straightening up.

“Wrestling is real work.”

“Not real enough to pay my rent.”

“You should,” Toddrick stopped and thought, letting a few hiccups pass. “You should lemme pay. Pay for your whatever until wrestling is enough.”

“Absolutely not,” Andre replied, putting his chef coat back on. “End of discussion.” He walked back inside, buttoning his chef coat as he went, not waiting for Toddrick to attempt a rebuttal. He would make this work, as much on his own as possible.

Every restaurant has regulars. Andre’s Waffle House was no exception to this universal rule. There was of course the Toddrick Squadron, but others as well, and Andre had begun to learn them all. There was two hour Tuesday toast man, who came every Tuesday at exactly two A.M., and sat in the same seat (Andre had yet to see what would happen if the same seat happened to be occupied), for two hours eating only dry toast the entire time, poring over a stack of papers covered in writing too tiny for Andre to ever read. He never gave his name, and no one knew it—he always paid in cash.

There was old Eric, who showed up every day at some imprecise time between 6 and 7 in the morning, and rotated throughout the week how he wanted his hashbrowns prepared.

There was young Ethel, who was really middle-aged Ethel, a sharp-eyed real estate agent who would always ask if they had anything new on the menu when she came in each weekday, and always ordered the same pecan waffle regardless of the answer.

There was Jason-with-peanut-butter-on-it, who always stopped by late nights after his DJ job, and no matter what he decided to order, you can guess, always asked for peanut butter on it.

These were the sort of people with predictable patterns, who came with such regularity you could set your calendar by it. Less discussed are the irregulars—the near mythical creatures every restaurant also has tied to them. Orders or individuals so utterly strange, who appear according to whatever divine machinations suit them, that the sum of the experience of serving them becomes part of the restaurant’s apocryphal lore.

Andre had not learned the irregulars yet, and was wholly innocent of all knowledge of the Porkchop Patty Man.

It was a little past three in the morning, with less than a week until the pay per view match, a slow weekday with no Toddrick and only a couple truckers tucked in to the bar, hunched over their small ceramic cups of coffee. The bell for the door jingled, and a short man walked in, dressed in a crisp suit and white gloves, wearing sunglasses even in the dead of night and with a face made of sharp, impassive angles.

Andre’s manager perked up in shock at the sight of the man, shot a worried look at Andre, and then looked back with a smile. “Well if it isn’t code name Alfred. Long time no see. The man needs his chops again?”

The man she called Alfred allowed a calculated smile, and a nod of acknowledgement. “You know how it goes.”

Andre began to tap his spatula against the grill, because he for one did not know how it goes. The man took a seat at the far end of the bar counter, away from the truckers, perched on the edge of the chair as if ready to take off at a moment’s notice. He’d given no order, and his manager had written nothing down, called nothing out, but instead started moving around. She unlocked a small drawer below the cash register, rummaging around until she pulled out four small individually sealed jelly packs of orange marmalade, and then came over to Andre.

“This is going to be a weird one,” she started.

“What is this, the forbidden ritual or something? Why have you not written the order down? What am I making?” Andre asked, as she carefully placed the jelly packs in his hands.

“This order is off the record, strictly speaking.”

Andre’s eyebrows drew together in concern. “Off the record” sounded like another way to spell “trouble,” and Andre really didn’t want anything with even a La Croix level hint of flavor of trouble.

“What is this, hashbrowns methamphetamine or something? What do you mean?”

“No no! Nothing like that. Just get two pork chops cooking and I’ll walk you through it.”

Now it was Andre’s turn to rummage around, but he came up empty handed.

“What are you doing? Come on, two pork chops.”

“Ah, mais non. We are out of pork chops.”

No one had ever met the Porkchop Patty Man. They’d only met the man they had taken to thinking of as his butler, who they always called “code name Alfred.” No one remembers who came up with the nickname, just that it stuck, a piece of lore passed down among the crew over the years.

The Porkchop Patty Man’s order consisted of this: the idea of a patty melt, twisted nine ways to Sunday. Instead of a burger patty, the meat was two pork chops seared on the flattop, then diced and cooked some more with a pile of onions. Instead of cheese slices, shredded cheddar was summoned by the handful to bind it together. Instead of bread, this mess was to be jammed between two halves of a blueberry nougat waffle, slathered with orange marmalade instead of with the loving consideration of a kind god. The legend went that a server had tried to ring it up once, and gave up, weeping, resigning on the spot to go take up life as an insurance claims adjuster instead. That part, however, was probably just exaggeration.

Restaurant supply chains had been struggling recently. Of course the Porkchop Patty Man would want his usual brand of derangement when they were all out of pork chops. Andre’s manager, who never swore, began to whisper obscenities quietly to herself.

“This is gonna take a little longer than usual, Alfred,” she called down the counter.

“Not a trouble, madam. You know he eats it cold anyway. Time is not of the essence.”

“Shall I call up to one of the other Waffles House?” Andre asked, as his manager drummed her fingernails nervously against her chin.

“No!” she snapped, then dropped to a whisper. “We can’t afford to lose him. No. Here, I’ll give you some money, go to the nearest store you can find and buy some pork chops.”

Andre couldn’t help feeling compelled to whisper in reply. “But why? Just…why?”

“Because this is the Porkchop Patty Man’s order, and he pays thousands, in cash, sweet untraceable cash when he orders this bullshit!”

Andre found his keys already materializing in his hand. “The store you say? This I can do.”

Once upon a time, grocery stores like Walmart and Meijer were open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, nearly every single day of the year. But times change, and these dystopian days, midnight brings an end to the places you can get your grocery needs satisfied in Indianapolis before the respectable hour of six am rolls around again.

That didn’t stop Andre from driving in circles for over 20 minutes anyway, hoping that the next store might be open. Or maybe the next one. The best he managed was a Walmart truck unloading around back of the third one he checked. But all the twenty dollar bills his manager had shoved into his fist wasn’t enough to bribe the workers on the loading docks to sell him even a scrap of beef jerky, let alone any entire pork chops.

“Merde,” Andre muttered to himself, searching his phone fruitlessly for any 24 hour grocery stores, continuing to mutter in disbelief as the results came up empty. He was about to decide whether to either give up, or go raid another Waffle House in spite of his manager’s protestations, when a beat-up pickup idling near the supply trucks caught his eye.

In the dim light of the parking lot, he could see two figures shaking hands, and against his better instincts, he got back out of his car and walked over to the truck.

Leaning against the hood of the squat truck, cleaning her teeth with a toothpick, a woman built like a series of steel pipes watched Andre approach. The truck was eaten with rust along the bottom, and the dull paint was patched with primer and the intention of a follow-up coat that had yet to come. A hand-lettered placard in the back window read “GOOD MEATS.” At Andre’s height, he could see the soft shapes of coolers lined up in the truck bed.

“Not my usual business hours, but a sale’s a sale stranger,” the woman drawled. “You looking to buy some grade A, USDA choice meats, poultries, and other such delectables?”

Andre’s rational brain was swearing up and down that this was a terrible idea. But his mouth opened and instead he found himself saying, “What have you got in the way of pork?”

Even meat sellers of dubious legality were hit hard by the apparent pork shortage around these parts. The only meat Andre had been able to buy that his dear Chez Waffle did not already possess was duck. One lone duck, ready to cook, not quite ready to eat. He hastened back to the restaurant, weaving around construction cones fallen in the roadway as he went, wondering what madness had overtaken him.

He had texted his manager before heading back—“No pork chops. No stores open. Got a duck.” And her response in kind—“shit. Fuck. None of the Waffle Houses around have spare pork either. Whatever. We’ll make it work I guess.”

Before he pulled back up at the Waffle House she texted again—“wait. Like duck meat? Or did you grab a duck out of a damn pond?”

“Andre?”

“Andre???”

“Please not a duck out of a pond.”

One discrete phone call later, Alfred was sliding back onto his delicate counter side perch, nodding.

“He understands. And is very curious to see what you might manifest here with this duck, mister chef. Proceed as usual,” said Alfred.

Andre had cooked duck before. He’d even grilled duck before. But not like this. This was a crime on several levels. Including perhaps literally. He looked over his shoulder as he began to work, scoring the skin of the duck checkerboard style before setting it fat side down on the hottest part of the flattop. He sacrificed one of the jelly packs into a saucepan with some orange juice and sugar, looking guilty as he did, cooking down this makeshift sauce.

He wouldn’t have to worry about the Time Jumpers at all if he got arrested before this match. Or if the gods of the culinary world struck him down for what he was doing here.

The rest of the Porkchop Patty Man’s order he completed exactly as his manager described. The only difference was instead of chopped pork, he pulled off and cut up crispy, perfectly (given the circumstances) grilled duck that then got glued together with cheese, threaded with sautéed onions. And slathered in a generous portion of bootleg orange sauce. Even as he was the one making it, Andre watched with fascinated horror as the ingredients came together. Every part, individually, he would vouch for, but the summation of them was probably an abomination that he wouldn’t sign his name to.

Andre lowered this mockery of a patty melt into a to-go container with the reverence of a man laying a corpse to rest, and handed the box to his manager. He couldn’t bear to be the one to hand it over. Alfred nodded as he took the box, and handed in return a fat envelope, no doubt heavy with the cash his manager had mentioned.

“For your trouble,” said Alfred, nodding again at them both. “We shall see how he likes this. Until next time.”

The bell jangled again as the door closed behind him, and Andre let loose a breath he hadn’t even realized until that point that he’d been holding.

He breathed even easier when his manager gave him his cut of that cash for his complicity.

“What is TikTok?”

“Don’t worry about it dude. It’s short shit, and the less you talk, the better.”

Andre rubbed his hands on his face, groaning. “How can I talk shit, when I am the one who is shit? These Time Jumpers jumped me. Very specifically me. This is ridiculous.”

“This is redemption,” insisted Toddrick, swiping through filters on his phone. “This is retribution, even. Heaping helping of vengeance for their unjust jumping on you.”

“Mon dieu, this is stupid.”

“No.”

“I am stupid.”

“No!”

“Oui!!!!”

“Well dude then just pretend otherwise! Damn!” Toddrick threw a crumpled up flyer for the Devil May Cry card at Andre’s head. Andre ducked needlessly—the throw was wide, made wider by a gust of hot Las Vegas wind. “Believe in yourself!” Toddrick yelled. “Manifest that destiny! Your loss was a fluke, and you’re going to prove that this is your shit!”

Andre pressed his lips together in disagreement. Whether this was truly his shit felt quite debatable. But he didn’t feel like debating it, because Toddrick refused to be convinced otherwise. He’d staked a claim on Andre succeeding, and wasn’t willing to entertain thoughts to the contrary.

Andre grumbled and stomped over to grab the tumbling flyer as it tried to make its way further across the tarmac of the North Las Vegas Airport, trapping the paper under his shoe. He unfolded the paper, and took out a pen to write down some insults first before walking back over to Toddrick.

“Fine,” said Andre. “Film me. I will talk the smack.”

The music is haunting, notes stretched out in directions they were never intended to go. Though this was recorded already, a fixed incident from a point in time in the past, that’s the beauty of a video—it’s an experience trapped in an endless present to view. Andre stands with arms crossed, framed by the austere concrete shapes of the airport building. They had left this until the last minute, and didn’t know where else to record the video.

“Did you have a good time, getting a taste of what Al Fresco can do?” Andre asks, looking down at the camera. “That appetizer was for your benefit, a one-time-only soft-serve of a mistake we will not be making again. This match, Time Jumpers, this will be our main course, and what we are serving up is your failure, elbow dropped on a silver platter for the world to enjoy.”

If you listen closely in the pause, you can almost make out the drawn out, howling words that slowly croon, “be our guest.”

“We have all the ingredients we need to cook up a hearty helping of retribution. You’ll find your win was rare, and you’re about to be, well.” He chuckles and cocks a grin born of a confidence he doesn’t totally feel, and draws his thumb quickly across his neck. “Done.”

The video ends on Andre’s wicked grin. The video doesn’t show Toddrick after ending the recording, lowering the phone with another groan.

“Dude, all that writing and that’s the best you’ve got?”

Andre glared, uncrossed arms moving to brace against his hips instead. “Oui! It is the best I could think of, all things considered. It’s more than acceptable, I should think.”

“I know I said short, but that was short as hell.”

“I had no more to say! I lost before, I will not lose again. Dine on my fists, Time Jumpers, for the sandwiches I bring are all knuckle.”

“Stop, stop. Ok. It was good enough. It was ok. It’ll have to do. Come on, we gotta get you where you need to go or you’re gonna be late.”

Next Course: Part 6 (We Don’t Serve Salads Here)