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lightskinrry · 5 years ago

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no wedding for the bad boys

The one where the bachelor’s party doesn’t go according to the plan

A/N: hello cuties,,, after not writing for a while im back with some angsty shit!!!! i hope you guys like it and don’t hesitate to share your thoughts with me about this mess!!

Word Count: 5k

TW: a loooooot of alcohol; gambling and ANGST.

One of the things you liked so much about being the single friend was that you were always the one to keep the party alive. And now you were about to birth the best party of all times. Your best friend was getting married in two weeks and you were in charge of the bachelor’s party.

And with great power comes great responsibility, you had to plan everything and keep it a surprise. And if there was one thing you sucked at; it was keeping secrets, especially from Harry. He always had his way with you; it was hard keeping anything from him.

You couldn’t quite believe he was getting married. You watched him grow from a horny teenager to a beautiful and inspiring man. You saw him give his first concert in his mom’s living room and then watched him sold out arenas around the world.

You gave him his first kiss and helped him cheat his math tests and now you were his best-woman at his wedding. You helped him break up with his exes, held him while he cried, bringing him tequila and ice cream on bad days, making him laugh once the tears dried away. And he always did the same for you. And now you were gonna be by his side like you’ve always been on the most beautiful day of his life.

You had your little reluctance towards his future spouse. She was a beautiful and independent woman but you felt like you couldn’t see through her. Maybe because she entered into your lives not so long ago and you needed more time to get her. You could tell she didn’t like you much, anyway.

They’ve been together for less than a year and Harry “commitment issues” Styles proposed to her, to everybody’s surprise; even his own.

His mom tried to tell him that he had to be sure before pulling out such a great move. But he was so infatuated, it was too beautiful to bring him back to reality.

You didn’t want to interfere anyway so when he told you, despite your surprise and little bitterness; you supported him like a good friend.

He seemed so happy and into her, you didn’t want to let him know you didn’t trust his future wife or that to you all of this seemed premature. You also didn’t want your own feelings to balance his.

Anyway, you started planning the party ahead of time and everything was going rather well. Miss (future) Styles gave you some instructions and rules to follow regarding the party because Harry said you could do anything you wanted except if she wasn’t okay with it. So no strippers, no hookers, no clowns. Who would even bring a clown to a bachelor party? Well it seemed she didn’t want that anyway. She also said not too much alcohol and no drugs. She could’ve just tell you to cancel the party at that extent. But you had to give in to her commands...

Looked like you were about to organize a tea party for elderly people… Literally, bring out the cucumber sandwiches and put milk in your tea like these old rich british dudes.

You had to find a way to make a real bachelor party. Something huge and iconic; something legendary. You planned on giving Harry a Barney’s worthy type of party.

You thought about every outcomes that could make his future wife freak out. So you decided instead of staying too close to her, why not make a spontaneous move.

You met with the groomsmen and basically all yours and Harry’s friends that would be attending the party to make sure everyone was in with the plan and obviously said nothing to Harry.

You kept the secret until d-day.

You were waiting for him, wearing your red suit, in the lobby. “Harry, we’re leaving now, man. If you’re not out that door in 2, we’ll celebrate your party without you.”

He rushed through the hallway. “I’m right here. Ready to party like I’m already seventy.”

You told him about his bride-to-be restrictions concerning the party so he didn’t expect anything crazy. “No worries, baby. You still look young.”

It was a short ride to his favorite restaurant. You were driving, screaming-singing the lyrics to Got To Be Real and he was singing with you, taking breaks in his track to laugh with you. You parked in his usual spot and walked through the door, all your friends already sitting at the table, cheering when they saw the two of you walking in.

“Ah! Here he is! The man of the night!” Jeff stood to welcome Harry to the table.

You both took a sit and order a few drinks.

The evening went fast, you had great dinner, shared cuban cigars, good alcohol and had the best chocolate cake. Everything was moderate just like Tania asked; a fancy dinner in a fancy restaurant, not too much alcohol and nobody blacked out.... yet.

Harry stood, raising his glass to make a toast. “Thank you guys so much for tonight. I know we wanted to throw a rock’n’roll party…” He gave you a sly look. “But I appreciate that you took the time and care to give me a real grownup bachelor party.” He laughed a little. “I love you guys. I feel so lucky to have friends like you. So supportive and thoughtful. Thank you.”

All of you cheered on him. And one by one all of your friends left, claiming to be going home to their spouses. You and Harry were the last one to leave the restaurant. You stood next to the car, as Harry thanked the staff, waiting for him to come to you.

“So… I have a little surprise for you.” You gave him a sneaky smile.

“Oh god, this cannot be good.”

You smiled and pulled out a blindfold out of your pocket. He shook his head. “No. No. No. That doesn’t look good at all.”

You giggled and insisted. “C’mon. It’s your bachelor party. I promise it’s going to be fun but not too much.” You smiled. “Do you trust me?”

He sighed loudly… “Fine, Y/N. You better not throw me in the back of a truck or some kidnapping bullshit like that.”

You scoffed. “No worries.”

He closed his eyes and you put yourself behind him, placed the blindfold on his face and smiled contentedly. “Good. Now just follow me, baby. I got big plans for you.”

He laughed nervously and turned around to face you. “I feel like I might die tonight. But you know what? I trust you and your fucking crazy ideas. I knew you couldn’t just stop at dinner party and cigars.”

You gave him your best evil laugh and directed him to his seat in the car. You placed yourself in the driver seat, put on your playlist and drove.

After about 30 minutes driving and Harry complaining about the blindfold, you pulled over in the parking lot. You directed Harry through the airport, up until the gate of the plane. There all of your friends were waiting silently, smiling slyly.

“I can’t believe you convinced him.”

Harry turned around on himself. “Mitch?”

All your friends cheered to let him know they were all here.

“Fuck, so that was a group plan, huh? What did she convinced me to do? Because I can tell we’re in a airport, I’m not deaf and this is a bad plan, I can already tell. This is a bad plan.”

You all laughed and you gently stroked Harry’s shoulder. “Harry, when did I ever put you in a bad situation?”

“That time in Atlanta when we ended up-”

“This never happened. It was a fever dream. You know I would never put you in a bad situation.” You cut him in his track, remembering the misadventure.

“What about that night in NYC last year? I remember that basement, Y/N.”

“This wasn’t a bad situation, just a plan that kinda failed.”

He giggled before turning around again. “Okay, so what’s the plan that will most certainly fail today?”

“You get your ass on that plane and you’ll see!”

Harry sighed but with the help of everyone, he got on the plane. You took the blindfold off him and made sure to keep him busy during the flight.

After the pilot announced the destination, you watched Harry’s soul leave his body.

“Vegas? Fucking Vegas? You guys are all mad. Mad men. Does Tania even know?”

All of you gave him a big smile and said “Surprise!” in harmony.

“She doesn’t know. We’ll call her later. Just relax, mate.” Tom smiled at Harry and laid back in his seat.

Harry leaned in your ear and whispered. “She’s going to kill both of us, you know that?”

“Then we’ll both die after the best party of our lives.”

The flight was fun. You guys chattered and laughed. Harry was finally relaxing and giving into the mood. You couldn’t wait until you land to show him all you planned for tonight. But mostly all you didn’t plan; the best nights you spent with Harry were the ones that started without a plan. The ones that were supposed to be chilling at home. Actually even chilling at home turned into the best night. That was the thing; even the most boring shit can be amazing if you’re with the right people.

***

After landing and getting down from the plane, you lead Harry and all your friends to where the party was at; everywhere. You were painting the town red tonight.

You started with a few drinks in the lobby of the hotel, making your way downtown to a Casino just for the sake of being in Vegas, then you moved to a ballroom where a 30s theme party was going on. You sipped on Martinis and Manhattans until the fancy drinks were getting boring so you moved the group to a grunge club. Everybody was dancing and drinking and whatever else they found amusing. You could tell everyone was having fun, especially Harry.

Around 2AM some girl proposed to your group to come to her place cause she was throwing an after-party. And obviously, everyone followed because following drunk strangers is fun.

You ended up at her place; all of y’all in a tiny apartment with some trash music and cheap alcohol, dancing and screaming until the neighbors called the cops for disturbance. So everyone, as drunk (and high for some) as they were, started leaving and running when the pigs showed up. You rolled with Harry, running through the night in the neighbourhood, laughing and breathing loudly.

“Fuck! I knew this was gonna end badly!” Harry laughed at you while reaching to grab your hand so you could run as fast as he did. You tightened your grip around his hand once you had it and ran to a dark corner.

You placed your hands on your knees and sighed, breathing deeply. “It could’ve been worse. The pigs could’ve arrested us.”

“I’m pretty sure my negotiation skills would’ve gotten us out anyways.”

You scoffed. “Your white ass face would’ve been enough, baby.”

He laughed and grabbed your hands to keep going further away from the girl’s house and the police car. You both were too drunk to even think correctly about where to go. You sent a text to the groupchat asking if everyone was okay and to meet up at the hotel.

But neither you or Harry could tell what way to go so you walked for a little while, stopping by any bar you came across to get another drink.

You walked for about an hour and you were finally heading back into the city center. Your feet hurt so you stopped in a little park next to a Casino and a crappy motel.

You sat your ass down on a bench and grabbed Harry’s hand to make him sit next to you. He sighed and sat. You watched the sky for a little while.

“The stars look like a bunch of beans. Like a shit ton of beans flying above us.”

You laughed at his drunken comment. “Yep, a sky full of fucking beans.”

You both started singing the Coldplay’s song in harmony but replacing stars with beans all the way through the chorus and cracking up in laughter everytime you emphasize the word ‘beans’.

Harry took a long breath after his giggle and sighed. “Fuck, I’m gonna miss this.”

You looked at him for a second. “What do you mean?”

“Having fun with you like that. I’m gonna miss it.”

“But none of us is going anywhere?” You were pretty confused about his statement.

“Tania wants to settle in Los Angeles.” He turned his head to look at you. “And you know… You’re not…in Los Angeles, you. You’re not.”

You didn’t expect that. You thought if Harry was to ever settle somewhere it’d be in London. “You mean you’re gonna spend all your free time in LA? Fucking LA? Drinking grass smoothies all the time?”

He chortled at your comment. “It seems like that’s the plan.”

You stayed silent for a few minutes, taking the information in. It felt worse than a breakup; you were losing your best-friend and without even knowing it, you threw the goodbye party.

“So you’re really going to marry her and move and we’ll never see each other again?”

Obviously alcohol made it all even more dramatic to you; it was an overwhelming emotion.

“Not never again…”

“C’mon, you know damn well what happens when longtime friends part sides! We’ve watched How I Met Your Mother together!”

He chuckled and then took a deep breath. The air was suddenly heavier, and all the alcohol in your blood was making it hard to keep the focus on the serious conversation.

“We should do one last crazy ass thing together. It’s not like we’re gonna remember it anyway!” Harry pointed the casino with his head.

“You mean blow all of our money on bets and shots of patron?”

“Yep, that’s exactly what I mean.”

You didn’t check your phone as it rang in your pocket and followed up behind Harry running towards the Casino.

You took a last round of shots in the lobby. And you started shouting at Harry, your glass in the air. “You know what? I just remembered you’re getting fucking married, dude! Married? Fucking married. I can’t believe I’m gonna say this but fuck this bitch you’re engaged to.”

Harry laughed and shouted back. “Hey! I’m already fucking this bitch I’m engaged to!”

You cracked up in a laugh. “Noooooo! I mean she sucks! She wants to take you away. Awaaaaaaay.” You hiccuped and took a breath.

“I’m in love with you. I’ve been since like fifth grade or whatever.” You chugged down the rest of your glass.

Harry stopped for a second, he placed his glass on the bar. “Wow. That’s a revelation.”

He giggled and took a sip of his tequila. “I’ve been in love with you since like….. That time in third grade when you punched me in the chin cause there was a bee on me….”

“Oh fuck! I remember…. Your lip bled so much.” You let a little laugh slip through your lips. The alcohol in your blood made you lose sense of the importance of the words you just shared with Harry and what he shared back. And you thought for a second that maybe it was just drunk talk but the stupid smile you couldn’t get off your face reminded you the truth of it: it was going to stink in the morning.

After making sure both of you got enough drinks, you led him in the Casino and stopped at the first roulette table.

“Okay.” You looked at Harry. “What’s the bet though? Cause I will be putting money on something I have no idea how to play.”

“Well if I win, then you have to elope with me.”

“Oh shit.” You took a deep breath. “Fair, but if I win, we are eloping this motherfucker together.”

He scoffed. “Looks like we’re eloping tonight… That word is fucking weird, though. Eloping.”

“Who cares about the word! I’m betting on number 22 and 15. What about you baby?”

Harry took a look at the roulette for a second, placed the cash he had in his pocket on the table. “22;15.” He looked at you with a smug smile.

The dealer spinned the wheel and revealed the winning number. “22. You win.”

You collected your payout with Harry, left a big tip to the server and ran out the Casino to find a chapel.

“This is going to be so bad!!” You laughed out while running with Harry.

“Like every plan you’ve ever put me into.”

You stopped in front of the chapel at the back of the crappy motel.

“I don’t want to get married to Tania… She’s amazing. I love her so much. But it’s so boring. So boring. I want stupid plans and crappy basements party and casinos and unexpected flights and I want to be able to say when I’m 78 and I don’t have no hair left and I smell like old shoes and cheese that I married my best friend and I never regretted anything.”

“You’re being too fucking deep, Harry. There’s a Madonna drag as the officiant in this chapel. You are going to regret this.”

He chuckled before taking your hand. “We, Y/N. We are going to regret this.”

“Yep.”

You took a step into the chapel, glanced at Harry’s face to be met with a big smile and his drunken eyes. “Fuck this, I guess?”

***

You woke up with a terrible headache, your eyes could barely open because the light was too bright in the room. There was a weird smell of old alcohol, carpet and coconut air freshener. You opened your eyes fully only for your vision to be blurry as hell, the ceiling was moving and your head was so heavy, you couldn’t lift it up. You tried to look around you, seeing pulled up green sheets over your naked body and what seemed to be the curves of someone laying next to you. You felt a rumbling in your stomach and that’s the moment you knew; you had to get up…. because you were going to throw up.

You rushed to the bathroom and closed the door behind you. After emptying your stomach, you sat on the floor for a few seconds. The bathroom was small and poorly lit with a little window over the bathtub. You stood up and washed your face, taking the time to look at yourself in the dirty old mirror over the sink. Your hair was a mess and your make up was smudged. You had a huge hickey on your neck and little ones following down to your chest. You got out of the bathroom, holding your head and stumbling slightly. The room was clear since the curtains were pulled, you peaked at who was sleeping in the bed and found Harry, draped in the sheets peacefully snoring. You swallowed the gulp in your throat; this wasn’t good. You checked your phone and to no surprise you had a shit ton of missed calls and texts from your group of friends. Some asking if you’re okay, others where you’re at and some insulting you for not answering.

You gently shook Harry’s body. “Wake up.” He moaned before pulling back the covers to his face. You tugged on them to uncover him, leaving his chest bare. “Wake up, Harry.”

He groaned and turned around to lay on his back, his face turned to the ceiling. “What time is it?”

“It’s almost 9.” He turned to face you, opening slightly his eyes to peek at you. “You’re naked.” He nonchalantly said. You blushed for a second pulling the covers off him to cover yourself. He looked down to himself. “I’m naked, too.”

A floating silence lasted a few seconds before Harry jumped out of bed to find his underwear. “I’m naked! I’m naked. You’re naked. We’re in a bed. We’re in…. Where even are we?”

“In a motel somewhere in Vegas.”

“In Vegas?” His voice got two octaves higher. “Why are we in Vegas?”

“For your bachelor party, Harry. Stop freaking out.”

“Are you asking me not to freak out? We’re in a bloody crappy motel in Vegas and we’re both naked. I can’t remember what happened last night for the life of me and my head is killing me.”

He sat down on the edge of the bed, putting his pants back on. You looked at his back and you could see slight scratches marks with the sun light. You started getting dressed too, as fast as you could. Harry grabbed his phone and started scrolling down. You heard him sigh loudly.

“The fuck we did last night, Y/N?”

“Wish I could give you an answer, Harry. All I remember is getting on the plane and then it’s a black hole.”

“Well…” He got up from the bed, wearing only his trousers. You watched his chest for a second, his tattoos and his glowing chest in the sunlight. You caught yourself staring at him; his shoulders, his chest hair, your glaze going down to his trail.

“Y/N?” Harry’s voice resonated.

“Huh?”

“Did you hear what I said?” He tilted his head to the side and gave you a confused look.

“What did you say?” Your eyes lowered to the floor so that you would stop looking at him.

“I said I hope we didn’t do anything stupid. The wedding is next week. I have a stressed and very angry bride-to-be waiting for me at home and at the look of her texts, I’m in for a bad fight.”

You pinched your lips at the thought. What if you did something stupid? What if you messed up? It was already a stressful time for them. And you stewed in with a giant weekend party in Vegas when the instruction was clear: no big party.

“Let’s go find the others and finish our weekend.”

Harry scoffed as he picked up his shirt. “I’m going home. I’m sorry if I’m breaking the mood but I’m hopping on the next flight back to LA.”

***

You couldn’t quite figure out how to place the flashbacks from the weekend. It was already Monday and the wedding was in 6 days. You had flashes of a party in a small and unknown apartment and running in the streets with Harry and playing in a Casino but still nothing on how you got into the motel with him. Harry went back home on Saturday morning and from his voice message last night; he got quite into fight with Tania. She wasn’t happy at all with the Vegas plan but Harry reassured her and apparently everything was better today. You wondered if Harry remembered anything more than you, maybe he could fill in the blanks.

You knew the week was going to go fast and the wedding would be here sooner than you’d think, so you just hoped nothing unexpected would come back to you or him.

On Wednesday, you met up with Harry and the groomsmen for last minute check-ins for the wedding. You walked into the manor Harry reserved for the ceremony and as an obvious bad sign, Tania didn’t even said hello to you and avoided any eye-contact. You kinda wanted to apologize to her. After all, you did mess up a little bit.

“Hey guys.” You walked up to where your friends was.

“Hey Y/N. Did you pick up the ring from the jeweler?” Harry didn’t even look at you. He was signing some papers with the caterer and just asked the question without looking up.

“Yep. Got it right in the bag.”

Harry gave you a little look and you felt weird about it. It wasn’t his usual ‘thanks for doing the job’ look or anything tender. It was cold and almost professional.

You went over your check-ins with the groomsmen. You didn’t talk to Harry for the two hours you were there, not a word or a look. You knew something was off so once the work was done, you asked him to meet you in the bathroom.

You were standing next to the sink, checking your reflection when Harry walked in.

“Is there something wrong with the ceremony?” He asked bluntly.

“No.. Um… I just wanted… needed… to talk to you.”

“About?” He wanted to cut the conversation short and you hated this feeling in your stomach.

You sighed and smiled tenderly to him. “Well… How are you feeling? The big day is so close.”

“I’m feeling okay.” His answer was sharp but you were desperate to understand what was going on.

“Harry… What’s wrong? Why are you so cold?” You insisted.

He took a deep breath and closed the door behind him, making sure it’s locked.

“You know how I said I hope we didn’t do anything stupid in Vegas?”

“Yes.” You were confused about where he was going with that but it seemed bad.

“Well, we did something stupid.” His jaw clenched and you felt out of breath. “We did something so fucking stupid, Y/N.” You swallowed the gulp in your throat. “We fucked. I can’t even believe it. I don’t even remember how we ended up in that crappy fucking room. All I remember is how I had sex with….” He didn’t even look at you. “I cheated on my wife, before we even fucking got married.”

You couldn’t say anything, the images slowly came back to you.

“You have nothing to say, huh?”

Your ‘humour coping mechanism in stressful situations’ reflex kicked in at the wrong time. “Well, technically it’s not cheating, the bachelor party is a single man party.” You laughed nervously.

“It’s all your fault. We said no fucking party. No big stupid plans, but you had to go against our wishes because you’re so fucking selfish.”

You couldn’t say a word. You never seen Harry so mad at you before.

“Look, I’m sorry your dating life is such a mess. And that you can’t find anyone, but I did. I found someone. Someone amazing and then I fucked this shit up because you couldn’t go without one party.” He rapidly passed his hand through his hair, and sighed.

You felt anger boiling down in your stomach. Him being mad was comprehensible but it wasn’t all your fault.

“You fucked this shit up, yourself. I wanted to throw a fun bachelor party for my best friend. You wouldn’t have had sex with me if you didn’t wanted to. Because deep down, you know you don’t want this marriage. You don’t want to be stuck with Miss Boring Pants and spend the rest of your life here in LA, drinking grass smoothies and having to partake in her posh high standard life. You know that’s not what you want. You know it was premature to propose so soon in the relationship. You’re mad at yourself, Harry. Get a grip. You shouldn’t do this.”

It all slipped. You just couldn’t hold it in.

“I shouldn’t do what?” Harry’s face was red, his nostrils were open and the vein on his neck was popping. You could tell he was holding back the tears at the gate.

You took a deep breath and a calm voice. “Get married. You shouldn’t get married.”

He filled his lungs with air and exhaled loudly, trying to keep his composure.

“Listen carefully Y/N. You are nobody to tell me what I should or shouldn't do. What happened in Vegas was a drunken mistake and I won’t let it ruin the best day of my life. I won’t let you ruin the best day of my life. So here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to go through the ceremony with no slips and then I’m moving to LA with Tania. And you, you move out of my life.”

Your heart sank to your stomach, and your face was boiling; the tears slowly gathering in your eyes.

“You don’t mean it.” Your voice was almost like a whisper.

“I do, Y/N. From now on, I just want to make sure this wedding is the perfect wedding Tania wants.”

He unlocked the door of the bathroom and left without looking back. You brought your hand to your chest as if it would soothe the pain and let the tears flow down your face. It couldn’t be real.

***

It was hard going on like nothing happened but if there was anything you could do right now was make sure you got your best-woman duties done. The wedding was tomorrow and you had to finish your speech. What would you even say? “To my ex-best friend, I wish you the best to you and your boring wife.” That sounds about right.

You were waiting for Jeff to come in with the last informations regarding the ceremony so that tomorrow everything goes according to the plan. You heard a knock on your door, you got up thinking Jeff came in early and opened up. A postman with a big envelope was standing there.

“Y/N Y/L/N?” He asked, looking up from his notes.

“Yes, herself.”

He asked for your id and verified it. “That’s for you.” He handed you the enveloppe and after you took it, asked for you to sign the delivery papers.

You thanked him and got back inside. You sat on the sofa to open it, there was a Vegas postage on it and your heart missed a bit.

You slowly opened the envelope. Inside you found a marriage license legally binding you and Harry for life. You pinched your lips and took a deep breath. This was a mess, a huge mess.

How on point was this news? Good way to make sure his ceremony goes exactly like they planned when you’re going to come in and let them know they can’t get married anymore.

You sat back and tried to clear your mind.

You were officially married to Harry…. And Harry is about to actually get married tomorrow. This didn’t make much sense but you had to think of a solution and quick.

#harry styles #harry styles writing #harry styles imagine #harry styles oneshot #harry styles smut #harry styles fluff #harry styles angst #harry styles blurbs #harry styles drabbles #writings #fanfiction #harry styles fanfiction #fanfic #nwftbb

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andythane · 4 years ago

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HOLY WATER CANNOT HELP YOU NOW I’VE COME TO BURN YOUR KINGDOM DOWN

MAY 19TH, 2021. OUTSIDE OF LAFAYETTE, LOUISIANA. notes & tw: this is literally all just bloody, brutal violence of every kind. andy, along side wes and wyatt, gets revenge on the rogue’s responsible for attacking rowan in february. italics are flashbacks, ps. tw for very graphic murder, lots of blood, violence, gore (eye, specifically), stabbing, decapitation/dismemberment, tc ahead. please read at your own discretion, it’s a lot.

The first time he kills someone, he’s twenty years old. Four months after he’d been officially patched into the club, reconciled with Rowan, and started this new chapter of his life. He knew what the patch sewn to his cut meant -- He had grown up next to it, had seen his father come home at all hours of the night covered in blood with a smile on his face as he slapped his gun onto the kitchen table and happily declared he needed a beer. That being said, doing it yourself and hearing stories were so comically different it made his head spin.

Most of the ride, he’s quiet, staring out the window of the Wyatt’s jeep as they drive through the backroads. There’s not much conversation to be had once they’ve gone over the plan, all three men knowing exactly what they’re going to this warehouse for. It’s roughly a two hour car ride, giving Andy enough time to go mentally go over the weapons he’s brought with him -- The gun tucked into his cut, one tucked into the waistband of his pants, one strapped to his ankle; The knife tucked in his boot strap, the other in the sheath of his belt. He’s nothing if not prepared. Andy goes over their placement for the thousandth, unneeded time, thinking through every what if scenario he could find himself in. It’s not often that his paranoid nature actually becomes a benefit.

They know the layout of the building, where each of them will cover, and the amount of people that will be there -- But he likes to prepare for the worst and the best, knowing from experience that they’re likely going to meet a mixture of both. Andy’s planned and executed this kind of thing enough times to know how to go about it blindfolded. At this point, it’s just like riding a bike.

He wonders what Wes is thinking, if his mind drifts back to Jace asleep at home, unaware of the violence going on around him; If Wyatt is imagining Iris in her hospital bed three months ago, scared of the oxygen mask strapped to her face. All Andy can think of is Rowan, sobbing in his arms while struggling not to move and potentially injure herself further, tearfully telling him why she hadn’t shown up to dinner.

It’s been a while since he’s found himself in this kind of mindset, having hung up his metaphoric hat when it comes to hitman jobs in the last few years. After his time in prison, Andy knew he had to lay low -- Being on parole, and having a daughter to raise changed his priorities. While the money from his ‘freelancing’ had been nice, he and Rowan had enough saved to last them a lifetime, especially with his cut of the guns the club sold, and her salary. There was no need for it now, not like when they were struggling to pay rent and put Rowan through school. Though, he couldn’t deny the high that came with planning a job was one Andy didn’t know he desperately missed. It used to scare him, how exciting he found this -- The rush that came from a stake out, figuring out each detail all the way down to the small possibility, the thrill of actually pulling his gun and breaking through the door. Now he welcomes it like an old friend.

He always imagined it would be a fair fight -- Or at least, not like this. Whenever the thought came to mind, he pictured himself wrestling some bond villain looking guy, the two diving for the gun that had been cast aside. It was naive, childish even -- But he didn’t expect that he’d be pointing his gun at someone who couldn’t be much older than him, one who was sobbing through swollen eyes, pleading for his life. His father kept his hand’s firmly planted on the kid’s shoulder’s to keep him from squirming out of the rickety chair, acting like this was a prize for a job well done. This could easily have been me, Andy thinks. Had this job gone wrong, he has no doubt Cronus wouldn’t hesitate to put him into that chair, make an example out of his son. Only, it didn’t. It was nothing short of an absolute success.

His father says something, but Andy doesn’t hear it. Jason is somewhere in the background cheering him on. Andy’s heart is pounding in his ears, both hands holding tightly to his gun, fighting to conceal the fact that they’re shaking. The gun is pointed directly at the poor kid’s head, Cronus’ steady hands keeping him from getting away from his obvious fate. Andy glances to his father for a moment, the wild look in the man’s surely meant to be read as adrenaline fueled pride. This is Andy’s first job after being patched in, and he had proved himself thus far. Now he just needed to finish this. Andy wishes he had the strength to lift his arms just that much higher, and put a bullet in his father’s head.

In that moment, he thinks of Rowan; Part of him wishes he hadn’t, based on the way his jaw clenches and his chest constricts -- He doesn’t want her to ever know about the horrible things he’s going to do, the horrible thing he’s about to do. Rowan shouldn’t have to see him for what he really is, what he’ll grow up to be: A monster. The rational part of himself reminds him that she already knows, and she’s still waiting for him at home, ready to pull him into open arms once he passes through the front door.

He pulls the trigger.

The kid’s blood splatters across Andy’s face.

They move quietly, each taking different sections of the warehouse. Wes covers the open space where the guns lie, Wyatt takes the small offices turned into ‘bedrooms’, while Andy takes the conference turned war room. He knows this is only a piece of the Rogues puzzle, but it’s a step in the right direction. They don’t plan on leaving anyone behind to tell the others what happened -- The grizzly scene and blood splattered across the walls will paint the picture for them.

His back remains against the wall, pulling his gun from his cut as he moves quietly, the three men in the conference room too distracted by their own conversation to notice Andy slipped into the dimly lit room. He makes presence known by firing a bullet into one man’s -- His name is Sam, based on the conversation Andy heard before entering -- knee, which creates a flurry of action as everyone tries to dive for the guns on the table. It’s the obvious move, one that Andy had anticipated. His hand reaches for the underside of the table between the four men seconds after his gun first fires, sending the flimsy plastic table over, their guns scattered and out of reach.

Sam fits one of the descriptions Will gave him, of a shorter, stocky man, blacked out ink covering him aside from a poorly done mermaid tattoo covering his throat. The man across from Sam fits the bill, as well -- Blonde, long hair, scar across his cheek, entire right arm covered in blacked out tattoos. Jack, Andy’s memory recalls. The man in question tries to make a run for one of the guns, but Andy stops him with a bullet to the stomach. Enough to knock him down, but not enough to immediately kill him. He wants them alive for this, to feel the same terror and pain Rowan did that night. They’re not going to be lucky enough to get a bullet to the head first.

The third and final man is one Andy recognizes now that he’s face to face. His name is Danny, but he’d been called Tex during his time in the club. (The nickname was stupid then, and it’s stupid now, Andy thinks.) He had his ink blacked out and left town roughly ten years ago after screwing the club over. The surprise reunion is enough to catch Tex off guard, enough that he hesitates, eyes narrowing as he takes in the scene in front of them. Both Sam and Jack bleeding on the floor, the former clutching his leg and screaming to the third to Do something, you fucking idiot. So, he does. The man charges forward, managing to knock Andy to the ground given the fact that he’s got about a hundred pounds on him.

They struggle as Tex tries to wrestle the gun away from Andy, before it gets thrown to the side in the fight. Punches are thrown on both ends, a ringing settling in Andy’s ears after a particular blow to the side of his head, though it doesn’t deter him. Andy manages to roll them over, holding the other man down with knee pressing down on his throat. Tex claws, scratches, and hits Andy in an attempt to get out from under him, but the cut off of oxygen makes it more difficult. He gets a few good blows in, though -- There’s blood dribbling down Andy’s arms from scratches, bruises that have already begun to form. He doesn’t notice, too focused on keeping the man under him from getting out of his grip. His hands move to hold Tex’s head, Andy’s thumbs digging into the inner corners of his eyes, gouging them as deeply as he can manage.

He can’t help but wonder if the three men have realized this isn’t about killing them; It’s about watching them suffer.

The fact that Tyson is still breathing is enough to send Andy into a tailspin. He had hoped the spineless piece of shit had fucked off somewhere, given that he hadn’t made an appearance in his and Rowan’s life in quite some time. Andy’s attempts at optimism always seem to be met with harsh reality, though, one that consistently proves the obvious: It’s childish to try and see the best out of a situation like this. He knows this as he throws the man off his front porch, knowing he has to take care of this problem himself -- Restraining orders and the local cops just aren’t going to cut it. Not when he and Rowan have a fragile six month old daughter sleeping in a crib down the hall.

His downfall is the fact that he reacts, he doesn’t plan. Andy knows better. The reason he’s been so successful with the club is his commitment to discretion, detail, and planning. He analyzes that night over and over for the next three years from the comfort of his prison cell, imagining how he would have killed Tyson if he had taken the time to do it properly -- Instead of grabbing his baseball bat, and kicking the front door in. He would have made it last longer, Andy decided. Prolong his suffering, before letting him gain a shred of hope that he’d make it out alive — Before finally putting him in the ground. That being said, the satisfaction that comes from the look of pure fear on Tyson’s face the moment he sees Andy come through the door? Unmatched.

The mental image is one that never fails to bring him a swell of pride. He can still hear the sound of his bat crushing bone, feel the way his heart skipped a beat with each and every hit. It didn’t matter if there was blood flying, covering him in the evidence; The fact that he hadn’t been quiet in his entrance; The sound of distant sirens headed their way, after a loud, shrill scream rang out. All that mattered was crushing Tyson’s skull, ending the iron grip he’s had on Rowan’s life for the better half of a decade. He didn’t care what happened next, as long as his wife and daughter were able to live in a world where Tyson Grant didn’t.

He only regrets not being able to finish the job that night.

It occurs to him, as his foot comes stomping down on Sam’s already shot knee, that he hasn’t done anything like this since prison. He’s gone on runs, jobs, the works -- Hell, he even threatened to brain Will in his own home. Everything pales in comparison, though. In prison, they had to be more creative; Breaking bones, cutting off fingers, slitting throats before the guards showed up. It was all quick and dirty, done by hand. There was no choice in the matter -- If he wanted to finish out his sentence, see his wife and daughter, even have a chance of making it to the end of the week at all, Andy had to get rid of the other guy. The protection that came with being a Primordial didn’t go as far as one would hope. There’s a reason they used to refer to him as the Grim Reaper. Years later, and he’s made it clear that he hasn’t lost his touch.

This man doesn’t want to fucking die, though. The way he keeps clawing at Andy, yelling obscenities between each scream of pain. He makes proclamations about how he’s going to kill Andy, calling him every name in the book as he tries and fails to fight for his life. A hard kick to the head shuts him up for a moment, disorienting him enough before Sam musters up enough energy to stab Andy in the calf, almost successful in knocking him to the floor. Clearly, the man got a last surge of something, accompanied by a knife he hadn’t realized Sam had on him. This only provokes an annoyed grunt and eye roll from Andy. He stumbles down onto one knee from the surprise of the movement, a stab to the man’s arm with the knife from his boot strap gets Sam to let go. He does, going limp as his knife is stuck in Andy’s calf. It doesn’t stop him from continuing the effort though, within a moment Andy’s on top of his unconscious victim, stabbing him in the chest over and over again like he’s in a cheap horror movie.

In that moment, he loses himself -- Something snaps, taking him back to the night he’d gotten a call that Rowan was in the hospital, the way he so desperately pushed down all of the anger and rage that came with knowing she’d been hurt at the hands of these assholes. Everything he’s fought to hold at bay for the sake of his wife, the kids, his sobriety, the club -- It all bubbles to the surface now, when he’s not worrying about keeping the kids safe and Rowan above water. When all there is is this room, and him, and the people that have to pay for the crimes they’ve committed.

Every emotion he’s expertly avoided, every ounce of it boils over as he stabs the Rogue over and over until they’re both covered in blood. The need for vengeance for what they did, the way they turned Rowan’s life upside down and left her afraid to look over her shoulder; Guilt over the fact that Andy, yet again, couldn’t protect the person he holds so dearly; The power that comes with knowing these men are at his mercy, ready to beg for their lives in a last ditch effort to survive what’s coming next. It all hits him like a freight train, leaving him a little dizzy. Though, that may be from the hits he’s taken himself, blood he’s lost -- Andy doesn’t take the time to find out. Instead, he comes to once he realizes the man under him is long dead, having succumbed to the injuries inflicted after the first few stabs.

The revelation stuns Andy momentarily, as he tries to catch his breath. If there was any witness to this, they’d see how frenzied the moment had become, that there was far more pent of emotion attached to this than Andy initially realized. Eyes glance to the two men left -- Tex, having passed out, and Jack slumped against a wall trying to stay conscious, a string of profanities passing his lips in a hoarse voice. His attention turns to his hands after that, steady but covered in a mixture of Sam’s blood and his own. A blood soaked piece of hair falls forward and onto his cheek as Andy wipes his hands off on his shirt, a wave of frustration running through him. Of fucking course he’d get blood in his hair, and now -- More on his face. He makes a mental note to book an appointment for a haircut.

They cut the man’s fingers off one by one, moving slowly and deliberately. The man in question, Gerald, is tied to a chair in the kitchen of the prison, thanks to a guard that’s on the MC’s payroll. No one is going to give a second thought to the sound of muffled screams or a hacksaw from the locked up tool shed going missing for the night. Andy’s only been out of the hospital for a day at this point -- The guy he’s torturing, having been responsible for his brush with near-death. Gerald felt bold enough to go after Andy with a homemade shank, trying to get even for some issue he held with Cronus. It was laughable to him, considering Andy hated his father just as much as this sorry bastard.

Andy had hoped to make it through his sentence by keeping his head down (for the most part, at least) doing what he needed, sticking with the right crowd -- Club members who were serving life sentences. His name gained him respect, plenty of other inmates happy to keep an eye on Cronus’ boy, but the revenge he’s getting tonight is what gains him his reputation. He becomes the go-to for these kinds of things, the one his fellow club members call on to take care of problems they have behind bars. Rowan’s words ring in his head -- Do what you have to do to stay alive. Come back to me. Playing executioner for the club wasn’t his first choice, but if it’s what kept him safe and gets him home, so fucking be it. Plus, killing the man who had tried to murder him in the showers brought Andy plenty of satisfaction. What kind of person would he be if he let some jaded idiot get away with almost killing him, right?

First the fingers, then his hands, and so on and so forth -- Dismemberment isn’t something new, Andy himself has had to cut up a few bodies so they can get rid of the evidence before. Though, typically speaking, the person isn’t still alive as they do it. Watching this guy suffer was just icing on the cake. Each time Gerald passes out, they cauterize the wound and pull out the smelling salts to give him a fake sense of safety -- That now they’re done, eye for an eye, the message is sent. Only each time he’s lulled into a half-dazed security, they stuff the rag back in his mouth and cut off another limb. It was going to be a long night.

He finds himself with a moment where he can tend to the wound he’s gotten — It's not a particularly deep stab, but it hurts like a bitch and that stupid knife looks fucking dull once he pulls it out and can actually get a good look at it. Not wasting anytime, and to make sure he doesn’t lose too much blood, Andy works quickly. The last thing he needs is to pass out and run the risk of getting himself killed, or having to have Wes haul him out over his shoulder. He has to get creative for now, knowing they can’t exactly make a pit stop at the ER on the way back and he doesn’t want to call Rowan after, given the fact that they’re bringing one of the Rogues back with them to get information out of -- So he moves to rip off part of Sam’s torn pant leg so that he can get pressure on the wound. Using a piece of folded up denim, he holds it against his injury, tying a piece tightly around his calf to keep it in place. It’s not great, but it’ll do for now, until he can get to a proper first aid kit. Andy can practically hear Rowan in the back of his head, scolding him for getting hurt in the first place. Once she knows the context, he’d imagine she probably wouldn’t think much of the injury after.

The sound of Tex’s screams pulled his attention, the man having regained consciousness and begun to panic -- The knee jerk reaction from Andy is to pull his gun back out, silencing Tex with a bullet to the chest. Andy unloads the rest of his clip into the man as he approaches, finding himself feeling lighter and lighter with each shot, despite the fact that he’s now limping. An unbearable amount of helplessness has weighed on him the last six months — Like all he can do is watch these terrible things happen from the sidelines, only able to help tend to the aftermath rather than keep his loved ones safe. What has left him lying awake at night as been the feeling that he’s constantly one step behind, always a minute too late — Whether it’s the shipment getting hijacked and Blake getting to him hours later, homes being burned down while he’s shooting up a warehouse, his own wife lying beaten and bloody in the middle of the street while he sits at a restaurant waiting for her. One thing after the other.

It’s unclear what kind of man it makes him to take such pleasure in revenge -- That he isn’t haunted at night by the people he’s killed or the homes he’s wrecked for the right amount of cash. Maybe it’s proof that he really is his father’s son, or that he’s just as heartless as people believe him to be. Andy’s not sure if it matters much at this point. The idea of knowing he is sending these assholes to an early grave gives him a sense of peace he hasn’t felt in a long time, one he wasn’t sure he’d ever know again after Valentine’s Day. This isn’t the end of the Rogues, but it’s retribution for what they’ve done, bringing him more clarity than ever before. Anyone who hurts the people he loves deserves to die screaming.

Confusion finds him when the sound of a gun firing fills his ears with a familiar ringing, a bullet hitting the dead man on the ground in front of him rather than its intended target. Andy follows the direction it came from to find a wild eyed Jack, having managed to pull himself across the floor in a bloody heap, far enough to get to a gun, clearly struggling to hold himself up right even while propped against the turned over table. He had the element of surprise on his side, but Andy has the benefit of not having been shot in the stomach -- So he moves quickly across the small room, easily smacking the gun out of the man’s hand. It’s clear Jack is running on pure adrenaline and spite, though now that he got his one shot in, it’s running out. Fists colliding with the man’s jaw only speed up the process, though before he finally gives up and slumps over to side and lands on the floor -- He spits blood back at Andy, clearly trying to get in one last fuck you before he dies. Jack doesn’t get much of a reaction out of Andy, instead he stands up fully, giving the half-conscious man a good look before the heel of his boot meets his head over and over until he is long dead and unrecognizable.

#blood tw #murder tw #violence tw #gore tw #death tw #eye gore tw #stabbing tw #decapitation tw #overkill tw #gun tw #dismemberment tw #gun violence tw #stalking tw #prison tw #if i missed any sort of tw or tag for a tw please give me a shout!!!!#self 02.#it's been a long long time since i've been able to write andy going feral.............................. i need a drink <3

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zacc-attacc · 4 years ago

Note

Firstly - I really love good puns, so your username made my day xD

Then, for your request thing - would you maybe write a Sprace OneShot that plays in the canon era? Maybe some sort of friends-to-lovers thing?

Thanks :)

First of all, thank you for the request! And for the compliment, of course.

ANYWAYS, HISTORICAL SPRACE, HERE WE GO BABS.

Sweet-Talker- A Historical Sprace Fic

Word Count: 2k

I wasn’t supposed to fall in love. Period. Especially with a boy. I was Spot Conlon, the King of Brooklyn. Not some blithering idiot who brings flowers to some idiot boy halfway across New York. I had made a pledge, not only to myself but to the others. I was responsible for them.

So why was I falling for a stupid blond Manhattan boy with an addiction to soggy cigars?

I still remember the first time I saw him-- on a pape I was selling to a regular buyer. It was just a black and white picture, which hardly did any justice to how handsome he was in color. But even among 20 or so other newsboys, I felt a flutter in my stomach when I looked into his eyes.

Disgusting, I thought as I sold the paper. Is this what the boys were talking about? Sparks flying and all that sappy shit?

If I had been smart, I would’ve sold all my papes and kept my distance from the strike. From Cigar Boy.

Brooklyn don’t get caught up in things that ain’t our deal, I reminded myself.

But Race, as I learned later, tends to bring out the worst in me. So I did the dumb thing. I sold all but one of my papes (I couldn’t bring myself to just… Give him away like that. For what? A penny?) and ran to Manhattan.

Where it was a full-blown war. Pulitzer had called in dozens of goons (but, of course, couldn’t be bothered to show up himself), an army of policemen, and the only cop the newsboys truly feared-- Snyder. The only man who had succeeded in locking up the two most resilient Newsies of New York- Jack Kelly, and yours truly.

I watched in horror as bottles were thrown, teenage boys were hit by adults, even a smaller boy who needed a crutch to walk was beaten with his own crutch. And I knew I couldn’t do the smart thing, the Brooklyn thing ever again. Not for this.

I ran to join my brethren, letting myself give in to the adrenaline of a battle. Luckily for me, most people were too lost in the chaos to notice me.

All except for one.

As cops ran, chasing boys as if they were prey that they would likely never catch, who other than Cigar Boy walked over to me, spitting blood out of his mouth and extending his hand for a handshake.

“Well, well, well, to whats do we owe the pleasure of Spot Conlon of Brooklyn?” He said, giving me a tired grin. He didn’t have a cigar between his lips, but he did have one sticking out of his pocket. I shook his hand, noticing that even after he had literally been beaten up for an hour plus, his handshake was firm.

“Okay there, Sluggo, we’ll talk when you ain’t bleeding from the head,” I said gruffly, turning and starting to walk back towards Brooklyn. If I could convince the boys, we could come back later and tell Manhattan we were joining the strike.

“The lodge is this was,” the boy pointed to the opposite direction of where I was heading. I gave a light laugh.

“No, no. I’s best get goin’ so you’s can patch up.”

“There ain’t no way I’s letting you walk halfway across New York after getting beaten up,” the boy protested, grabbing my arm and pulling me towards the lodge.

“I’ve been through worse,” I protested, attempting to dislodge my arm from his grasp.

“Well, ya’int goin’ through that again. Now c’mon. We has some bandages back at the lodge for that cut of yours,” he said, gesturing to the deep cut in my upper arm. I sighed in defeat and started walking.

“Just so you know… This is just to make sure yous don’t pass out in the streets on the way there,” I clarified. The boy just rolled his eyes and chuckled.

“For New York’s most feared Newsie, you sure is worried about someone you just met today.”

“I’m feared, but I an’t heartless, sweet-talker. I don’t want another life on my conscience.” Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. What kind of monster did he think I was? Race stopped walking. I looked up and saw a complex setup of fire escapes, rails, and a rooftop where a newsboy who could only be Jack Kelly was pacing.

“Fair enough. Well, we’s here… So I’s just gonna swing up, grab my stuff, I can meet you down here,” the boy said, grabbing onto some rungs of a fire escape and climbing up with surprising nimbleness. It was as if the battle had barely affected him. That, or he was still riding the adrenaline rush.

“No, no. Take care of your boys. I won’t die,” I said, hearing the panic in my tone. If Jack saw me with no reinforcements, he’d start to think we were fully on board. And if Brooklyn wasn’t, and word got around that I had already fought… It wouldn’t be good. They would accuse me of being a traitor. I couldn’t risk that.

“Ey, no, that wasn’t part of our agreement!” he yelled as I walked away. I could hear the smile in his voice.

“Next time, have me shake on it, sweet-talker!” I shouted back, turning around to see his impish grin. My muscles were screaming in protest from overuse, but I had to get home before dark.

“The name’s Racetrack Higgins!” was the last I heard before breaking into a sprint.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

And here we are now. Strike over, prices back, nobody dead, everyone happy.

Except for me.

Because I wasn’t supposed to fall in love, but here it came. Striding down the hill with a cigar in its mouth.

I could feel the unease in the boys beside me. We weren’t used to soloing Newsboys in our area, barely after selling hours, no less.

“Don’t worry, I’ll handle it,” I muttered to them, walking towards Race.

“What. Are. You. Doing. Here,” I hissed, grabbing his shoulders and fake-shoving him to look like I was giving him a serious talking-to. He couldn’t know we knew each other. It had to look like we were fighting.

“Well, Conlon, I thought we’d had a moment there,” Race whisper-shouted back, shoving me as well. I lowered my voice to an even quieter tone.

“Meet me in your alleyway after sundown.”

He looked at me, confusion on his face, but nodded numbly and ran away.

I heaved a sigh and turned to go spin some fake tale about why he was there.

That boy is going to be the death of me.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

“Why’d you chase me out like that, Conlon?” Race asked, leaning against the brick wall of the Newsboy lodge. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest.

I hated it.

“Because, Higgins, the boys don’t like strange Manhattan Newsies on our turf,” I half-spat. How stupid could he get? Didn’t he understand what was at stake here?

“You’re mad at me,” he said, his eyes flashing with realization.

“Yeah, no shit,” I muttered, starting to pace. This was a bad idea. Why did I keep letting myself come back to him? Why was I constantly subjecting myself to the one thing I couldn’t have?

“Why? I just wanted to see you again,” he protested, walking towards me. I turned around to face him, my nose practically touching his chin.

“��Cause we ain’t supposed to be friends. The boys see you hangin’ around Brooklyn, they’ll think yous tryin’ to prove something. And you know what they do to boys that ain’t ours? They beat ‘em up. Then, they bring them to me. And I decide if they’s gets a real pounding. But do I have a choice? No! Once they’s decides yous getting beat, my say hardly matters. If I randomly tell them to let someone go, I’m considered soft. Then we both get beat. Do you see what they’ve done to some boys? I ain’t letting that happen to you, Race! I’m not patching up your wounds because I couldn’t control-”

“Spot.,” Race cut me off. I froze. It was the first time he had used my full name.

“What?” I asked bitterly. I noticed my eyes were burning. Why were they burning? What was this hellish sensation?

I felt something warm trickle down my face.

Oh. My. God. I was crying. Crying! I hadn’t cried in four years! All about some idiot boy who had lovely eyes and blond hair and was empathetic and made me genuinely laugh and feel safe for the first time in years-

Race stepped forward, crushing the distance between us in one stride (damn tall people), and then… Hugged me.

I hadn’t been really hugged in seven years, since I had made it to Brooklyn. Well, I had received bro hugs. Light ‘ey, whaddup’ hugs. But this… This was the type of hug that I hadn’t received since my parents had died. The type of hug that shields you from the outside world, that makes you feel like an atomic bomb could go off and they could protect you from it.

It was so strange, so human. I hadn’t been treated like a real person for so long.

“It’s really like that, huh,” Race whispered, stroking my back. I felt goosebumps appear on my skin. How much feeling had I forced myself to miss out on?

“It’s just… A lot. I mean… I’ve always known I would give my life for those boys, they’re my everything. But… I don’t know if they would for me. I don’t even know how much they truly respect me. I can’t even say if they’d respect this new rule I’ve been thinking of putting in place,” I said, not moving from my place in Race’s grasp.

“And what would that be?” Race muttered, rocking back and forth. It was… nice.

“No beating up on Racetrack Higgins ‘cause he deserves the world,” I said, my voice still muffled in his shirt. He chuckled.

“I hardly deserve the world… But… Could I have you?” there was this caution in his voice, so different from the constant suave tone he took on while talking with me. But, then again, I of all people was sobbing into a boy’s chest, so this night turned out to be the night of all the unthinkable.

“I don’t know if that’s what you really want, but… You can have me, sweet-talker,” I said, tipping up my head and meeting his lips in a kiss.

It wasn’t sudden, or brash like most would’ve thought our first kiss would be like. No, it was slow and sweet. Because even if our relationship was loud and chaotic, we could take pieces of it as slow as we wanted.

And now, I can say that my sweet-talkers lips are just as sweet as his words.

A/N: Thank y’all so much for reading! if you have any sort of prompts, pop on over to my asks! Love y’all! <3

#newsies #spot conlon #racetrack higgins #historical #newsies the broadway musical #fanfiction #spot conlon x racetrack higgins #sprace #racetrack higgins X spot conlon #strike #newsies fanfiction #sprace fanfiction #dice writes

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gayenerd · 4 years ago

Text

Green Day Deals with the "Rock Star" Dookie

by Tom Lanham

(First appeared in BAM Magazine, March 10, 1995)

Young, loud, and snotty equals beaucoup bucks? What pencil-pushing, graph-charting trend spotter could've predicted it? But the facts speak for themselves: As of late February, Dookie--the brattish, snap 'n' snarl Reprise salvo from Berkeley's sloppy punk trio, Green Day--has sold six million copies. Six million. Chances are, somebody on your block is jumping up and down in his living room at this very moment to the scrap-metal power chords and ardent apathy of "Longview," "Burnout," "Basket Case," or "When I Come Around" and getting lost in the teen abandon of these testy 22-year-olds--weasel-voiced, Montgomery-Clift-like charismatic singer/guitarist Billie Joe; tom-tom tribal percussionist Tre Cool (of the ever-morphing hair-color fame); and bassist Mike Dirnt (who survived Green Day's appearance at Woodstock '94, although several of his teeth did not).

Yes, punk rock is a marketable phenomenon these days, leaving many involved with the music's initial late-'70s, early-'80s wave scratching their heads, wondering why it didn't take the first time around. Public reaction started as curiosity ("Hey, honey, c'mere and lookit these goofy, green-haired little whippersnappers in an insane asylum on MTV!"), but spiraled up to rock-diet necessity (Green Day just won Grammy and they're nominated for quite a few Bammies as well, including such categories as Outstanding Group, Outstanding Album, and Outstanding Song--"Longview" and "Basket Case"). The fact that they've been nominated at all probably sends a shiver up the old dinosaur backbones of Eddie Money, Huey Lewis, and Boz Scaggs, a time-creepy feeling of "Gee, what the hell do we do now?" Because this isn't just some flash-in-the-pan punk movement, folks--this is a youth movement; Green Day are, as they hiply term it, "bored in the 'burbs," and reaching out, through TV and radio, like some prodigal preachers to other American kids who sense the same slacker ennui. Obviously, we're talking truckloads of kids.

Ironically, the more fame edges into the Green Day ruffians' lives, the more mature they seem to become. They've turned down all interview requests as of late, even People magazine, preferring to lay low until this tide of interest recedes. Billie Joe got married last autumn, and spent his honeymoon--not in any exotic, expensive locale--but in Berkeley's grand old Claremont Hotel. Cool recently became a father, and Billie Joe's child is due any day now. It's a responsibility they've both eagerly undertaken. Rob Cavallo, the boys' coproducer and A&R man at Reprise, swears they're "old souls, the smartest young kids I've ever met." It rings true.

The first time I spoke with Green Day, in January of '94, Cool, Dirnt, and Billie Joe were lazing around their dingy basement apartment in Berkeley, sitting on chairs and couches with potentially painful springs poking through. Rock 'n' roll bubblegum cards were scattered across a coffee table, along with several bongs of various sizes, plus a four-and-a-half foot red plastic pipe dubbed "Bongzilla" leaned against a doorway. The only wall decoration, besides a Ren & Stimpy poster, was a Twister game mat nailed up in its entirety, presumably for high-schoolish humor's sake.

When I'd met Billie Joe a few months earlier at a campus concert, his hair was dyed lime-green and featured squidlike tufts. Now it was dark brown, with only two tufts remaining, and both his ears and nose had piercings. Periodically during the interview, he'd ram a finger into that pierced nostril, rummage around, then stare idly at the resultant booger before flicking it on to the carpet. Cool wandered out of the rec room for several minutes, but returned, red-eyed, to proudly proclaim, "Lookit me! I'm stoned, dude!" Dirnt--when he wasn't strumming an acoustic guitar--kept watching their windowsill Sea Monkey tank, finally noting, "Hey, these Sea Monkeys look just like sperm!"

Despite all these schoolboy, poo-poo wit trappings (dookie, after all, is kiddie slang for excrement), there was a sense of seasoned wisdom about them, a feeling that they were, as Cavallo postulated, truly old souls. Like the class clown who frustrates all of his teachers by also maintaining a 4.0 grade average, Green Day can afford to play because their work--brilliantly skewed three-minute pop songs, delivered with such vehemence and vitriol you don't dare doubt them--certainly speaks for itself. But, sooner or later, of course, the band has to speak for itself, too, so what follows is a set of excerpts from that first ratty-digs meeting, as well as a later chat with Billie Joe, sans sidekicks. How did Green Day take over the rock world in less than a year? That's the six-million-copy question, and hopefully we'll provide a few answers.

* * *

So punk is back, whether America likes it or not?

BILLIE JOE: It's always been around, and everyone has their own interpretation of it. It's weird to actually call it "punk" again, when it's been there all the time.

MIKE DIRNT: It's been springing up in little suburban areas, where people grab it and express themselves.

TRE COOL: It's people who make a point of setting aside all responsibilities and just playing music. And doing fat joint after fat joint--you have to let go of things like paying rent, going to school, having a job.

BJ: And, if you can't tell by my house, we don't have a very high standard of living.

How does today's punk rock differ from its late-'70s cousin?

BJ: I think it was all about art and fashion back then, really, because everyone who was a punk in England was in art school. I read an early interview with Dee Dee Ramone, where he said he wished the Ramones had more of a glamorous appeal, too, instead of playing in jeans and leather jackets. But it was definitely about fashion, until the Clash really brought out the political side. Our music came from being bored in the 'burbs. You get put in this high school situation, where you're learning someone else's rules in a room with 30 other people that you don't really like. There's nothing interesting about it whatsoever, so you pick up a guitar instead.

But you all tried college, at least for awhile, right?

MD: And then we started touring. Constantly.

TC: So most of our reading now comes from highway signs.

MD: It's the old grasshopper and the ant story. The thought of actually working is just so...

TC: Sickening!

MD: Yeah. So we put everything we had into not working. This is what I do best, and I was always told, "If you're gonna do something, do it the best you can." So why not do the best thing you can, too?

You guys--at least Mike and Billie Joe--have known each other since you were 10?

BJ: And the first conversation we ever had was about writing songs. And then we just started playing music.

A lot of the stuff on your early Lookout! records shows what was on your mind at the time--namely, girls.

BJ: That was pretty much the viewpoint of a 16-year-old kid. I don't write stuff like that anymore. The new songs are more about coming of age and being apathetic and neurotic.

Where were your parents when you were touring [at age 16]?

MD: At work, doing their own thing.

BJ: My mom's worked a waitress job for like the past 40 years or something, and whatever I was doing was OK with her.

MD: I moved out when I was 15, and I worked all the way through high school.

BJ: And me, I've never held a job longer than two weeks. I tried to flip pizzas--it didn't work. I tried cleaning toilets in the Red Onion in El Sobrante. Me and TrŽ, we used to work for the SF Chronicle, selling papers. I sold three the first day, and the next day we just smoked pot, and we smoked pot the next day after that. So we had hella extra papers lying around. Our ultimate goal wasn't to get rich or famous or anything like that. It was to not have a regular job and not be miserable.

MD: And I've lived in every city around here, except for Albany. Literally. And one thing we want to establish about ourselves is that we're just a bunch of geeks from the suburbs.

Well, one of the first times I saw you, you guys were closing your set with Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger." That's pretty geeky.

MD: I grew up on radio--that's all I had. When I was a little kid, I couldn't afford records. I'll tell you, I've been down to a dollar in my pocket a lot of times. I've even lived in my truck. I can remember shooting rats with a BB gun in the flat we used to live in, before they'd make it to our food.

BJ: I've always been really good about saving. If I got some money, I'd put it away instead of spending it, and I'd buy ramen.

Why name your disc Dookie?

TC: Warner's said we could do anything we want, as long as we didn't say "Cop Killer."

BJ: Somebody told our manager that the ad for it was the most tasteless thing they'd ever seen in Billboard magazine.

What exactly do you mean on Dookie by "Welcome to Paradise"?

BJ, MD, TC [in unison]: West Oakland!

MD: Living in West Oakland, and going out to parties every night.

So it cost, what, around $100,000 to make Dookie?

MD: Yeah. We kept the advances low, because you gotta pay all that shit back. Everyone knows you can't become an instant millionaire just by signing, because there are so many people that want a piece of you.

BJ: We hang out with mostly punks though, and they don't want anything we have. They could care less. And a lot of our friends don't even agree with us being on a major label.

Is Green Day angry?

BJ: No, I'm not angry, like, walking around all the time with a frown on my face. But the way my music is interpreted is very angry.

MD: When you feel really strongly about something, you want to let it out in the most powerful way possible.

Like the way you baited your old high school principal from the Warfield stage recently?

MD: I think he was an asshole. He treated me with no respect. And for high school initiation, we got our heads shaved--that's the kind of small-town shit we had to deal with! Sometimes they made you push a penny up the street with your nose. But that's life, and anywhere you go, you're gonna hate a lot of shit in your life. You'll be handed

Dookie?

MD: Yeah. Yeah, you'll be handed dookie through all parts of your life. And see, what you need to do is just deal with the dookie, build upon what you have, and make something out of the dookie, you know? Like an adobe dookie building!

* * *

Several months later, and Dookie is oozing its gooey way into the public consciousness big time. The fading summer heat sticks crackling to the Berkeley sidewalks as punks--many sporting monstrous green or fuchsia mohawks--zing by on skateboards by day, and huddle in Telegraph Avenue doorways by night, conserving feral body heat the whole time. It feels like another world here, a throwback to the Bay Area's DIY/hardcore scene of the early '80s, when squatters reigned supreme and burlesque Broadway--fueled by all-ages shows at the Mabuhay Gardens, On Broadway, and even an occasional GBH or UK Subs booking at the Stone--made weekend conversions to "Punk Playground, USA." It was the best of times; it was the worst of times--despite relentless touring, most of these bands sold bupkus in the way of records, and few, save Metallica, ever held pen in shaky hand over a major-label contract.

Billie Joe saunters into the Berkeley coffeehouse in rumpled jeans and a grease-spattered flannel shirt; his once-green-and-tufty tresses have grown out into Wally Cleaver waves and been dyed a Rod Stewarty blond. He looks like one of those feisty punks of yore; like he could hold his own through sheer physical endurance in the wildest of thrash pits. There's a new authority about him, the way he strides confidently to the counter, orders a pint-size glass of coffee, then swims through a sea of late-lunching yuppies to grab a table. The singer doesn't seem to notice them at all. Or maybe he's just too tired from nonstop touring to really give a shit. He smiles a goofy grin, revealing a set of generally crooked or chipped choppers, with an entire half of one front tooth missing. But there's such charisma behind it, the same kind of "Who, me?" innocence that little kids use. Billie Joe, you might say, has quickly become the Bart Simpson of the alternative set.

How else could you explain his uncensored performance at a certain outdoor arena where--in a hyperspeed set lasting only 30 minutes before management threatened to pull the plug--he a) unzipped his fly and paraded his privates around for all to see; b) handed a stunned fan his beat-up, sticker-plastered guitar and urged him to play it; c) destroyed a $600 microphone by smashing it into the stage, then destroyed a second mike he was handed as well; and d) encouraged half the venue to chant, "Rock 'n' roll!" and the other half to respond with, "Shut the fuck up!" He then closed the show with a proposition--"They'll be really angry with us, but what we could do is rip out the seats!" he told the audience, which promptly gave Green Day a standing ovation. Billie Joe not only shrugs off such shenanigans as artistic license, he gets away with them! He's even encouraged to continue by fans who empathize with his uppity "fuck authority" attitude.

But the facts were all on the table as Billie Joe sipped his house blend that afternoon, and it didn't take a fortune teller to read 'em. Green Day was hitting big time. Fast. And the sheer enormity of the undertaking, the weight of all its accordant responsibility, was just beginning to hit him. He looked older, wiser, and spoke in more grownup tones about his future, which then included a pending marriage to longtime girlfriend Adrienne. You could practically feel this new maturity encircling him like some protective aura.

* * *

=Where do all these punks on Telegraph come from? They can't all be local and homeless.

I think Telegraph has just become this cultural mecca for punk rockers, because most of 'em who are on the Avenue aren't even from here. They're from Arizona, Minneapolis, New York, Florida. They just come out and end up squatting in houses in Berkeley. Why here? It's the climate, and the scene itself--Gilman Street and Maximum Rock 'n' Roll are in this area, and have a link to each other. But at the same time, it's separated, because there are so many different factions of punk now. There are the squatters, the pop-cores, the mods, the crusties. And all these types of people come out just to check it out. Plus, there's the best coffee in Berkeley, and a lot of 'em are real super coffee-drinkers, just pounding cup after cup all the time. It's pretty rare to come across a punk who doesn't drink coffee. I can't drink too much coffee myself--it gives me the shakes at night, so I just have a little bit during the day. Then I can smoke dope and go to bed.

=What's the attraction in squatting or homelessness for these kids?

For a lot of 'em, it's the first sense of freedom that they've had. It's like, "You mean I don't have to be home by midnight?" They've pretty much told their families and schools to go fuck themselves, so they go off and do their own thing. When I was 17, I did the same thing. And I had this total sense of freedom, where no one's telling you what to do, you don't have a clock to punch in on, you don't have people breathing down your neck; you don't have any deadlines to meet. You have this endless schedule where you can stay up all night drinking with your friends, or do anything you want.

=But isn't "Coming Clean" about leaving behind your wilder ways?

It's also about coming to grips with your sexuality. There's one line, "Skeletons come to life in my closet." And it's like, "Am I homosexual or heterosexual?" You go through this adolescent stage in your life where you don't really know what you are, and one side is taboo because your parents brought you up to think being gay was wrong. And if you come to grips with yourself, that you happen to be gay or bi or whatever, well, that was one thing about punk that was so accepting--all creeds were welcome, all sexualities, everything.

=Was this something you went through personally?

Yeah, to a certain extent. But I don't want to go around waving a gay flag or anything.

=Well, you had a beautiful girl on your arm backstage at the last Green Day show.

That's Adrienne. She's cool. Actually, we're engaged. That's why it took me so long getting here today--I had to get this! [Rolls sleeve up on tattooed arm, points to a bandaged-on cotton swab] Blood test, dude! We're getting married next week!

=Has anybody tried to tell you you're too young for such a serious move?

Of course. There are a lot of people who've said stuff. My parents have been a little more understanding than her parents. I just called my mom yesterday and said, "Mom, I'm gettin' married," and she said, "That's fine, son. Have fun!" I can hardly surprise my mother nowadays. But [this relationship] has been a recurring thing for the past four years, and we just decided to get serious about it. She's coming out here, and we're moving in together, so it's like, "Why not?" I don't really have any wild oats to sow, or anything like that. I'm not into the "Gettin' chicks all the time" thing.

=I know a lot of girls who'll be really bummed that you're gittin' hitched. They all seem to have developed a crush on you...

Me?! It must be the teeth [grins again].

=OK, so maybe you didn't brush often enough when you were young. But you were busy developing a direction...

I wouldn't necessarily say I had a direction or anything. I just knew I wanted to write songs. It comes from...uh...I don't know. I have no idea. It wasn't any kind of cosmic force or anything like that; it was just a matter of having a guitar around and wanting to play it all the time. I've had the same guitar since I was 11--I bought it off this guy at a guitar store. And I still play it--you know, the blue one with stickers all over it? That's my blue guitar, and, for some reason, things come to life, and everyone calls it "Blue" now--"Where's Blue? Can I pick up Blue and play it?"

=And you let just anybody touch it?

Oh yeah! Blue's not prejudiced.

=It's interesting to note that the general public seems to think Dookie is your debut.

Yeah, but that's just the general public. There are people who've been with us since the beginning, who know how long we've been around, since our first 7-inch came out back in '89.

=And now you can afford to trash pricey microphones.

Actually, Warner Brothers paid for those. It was pretty nice of 'em. They looked really nice--I remember looking at 'em and thinking, "Nice microphones!" They gave me one mike and I took it and threw it down, and they gave me another, and at the end of the set I creamed it pretty hard, I guess. We toured Europe with this band Die Toten Hosen--we played nine dates with 'em--and we got charged for a microphone every night. I dunno, for some reason we just started smashing shit. We'd start throwing equipment around at the end of each set, and these kids would start grabbing Tre's drum set and throwing it, and then they started smashing the microphones too. And the bouncers just couldn't do anything about it.

=And you actually yanked your dick out onstage too?

I did. Totally. It was the real thing. I dunno. The bands that we were playing with were just boring. It was more like making a mockery of the whole thing. The big arena rock thing is just so dated now, like Journey or Queen. Which is why I think punk rock started to begin with--it was this reaction to all the dinosaur bands. So for me, that show was, "How can we make a complete mockery of this but at the same time have fun with it?" I like to leave people guessing, "Did he hate that or did he like that?" It's not that I don't care--it's more that I'm careless. I try to be as happy-go-lucky as I can, but you can become apathetic at the same time.

=Do you feel like Green Day is a part of, or represents, the so-called "slacker generation"?

There's one side of me that doesn't mind it, because it's a generational thing, and another side of me that says, "Fuck that!" The reason I wrote the songs is, I ended up going back to Rodeo, where I'm from, for a week. And then I said, "Fuck it," and left. But I managed to get several good songs out of it. A lot of my friends had just turned into complete burnouts. And these are kids I've known since kindergarten, because it's a small town and you know everybody. And it was all fixing cars, staying up all night on methamphetamines, smoking dope, and finding out all these rumors about people I haven't heard of in 10 years. Like, "Oh, did you hear about so-and-so, who got married, had three kids, and ended up shooting everybody in his family?" And it happened! It was a true story! You're there for one week, and you get caught up in it. You get so bored, all you wanna do is watch television. And there are no record stores, nothing around, so you end up hanging out with all these delinquents who aren't punkers at all, just cultural idiots. So I was watching all these people rot and rotting with them until I realized, "Shit! I gotta get the fuck outta here!"

=As they say, you can never go home again.

Oh yeah, definitely. Unless you get pregnant, like my sister did. Then you have to go. But I quit school my senior year--I just wasn't getting anything out of it. I was taking nine periods a day, plus night classes, which left me no time to smoke dope whatsoever. And my mom even suggested I drop out, because she was a dropout, too. I come from a long line of dropouts. I still have nightmares about being late with my homework assignments. When I finally went in to sign out of high school, the teacher went, "Now, who are you again?"

=And if that teacher could see you now!

A lot of people think you get this big connection with a corporate label, and you make millions of dollars, but they don't understand that you just don't make that much money. And when you do, it's easy to piss it away. I mean, every cent that I've made, I've pissed away. I'm not gonna say how I did it, but I don't have it But I don't think you necessarily have to be a punk to decide to say, "Fuck it." You don't even have to have a direction. It's just a matter of getting the fuck out and exploring things for yourself.

=But didn't you feel abject terror when you first set out on your own?

Nah, I didn't. Because, for some reason, I knew things were gonna be all right. You can create your own future as long as karma's on your side. And I'm a strong believer in karma. I think things can come back to you if you're just willing to give.

* * *

True enough. At least six million times over!

1995 Tom Lanham

#article #interview #articles #billie joe armstrong

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ddaengyoonmin · 6 years ago

Text

BTS Friends to Lovers Series (Taehyung)

Pairing: Police officer!Taehyung x Badgirl/Stoner!reader

Genre: Angst, Smut, Fluff, small attempts for humor

Warnings: some slightly dark themes, drug dealer!Jungkook, swearing, lots of weed references, deep throating, cum swallowing, dom!Tae, face slapping with hands and with his cock (cleanse my souuul oops) assault on a cop, some abuse of power from a Pervy older cop. Getting arrested. (I think that’s all let me know if I missed any)

A/N: while this is a reader insert I put a lot of my own personal experience and life into this piece. It was also partially based on a dream I had about getting arrested by taehyung

Word count: 6k

Songs to listen to: ‘Free spirit’ - Manila Grey ‘Parking lot’ - Manila Grey ‘Play with Fire’ - Sam Tinnesz

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell my mom and dad about this. You know they’ll just go right to your parents about it. As long as it’s the last time this happens... right?” Taehyung turned around and cocked an eyebrow at you from the driver’s seat.

You let out a groan and rolled your eyes. “Sure Tae, of course it’s the last time” you spoke with a hint of sarcasm in your voice.

“I mean it y/n, you’re lucky it was me that got to you and not one of the other guys. You’d be down at the station right now instead of sitting in my car with a milkshake” He scolded

You took a big sip on the straw of your milkshake “Yeah thanks for this by the way, I was really getting the munchies” You joked

Taehyung let out a loud sigh, taking off his police issued hat and running his fingers through his shaggy brown hair annoyed. Then holding up the plastic bag that had the remaining weed that you hadn’t smoked yet in it. “I’m keeping this you know that right?”

You shrugged “What for? are you gonna start smoking again Mr. Do-good?” you teased him.

“y/n…” he spoke sternly. “Damnit, you’re so lucky we are friends. I don’t think you realize how many times I’ve saved your ass from doing actual time over this stuff”

“It should be legal anyways and you know it. Besides...I knew a time when you would’ve been right there with me” you said matter of factly.

“Well that was a long time ago y/n. We were kids, now we are adults. Well...I am at least” he shot you a joking glare and you pretended you didn’t see him and just took another long sip on your milkshake.

“I’m taking you home now” he sighed and drove out of the parking lot the two of you had been sitting in.

You had known Taehyung since the two of you were practically babies, he was a year older than you but the two of you had been best friends since as long as you can remember.

Your mom and his mom were best friends at college and were each other's maid of honor for their weddings. Your families were tied together like an unbreakable knot, dinners together at least twice a month and unscheduled random hangouts were just part of your life, and with it, Taehyung.

You were there when he had his first kiss at the middle school dance, you comforted him after his first break-up with said girl that he had his first kiss with. You both drank your first beer together, and smoked your first joint together. Everything that you did, you had done with Taehyung. Until he graduated highschool a few years ago, and had the grand idea that he wanted to become a police officer. That decision put quite a damper on the shenanigans you were used to getting into with him, and you’d felt yourself grow slightly more distant from him as a result.

But, he still looked out for you. Times like today you were kind of grateful he had joined the police force, because he was right, if anyone else had caught you smoking a joint with a few extra grams to spare on you, sitting inside a big yellow slide on a playground thinking that no one would notice (Spoiler, they did…) They wouldn’t have just scolded you and then bought you a strawberry milkshake.

Taehyung pulled up to your house and walked around to open the back door of the police cruiser for you.

“Stay out of trouble y/n. There's only so many get out of jail free cards I can offer before someone notices you know.” he pulls you into a quick hug

You snuggle your head into his chest for the quick moment, that he hugged you.

“Ah, Don’t make me smell” he quickly grabs your shoulders putting you arm's length from him with his nose scrunched, a disgusted look on his face.

“Don’t act like you don’t miss that smell” you winked at him as you walked the cement path leading to your front door.

Taehyung rolls his dark eyes and gives you a quick smile.

He didn’t always used to be like he was now, he was the biggest stoner you knew. Which is what always caught you off guard about his decision. It seemed quite random, it was strange enough to you that you felt it could’ve made the news, ‘Small town Stoner Turns Good Boy Cop’ You chuckled at that thought.

Though you missed your favorite smoke buddy.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next day when you got out of work you drove over to your dealer’s house to replace the Eighth that Taehyung had to confiscate from you.

Your old beat up car had been running on its last leg for a while now, but it continued to get you where you needed to go, and you spent too much money on smoke to think about getting a new ride.

Jungkook was lounging on his front porch smoking a cigarette, his eyes shut in a dreamlike state, his jet black hair falling slightly down over the closed lids. The bright rays of the summer day blessing his sun kissed skin in an angelic manner.

“Hows my favorite pot-head” you grinned as you approached him, catching him off guard and causing him to flinch at the sound of your voice.

Realizing it was just you he grinned and extended out a hand for you to help him stand up from the step he was relaxed on in front of his house.

He stood tall and smoked one last drag on his cigarette before putting it out and opening his front door with a welcoming gesture inviting you inside.

The scent of weed burned into your nose instantly when walking into his house, you loved the smell, you loved everything about it.

Taehyung used to too…

He was the most knowledgeable stoner you’d ever met. He could even tell the strain of the weed he was smoking after just smelling it. You and your friends used to quiz him for fun and he’d always ace every test without fail.

You wondered if sometimes when he’d pull someone over and arrest them for the exact thing he used to partake in, he’d catch a whiff and know the name of their bud.

It all seemed pretty hypocritical to you, but you have to remind yourself you both have grown up, people change, though you haven't much, you can’t blame him for it.

Jungkook went over to a drawer and pulled out a large glass jar, carrying it with two hands over to a wooden coffee table near his couch. You, knowing the drill, doing this trip to Jungkook’s at least once a week, had sat down on the couch to wait for him.

Jungkook pulled a long un lit joint from the front pocket of his red flannel and held it between his lips with his eyes focused on the jar in front of him.

He pulled out a few nugs from the jar and put them on a cheap gram scale he had on his table, weighing it out to the eighth he knew was your regular purchase.

“Isn’t this a little early to be here, how fast did you go through your last bag?” Jungkook chuckled, placing the nugs into a ziploc bag carefully.

“Ugh” you sighed. “Taehyung again”

Jungkook knew just what you meant by that. Taehyung used to be close friends with him as well before he became a cop. They had a big falling out when Taehyung joined the force, Jungkook hated cops with a passion and said some choice words to Taehyung that had severed their relationship permanently. It hurt to think about how things used to be, the three of you laughing and smoking, riding around in your old car flying on cloud 9. Literally, the strain that was your favorite at the time was called cloud 9.

Jungkook shook his head and pulled out a lighter from the same pocket the joint came from, lighting the tip for a second before inhaling and letting the smoke glide down his lungs, then passing it to you.

“I don’t know how you can stand to be around him anymore” Jungkook grumbled.

“First of all, I really don’t have a choice, actually I think we are having dinner with our families together later tonight. Secondly” you made eye contact with Jungkook “Hes really not that bad. It could be worse. All I got was a soft warning and a milkshake” you passed the joint back to Jungkook.

“Until he gets some pressure from his higher ups to be more of a hardass. I think your days of getting off easy are short lived y/n. Enjoy it while it lasts. He’s sold his soul to ‘the man’ trust me” He spoke between coughs from the rough hit he’d just took. Putting air quotes around ‘the man’.

You didn’t like the idea of that and you shut up for a bit, sharing the rest of the joint and paying Jungkook for your bag.

He gave you a hug and a smile on your way out. “Be more careful out there y/n” he winked and bumped your shoulder with his fist playfully.

------------------------------------------------------

You went straight from Jungkook’s to your parents home where you were to have dinner with Taehyung’s family. You sat in your car and quickly sprayed a massively overpowering amount of perfume on yourself hoping to mask the weed smell. Then putting in some eyedrops to help with your glassy eyed expression you’d seen in your car mirror. You winced at the way that it burned but were thankful for the relief that it gave to your dry eyes.

When you arrived through the door your mom instantly ran over to you and embraced you in her signature hug, that always included a large inhale.

“You smell like Marijauna” her eyes narrowed at you.

“Oh no, not the Marijauna” you feigned shock and put your hands to your cheeks a surprised expression looking like the boy from home alone.

She glared at you, not amused. You knew your parents didn’t care that much, your dad especially. They didn’t smoke but you knew your dad was a hippie in his day so he had no room to judge. Your mom was slightly more judgemental but she usually just let you off with some snide comments and rude glances before returning to her normal bubbly self.

She ran to her room and grabbed some febreeze and started chasing you around the house with it while you laughed, tears forming in both of your eyes at how ridiculous she was being. She was mostly worried about upsetting Taehyung’s family most likely. Not that they were the type to judge either, but it was still made for a slightly more awkward dinner if it ended up getting brought up with Taehyung’s current position in life. No one in town really knew how to act around him.

You thought that must be tough on him. People that were once his peers were now all terrified of him. No one wanted to talk to him about anything more than casual small talk, and it was always very shallow conversation. No one wanted to open up all of their deep secrets or emotions in front of a cop. On the surface no one would think that it bothered him much. He was good at keeping a constant blank expression that never let anyone into what he was thinking even back in highschool. But, knowing Taehyung the way you knew him, it must bother him.

He was the life of the party, and now he's the buzzkill who crashes the parties.

Taehyung’s family arrived and you all sat down to eat. Your parents asked Taehyung about his job and how it’d been going. He said he liked it and he was actually getting close to a promotion.

His eyes flickered your way, almost like a small apology was hidden in that look.

You knew what that meant, no more getting off easily anymore. Jungkook was right, the idea that you had a cop friend on your side was just a fun fantasy. Next time you got caught by him, he wouldn’t be treating you like a friend one bit.

----------------------------------------------------------------

The moment came sooner than you’d thought. You and Jungkook had been going on a late night taco bell run, smoking a joint the whole way there, and you as usual were carrying a decent amount of smoke in your bag.

You had stopped in the parking lot, parked in the back to hotbox and eat in the car. Hotboxing was one of the funnest activities you used to do in highschool and you had mentioned to Jungkook that it’d been way too long, he was more than happy to oblige.

You were giggling like a child over the way the word ‘Taco’ sounded if you said it slowly when you were startled by a tapping noise on the window.

Not able to see through the smoke fogged glass who had knocked on your window, you squinted then glanced to Jungkook, who stared wide eyed at the colors of blue and red flashing to the side of the car.

“Fuckkkkkkk” he groaned, hitting the steering wheel roughly with a flat palm. “Fuck fuck fuck. Y/n you’re carrying a bag aren’t you”

Your eyes grew wide, “Y-yeah…are you?”

Jungkook gave you a ‘what do you think’ look

Of course he was.

You sighed and rolled your window down, a wave of smoke pouring out and flowing right into the face of the officer standing there. Fuck, it wasn’t Taehyung.

“How’s it going officer?” you asked sweetly. He was less than pleased.

“Both of you. Step out of the car” he ordered sternly.

You did as he said, and now realized that another officer sat in a separate car. Taehyung…

“Officer Kim, can you assist me here” The older policeman spoke Taehyung’s way.

He got out of the car, his uniform fit him way too sinfully, you’d always though he looked more like the cop from an old porno , than one you’d ever have taken seriously. But, the expression he currently held on his face gave you the chills, and not in a good way.

He glared your way, shaking his head in disappointment. Jungkook was throwing dagger eyes towards Taehyung as he started to approach him to pat him down.

“Oh fuck off Mr. High and mighty” Jungkook scoffed, stepping back from Taehyung.

“Kook” you pleaded at your friend to take hold of his temper. The older cop had started to pat you down as you held your arms out. Upon finding the bag in your pocket he waved it in the air like he’d hit the jackpot.

“Look what we’ve got here Officer Kim. Someone’s been a naughty girl” he playful spoke. The way he said that made you nauseous, you didn’t like the way he had just started behaving one bit. But, what could you do.

He continued his pat down, his hands lingering on your breasts for too long. You shot him a glare and tried to recoil away from his touch.

“Ah ah, you’d be surprised how many ladies try to hide illegal items in their bra’s thinking I wouldn’t check there” he grinned evilly. Fucking pig. You thought.

You turned to see how things were going with Jungkook just in time to see him winding up a fist and throwing it forward into Taehyung's face.

Shit.

The hit sounded out like he’d damn near broken Taehyung’s nose, and the other officer was immediately to Taehyung’s side. Both of them tackling Jungkook and pinning his arms behind his back securing them with handcuffs. The older cop holding him down with a knee on his back pressing his face into the parking lot’s asphalt.

You stood shaking in realization that Jungkook had just gotten himself into some real trouble. All because of his stupid grudge with Taehyung. If anyone else had gotten in a small tuff like that with an ex best friend, it probably would’ve just ended with a couple bloody noses and both men walking away feeling like they got the better hit in. But because Taehyung was what he was now...it’s most likely going to end with Jungkook doing some time. Assaulting a cop was definitely not a minor crime.

They had scooped Jungkook off of the ground and shoved him into the backseat of the older officers cruiser. Jungkook cussed and grumbled the whole time.

“I’m gonna take this one down to the station,” the Officer pointed to Jungkook “You take our little lady here home. Maybe teach her a lesson on picking a better choice in boyfriend” he winked Taehyung’s way.

You were appalled but not surprised at the older man’s behavior. Some cops felt like they could get away with that shit...cuz well...they could.

You followed Taehyung to his car silently with your head low, only lifting it once to send one last glance Jungkook’s way, catching his eyes for a second and both exchanging looks of worry. Possibly a goodbye for a little while.

Once you were in Taehyung’s car the waterworks came. You held your face in your hands and sobbed loudly, your body convulsing with the heaviness of your emotions.

Taehyung was quiet, pulling a few tissues from his glovebox and holding them to his nose tilting his head back.

The two of you sat there for a while, silence lingering between you like some delicate thing just waiting to break.

“I’m sorry” Taehyung whispered.

“For what? Getting Jungkook arrested or for your pervy boss and his grabby hands?” You spat out with some fire, still slightly fucked up on the drugs you’d been inhaling.

“Both...All of it…” he muttered, staring straight ahead and avoiding your piercing gaze.

“Why’d you even do this Tae? This job doesn’t suit you, I just don’t get it. We’re best friends. And look at us.” You motioned to the way you were sitting. Him in the front, and you behind glass separating the space between the two of you. You noted on how much of a metaphor for that felt like for the distance he’d put between you, differences between you now…

“Regular Catwoman and Batman huh?” he murmured.

Goddamnit. And there's the exact reason you could never hate him. “You fucking nerd.” You sighed chuckling and falling back into the seat shaking your head. “Oh my god. You’re not allowed to make me laugh right now.”

Taehyung sent an apologetic smile your way.

As upset as you were, his joking really did shift the tone in the car and you decided to tease him back.

You put your wrists together and held them to the glass near Taehyung’s head.

“Aren’t you gonna cuff me officer?” you said flirtatiously, batting your eyelashes at him. Expecting him to roll his eyes and groan at your joke.

Instead you were met with a serious expression. His eyes lingering on your wrists and then trailing over to your lips. His tongue darted out and licked over his bottom lick slightly.

“Holy shit did that actually turn you on or something?” you gasped, lowering your hands from his view.

He instantly snapped out of the state of mind he had gone into so suddenly. “Of course not” he snapped “Don’t be ridiculous”

“Oh my god. It did! I didn’t realize how kinky you were Kim Taehyung.” you winked at him “Handcuffs get you going? No wonder you became a cop. You’re going to turn into old pervy Officer whatshisname aren’t you? Gross Tae,” You started to laugh.

“Shut the fuck up, I’m not like that.” he barked loudly. Instantly catching you off guard and having you sit up straight and rigid.

“Sorry” you mumbled. “Officer” you added with a bit a spite.

“Damn right. You think you can just get away with all of this, with no consequences and no worries. One day you’re going to have to grow up y/n.”

“Oh like you?” you raised an eyebrow “No thank you...sir”

You heard what sounded like a low growl from Taehyung.

In an instant he sped up and parked the car in the far corner of the parking lot where the lot lights weren’t reaching. In hindsight that was probably where you and Jungkook should’ve been parked.

Taehyung got out of the car and stood by your door. You wondered if he wanted you to get out and join him outside the car. But the car doors of police cars are always locked from the inside unless you have the key. So you waited, for what seemed like painfully long time.

You glanced out the window to see Taehyung pacing back and forth outside of the car with a hand pressed to his forehead, he was stressed. Probably from the fact that he’d basically just sent Jungkook, his former best friend, to jail.

Taehyung turned and rested a hand on the door handle. Was he finally going to let you out? He seemed to be hesitating. After what felt like forever the door clicked open and Taehyung was climbing into the back seat with you.

“Oh hello?” you spoke in surprise.

Taehyung didn’t speak, he continued his hungry gaze from earlier, biting his lip slightly and staring at you with bedroom eyes.

“Taehyung…” you started before you were cut off.

“I wanted this job to protect people. I care about those close to me. The older I got the more I realized how important that was. Everyone thinks that I just want to bust them for weed or partying and be the killjoy of our town. But, that wasn’t it. Remember that summer that girl got drugged at that party. No one was able to find the guy. I wanted to be the type of person that could look out for people. That could maybe do something about things like that. It sucks that I had to give up some of my habits that I don’t necessarily agree with the laws on. But I follow it, I sacrificed that to keep this town safe. To help keep you safe” he added at the end. His expression sincere.

“I guess I hadn’t really thought of it that way. Jungkook probably hasn’t either…”

“Yeah Jungkook doesn’t give a shit about my reasonings. Fuck the police and all that.” he rolled his eyes.

“I get it” you shrugged. “That's actually a pretty decent reason. I miss getting to hangout with you other places than the back of your cruiser though” you teased, poking him in the shoulder.

“Mmm then maybe you should start behaving little girl” he growled in a tone you’d never heard him take with you before.

“Tae..” you looked at him with furrowed brows, your mouth hanging open slightly in confusion.

Before you knew it Taehyung's hand was clutching you jaw lightly, one finger trailing over your lips.

“I’d always thought…” he whispered. “Maybe one day, you’d calm down with all of this stuff, and we could…” he trailed off.

You blinked rapidly in realization of what he was saying. Did Taehyung really just imply what you think he did? You felt your hands start to shake slightly. Not that you were completely opposed to it, but you just couldn’t understand why he would feel that way. You’d on and off had a crush on Taehyung your whole life. He was your first crush when you were just in elementary school. You weren’t even sure if he’d remembered, but one day when you were probably only 7 and he was 8 years old, tiny little Tae had run up to you on the playground with a bouquet of yellow dandelions clutched in his small hand.

“Y/n. Will you marry me?” he had squeaked out.

You had chuckled and taken the dandelions from his hand “Taehyunnnng, we’re too young to get married.”

He had pouted cutely, crossing his arms across his chest. “Fine. Well one day you will. And I’ll buy you a big house, with a puppy, and a big garden.” You had nodded and said “Fine. One day a lonnng time from now. Promise” and the two of you had continued to play during your recess and it was never spoken of again.

You’d occasionally think back on it as a funny memory. But now, looking at him here. The way he looked at you…and those words. ‘Maybe one day you will’ ‘Maybe one day you would…’

“Tae…” you stuttered out again.

“Maybe you just need to learn a lesson or two. Maybe I need to teach you how to behave.” he growled, his hand trailing over your lips was now making its way to your neck. His thumb slightly pressing down on your jugular as he eyed you dangerously.

You whispered under his touch but didn’t try to pull back. You couldn’t deny to yourself that this excites you, it probably shouldn’t but you’d always been a sucker for a little pain.

“Is that was you need hm?” he asked authoritatively.

Should you?

“Y-yes…” you stammered out.

“That’s what I thought” he hissed out. “That handcuff comment was uncalled for. Maybe you were the one who wanted me to tie you up hm?” He started to move to pull out the handcuffs he kept on him, twirling them around on his middle finger.

Your heart started to beat rapidly, and your breathing was becoming so quickened at the sight of Taehyung, your best friend Taehyung...Police officer Taehyung, in front of you, uniform and all, about to handcuff you for mutual pleasure.

You nodded innocently.

A low groan rumbled in his chest as he leaned over to you, pushing you down onto the backseat so your back was flat against the cushions. He now hovered over you, his face mere inches from your own, and a look of pure lust gazing down at you.

He started to grab your hands and cuffed you to a spot they had in the cruiser that made his task of securing you quite easy. The metal bit into your skin slightly but you could tell he made sure not to put them on too tight. Your arms were now held over your head, and any thoughts of backing out had been pushed away. You wanted him, you craved him, you needed this.

Taehyung’s lips crashed down on to yours sloppily and wet, instantly slipping his tongue into your mouth as he held your jaw roughly with one hand.

“I’m gonna fuck that dirty mouth of yours. I’m going to teach you how to respect authority little girl” he growled, now straddling your hips and unbuttoning the belt of his uniform and tossing it to the side.

He didn’t continue to undress himself. Instead his hands pulled on the bottom of your shirt, rolling it up over your breasts and letting it sit high up on your chest, not being able to fully take it off due to the way you were cuffed.

He let out a lustful moan and bit his lip at the sight of you.

Of course you weren’t wearing a bra, he thought. It was so like you to be like this, always the tease. Taehyung had loved you for as long as he could remember, and finally he had you here underneath him. Strangely when he used to picture fucking you in the back of a cop car (because he totally had fantasized about that) he wasn’t the cop. But, here you were, and here he was, grown up and still exactly the way he had always pictured. Your tits looked so incredible, better in person. He’d never told you but when you’d gotten your nudes leaked around the town at one point by an ex boyfriend he happened to get a copy sent to him. He had deleted it right away...if right away meant after jacking off to them first and then deleting them…

He felt bad about that, but he loved you so much and your body was completely irresistible to him, he didn’t know how he’d managed to make it this long in life without having you for himself.

He gave your tits a few squeezes and lowered his head down to them, biting now on your nipple grazing his teeth over your skin, and loving the way you squirmed under him at the sensation. He sucked and bit at you, making sure to roll the neglected nipple in his fingers while he did.

You were absolutely loving it.

Taehyung then pulled back releasing you with a pop. He now started to unbutton the black uniform pants and pull out his enormous cock.

Your jaw dropped at the mouth watering sight.

You’d always assumed he was big, you’d seen him get hard in some swim shorts once at a pool party when you’d shown up in a skimpy swimsuit, but now seeing it fully you realized you’d underestimated the length and girth of him greatly. You licked your lips hungrily, wanting a taste.

“ You like that huh baby? Dirty little slut, so weak for my cock right now?” he grinned stroking himself slowly.

You nodded in response, your eyes fixed on the length in front of you.

He moved to position himself so it was right in front of your face and he was leaning over you.

“Hungry little slut” he whispered. He smacked you hard against the side of your cheek with his heavy cock, you were surprised but mostly turned on at the fact that it actually hurt a bit.

“Are you gonna behave for me?” he asked sternly, looking down at you with a fucked out expression.

“Maybe?” you teased.

Whack. He smacked you again with his cock, slightly harder this time.

“Don’t be a brat now. You are going to behave, or I’ll make you behave. Okay?” he growled.

“Okay” you whimpered, trying to pretend that you weren’t totally in love with how he was acting, trying to play into the game.

“Okay what” he snapped.

“Okay...sir?”

“Thats right.” he nodded. Then placed his hand back around your jaw, gripping you tightly. “You’re gonna open up and take my dick, allll the way. Let me fuck this dirty mouth of yours” he ordered. “And maybe once you’ve sucked every last drop of cum out of me, you’ll think a little more before you go around acting out.”

“Yes sir” you nodded, parting your lips showing him that you were ready to take him.

“Fuck,” he whispered, breaking the stern voice he’d been maintaining for a quick moment, letting on to just how excited he was to be this intimite with you.

He pushed his hips forward, his hand on his shaft and the tip of his cock now sitting on your lips.

“You’re okay with this right?” he whispered. Gentleman Taehyung making an appearance for a moment

“Yes sir” you purred with a grin.

“Get ready to take me then baby girl” he growled, going back to his previous demeanor.

He pushed his cock into your mouth all the way, slowly, getting you adjusted to how huge he was and getting a feel for how much you could take. To his delight he slid all the way down until your nose was buried into his abdomen.

“Fuckkkk” he hissed out. “Such a Good girl for such a bad girl.”

He quickly pulled out and repeated slowly fucking his cock all the way into your mouth and quickly pulling out again.

“Get ready baby” he moaned. Then started to speed up his pace, his hips rolling into your mouth quickly, causing you to gag lewdly a few times as he did which only seemed to turn him on more, causing a pleasured hiss each time.

“I fucking love this mouth baby. You take me so well.” Taehyung was biting at his lip and staring down at you in awe.

You moaned around his cock, the vibrations making him stutter and throwing him off his pace for a moment.

“So good” he whispered. You felt like that one wasn’t meant for you to hear, but you loved knowing how good you were making him feel so your heart skipped a bit at his praise.

Taehyung gripped your hair, steadying your head and pumping himself into your at a fast pace.

“Thats fucking it y/n.” He panted out “Fucking. Learn. How. To. Behave.” he growled and smacked a hand to the side of your face.

Your eyes were watering and you felt a warm pool of wet growing between your legs. You could get used to this Taehyung.

“I’m gonna cum in your mouth and you’re going to swallow every. Last. fucking. Drop.” he pounded into you in sync with each of those last words.

You stared up at him with flirtatious eyes and smiled slightly.

“Damn those eyes are dangerous” he groaned and with that you felt him tense up and his pace grow uneven.

“Shit. Fuck. Y/n. Oh my god” he screamed out while emptying himself into your mouth. His cock twitching wildly as he fucked into you. You closed your lips around him as he pulled out, sucking slightly to get every last drop as he’d ordered.

He looked down at you with pure joy as you stick out your tongue to show him his cum pooled up and gathered in your mouth before rolling it back into your mouth and swallowing with a loud gulp.

“Wow.” he stared wide eyed at you. “So fucking hot” gasped out

He now went to the cuffs and pulled his key out, releasing you from your restraints.

Taehyung rested down on top of you where you still laid. His head on your chest.

“You alright man?” you chuckled running your fingers through his sweat drenched hair.

“Mhm” he smiled widely with his eyes closed “That was amazing”

This cute Taehyung that cuddled up next to you now was a Taehyung you thought you’d lost long ago. Your heart felt full and warm seeing him this way.

“Soooo are we returning the favor or?” you joked

His head snapped up he hovered over your face and looked at you with a playful expression. “Nope. that’s your punishment for getting caught.”

“For getting caught huh?”

“Well yeah. You don’t have to stop doing what you love y/n. For God sake, if you’re going to date a cop you can’t be that reckless with it thought. Keep it in the house and where you’re for sure safe from anyone catching you or calling me to come check out the situation” he rolled his eyes.

You sighed. “I guess I can manage that. Wait...date? A cop? Wait…” you started to stutter realizing what he’d said.

“Well you promised you’d marry me one day remember? but, I figured dating is a good place to start” he grinned with a wink.

You felt butterflies in your stomach at his recollection of that day so long ago.

“What an odd pair we’ll be” you chuckled.

“Yeah… oh also I’m gonna get things with Jungkook figured out okay. I feel like shit about it, and I’m going to make sure everyone at the station knows he didn’t mean it, and I barely got a scratch on me.” he let you know.

You nodded, almost forgetting about Jungkook.

“I think that’d be a good idea Tae, I think he honestly misses you, you know?”

“Yeah I miss him too…”

You planted a small peck on Taehyung’s lips. “You’ll get it figured out. I know you will.”

Taehyung smiled down at you and returned your quick peck.

“How are you so bad and so good all at the same time” he shook his head.

“I guess that's just what you like in a future wife” you teased.

“I suppose so,” he replied. Except he knew, that he meant every word.

Love is such a funny thing.

#bts fanfic #bts x reader #bts fluff #bts angst #bts smut #taehyung x reader #v x reader #taehyung x you #cop!taehyung #bts friends to lovers #jungkook x reader #bts x you

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shirtlesssammy · 5 years ago

Text

9x21: King of the Damned

Then:

Things are going really well for the angels.

Now:

1723

Abaddon arrives at an inn in Leith, Scotland and introduces herself to a confused young man as a “friend of the family”. She notes that he’s traveling in the morning to the colonies. The innkeeper interrupts their little conversation, and Abaddon makes quick use of the coathanger on the wall when she slams the dude into it, killing him. She then starts chanting her spell. The sigil on the door she painted lights the room yellow.

At a bar, angels are drinking and chilling. Nerd angel decides to interrupt a group by telling them about how cool he is for getting picked by “Met Man” to head back to Heaven. He’s overheard by a couple at the bar.

As he’s leaving later, they kidnap him and chain him up.They’re on the other side of the angel war and want to know more about his allegiance to Metratron. There are footsteps growing louder from the hallway, the music grows tense, and the derpy angel nervously asks, “Is that him?” It is.

It is ...Cas.

Meanwhile, the brothers arrive to see “the commander”.

They’re brought into the main operation room. It’s buzzing with angels all looking for Metatron. Cas greets them both with a hug when they enter his office. The brothers are skeptical of Cas’s new leadership role, but Cas believes someone has to stop Metatron. Cas needs the brothers to interrogate the kidnapped angel. MOC!Dean is game.

Crowley, meanwhile, is meeting with his team of trusted demons.

He’s making it clear that the king is back, and Abaddon must be stopped. He asks for their “Yo” of allegiance, but gets only silence in response. Until Abaddon blurts it out from the door. She reviews the fact that Crowley helped the Winchesters get ahold of the First Blade and Dean’s wearing the Mark of Cain. She points out that once she’s gone, Crowley’s next on their list. She wants to team up but Crowley declines. She has no hold over him.

Enter Gavin Macleod: the Scot from the opening --and Crowley’s son. Crowley swears he doesn’t care about the boy. Abaddon is willing to bet that his little foray into humanness left him with more compassion than he thinks. She starts to torture the poor dude.

Crowley holds out for a couple seconds but way too quickly demands that Abaddon stop.

Sam and Dean are busy playing Good Cop/Bad Cop with the rogue angel. Dean wants to stab the dude, but Sam catches on REAL quick that the angel likes to boast, so he goes for a little reverse psychology.

They both egg the guy on enough to have him reveal that there’s a private portal to Heaven now.

Gavin, now recovered from the torture, adamantly denies that Crowley is his father. His father was Fergus Macleod, a simple tailor. Abaddon and Crowley reveal to poor Gavin that he’s in the future. He mistakes them for angels.

Sam and Dean continue their schtick. And they get a lot of intel from the guy. They learn that the portal moves around and there’s an elite, secret Heaven squad (that this guy ultimately wasn’t chosen for). Sam and Dean leave the room convinced they didn’t learn a thing.

Gavin learns that his dad sold his soul for “an extra three inches of willy?!” He does not like this turn of events. Crowley assures him that his dear old dad is the King of Hell so everything is good!

Another angel opens the interrogation room to find the nerd angel stabbed through the heart, dead. Sam and Dean have to explain themselves to the Commander.

Dean wonders if Cas’s operation has been compromised. Cas had real faith in the angels under his charge (and there goes Cas again with his faith in others…). Dean heads out to find out who killed the angel. Cas holds Sam back to ask about Gadreel. “It's not really something I like to…” Sam starts, before Cas cuts him off. (Sam, you never want to talk about your trauma, bby) Sam then tells him that it was like they were sharing housing, but he never felt threatened. He was misunderstood, but not a danger (well, except for Kevin.)

Crowley and Gavin confront their past, each blaming their respective parents for their terrible lives. Gavin can’t even read! Crowley shoves an impatient hand against Gavin’s forehead and hands him a newspaper. Tada! He can read now! (This remains one of the funniest and weirdest canon demonic powers. Can you imagine some demon elementary school teacher just trying to live a neutral life and impatiently zapping all their students with reading power?) Gavin immediately warms up to Crowley, and further cheers to learn that he can now adopt the title “Prince.” Gavin would like to be sent back through time and continue nipping off to the new world, though. GAVIN you fool you’re already THERE and you can have hot showers here. HOT SHOWERS.

Gadreel arrives at a clandestine meeting with Cas. Gadreel reveals that he’s still sour about what happened in the Garden. “You feel misunderstood,” Cas notes. He thinks that Gadreel wants to redeem himself and that’s why he’s helping Metatron. Yep, Cas isn’t speaking about himself AT ALL here. Cas tells Gadreel that Metatron can’t be trusted. Just then, angels race in to attack their meeting. RUDE. Gadreel and Cas dispatch them handily.

Dean has First Blade flashbacks while he researches, zoning out so much that he can’t even hear his own phone ringing next to him. Sam snaps him back to Earth. The phone call is from Crowley and he’s plotting to kill Abaddon with their assistance. When they hang up, Crowley looks up to a smiling Abaddon. It’s a trap!

Dean and Sam unbury a corpse to unearth the First Blade that’s hidden inside of it (yeah that was a lot already) when they’re confronted by a hellhound.

Cornered by the hound, Dean calls Crowley, then puts him on speaker. Crowley tells “Juliet” the hellhound to stand down. At least there are SOME loyal subjects left in Hell! The Winchesters chop the blade out of the body and head out.

Gavin throws a temper tantrum about wanting to travel back in time and slams the door to his room in their suite. Crowley gets a call from Dean and tells him where to meet him to get the drop on Abaddon.

Crowley drops the code word he learned earlier in the season: “Poughkeepsie.” He warns them that it’s a long drive from Poughkeepsie. Dean hangs up and looks troubled, but doesn’t bother to share his concerns with Sam.

Abaddon smirks at Crowley as her plans settle into place. She’s about to be overrun with the Winchesters and Crowley - and she doesn’t trust a single one of them. She shoots Crowley in the shoulder with a devil’s trap bullet to nullify his AMAZING READING POWERS.

Gadreel begs Cas to trust him. He didn’t send the angel assassins! Cas tries to use the attack to bolster his argument that Metatron can’t be trusted.

For Concerned Blue Eyes Science:

Cas asks for intel - not action. If Gadreel will turn spy for Castiel, then Cas has an advantage for his own battles. Gadreel can try to keep his hands clean.

Dean and Sam arrive at the hotel. Dean spins a quick lie about how Crowley spotted demons in the basement. While Sam goes to check that out, Dean heads up to Crowley. “Love the crazy bloodlust in your eyes,” Crowley croons in greeting.

Demons attack Dean immediately and Abaddon power-pushes him against a large painting and pins him like a bow-legged bug.

Sam finds absolutely nothing in the basement while Dean confronts literal and probably also metaphorical demons upstairs. Dean draws from the power of the blade, the Mark glowing through his jacket, and pulls away from the wall under his own magical steam. He psychically snaps the blade to himself and strides across the room to skewer a disbelieving Abaddon. I ALWAYS forget that Abaddon dies in this episode. It’s just like…Crowley family drama, Winchester family drama, Angel drama, lol she’s DEAD.

After she dies, he continues to hack away at her body. Sam tells him, breathlessly, that he can stop now. Dean’s doing GREAT, guys!

Afterward, Crowley reveals that he warned Dean about the trap and Sam shoots a surprised look at his brother. Err…awkward. The Winchesters tell Crowley that the laws of time travel require Gavin to go back to his own time, even if he dies. Honestly, sometimes I just sit back and think about how much I love this sprawling show that’s like...ghosts? Yes. Angels and demons? Okay. Time travel? Why the fuck not?

Sam plans to bring Gavin back to the bunker and magic him home. Crowley heads in to say goodbye to his son, but zaps away with him instead. In a park green, Crowley tells Gavin about the fate of his ship to America, and that he should go live his life in the current century.

Gavin bids Crowley a fond farewell. Crowley, for his part, struggles against his FEELINGS and zaps out.

In the car, Dean tells Sam why he directed him to the basement. Dean knew the blade would help him take down Abaddon and anyone else who got in his way. He wanted Sam out of the way for that. Sam speculates that the Blade is changing Dean. He begs Dean to lock the Blade away until they need it. “No,” Dean says quietly, and we cut to black.

I Had a HellQuote Named Juliet:

No, we get it. You're a rock star

Holy mother of God! We're amongst the stars! Are we in heaven, then? You must be angels!

No one bends the rules like you two bend the rules

Want to read more? Check out our Recap Archive!

#spn recap #spn rewatch #spn 9x21 #king of the damned #dean winchester #sam winchester #castiel #cas #crowley #abaddon #gadreel #supernatural season 9

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disappearinginq · 6 years ago

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Toxic Relationships in Media

So rewatching bits and pieces of Magnum and MacGyver reboots, it’s...concerning, seeing what is being labelled and justified as affection or love. Like, I get that there are people out there who put high value on biological relations, and ‘they’re still your family’ even when the person is a colossal douche bag (and that’s being polite about it). But...given my own biological family situation, or my friends who foster children, I can’t believe there isn’t some point that is a limit of your tolerance.

Maybe this is why I have such a problem with the reboot of Magnum to the point I feel the need to write an alternative...not season, but reasoning? behind Hannah’s motivation.

So, canonically, she sells out her fiance and his three best friends to the Taliban to find the location of Iraqi gold so she can go back, steal it, buy back her dad who has been missing and held captive for an unspecified amount of years because he, too, was a disavowed CIA operative who is being held by bad guys, and then use the extra funds from said stolen gold to buy back Thomas, Rick, Nuzo, and TC from the Taliban. Her reasoning? To spare them from going to the brig if they helped her. Yep. That’s right. Because being brutally tortured for x amount of years (which she didn’t know how long it was gonna be at the time) and risking the very real danger of being executed or traded for more bad guys that are currently in places like Gitmo, is totally a better option than prison. Yeah, solid reasoning there. I’ve met people who were in the brig - they enjoyed it more than they did their sea service. Still got an honorable discharge. Like, it takes serious effort nowadays to get a dishonorable discharge. Like being a serial killer, inciting a war between two or more countries, or actively joining a terrorist cell. But somehow, all this - and the show sort of glosses over it, but you know they got issues - doesn’t make Thomas dislike her. Or distrust her. No, this was for love so that makes it okay, and as soon as she promises an explanation for why she betrayed them if he agrees not to call the cops and throw her in prison for treason (which is actually a capital punishment, so she would likely be executed), he throws all in with her. And I’m more than a little pissed that they even have Higgins weighing in on the issue, because she has no business being involved. And worse - she sides with Hannah and the justification that she sold out military troops to the enemy to get a lead on (not actually in exchange for anything concrete, just a location) gold that she would then have to steal later because she ‘had no other option’. Like...she couldn’t have sold out someone else? Literally anyone else? And why the hell is she even trying to buy her dad back from baddies anyway? She’s already shown perfectly willing to shoot, maim, and sell out someone she supposedly loves for money, so why not just go and blatantly murder the bad guys to get her dad back? Is she that shitty an operative? These people have contacted her, she’s already going rogue, and we’ve seen in Lenkov shows they’re perfectly willing to bend reality when it comes to information found on a computer (if she was trying to find Taliban in cave in the Hindu Kush, fine, there’s not a lot of computer activity there, but these are ex-CIA operatives gone bad - they have plenty of digital trail for someone to follow). She couldn’t have found where they were, and gotten her dad back on her own? And why are they giving her years to come up with the ransom? Plot holes aside, how does anyone justify resigning someone to torture, imprisonment, kidnapping, and shooting them off a moving vehicle at 60+mph as love? I mean, why are they even having the supposed other romantic interest for him to be trying to justify the actions of someone she’s never met before except right before Hannah shoots Thomas to get him off a truck in the middle of a highway?

I don’t want Hannah back alive, I just want the story line brought back so they can discover that Hannah is in fact lying through her teeth, that wasn’t her father she was trying to save, it was an asset she needed, and the reason why she sold out the guys was because they were edging in on the fact that she was allied with the Taliban (which is totally a thing that real life CIA does) to pit them against other warlords/terrorist organizations and had gone rogue (which also happens in real life).

Why is this shitty ass human being allowed a reason to be a psychopath and we’re calling it love? Hannibal Lector showed more concern for Will Graham than Hannah shows Magnum.

And then in MacGyver - in the pilot, his girlfriend Nikki shoots him in the chest (kind of exactly where Hannah shoots Magnum), leaves him for dead, and is kind of an arch villain for the first season (details escape me because I don’t own it like I own Magnum), and her reasoning for doing it? Because she’s not a double agent like they thought, but a triple agent, working on dismantling a shadowy organization from the inside.

Mac has been abandoned by pretty much everyone his whole life. His mother dies, his father disappears, his grandfather raises him and dies before the series ever begins, his mentor in the army dies in his place, the first girl he really likes - Zoe - dies in front of him on screen having sacrificed herself to save others, and now his best friend and pseudo father figure Jack got written off (separate real life matters involved in that)...kid’s got issues.

However, the relationship with his father is the one I question, because we find out that his dad apparently just couldn’t handle the loss of his wife, and tries to say that he left Mac for Mac’s own good and for his safety, and Mac has a brilliant response - no, it wasn’t. It was for his dad’s own selfish reasons, because Mac lost his mom and then his dad vanishes - doesn’t die, just ups and vanishes without a trace for years. Is he dead? Is he captured? Is he just avoiding Mac? Who knows? Not some ten year old kid who just lost his mom. And Mac pushes further - if his dad really wanted him ‘safe’, he wouldn’t have steered him to the military, to being an EOD tech, to being an agent for Phoenix and DXS before that where his dad is the one choosing the missions for him, aka, putting him in harm’s way at every turn. And Mac walks out on him. GOOD FOR YOU, MAC.

Buuuut...then we have season 3. Season 3, where apparently after a 3 minute heart to heart with Riley (who has her own daddy issues) about giving second chances to parents, Mac is suddenly onboard with trying to reconcile with his dad. Maybe it’s because other viewers didn’t want to watch another show where no one gets along with their parents, but really - there were better ways to handle it than Mac just accepting his dad back with relative ease. Admittedly, the third season also leaves off with Mac and Mac Senior on the outs again, but still.

So as a public service announcement: just because you are related to someone doesn’t mean you owe them fuck all if they’re an emotionally or physically abusive twat waffle. Just because you once loved someone doesn’t mean they deserved it. No matter how good they think their reasons are, if you love someone, you could never hurt them like that.

Now, accidentally hurting them because you didn’t see them standing there when you opened the door and whack them in the face....welll....gray area.

#magnum pi #macgyver 2016 #magnum pi 2018

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askjeeveshypno-blog · 6 years ago

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What I know about consent violations from having seen a lot of them

Crossposted to Fetlife.

*TLDR: This stuff is complicated, memories and stories are often flawed, and outside of a few sharp lines there is no consensus on what IS a consent violation to say nothing of what is the correct punishment for one. *

Hi, I’m AskJeeves. I’m a “community leader” but please don’t blame my communities for what I’m about to say. I literally ran this past nobody but my wife so the responsibility for my words would be entirely mine and indeed, it’s possible some folks I work with running organizations will be unhappy with me for my directness here. FWIW, I also have never been the head consent person in any organization. I’m just a board member of three different kink groups who has also been in the community for a really long time.

But anyway, in various kink positions of responsibility in hypnokink, regular kink and a kinky arts organization, I’ve seen quite a few complaints. And here are some general impressions. I’ve messed with some details for privacy but kept the spirit of the complaints intact.

1. Most of the scene likes to gossip and the drama around consent violations is pretty sweet gossip. The chain of secrecy is almost never intact. I’m good at keeping secrets. When I hear about a consent complaint, I treat it as confidential and don’t talk about it. But people who know I’m in a position to know VERY FREQUENTLY talk to me. This puts me in this wacky position of “A complained about B, and everyone seems to know that. A is talking about it and B is talking about it, and people want to talk to me about it, but I don’t 100 percent know WHAT A and B are saying and if one of them is leaving a detail or two out on purpose and I reveal it, I’ve seriously breached my responsibilities,” so I do a lot of smiling and nodding about consent complaints. Also, “B and I are at the same party and B is recounting a romanticized version of what they did that leaves out a lot of facts and if I’m quiet it looks like I agree but I’m really not in a position to speak up,” which also sucks, but they way.

2. The vast majority of complaints we get are in gray areas, and it’s almost impossible to nail down what a “consent violation” actually is outside of what’s actually illegal or specific enough to be spelled out in rules we already had:

a. A guy wrote about kink stuff on his public facebook on the regular. Somebody who was mad at him got drunk and posted something on the same facebook page about how much he sucked for not coming to her play party. Said guy got drunk person banned from a dungeon for “outing her” in a place he’d already outed himself.

b. I’m pretty judgy about JK Rowling retweeting TERFS, but should a con punish someone for retweeting a post that outs somebody?

c. If someone steals someone else’s money without permission, is that a consent violation?

d. If C and D make plans to play, and then C loses interest but never actually says “actually, I changed my mind,” and just puts off or ghosts D, how many times can D follow up, in what ways and getting what responses, without it becoming harassment? (Soft nos are VERY complicated from a “trying to enforce consent rules” perspective. In this situation, C almost always says that D is ignoring a “no” and D almost always says that C seems really busy so D thought D would keep trying and they were eager to do the play C had earlier said they wanted.)

e. If E made a promise to follow a bunch of rules set by a group, and then broke one of them, and F, a member of the other group, complains to a my group that E consented to follow the rules and broke them and the complain to MY group, which has different rules, is that violating the first group’s consent?

f. Hypno-specifically, what counts as non-negotiated use of persuasive language and where?

g. The above complexities quadruple for trying to ban someone from an event or organization for something they did online. Does this happen in rare circumstances? Yes. But the bar is quite high.

h. Some of y’all who are black and white thinkers or just very decisive will feel like you can go down this list going “Yes, no, yes, yes, no” but suffice to say, even if one of these seems straightforward to you, it hasn’t to me in the past, perhaps because of further details I’ve left out for brevity or something I changed to make the situations less specific..

3. If you’ve been banned or whatever, threatening to bring in a lawyer never helps you. Kink organizations are private. We mostly have our own lawyers and know very well how incredibly legal it is to exclude someone from a private organization for a good reason, a bad reason or no reason at all unless it’s a discriminatory reason. Proving “discrimination” is very difficult, proving “defamation” is too. Suing a kink organization for not letting you in requires money up front that almost none of us have, so it’s an empty threat anyway unless the person making the threat is independently wealthy. I write this under the assumption that if you ARE independently wealthy and are willing to sue us into the ground if you don’t get what you want, these words won’t stop us anyway.

a. Suffice to say that when you threaten to sue it indicates to me as a person in a position of responsibility is that “bringing in a lawyer to make threats” is something you’re willing to do when you don’t get what you want, and if my organization continues to deal with you, this will almost certainly happen again. So why would we want you in our private organization? Do you really provide so much benefit to the organization that this constant threat is worth it to us?

b. Caveat: If someone has sexually assaulted you, by all means, call the cops or a lawyer if you feel comfortable doing so. I’m not at all saying that legal mechanisms have no place in kink when directed at the person who hurt you. But as fair as organizations are concerned threatening to sue, or coy letters about how you might threaten to sue if you don’t get your way, are counterproductive and have a strong whiff of bullshit, which is never a good thing if you’re trying to convince us you’re not lying about anything else.

4. Long relationships that end in one or both parties accusing one another of consent violations the moment they break up are a nightmare to deal with on the consent side. Because abuse REALLY DOES happen in long term relationships. But there are many ways of being a shitty partner that are consent violations. People who have just broken up last week can almost never tell the difference.

5. People who talk about consent ALL THE TIME have a bad habit of setting their own rules about it in ways that benefit their own bullshit. Such people are often so excited to talk about other people’s consent violations that they make a big deal without having investigated or otherwise gotten the full story. So people who make a big public deal about rumors of other people’s problems have raised a red flag about themselves. This is completely irrelevant if they never have a consent complaint raised about them. But if they do, the red flag is there. A red flag doesn’t decide anything, but people are going to notice it.

6. I get that Jeff Mach got paid. Just about nobody else in kink does and if you’re looking to get paid, running a con is a terrible way to do it. We’re volunteers throwing parties/events for the community. We want people to be safe but we also hang out at our own parties/cons and we don’t want to hang with jerks. Nobody gets banned for being a jerk alone, but if you’ve yelled at us, been an asshole when you dumped our friend, been accused of minor things many times before, or otherwise caused a lot of problems, that’s not going to help you get what you want. Again, if I personally think you’re a jerk but no one ever complains about you, that’s fine. Some of you ARE jerks and I demonstrably haven’t. But if you’ve got what feels like a long history of being difficult or causing problems, that’s a strike against you. My kid brother has a long history of cussing out cops and has been told he has the worst driving record in the county where we live. Most of the judges and cops in our county have met him and he was unpleasant every time. If you think every new time he’s a defendant there is a clean slate and none of that prior stuff matters, you’ve been sold of a vision of our justice system, and possibly humanity, that doesn’t exist. We are trying to be fair but it would be weird to expect a bunch of volunteer kinksters to be less susceptible to their own perceptions.

7. Rumors people have heard about bad behavior, complaints from unverifiable and likely fake scene names, or a friend making a complaint on behalf of an anonymous friend are simply impossible to investigate or do anything about.

8. Two years ago, a group of people got together to lie about an innocent person assaulting someone. They were people the consent folks at the event liked and trusted. And then the truth came out. It is never impossible that this is happening. And it ruined what seemed like a pretty solid kink organization. There are mitigating factors here and there but the bones of it are an organization people put thousands of dollars and untold hours into that brought a lot of people joy was ruined, because like eight people didn’t get what they want on something incredibly minor and broke the consent system, and the con, on purpose. Again, the consent folks didn’t handle things optimally either, but when eight people are willing to tell the same lie it’s tough to imagine that ending well for them, their victim or the organization. Consent organizers never want that to happen to us, but it’s unrealistic not to accept that it could.

This stuff is complicated. And again, I’m only writing on behalf of myself. But these kinds of issues are what folks who seriously work on consent face. I'm happy to talk about them. But if you think you have an iron-clad, one-size-fits-all solution, you probably don't?

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why-mca-blog · 6 years ago

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Night Life (Chapter 3)

Joining the (Non) Travelling Circus

I open my eyes slowly, and quickly shut them again and bury my face back into the pillow to avoid letting the sunlight filtering through the slightly opened curtains reach my eyes. I lay there for a moment, remembering the night before.

Five had got me situated in a vacant room, I think he said it was Ben’s, and then had his mother come tend to the bullet hole complete with shrapnel on my shoulder blade. As soon as she left the room I was out like a light. I’ve never fallen asleep that fast in my life.

Sluggishly, I push myself up as gently as I can, attempting to not pop a stitch. I stumble to my feet and change into a pair of sweatpants and a baggy sweatshirt, choosing to be comfortable for once in my sad and pathetic life. Or at least what used to be my sad and pathetic life. I almost forgot murdering people makes you interesting (really creepy, but still interesting) by default. So I chose to be comfortable for once in my sad and no longer pathetic life. Improvement.

The pain in my back has shrunk significantly to an ignorable dull throbbing thanks to the painkillers Five’s mom gave me last night. The moment I open the door to leave the room, I’m being shoved back inside with Five slamming the door behind us.

“Not going to happen.”

“You’re not putting me in solitary confinement. I’ve killed people, but I’m not in prison yet.”

“Trust me, meeting my family without having a warning for all parties involved is much worse than prison.”

“Ooh! We’re going to a party?” Annoying Five is quickly becoming my new hobby, which works out because I’m ridiculously good at it.

“(Y/n)...”

“Five…”

“Goddamnit shut up and listen.” Not wanting to annoy him to the point of murder, I take a few steps back and sit cross-legged on the bed, looking up at him expectantly.

“Alright, just listen and this shouldn’t take too long.”

Within the next fifteen or so minutes, he explained as much as he thought I should know about the rest of the Umbrella Academy. How Luther is huge, has super strength, and doesn’t get most social cues because he lived on the moon for four years. Diego's talent with knife throwing and how he and Luther are constantly at each other's throats. Allison’s way with words and how that essentially ruined her life. Also how she and Luther have this really weird sexual tension that everyone ignores out of fear of being traumatized more than they already have been. Klaus’s habits. Klaus’s humor. Klaus’s existence. He had a lot of warnings about Klaus. He talked a bit about how he usually avoids the family (which he obviously clarified was because he’s better than the rest of them and that they’re all useless). He touched a bit on Ben, but all he said was that he was gone. He looked so torn up at the thought that I didn’t press the issue. Of course, he mentioned Vanya. How she’s normal, but she’s also Five’s favorite sibling, although he’d never admit it to her. The only one he could tolerate. Not to mention her talent on violin. He also touched on how the others aren’t a huge fan of Vanya, because of her autobiography.

“Well, that should just about do it.”

“Great. I need coffee, can we go have breakfast now?”

“Don’t leave my side.” Before I could argue, he took hold of my wrist and teleported us to the dining room.

“I was starting to think you two would never come down.” Five’s mom smiled sweetly over to me and set two plates on the table, gesturing for us to sit.

“Wait, ‘you two’?” A man dressed in a black leather fight-suit thing, which I guess might be Diego, storms in the room, jaw hitting the floor when he catches sight of me.

“Holy shit, Five is willingly socializing?” At that, three others burst into the room.

“I mean, I knew you must be horny from being on your own for thirty years, but Five, it hasn’t even been a full day.” The eccentric man that could only be Klaus didn’t stop at that horrific picture. “I mean, that’s a new record, even compared to me. Who knew innocent little Number Five would end up the slut of the family?” I was frozen in complete shock and shot a glance over to Five, who did a terrible job of hiding the beet red flush over his face, which he had buried in his hands. I completely lost it. I drop to the floor howling with laughter, tears streaming down my face. I could feel the four pairs of eyes burning holes in my skin, but my failed attempts to stop laughing aren’t because they’re staring, but because the painkillers are wearing off and the laughter raking through my body is making me want to scream in pain. From his seat at the table, I hear Five mutters a muffled “it’s not that funny” from behind his hands.

Grabbing a chair to help myself stand. Wiping away tears, I breathe deeply and let it out quickly.

“Not that funny my ass.” I take a swig of my coffee and turn to the rest of the Hargreeves. Or at least all of them except Vanya. She must have an apartment of her own.

“So I’ve heard a lot about you guys, but I don’t want to take the grumpy old man’s word as law here, considering he hates people as much as I do.” I smile to myself as they just stand there in stunned silence. “I have hope for you to not be the complete shitheads he described. Well, most of you.” I look up at the man towering over everyone in the room, slightly intimidated.

“Okay, but is no one going to question who this kid is or where the hell they came from?” Allison looked at Five questioningly, and while he was still sitting unresponsive, turned her focus to me. Shit, this is it I guess. Luckily Klaus chimed in before anyone else could.

“Seriously Allison? You have a daughter. You know where they came from.” His comment lightened the mood enough for me to get the guts to respond.

“First off, ew.” I started, exaggerating the ‘ew’. “Secondly, Five and I met while getting coffee. He also just helped me run away, so I guess I’m living here now.”

Diego glanced at me with pity plastered on his face.

“Welcome to the family, then. If Five thought this hellscape of a household and clusterfuck of a family was better to bring you to than wherever the hell you were at, I’m sorry for your PTSD. Also, if it really was that bad, you’ll fit in just fine.”

Before I got the chance to respond, Five was falling to the floor in front of Diego, dumping his coffee on his head. He proceeded to shove him back, yelling the whole time about how if I had let him he would have brutally slaughtered my aunt and have no remorse. I’m not surprised about his claim, which would certainly not be unlike him, but more so how quickly he went to defend me. I was fine with Diego’s comment, but I’m flattered nonetheless.

Allison watches in horror while Klaus is quite obviously entertained by the scene playing out in front of him. Then, tearing his eyes away, Klaus looks over to me.

“Can you hook me up with whatever drugs you have him on? This is the best thing I’ve ever seen.” I laugh, and Klaus gets his first good look at me.

“Holy shit, I know you!” Everyone else freezes at the claim and turns to face Klaus and I. I take a second to think if I actually had met him before. I’m sure I would have remembered.

“Yeah, you were selling brownies in that alleyway, right?” That’s it. I remember it now.

“Oh, yeah. That.” I roll my eyes replaying the situation in my head. “Trust me, Klaus, if I had been selling weed brownies, a cop wouldn’t be waiting in line for it in uniform.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes I do, I’ve sold weed brownies to cops before.” I roll my eyes at the horrified expressions from the others and continue. ”The trick is to sell the harmless stuff in suspicious places so they don’t think twice when they see you selling the good shit out in the open.” At that, Diego goes ballistic.

“You have got to be kidding me Five!” He gestures dramatically to me and Klaus, and I smirk, knowing where he’s going with this. “We already have one druggie here, did you really think two would make it better?”

“Well, I had no fucking clue!” Five shot back, clearly pissed that he didn’t pick up on something that wasn’t even there in the first place. “They didn’t seem to be high or having withdrawn.” He turns to me and shoots a glare at me, and because I don’t want to be the cause of his rage, I step in cutting him off.

“They still don’t seem to be high or having w-”

“That’s because I’m not.” All eyes are on me again. “Look, I just came from a really shitty life where I had no friends, everyone hated me, and I could only be myself when I was sneaking around the city while everyone else was asleep.” I sigh, figuring now my little nighttime shenanigans are going to have to be shared.

“I like creating chaos in nice ways. It makes even more chaos because no one expects anyone to break the law for something so sweet and innocent.”

“Wait so you’re a fucking criminal now, too?” Diego had a look of concern and disgust, and I almost laughed.

“If that’s what you want to call it, then sure.” The questioning looks from the others told me I should probably clarify. “Okay, well if you must know, the worst I do is break into the public library to leave hand-drawn bookmarks and sell baked goods to druggies. The munchies are something that shouldn’t be fucked with. People have literally cried when I sold to them.”

“That was one time!”

“Klaus you were crying because you thought I laced the brownies and I didn’t.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, shaking my head. “You tried to return a half-eaten brownie.” I turn my attention to the rest of the group, giving them a soft smile.

“So, it’s nice to meet you all. I’m (Y/n).” I sit down at the table, letting the smile drop off my face and scaring the crap out of them with the most annoyed glare I could muster. “Can I have my fucking coffee now?”

Five shoos the others out of the room and plops down next to me.

“You had me scared for a second there.”

“You? Scared? Five I’m not an idiot I know that’s not possible.”

“When you said ‘the worst I do’, I thought you were going to follow it with something along the lines of ‘murder people in donut shops’.”

“Oh yeah, because I’m definitely going to try to win over your family by talking about the people I’ve killed.” I roll my eyes and keep talking, wanting to prove to him how idiotic he sounded. “Hi yes, you know that mass murder at Griddy’s last night? That was us. Surprise, you have some serial killers on your hands now!”

“Okay, I get it. Drink your fucking coffee and shut up.” I salute him with my middle finger, smirking as I take a drink of my coffee. I have a feeling I’m going to have a lot of fun here.

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lachlantrash · 6 years ago

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All 4 High School AU's

Stoner Lachlan:

-Lives in his parents basement, because he wanted more privacy. -He smokes a lot and drinks a lot, but the idea of heavy drugs completely horrifies him. -Definitely has ‘parties’ (it’s just him and his buddies) where everyone gets high when his parents are out of town.

-Will not hesitate to do anything for his girl, she wants it, then she has it.

-Memorizes almost everything he finds out about her because he’s just that sweet.

-Super anxious about being in a relationship, because his only ex fucked him up REALLY bad.

-Always wants to hang out at home because it means you guys can do basically anything.

-He likes to think you guys will do the whole marriage thing one day, and if he gets his act together, maybe have kids.

Reader:

-Met Lachlan while trying to buy weed from him.

-She lives with her parents who are kind of helicopters, they’re not really fans of Lachlan but accept him because he makes her happy. -Wishes she could just run away sometimes, her parents fight a lot (dad cheated).

-Doesn’t know how she feels about love and struggles to believe Lachlan really wants forever with her.

-Always wants to hang out at Lachlan’s house and not her’s, because well, his parents love her and they’re super supportive (and let her stay the night)

-Wasn’t really in any big relationships before Lachlan, just a few short flings. -Hasn’t taken a love of pot the way Lachlan has, but definitely smokes when she��s with him from time to time.

What they do together, their songs, and some prompts that I think fit them:

-They usually just hang around in Lachlan’s basement smoking, drinking, or doing nothing. -She likes to watch him play video games, because it’s sort of an escape.

-Driving around (bonus feature: he has a stickshift car so his hand brushes her thighs when he drives)

-They like to go to parks and just walk around, it’s like a reminder the world’s still going on even if the moment might be rough.

Some songs for them: Fucked Up by Young Rising Sons, I Think I’m in Love by Kat Dahlia, and Weak When Ur Around by blackbear. Prompts for them: “You make me feel so damn gushy.” “I’m not gonna stop leaving marks ‘til I’m sure everyone will know you’re mine.”

“This is the strongest eggnog I’ve ever tasted.”

“You’ve been quiet lately.”

“You’ve shown me what love can feel like.”

“I wasn’t lying when I said that I loved you.”

Football Lachlan:

-Totally one of the jockiest men EVER.

-He only parties when the team wins a big game and he only ever drinks.

-When he does drink, he drunk texts A LOT.

-He loves seeing you at every single game because he swears you’re his good luck charm.

-VERY insecure with the relationship because you’re literally the best women in existence.

-He cares a lot about school and is hoping to get recruited by a college through football.

-Big ole softie for the reader.

-Makes sure to make time for you since both of you have a hectic schedule, though luckily both of you have your games together (Football and Cheerleading).

-Found you after a break-up with the quarterback, but everything’s okay after a few tense weeks of your relationship.

-His parents don’t really know how to feel about you because you seem too good to be true, but everyone at school loves you because you make the power couple.

Reader: -She’s cheerleading captain.

-Hates when people refer to her as ‘Lachlan’s girl’ because she feels like it’s viewing her as property rather than a person.

-Wishes she could convince Lachlan she loves his dorkiness so much, nobody else can compare to her hunk.

-Very supportive of everything Lachlan does and will not hesitate to be his designated driver if he needs her to be.

-Has snuck him into her bedroom on multiple occasions because her parents love him, but would kill her if they saw him in their house after 10pm.

-She’s on birth control and she makes Lachlan use a condom sometimes but they’ve had at least two pregnancy scares and she’s truly hoping to get better about this.

-Since she’s in good standings with the football coach, sometimes she sneaks onto their bus to motivate Lachlan pregame/ comfort him postgame.

What they do together, their songs, and some prompts that I think fit them:

-They go out to eat, a lot. Always celebrating with food.

-Make each other little playlists whenever they want to express how they feel.

-Hang out at one of the other player’s house for ‘team bonding’ (eating food and playing video games essentially while being dicks to each other)

-He loves driving her around but only if they’ve got somewhere to be.

-Try to bake sometimes but it never goes too well.

Some songs for them: Overwhelming by Jon Bellion, If I’m Lucky by State Champs, and All of Me by John Legend.

Prompts for them: “You’re so whipped.”

“You make me so happy.”

“I need one of those hugs that turns into sex.”

“They didn’t deserve you.”

“Lemme warm you up.” *Kissing in the snow*

“Would it be too cliche if we matched clothes a little?”

Fuckboy Lachlan:

-Honestly a party animal.

-Doesn’t give a shit about love and moreso just about having sex.

-His friends are all the same as him for the most part.

-He juuls and has no shame in the pods hidden around his room.

-Once you two are together, he makes sure to always have an offbrand watermelon pod on him, because he remembered it was your favorite.

-Also once you get together he literally changes his phone number because he doesn’t want his old girls to be trying to contact him.

-Definitely has some jealousy issues because he’s fucked over a bunch of girls, so he feels like karma will have you fuck him over.

-Hates his past decisions as soon as you walk into his life.

Reader:

-Doesn’t really care for juuling but sometimes if she’s trynna get Lachlan going she’ll take his juul.

-Has a really tightnit group of friends that almost all hate Lachlan bc of his reputation.

-Sometimes she has to defend her man to her friends.

-Definitely fights with Lachlan a good amount considering sometimes he unknowingly flirts with someone or he gets upset with her over something like a rumor/working with another guy on a school project.

-Forces Lachlan to do things she wants to do and he only follows through because he’s utterly whipped for her (and sometimes it leads to sexual favors).

-Always around Lachlan when she’s on her period because Lachlan’s warmth gets rid of her cramps.

-Needs constant reassurance that Lachlan isn’t gonna cheat on her.

What they do together, their songs, and some prompts that I think fit them:

-They watch (Y/N)’s tv shows at her house while cuddling because though Lachlan would never admit it, he doesn’t completely hate them.

-Make out a lot, it started as a friends with benefits thing and their relationship kind of has the same fundamentals except Lachlan doesn’t talk to other girls anymore.

-Go to sports games to make fun of the jock stereotypes.

-Lachlan and her have been on and off a lot, like it’s stupid and everyone knows they’ll get back together, but it happens.

-They go to the skatepark a lot because for some reason Lachlan’s friends hang there.

-Sometimes they go to the mall because Lachlan loves watching her try things on and he even lets her pick some things out for him.

Some songs for them: Heaven’s Gate by Fall Out Boy, Ooh by Jon Bellion, and Cop Car by Sam Smith.

Prompts for them:

“Do you know that was the first time you ever told me you love me?”

“You deserve the best and that isn’t me.”

“So….. you wanna….hot chocolate and chill?” “If you ask me that one more time, I will dump hot chocolate on you.”

“So, are you guys dating or?”

“All the stores were sold out of condoms…”

“You mean this as a sex only thing, right? I don’t do relationships.”

Hockey Lachlan:

-Very obsessed with the sport and takes every play of every game seriously.

-Definitely gets possessive over you, especially at away games because he’s certain some other player is bound to hit on you at some point.

-Very open about his feelings, he’d rather talk about how he feels than deal with the silent treatment.

-Promised himself he’d never put a girl above hockey, but you’ve come damn near close to it (he convinces himself you’re at equal level, but deep down if it came down to it, he’d pick you).

-He realizes he’s in love with you when you skip one of his games during a fight and he finds himself heartbroken over it.

-Immediately after he goes to your house to bed for forgiveness.

-For some reason, his mom does not like you and it really upsets him because he just wants to spend a lot of time with you without having to fight his mom on it.

Reader:

-Hesitant to date Lachlan because you’re worried he doesn’t have time for a relationship, and you aren’t really a hockey fan.

-But you end up becoming obsessed with watching him play, though you may not know every rule by heart like some of the other fans.

-You wear his Jersey around all the time, whether it be to games or just around school, you love how it engulfs you.

-You’re never seen without this golden bracelet that has one single diamond heart on it, Lachlan got it for you for your one year anniversary.

-You keep cologne and men’s deodorant in your backpack because sometimes after a game or practice he just wants to go to your house/ his house before showering, so you make him put it on before letting him in your car.

-You get kind of bummed out whenever his games are away and you’re unable to make it, but you make sure to spam him your support through snaps of you with his jersey on.

What they do together, their songs, and some prompts that I think fit them:

-They gossip SO much. Not because of just (Y/N), Lachlan totally talks shit about some of his teammates.

-Go on coffee dates, and Lachlan sometimes brings her coffee to school because he knows how much she loves it.

-Since Lachlan always tries to be spontaneous, they do things like go to the aquarium or zoo, or even just go into the city to shop around for awhile (He always gets stuck carrying her bags).

-If either of their parents are out of town, they kind of just splurge in the amount of time they can spend together, overly excited about getting to cuddle all night long.

-Obviously they go to the hockey games together whenever (Y/N) can make it.

Some songs for them: Satellite by Mayday Parade, The Last of The Real Ones by Fall Out Boy, and Tear in My Heart by Twenty One Pilots.

Prompts for them: “Someday we will be able to go to bed together every night.”

“Why don’t you like ice skating?”

“Sorry for calling so late - I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

“You’re my other half.”

“Cuddle?”

“Kiss the hell out of me. Please.”

2 notes · View notes

ayearofpike · 6 years ago

Text

Witch World/Red Queen

Witch World

Simon Pulse, 2012 521 pages, 24 chapters + epilogue ISBN 978-1-4424-3028-0 LOC: PZ7.P626 Wi 2012 OCLC: 924501501 Released November 13, 2012 (per B&N)

(HELL YES I DID take this picture in Vegas. Way back in November, underscoring just how behind this entry is.)

Red Queen

Simon Pulse, 2014 ISBN 978-1-4424-3029-7 LOC: PZ7.P626 Rd 2014 OCLC: 1030042441 Released August 19, 2014 (per B&N)

First I have to address the immediate question: It’s the exact same book. Like, down to pagination. (Yes, I read them both. We’ve already established I’m kind of a freak.) I don’t know why it has two different sets of catalog information. I don’t know why they changed the title, but I will hazard a guess that Witch World is a shitty title and it took slow or lacking sales for S&S to convince Pike/Pike to convince S&S to change it. I don’t know why they then picked a title that would be coming out shortly from another publisher, one that would go on to create a much more robust universe and move enough units to muddy any kind of search query. I don’t even really know why I bought them both. I don’t know a lot of things, and I’m not quite masochist enough to find out.

What I do know? This book is more of the same old shit. Like, OK, most people aren’t going to read all 95 of Christopher Pike’s books right on top of each other, so the connections and relationships might slide. But if you do, you start to see that this dude actually has no new or original ideas after ... let’s generously call it 1996. The beautiful girl in the California town in the middle of nowhere who goes on a weekend party outing with her friends, but then meets a dude with mysterious powers and ends up in a fatal situation, only to realize that she’s survived death and now has strength and vision beyond her prior ability or even imagination? A vision that taps her into an alternate parallel universe, where she’s had a child who has the potential to be the most powerful human ever, only evil forces know about this child’s genetics and want to use her for their own selfish and horrific ends? This is The Grave, gang. Well, mostly The Grave, with some Sita and Alosha and, yes, even Spooksville sprinkled in for flavor. But the point is, we’ve seen all of it already.

Pike has previously said that he felt rushed toward the end of his previous S&S days, and that he didn’t put everything he had into the stories he wrote because of being pulled in multiple directions. That’s fair, and it makes sense that he’d want to come back to something he felt wasn’t as good as it could be, something that didn’t get enough care and attention, and make it better. So it’s a little frustrating that this is what we get. Don’t get me wrong, it’s got a lot of potential, but then again, so did The Grave. I can’t help but feel like Pike is still just trying to figure out what has sold, what has been attractive to people who read his books and others like them, and is retreading so much old ground that it’s starting to become flat and uninteresting. (Which might be part of my reticence to finish this project.)

One thing that’s new and notable about WW/RQ: it marks the placement of Pike’s first YA F-bomb. He’s been using “damn,” “hell,” and “bitch” since the beginning, and starting with EoI (eliding maybe one or two in Whisper of Death) he began liberally (not literally, mind) dropping “shit.” But “fuck” has been sacred, hallowed ground, off limits in any but his adult novels, never mind that this is pretty much what all of his characters want to do all the time. So imagine my profound shock when I picked this book up right around its release date* and encountered the word “unfuckable” on page 18. A sign of the times, yes, and of what was becoming permissible in YA, but to someone who had grown up with Pike and expected a certain voice and stance, this felt kind of wrong and out of place. Much like my opinion of Pike in the 21st century in general.

*This was another random club store find in a rural town in southern New Mexico. I don’t know why the store where I mostly bought diapers was getting Pike in hardback on or near release when nobody else even knew these books were available, and can’t imagine I’ll ever find out.

OK, summary time. Jessie Ralle has just graduated from high school and her entire senior class is going to Las Vegas to celebrate. Said entire class is like 200 people — so not only does Pike still not get what a small town is, but he demonstrates increasing disconnect from how young people actually act. Vegas is a two-hour drive from Apple Valley, California (where Jessie’s mom relocated them after her Hollywood doctor dad bailed on them for a hot young nurse, and also where none of this takes place). I barely even wanted to drive across town to my senior party, to say nothing of paying for a hotel and a fancy dinner with a massive group that I barely know. And that was before the Internet and streaming media allowed us to prune and curate what (and who) we interact with so ruthlessly. Like, if this was a class of 40, I’d be on board, but 200?

But apparently it’s a close-knit 200 people, even though we only ever meet like six of ‘em. Jessie’s riding in a car with four others: her best friend since childhood, the uptight salutatorian, the class nerd who of course has always had a crush on Jessie, and Jimmy. Jessie has loved Jimmy from afar since the beginning of high school, and from up close for a couple of months this past winter, but he dumped her to go back to his previous girlfriend, who graduated early and hasn’t been seen around town since. That doesn’t mean Jessie is over him — far from it, actually — so this car ride is either going to work out in her favor or be super awkward and uncomfortable.

They get a three-bedroom suite at the MGM Grand for $150 over a weekend somehow. It is all I can do to suspend my disbelief. Like, I’ve been to Vegas (obviously; see top image). Pike obviously has too; his description of spatial mechanics is (mostly) on point, which is what makes this price thing so jarring. I’ve been responsible for booking hotel rooms there off and on for the last 20 years. And the one time we ever got a suite, it was almost twice that PER NIGHT and still only had one bedroom. (We split it six ways, and we all HAD jobs.) And this was in the beat-ass old Luxor in September 2006. Ain’t no way these fucking CHILDREN managed a SUITE in a PREMIER CENTER STRIP HOTEL SIX YEARS LATER FOR LESS. And Jessie has the gall to fucking COMPLAIN ABOUT THE COST.

I MUST STOP YELLING. I am so a dad, right?

But anyway, Jimmy doesn’t have a room — he wasn’t even sure he was coming on this trip. Jessie’s best friend offers for him to stay with them, which Uptight Salutatorian bitches about, but like, chill the fuck out, there’s a couch, right? He and Jessie have to talk about whether this is OK, and it turns out he left her because his ex was pregnant, but the baby died just after he was born. And Jessie isn’t OK. They’d been together long enough that this smacks of either an excuse or a manipulation, and she doesn’t like either option. She kicks him out and cries a lot, and then the gang all goes to dinner at the Bellagio, which is where this starts to get financially realistic when half the class balks at the cost of the meal and fucking bails. Yet the restaurant serves the rest, even giving these (again) CHILDREN bottles of wine, which messes Jessie up enough to kiss Nerd Crush. In front of Uptight Salutatorian, who (it turns out) likes HIM. So everyone gets pissed off at each other and takes off, and then Jessie and Best Friend go see O (the Cirque show inside the Bellagio).

It’s page 35, by the way. Almost 500 to go yet. At least from here the story gets more focused and straightforward.

After the show, they want to gamble. CHILDREN. But they have fake IDs, so they head down to the Tropicana, an older hotel with lower minimums on blackjack, where they bump into a dude who seems strangely familiar to Jessie, even though she’s sure she never met him before. This dude is in town for a medical conference ... Jessie will later learn about his genome-scanning technology and what it implies for people like her, but she’s gonna have to figure it out first. He has an uncanny ability to win, and people start asking him for advice, but he denies them all. Except Jessie. They quickly pile up hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is where she’s hosed because they’ll never let her cash out that much with a fake ID. So the dude gives her his room key (not at this old-ass dirtball hotel, at the Mandalay Bay across the street) and says he’ll get her money and bring it up in a minute, and she should order some dessert from room service while she’s waiting.

No, they don’t fuck. They almost do, but then Jessie remembers Jimmy and realizes she’s still hung up on him, even though he wronged her and left her hanging. But she learns that the dude will cop to some unnatural method of knowing what’s coming next in the deck, which is why he managed to bet properly at the right times. He doesn’t show her, but he does teach her how to play twenty-two. Not twenty-one, which is blackjack: in twenty-two, aces are only worth one, but red queens are eleven. And if you get a natural twenty-two (queen of hearts and queen of diamonds), you win instantly, PLUS your opponent HAS to try to win their bet back in full on the next hand. The dude doesn’t state why these are the strict rules, but he does imply that a portion of the winnings goes to some mysterious party that doesn’t come clear yet.

So Jessie goes back to the hotel, where Jimmy is sitting on the floor outside. He’s been sexiled from the nerd’s room, because it turns out he was OK going after Uptight Salutatorian (who I guess isn’t so uptight after all). And he’s crying and he’s apologetic, and this coupled with Jessie’s realization in Mystery Gambler’s room is all it takes for her to accept him back. They have breakfast with everyone the next day (room service, more invisible money spent) and then Jessie and Jimmy drive out to Lake Mead to splash and swim and sex. But what’s weird is that it reminds them both of the first time ... which neither of them remembers the same way. Even more awkward is the ex showing up with a warning: “They never take just one, Jessie. They always take both.” (102)

This doesn’t make any sense, right? Well, Mystery Gambler has planted a seed that things might get confusing pretty quick, and invited Jessie to talk to him about it. So she hops in a cab back to his hotel, except the cab takes her out to a creepy industrial area instead. When it finally stops at a stop sign, she bolts, only she doesn’t know where she is now. Luckily, a beautiful woman in a red Porsche pulls up at that exact moment and offers to give her a ride. Which ... aren’t you even the slightest bit concerned that a strange car brought you out here and now another strange car has just pulled up right when you needed it? Obviously not, which is what leads to her getting tased and waking up in a meat freezer, where the safety ax is of course missing. She wrestles with the door and some meat-hanging apparatus for a while, but can’t get it open and ends up spraining her ankle in the process. And even though it’s dangerous to sit, to slow down, to stop moving in this freezer, Jessie can’t help herself.

She wakes up in a hospital. Only this room doesn’t look or feel like a typical hospital room. Plus, she can’t move. She can’t even blink. She’s briefly relieved when two doctors come in, but that goes away when she realizes they’re here to perform the autopsy. The senior doctor gets called out, which is all the other guy needs to start satiating his necrophilia all over Jessie’s corpse. He’s pretty shocked when Jessie suddenly sits bolt upright and curses him out — enough that he has himself a nice little heart attack right there in the morgue. The other doctor comes back, and she seems to know what happened, and is also weirdly thrilled by the guy’s obvious pain? But she leaves without taking any action, and Jessie sees this as her chance to get out of Dodge.

The hospital is downtown, which is a long way from the MGM Grand but at least it’s an obvious straight shot on Las Vegas Boulevard. Only Jessie doesn’t recognize some of these north-end casinos. She goes inside one to get her bearings and is quickly accosted by three punks, who she casually injures like it’s no thing. What’s even stranger is how quickly they back off and the degree of respect they suddenly accord her. And even stranger than that is that the blackjack tables don’t say “blackjack.”

You guessed it. People in Las Vegas are playing red queen.

So now she has to talk to Mystery Gambler more than ever. She walks all the way to the Mandalay Bay, because fuck a taxi anymore, right? Only it’s called the Mandy, and his room on the top floor is now one floor lower than it used to be. But as it turns out, he does have some answers. He first tells Jessie the truth of why he's in Vegas: his whole medical conference story is just a front. There is some basis in reality, in that his group has identified certain genes that, when awakened, enable essentially superpowers. His genetic sensor identified that Jessie has seven of these genes — but he already knew that. He seems to know a creepy amount for some rando she just met. And also, he keeps calling her Jessica, and she realizes she's using a longer version of his name too, reflexively, even though he never called himself that in their interactions.

This, plus the hotels and the casino game and the fact that, y'know, she woke up on a fucking MORGUE TABLE a few hours ago help Jessie to realize the truth of her situation. With a little guided meditation, which helps her to remember things that never actually happened to her, she learns that there are two simultaneous dimensions happening on Earth, we live two lives in parallel, and the extra genes (when activated) allow people to experience both. These people, historically, are who we think of as witches, so for lack of a better term this second dimension is colloquially called witch world. Like, super lazy writing, right? I guess Pike blew his load inventing names for shit in Alosha and couldn't be arsed to consider that maybe twelve thousand years of connected humans might have named something themselves. (Yeah, I said twelve thousand years. Back at it again with the same timeline.)

But one of those things Jessie remembered is having a baby. This is where her father (remember, the dude who bailed on Jessie and her mom) suddenly shows up. We learn that he left (in the “real” world, not in witch world where he’s still present in her life) because he realized the importance of Jessie and her fate, and hoped that his absence would protect both her and the baby to come. (He has the "seeing-the-future" gene, I guess?) According to Dad, this baby is potentially the most important person in the history of both worlds, because she's the only one to have ever been born with all ten extra genes. It's also a weird connection, because this is the only occasion that anybody knows of where a child has been born to different parents in the two worlds. (The kid is an entirely different person because of that, so that's weird too.) But, just like the boyfriend's ex-girlfriend warned, "they" have taken both.

"They" turn out to be a cadre of witches who want to use their powers to elevate themselves rather than ... well, it's never really made super clear what the "good" witches do. Like ... hang out and be immortal? Oh yeah, I didn't mention that once you're awakened you can't die of natural causes. I guess the dad says that sometimes they'll interfere when shit is really going sideways, but for the most part they want regular humans to regulate their own affairs. It's the Telar again! Only, no, wait, they call themselves the "Tar" in this book so it's obviously totally different. And yeah, both babies have been taken; they let the boyfriend think his son died in infancy so that he'd eventually be a lever to manipulate Jessie when he realized he had two living children. But it sounds like the daughter is already causing trouble for her kidnappers, without even being aware of her ten genes, which ...

I don't know, it doesn't make any sense now that I'm writing about it. Like, I'm cool with the parallel dimensions, I'm on board with dying to become awakened, I'm down with extra powers and whatever. I'm even mostly OK with this story reusing so many assets from all these past books. But like ... how does the baby have some (even unconscious) control of her locked genetic powers when her counterpart in the real world is not only still alive, but had a different MOTHER and is therefore a totally different PERSON? The first chapter of the sequel (all I’ve read of it so far) doesn’t make it look promising that we’re ever gonna find out, so just keep suspending the shit out of that disbelief, I guess.

But anyway, now that Jessie’s connected, she’s hell-bent on rescuing her baby. Which I think she would have done even if she were still separated, but whatever. And I know, easy to think that not actually having a memory of the baby might make it difficult, but these memories are slowly bubbling up and emerging, especially strong ones like parenthood and family. She’s been warned against contacting Jimmy (or “James,” I guess) in witch world, but she doesn’t hesitate to tell him all the crazy shit that’s happened to her in the real world.

(This is another reason I have a problem with the lazy naming conventions on display. To witches, “witch world” is the most real. Each day takes place first there in their perceptions, followed by the same day in the “real world.” We’ll also see how events in witch world have a stronger effect on events in the real world; namely, if you die in witch world you pretty much always die in the real but the inverse is not true. So, once again, why wouldn’t witches have come up with some more appropriate naming patterns at least, given how old the oldest is? Just more lazy crap we gotta swallow.)

So anyway, Jimmy doesn’t believe her; he thinks someone drugged Jessie with a hallucinogenic and now she’s having altered state memories. So she gets out of the car they’re driving to the desert and picks it up to prove her new strength. Why are they driving in the desert? For some reason, Jessie is drawn to the power associated with the nuclear tests that the government ran in the barren nowhere that is most of Nevada. There’s gotta be a reason, after all, that the centers of witch power are here. So they bust into the deserted testing ground, only to discover it’s not that deserted — there’s a kid out there apparently living by himself. He takes to Jimmy immediately and agrees to come back to the city with them, where they’re going to talk more to Jessie’s dad.

The kid can’t speak, but he can write — with a prehensile tail that he has heretofore hidden by wrapping it around his waist. He tells them about the other freaks that live out in the nuked test cities, as well as the mean man who brings him food. The rationale isn’t clear, and the kid isn’t talking ... well ... you know what I mean. But this is where Jimmy finds out his son is still alive and being used as bait. And dude fucking TAKES it: as soon as his ex calls and wants to discuss what she might know about the children, not only does he refuse to step back and let the powerful people handle the rescue, but he actually wants to go through the death process in order to awaken his awareness of both sides.. They don’t let him do that, because apparently our good guys are not allowed to actively connect more witches, except when they are. So all they can do is talk to the ex and learn that she doesn’t care who she sells out to as long as it saves her son, which ... fair. But Jimmy isn’t willing to go that far, and they head back to her dad’s house to regroup, where they realize they’re being watched.

Or they were, I guess. There’s a car with two obvious spies in it, but they’re dead, and the killer is hanging out nearby. This dude is, we learn, second-in-command of the Tar leadership, a five-thousand-year-old Celt who wants to take a more proactive approach in encouraging good and deterring evil in both humans and witches, mostly with his sword. He’s a Highlander, is what I’m trying to say. He takes Jessie out to a sacred spring in the mountains, where they swim naked together, as you do when you first meet an ancient Celtic swordsman, right? But there’s some cliff writing out here, written by the ancient people in a script the Highlander knows, having been taught it by the man who turned him so many years ago. It describes a woman who will have such power that she controls the destiny of the world, and it’s essentially Jessie’s daughter. So like ... tell me something I don’t know, right? What’s more new and unusual is the Highlander’s description of red queen, how it was taught to him and spread throughout ancient Rome, and how a certain percentage of all winnings, no matter who takes it, has to ultimately return to his benefactor, who we’ll call the Alchemist because that’s what Pike calls him.

We’re going to have to wait on more description, because the Highlander takes Jessie home and we skip-cut forward to the next night in witch world, where she’s meeting the leadership council and discussing their intents to rescue the baby. Mystery Gambler is there too; he's going to act as Jessie's liaison to the bad guys, having served as a double agent since the Civil War. This scene seems like it might be superfluous, except that you mostly only retain the memories from the dimension in which you die, and so the council knows that Jessie needs some backstory. (Don't we all.) The main thing we get out of this is that they've kind of figured out that WANTING to activate their witch genes has a high correlation with witches going bad at all, especially when they try to engineer the birth of high-number witches. So Jessie's contact with Jimmy was carefully arranged so as to appear NOT engineered, because even though the future sight told them that these two were compatible and would fall in love and make a power baby, any appearance of forcing it could make things all fucked up.

So Jessie's entire life is a sham, manipulated by sources of power she was never supposed to see, one of those being her own goddamn father.

What next? Well, on to the other purpose of this meeting: prep for said meeting with the bad guys. The council expects that they're going to offer Jessie her baby back, as long as both of them live under bad-guy control, and they want her to string them along while they figure out what to do. Great fuckin' plan, guys. You've been trying to make a power baby for how many thousand years, and you didn't have a contingency plan if it got kidnapped?

But so Jessie and Mystery Gambler go to the next meeting, and this is starting to sound like work. As it turns out, the leader of the bad guys is (plot twist that surprises nobody!) the coroner who was unfazed when Jessie sat up in the morgue. She's making this deal because the baby is difficult, and they think that if she has her mother that they'll be able to control her and her powers. They let Jessie hold her, which activates even more of those mom connections, but when they go to take her away the baby cries and creates almost a physical wall, which the big strong guard man has to fight with all his might to overcome. President Coroner has no qualms with the possibility that she might have to kill both baby and mom if they don't cooperate. In fact, she invites Jessie to die right here and now, by forcing her to fight for her life against Mystery Gambler. For Jessie, this is proving her worth and her importance in being allowed into the bad-guy circle. For Mystery Gambler, it's a step up to a higher ranking of leadership. For President Coroner, it's TV. So they have a monster sword fight ... well, Mystery Gambler has a sword; Jessie has a bamboo stick that proves its power when she somehow shoots fire out the end and totally incinerates the dude. Which is cool by the bad guys, because they already knew MG was a double agent and wanted him dead anyway. And then there's another kid ... this one with a tail ... only instead of a blunt prehensile end, this one has a stinger like a scorpion's. Guess whose kid THIS is.

Back in the real world, Jessie and Jimmy go see her dad, who confirms that there was a mysterious fire on the top floor of the Mandalay Bay the night before, with one fatality. Which ... does this even come close to matching the timeline? How could it have already happened if the day hasn't happened yet? But whatever — the important thing is that the council wants Jessie to accept the bad guys' offer and go live with the baby. The tail-boy is still here, though Jessie's dad says he's riddled with malignant tumors and can't possibly live too much longer. But they realize that if he can tap into those cross-dimensional memories, the way Jessie and Jimmy were doing when they argued about fucking all the way back ... two days ago, then maybe they can use him to triangulate the area where witch-tail-boy lives, presumably with President Coroner. He leads them to a gated community at the base of a mountain, which they figure is good intel to take back to the council even if they're not ready to investigate yet.

Jessie does want to try to find the area where she got dumped and zapped the day she was killed, for ... you know, reasons. She hears cries of pain coming out of the sewer in the general area she thinks it was, and in investigating she runs into the big mean guard from the bad guy meeting. He thinks it's been a waste of time trying to get her on their side and is just about to kill her when the Highlander shows up and unceremoniously lops off his head. He has some more info about what might be going on down here, and it has to do with his dearest and oldest love: that’s right, President Coroner.

They met in ancient Rome, around the turn of the calendar, but every effort they made to procreate ended in tragedy. One son was killed in battle fighting the Huns, one daughter (and her children) died of the plague, and a final son (who, let it be known, they named HERME) disappeared during the US Revolutionary War. All this loss made the poor woman so bitter and angry that she naturally began striving for control, including supporting Hitler (like, literally helping him) during WWII. The Highlander thinks there's another dimension to her having gone there, though: somehow she can feed off the pain of misery and death, and is addicted to it. Also, it gives her another power of being able to confound people, which the Highlander experienced when trying to reason with her around the time of the Hiroshima nuclear explosion and again when the power baby was kidnapped. Is it helping anybody that he's holding out on the council with this info?

So he takes Jessie back to the hotel, where she owes her best friend an explanation — only she already knows. Turns out that this dude she's been hooking up with in Vegas is a witch too, and has explained to her the ins and outs and difficulties of what's going on with Jessie, up to a point. Turns out this dude is ALSO a double agent, here supposedly on assignment from the bad guys but just about ready to turn face, at least partly because he's found himself in love with the friend. After two days. His primary power is the ability to change his appearance at will, which Jessie learns in a jarring fashion upon waking up in witch world and finding a tall hunky dude in her suite in place of this pudgy nerd. She has that gene too, he says, and helps her start down the path of disguising herself. She quickly gets good at it and then realizes: couldn't I use this power to sneak into that gated community and steal back my baby?

Obviously it's not going to be so easy as walking into the joint and walking back out with The Special, even disguised as President Coroner as she is. First of all, she doesn't even know for sure that the baby is here now, and she does know that the actual boss is in town, not here. (Lucky thing, right, when she goes through the guard shack in full makeup.) So instead she goes to Jimmy's ex-girlfriend's place. Don't ask me how she knows that THIS is an option, or that the girl is indeed even home, or that she is living there at all. There's not even really a reason to believe that she can help, or that she even KNOWS anything about the baby. But Jessie's concerned about the competition, and fairly confident that her target doesn't have the strength gene and will therefore be easy enough to overpower. It proves true in terms of tying the girl up and throwing her in the trunk of her car, but Jessie isn't counting on being lied to. The ex kicks through the backseat and forces Jessie off the road, where they have an epic Matrix battle that culminates in Jessie punching a hole in the gas tank and exploding the thing with an emergency flare. She feels a surge of pleasure while the ex-girlfriend dies, which is ... creepy? Shows some link to President Coroner? What else does it mean?

It at least means that Jessie should be prepared when she goes to talk to President Coroner tonight. She buys a handgun at a pawn shop, then meets Jimmy James in front of the Tropicana, where the big ugly bodyguard picks them up in a limo. James takes a little while to get in the car, and he doesn't sit right next to Jessie for some reason. The car takes them back to the gated community, to the biggest house, where President Coroner is waiting. Negotiations don't really go as well as could be hoped, since the boss already knows that she's not the one who kidnapped the ex in the trunk of a car. But while they're working out their threats and measuring their dicks, who should walk in but the Highlander. He's finally talked the Tar council into using brain powers to murder his dearest love, and as one person has to be present to make it work, guess who volunteered. Only the big mean bodyguard is holding the baby, and he'll rip her in half if they make a move against his boss. This is a good time for the best friend's boyfriend, the shapeshifting teacher, to appear out of thin air, grab the gun out of Jessie's waistband, and cap the bodyguard in the head. Yeah, he was sitting between them for the whole car ride, like there's not enough seats in a limo for him to stretch out somewhere else. Cockblocker.

But here's the weirdest part: President Coroner recognizes him. That's right, bitches — Herme lives! He has seen the evil his mother is doing and has finally come out of hiding to try to help put a stop to it. And James helped him because he knows what's going on in both worlds. He's experienced it, actually: after Jessie fell asleep, he killed himself (with Herme's help) so he could be fully present and help in witch world. I have more timeline problems and concerns, obviously, starting with the question of how Jimmy could possibly be here today if he hasn't yet killed himself, but that's not where the characters are right now. Right now they're concerned with stopping this ultimate evil who doesn't seem to care about murder. So Herme and his Highlander dad point blue brain lasers at President Coroner, who generates a red bubble to stop them, because everything we have to know about good and evil energy colors we learned from Star Wars.

And now Jessie finds herself inside the red bubble. She's been the most susceptible of those exposed to PC, after all, and so she might be convertible to the pain-suckers. She relives all of the memories that our dear villain has of her children dying and of how the pain could be turned into a pleasurable sensation, and it's just hypnotic enough and convincing enough that, as Jessie finds herself back in her own body, she can be persuaded to take her gun back from Herme and shoot the Highlander. He doesn't die, but he's weakened enough that President Coroner can steal his sword and stab him in the heart.

So now what? Well, it's a good thing Jimmy's here to save everybody! What would we do without a white dude who's barely aware of his powers? But he knows that together, with Jessie and the baby, they have a strength that is impossible to overcome. So they manage to paralyze our villain, but now her scorpion son shows up and wants to murder too. Only — plot twist! — he murders his mom! Turns out that when Jimmy killed himself, he also killed tail-boy in the real world, and now HE'S got good-guy memories. This is really telling about President Coroner's parenting skills that all of her living children not only think that she has to die, but show up to help DO IT.

But now all is good and we can move forward as a family, right? Totally! At least until Jessie wakes up in the real world and finds Jimmy lying beside her, still and cold and dead.

This would have been a good place to stop, right? Of course he doesn't. Two days later, Jessie and her best friend are home from Jimmy's funeral, talking about what's going on and all the implications, when suddenly there's a sound at the door — the mail box. (Does anybody still have one of these shits in 2012? Most rural neighborhoods are going to the community box.) Jessie collects the mail, among which is a red envelope containing a letter from the Alchemist (remember that dude) anticipating a future meeting and sending best wishes from ... President Coroner.

And that is the end of Witch World! Or Red Queen, whichever one you picked up. Like, are we starting to understand how Pike has so little grasp of world-building that he has ALREADY killed his main antagonist AND the potential monkey wrench in Jessie's future relationships? Doesn't he realize none of us are going to get invested in a world where you don't stay dead after you die? I mean, except zombies. But since that's not what we're talking about, I can't possibly imagine where Black Knight is going to take us. I mean, I can, because I've read the back copy, and it doesn't look remotely related. Maybe that's one more reason I've been stalling on this entry: to keep me away from the annoying-looking next one.

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mattyslittleworld · 6 years ago

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love doesn't mean it'll last

I went for a walk a few hours ago to listen to some music. I got caught in a thunder storm, hiding like Tom Hanks with a volley ball, under some hangover at a school near my crib. I had to sit there for mad long. A cop drove behind it and asked if I had a warrant, wanted my name and address and all this shit I was like you’re bugging. Then drove away without giving me a ride back home like a typical trash middletown cop. But I was forced to sit down and listen to music and relax, it was actually amazing. I listened to The National’s new record Sleep Well Beast. I listened to City and Colour’s new live album. Ben Howard records. Owen’s cover of American Footballs “Never Meant”. I know from my IG and the public perception im very heavily into Hip Hop and shit but I don’t think anything can touch my heart soul and interest level like these records and artists do. Indie / Folk music really cuts deep. Some of my favorite bands are Thursday, Death Cab For Cutie, The Postal Service, Bright Eyes, Elliot Smith, Dylan, all that shit. I came up on that shit. Bands like Mae, or even Metalcore that crossed over into clean jazz parts like Misery Signals and 7 angels 7 plagues. Their piano ballad jhazmynes lullaby changed my life and I got that name tattooed on the tops of my wrists. I think that was the first time I realized you can be into hardcore, create hardcore, have the stereotypical lifestyle and look, but still be emotional. They’d go from the heaviest breakdowns right into clean pedals delay and beautiful soundscapes that you could really get lost in on a night like tonight stranded out to sea. 2 nights ago Albee played his first show back in New Jersey since the D.A. unbanned him. It was crazy. I pulled up solo and met up with them and it was crazy to see how many people fuck with that dudes movement. It was also crazy to see how famous and embraced Fetty Wap is. He was mad cool. Anyone who’s family to Belv is family to me. The crowd freaked the fuck out when he came on stage it was so sick. There was like 50 of us on stage it was such a good time and im glad I went. Makes me so stoked on all the work me and Belv have been putting in. We both got albums on deck for 4th quarter 2018, first quarter 2019. The new Mozzy came out and im sitting here just vibed out listening to the song “Blackhearted”. The beats this dude picks are so beautiful. Like piano ballad beats with soul samples, he seems very intelligent because these bars are insane. Tonight I met up with Jeff because he have this weird tradition of just going to as many shows as possible. We saw Brian Fallon again at Count Basie in Red Bank. First off - ive been working so hard lately that ive been feeling extremely extremely extremely alone. I don’t hangout with anybody 1 on 1 these days, I don’t really go out side. I literally don’t even have a social group. I travel everywhere alone, and I just in general move by myself. Im at a point now where some people have tried some fuck shit to get to some of the people ive been working with. Before this I was so busy recording so any social time to myself and “friends” was basically engineers, collaborations, and music related. The whole “go to the movies” type of social life or any normal shit has just kinda been erased from my life. Sometimes when Im out, in passing, ill see a group of like 5 or 6 kids just laughing passing me. Bonding in the simplest way and it makes me choke up. I love it. I haven’t felt that in mad long but when I think back on when I did have that - in the back of my head all I wanted to do was get a shot at music. So now that I have that shot I have to bite down. Im foaming at the mouth for this shit. Anyway tonight with Jeff was the first in awhile where I put shit aside and hung out and caught a show outside of some business shit. I appreciate that dude probably more than he realizes. He saw something in me, a fight, a fire, and linked me with Jesse - who literally spun my life in a 180. Brian is probably one of my favorite songwriters these days. I know thats a cliche thing to say but I really was there from the jump, like Myspace days. Ive met him a few times and he has a tattoo of a band I Sang for and we chopped it up and he was a really nice dude. After his show there was an immediate standing ovation. Im talking like within a second the entire sold out count Basie theater jumped to their feet and roared. It literally scared him. The look in his eyes was so unreal. I could see him thinking “how did I get here?” For kids like us its a dream to play that room. I cant imagine 10 years from now being blessed enough to sell that bitch out with a standing ovation. Within that moment I can tell he went right back to being a kid walking past that shit with “one day” eyes. I really had a good time tonight though. It was so nice to get out. After I caught up with my boy Joe who booked the show and runs The Basie. The shit he was saying to me put me on cloud 9. So encouraging. He mentioned my work all across the boards, in all genres and told me to keep going. Its hard sometimes to hold the faith but times like this when a dude who used to book your hardcore band and is now booking these crazy concerts says keep going for said reasons….damn man. Makes me wonder. Its 4:30 am and I had food and watched Ebro / Genuis interviews and passed out so im probably up for the day. This Mozzy record really is amazing. Now that im getting older im finding myself wanting to settle down with a girl and spend more time with my family and hers. That aspect of my life is creeping up. Ive never felt that. Every relationship ive ever been in was shit and stagnant with people who switched up. Ive never felt true bond. True companionship. True love. True strength. True ride or die I got you till the end marriage type shit. My hearts been empty for so long. My hearts been closed. But tonight I walked from Starbucks in red bank to the Basie, with a cup of coffee, felt the breeze of October…..and I just felt my heart being open again. Its still empty, but at least its open and I felt warm and excited for one day hopefully having the opportunity to meeting somebody that will let me make them coffee. I know that I have met her. Ive known her for about 10 years. I feel her deep in my soul….but sometimes love aint enough so ive been faced with the crossroads and I had to move forward. Hopefully one day it’ll pan out because my fists are bloody from fighting. You know who you are. I know you’re reading this. Im looking forward to halloween, and the holidays and the cold weather. Spending time by the fire, having good coffee, with good people that ive neglected over the past couple years due to tour and life and me being a dumb kid. I feel the energy shifting. I feel the industry shifting. I feel them watching. I feel her, I think of her everyday, I hope she thinks of me. -1-

Mozzy - Black Hearted

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kayzuss · 7 years ago

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Hello world, this is me. Recently, I've been dealing with quiet a bit of depression in this head of mine. Depression I know I can beat and get out of, eventually. But for now.. I'm just really in a dark place. I fell into this crazy deep hole in my head when I was told by a friend an ex of mine had passed away. My ex was my first "boyfriend" he was the first person I told my secrets too and held extremely close to my heart. He actually even took my virginity lmfao so he was really my first everything. But most importantly, he was my first love, my first best friend who I knew actually gave a damn. He was even the first boy I took home to meet my family. We were young when we met. We actually met at a friends birthday. I thought he was cute, but, I was an awkward child and he was the cute goofy kid. A few girls were all over him, talking to him, sitting on his lap, sharing drinks. I didn't want to step up and speak to him, I wanted to observe him. Something happened. I was sitting with my friend Brandi and a boy we were both friends with Kyle, joking around making sex jokes and Kyle drawing penis drawings on everything. I remember he saw Kyle's drawing on a ballon and saw us cracking up. He came over and sat down with the birthday girl at our table. Before I knew it, he was right in front of where I was sitting at the table. Then before I knew it he was sitting next to me, and we were chatting away. Giggling about dumb thing and how others were acting. He was such a big ball of energy I was so attracted to him. This was a birthday party I didn't even want to go to. I felt awkward the whole time. I didn't know anyone. It wasn't till I met him and I spoke with him that I didn't want to leave. After that.. he was gone. I didn't see him again. I went on in life thinking about that kid but never asking anyone about him. I finished out that school year and went on to get a summer job. I was a "locker girl" at a water park. It was my first job. I basically was a cashier who sold lockers only really. My job was definitely for the loner kids. I worked alone. Barely spoked to others. Doodled most of my day away. But it was my first job so I was very content. One day I was just clocking in and released the girl from the morning shift. I got settled and was looking out on the grounds, people watching which was my norm. I swear I saw an orb of gold come down the stair surrounding this person. He was smiling ear to ear joking with another life guard. He had bright blue eyes that were so piercing I almost thought I was making this person up. He literally had sky blue eyes and a smile that was so white they looked like the clouds in the sky. The gold orb was like the sun's rays. I was in awe. I was so confused when this angel like person stop at the end of the stairs and started walking my way. Right when I stopped appreciating "the view," and right before it was directly infront of me I was hit with what felt like an 18 wheeler. In my head I was like "holy shit.. that's.. that's him." He came over smiling, biting his life guard red whistle, trying to be all smooth. "Hey don't I know you from?". Is all I heard. I was shook. I giggled and said "yeah that's me!" Smooth right? I quickly fixed myself from falling off my chair without loosing eye contact. We chatted a little. I ended up being filled with so much anxiety speaking to him that playing with my pen was the only thing that made me feel okay. The only negative part of that, was when it flew out of my hand hitting him not only once, but twice! He was nervously giggling which made me actually feel a little bit better knowing I wasn't the only one nervous. A few conversions later we exchanged numbers. I remember being the ballsy one saying "we should hang out sometime." He agreed immediately. That sometime to him, was that day after our work shift. I wasn't going to say no even with my butterflies making me feel awkward but excited. We ending up going to Ventnor City beach in New Jersey. I actually even know where we sat in the sand exactly. It was sundown. We threw down towels and just sat there and spoke to each other about literally anything that came to mind. He didn't try any moves. I didn't know if he even liked me or if this was an awkward friend hang out. When the sun went completely down leaving the sky black we decided we should get going. We were there for 3 or 4 hours just talking. When we were walking back my hand hit his (completely by mistake) I looked at him completely embarrassed, thankful we were in a dark area so he couldn't see my face bright red, and just giggled. The next thing I know he went to hold my hand. It was weird. My butterflies had left my stomach. They were all over my body. I felt like my heart was skipping beats. Swallowing my saliva felt like an obstacle. My whole body was just happy and it was happy with him. He hugged me goodbye and said he would see me later and went home. He texted me later that night telling me "you looked so beautiful tonight." We ended up starting to date soon after. He was already way advanced in relationships than I was. He didn't push anything though. It took two weeks for us to even kiss, and when we did, we had people cheer (we were at a party, we thought we snuck off enough). All my friends loved him. He fit right in my life perfectly and vice versa. We hung out every second and talked to each other constantly. Life was beautiful. I fell head over heels with this angel, that literally in my eyes, walked down the stairs of Gillian's water park straight into my heart. School started again, it was our junior year. We happened to have one class together. Mrs Ninfa, she taught history. It was his favorite class to write notes and doodle in. We sat next to each other talking threw the whole class. We were the class love birds in that class, it actually became a very funny joke, but we worked it! It was in that class I got my first detention. We were passing notes. He had a rough morning at home. He didn't come from the very best up bringing. Writing to me was an outlet for him to write me notes explaining things for me to understand. We were both very young, so, opening up threw notes helped him and that's what we did. One day Mrs. Ninfa saw him place a note on my desk. She said "give that too me right now." So I did. She said "I'm reading this to the class or you can both take detention right now." Of course knowing what his notes usually contained we both agreed to detention. We both went to detention and then spent the rest of the day together. We didn't really care about the detention. We got caught, so, that just taught us to be faster. We didn't stop writing notes and drawing each other doodles. We dated for a year straight and then had a rough couple months after the break up together. We had flaws in our relationship. He cheated on me and him being my first relationship I had completely lost trust. Being immature and young I thought "u cheat, I cheat, we're even." At the end I cheated and told him immediately. When I say immediately I mean it happened and I said "I have to text my boyfriend" I couldn't believe I had done that. Yes, he did cheat first and I did try to fix the relationship after but I felt such hurt and betrayal from him I couldn't. Even with the cheating he wanted to stay together. I said no. In my eyes you broke my heart, and now I broke yours, we needed to be apart. I was foolish and ran into a relationship with the boy I cheated on him with. I remember texting him while dating this boy and him saying "whenever you want to get back together, we can get back together" it's almost like he knew I regretted being with this new person. The new relationship of course failed. It was a joke of a relationship. I ran into a "bad boy" and started dating him basically right after. He found out who I was dating and reached out again saying the same thing. I told him we could be friends but to not bring that up. We ended up speaking a lot. He actually got into a new relationship. I wasn't hurt by this new relationship he was in but in the back of my head I did think "well what did you mean by whenever I wanted?" He looked happy again. I thought "Kelsey pull back from him.. let him grow and be happy" so, I did. Which now and even then I regretted. The relationship I was in was an abusive relationship. I didn't tell anyone about it. I hid it very well. There were times I wanted to reach out but the love I had for him told me "let him be happy, let him grow without you" so I kept it from my best friend in the dark. When things got real bad in this relationship his name kept popping up. At prom someone said his name to me. My heart jumped and I started searching for him. He wasn't there. At graduation, the girl in front of me went to his new school. She actually said "aren't you his girlfriend?" Even though I was not, she said he always talked about me like I was. I thought and actually hoped I'd run into him somehow. But I never did. The abusive relationship I was in turned into a very toxic abusive end. Cops were involved, a restraining order was issued, and I was lost. I was scared. I didn't want to leave my house in fear. I wanted to reach out but I didn't. It wasn't until I was in a new relationship that I reached out. He liked one of my Instagram posts so I was like "okay so he doesn't hate me." At this point he was dating the same girl for a while now. We spoke for a bit. He told me the good thing and I followed with only the good things. He didn't know about the abuse I was recently in for a very long time and I didn't know the bad happening in his life. We didn't focus on that. We didn't want each other knowing the bad. Threw out the years (8 years total after the relationship) we spoke at random times. Catching up on strictly the good. I spoke to him a month ago. I was laughing at the love notes I kept of his. He laughed and said he remembered writing them. It made me think "wow you really did love me if you can remember almost 10 years ago writing this." We kept it short which was unusual but now he was in a new relationship and I was in a serious relationship and was/am engaged so I wasn't going to continue or push not knowing how this one worked. I wish I did. I wish I told him what I want to now. I kept my pain and my hurt from him after our relationship and so did he from me. We left that conversion as our last. Our last conversion was reminiscing on our love notes, on our love, on us. It's weird I can still hear his voice. I keep having dreams of him. It hurts breaking up with your first love but having them pass away so young hurts even worse. His family told me after we broke up he continued to talk about me like I put the stars in his sky. I tried so hard not to cry at his service. It wasn't until I got home and was alone that I cried my eyes out. You passing was like getting hit again by that 18 wheeler. Just this time I wasn't meeting you, I was saying goodbye to you. I don't even think I said goodbye. I still feel like you're with me. I still message you on Snapchat as if you're going to answer. Sometimes I write you how I feel so you can read it even though you can't. I apologize a lot. I sort of blame myself for not being open to you knowing if I was you would have done the same. I know you loved me and I know we were two immature kids when we were together but what we had was real. "It's kinda cool knowing your first love actually loved you, huh?" - Was said to me at the service. I swear it felt like a stab in the heart hearing that and everytime I think of that I cry. To my real life angel. I'm sorry for all the pain you felt on this earth while you were here. I wish I could have done more. You were and are so loved. You changed my life in such a positive way you could never understand. I love you forever, Tyler E. Dale. 💙

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memnonofarcadia · 4 years ago

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Shepherds of Chicago

The riot was well underway by that point, the peaceful protest line all but abandoned in favor of the violence. It wasn’t like the appeal was all that mysterious. Young, hot-blooded Americans only need an excuse to get out on the street and raise hell, whether it be for worker’s rights or some other cause. This one had been something to do with unions for a major retailer, but the details hardly seemed important once the fighting had started. Who struck first will always be a subject of heated debate, right up until next year’s riot. Either way it had the same effect, that being the complete annihilation of any progress The Movement had hoped to make that day. What cause was it for again? Oh who remembers, it wasn’t what this was about. This was simple revenge. The batons were flying up above people’s heads, the air was thick red with pepper spray, youngsters ran in all directions, some covering their faces some not, blood was spilt, tears were shed, and an alarming number of liquor stores became sold out in a matter of minutes right around the same time. Through the madness a rare moment of tranquility might be acquired when you catch a glimpse of yourself in a police officer’s shield, blood trickling down from the top of your forehead and a smirk of revolutionary pride across your face, right up until that officer in question decides that enough is enough and beats you into a coma. It’s happened a few times, but that’s how it goes. They knew the stakes when they came, that a riot might very well occur. Of course they knew, it happens every year at one time or another. Marching through the streets of Chicago only to get sucked into a street-war with local law enforcement. It’s nearly a tradition. This year in question turned out to be much worse than usual, plagued by infighting from all sides on account of the yuppie college students that had decided to join in on the party. They all had futures, a nice warm bed with a trust fund tucked away neatly under their pillow. They weren’t out bleeding on the streets because they had to be, they just thought it was fun. The true-believers didn’t take too kindly to this, naturally, and once the “party” started they made sure the rich kids knew. Every other EMT carrying a stretcher that had someone on it was wearing a sweater-vest, loafers, a tie, or, worse, a school uniform. Tuition meant stitches, so says the riot. Maybe they won’t join in next year, some say. Maybe they’ll pay someone to do it for them, others quip. Blue blood falls like anyone else’s, but not in Chicago it don’t. Not anymore. So the yuppies went back home or to their dorms, the cops back to their precincts, workers back to their jobs, and the rest… well, let’s talk about “the rest.” Numbers in a public gathering of this kind can swell and fluctuate quite rapidly, but considering the spirit of the activity it isn’t as if any sort of reasoned census can be taken of the participants. Indeed, unless it was for the purposes of provoking more brutality, it simply isn’t worth it. Hence why the trick is to know who you’re with before the riot starts, before the protest even. Somehow or another you’ll always find each other in the chaos, whatever gang of vagabonds you’ve joined for that particular outing. All you need is a cause, an excuse, and the angry young people will come to you. They all have their reasons. However it started it ended in disaster, as previously mentioned, but once the real meat of the action was out of the way the thing to do is to pick yourself up, spit out whatever teeth you lost that day, then go find everyone else. That year in Chicago a rather large percentage of the auxiliary protesters (that is to say the non-workers, non-rich kids of the crowd) were organized in the same circles, that being the bohemian-underground variety of grassroots campaigning. The hippies. Their leader was a woman called Maria, though plenty of decisions were made by committee. They flowed out of the aftermath like dust swept up and away by some invisible broom, quickly, so that they don’t lose their freedom, not more than they had to. Some weren’t so lucky, but their fates are about what you’d expect: a good beating followed by a long night in a cell with six or seven or eight of the meanest people you’ve never met. They would live, just, but the ones that managed to flee would either go back to their respective haunts or go join Maria at her group’s own. It had a semi-open door policy about it, the core members being permanent residents. How did you come to live there? It just sort of happened. You had to know someone, not a friend of a friend but actually know someone on the inside before they’d even consider making room for you, and even then your contributions to the set up were weighed heavily above all else. Plenty of nice folks came through, few were able to give anything back in the long run. Such is life on the street, which Maria understood, hence the policy. After the riots they would have dinner, patch up whoever was there as best they could, and that was it, on to the next one. All told it is a rather queer scene once you’re in there. It’s not the cliché depiction of an urban tribe existing out of view, moreso a bunker-esque arrangement is how it felt. There were watchmen for the door, guards outside it, and layers of either up till you reached the surface: the street. The exact location is not important, and even if there were detailed instructions laminated and sent to your inbox there is little doubt amongst those in the know that you wouldn’t find it anyway. It is genuinely underground, deep below the asphalt in a place even the law doesn’t reach. Often. Raids were common when they started, Maria will wearily tell anyone who asks, but once the cops figured out there really weren’t any drugs down there they left it alone. “There are, of course. I mean we have to keep the lights on with something,” she will say as she strolls through her weed-garden. “But that doesn’t mean it’s a free-for-all down here. There are rules,” Quite. Rules that preclude judgement and instead encourage the arts, the incorporeal. There wasn’t much besides the furniture and the food down there, but they kept it clean. Girls and boys with guitars, beads, jewelry, painting… things seemed simpler down there, if a bit distant. But how long can it last? It’s been around for years at this point, but that’s neither here nor there. All it would take is one bad night, Maria understood, for it all to go up in flames, smoke billowing out of the sewer drains in the Windy City for weeks to come afterward. But that’s fantasy, at least for now. More pressing matters were at hand, like how to get the next day’s meal, are there enough beds, enough room, the lights and the water, the heat, etc. Closer to a war than a struggle. Closer to a bunker than a hideout. Closer to heaven than hell. Right? Maria herself is on several lists. You don’t become the leader of a literal underground and avoid it. She is both respected and feared by all who follow her, if for no other reason than if she turns on them then they really will have nowhere left to go. Her’s is the last stop before total destitution, or so she would have you believe. Whether or not it’s true she is in control, pushing up the numbers in every protest she deems worthy of her resources. She is, to put it lightly, a dangerous woman. “But very hospitable,” she says. The exit is the same as where you come in, a secret within a secret, like all the best ones are. “Don’t come back for a while,” she says without even a trace of hostility. It’s not personal, it’s for the good of everyone. The surface is a strange place to walk around once you’ve seen the other side, too. There’s a nagging feeling after the initial exposure that no one upstairs has any idea what the hell’s going on, both below and above them. Every day there are cars and meals being thrown around the city, randomness the principle guiding factor, and that’s life. At least, until you start checking sewer drains as you walk past for a pair of watchful eyes, see homeless people running down alleys and jumping down manholes, watch rich kids in riots… …and witness a paradise you’ll never know again.

#fiction #short story #romanticism #gonzo #melancholy #bittersweet #literature #writing #wattpad

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