#making the face of stop fucking taking pictures of me eli you take too many pictures

[pyjamac]

when baby was brand new

[daydream-disposal]

Wormhole

Steve is laying on his bed wearing his pyjamas, his eyes droopy and his mind hazy with tiredness but still, he insists on texting his friends. A normal tuesday, it appears.

Until suddenly, a big blue ring light starts to shine out of nowhere in the middle of his room. Steve sits on the bed, eyes wide. Suddenly a person gets out from inside the light. A boy about his height, his big honey eyes hiding behind his dark hair that was covering almost all of his freckled face. He was wearing black pants, a white button up and a coat. He looked drenched but still, he looked very handsome.

Is Steve too sleep deprived? Is he dreaming? Is he imagining this? He doesn't know.

"Oh thank god, it's you" the boy holds Steve's shoulders and kisses his cheek quickly, dropping a little device on the bed beside him.

"Um. Hello? W-who are you?" Steve freezes, trying to understand what just happened. He's not imagining it then, since the kiss felt very real. He would've blushed if the situation wasn't really scary.

"What? It's me. I guess I might look a little different, I've been traveling around for a while. Ugh my clothes are gross. I'm just gonna change real quick, okay?" the guy rambles walking to Steve's closet and opening the door. He searches for something, getting all his clothes out of the way. Steve frowns. What the fuck is this dude doing?

"Did you move my stuff again?"

"I literally don't know what you're talking about." Steve slowly gets up and walks towards the door.

"C'mon Steve, stop messing around, they were right here" he half laughs and keeps searching. A shiver goes down Steve's spine. He knows his name. Is he a spy? An alien? Is he here to harm him? Steve grabs his bat carefully and places it on his neck.

"I'd appreciate if you stopped messing with my stuff and left. I don't know who you are and why you're here! Just leave me alone!" he says with a rough voice.

Eli turns to face Steve, ready to laugh and ask 'what is this, a prank?' but his smile drops as soon as he sees Steve with the bat and a serious expression.

"Steve, calm down! It's me, your best friend, Eli Pepperjack. Do you seriously not recognize me?"

"Wrong! My best friend is Jim Lake and everybody knows that. I've never seen you before in my life!"

Steve and Jim being best friends??? Something is definitely Not Right. Eli looks around in disbelief. Now that he notices, Steve looks... younger. The room looks different too. It's the same style, but the colors are all wrong. He peeks outside the window and the street is slightly different too. Oh my god.

Did he just travelled to a parallel universe? One that Steve doesn't know him? He knew the wormhole could do that, but only on command! How did it malfunctioned so badly??

Steve adjusts his hands on the bat, getting Eli out of his thoughts.

"Wait! Wait! I can explain! I can prove that I know you!"

Steve considers, still not moving from the position he's in. The boy seems scared but somehow his eyes are shining, inviting. Steve sighs.

"Ok. Go on." he raises an eyebrow, curiously.

"Your favorite color is blue. You favorite food is pancakes. You can't have spicy food. You had a crush on Claire Nunes"

"Those are really basic and you could easily be lying. Or spying on me! And everybody had a crush on Claire!" Steve shouts, losing his patience.

"Okay, look." Eli reaches for his back pocket, taking out his wallet and handing Steve a picture of them hugging and smiling, doing the Creepslayerz hand gesture to the camera.

"You like nerdy movies like Gun Robot and Earth Invaders in secret because you don't want people to know. You don't know basic math but that's alright because you're a really great actor and you're very good at sports. Sometimes you let your insecurities get to you and that's why you act like you're superior to everyone else. But you're actually a really nice person. You care a lot about people, so much that you saved my life a thousand times before. You're funny and brave and I love you for that" Eli blurted out without even thinking.

"Wow, okay, that's scary. How is all of this possible?" He puts the bat down and stares at the picture, not believing what he's seeing.

"It's possible because I was traveling through that thing" Eli points to the wormhole device on the bed. Steve reaches it and throws it his way.

"Thanks. It's a wormhole, it's extraterrestrial technology. I've been living in another planet but I try to visit as much as I can. It malfunctioned this time. I'm guessing I ended up in a parallel universe" Eli says matter of factly, clicking the device on his hand. A blue hologram appears in front of them. Steve doesn't recognize the language on it.

"Hold up, are you telling me I'm dating an alien?"

"I literally just told you I'm from another universe and you decided to focus on that?"

"Well yeah" he shrugged.

Eli sighed, smiling.

"No, I'm human. I'm Earth's ambassador on the planet Arkiridion-5."

"Ok but are we dating...?" Steve blushes at him.

"Yes. We are."

"Oh sweet! Point for the Palchuk!" He punched the air. Eli laughs through his nose, shaking his head but still focused on the device.

"Can I ask you some questions?"

"Yeah, go on"

"How did it happen... How did we even... do it?" Steven didn't know how to ask this, but as if he was reading his mind, the brown haired boy answered quickly.

"Well, when we started getting close people just assumed. But our families are okay with it, if that's what you're asking"

"Cool. Alright." Steve knew he was bi for a long time now. He was just afraid of telling his family and friends. What if they got disappointed? What if they couldn't love him? What if he was left behind?

"How will I know if they're like this here too?" Steve asked in a quiet voice after a few seconds of silence and just the bleeping of the device.

"I'm pretty sure they love you in every universe. I know I do." Eli sinceraly stated, not even looking up. Steve had a hard time believing someone cared about him and loved him enough to say something so soft like that. He looked at the picture on his hands again. They were sharing a smile so genuine, their eyes meeting in such a sweet way, like they meant the whole world to each other.

"And how did we meet?" he leaned on the closet, crossing his arms. Eli just kept clicking away.

"At school. We didn't like each other at first, but we figured it out" he exhaled. "Took a while, but we did."

"Why? What happened?"

Eli thought about the years his Steve used to be mean at him and shove him into lockers. It was sad, but he knew there was good in him. Maybe this Steve could do it differently.

"Just... be nice."

"I am nice!" Eli stopped what he was doing, raising an eyebrow on Steve's direction. "Alright, I'll be nicer."

"Good. What year is it?"

"2018"

"Woah, okay, I'm so far off." he clicked a few more times, the big blue ring light popping up in the middle of the room again.

"Wait, you're leaving already?"

"Yeah. My Steve is waiting for me at home."

"But I still have so many questions!"

"Don't worry, it's gonna be alright. Nice to meet you. I hope I see you soon." And with that, he disappeared with the light, leaving Steve alone in his room. He looks down to his hands, still holding the picture strongly. He smiles.

"I hope so too."

Steve didn't remember his name. He tried to think back but at the time he was panicking at the thought of "CUTE BOY IN MY ROOM!" and focusing too hard on the fact that said boy was from another universe. So of course his ADHD brain would forget his name.

But this didn't keep Steve from looking. He was never this excited to go to school before. He started paying more attention to his surroundings, hoping he would spot the mysterious boy somewhere.

Instead, he spotted a fight. "Just be nice" he thought. The older boys being mean to the smaller ones does seem like a good moment to be nice. Also, it was just not fair.

"Hey, why don't you pick someone your size?" Steve approached the bully, tapping him on the shoulder with his eyebrows pinched.

"Ugh. Why do you always have to ruin the party, Palchuk? You had potential but you insist on being on the wrong side" he tries to push Steve, asking for a fight. Steve scoffs and holds the boy's wrist.

"Just let them go. You know you can't win against me." The bully grunts and shakes his wrist from Steve's hold. He nods to his friends and they leave, muttering amongst themselves.

Steve turns to help the other boys out of the ground, offering a hand. The first boy refuses, getting up fast and running away. And that's when finally, Steve sees him. He looks smaller than the boy in his room, his hair is shorter and he was wearing nerdy glasses. But it was definitely him. He would recognize that smile and those eyes anywhere.

"Thanks. Steve, right?" the boy said, holding his hand and getting up. Steve was at a loss of words. He nodded, smiling.

"That was very nice of you. I'm Eli, by the way." he shook his hand. He was real and he was right here, holding hands with him. Ok, this is happening!

"Nice to meet you. That was no problem really, if you ever have any trouble with them again just tell me" Steve blunted out nervously, scratching his neck. Eli smiled, picking up his books and leaving.

"Again, Steve?" the teacher asked, raising an eyebrow. "I'm starting to think you're not even trying. Go to detention!"

Steve sighs, walking with his head down in shame. But this time, when he enters the classroom he sees someone that make his eyes light up.

"Eli! Hi!" Steve sits on the table behind him, excited.

"Oh, hey Steve"

"What are you in here for?" he asks confused.

"I was breaking in. And you?" Eli says as if it's a normal occurrence.

"Woah what???"

"I was trying to study at the lab during recess."

"I didn't know that wasn't allowed"

"Well... I kinda was using their equipment to try and communicate with aliens... Which isn't allowed..." Eli says a little embarrassed.

"Oh" Steve laughs, finding the story very endearing. "So you like space, huh?"

"I do. Imagine if I got to do it. It would've been so cool!" he exclaims, and Steve has to hold back the urge to tell him about the parallel universe.

"It really would. Don't lose hope though" he winks at his direction.

Eli smiles and keeps working on his assignment.

"Y'know, I didn't expect you to be here. You're very... um... nerdy?" Steve admits after some minutes of silence.

"Oh so we're doing stereotypes? Alright, jock. Why are you here? Got into a fight?"

"What? No. I'm a nice person! I just didn't do my homework. Again."

"Because you didn't want to or...?" Eli asked confused, tilting his head. Steve had a genius idea. He felt like those cartoons when a little lamp lights up.

"I'm having a lot of trouble, actually. Are you any good with math?"

"Of course. Why?"

"What do you say you help me with homework and I help you by staying on look out when you're in the lab?"

Eli considered, as he heard the bell ring. He gathers his books and hands Steve a piece of paper before leaving.

"Sure. Text me later so we can talk about it"

"Sounds good" Steve smiled. If this went anything like he wanted to, he better start cleaning some space in his closet.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

can we see chris just having a good day with like some happy stims? he is a huge comfort character for me and seeing an autistic OC who has the same stims i do and stims openly is just. amazing. sorry for no sentence prompt!

Of course, Anon! I know what I’ll do for this one, definitely.

CW: WRU/BBU and some pet whump references but this is pure fluff

Jake looks up, squinting as he hears a sudden thumping from the roof over his head, the kitchen light shaking very slightly. “Good or bad, d’you think?” He asks, and glances over at Kauri, who is leaning his back against the kitchen counter, sipping coffee from a mug shaped like a unicorn, his fingers wrapped around its rainbow tail. One ceramic eye seems locked on Jake.

“Fuck if I know,” Kauri responds, squinting. He’s been awake for twenty minutes and clearly has not had enough coffee yet to join the world under anything but serious protest. “It’s too early for anyone to have strong feelings, Jake.”

“It’s seven,” Jake says, gently, but he can’t help his smile. “You should’ve gone to bed before two, Kaur.”

“Used to be easier staying up all night. When did that change?”

“When you got old.”

Kauri glares at him, and Jake gives him a look of serene innocence in return. “You’re older than I am.”

“Yeah, and I also don’t go to bed at two and get up at six anymore without a damn good reason, now do I?”

Kauri snorts. The thumping starts back up above their heads, and Jake sighs, pushing himself out of his chair. 

“Okay, I’m going to go up there and see what’s going on. He keeps that up, he’ll wake up my household, and not one of them isn’t in dire need of as much sleep as they can get.”

“Mmmn. I’m going to finish this coffee and go back to bed.” When Jake raises an eyebrow, Kauri grins at him. “I didn’t say I would sleep, now did I?”

Jake’s kiss is brief but forceful before he turns to head upstairs and see what has Chris making that kind of noise this early in the morning. It could be good or bad - but things haven’t really been too rough lately. Chris is doing fine in school, his friends are good, he and Laken started talking about living together next year... Jake runs through the list and he can’t find anything of concern, not now, not in this odd period of something like peace. Still, he worries. 

Part of being somebody’s brother, he supposes, and finds a smile playing across his face. The eternal thought of I’m somebody’s big brother, popping in now and then, to remind him that how he started isn’t where he is now, and never has to be.

Chris’s door is closed and Jake knocks politely, the thumping stopping. Chris flings open the door, eyes shining and bright, wearing only his compression shirt and loose pajama pants, clearly interrupted during the process of getting dressed. Behind him, Jake can see a large blue t-shirt laid out on the bed, from the museum he went to with Laken a few weeks ago. It as some kind of dinosaur skeleton in black on the front, like a T-rex but Jake knows it’s not actually a T-Rex. He can’t remember what Chris said it was. Next to the shirt is his stim bracelet and a stim necklace, a flat black bat today instead of his usual feathers. 

As always, Jake hides the wince at the sight of his forehead scar, fading slowly but still too bright and red for his liking. Too permanent. Visible evidence that when it mattered, Jake couldn’t get in to him in time.

“You’re shaking the house,” Jake says, scanning Chris’s expression, but all he sees is sparkling brightness, a smile playing there, fighting his attempts to look serious. “What’s up?”

“He, he called,” Chris says, quick and rushed, and lets go of the door, stepping back, bouncing on the balls of his bare feet on the hardwood floor. “He called, Jake!”

“Who? About what?” Jake steps in, closing the door slowly behind him, leaning back to watch Chris spin and then stop and start bouncing again, almost jumping, his hands flapping rapidly and eyes closed. Jake thinks with a pang of regret about how his longer hair used to float around him like a halo when he was happy like this. Now there’s hardly enough to even move at all.

He’s so fucking excited, though, whatever it is...

“He, he, he-he called!”

“Chris, hey, who called? What’s going on? Is this about getting an apartment? Did Laken hear back from-”

“No!” Chris stops long enough to look at him, breathing hard, but even when he stops bouncing his hands are still moving, almost a blur in the air. He can’t keep his body from moving, and fuck if it isn’t something Jake loves to see. He can still remember the silent statue they’d brought into the house that first rainy night, the frightened, dehumanized rescued teenager that had bloomed into pure sunshine in human form and now Jake watches a grown man who doesn’t police his own excitement. “I mean. No. No, it’s, it’s not... no. Jake, do, do you-... when Laken and I went to to the museum, the natural history museum? Do you remember?”

“Yeah, man, it was a few weeks ago. I don’t-... I don’t follow. How does that-”

“The, the, the Romantic I saw! I, I gave him one of our our numbers, you remember? Do you remember?”

“Yeah... yeah, I do remember you saying-” The full picture hits Jake all at once and he nods, slowly, feeling a smile of his own echo Chris’s expression. “He called? That’s who you mean? The Romantic-”

“Nine texted me,” Chris says, breathless almost, his hands moving, his body bouncing, a low hum coming from him between sentences, fading long enough for him to breathe.

Jake has seen Chris so many versions of happy, but never quite the same as this. The closest is maybe when his college acceptance letter came, when they got the proof that all of Chris’s work for nearly five years had been enough to get him back on track to the life WRU had interrupted.

Not stolen. Not for good. Not now.

“He, he, he he he-he called, he called, they’re gonna go go go get him, they, they, um, they’re gonna go get Rafael, he’s, they’re gonna get him, it worked, it worked it worked it worked-”

Chris flings himself forwards and Jake’s back smacks into the closed door behind him. He lets out a soft ‘oof’ but holds Chris tight, feeling him still moving even now, hands shifting easily into finger-twist-tap-tap-tap on Jake’s sides, his arms. He laughs against Jake’s shoulder, bright and brilliant laughter, and Jake finds himself laughing, too.

“Well, how about that? You did it, Chris.”

“I, I, I did it,” Chris whispers, and he rocks into Jake, and this is so familiar, now, too. “I did it, Jake, I, I did it, it worked, I did it, I, I... I, I helped someone. I, I helped someone get get get get out, I helped someone.”

“You did. I’m fucking proud of you, man.” Jake doesn’t mention that the escapes don’t always go to plan, or how common it is for Romantics specifically to try and go back once they run headfirst into starting over. He doesn’t want to mention it, anyway.

“Do, do, do, do you think I could see him? When they find him somewhere? Do you, you-you think?” Chris pulls back to look up at him, and Jake smiles down. “Will he want to, to see me? Do you think?”

“I think so.” Jake lets him pull back so he can go back to moving, watching Chris full to overflowing with pride in himself and happiness for the other pet, a buzzing energy he doesn’t hesitate, not by now, to allow to find its own way out. “I know I would, if it were me you saved.”

Chris pauses and looks over at him. “I would, too. Save, save you. I would. If it it it were you.”

“I know. What are brothers for?” He’s rewarded with another dazzling smile. “I’ll tell Kauri you need to shake the house for a while longer, okay?”

Chris wrinkles his nose. “Why, why is Kauri up? We didn’t stop watching the-the-the movie until two.”

“Yeah.” Jake grins moving back out the door into the hallway. “And he’s regretting all his choices today. Tell Nine I said hey.”

He closes the door again and moves back to the stairs, unaware that at the end of the hall, Eli’s door is cracked open and the quietest current member of the house stares out at his back, mouthing Nine?

Then Eli closes the door.

Jake gets downstairs to find Kauri staring outside at a tree. “Hey, Kaur, so-”

“I hate that bird,” Kauri says, and takes another sip. “It’s too early to be so fucking cheerful.”

-

Tagging: @burtlederp , @finder-of-rings , @endless-whump , @whumpfigure , @astrobly @newandfiguringitout , @doveotions , @pretty-face-breaker , @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump  , @oops-its-whump  @cubeswhump ,  @whump-tr0pes  @downriver914 @vickytokio @whumpiary

Rafael appeared in these three drabbles

[sopafa]

The other side of the immortality P2

WARNING: HEAVY ANGST & MAYOR CHARACTER DEATH

SUMMARY: Douxie sees his friends grow old and die. It's harder than it looks

R18+

It had been 6 months.

Six. Fucking. Months.

It was not enough time to whole process the departure of the trollhunter when Clara went next.

Since the day the Wizard digested the fact that the trollhunter was not around anymore, he purposed himself to spend more time with his beloved ones. So he started to visit Tobias & Darci, Aja & Steve, and Eli & Krel houses. He liked to still talk to them, but if he had to be honest, he liked to spend more time with Claire.

Deep in his heart, he knew that he had always appreciated more Claire, after all, she had been his apprentice, he had reached her how to use and control her magic, and she was as a little sister to him. Even when her complexion was covered with wrinkles, even when her hands shake for the age, and her hair didn't look the same; she was still his little sister. And he loved her.

Douxie liked to spend time with her.

He visited her, and each day he took the time to call her, just to say "good morning" and "how have you been feeling?"

Douxie got a vacation period. It was short. Less than a week actually. But he used that time to go and spend the days on Claire's side. So he made a little backpack and went to visit her. He stayed in her home for 6 days. He took care of her -and Jim's- grandsons while some of their children -that now were adults- thanked him to help them, and visit her.

The Jim memory was still strong living inside the house. A little spot on the living room had some pictures of him, and a couple of flowers and candles were always decorating it. Claire always talked about him, a melancholic tone on her voice, and sometimes a couple of tears rolled through her cheeks.

Douxie had won an important place on the shadow witch's heart. He made her smile.

Like, truly smile.

With his goofy and dumb attitude, he painted a sweet smile on her lips. And each morning, during breakfast, he told her that she looked beautiful, even when she was still in her pajamas, or if she hadn't taken a bath in days, even when she smelled like raisins and cookies because for Douxie's eyes, she actually was still the same Claire.

One day, Enrique Jr. -one of their grandsons- asked him if they could get some ice cream. Douxie, as the best uncle he was, obviously accepted, and took all the children with him. The teenager and the other 5 children went to a little ice cream shop near the house, Hisirdoux does not remember what the kids ordered, but he can't forget the single cup of lemon ice cream that he asked for Claire. She didn't go with them, she was too tired to walk to the shop, but she asked her Teach to bring her something. Douxie knew that lemon ice cream was her favorite. He paid for the desserts before returning with a bunch of happy children.

When he went to Claire to give her the ice cream, she only took two spoonfuls before asking him to save the cup on the fridge for later. Douxie didn't hesitate and did what she asked.

The next day Douxie had to return home. He had work, and a bunch of other stuff on his hands, but at least he had spent a beautiful "week" with Claire.

Two days passed. Tree maybe.

It was a Wednesday. That's the only he can remember.

He woke up early, he went to open the book store, and it was around 7.13 a.m. when a call came to his phone.

"Hisirdoux" It was NotEnrique.

"Oh, hello man." Douxie complain inside his head, that channeling only called him when he needed something, so he started to create a list on his mind of the possible things he could ask him.

"It's Zoe and Archie there?" He looked at the backdoor that connected to his department.

"Yeah, why?"

The tome of NotEnrique changed.

"Its Claire." The smile of his face erase "She is not longer with us"

Silence.

"Douxie? You know what I mean, right?" The voice of NotEnrique started to brek "My sister is gone".

And he was on autopilot again.

He clung to the phone on his hands and walked to his department, he opened the door of his bedroom without caring waking up Zoe, and he kneeled on Archie's bed.

The familiar looked at him.

"Claire passed away". He said, with the voice of NotEnrique sobbing trou the phone speaker.

"Oh, no..." Archie and Zoe shared a look.

He took the same backpack of the trip he had done a week ago and changed the clothes inside. Archie prepared some food for the road, and Zoe took the keys. They were going to Arcadia.

They were going to go see Clair.

The trip was quiet, Hisirdoux put on his headphones and listened to some music the whole way, but again, he couldn't cry.

When they finally arrived they didn't let him see her body.

"They are preparing her for the coffin. The embalmed is a process that can't be stopped". Someone explained him.

He found NotEnrique in minutes.

"How-" Douxie started.

The channeling bit his lips before start "She did not wake up. She passed away sleeping. And she was- she was so peaceful- Her look was-" The wizard nodded.

"When are we going to be able to see her?"

"The wake starts tomorrow, 5 a.m. For now, why don't you come with me to the house? All her grandsons and kids want to see you".

They asked him if he was fine. They asked him so many times.

But in this time, he told the truth.

"I'm not fine. But I do not believe that she is gone" Douxie said. "I know when I figure the new, it's going to hurt. I know it. And I want to cry, because if I let this accumulate, as I did with Jim..."

"Hey" Blinky put a hand on his shoulder. "I know what that feels. But can I tell you something? It is better to broke in here, to have a meltdown in here. Where we -your family- are, so that way we can help you, and be with you. So take your time, but leave us help"

Aaaarghhh nodded, and Douxie felt appreciated for that.

He woke around 3.30 a.m. He took a bath and dresses in the same black suit he used before. They were in the car at 4:30 and whey arrive at the mortuary at 5.

On the day of Claire's wake, it was raining. I huge storm with thunders and lightning received the new day, as a way of the universe to cry about the Witch's death. Douxie believed that it was beautiful, and yet, too out of a movie to be real. Ironic, right?

There was no one inside when they arrived. Obviously, who crazy idiot would be on a mortuary at fucking 5 a.m.?

Well, only two wizards, their cat-dragon-familiar, and two of the passed away's children.

In the beginning, Douxie couldn't get near the coffin. He just, couldn't.

But after a moment, he did.

It was just as NotEnrique had said. She looked so peaceful, and a sweet smile was drawn on her lips. She didn't look dead. She looked asleep.

But even after seeing her, Douxie couldn't digest the news.

The ceremony before the burial was around 1 p.m. By that moment, the rain had stopped and a blue sky shined outside, trolls and humans were inside the church to commemorate her fellow, and Zoe took Douxie's hand when they got in.

The whole ceremony he couldn't lease a single word of that the pastor was saying, he just sank in his thoughts, remembering all their moments together, and their last week...

That's when he broke.

Zoe saw him sank his head between his hands, and start sobbing. Fat tears and laments of sadness escaped through his body. She hugged him during most part of the ceremony.

At least, until the pastor asked to her family to came in front. NotEnrique and Douxie were also asked to join, and put their hands upon the coffin. They prayed some last words, and then Douxie listed it.

No blast or spots of blue magic came. No broken windows this time. Nothing but true sad emotions.

Douxie does not remember what happened next, but Blinky does.

The wizard clung to the wooden box in front of him, and kneel to it as if his feet didn't work anymore.

The ceremony ended and he was still there, clinging to her side, sobbing strong and fast.

But they needed to move the coffin. They needed to translate her to the cemetery. And they couldn't do it if Douxie was still held in it.

It took both Aaarghh force and Blinkus 6 arms to pull him out. Blinky hugged him by the back, to stop him to return running to the coffin, and slowly he seated up on the floor, pulling Douxie with him.

Hisirdoux saw how they slowly took Claire off of the church, he saw it through the whole way, and he screamed between sad sobs, he didn't care about making a scene. He needed to be on her side. He needed to say goodbye.

BUT HE DIDN'T WANTED TO SAY GOODBYE.

When they downed the coffin inside the grave, he left a white flower in it.

They asked to leave a ground fist, but he couldn't do it.

"I will always going to give her flowers, she loved flowers. But I'm not going to put a ground fist, because you're asking me to bury her. And I'm never going to do that".

The worst part was after the funeral when all the kids asked him to make them something to eat. So, he did, he opened the fridge, searched for some frozen meals in the freezer, and when he saw the cup of lemon ice cream, half-eaten, still with the plastic spoon that he had given her.

Since that day, Douxie never ate Lemmon ice cream again.

In memory of C.A. & P.M.  My own Jim and Claire.

[spookyboywhump]

Okokok this was. Out of nowhere but holy shit I had fun with it. Some Bad Timeline content y’all, 100% Wren bullying

CW: Pet whump, dehumanization, noncon kiss, noncon touching (nonsexual), knife whump, branding (kind of), nightmares, strangulation mention

***

Eli sighed as he unlocked the door to his apartment, exhausted after a long day at work. He just wanted to go and collapse into bed, sleep until he had to get up and do it all again in the morning. He stepped inside and turned around to lock the door, but he froze in his tracks, his blood running cold when he heard a terribly familiar voice.

“Hello, Love.”

No no no no. There’s no fucking way. Not here.

He couldn’t force himself to turn around, but he could feel his presence behind him. He knew he was still at the door, he could hopefully get it open, run for help, but just as he reached to unlock it again a hand tangled in his hair, and he felt the cold tip of a blade come and rest against his throat, forcing him to tilt his head back.

“No no, you’re not getting away from me that easily.” He said, a hint of amusement in his voice. “We have a lot of catching up to do.” He said as he dragged him further into the apartment, into the living room. He had clearly been here for a little while, things laid out and prepared on his coffee table, things he hoped to never see again. Leather cuffs, a blue collar, that goddamn ball gag, other tools Nicholas had used on him time and time again. It only just then occurred to him to call for help, panic taking over completely.

“No! Stop it- please- help me!” He screamed at the top of his lungs. He kept screaming, he had neighbors, somebody had to hear him, he hoped desperately this would work.

He fought when Nicholas moved the knife away from his throat, kicking the back of his knee and forcing him to the floor. There was a brief moment where he let go of his hair, he tried to scramble away but he was quickly grabbed by the wrist, roughly dragged back. His arms were twisted behind his back, secured in place with the leather cuffs, and he let out a broken sob, uselessly trying to pull against them.

“No no no please! Please somebody help!” He cried, but Nicholas finally had enough, grabbing him by the hair and holding the blade to his throat again as Eli took quick, shuddering breaths.

“Stop your crying and listen to me,” He hissed in his ear, “If you shut up now, I won’t have to gag you. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He said, and all he could manage was a soft, whimpered mmhm, his lip trembling as he struggled not to cry. “There’s my good boy.” He said, finally letting go of him, only temporarily as he took a seat on the couch, grabbing his face and forcing him to meet his cold grey eyes.

“P-please, please don’t- don’t-“

“Shhh, it’s okay my love.” He said gently. “Look at you- you’ve only been away a short while and you’ve already ruined yourself.” He said, using the tip of the knife to brush back a loose strand of hair. Elias had dyed it as soon as he could after getting home, a nice deep blue color he had always been fond of. The thought of having that taken away again brought even more tears to his eyes. “You ran away for what? This tiny apartment? Long hours at work? Loneliness and fear and paranoia? Why would you do that when you were so much more comfortable with me?”

“N-no, I wasn’t, I wasn’t-“ He took a deep shuddering breath, struggling to put his frantic thoughts into words. “You-you know I was-wasn’t happy, how-how could I have been? Please, I-I’m home, it’s over now, please let it be over.” He whimpered pathetically, trying his best to keep his voice down.

“It’s not over until I say it is, you know that.” He said, a cruel smile on his face. “You need to learn a lesson, you need to learn to drop this stupid idea you have that you’re actually a person.”

“I-I am- I am a person, m-my name is- is Elias Brax, I-I’m-“ He tried to go through the words Zander had taught him to hold onto himself, words he’d repeated again and again and again, only for Nicholas to suddenly slap him, his head snapping to the side.

“Shut up!” He snapped. “You’re lying to yourself and you know it. You’ve gotten stupid in your time away, you need me here to remind you.” He said. He roughly shoved Eli back, the boy crying out when the back of his head hit the edge of the coffee table. Nicholas got to his feet, wandering about the living room as he seemed to be thinking about something. “You need to learn a lesson…” He said again, Elias watching him in fear.

His heart was pounding hard in his chest, he felt like he couldn’t breath. He wanted to try to keep fighting but he was scared, he was scared and he was so, so tired of fighting, he couldn’t anymore. He wanted this to be over, but the only way to get there was to ride it out.

“Who is this?” Nicholas asked, picking up a framed photo of Everett from a shelf. From his tone, Eli knew he didn’t have the option not to answer.

“He’s dead.” He blurted out immediately, Nicholas giving him a look as though he didn’t believe him. “He- that’s- that’s my brother, he’s d-dead, you can’t hurt him.” He told him. Nicholas didn’t seem to buy it, but he dropped the picture frame, Eli flinching when he heard the glass break. He picked up the frame next to it, a photo of him and Zander taken not long before Nicholas had first kidnapped him. “The mutt is alive and well though- for now, that is. Maybe that’s what you need to learn to listen-“

“No!” He cried. “Don’t-don’t hurt him, don’t hurt- don’t hurt anyone but me!” He said, and Nicholas smiled.

“Well, if you insist.” He dropped that frame as well, Eli whimpering as he made his way back over to him. He had changed his position to watch him, making it easy for Nicholas to kick him down so he was laying on his back, his arms trapped beneath him. Nicholas got down on the floor with him, straddling his waist. He was instantly scared he intended to strangle him again, but Nicholas gently touched his face, wiping away a tear at the corner of his eye. He cringed at the feeling of leather against his skin, he’d always hated those gloves he always wore.

“P-promise me.” Eli said, hardly thinking as he said it.

“What’s that?”

“Promise me- promise me it’ll be just me. Promise you-you won’t hurt anyone e-else. Please.” He said, his voice wavering, and Nicholas laughed.

“Alright sweet boy, I promise I won’t hurt anybody else.” He told him. He leaned down, before he could turn his head away he kissed him, Eli freezing and going tense out of habit, he never did learn how he was supposed to react. He knew he was testing him, pushing his weak boundaries to see just how much he would take without snapping. He pulled back after only a moment, though it felt much longer, seeming pleased with the fact he hadn’t put up a struggle. “I only want you, after all.”

He sat up straight again, busying himself with unbuttoning the white shirt Eli was wearing. In the back of his mind he couldn’t help but be disappointed it would end up stained with blood. He watched Nicholas reach across the coffee table, picking up a different blade, one he’d used on him often before, often enough that Wren’s breath caught in his throat when he saw it.

“How many days have you been gone from me, love? I’m sure you know the number.”

“I-It… it’s been almost seven- seven weeks… forty… forty six days today…” He said softly.

“Forty six days!” Nicholas said, almost sounding impressed. “You almost made it fifty days without me, I’m surprised you made it so long! That’s far too long though, too long for you to be left alone. A stupid thing like you is better off as a pet, you know that, right?” He said, clearly expecting an answer.

“I-I… Yes… yes sir…” He wanted to argue with him but he knew it would just prolong the ordeal, he just wanted it to be over.

“Good boy. Forty six days, well, we should go ahead and get started then.” He said, Elias wasn’t entirely sure what he intended to do but he bit back a cry when the blade pierced his skin, a small, quick cut, that stung more than anything else. He didn’t realize what he was doing until he’d made four similar cuts, only to slice across them as the fifth. Tally marks. One for everyday that he’d been gone.

Five of them was irritating, but bearable. Ten of them hurt, but aside from whining he remained quiet. Twenty of them, he couldn’t handle it anymore, sobbing as he felt like it had been going on forever, and would last just as long. The stinging pain was paired with the ache of his arms, his head pounding from his panicked breathing and crying. He wanted this to be over, he wanted everything to just go back to normal.

Forty six stinging cuts later and he was in tears, and despite the pain he was causing him Nicholas gently wiped away his tears, seeming to enjoy listening to him cry. Eli didn’t even want to know what his chest looked like, didn’t want to see all the blood. He wondered if Nicholas would be kind enough to clean him up at the end of all this, or if he would simply let him bleed out. He took a deep, shuddering breath when Nicholas got off him, though his relief didn’t last long when he pulled him into a sitting position, this wasn’t over just yet.

“Alright love, you did so well for me but the gag is necessary now.” He told him, and almost reflexively, obediently, he opened his mouth, slowly going numb the same way he did when he was trapped with him. Nicholas was gentle this time, the ball pushed between his teeth, the straps tightened and locked behind his head. He tried not to think about what was going to be so bad that it was supposedly necessary. He was careful as he moved him, adjusting him to lean forward and place his head on the table, Nicholas perched on the edge of the couch behind him. He heard a sound, the click of a lighter, and he couldn’t help but think about the time Cain heated a blade, and pressed it to his tongue.

He didn’t expect how close this would be to that. A sudden searing, white hot pain pressed against his back, in between his shoulder blades, and he *shrieked*. He sobbed loudly, tears streaming down his face as it happened again, he didn’t know how but he easily placed the pattern, forming out a letter N.

He screamed, though it was muffled by the gag he screamed, desperate and hopeless. He squeezed his eyes shut, and he screamed, because there was nothing else he could do.

***

When he opened his eyes, he wasn’t in his living room, shoved against the table and staring at that awful blue collar. He was staring at his ceiling, laying on his bed, his shark still clutched in one arm. He was covered in sweat but cold to the point of shivering, even under his blankets. The room was lit by a pale blue light, from a cat shaped night light on his desk, a gift from Zander. He sat up, shaking as he took in his surroundings.

As he finally came to his senses, he suddenly pulled his shirt over his head, looking down and expecting tally marks but not seeing any new scars, only ones he was used to, and the brand from Cain. He was able to reach back, his hand feeling between his shoulder blades and finding no traces of a burn or any wound. He took slow deep breaths, realizing it had just been a dream.

He opened his mouth, he tried to speak, and he couldn’t. Yep, just a dream. He’d never been so relieved to be silent.

He wasn’t entirely relieved though, a sense of paranoia still weighing down on him. He hardly thought about it when he stumbled out of bed, swaying and having to grab his door frame and stop for a minute on his way out. His dreams always disoriented him, having to adjust to only half his vision again. Once he was sure he was okay, he rushed to the front door, checking the locks, all of which were still in place. He moved about the apartment quickly, efficiently, flipping on every light and checking every room, even the closets. He checked the locks on the windows, the door to his balcony, all locked, all secure, every room empty. He even stopped in the living room, making sure the pictures of Everett and him and Zander were still intact, which they were. He was still nervous, but he felt safe enough to return to his room, climbing back into bed. He didn’t lay down, he stayed sitting propped against his headboard, holding his shark close to his chest.

Just a dream. Just a nightmare. He was alone, safe in his home. Nicholas wasn’t there, he couldn’t hurt him anymore, he didn’t have to play the part of his Love ever again.

My name is Elias Brax, He mouthed, his lip trembling, I’m twenty four years old. I’m not a dog. I’m not Wren. I’m not Love. My name is Elias Brax.

His shoulders shook as he buried his face in his stuffed animal, a silent sob wracking his body. He was tired of this, he wanted to be okay, he wanted it all to be over. Nicholas couldn’t hurt him anymore, but he was still scared of him, still so, so scared of him hurting somebody he loved. He didn’t want to be alone, he wanted Zander there, but it was hard to get ahold of him when he couldn’t even speak. He didn’t really want to bother him as it was, he had spent so much time with him in the first few weeks, Eli had been insisting he could finally sleep alone again. Well, apparently he couldn’t, it seemed.

He didn’t fall back asleep that night. He stayed curled up like that until the sun rose, and even then he didn’t want to move, too scared of doing something wrong, too scared that maybe the nightmare had been reality, and this was the real dream.

***

Tag List: @ihaventwritteninsolong , @galaxywhump , @legallylibra , @to-whump-or-not-to-whump , @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi , @as-a-matter-of-whump , @grovegrocer , @renkocchi , @whumpasaurus101 , @inky-whump , @lonesome--hunter , @ladygwennn , @simplygrimly , @withering-whump , @lave-e, @whatwhumpcomments , @thatsthewhump , @just-another-whumper , @starnight-whump , @unicornscotty

[ayellowcurtain]

Will you continue the ice skating prompt?

if you could do a Christmas Elu fic where Lucas is spending Christmas all alone and he is really sad about it and Elliot is away with his family and thought that Lucas would at least spend it with his friends so he doesn’t find out Lucas was by himself until after he comes back. Then Elliot surprised him with a very special Christmas!!

Part 1

It’s been a week since their performance but it feels like Eliott is still riding the high of winning a championship with Lucas again. It’s the holidays season too, his favorite time of the year, so Eliott is trying to enjoy every second of being this happy and light. He invited Lucas to come over to his parents’ place for Christmas, knowing the chances were low because they’re still exes but he wanted to be with Lucas so bad he had to ask, make sure he wasn’t missing an opportunity.

Lucas smiled sadly and said he already had plans.

The words were stuck in the back of Eliott’s mind, constantly replaying over and over again, almost slipping off when he saw that smile that didn’t convince him.

I miss you so much.

The time spent practicing, skating all day every week day and some Saturdays brought them a lot closer and gave Eliott way too many hopes of fixing things. Lucas was still too hurt and they were still just friends, with a tall, thick wall all around Lucas keeping Eliott at a safe distance.

It feels harder now than when they first started dating. Eliott knows how they were made for each other and he can’t have it, can’t even show Lucas how worth it they are.

Eliott throws himself on the old leather couch, still feeling as comforting as it did when Eliott was a child, running inside after a whole day skiing up and down the mountains close to the cabin. He opens their conversation and texts Lucas.

to Lucas: Merry Christmas, choupisson

hope you had a good time with Yann and his family

Eliott bites his lip, looking out the window, the bright day, the blue sky in contrast with the thick layer of white snow. Fuck it.

to Lucas: I love you

He sends, closing the conversation right away, moving on to Instagram to wait for a minute or two, hopefully. Lucas wouldn’t leave him on read. He’ll probably just ignore the last message.

As instagram loads, the first picture he sees is of Yann with his whole family sitting on the floor in front of their Christmas tree. He has a photo with each member on the roll and Eliott sits on the couch, scrolling back and forward again to make sure he’s not missing anything. There’s no sign of Lucas. And Yann wouldn’t just ignore his presence completely.

The notification pops on the top of his screen, Lucas replying to his text, and Eliott clicks on it, not even reading it first, pressing the button to make a video call.

It takes a second but Lucas accepts it, appearing on his screen, looking so handsome, and so sleepy still. Eliott smiles and Lucas gives him back the same sad smile from a few days ago before his trip.

“Merry Christmas!”

“Hi...Merry Christmas, Eli.”

“Someone slept in. How was your night?” Lucas shrugs, getting up and almost leaving their call as an afterthought, going about his morning, putting his phone on the counter while he makes some coffee. “You didn’t go to Yann’s.”

Lucas wakes up a little more with his words, and Eliott assumes he had forgotten about the lie he gave Eliott as an excuse to not spend Christmas week and New Year’s Eve together.

“You didn’t have to lie.”

“Eliott...I’m sorry but I can’t spend Christmas and New Year with you and your family. You know it would be so fucking awkward. Your mom still talks to me, still says like it’s an accident how she wants us to get back together so badly.”

“It’s not only her.” Eliott sighs, messing up his hair, looking at Lucas, feeling like shit for leaving him to spend the holidays all alone.

“I’m sorry for lying.”

Eliott nods his head, getting up from the couch, holding the phone while he goes to his bedroom, closing his bag the way it is, leaving whatever clothes he’s leaving out for his parents to take back to Paris when they go home. Lucas isn’t really paying attention either, drinking his coffee, back to working with as little energy as his body needs.

“Did you open my gift at least? Made yourself something to eat?”

He looks at his phone and Lucas is shaking his head, putting his hair back, “No. Didn’t do anything yet and bought some japanese food on my way back from the grocery store yesterday.”

Of course you did, Eliott thinks, sitting on his bed to put his sneakers on, check where his car keys are.

“How is the weather up there?”

“Perfect. Blue skies, no clouds, freezing cold. You would have loved it.”

“Maybe we’ll go there some other time.” Eliott nods his head, looking at Lucas, knowing how much he loves the holidays and how he chose to not enjoy it with Eliott and his parents to not make things messier.

Eliott looks at his bedroom door, acting like he’s talking to someone else, “I need to go now, they’re waiting for me…”

“Okay...enjoy the mountains.” Lucas says, not very excited and Eliott looks at him, knowing if it wasn’t for his pride, he would be happy to be here, doing reckless things to forget about his personal problems.

“I will. Love you.” Lucas smiles back and Eliott ends their call, grabbing his bag, going downstairs to explain the situation to his parents.

The ride back home is long and boring, especially when he’s alone, worried about Lucas, but the second he starts recognizing the streets, driving instinctively, Eliott holds the steering wheel tighter, sitting up straight like he could ever get lost in these streets. He’s been driving for almost four hours but he still feels like he should go quicker now, like it’ll make any difference.

He takes forever to find a parking spot and after finding one, he has to walk for around two minutes to stand in front of Lucas’ place, calling him instead of ringing the doorbell, very sure Lucas would ignore him that way.

He crosses the street the second Lucas finally picks up the phone.

“Hi…”

“Hey, can you open the door for me?”

“...What?” He sees the shadow crossing in front of Lucas’ window and he opens the curtains, looking down, instantly finding Eliott, the only human standing outside, looking up.

“I’m outside, and it’s fucking freezing, Lucas.”

They both hang up without saying goodbye and Eliott smiles, trying to tame the butterflies in his stomach. He hears the door being unlocked and he rushes inside, trying to shake the thin snow out of his jacket, running upstairs, not sure what to say or how to explain the fact that he’s here, uninvited and without a warning.

The door is still closed when he gets there, but Eliott knocks anyway, stepping back to give them some space. Every mental attempt to be calm goes out his mind the second Lucas opens the door, wearing some grey sweatpants and the romance hoodie they used to share. He hasn’t changed since this morning and Eliott can picture the scene perfectly, Lucas laying on his couch all day long, feeling sad for himself, probably eating anything he could find in his fridge.

He takes a big step forward, almost bumping into Lucas, crashing their lips together before Lucas can stop him but it’s just their lips pressed against each other, Eliott can’t help but smile. He holds Lucas’ face carefully, smiling against his soft lips again, caressing his cheek with the back of his fingers.

“I knew you were coming.” Lucas whispers and Eliott shrugs, quickly wrapping his arms around Lucas’ neck, squeezing him so tightly while pushing them inside, slamming the door behind him.

[whumpingcrow]

Pt. 7.5 "Hospital Bed: August POV"

A little snippet I decided to work on while extremely baked and emotional :) If you scroll to the end there's an illustration! Consider this a whump picture book :)

CW: character death (explicit), description of murder (explicit), injury description, blood, strangling mention, CPR description, police mention, ambulance mention, character being arrested, calling 911, 911 operator, panic attack (let me know if I missed anything!)

August could not believe what he had done. He looked down at the lifeless body of the fragile person he'd been infatuated with the past month or so, his heart sinking to the floor boards. Elias had blood all over his face from when August had slammed him into the table moments before. Suddenly it didn't look as beautiful as it had so many times before. The last remnants of the tears of horror streamed down his cheeks and onto the tile that he was sprawled out on, unconscious.

Dead.

Dead, by August's brutal hands. The pale, sensitive skin on Elias's throat was dark with red and purples already. How hard was I choking him?! August thought in a panic. He watched the boy for a few silent, unsure seconds, halfway waiting for his chest to start rising and falling again, or for him to twitch as he always did. He was so adorable, always twitching and jerking around. And now he was dead.

Suddenly the weight of the situation slammed into August full force, and he was on his knees next to Elias in an instant. He found his phone, he ignored every fiber of his being telling him not to do what he was about to do. He called the police. While the phone rang, he put it on speaker and started pressing on Elias's chest. He didn't want to break his ribs, he remembered how painful that was for Allen, how it hurt him to breathe. And Elias was going to be in enough pain when he woke up, the poor thing. Because he was going to wake up. August was determined. He was not going to lose Elias.

But even if he did save him now, even if the police got there in time, even if the CPR worked and he suddenly took in a gasping breathe to those beautiful lungs, he would disappear anyways. The police would take him away, put August in a cell, at least until he could pull enough strings and throw enough bills around to get out and hide again. But Elias would be away from him, no way he would want to see him after August murdered him. He was going to lose Elias.

"911, where is your emergency?"

He jumped out of his thoughts and his preoccupation of trying to jump start Elias's heart again, realized there were tears streaming down his cheeks. He couldn't wipe them away. Almost as a background thought, a reflex, he heard his brain counting in increments of thirty, timing and counting the times he pressed and pressed against his chest. Screw broken ribs, Elias had to survive. He had to.

"Uh..." He started numbly. His voice came out shakier than he was expecting, he looked down at his phone. He realized he didn't know the address, he didn't think he would be sticking around long enough to need to know it. "I have no idea. Could you track the call? I really need help."

"What's going on, sir?" The person on the other line was a women, sure sounding and young. August imagined hearing this call played back in court. The call would be recorded, of course, and shown to him to make him relive this moment before they sentenced him to the death penalty. Or life in prison. He didn't know if he would get out of this one, this time.

"I accidentally hurt my friend," he almost choked on the words as they came out, "and he's not breathing. I think I may have killed him. I'm doing CPR, I need an ambulance." His arms were getting tired, his muscles straining from pumping up and down desperately against Elias. He was supposed to be trying to get him to breathe, too, wasn't he? He blew three huge breathes into Elias's mouth, then sat up again. "I'm so fucking stupid!"

The woman must've sensed the desperation August had, and she quickly sent an ambulance. It would be a few minutes until the cop cars pulled in, moments later an ambulance followed with its blaring sirens. They would rip August away from Elias's limp body, far too still, so god damn still, they would lift him onto a gurney and into the ambulance. They wouldn't realize until after they grabbed August that he was too shocked and horrified to fight against them. He would be handcuffed, he still wouldn't have had the chance to wipe the tears off of his face.

But until this happened, in those few minutes, August tried everything to make Elias wake up. To stop rolling his eyes back into his skull and focus his gaze on August and take a deep breath. He knew that even if that did happen, Elias would be horrified of him, and the police were on their way anyway.

"I can not lose you, Eli!" He cried, practically begging. "You have to wake up! Wake the fuck up!"

The operator tried to calm him down, her voice sweet and level and melodic. Even though August was a monster, he didn't deserve to be spoken to in such a sweet way. He had hurt people, he had hurt Elias, most horrifically, the one person he cared about. She should have been screaming at him, spitting on him, if she had the chance. And yet, she consoled him the best she could, guiding him through the CPR to stop him from panicking, trying to keep him focused.

He heard sirens approaching, he was relieved he was cocky enough to leave the door unlocked most of the time. His arms were glad for the rest, no longer having to break Elias's ribs to make him live again. He was hauled to his feet harshly.

It was over. The ending was gloomy and traumatizing and August wished he could close his eyes and melt away from this life and not be himself anymore. But it was over. And that was the worst relief August had ever felt.

[fanficsforheartandsoul]

GREMLIN AU

@smhalltheurlsaretaken has motivated me to draw some Grandpa Yoda stuff and god, I just came up with some new things that are definitely canon now because I decided so, don’t @ me. 

Also I don’t give a shit about canon in general, Yoda is a grumpy gremlin now, whose ears are like Stitch’s from Lilo & Stitch, and the clones are his sons. End of discussion. 

Grumpy Grandpa Yoda™ living with his children who take care of him later, they age like normal people and it’s just a happy funny family AU:

Yoda lives with 10 clones he was able to save on Dagobah

There’s a lot of mud and swampy stuff and creatures and the clones HATE IT

At least at the beginning, later the begin to love it and I can guarantee you there are sooooo many mud fights - Yoda disapproves

Yoda takes Commander Gree, Draa and Buzz (Doesn’t make any sense I know but who cares bitch) and other soldiers from the 41st Stormtrooper Legion with him

Hades, Ace, Eli, Beetle, Fox, Rook and Essi 

together with the other three and the gremlin they build a big family

they build some rather crude houses but there not exactly architects, right?

Later, they get better and all of the clones have an individual hut

The distance between the clones and the former grandmaster of the Jedi order seems like a giant canyon at the beginning and they call Yoda “Sir” for a few years

until the clones play a game of truth or dare and one of them is dared to make the Jedi change his sad demeanor for once

Yes, they play games

A lot actually

It’s like they’re finally having their childhood and puberty although the look like adults

imagine 10 grown ass men racing through the swamps of Dagobah

The Jedi has been mourning for the Jedi, the knights, the padawans, the younglings for a long time and the clones know

They see the absent-minded gremlin stare outside the window and they feel sad too

after all they do know how it feels to loose trusted friends and companions although not in that big capacity like the Jedi purge

But well back to the dare 

one of the clones, Ace, is seriously thinking about how to make the little dude smile or at least shock him and he’s wracking his brain because never before has he seen the Jedi master surprised

so how is he gonna do it?

one evening, after everyone went to bed and the Jedi draped the bed sheets over him with the help of the force, he has an image before his eyes

and the next morning when there’s a heated discussion over who becomes the last jelly pudding, Ace blurts out “Grandpa should decide!”

and everyone just stops

Grell who gave Buzz a head nut is just turning and looking at him

Draa paused his spoon mid air, mouth wide open

Hades and Fox just blink, the latter still in a headlock

Eli almost dies because he choked on his milk

The other three who dozed at the table are suddenly wide awake

and then a voice says: “The pudding, Rook should get” and all heads turn

Master Yoda is smiling softly and the bois suddenly have the feeling of “must protect this gremlin” and from that they on they just call him “Grandpa”

Not without teasing Ace to death first, obviously

A lot of jokes get thrown around

“Now that I think about it, I see the resemblance.” “We have the same face, you idiot.” 

Only Grell is a hesitating and just calls him “Yoda” but secretly he likes to say it too

They wear their armor for a long time before they finally take it off, mainly because they’re scared of the Empire finding them 

They want to be ready for battle any time

But then Yoda takes off his Jedi robes and the boys gradually relax and take of their helmets and armor too

Now the get stung a lot by mosquitos

And the bois discover that the gremlin likes to eat a lot of disgusting things

But the mosquito problem gets solved so no one is complaining

Yoda changes a lot

He shows his emotions more and sometimes even loses his patience

His walking stick becomes a weapon for head nuts

Grell gets a lot of them because he always tries to help him but

“Not that old, I am, boy!” 

“Alone, I could’ve done that, Grell.”

He plays with the bois

The often play a ball game where Yoda lets the ball float and the guys try to catch it without being hit in the face

The current count is 142 to 19 with Grandpa clearly winning

Rook is a fucking sewing machine and they soon get to wear custom clothes

He knits a super long and super heavy scarf for Yoda because he “worries that Grandpa will be cold in the winter”

The scarf is literally 3 meters long and I guarantee you that the clones have to unwrap him like toilet paper every evening

Rook is right, Yoda is cold in winter and his bones hurt a lot more

One time Yoda forgot his walking stick and Buzz just straight up holds his hand and walks with him like a toddler

Few years later, when he’s even older and a little wobbly on his feet, Fox and Eli like to carry him around on their backs

Beetle, the absolute crackhead, carries him like a baby

Grandpa always complains but he secretly likes it because the child isn’t a stone hard washboard like the others

They send holograms to Obi-Wan, the responsible uncle and Hades’ beard role model, and the Jedi has questioned the gremlin’s choices so many times already because of the weird ass pictures

Obi-Wan sends them holograms of little Luke in return and the bois are LIVID, because “OUR COUSIN, LOOK AT HIM WADDLE, GUYS”

The clones and Yoda go on holiday trips - which are basically just visiting another swamp on Dagobah

So many puns and inside jokes

“WHAT are you doing in my swamp?”

“GET OUT OF MY SWAMP!”

Laughing

so much laughing

And dirty jokes

Only out of Yoda’s earshot though

The boys grow up, ok?

Eli is good at drawing

He’s the one who painted most of their armor and their battle ships

But for Sith’s sakes he can’t draw Yoda at all

His pictures still hang on the fridge tho

And all kinds of other stuff hangs there too

Yoda’s hut has all sorts of trinkets everywhere

All of them were gifted to him by the boys and some of them are just some sort of weird metal that “looked shiny or nice”

But the Grandpa loves them SO MUCH

When Yoda gets older, his hearing gets a lot worse and his ear muscles deteriorate which is why he’s constantly walking around with flabby ears

The boys have to repeat their sentences 

When the gremlin doesn’t like what he’s hearing he’s just pretending he can’t understand them but Grell KNOWS

When he meditates too long or sits too long without eating, the boys force him to eat something

mostly frogs - he likes them a lot

They make sure he brushes his teeth because that frog smell nasty

and they brush his hair, but it’s mostly Grell because he can ignore the gremlin’s attitude when it comes to taking care of himself

Yoda makes Obi-Wan send pictures of some locals on Tatooine, trying to subtly set the boys up

They aren’t Jedi after all

A little happiness, they deserve, hoho

The boys find it funny but never try to contact the person because it’s too dangerous

This makes Yoda sure that half of them are gay

Not that he minded

They just have an embarrassing talk about the bees, and Adam and Steve

And he’s telling them the story of “Jal and Argo” some members of his species he met on a little moon and yada yada yada

MAKER, he loves to tell stories

The ears of the clones almost start to bleed, he talks so long and loud - he can’t hear his voice properly sometimes and starts to randomly YELL

But they like to listen, although half of them are always asleep at the end

and receive head buts when grumpy Grandpa notices

But he never hits them hard, especially not Beetle

He seriously worries about that guy

“make sure he doesn't lose any more brain cells, I have to”

But the clone’s head is really hard so might as well be fine

BONUS: ugly ass 10 minute sketches

YODA’S SPECIES HAS THE CAPABILITY TO MOVE THEIR EARS LIKE STITCH, I DON’T ACCEPT ANYTHING ELSE

[the-littlefangirl]

TFATWS episode 2 rewatch commentary

We should've guessed John Walker was going to be an asshole the moment it was revealed he played football in high school

That remix of star spangled man is my villain origin story JEEEEEEESUS i want to punch something

They literally mass produced a Walker action figure in two weeks what the fuck

"Your new Captain America" GAAAAAAAAAAh * angry noises *

"For those who aren't familiar with John's resume" thank you GMA lady

My face during that whole speech: wtf and indignation intensify

Bucky's face: yep same.

Imagine being Sam and everywhere you go you're seeing your one (1) mistake spit in your face overandoverandover again that's g r e a t

Tbh that sambucky reunion was anticlimatic as fuck but i actually liked that, it was like WELL HERE WE GO AGAIN they can’t look at each other for 5 seconds before they need to start bickering

"You think it didn't break my heart" SAM SWEETIE

YeAH TELL HIM SAM

The way I know this clip by heart help me. It's still hilarious but it's even better now that I know that they literally just met and they're already bickering can you PLEASE stop you children

T H E  B I G  T H R E E

Spoiler it was a thing

Love how nonchalant Joaquín is about this entire situation lmao

"You sure about that"

*Fakes smiles* yeah, * screams *

Congrats at least you didn't rip your arm off this time that's what I call progress

is he… is he wearing high wasted skinny (jeans) combat pants?

Redwing i'm sorry for what's about to happen :(

"Look at you all stealthy" PLEASE

"it's white wolf, actually" n e r d

SAM MATERIALIZING OUT OF THIN AIR SAFHAJSFHA this is the second time that happened it’s so funny

H E LLO H O W A R E Y O U?

GOOD! WHAT DID I MISS! NOTHING

They're literally 5 CHILDREN CHILDREN PLEASE STOP

AND I CAN FLY WHO GIVES A SHIT fsdjhfadjkfh

L e t  m  e   s e e

Four

Yeah

Five!

YeaH

“So they're strong. W h a t e v e r”

SFHJDASKFA we're superheroes ma'am vibes

3 supersoldiers what could possibly go wrong

REDWING MY BELOVED FAREWELL

"I always wanted to do that" *gets punched in the face* you deserved that

YEAH BABEE look at those wings

Why do the knockoff duo have a special handshake jesus fucking christ i hate them

“SAM JOHN WALKER CAPTAIN AMERICA” Sam: *Glares harder*

Sam is having a very shitty day

So are we going to ignore that Bucky did t h e  t h i n g with the shield? Ok? Ok.

You can't tell me he wasn't thinking of just grabbing it like a toy and not returning it in the middle of the fight sfj

LOOK AT THOSE W I N G S

*whispers* t h e e arm thing

*Stares at the wall* I CAN'T WITH THAT SEQUENCE WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO MEJSFHJASFAH PLEASE they didn't have to go that far with the grunting noises PLEASE

John Walker getting his ass served is something that can be so personal<3

Also, I like that they've now established that he CAN lose a fight, which makes me wonder if he's also going to use his political influence as leverage against sam and bucky once he goes berserk

"It's one of the big three" "Aliens, androids or wizards" "pretty sure" lmao yeah I don't think that's the vindication Sam was looking for

"Look, I've done the work, okay" SHUT THE FUUUUUUCK UP

"You ever jump on top of a grenade" bucky finding out about it in the middle of a briefing during the war fic trope intensifies

"It's a reinforced helmet" well you're fucking losing the point there then you naive clown

Captain "Kind of the government" America??? NOPE NOPE GOODBYE N O P E NOOOOOOOOOOOPE

"Usually said by the people with the resources" daaamn

“I'm Battlestar. John's partner" A clown that’s what you are

Bucky: YES I'VE REACHED MY LIMIT STOP THE FUCKING CAR

"It'd be a whole lot easier if I had Cap's wingmen on my side" FUUUUUUUUUCK YOUUUUUUU

"It's always that last line" yeP

Erin Kellyman is??? So pretty???

"The GRC care more about the people who came back than the ones who never left" love how they keep putting those random bits since otherwise their position sounds??? Extremely reasonable?? BUT THEY ARE V I O L E N T  R E V O L U T I O N E R S fuck off

"Let's take the shield, Sam" oh you BET he's been spiraling thinking about 3224 strategies on how to steal the shield during that flight

Sharon name drop:)

YES I KNOW YOU WERE ON THE RUN FOR TWO YEARS I'D REALLY HAVE WANTED TO SEE MORE OF IT JFC @marvel i hate you so much

The whole Baltimore sequence * chef's kiss *

ELI SWEETIE

Friendly reminder that Isaiah Bradley won a fight against the Winter Soldier. Proceed.

"I'm not a killer anymore" bucky sweetie

"You think you can wake up one day and decide who you wanna be" OOOOF

Carl Lumbly's acting f u c k

"How could nobody bring him up" SAM SWEETIE

I'm going to go ballistic now excuse me:))

This whole scene is so well written jesus fucking christ

Have you praised Anthony Mackie's performance today?

Twitter is this clear enough for you?????

Tbh i'm actually surprised marvel allow them to go there even if the situation didn't escalate.

They put the tiiiiniest handcuffs on bucky lmfao

How many more "bucky"s from Walker's mouth until someone punches him?

"He's too valuable of an asset to have tied up" YEAH BEEP BEEP ALARMS GOING OFF RIGHT THE FUCK NOW UHM THOSE WERE SOME… WORD CHOICES… THAT WERE USED… fuck you Walker

"It's something I use with couples" oh coME ON

SFHAJSDFH this is ridiculous i love it

Malcolm Spellman: * agressively takes notes on Stackie's interviews *

SOUL-GAZING EXERCISE LMFAO

THEY'RE SO STUPID I HATE THEM

Sambucky: *chaotic leg positioning*

Dr Raynor: WOW ALL RIGHT

I love that the staring contest thing is the conclusion of the bucky staring joke lmao

AND DON'T SAY SOMETHING CHILDISH

this is literally not about you bucky

"Maybe this is something you or Steve will never understand. But can you accept that I did what I thought was right?" YEAH!!!! 

Why is everyone, on the show and outside of it too, acting as if Sam made that decision of out the blue and didn't think about it for six months straight, and look what happened! He got fucking played! He's feeling enough remorse as it is jfc

"Thanks Doc for making it weird I feel much better" LMFAO

Oh you KNOW that the shoulder clap is going to come back unironically and it's going to be soft as fuck

"I feel better" "I feel awful" props for the honesty boys!

"It wouldn't make sense to work with you" more like you're the fucking government's lap dog and we wouldn't touch that with a twelve feet long pole. Let's fucking go Sam let's fucking go

10/10 building of Walker actually being a fucking asSHOLE

The Power Broker name drop!

Yes Bucky SHOULD beat the SHIT out of Zemo. As a treat.

"We're going to go see Zemo" *CLASSICAL MUSIC STARTS BLASTING IN THE BACKGROUND*

Oh I love that last bird eye's shot at the end of the scene

Overall thoughts: This episode was MUCH MUCH better on second viewing. I do think it’s a little bit too fast paced so a lot of things keep happening and there’s not enough time to process them in between?? Again the best moments are the quiet ones like the flight back and the Baltimore scene, but mad props to everyone from jumping between comedy and drama so fucking well. Even though there are, in tone, some very opposite atmospheres in the episode it never feels chaotic, and the situations that happen are very well connected and don’t feel disjointed at all.

The highlight of the episode was definitely the two different ways Sam and Bucky are (avoiding) grieving over Steve, and how his legacy hangs between them at all times. It makes so much sense for Bucky to take the entire situation so personally because Steve was the One thing he knew he could trust, while Sam is trying to see the bigger picture and not just what Steve demanded of him.

Hope that makes sense!

[embeanwrites]

Finding Home Gavin Reed x Reader

Chapter 13

Masterlist

The taxi pulled into his driveway. I stepped out; his jeep was in the driveway which was a good sign. For a second, I stopped and thought about how impulsive this was. I didn’t know if he was home, if he had company, or if he even wanted to see me. 

I walked up to the door and knocked lightly as the taxi pulled away. No one came to the door, so I knocked again, this time a little louder. 

“Please answer Gavin.” I mumbled under my breath. 

“I’m coming, Jesus Christ.” The door swung open. Gavin was wearing a plain white t-shirt and grey sweats. His hair was a mess and he looked exhausted. Dear lord, that shouldn’t be such a good look for him, but I could see the outline of muscles through the white shirt, his bicep muscles pulling the sleeves taught around his arms, and those sweats, I couldn’t look at them.  Nope. That would be too much. Even his messy hair was attractive, mussed in every direction from sleep. 

He said nothing, but looked me up and down for a moment, before settling on my face, his own expression showed just how pleased he was to see me at his doorstep. 

“Did I wake you up?” He glared at me. 

“Yes.” 

“Can I come in?” I tried gesturing behind him with a smile.

“Why?” 

“Because I just left your brothers house and I want to talk to you.” He grunted, turning and leaving the door open behind him. As he walked ahead of me, all I could focus on was the shifting of his shoulders through that damn t-shirt, my eyes trailed the movement lower, and I could feel the blood rush to my face, he must take fitness very seriously, the rough outline of his ass was just as fit as the rest of his body.

I shook my head to chase those thoughts away and drew my focus to the room around me. There were blankets on his couch and a pillow. “Do you have a guest? Shit I’m sorry if I was in-”

“No.” He interrupted me as he grabbed the blankets and threw them on the floor.

“Oh. Were you sleeping on the couch then?”

“Why are you asking so many fucking questions?” He asked as he threw himself down on the corner of the couch furthest from me. Startled by the noise, Lucy bolted from under the couch and ran deeper into the house. I almost asked if I could sit down but figured that may make him more upset, so I walked over slowly and sat next to him, leaving a cushion between us so I wasn’t invading his space anymore than I already was by inviting myself over. Immediately Sassy jumped into my lap and I absentmindedly started petting her. 

“You’re mad at me because I’m friends with your half-brother.” I said softly. “Gavin, I didn’t know. There was no way I could’ve known that before meeting you.” I looked over at him. His face remained neutral and facing forward. “Gavin?” Still no response. “Do you want me to go?” I turned away from him and waited for an answer that never came. “Okay.” I gently picked up Sassy and sat her next to Gavin. I stood up ready to leave, when he grabbed my wrist. I turned back to him, his expression was still blank. “You have to talk to me. I can’t stay if you’re not going to talk to me.”

“Okay I will, just sit down. Please?” He didn’t look at me while he spoke, his eyes focused on his hand around my wrist, only turning to my face for a moment when he said ‘please.’ I tentatively sat back down, this time he guided me to the cushion next to him, our shoulders and thighs touching. He didn’t let go of my wrist. He took a deep breath and exhaled it fully before he spoke, still focusing his gaze on the wall in front of us. 

“Elijah is an asshole. He has been since we were kids. He got everything he ever wanted and look at him now. He’s so successful, he’s all our dad talks about. It doesn’t matter what I do.”

“You’ve been successful too.” I said softly. He shook his head. “Hey, what happened to the badass detective I was talking to yesterday?” I asked with a smile. I gently removed my wrist from his grasp and held his hand. He sighed softly, finally turning to face me. His expression was troubled, his mouth a thin line and his grey eyes stormy like Lake Michigan in the winter, emotions cresting and swirling inside of them.  

“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what I do or how successful I become, I will never be as good as him.” He squeezed my hand.

“Gavin, just because you weren’t a CEO, or have a dumb man bun doesn’t mean you’re not successful.”

“His hair is really stupid.” I smiled at him. 

“That’s why you don’t like androids. Because of Elijah, right?” He nodded. “I’ve only known you for a couple of weeks, but I’ve heard stories about you.” He tensed. “You pointed a gun at Connor, you tried to beat him up, you’ve insulted my dad, and I’m sure there’s plenty more things that you regret doing.”

“Thanks, you’re really making me feel better, (Y/n).” I squeezed his hand.

“Let me finish, please.” I smiled at him, a small encouraging one, and sighed before continuing. “You’ve done some things that pissed me off too, but…I can see you’re not all bad. You’re partners with Nines, you brought me lunch, and bought me dinner. And even when you’re pissing me off, you’ve been challenging my views in ways I didn’t think anyone outside of academia would. I like your company and I want to get to know you better, but you’ve got to let go of some of this anger and talk to me. If you just keep getting mad at me when I say something wrong and then you don’t tell me why you’re mad I can’t do anything to fix my behavior.”

“You really want to deal with me?” 

“I mean, I gotta do something in between classes.” He snorted. “Tina wants me to give you a chance.”

“Why?”

“She said there’s something about both of us that makes her think we would work really well together.”

“I’m not as good as Elijah.” He whispered.

“If I wanted to date Elijah, I wouldn’t have left his house to come see you once I got the truth out of him.” I looked down at his hand, I started rubbing my thumb across his knuckles, a gentle comforting motion my mom used to do for me when I was upset. 

“I’m the child of an affair, (Y/n).” He took a breath before continuing, looking into my eyes, clenching his hand harder around mine. ��After my mom got pregnant, my dad didn’t give two shits about either of us. She died of a drug overdose and he only took me in because apparently that was the only way he’d get what little money she had.” 

“Fuck, Gavin. I’m so sorry.” He averted my eyes, looking back at his lap, at Robin who was winding between his legs. I squeezed his hand; he didn’t respond to the touch. 

He turned and looked at me, his face devoid of the emotions he was showing a second ago, sneering, eyebrows furrowed and pulled his hand from between mine. “What happened to calling him Eli?” He snorted; I rolled my eyes. 

“What? Where did that come from?”

“Since you’ve been here you have been saying Elijah not Eli.” 

“Gavin, I’m not here to fight you. I’m not taking that bait.” His sneer fell into a frown, his eyes downcast. He looked awful. The bags under his eyes looked more prominent now, purple and heavy, his leg was bouncing up and down. I looked down to see Robin was rubbing his face against Gavin’s leg, like he was trying to get his owner to stop shaking. 

I reached my hand back out, and placed it on top of his hand that was resting on his knee. We sat like that for a moment, before I felt like I needed to say something. I sighed. “What are you doing for lunch on Monday?” He shrugged. “Well, if you’re free, why don’t you pick me up at my office and we grab a quick bite to eat?” 

“You wanna go out with me again?” I laughed. 

“Yes, Gavin. I would like to go out with you again.” He smirked and had a mischievous glint in his eyes, though I could still see he was a little shaken from our conversation. 

“Alright, yeah Monday lunch sounds great.” 

“Can I ask another favor?”

“Hey, I paid for dinner on Friday!” I laughed.

“No. Can you give me a ride to my dad’s house? I told Connor I would come over for dinner.” He frowned. 

“Do I have to park at the end of the street again?” 

“No and I shouldn’t have asked you to do that in the first place. If you’re free for dinner I’m sure they wouldn’t mind you joining.” 

“Nines and I have some case work that I have to go into the office for, but I’ll still drive you there. Let me go get changed.” I nodded, as he got up Robin ran away, and Sassy gave a sad meow. Those cats really seemed to love Gavin. I got up and walked around the living room. 

Near the TV he had a small bookshelf that had a couple beat up books. I knelt down and saw a picture pushed to the very back. I turned around to make sure Gavin wasn’t behind me and I picked up the picture. 

It was of a small boy with brown curly hair next to a blonde woman. The boy was missing his front teeth and had bright gray eyes. The woman was wearing a plain looking dress, but she was beautiful. They both looked so happy.

“That’s me and my mom.” Gavin grunted behind me. I jumped up and held the picture behind my back and gave him a nervous smile. 

“Sorry, I like paper books and I got curious.” He nodded and held out his hand. Sheepishly, I handed him the picture. “She’s really beautiful.” He nodded again, staring at the photo. 

“It’s the last picture that I took with her.” He said softly. I got out my phone and quickly scrolled through my pictures. I held up my phone and he looked at the picture.

“That’s me and my mom about a month before she passed. It was one of the last days she was able to get out of bed.” 

“Hey, we should start a club. Dead mom society.” Gavin joked. He gave me a playful smile, which caused me to give a small laugh. 

“Only if I get to be President.” 

“No way, my mom’s been dead longer, I have seniority.”

“Fine, but I’m vice president and I get to pick what snacks we have at the meetings.” We both laughed. He sat the photo down on the coffee table and I shoved my phone back into my pocket. 

“Come on, pipsqueak.” He grabbed his keys and gestured for me to follow. We both got into the car, but Gavin hesitated starting the car. “Hey, I’m uhh…glad you came over.” 

“Me too, Gavin.” He flashed me a cocky smile. 

“You like me.” 

“Oh, shut up and drive.”

[revisionaryhistory]

Three Days ~ 59

~*~Emma~*~

The lake had been fun. It was initially awkward, but after we loaded into the boat and were underway it got better. I snagged a spot up front in the bow. I was joined by three girls, now women, I’d known well in high school. We started by talking about our current lives and by the time we'd found a spot to anchor we were telling old stories and laughing through our memories. Once the four of us had reconnected the others were easy with conversations and groupings overlapping. An hour later it felt like old times. There were lots of pictures taken and we were texting them to each other immediately. I posted some on Instagram and sent some directly to Sebastian. I had no problem posting bikini-clad pictures of me in a group, but solo went only to him. I've never been one for posting me. It's usually an activity with people.

There was a dock near the southeast border of the lake for gassing up and they had a sandwich shop. Sandwich included hot dogs, hamburgers, french fries, and onion rings. We decided to eat at the picnic tables. Stowing food was more to pack up and could stink. We were relaxing and waiting for the last ones to finish when my notification went off. Chris Evans was asking permission to follow my account. Interesting. Approved. Not a minute later so was Chace Crawford. Also approved, but with a snarky DM about his pickup lines. He'd hit on me at Kirk's wedding. Very unsuccessfully.

Emma ~ Tell Chris hi and nice to meet him.

Sebastian ~ We’re not talking about you. Much. Ok, we are. Sebastian ~ We're mostly looking at pictures.

Emma ~ The ones on your phone are much better than IG

Sebastian ~ Chace will be the one to figure that out.

 Chris DM'd me, “Can't wait to meet you in person. Hearing very sweet things.”

I sent back, "A few are true. He exaggerates."

"Yeah, he's got a huge crush on you."

"Nice to know."

We watched sunset out on the water. It was beautiful. The haze and clouds made for muted pinks, purples, blues, and grays. I took a dozen of those hoping to catch the perfect one. I was in a group of people, but the sunset had me feeling lonely. It was fleeting and I was back into the party spirit quickly.

Amy thought it was a good idea to take everyone back to our house for a pool party. I did not agree. Our parents were home babysitting their granddaughter and we were about to invade with a hoard of drunk friends. All of whom were inviting more and asking them to pick up booze. It felt very high school and in need of at least a phone call. However, it was Amy’s idea and no one wanted to hear from me last night. I wouldn’t be calling ahead.

I went inside to go to the bathroom and ran into dad. "What's all that noise we just got Katie in bed?"

"Amy invited some friends back to the pool."

"You’re teenagers again."

"Seems like it."

"Try and keep it down."

"I will tell her." Not my party. Not my crowd control. I did my business and went back outside. Amy was making out with Max in the pool. I tapped on her head, breaking their kiss, "Dad said to keep it down."

They went back to kissing. I'd deemed my message delivered and headed to the bar, putting in the code and retrieving a bottle of tequila. When I stood up, I was surprised to see Kai on the other side of the bar. Kai was the boyfriend who broke up with me after rehab. Kai's hands were shoved in the pockets of his swim shorts. He nodded toward the group, "Amy said you'd be ok with me coming. I wanted to check."

My current plan for Amy’s death was drowning. She was already in the pool after all. I pasted a less than genuine smile on my face, "It's fine, Kai. It was a long time ago. How are you?"

Kai was very southern lawyer attractive. Thinking back, he always had been. "I’m good. I did become a lawyer. Work for a firm here in Alpharetta. I got married three years ago. Her name is Melanie. We're expecting a baby in January."

"Congratulations. That’s wonderful."

He nodded, "Thank you. What are you up to?"

"I teach first grade, love it. I play in a volleyball rec league. My best friend's in a band so I go into the city and visit. My boyfriend lives there too."

Kai laughed, "I might have heard about him."

"I bet. He's a good guy. Lots of fun and good to me.”

"Better than I was, I’m sure."

Ah! This was going to be some sort of apology. I cringed and pulled up my shades for a second, "Well Kai, you did break up will me three days after I got back from rehab. You kinda failed at supportive boyfriend."

"Yeah, I did. Sorry. In hindsight, it was a shitty thing to do. Bad timing and a lie of a reason."

"I knew that."

"Sorry. I’ve always felt guilty."

I smiled, "It was a long time ago, Kai. We've grown up. We're both doing well."

"I wish we could go back to friends again. We were friends since middle school."

I don't think he realized that made it worse. We’d been friends before we were anything else and none of that mattered when he left me. It didn’t matter to me now. “I stopped being angry with you a very, very long time ago, Kai. Forgave you for leaving me when I needed you. But there’s no reason for us to be friends now. I come back a couple of times a year. You and I are strangers now. And while I have forgiven you, I’d never trust you again.” His guilt is not a reason for me to welcome him back into my life.

“Wow.” He looked surprised.

I smiled, “I wish nothing but the best for you.”  I leaned back to see under the bar and brought up a couple of glasses. “Drink to old times?”

He looked surprised again. “Yeah, Em.”

“Good.” I poured the tequila and tapped my glass against his. “To happy memories and years of fun times.”

We both drank and he walked around to my side of the bar. It was my turn to be surprised when he hugged me, “I wish nothing but the best for you too, Emma.”

I patted his back, “Thank you.”

Kai let go and walked back toward the pool.

I tell you what, this has been the strangest visit I’ve ever had and that’s saying a lot. I’m starting to get paranoid about what the next three days are going to bring. I poured another tequila and questioned my decision to not hop back on a plane last night. I could be home in my bed or in the city tucked into Sebastian’s bed waiting for him to get home or out with Eli and Angie. All preferable to this mixed bag of what the fuck.

I hung out for another hour before letting Amy I was heading to bed. Family day was supposed to start at about noon. That gave me time to sleep in a little, go for a run, and shower before arrivals started. Of course, because I had time to sleep in, I woke up at my normal time. I texted Sebastian, saying good morning, and was pleasantly surprised when his face showed up on my phone.

“It’s morning, but good is a stretch.”

He looked a little rough, but still handsome. “Good night with the boys?”

Sebastian nodded then winced, “Very.” He filled me in on his night. There’d been lots of laughs and he gave me back story on any conversations. I liked watching him talk. In his hungover state, he was less animated than usual, but his expressions and eyes still conveyed a range of emotions. I laughed at the late-night stories. My favorite was Chris edging between Chace and Sebastian in the bathroom, sharing a urinal with Seb because he couldn’t wait.

My stories weren’t nearly as funny. It’s possible things got out of hand after I’d gone to bed. I’m sure Amy would fill me in. I told him about the conversation with Kai.

“Ouch, you’re tough.”

I rolled to my side, putting the phone against the pillow, “It’s not my responsibility to ease his guilt.”

“True.”

“If we were going to be around each other my response might have been different, but there’s no reason. Haven’t seen him in twelve years, likely won’t for at least that long. We talked at the party, laughed. We’re just not going to be friends.”

“No, no, I get it.” He was shaking his head. “I think you might still be a little angry.”

I laughed, “Maybe I should have been less direct. I wasn’t expecting to see him. More indifferent than angry.”

“I don’t know if you should have. I just don’t want to be on the receiving end of your directness. The indifferent version.” He smiled with his using my word instead of his “angry”. “You were pretty direct with Drew in the bar too. I like you having a little bite.” He looked like he was thinking and I stayed quiet. “You are incredibly kind until you’re not. I mean, I think you give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but once they cross over the line where you don’t trust them you have no problem putting them in their place. That’s a good thing. Sometimes people don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.”

“Ed tells me I let people get away with too much.”

“Do you think so?”

“Sometimes. I can give too many chances. It all depends on how much I care about someone and the size of the bad behavior. I think I’m usually direct and kind at the same time, but when I’ve had enough, I’ve had enough.”

“I tend to sugar coat too much. Then get pissy when nothing changes and sometimes it’s because I wasn’t clear.”

Now I had a question. “Are you sugar-coating and think I was mean to Kai?”

“I was imagining being on the receiving end. I wouldn’t have liked it, but, no, I don’t think you were mean.”

“You’d have to fuck up a lot.” Sebastian’s opinion was important. “I’m direct with the good stuff too.”

“I know you are.” His blue eyes lit up with his smile. “I always know where I stand, how you feel.”

Not always. Not right now. “You read me bedtime stories when I’m sad.”

“And you ask me what I need when I’m anxious.”

“Quite the pair.”

“Yes, we are.”

We just looked at each other for a long time. “Your flight is at three.”

“Twelve, moved up to squeeze in a dinner tonight.”

I looked at the time on my phone, “You need to get to the airport.”

“Yeah.” He turned the camera where I could see his bags. “All packed. I’ll call you when I get back to the hotel for our date.”

Our phone sex date. I smiled and kissed my screen, “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Definitely.”

I laid in bed for a few more minutes, just enjoying being happy, before I got up and got dressed to go for a run.  Mom and dad were already downstairs having coffee. I walked around the table, kissing both of their cheeks, “I’m going for a run before everyone gets here.”

Mom nodded over her cup, “How late was everyone here last night?”

I shrugged, “I went to bed about ten. Long day in the sun and then old friends showing up. I was done. Kai showed up. That was less than fun.”

“You left your sister to manage all your friends?”

Notice how they failed to ask how I was after an unexpected visit from my ex-boyfriend. I know I did. I thought about the conversation with Sebastian and what he’d said about some people not deserving the benefit of the doubt. The other night was the first time I’d been so confrontational with my parents in a very long time. Like since I was sixteen right before I moved to Seattle. I took a deep breath and tried to pull in some of the calmness I’d had upstairs in bed. “Guys, we’re almost thirty, not thirteen. Hopefully, we’ve grown out of getting so drunk we knock over patio furniture and throw up in the pool. If not, they are Amy’s problem. They are her friends, not mine. She invited them over. I haven’t seen most of these people for over ten years. And are you telling me in addition to not talking too much about my boyfriend or anything else that makes me happy, I am also expected to babysit my sister?”

“Emma, you’re overreacting.”

Again, with the fucking overreacting. I’m not an overreactor. If anything, I’m an underreactor. I’m positive I’m not overeating here. I guess it’s nice to know it’s not they don’t like Sebastian and don’t want to talk about him. They don’t want to talk about Kai either and I know they liked him. I muttered, “Unbelievable”, as I headed for the front door.

I ran far longer than I'd planned.

It took a long time to calm my mind and get into the zone. What often happens once I let go of my thoughts and get into a rhythm is that the thoughts organize themselves. When I stopped or during cool down I could see things more clearly. What I saw when I slowed my pace to a walk wasn't pretty. It had been my choice to leave rehab when it was no longer good for me. It had been my choice to call Ed to get me away from here when it was no longer good for me. I don't remember my parents favoriting Amy before that summer. Twenty-three days that strengthened me and weakened Amy. Broke my family and gave me a new one.

Choices, even ones that are good for you, have consequences. A tangled web of choices and consequences have led to now. This isn't my home. My parents' focus, as it had been since I went to Seattle or before, was Amy. I didn't agree with how they sheltered her, but I hadn't been here. In their view I was strong, I was fine, and they didn't have to worry about me. I had another family to worry about me. When I thought about it like this, it made sense. I'd left because being here was a threat to me. Now me being here was a threat to Amy. The situation was fucked. We'd all done the best we could. We still were. If what I'd told Sebastian was true, I wouldn't change anything if it meant I didn't know Ed, Jill, Olivia, and Harper. I had to accept the negatives too. I don't know what that means for the future, but as Ed tells me I put up with things too long sometimes.

I arrived back at the house as everyone was finishing breakfast. I'd separated myself from family time by taking a run. Or maybe I'd taken a run because I was separate from my family. I poured a cup of coffee and joined them at the table, helping myself to the container of Greek yogurt and covering it with berries. Blueberries for Sebastian and raspberries for me. That made me smile.

After I showered Amy and I went to pick up my grandparents. Amy told me what happened after I'd gone to bed, including her and Max having sex on the big round double lounger. I told her... nothing. I didn’t tell her about my fights with our parents, I didn’t tell her about the conversation with Kai. I most certainly didn't tell her about my phone sex date later with Sebastian, the early morning just woke up FaceTime, or how he'd read me Winnie the Pooh until I fell asleep. I hated it. I hated how yesterday we were back to talking like sisters and today it was not. Again, my choice, but I knew she’d tell our parents, which under any other circumstance would be fine, but I could not take any more. I could, but I didn’t want to.

The back yard easily held the gathering of aunts, uncles, and cousins. Kids played in the pool while adults talked with glasses of sangria and bottles of beer. The last stragglers were finishing their drinks when Katie crawled into my lap. She wanted me to take her to bed and read her a story. When the book was done, she curled up next to me, looked up, and said, "I love you, Emma."

I kissed her nose, "I love you, too.”

I joined my parents and sister in the family room. Amy explained they hadn't known how long I'd be with Katie and had started a movie without me. I lied and said it was fine, I'd seen it. There couldn't have been much left when “Dancing Queen” started playing from my phone. I stood up, "That’s Sebastian. He's in Canada. I'm going to take it upstairs. See you in the morning."

Mom yelled after me, "We need to leave at nine-thirty."

"OK." I connected the call, "Hey, baby, how was your flight and dinner?"

"Bumpy."

"Which one?"

"Both." His laughter was a balm that smoothed away the roughness of the day. "How was the barbeque and why can't I see you?"

I shut the door behind me and switched the call to video. "I was waiting until I could get you alone."

Sebastian put his arms across his chest, "What kind of a boy do you think I am?"

"A very handsome one." The top three buttons of his white dress shirt were unbuttoned and his tie hung loosely around his neck. "Damn, you look good."

"So do you."

I was in a plain peach t-shirt. He didn't care. To him, I looked good. I went back to his question, "It was fun. Caught up with lots of family. Watched kids in the pool. Mostly sat with my grandparents. Granny was happy to hold my hand and tell me I’m beautiful."

Sebastian's mouth dropped open in a gasp, "I like doing that too." He turned his head to the side looking over my face, "You don't look sad, but you don't look happy either. What's going on with you?"

I looked up for an answer, "I am accepting the reality of the situation. This isn't really home or really my family anymore. Their priority is Amy."

His face fell, "I’m sorry, baby. What can I do? What do you need?"

I smiled a real smile, "Nothing I don't already have." I could see he was struggling to believe me. "Since we were sixteen, they took care of Amy and Ed took care of me. I didn't realize exactly what that meant. Amy is doing better than she ever has. I always thought that when Amy was better." I stopped myself to figure out how I wanted to say this. "It took me coming home while things are good to realize it doesn't matter. Even if she is fine it's all a house of cards. I expected at some time things would be normal, but it won't be. I am changing my expectations."

"How do stop expecting your parents to support you?"

Good question. "You know why Jimmy and I broke up."

"He cheated."

"My parents do not. Amy didn't until Friday."

"Why not?" Sebastian's sadness for me was tinged with anger.

The list of things my parents didn’t know was long. "Just telling them we'd split. I felt like I might drown. The way they wanted to baby and take care of me felt like an anchor around my neck, like I was incapable of surviving a breakup. When I came here for Christmas, they had all these ideas for my life, but they never asked what I wanted. I knew if I told them he'd cheated it would be ten times worse. Does this make any sense?" It wasn't completely clear to me so how could it be to him.

Sebastian rubbed his fingers over his beard, pulling at the grey patch. "I hurt my knee once. They told me to take it easy for twenty-four hours, ice it, stay off it. Then I had exercises and had to move. Walking hurt like hell but it was the best thing if I wanted to heal. Your parents wanted you on bed rest when what you needed was PT. Support to get on your feet. Support should help, not cripple you."

"Exactly!" I smiled and ran my fingers over the video version of his face. "So not having their support isn’t new. I am working on accepting that's not going to change." I watched Sebastian bite his lip and let it slip free. "What's that about?"

"I feel lucky to know you. I'm so fucking proud of you. You don't get stuck in self-pity; you dig yourself out. It's the difference between seeing yourself as a victim or just someone who had something bad happen. They keep Amy stuck and Ed taught you resilience."

My heart stopped and I forgot how to breathe. Not in the good way. In the almost a panic attack way.

"I can do that with work, most things. Relationships." He scrunched up his face and rocked his head from side to side. "I'm learning."

"I'm not always good at it either." Sometimes I needed my ass kicked.

"That’s ok. I'll be here to help. You're still learning too."

I felt a slow smile form across my face and Sebastian raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you supposed to be teaching me something tonight?"

I fought back the laugh at the way he squeezed his eyes shut and scrunched up his face. It took a good ten seconds for him to come back to me. I let go of the lip I was biting, "You ok there?"

"You cause me physical pain." He chuckled and smiled looking at me.

I don't think he minds all that much. "Where's it hurt, baby?" I dropped the tone and volume of my voice.

He made the face again and pointed his finger at me. "Turn off the camera."

My eyes went wide, "Why?"

"The first time I watch you get yourself off is going to be live."

"You have a lot of phone sex rules, Bastian." Still, I switched the phone to voice only. My screen went dark. I pouted. Not that he could see.

"Stop pouting and tell me what you're wearing."

I resisted the urge to tell him if he let me turn the damned camera back on, I'd show him. I didn't need to be taught how to do this. I was confident I could wing it just fine. What I didn’t know was if this was to be purely descriptive, giving each other instructions, or a role-play. It didn't matter. Any would be fun.

"I have on a peach t-shirt. It's not tight, but it fits against my body. Soft. My shorts are white. If you listen close, I bet you can hear me unzip them," I moved my phone lower to make sure he could. I left the phone by my hip, "I'm going to go ahead and take them off. My legs are smooth against my fingers."

"Take off your shirt too. Tell me about your bra and panties." His voice had taken on the timbre it gets when he's turned on.

"Nothing special. No one to see them. Simple white cotton. They do look nice against my tan."

"Next time we're together I’m licking those tan lines."

"Mmm, I'm looking forward to that. Tell me about you."

"Dressed from dinner. Black pants, long sleeve white shirt, black tie. You saw. Tie undone. A couple of buttons open and sleeves rolled up."

"Unbutton them all, but leave your shirt on. I like you undone. What’s going on with your pants?"

"They're tight. I’m not completely hard."

"Take them off. Rub yourself over your boxers. I love feeling you grow in my hand or my mouth. Your skin is so soft."

"Spread your legs. Touch yourself. Over your panties. I want them wet.” I heard a change in his breathing. Subtle. “I’m hard. Had to adjust my boxers. My cock's up toward my stomach where I can rub the underside. Feels good." He let out a little moan and I could easily imagine the little smile on his face.

"Take your cock out. I've got my hand over my pussy. Massaging myself. Warm. Panties are a little damp. I can tell I'm wet though. I can feel it."

"What's it like, Emma?"

"All the blood’s rushed between my legs. There's an ache, a throbbing, almost like I can feel my heart beating. An itch I need to scratch."

"My hand's around my cock. Slow strokes along the whole length. I flip my thumb over the tip every so often." His breath caught. "Hits the spot, you know the one, sends a jolt, like a shock through me. Feels even better when it's your tongue."

"Fuck. Your talking has me squirming. My hand is in my panties. My middle finger sliding from my clit to inside me. So slippery. How tight is your grip?"

"Tight. Not stroking my length anymore. Turned my hand around where my thumbs against the vein. Holding tight above the middle to the edge of the head. Feels good. Thinking about you touching your clit."

"Moving up and down, kind of slow. Tightening my muscles like you're inside me."

Words stopped, but it wasn't quiet.

Our breathing had synced up and there were these little catches, sighs, and soft moans.

"Faster and firmer now."

"Me too. I'm close."

I might not be able to see him, but I knew exactly what he looked like. His face, his body, were starting to tense.

"Feels good. Not as good as you touching me. Not even close."

"If I was there, I'd put my hand over yours. Feel how you like to be touched. So, I can match it. I'd kiss along your neck, taste you. My other hand, my fingers, barely touching your side, over your hip, across your thigh." The last word was interrupted.

" Em... fuck... yes..." Then a few seconds of silence followed by a long sigh.

"Where are you, baby?"

"Unhooked my bra. Nipples so tight."

"Perfect for me to suck on. I'd use my teeth. Run my hand up your inner thigh. Touching close. I can look down and see you touching yourself. God, how much I want to shove your hand away and taste you. Make you come."

"Oh fuck... Bastian." Everything tightened up then let go.

His voice was in my ear, "Turn your camera back on."

When I picked the phone up off my chest his face was already there. I hit the button and saw my face appear in the small rectangle. "Now you want to see me." I stretched with a contented sigh.

"I always want to see you after you come. The way your mouth is open and you lick your lips. Beautiful."

I rolled to my side, "What's an orgasm feel like for you?"

"Tonight. Mmm, for a while it just felt good. Like any touch, nothing special, except the where. Only more. Then it's like a switch. Goes from feels good to oh shit this is amazing. Starts where I’m touching and spreads down to my balls and lower stomach, base of my spine. It's like tightening a spring until it can't anymore and just let’s go."

"Is sex different? The orgasm."

"Oh yeah." His smile and eyes told me he drifted away a little. "I'll tell you all about it next time we have sex." Sebastian raised his eyebrows expectantly.

"Similar. Like you said just feels good. More of a building for me though. Sometimes it's a slow steady increase. Other times like stair steps. I have to remind myself to relax or I clench my butt and thighs too much."

"I've noticed this. You start to rise off the bed and I have to hold you down." He was clearly enjoying the memory. "Does it change how it feels?"

I nodded, "Tightening up takes the focus away. Eventually, everything gets warm, tingly, and tightens up. Finally, it's like a wave breaking on the shore with muscle contractions."

"I feel those."

"I like the resistance of having something to hold onto." His eyes had questions. I had to search for a workable metaphor. "If you're sitting in a chair and lift your foot you can feel your thigh tighten, but if you're on a leg machine with weights you feel that muscle more."

Awareness hit him, "Really?" I nodded again. "I knew you liked, but I like knowing the why." He laughed, "I love these talks."

I joined in his laughter, "It is fun."

"Hang on a sec." He laid his phone next to him and I could hear him moving around.

"What are you doing?"

Sebastian picked his phone back up, "There was a mess to clean up."

It is so sexy that he told me this. The whole conversation is sexy. Lying in bed a thousand miles apart having a casual chat about a not at all casual topic is sexy as fuck.

"What did you use?" I was amused.

He looked at me with disbelief. Not sure if it was the question or that he was going to answer. "My underwear. They were nearby." He stood up and lifted the tie as he walked. "Can I get rid of this now?"

"Do I get to see your bare chest?"

"Do I get... ok well, there we go. Thank you."

I'd shifted my camera lower and flashed him naked breasts before he finished asking. I moved back to my face, "You're welcome."

He held his phone out where I could watch him free his arm and be shirtless. I made an appreciative noise and he asked, "Enjoying yourself?"

"I am." I hadn’t intended to lick my lips. "I'd like to lay by a pool with you. Or a beach."

"Easily arranged." He stretched out on the bed. "What haven't we done that you want to do?"

"In general, or sex."

He shrugged, "Sex is the topic. Tonight anyway."

"I want you to give me a full body massage that veers off track to a happy ending."

"That will be just as much fun for me." His face showed his interest. "I want you to tie me to the bed, blindfold me, and do whatever you want to me."

I sat up enough to take my bra off, giving him another peek "We're going to need a weekend locked in one of our bedrooms."

"My weekend is free. I think I have company coming Thursday."

"My departure time keeps creeping up to get to you sooner.”

He sang, "Oh what a lucky boy."

“Pretty soon I’ll get there before you, waiting on the floor outside your apartment.” I got hit with a memory, "We need to talk about your birthday. What do you want?"

"Well, that depends on how you feel about birthday sex? I like birthday sex. Not a deal-breaker, not my preference, but fun for a change."

He stretched out on the bed and stuck his phone to his leg. I could see chest up. I propped my head upon my hand and adjusted my phone. "I'm speaking from limited experience here." Sebastian tried very hard not to smile. He failed, but he tried. "You're such a man."

He stopped trying, "You're such a woman." His laughter was a wonderful sound.

"Less than good experience the first time because neither of us realized the amount of prep work required." He winced. I shrugged. "Next time I’d researched. I liked it, he didn't. He was too in his head, worried about being dirty. Then there's you. I knew what I was doing more in theory than practice."

"You should feel free to practice on me anytime you want." He cocked his head to the side. "You can come in and brush your teeth while I pee, but that's as far as I want to go there."

"Women have complete conversations while trading places in a bathroom."

"The group bathroom break cracks me up."

"We don't want to stop talking or want to talk about a cute guy in private."

"Mostly the last one." He wasn't wrong. "Oh..." he shook his head and pulled his eyebrows down, "not into period sex. But you've got an IUD. Do you even have a period?"

"Nope, happy side effect." Condoms eliminated the need for the birth control talk. "How do you know I have an IUD? Can you feel the strings?"

"My fingers are up there a lot."

I smirked, "You're dirty."

"About to be dirtier. Turn off your camera."

[fragilevixenfic]

Chasing Your Silhouette

Read on AO3

Rating: M

Classification: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, UST, RST, Post-Episode Zebras, Flashbacks

Summary:  They’d learned each other’s quirks and intricacies on the job—but when did it become over the line? When did physicality become a detriment to them once they’ve taken off their shields? When did they realize the line in the sand no longer existed? (This is meant to take place a couple weeks after “Zebras” – had to assume a timeline, I don’t remember actual dates)

Notes: “Sometimes a change of perspective is all it takes to see the light” – Dan Brown

Mild description of sexual assault/violence (purely as a device not as an action) – it is not meant to trigger. Please proceed with caution.Also, I’m definitely on the EO ship but I don’t necessarily ascribe to the idea that Elliot would ever cheat on his wife. Creative liberties have been taken to alleviate such issues. Eli was never conceived and the marriage has never recovered since the initial separation in 2007, the status of their marriage is unresolved but in limbo. Don’t come for my head.

No one else can disarm me

No one else has your light

-Edward Gamper “Stranger Love”

               “Put your gun down.”

               It couldn’t be real.

               The blood, the wound duct tape around Elliot’s wrists and across his mouth, the click of a bullet sliding out of the clip and into the chamber. The only sound that inspired any sense of clarity was the thudding of Olivia’s heart in her throat as she stopped dead in her tracks. She tore her focus off of Elliot for just enough time to bear witness to O’Halloran’s lifeless eyes. She walked right into it and let her guard down as the distress in his eyes pulled back her layer of protection. How could she be so stupid? Stuckey had her in the wrong spot and Elliot had already begun to pay the price as the punctures and slashes continued to bleed through his striped shirt.

               “Okay, Dale. Okay,” Olivia blinked and relinquished her sidearm, the shaking of her digits barely noticeable as she kept them extended.

               Don’t flinch. Don’t flinch. Do not flinch.

               Her inner mantra was stuck on repeat as the reminder of O’Halloran’s corpse laying just feet away and her partner hung in the balance as some sick offering to the one holding all of the cards. She couldn’t tell if it Stuckey or herself that had everything to gain. She knew she had everything to lose. The line began to blur as the business end of Elliot’s gun got a little closer and Stuckey’s stance became a little less sure; he was shifty, aching to pull the trigger. Stuckey was capable of burying a bullet in the middle of her back, or her head, and leaving her for dead in the middle of the tech lab. Collateral damage. She was in the way. Her head was swimming, battling against the current as her blood pressure skyrocketed.

               Think…What would Elliot do?

               “What are you doing here, Liv?” Stuckey had disappointment flaring from behind his rage as he digested her arrival. “I didn’t want to have to hurt you, too.”

               “Then, don’t,” Olivia’s voice wavered, the scenario playing out in a dozen different ways as Elliot’s muted breaths were audible from across the room.

               “I don’t have much of a choice now,” Stuckey had that gun aimed high and true, inspiring nothing less than a hefty dose of tension as she swallowed more of her fear. “You’ve seen a little much.”

               “Let’s all calm down,” Olivia’s method of reassurance was hovering between collected and methodical as her chest heaved, opting to pivot to look him in the eye with a certain level of assertion. “Okay, Dale? Just relax. Because you did good. Really good.”

               “What?” The confusion was real but he held his ground and stared her down.

               “Well, I think it’s pretty clear what happened here, right?” Olivia didn’t think about it as she chose the only feasible way to undo what had already been done as she made a gesture toward O’Halloran’s body on the floor then Elliot in the chair. “One of Harrison’s crazy followers must have gotten in here. He attacked these two, you found the bodies, you secured the crime scene, and then you called me. Right?”

               “I did?” Stuckey’s eyes couldn’t stay still as Olivia weaved the careful tale for him, desperation in her eyes.

               “That’s what I’m going to tell Cragen,” Olivia nodded, squeezing the last bit of calm from her expression as she elevated her eyebrows and made eye contact with Elliot. “And then, you can finagle the forensics so everyone else believes it, too. SVU hero is killed in the line of duty. It’s perfect.”

               God, I’m so fucking sorry.

               Olivia knew it was a mistake to look at Elliot but it was a necessary evil to drive her point home. He would’ve done this and more if it were her in that chair; that fact was never in doubt. He’d been through the wringer and now she was twisting the blade a little further into him to really make it count. She’d give her life up to save his and that was the more acerbic part of the situation as she pushed her tongue against the roof of her mouth. It wasn’t like refusing to take the shot but it almost felt worse as the silence from Elliot was deafening. He would just have to trust the method even if it betrayed every fiber of his being.

               “You’re lying,” Stuckey’s finger was lingering a little too long over the trigger, his tone elevated as he stared her down. “You’re lying.”

               “You think that you’re the only one whose life is hell because of this prick?” Olivia didn’t waver with every syllable as she began to back up and let the first heavy-handed slap bite hard on Elliot’s skin before it blurred into the second and third strike as she read him the riot act. “…’Liv, do this. Liv, do that.’ I’m sick of it.”

               “No, don’t,” Stuckey wanted him muffled but Olivia’s wheels were turning as the panic set in. “Don’t!”

               “Sick of it,” Olivia muttered and gave the tape a firm, unforgiving tug from her partner’s lips. “I want to hear him scream!”    

               “Don’t you touch me, y—” Elliot’s growl was cut short with Olivia’s hand pushing against the knot of his tie as she wrapped her fingers around the material of his shirt and pushed her knuckles into his Adam’s apple.

               Olivia’s knees cried out, yearning to buckle as she let the words slip free, the effort to keep a domineering stance faltering with every breath while towering over her seated partner. “Did somebody say you could talk?”

               “Both of you, shut up!” Stuckey’s face was red, the adrenaline pumping as the agitation nagged and nipped in the air, pushing the envelope a little further as he tested the boundaries. “Hit him again.”

               Elliot’s eyes were locked on Olivia’s. There was an immeasurable level of strength hidden beneath the glaring amount of vulnerability she possessed—it’s what made him choose her too many times. It’s what made her everything that he needed right next to him. It’s exactly what drove him crazy. Her eyes glassed over and her lashes twitched as she held onto her control. She didn’t need to say ‘I’m sorry’ out loud. It had already been scrawled all over her face as she gradually blinked and exhaled slow. They were stuck in a perpetual nightmare and the aggressive show was becoming difficult to maintain. He could see it in the depths of those deep, brown eyes. All he could do was narrow his stare and will her to finish what she’d started.

              A means to an end.

               “Don’t do it, bitch,” Elliot muttered and squeezed his fingers against the chair, bracing for the inevitable as Olivia’s hand met his face again, encouraging a little more than a groan in the process, “Don’t hit me ag—”

               Olivia cut him off and gripped his neck, pressing the curve between her index and thumb against his windpipe to keep him from speaking. “No more orders out of you, pal!”

               “I don’t believe you,” Stuckey was breaking, finally, and Olivia had finally gotten underneath of his skin. “I don’t believe you.”

               “If you knew half of what this prick has done,” Olivia had her index directed firmly at Elliot, digging deeper as she rationalized every word and let them move her, cutting open another wound as each phrase became an excruciating plea, “Somebody needs to take him out. I just didn’t know you felt the same way as I did. I never had—anybody that I could trust.”

               “Stuckey, don’t listen to her, she’ll turn on you the way she’s turned on me,” Elliot talked right over the top of her, adding to the torment that they were inflicting on each other as they laid it on thick and went to the extreme.

               “Dammit, just shut up!” Olivia shouted and glared, sweeping her index at Elliot as Stuckey took particular offense to the outburst.

               “We told you to shut up!” Stuckey pistol-whipped Elliot across the left side of his face, throttling him solidly before aiming the gun at Olivia.

               Olivia’s voice was ragged as Stuckey kept the gun trained on her, the wretchedness breaking free as she kept talking. “And when this son of a bitch is out of the picture, I’m going to need a new partner.”

               “What about Cragen?” Stuckey’s eyebrows went up, attracted to the notion.

               “I’ve got Cragen wrapped around my little finger, the same goes with Munch and Fin,” Olivia was hopelessly clinging to getting him to lower the barrel as she held up her finger and attempted to ignore Elliot’s disapproving groans. “Dale, if I say the word, you’re it. Think about it, Dale.”

               “I like the sound of that,” Stuckey tilted his head and smirked, his focus off of Elliot entirely as he nodded eagerly.

               “You like it because we get each other…We’re connected,” Olivia knew how contrived it sounded but her body told a different story as she held out her hand and softened her facial expression to drive the point home, “We’re connected.”

               “We are connected” Stuckey was still teetering on apprehension but his grip on that gun was softening, his enunciation faltering.

               “Yeah,” Olivia reached for his hand, moving just close enough to graze his fingers and get him to hold hers with a semblance of affection.

               Come on, come on, come on.

               “Let’s take care of the third wheel,” Stuckey rubbed her fingers and nodded his head as he started to move toward Elliot, a determined look on his face.

               “Wait, just wait one second,” Olivia was at a turning point as recklessness took over and she forced a smile while her fingers smoothed across the top of his hand, tugging Stuckey’s focus back to her, “I want him to watch.”

               The knock at the door nearly took her breath away and elicited an involuntary gag as a wave of dizziness washed over her while she stood at the sink with the water still running. She splashed herself again with more urgency and wiped away the stray droplets as she turned the spigot until the flow stopped. That was all she needed tonight. Instant replay of one of her less graceful solutions that had the palm and back of her hand sore for two days. Olivia would’ve liked to admit that she knew why it was still rolling around in her brain but she couldn’t pinpoint it even as the knocking continued with a little more urgency than the first time.

               “Liv, a bathroom break shouldn’t take this long. Are you ready for round two?” Elliot opened the door and raised an eyebrow at her as she palmed the porcelain, staring at her reflection in the mirror. “You can do whatever you’re doing later. Russell is getting antsy and whining about sweat pooling in his asscrack.”

               Olivia shook her head and scoffed, the smirk resting on her lips as she tilted her chin to look at him. “He still hasn’t waved the white flag and asked for counsel?”

               “Nope,” Elliot pushed the door against the stopper and leaned against the iconography, waiting impatiently for her. “There’s a solid chance he’s got a thing for you, though…might be why he’s not asking for a lawyer.”

               “He’s either brave or stupid,” Olivia dragged her feet as she moved into the dimly lit hallway, shaking off the last of the flutter working through her belly. “I’m his type—let’s not make this deep, El.”

               “Oh, by the way, Liv,” Elliot stood in front of her as they approached Interrogation One, a crooked smile creeping across his face as he encroached on her personal bubble. “You better not go ducking out on me again because it’s too hot in there.”

               “You turned on the heat again, didn’t you?” Olivia slipped out of her jacket and swatted him with the overheated leather before he could reach for the door handle. “You’re a royal asshole, you know that, right?”

               “I’ll see you inside, dear,” Elliot shrugged his shoulders, laughed, and dodged the slap of leather against his exposed forearm.

               “You’re lucky I’m too hot to bruise your other cheek and match them up,” Olivia turned around, flipping him the bird as she came to the end of the hall to put away her coat.

               “You keep your hands to yourself,” Elliot called out after her, a guilty smile across his face as he twisted the handle and gave it a push.

              He really had jacked up the temperature. It was excruciatingly hot in the interrogation room. Olivia gripped the back of her neck and swallowed a groan as the wave of heat spread across her skin, awakening every pore as a bead of sweat kissed her brow as she went from the cooled space of the hall to the sweltering cage the interrogation room had become. Elliot narrowed his eyes at her, a not-so-subtle reminder that she wasn’t going to go escaping their interrogation over a little sweating. She shifted her weight in her ankle-high boots and cleared her throat as Elliot’s eyes burrowed a hole straight into her soul, refusing to back down. She would’ve been lying if she said the look he just gave her was ineffective but it was shifting her focus and tugging at the last of her sanity as their suspect continued to stonewall them.

              Cat and mouse. The bait was out and he wasn’t biting.

              “You look really uncomfortable, Olivia,” Russell had already, expertly, pushed every one of Olivia’s buttons before she had made a rather prompt exit just thirty minutes earlier. “Can’t take the heat?”

              His inquiry wasn’t without irony as he wiped the sweat from his neck and dried his palms on his pants. His skin had developed a reddish hue in patches and the staggered pattern of his open-mouthed breaths hastened. Of anyone in the room, Russell was the least skilled at executing a poker face. He grinned, his sleepy gaze fixated on Olivia as she moved behind the chair opposite his. He licked his lips as he immersed his attention fully on her; studying the sway of her hips even as Elliot’s jaw tightened with displeasure.

              “Oh, focus on yourself for a little while, Russell. The only words I want to hear out of your mouth is an explanation of why you restrained, raped, and mutilated four women in the last six weeks,” Olivia snapped and slammed both hands on the edge of the table, barely making a hair flinch on her partner’s body.

              “You really don’t want to keep pissing her off,” Elliot had both sleeves rolled up, a light sheen of sweat across his brow and down the curve of his nose, still favoring the healing flesh wounds across his chest and ribs as he winced with a flex. “Playing games with her is a bad idea, buddy.”

              “That sounds like you’re speaking from personal experience, Detective Stabler,” Russell lit the match and ignited another fire as Elliot balled up his right hand into a fist.

              I want him to watch.

               “That shit isn’t going to work on me,” Elliot gritted his teeth, a flash of Olivia’s fingers stroking Stuckey’s cheek moving into his consciousness as his patience wore and the affliction twisted at his guts.

              Elliot couldn’t let it tug at him any further as he centered his concern on Olivia. Elliot already knew Olivia’s breaking point and she was comfortably residing at the edge of it even as Russell Miller continued to man spread in his seat, a delightful sneer aimed at her. She was thoroughly done with his shit but four hours of interrogation needed to be worth something more than a foul taste in her mouth. He wasn’t going to get away with this. Olivia’s knuckles went white as she gripped the cold steel with the tilt of her head as she dug her chin into her shoulder. The slow blink was satisfying as her back went rigid after a necessary release of the palpable grip from the tabletop.

               “How many false confessions have you inveigled from men in my position, Detective Benson?” Russell had gotten her attention with that one as she laced her fingers through her hair and snagged a couple of knots in the process. “Tight slacks. Low cut, tight tops that leave next to nothing to the imagination. Repeating the action of running your pretty, delicate fingers through hair that most red-blooded men would love to pull. I’m sure that it’s done a healthy amount of coaxing.”

               “Well, I’m sure this is no surprise to you, Russell, but you’re a predator and only predatory men would make something so innocuous become a device or a motivator for their fetishes…” Olivia couldn’t help but laugh as she crossed her arms, letting sections of softly highlighted locks fall around her face. “Is that your motivator?”

               “Oh, you’re not going to redirect this, Benson. I have too many curiosities that need satisfied,” Russell scrambled as Olivia found the trigger to flip the game on him, making him more irritated than she had earlier. “You like the attention, don’t you? I bet you love knowing that you get stared at by that uptight mother fucker over there, huh? How many times do you think he’s imagined undoing the zipper on those slacks?”

              “Have I touched a nerve?” Olivia could feel the burning stare from Elliot as she diffused the bomb and stepped directly into his line of sight to soften the temper that was beginning to boil. “Sounds like I touched a nerve, doesn’t it?”

              “That’s what it sounds like,” Elliot had to move as he paced the floor and watched her tongue graze the edge of her lip.

               I want him to watch.

              Russell’s left hand banged against the surface of the table, demanding their energy anchor on him as he scrutinized Elliot’s movements. “Come on, Stabler, tell me how much it kills you that you haven’t taken the initiative and sampled the product?”

              “You fucked up son of a bitch,” Elliot had done his best to not let it get to him but Russell had sent his rationality flying out a window.

              “El…don’t,” Olivia grasped his bicep and redirected his torso, absorbing more of his heat than she’d bargained for as his chest thumped against her own.

              “Oh, no way,” Russell’s laugh was entirely too loud as Olivia’s grip persisted on Elliot’s arm, the balance of her intensity meshing with a more frenzied one from her partner. “…You already have, haven’t you?”

              “Alright, enough,” Olivia veered, converging at the edge of the table with a little more intensity as she gripped the table. “Was that the problem with your victims? Were they wearing tight, low cut clothing and suggestively touching their hair? Did you think it was all for you? Just couldn’t stop yourself, could you? They were all there to be your playthings, weren’t they?”

               “You know it’s always all for me,” Russell lacked self-control and a filter as he jolted from his chair, lunging at Benson as his shouts echoed through the room. “Always!”

               Elliot had been waiting for him to make an ill-advised maneuver for hours and all it took was getting a weak grip on Olivia’s shirt to flick the switch. The sound of cotton and polyester ripping immediately preceded the haphazard and quick extraction of Russell’s form from Olivia’s immediate vicinity. Elliot knocked over two of the chairs in the tussle and took an elbow to the face as he wrapped his arm around Russell’s torso, tugging him just enough to stop the flow of air to his sternum. A last hoorah of Russell’s strength came in the form of a shift of his arms in such a way that the contents of the file went flying into every direction before landing in a scattered pattern on the floor. Russell flailed as Elliot swung him toward the table as the clang of cuffs reverberated in the air. Elliot bumped against Olivia’s side as he secured Russell’s hands behind his back. Elliot couldn’t help himself as he took a whiff of her deodorant stifled sweat, citrus, and faint coconut while his partner beat him to the punch with the slapping of her own pair around Russell’s wrists.

              Her timing, as always, was impeccable.

               “You know I could’ve gotten him just fine without you knocking him around,” Olivia breathed heavily as she elbowed him and went to the glass to give it a couple of sharp pounds before moving back toward the mess they’d made. “Couldn’t just let me have this one, huh?”

               “Not that it matters but I had a little bit of a vested interest in putting a little bit of a hurt on him,” Elliot tilted his chin, gesturing toward her ripped shirt as he caught his breath and heaved Russell to his feet as Fin and Captain Cragen opened the door. “It’s exactly what it looks like this time…”

               “Are you okay?” Cragen was parental in his assessment of the situation as he passed Olivia first, his voice barely above a whisper as she awkwardly held torn fabric between her fingers.

               “I’m fine,” Olivia said and turned her head toward Elliot. “He’s the one that’s doing all of the manhandling with fresh scabs on his chest and abs…I’m just peachy.”

               “Fuck you both,” Russell fought against the cuffs as two uniformed officers pulled him toward the doorway, the spittle running down his lip as he struggled.

               “Sounds like the conversation got a little dodgy in here?” Fin and Elliot had butted heads more than enough but the concern for Olivia was paramount as the reddened flesh of her ribcage peeked out from the ripped portion of her shirt.

               “Nothing that we couldn’t handle,” Elliot sniffed the stale air in her absence from his proximity and dabbed the perspiration from his forehead, never once taking his eyes off of his partner.

               Elliot’s yellowed bruising across his left cheek stood out in the light as Olivia took a step closer, reminding her for the second time of the game they’d play to get out of a jam. It reminded her of every gamble she’d taken to save him even though she knew the reversal was bitterly true. The thought alone stole her oxygen as she contemplated the reaches of her partnership. She made eye contact with him in spite of her best efforts not to and the doubt crept in. She bit down on her bottom lip, held the ripped open section across her midriff closed, and ducked out of the room before Elliot could fully fathom what she had just done.

               What Olivia hadn’t anticipated was that he’d follow her around every corner.

               “Liv, come on,” Elliot pushed the door to the cribs and found her sifting through a duffel bag for another shirt, her back to him with the ripped section of her top hanging off to one side. “Cragen’s going to want to talk to us about what just happened in there and you ran out a little quick…”

               “Can a girl change shirts so she’s not flashing her fucking stomach to the whole fucking precinct or is that too much to ask?” Olivia was terse as she pulled a fresh top from the bag, refusing to grant him the courtesy of looking him in the eye. “I’d like some privacy.”

               “I’m sure you would but you’re not going to get it,” Elliot was unintentionally rough with her wrist as he spun her around, encouraging a yelp from her. “You act like I’ve never seen what you’ve got on under there.”

               “El…Jesus,” Olivia let out an exasperated sigh and pivoted in her shoes as the cot rail pinched the backs of her legs until it dug against the material of her pants. “Why are you doing this? Wasn’t all of that in there enough for today?”

               “You can act like everything is fine and dandy, but I see right through your bullshit, Liv,” Elliot was less concerned with the concept of her personal space and more focused on driving the point home as his knees brushed against hers. “Every single day, I’m running after your shadow, and even when I am facing you, you’re pretending. Why?”

               “If you’ve got something to say then just say it. Contrary to popular belief, I’ve never needed you to coddle me and that’s not going to change anytime soon,” Olivia squeezed the shirt between her fingers, frustration brewing as her partner’s behavior seemed less like an unusual outburst and more like he’d been holding it in.

               “So, you don’t think about your power play with Stuckey at all?” Elliot took a step back from her and wiped the thin layer of sweat from his face as he craned his neck back, angling his eyes toward the ceiling. “I mean, really, Liv.”

               There it was. They’d tiptoed around it and pretended as though it didn’t exist but it was real. It had taken weeks to talk about it and they’d both let it fester for a lot longer than they should have. The wound was open and Elliot wasn’t going to let it go. Not that Olivia was doing anything about forgetting it. It been haunting her and invaded wandering, waking thoughts on a daily basis. Olivia crossed her arms and shrugged her shoulders, the distant look in her eyes less than inviting as she trapped her tongue against her cheek. She didn’t want him to know that she’d replayed the scenario a thousand times but the outcome was still the same every time. That acrid taste on her mouth, that look in Elliot’s eyes, and a pang of agony over not being able to look away or close her eyes.

              It was strategic. It had to be.

              She did it all for him.

               “What do you want me to say?” Olivia dodged him and moved toward the exterior wall, winding the fabric of the shirt around her hand while the ripped shirt continued to hang freely from her torso. “That slapping you around and saying really fucked up things about you didn’t bring me personal joy? I certainly didn’t want to force you to watch that cretin stick his tongue in my mouth, either. I thought you knew me a little better than that, El.”

               “I want you to tell me the truth, Liv,” Elliot took a breath as he lowered his voice, the agony having its way with his senses as he stared at the floor. “I can’t get the image out of my head and I had to ask myself if it was out of sick possessiveness but I don’t think it’s that.”

               “Why are you telling me this now?” Olivia leaned against the cold finish of the painted, cement brick and bit down on the swell of her lip. “I can’t be your little sibling that you tower over and stifle whenever danger gets too close. I’m not property, Elliot.”

               “Eleven years, Liv,” Elliot was fiddling with the tip of his tie, winding it around his fingers as he shook his head slowly, grappling with the words. “Eleven God damn years. Enough to go from zero to sixty and lose control of all of my faculties without so much as a lift of your fucking pinky. Eleven years of tucking away so much of my sentimentality when it comes to you that the sight of your lips on anyone else’s…Despondency doesn’t go far enough and all I can do is pretend that it doesn’t piss me off. It does. It torments me. It kills me…it breaks my heart.”

               “You’re a fucking piece of work, Elliot Stabler,” Olivia’s voice strained, a swarm of trepidation whirling through her chest as she fought the desire to hit him as his sky and steel lifted to stare into her soul. “I walked away from you once and I can do it again just like that.”

               “Just like that? No hesitation at all?” Elliot refused to shrink as his speech did nothing but piss her off as he groaned into the atmosphere. “I can’t say that I wouldn’t deserve it, Liv.”

               “I meant what I said, Elliot, about having rules and not breaking any more of them,” Olivia had already broken them for lesser men but she let the comment slip free as though it carried a semblance of conviction. “It can’t get personal.”

               “We’re a little past that, Liv,” Elliot wanted to shout at her but he held it in as he watched the indignance cover for confusion as he groaned, popped his knuckles, and pushed his sleeves up toward his elbows. “Everything fell apart…except for you. You were still here. You are personal and I don’t want that to change.”

               “Whatever you’ve done with the Elliot Stabler I know, I need you to bring him back because this convoluted and confusing sender of mixed signals is like riding a roller coaster and I’m sure my lap belt is broken,” Olivia hated being the equalizer but she was witnessing her best friend fall apart before her eyes as she shoved past him and reached for the door handle.

               Elliot wasn’t good at grandiose gestures or elucidating the details of his feelings until they were boiling over like a screaming kettle but he couldn’t let her slip away again. He snagged one of her belt loops and tugged her backward, demonstrating one of his more agile qualities as he braced her back from smacking against the wall. Olivia’s knees betrayed her as they shook, reverberated the sensation as the gooseflesh covered all the way to her neck. He made her feel gossamer and ethereal, unnerved and out of control, while understating the actuality of her height as he tilted her chin with the tip of his index. It wasn’t demanding but the craving was irrefutable as he sought out a silent acquiescence with the softest graze of his mouth on hers.

               Her answer wasn’t so quiet as the utterance came out in a soft, breathy gasp.

               “Don’t ruin it,” Olivia was already drunk off of him simply by his touch and his heat radiating against her, both of which were consuming her as his name came out in a moan. “Elliot.”

               Elliot’s lips were already tracing the curve of her jaw all the way to her ear while his fingers gathered along the small of her back, tangling around the strip of ripped fabric. “Tell me to stop and I’ll stop, Liv.”

               Olivia’s eyes rolled back and the Earth tilted on its axis as she didn’t give two shits if anyone walked in or not while her back involuntarily arched, pushing her forward, against his chest. “No, no, no, don’t stop. Please, don’t stop.”

               The protective line between them had dissolved with the return of a gaze that seemed to last forever. They’d tiptoed around the broken glass and still came up with shards as Elliot’s mouth crushed Olivia’s, pushing her lips apart as though he’d replayed it in his head a thousand times. Perhaps, he had and knew, deep down, in the depths of her mind that she’d done the same as her fingers gripped his bicep, drawing him closer. Her heartbeat thrummed against him, the frenetic rhythm building with that of his own. He loved her so much more than he could ever say in words as he directed her motions and dragged his fingers over the material of her shirt until her moan vibrated against his mouth.

               Elliot savored the taste of a mint’s remnant on the tip of Olivia’s tongue as he felt the chill of the night air radiating through the windowpane as he pressed his palms against the glass. It suddenly didn’t matter that only a singular door separated them from the outside world—for a moment, they existed wholly for each other. Even as Elliot leaned in a little further and bowed his head as if to pray, he simply craved more of her. Elliot tilted his chin and encouraged Olivia onto the tips of her toes while his arms memorized the curve of her spine down to the swell of her hips. There wasn’t anything to pull them back, convince them of an alternate path, or deter them from simply being. There was nothing left to prevent either of them from feeling something real.

               “El, we still, ah, have work to do,” Olivia’s eyes were dreamily in reset, lashes aimed down, lips swollen and bruised while reality crashed back down around them in the dim, her fingers gliding along the chiseled edge of his jaw. “Captain will send Fin or Munch out after us and we’ve already been gone too long.”

               Elliot groaned and dragged his lips down her cleavage as he pulled her close and buried his face against the soft, hot skin above her shirt, generously squeezing her backside until the grunt was audible. “I know…But I don’t want to.”

               “We have to,” Olivia bit down on her lip, the chill of the wall finally touching the exposed skin at her side while she traced lines around the remnants of bruises on his face. “As much as I’d like to keep going, we have to get back to our job.”

               “It’s worse than a little taste,” Elliot set his teeth against the material of her shirt before standing upright, applying a soft, completing kiss to her temple as his embrace slowly unwound. “A tiny tease of you.”

               The absence of his heat against her tugged at the strings of her ailing heart as she ran a hand through her hair and unfurled the shirt to swap out, a smirk residing on her lips. “You know, it’s only a tease if it doesn’t lead anywhere, El.”

I wouldn’t know where to start on tagging this one. Just hope you’ll check it out.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Vince and the Phone

A phone call between Vincent Shield and his girlfriend, Tara. Tara belongs to @fairybean101 and is used with permission! Thanks for letting me use your girl to talk some sense into my poor movie star.

This post references Who’s the Better Box Boy by @shameless-whumper heavily, so please read that if you haven’t yet to understand Vince’s reactions

CW: Referenced past violent assault, and referenced psat and current noncon

Tagging: @maybeawhumpblog, @pepperonyscience, @haro-whumps, @18-toe-beans, @burtlederp, @finder-of-rings, @giggly-evil-puppy, @lump-of-whump, @whimpers-and-whumpers​

He can’t stop fucking watching it.

Vince finally gives up and calls her - one benefit of their relationship for him has been Tara’s simple willingness to pick up the phone so he can ask her to yell at him any time, day or night. Tara never seems to sleep, she’s burning herself out rescuing all those poor Box Boys and Babes, and so she’s never more than a few moments of ringing away.

And she always picks up when Vince calls.

When Eli had initially asked him to consider acting as some kind of go-between for the pet lib people - he’d known Eli for a while, they ran in some of the same circles sometimes - he’d nearly said no.

But he wanted to help; even then, he’d understood something was really, really wrong with the whole human pet system. He hadn’t been able to put his finger on it, then, because why not let people sign their lives away? Vince did that every time he signed a contract for a new film and had to stop doing anything but working out and eating stupid plain chicken for months.

But Eli had known more than he let on, at first, and a couple of years later Vince was sitting up in the middle of the night, half-plastered, replaying a video of some poor son of a bitch with Vince’s face laying on his back, ankles flush to thighs, legs spread. 

The red in the poor thing’s face, embarrassed and ashamed of something that, according to Tara, he couldn’t have refused to do even if he’d wanted to. 

And to Vince, it looked like he wanted to refuse.

He caught the look the other one - the one that the Host kept - gave, presumably, Owen behind the camera. Flat and controlled, an attempt to stay expressionless, but Vince could read the helpless fury there.

“Yeah, you and me both, buddy,” Vince muttered, raking a hand back through his hair as he pulled up Tara’s number. “Both of us get pissed as hell and both of us do fucking nothing about it. At least you have an excuse, I guess. I’m just a goddamn coward.”

Tara’s number was next to an icon of her face, a serious scowl with her red hair a halo around her head. She hadn’t wanted Vince to take the photo, but she’d been the one to choose which of the seven he took got set as her icon on his phone.

It took four rings for Tara to pick up.

“What dumbass thing are you doing now?” Her voice is sharp as ever, but laced, he likes to think, with friendly affection. “It’s two in the morning, Vince.”

“Don’t yell at me for being up, I’m between projects and I always get all weird with my sleep schedule when I’m not working. What are you doing up?”

“Handling some new reports from another group,” Tara replies, and Vince can hear her shuffling papers in the background. “They got word on an upcoming raid, managed to split up their documents and records before the cops found them. We took in a few of their rescues, a couple of other groups took some. All the rescues are taken care of, which is what matters, but shit.”

“Shit…?”

“They’re hitting too many groups. I think someone is talking. But you don’t want to hear about my shit tonight… what’s up, Vince?” There’s a pause and before he can answer, Tara asks softly, “You’re still thinking about it, aren’t you?”

Vince glances down at his laptop, where the video is currently paused, right on the shot of the look of pure unadulterated trying-to-hide-it murder Colton - who is apparently Dustin Anderson, pet liberation activist, and oh shit what a fucking ominous soundtrack that knowledge starts up inside his head - is giving Owen Grant. He moves the timer back and sets it up to replay the look on the Kauri kid’s face the second he heard the Host say Position 34.

The red flush, humiliated and nervous, the subtle sidelong glance to the other pet only to see the confusion on his face and realize oh shit, I’m the only one of us who knows this.

Did pets judge each other? Did Kauri leave and the other one, the Dustin one, think oh, that one’s a whore when they left?

Probably not. 

No, the reaction shots gave too much away for Vince to even think unkind bullshit like that. No, the pets clearly cared, at least a little. The rescues they brought in mostly avoided each other at first, while all the conditioning was in place, but these two look like maybe they wouldn’t. Or at least not as much. 

He rewinds again right to the start, watching for the moment Owen Grant looks up, surprised, those green eyes on the camera so soft and friendly.

“He’s such a fucking liar, Tara,” Vince says, and his voice shakes.

“Yeah, okay, so you’re watching it.” Tara sighs, and he can picture it - rubbing the spot between her eyebrows with her index finger and thumb, taking a deep breath. “Vince, you shouldn’t. You shouldn’t punish yourself this way.”

“He’s a liar. He goes on camera - what fucking right does he have to do that, by the way - and he stands right fucking there and lies about what happened between us, lies about what I, what I did with him-”

“No.” Tara’s voice is sharp, and it cuts through Vince immediately. His mouth snaps shut. “What he did to you, Vince. We’ve talked about this. You didn’t do anything but go to see your friend one night when he seemed down. Everything after he put the drink in your hand is what he did to you.”

There’s a silence and Vince tries to tell himself she’s right. She’s always right.

Eventually, he gives up to the pull of just letting Tara run the show and smiles, wondering if she’ll hear the expression in his voice. “Yeah, okay. But still… you know he didn’t get someone like that Box Boy by accident. You know he lied about that, too.”

“Yeah, I know.” Tara’s voice is clipped, and goes slightly quieter. “We got a potential informant in the company, and I’ve just seen Grant’s custom order form.”

“What?” Vince’s feet thump to the ground and he sits up. Around him his home is perfectly silent, pure white, and kind of cold. He likes it better when Tara has to stay over, pretend she’s sleeping with him that night. Then this place feels like it has life in it. 

Mostly, even when he’s home, it just feels... empty.

“Yeah. We had someone come through and offer to get us some info, and Owen Grant’s order form was in the documents he gave us to show he was good for it. This is… this is the most detailed custom order form I’ve ever seen, Vince.”

“Did he-...” Vince tries to swallow back the question, but it tumbles out anyway. “Did he really just want him for-”

“No, it’s more fucked than that.” Tara’s quiet - Vince can hear his own blood, his heartbeat, his breathing. “Are you sure you want me to tell you?”

“Yes. No. I don’t, I don’t know… will it make me feel better or worse to hear it?”

On screen, Kauri is shocked and Vince watches his flinch, the tears standing in his eyes, still pleading and wide in some hope that Owen will rescue him. Vince grinds his teeth in anger at the way it looks to see his own face, so perfectly broken and needy, looking always to Owen to be saved.

Exactly how Owen had always wanted to see him.

“Probably worse,” Tara answers, and there’s a hint of gentleness there. Tara isn’t gentle with very many people - with him, with Eli, maybe a few others. Always with the rescues, the broken men and women hiding from the system under fake names and with forged documentation, pulled from homes and those two-bit emporiums selling bullshit knock-off Box Boys and Babes. She doesn’t have a lot of gentle left in her, after her own ordeal - but she always finds a little for Vince.

And he doesn’t even try to be ashamed of himself for needing it.

“Tell me anyway. That poor kid probably feels enough like shit, I might as well join him. I’m the only reason he’s even in this mess.”

“Well, okay, it might make you feel better to know he was already in the system. They called him 645898,” Tara reads the number out loud with real hatred edging her voice. “He was already in training before Grant put in his order, but I have a hunch they new Grant had been sniffing around the site and picked him up to have him ready for the order. And fuck, what an order. I don’t know what we’d even do with a rescue like this one, Vince.”

“What? Why? We’ve rescued others that are, that were, that… um…”

“Got their brains fucked out of them?” Tara asks with bitter near-humor.

“Yeah. That.”

“Yeah, he’s definitely seeing his share of that-” Vince winces, closing his eyes, trying not to remember Own’s hand pressed over his mouth, the look in his eyes as he’d whispered I’m so fucking tired of hearing you say no all the time, Vince, the way the ropes had dug into his wrists until they were rubbed raw and bloody. “-but it’s worse than that. He wouldn’t even go with us if we showed up at Grant’s front door.”

“Let me guess,” Vince says heavily. “He wanted the pet to love him.”

I just want you to fucking love me, you piece of shit! Is that so much to ask, Vince? Huh?! Is that so much to fucking ask?!

“Yep.” Tara doesn’t try to soothe him, to paper over old wounds with pretty words. That’s what he loves about her - Vince’s world is one of fake comfort and false friends, and Tara never gives comfort she doesn’t drag out of herself with real sincerity and she’s the truest friend he’s ever had. “If we tried to take him, he... he wouldn’t go. And that’s just the fucking tip of the fucking iceberg, too.”

“Perfect.” Vince sighs. “This kid had no idea what he was signing up for, huh?”

“Vince. You and I both know hardly any of them actually sign up for anything. You and I both know how they get the pets to sign our contracts.”

Vince licks his lips, hesitating, his blood running a little cold at the thought. “Yeah. Yeah, I know, I know how they do it. I know it.”

“Close your laptop, Vince. Go to sleep. This kid won’t be any less or more fucked over if you do. We’ll work on his case, I promise, he’s just… he’s going to be tough. He’s not in a house where we can walk up, he never leaves so we can’t catch him in a vulnerable, open place. And if we did… he wouldn’t go. The conditioning is thorough, Vince, and I’ve no doubt he loves Grant and is terrified of the idea of being taken away from him.” Tara sighs, again. She has a whole library of sighs, and Vince loves her for each and every one of them. “I have to talk to Eli about it, we need a better plan for dealing with this one, but trust me - I’m going to figure this shit out. Your clone and Dustin, we’re going to figure it out.”

“If you don’t, Tara? What if you can’t figure it out, for either of them?”

“Then…” Tara trails off. “Then it’s like I said. They’re no more or less fucked over than they were before I knew about them.”

It’s Vince’s turn to snort. “Tara. We both know that’s not how you operate. You never stop thinking about any of the ones you couldn’t rescue.”

“Hm. Maybe I’ll make it work this time if I try hard enough. Go to sleep, Vince. Eli’s on my other line. He took in a rescue and he’s been calling me for advice about her.”

“That’s funny. Me calling to ask you about this Kauri kid, and Eli’s right in his house, at the exact same moment, calling you for advice about, uh, whatever her name is.”

“Keira. She asked him to call her Keira.” Tara is quiet. “Kauri and Keira. Funny, the two names together like that. Eli even says her hair is dark and curly... Anyway, you need sleep and I need to keep moving.”

“Right, because you’re a sleep shark, if you sleep you’ll die,” Vince teases her. She laughs on the other line, and he relaxes all at once. 

Did the people who kept Tara, in the shadowy past she only rarely opened up about, ever make her laugh? Did they have any idea how wonderful it was to hear the sound? Did they know her laugh was nearly as gorgeous as the red of her hair? If Vince had ever been remotely into women, someone like Tara might have been just his type.

As it was, his fake girlfriend was probably his best friend. And the only person on Earth who knew what Owen Grant had done to him, when he was 20 years old and looked exactly like the Kauri kid that Vince was watching, once again, lay on his back on the screen.

Ankles against his thighs, legs spread apart, the flush of shame in his eyes and his skin and in the way he moved when Owen yanked him back to his feet moments later. 

“You have meetings tomorrow,” Tara says, softly. 

“So do you,” He counters. He scrolls down to look over the comments, staring at the array of usernames and inane babble. Mostly just people praising the Host’s cleverness, how funny they are, what a great idea to have two Box Boys face off like that.

Then one catches his eye.

@finder-of-rings: Kauri seems really sweet. God I hope owen isn’t hurting him. It’d be so, so easy to do just anything he wanted to him! They’re all alone and he can’t say no to anything, right??? God, that’s so scary… imagine being all alone with someone like Owen Grant and he can do literally anything to you and no one will stop him and no one will help you! Someone should do something!

There’s a slew of replies telling the commenter they’re making a mountain out of a molehill, that the Box Boys signed up for this, it’s all part of the system, whatever. 

Vincent just stares at the words as they go in and out of focus.

“Vince?” Tara’s voice seems a little fainter. “You listening?”

Imagine being all alone with someone like Owen Grant and he can do anything to you - and no one will stop him - and no one will help you.

“I don’t have to imagine it,” Vince whispers. “I’ve been there, Finder of Rings. I’ve fucking been there.”

“Hey, no, are you reading the comments, Vince?” Tara’s voice is sharp again, cuts through the fog and the way his throat has gone tight, his heart beating fast, a dizzy fear pounding in his mind all the way down to wrists that still remember how it felt to be tied down. 

A throbbing pulse of phantom pain in the rib Owen had broken, in the eye he’d punched. Some of Vince’s teeth are fake because of Owen Grant.

“Never, ever read the comments, Vince. Never. That’s… we have people who read the comments just to troll for info and even some of them get freaked out. Don’t do it. Or…” The softness is back in her voice, again. “At least let me be there with you when you do.”

“Yeah… yeah, no, you’re right.” Vince’s voice is shaking as he closes his laptop screen, shutting away the vision of Kauri and the Host’s boy carefully not looking at each other as the episode ended. I hope the other pets don’t judge the ones like you, little clone, he thinks. I hope, I hope, I hope.

“I’m going to bed, Tara. You’re right and I should take your advice and just… just fucking shut off for a while. Are you going to take my advice and do the same?”

“Fuck no. I’m calling Eli to see what help he needs with his rescue. She’s a sweetheart, she’s been really put through the worst the system does to people. I’ll sleep when I’m dead, Vince.”

“And you’ll die if you sleep,” Vince says, and both of them laugh this time. 

She hangs up and Vince sits in his quiet, empty house, thinking of the comment he’d read.

Someone should do something.

He thinks of Owen screaming in his face, holding him by the chin, the way he’d choked on his own blood and the tooth down his throat as he cried and begged Owen not to kill him. Thought of what it had been like when Owen’s mom had found out and Vincent had stumbled out of the old apartment where Owen used to live, beaten half to death and unable to tell a single living soul what really happened.

It’d hurt his career, if he did. He was just getting real acting jobs meant for adults, then - he’d signed Carlotta Grant’s legal shit and taken a year to recover and then come back and become a fucking superstar. It had felt like enough for a while.

He couldn’t have risked his career, then, when it was only getting started. And now...

It’d murder his career to step one foot out of line, now - and put the pet lib people he worked with at risk, if he publicly said a fucking thing about Owen Grant keeping what amounted to a blow up doll with a pulse that looked just like him.

He had to trust Tara, and the people like Tara - the people braver than him.

“Someone should save that poor kid,” Vince mutters, alone in the dark. “Someone should do something. But it’s not going to be me.”

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Baby You Were My Picket Fence [Chapter 7: Let It Be]

You are a first grade teacher in sunny Los Angeles, California. Ben Hardy is the father of your most challenging student. Things quickly get complicated in this unconventional love story.  

Song inspiration: Miss Missing You by Fall Out Boy.

Chapter warnings: Language, ANGST.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing) HERE

A/N: Thank you all so much for the love this fic has received! I hope you continue to enjoy it...the highs and the lows. :) I also wanted to give you a heads up that I am currently in school and that the next year will be pretty intense, so there may be times when I don’t update as frequently as I’d like to. But I will never go on an official hiatus or not finish a series, and you are always welcome to drop me a note asking how the next update is going. Happy reading!

Taglist: @blushingwueen​ @queen-turtle-boiii @everybodyplaythegame @onceuponadetectivedemigod @luvborhap @sincereleygmg @stormtrprinstilettos @loveandbeloved29 @ohtheseboysilove @jennyggggrrr @vanitysfairr @bramblesforbreakfast @radiob-l-a-hblah @xox-talia-xox @killer-queen-xo @caborhapch @kimmietea @asquiresofftime @hardzzellos @sleepretreat @ramibaby @jonesyaddiction @ixchel-9275 @omgitsearly @lovepizza-cake11 @deacy-dearest @shishterfackisback @mrbenhardys @deaky-with-a-c @whitetrashdarling @stephanie-everlasting @brianprobablywill @dancingstan @7-seas-of-fat-bottomed-girls @abigfatmess @hufflepuff-khaleesi @sara-1705 @thigh-your-mother-down @chlobo6 @danamaleksworld @painkiller80 @teenwolflover28 @jazzman-19 @lucyplaysguitarandcellobitch Please let me know if I forgot anyone!!

You slam the door behind you and sink to the kitchen floor. Your hands are trembling, your chest heaving, your vision blurring as tears ripple across your eyes. You don’t remember what you said to her, to the siren, to the sublime woman you’re still struggling to comprehend is Ben’s fiancée; something insipid and vague, something brief. You don’t remember leaving Trader Joe’s or driving home. Your shopping cart is still full and unattended in the produce section, waiting powerlessly to be retrieved, ice cream slowly melting and dripping through sagging paperboard containers.

“He’s getting married,” you gasp almost inaudibly between ragged breaths. You glance up at the refrigerator. The magnets still spell those two innocent little words: I’m sorry.

You rip your potted artificial calla lily off the counter and hurl it at the refrigerator; magnets and ceramic shards fly in every direction like shrapnel.

“He’s getting fucking married!” you scream to your empty house.

You bury your face in your hands and sob with maddening helplessness. You fell for it. Some outlandishly-too-good-to-be-true British movie star dropped out of the sky and you were stupid enough to believe he loved you, that someone like him ever could. You fell for it like a mammoth into tarpits, roped in viscous darkness and with nowhere to go but down.  

And then you hear a jarringly cheery ringtone. You clutch for your purse and tear out your iPhone. The name on the screen is Ben Hardy. 

“No fucking way,” you hiss, and decline the call. It occurs to you—gnaws away at you—that just enough time has passed for them to have finished shopping, picked up Eli from Ben’s mother’s apartment, arrived home; just enough time for Ben to have slickly dismissed himself, disappeared to his Lexus or some other shadowy corner somewhere, a dim clandestine place to deal with dirty secrets. And that’s exactly what I am: the unhallowed mistress, an unspoken ghost in the haunted crevices of a marriage, a black stain on a white dress.

Your phone, face-down on the countertop, rings every two to three minutes like clockwork. You wipe your eyes with the back of your hands and try to collect yourself: stagger to your feet, pour a glass of the Patrón tequila—straight, no ice—that you keep on the top shelf, drop a vinyl on the record player. Take It Easy by The Eagles floats through the thick, stifling air. You glare at the green calla lily that lays limply on the kitchen floor, its petals bent precariously yet still intact.

“Die, bitch,” you whisper bitterly. But of course, it doesn’t die; the calla lily is fake, just like your relationship with Ben, just like all the things he said to you. It’s a lie. It’s eternal. You snatch the lily off the floor and toss it into the trashcan.

There’s a sound outside—the humming of an engine, the rustling of footsteps—and then frantic banging so forceful your door quivers on its hinges. “Y/N!” Ben shouts from outside, still rapping on the white-painted wood. “It’s me, it’s Ben, let me in.”

“Never in your life,” you hurl back, furious at how hoarse your voice sounds: like someone who’s been crying, like someone pathetic and wounded and weak. You feel like a fox caught with its leg in a steel trap, the flesh split down to the bone and glistening with ruby gore, the hunter looming voyeuristically with his hands on his waist and a rifle slung over one broad shoulder.

“Please, please let me in, just let me explain—”

“Fuck off!”

“You deserve an explanation,” Ben says, more measured now. “Let me give you that.”

That knocks some of the rage out of you, replacing it with curiosity, unsurety, temptation. You don’t know what you deserve, but you do crave an explanation. And part of me still wants to see him.

“Five minutes, that’s all I’m asking for.” His words are patient, suppliant. The Eagles record spins as the moments tick by.

At last, you cross the kitchen and open the door. Ben slips inside as you step away until your back hits the refrigerator. You remember the last time you were in this room together; it hangs between you like spiderwebs, invisible but ensnaring, interlaced threads just waiting to be walked into.

“Hi,” he says softly, almost whispers. Then his gaze flicks around the kitchen, to the magnets and ceramic debris littering the floor, to the tequila, to the record player, to you. And you almost feel sorry for Ben, almost; because his once-clear eyes—malachite or emerald or peridot or jade, you think impulsively—are red and swollen, his shoulders wilted, his expression shell-shocked. He looks like hell. But you probably do too. “Babe...I...” He comes towards you.

“Don’t touch me.”

He backs away immediately, raising his hands in surrender. The silence is heavy and ominous.

Finally, you ask: “Who is she?”

Ben sighs, rubbing his chin distractedly with one thumb. “Her name is Santina Nicolosi.”

Your eyes close like drawn curtains. “Of course it is.” You know that name, you’ve taught Nicolosi kids before. The Nicolosis are a vast family with old roots in Hollywood, producers and actors and directors, ostentatiously wealthy, omnipotent. The kind of people Ben should be associating with. The kind of women he should be marrying. “Is she a model?”

“An actress.”

“Jesus christ,” you moan. And then, before you can stop yourself: “Why, Ben?”

“It’s hard to explain, it’s complicated, it’s...” He gestures vaguely with his hands, his beautiful hands. Hands that will never touch me again. “We haven’t...we...we were really young when we had Eli, and it hasn’t been easy, it’s been off and on, and we disagree on virtually everything...but I...” He wrenches it out. “I’m an adult, I have to take responsibility, I have to try to make it work. For Eli.”

You scoff. “Yeah, I’m sure living with gorgeous Santina Nicolosi and her barrels of money and inexhaustible industry influence is a real goddamn curse.”

Ben says nothing.

You swallow, your voice cracking. “So this is what you do, you find someone brainless and naïve and ordinary to screw around with, and then when you’re bored of that you go home to your actress-slash-heiress fiancée—”

“I’ve never done this before.”

“You fucking liar,” you seethe.

Incredibly, he laughs, a quick caustic sound. “I didn’t lie to you.”

“I get that ‘not in the picture’ could be open to some interpretation but there is no alternate universe in which it means engaged to.”

“I didn’t lie to you about the rest of it.”

You shake your head in fury, in persistent waves of shock. “I can’t believe this, I really can’t believe this, and I...oh god, I...I still have to see you, because I teach your son...” You’re sobbing again, you’re falling to pieces, you’re fracturing like thin ice under reckless feet.

Ben tries to reach for you. “Please don’t—”

“Don’t touch me, you, you...” There’s no word for what he is, there’s nothing malevolent enough.

He points at you as his voice leaps louder, more wrathful. “Don’t you say it, don’t you dare call me a demon!”

“You are!” you scream at him. “You are a fucking demon, you are a monster, you are the worst thing that ever happened to me!”

Now Ben has nothing to offer in reply. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, frowns at the floor, chews on his lower lip in that absentminded, nervous way that he does. “I’m so sorry,” he says simply.

“Thanks, I’m whole again,” you fling like a dagger.

He flinches, and again you’re struck by his palpable distress, his vulnerability. But that didn’t stop him from cheating, lying, making me love him, cracking my ribs open so he could rip my fucking heart out. “I...”

“Get out,” you snap.

“I’m sorry, I really am. I won’t make this any harder for you than it is already. I won’t bother you again.”

“Perfect,” you whisper, your lips trembling. He needs to leave, he needs to leave NOW, I can’t let him see me crumble again.

Ben opens the door. “I hope—”

“Just get out!”

He nods in resignation, steps outside, disappears into the fading afternoon sunlight. And you’re alone in so many more ways than one.

You bite back tears as you pace through the kitchen, struggling to compose yourself, desperate to forget. Then your eyes catch on the artificial calla lily in the trashcan. It’s pointless to throw it away, you realize. There’s no end to it; even if it’s collected with the refuse, even when goes to the landfill. It won’t decompose, it won’t disappear. If anything, it’ll just end up choking a dolphin or sea turtle to death. You fish it out and lay it on the counter.

“I don’t want to let you go,” you say to the green calla lily, to nobody at all.

I have to heal from this. I have to get over Ben Hardy. I have to move on.

But you’ve already forgotten what your life looks like without him.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s Saturday. You shuffle out of your bedroom with a blanket draped over your shoulders like armor, your eyes sore and aching, your thoughts a fog. You’ve slept for approximately ninety total minutes. You scowl at the couch.

“Stupid debaucherous sex-couch of shame,” you mutter. That’s supposed to be funny, but it doesn’t feel that way; it feels sad and pitiful and raw. You plop down in your lounge chair instead, pulling your knees to your chest, flipping through the channels until you find a special about the Cretaceous Period on HBO.

After an hour, your phone rings. It’s Joe Mazzello. You’ve saved him in your contacts as Zappy Zap Dino Boi. Tipsy Y/N is an interesting character. “Hello?”

“Hey, Sweet Caroline!” His voice is bright, bubbly, effervescent.

“Ahh. You remembered that.”

“I wasn’t nearly as turnt as you were. We still on for baseball?”

Are we? You don’t want reminders of Ben, you don’t want any links to his world; you want to forget he exists entirely. But you like Joe—or, at least, you had at The Edison—and you can’t help but notice that he’s already lightening your spirits, evaporating gloom like rain off pavement. “Yeah, totally.”

“Is tomorrow afternoon gucci?”

Oh my god, he’s one of those people who says gucci. “You are definitely not as cool as drunk-me thought you were.”

Joe cackles through the phone. “Is it okay if I bring a friend?”

“Ben?” you ask reflexively.

“No, not him. Ben’s got work in London. Why?” His interest is piqued. Oh no.

“No reason. That’s fine with me. Your friend is gucci.”

Joe chuckles again. “Text me your deets and I’ll pick you up.”

“Sounds like a plan, dinosaur kid.”

“Also: the friend is not Jeff Goldblum. Don’t get too excited. Don’t show up with whipped cream and lingerie.”

You laugh, your first laugh in nearly twenty-four hours, a loud genuine laugh that starts deep in your belly. “I’m devastated.”

“See you soon, amica.”

“Bye, Joe.” You hang up and stare at the ceiling. This is fine. This is sensible. This is only going to lead to good things.

Right?

~~~~~~~~~~

“Strrrrrike seven!” Joe announces cheerfully. He’s wearing shorts and a red baseball jacket that he says is from a film he wrote and directed called Undrafted. It’s an even eighty degrees outside and breezy; the strands of dark hair that jut out from under Joe’s cap are fluttering in the wind. The sky is clear, unmarred cerulean. You had been anxious before Joe’s Subaru rolled into your driveway, steeping in your dusky house and your own misery, second-guessing the point of friendship, of love, of everything; yet the moment you slid into Joe’s backseat all of that vanished. You adore this eccentric little man, you had realized with relief, even when there’s no alcohol involved.

“This is so sad,” you say, twirling the bat in your hands. “This is absolutely pathetic. I am an embarrassment to America.”

“Maybe Joe’s pitching is the problem,” Gwilym suggests helpfully from where he’s crouching over home plate.

“Uhhhh, rude, Gwilym!” Joe shouts.

You glance back at Gwil. “That’s very kind of you, but I’m pretty sure it’s me.”

Gwil stands, the ball still snug in his mitt, and pulls off his catcher’s mask. “Joe,” he calls, “take it down a few notches. Toss it underhand. Nice and easy.”

“Fine.” Joe snatches the baseball out of the air when Gwil lobs it to him.

You turn back to Gwil, shielding your face from the sun with one hand. “Is this getting too painful to watch?”

He smiles benignly, reassuringly, but his eyes are nervous. They’re an intense royal blue, you note; like the ocean, like the sky. Like Eli’s, like Santina’s. That’s a thought you push away with both hands. “No, no, not at all. You aren’t far from the mark, actually. You’re just swinging a second too soon. But if Joe slows down and you figure out a rhythm, get your comfort level up...you’ll be batting three-hundred in no time.”

You chuckle, bouncing the bat against your sneakers. “I highly doubt that, Mr. Lee. But we’ll do it your way. They don’t have baseball in the U.K., do they?”

“Cricket and football, mostly.”

“Who do you root for?”

He grins, more brashly now. “The Welsh.”

“Hey,” Joe yells. “Is the pep talk over yet? Are you ready for me? I’m aging out here. I suddenly love rice pudding and can’t figure out how cellphones work.”

“Don’t rush her!” Gwil replaces his catcher’s mask.

“You’re Welsh, aren’t you, Gwil?” you ask.

“I am, happily so.”

“I just taught my kids what Wales was last week! It took a solid fifteen minutes to get past the large marine mammal connotation. They voted that Scotland was cooler.”

“Freaking tiny American savages!”

“Hey!!” Joe waves his arms theatrically. “I exist!”

“Go ahead,” you accede, taking position and raising the bat over your shoulder. Gwil squats just behind home plate again.

“You have more time than you think you do,” he says softly. Joe pitches the ball underhand, and it floats slowly through the air as your gaze tracks it. “Not yet,” Gwil whispers to you. “Not yet, not yet, not yet...NOW!”

You swing, your eyes pinched shut, bracing for the weightless whistle of open air. Instead, there’s the jolt of an impact, a cracking sound...and Gwil’s ecstatic cheer.

“Holy shit!” Joe cries, his eyes following the ball across the field. “You hit something! You actually hit a ball!”

“Yes!” Gwil throws off his mask and pumps his fist in the air. “I told you, I told you that you could do it!”

“I did it!” You spin around and—spontaneously, without thinking at all—you leap onto your tiptoes and toss your arms around Gwil’s neck. “You saved me! I’m a proper American now!” And for one fleeting moment, there’s no Ben Hardy anywhere in your mind, there are no trapdoors of agony like cold pockets in a lake, frigid paralyzing blackholes just itching to drag you down. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“Of course,” Gwil says uneasily, his arms hesitantly circling around you. You back away as Joe comes jogging over, clasping the conquered baseball.

“Not bad, Carolina Panther! Should we celebrate? In-N-Out Burger?”

“Carolina...Panther...?” Gwil echoes.

“It’s a Sweet Caroline joke. Joe’s mocking me. Per usual.”

“You really weren’t that bad a singer,” Joe teases with a grin. “Obviously I enjoyed meeting you. Where did you say you knew Ben from...?” He’s trying to act casual, but you can tell he’s been waiting for an opportunity to ask that question. And you’re trying too: trying not to cringe at the sound of Ben’s name, trying not to let on that it rips you in two.

“I actually teach his son Eli, he’s in my first grade class.”

“Aww, how precious!” Joe gushes. “And...you and Ben...are you, uh...like, a thing...?”

Not since I found out about his fucking fiancée. “No, definitely not a thing. Just friends. I actually don’t even know if you’d call us friends, maybe just acquaintances.” Maybe just mortal enemies. You narrow your eyes at Joe. “You know he’s getting married, right?”  

“Is that still happening?” Gwil asks Joe.

“Yeahhhh,” Joe sighs dramatically. “Santina.” He pronounces each syllable of her name distinctly, like it’s a newly discovered breed of insect or a rare element on the Periodic Table.

“What’s wrong with Santina?” You’re channeling all your effort into seeming indifferent.

Joe rolls his eyes, tossing the baseball between his hands. “What isn’t wrong with Santina.”

Gwil snorts in agreement, slapping his catcher’s mitt against his thigh to chase the dust away.

“So...” Joe prompts. “In-N-Out Burger? What do you say, Sweet Caroline? I’ll buy, but only on the condition that you get me back when you’re in the MLB one day.”

“I will gladly accept those terms.”

You all pile into Joe’s Subaru, and Gwil isn’t riding shotgun this time; instead, he climbs into the back with you. The In-N-Out Burger is packed, so you eat in the car with the air conditioning blasting and the radio blaring A Night At The Opera. And somehow you find yourself laughing hysterically as Joe tries to sing Bohemian Rhapsody with his mouth full of cheeseburgers, as Gwil spills a chocolate shake all over his expensive plaid golf pants, as you share your animal fries with Gwil and he shoves two under his lips like walrus tusks; somehow, you find yourself barely thinking of the suffocating grief that’s been hovering over you at all.

But when you inevitably have to go home—when your kitchen door clicks shut and you’re left alone with your randomly-arrayed fridge magnets and your piercing memories and your undying green calla lily—suddenly it feels like there’s nothing in the world worth thinking about but Ben.

~~~~~~~~~~

Usually you have to wait until lunch or special to check your phone, but today the kids have an assembly about preventing forest fires. Only in Los Angeles.

While Sasha keeps a watchful eye on your class, you sneak away to catch up on grading. As you pluck your favorite red pen out of your teacher bag with your left hand, you tap your iPhone screen with your right. It’s 11:05 in the morning. You have seven new texts, all from Gwil.

9:21 a.m.: Good morning, love!

9:44 a.m.: Wow wow wow that was meant for someone else, please disregard.

9:51 a.m.: Okay I lied, that was meant for you, I am just hilariously bad at asking people on dates.

9:54 a.m.: ...Will you go on a date??

9:55 a.m.: With me, clearly.

10:11 a.m.: Bleeding christ I am the worst, please ignore me if you have any taste whatsoever.

10:35 a.m.: Brb swimming back to Britain in disgrace.

At first, you’re too stunned to do anything but blink senselessly at the phone: Gwil likes you? Do you like Gwil? Gwil is sweet, of course, he’s handsome and charming and successful and everything a lover should be. But Ben is immutable; he’s the stars, he’s the sawtoothed ocean floor, he’s the blood cells splitting in your bone marrow. There are parts of you that won’t ever be free of him.

Ben isn’t here. Maybe he wasn’t ever really here. And he is never coming back.

You text to Gwil: Let’s do this.

[theobeiste]

OUR LOVE WAS COMFORTABLE

WHO: @zoepuckerman & @theobeiste WHERE: outside the clarington-smythe residence WHEN: homecoming after party, 9/26 WHAT: zoe finds theo alone at darcy’s party after he gets kicked out of the dance. the two go for a walk and have A Moment.

ZOE: To say that her senior year homecoming dance didn’t go the way Zoe had always imagined it to would be a complete understatement. Sure, she had won homecoming queen like she always wanted, but the moment had been cut short thanks to two neantherandals who had to deal with their petty drama with their fists rather than words like sane human beings. She had been enjoying the way Cam’s arms felt wrapped around her when she heard the shouting. Realistically, she had known it was Austin before she even turned around. Who else could it have been?! The shocking twist to the scene was the other person throwing the punches. In all of the time they shared together, Zoe had never known Theo to be an aggressive person. It was safe to say that moment confused her and left her more than a little worried for him. She mentally added this to the list of crazy shit Theo had been up to this year, right behind dating Winnie Love-Karofsky. She didn’t want to blame Theo’s new side all on Winnie, but anyone who paid enough attention could see that the blonde certainly wasn’t bringing out the best in him. All this to be said, while Zoe would have happily skipped out on the after-party, there were some pressing matters she had to attend to first. She hadn’t been watching Theo’s every move, but it wasn’t hard to spot his 6’5” statue sneak out the front door. Against better judgment, Zoe followed. They had been avoiding each other since the break-up, and to be completely honest, she was over it. “Hi,” She announced softly as she approached him on the front porch, trying not to startle him. “You okay? That was," She paused, at a complete lack for words to describe the horrifying mental images. "Crazy back at the school. What happened?”

THEO: Theo was not a violent person, in fact, less than a week ago he had given Cam Evans a gentle lecture about punching Zane out on the football field. So how did he end up in this position with a bruised jaw and sore knuckles? He was so deeply embarrassed by everything that had happened at homecoming. He made himself look bad, he made the titans look bad, and he didn’t even want to get started on what his dad would say. He should’ve just gone home, but after some encouragement from his teammates, he was convinced that going to the afterparty would be a good thing. It’d take his mind off of getting kicked out of the dance for pummeling Austin and it’d help him forget about Winnie. He should’ve listened to his gut though because after doing his rounds and making himself a drink at Darcy’s, he still felt like shit. He needed some air. Theo maneuvered past the crowd of people crowding the Clarington-Smythe foyer and quickly exited through the front, finding a spot on the porch to drink by himself until this horrible feeling went away. And then…hi. Theo knew that voice. He whipped his head around and blinked a couple of times, shocked to see none other than Zoe Puckerman standing in front of him. “Hi,” he said back, a little too sternly as he waited for the other shoe to drop. Surely she was here to make a dig or rub everything that happened in his face. But that moment never came. When she asked about his night, he chuckled wryly and shook his head, knocking back his drink and ditching the cup on the ground. “Your date happened,” he told her with a shrug, clenching his jaws as he tried to quell the anger building inside of him, “him and Winnie. It doesn’t matter. Fuck them. They deserve each other.” He rolled his eyes slightly as he reflected on the night and then took a deep breath. Zoe clearly wasn’t here to argue and the last thing he wanted to do was start another fight. “You looked good out there,” he complimented, his voice suddenly gentler as he dared to meet her gaze, “I always knew you’d win but I’m glad the rest of McKinley agreed.” He gave her a little smile as he reached up and fixed her crown, “it suits you.” His touch lingered for maybe a second too long, so he quickly dropped his hand and cleared his throat. “How’s your night going? Do you wanna like…” he was feeling bold apparently, “maybe go for a walk or something? I’m feeling pretty claustrophobic here. Too many people.”(edited)September 26, 2020

ZOE: There were a lot of things that made sense together: peanut butter and jelly, Will Schuester’s son and Glee Club, Austin Nelson and a punch to the face... and then there was Theo and Zoe. Their relationship had been as picture perfect as it could have been, at least in the beginning. Zoe would always remember the way she’d stay up far too late texting Theo (and Eli + Finn to share all the cute things he was sending) to turn around and still be excited to see him first thing in the morning at school. She’d always remember the sweet, sensitive soul that stuck by her side when she didn’t deserve it. “He’s an idiot,” she offered, taking a step closer to Theo. She had admittedly kept her distance at the beginning in case of a quick exit. Between throwing punches and downing whatever was in his cup, she hadn’t been sure what she was approaching. “Fuck Winnie, Theo. She never deserved you in the first place.” If Zoe had to hand-select someone for Theo, Winnie very clearly would be at the bottom of the list. Fuck, she wouldn’t have even made the list at all. She was so obviously not what Theo needed, and tonight was proof in the pudding. “Thanks,” was all she could force out as Theo’s hands reached out to reposition her crown. It had been so long since they had talked one on one, let alone be sweet to each other. “My night has been confusing,” she admitted, not willing to give up any details. The last thing she needed was word of her kiss with Cam spreading around the party. She had to figure her shit out before anyone else could know. Zoe’s head turned back to the party, watching everyone through the window as she mulled over her decision. Going for a walk with Theo was probably not the best idea, but the look in his eyes said he needed it, and that alone had her nodding her head. “Yeah, let’s go.” A comfortable silence fell between the pair as they started out along the street, destination unknown. “You wanna really talk about it or no?” This was his situation, and if he preferred to pretend like it hadn’t happen, she was willing to give him that option.

THEO: He hummed curiously at her vague description of her night but opted not to pry. This was the first time in a long time that they’d had a positive interaction and he didn’t want to ruin it by asking too many questions. When she agreed to a walk, Theo led the way. He walked aimlessly along the sidewalk with Zoe at his side, their arms and hands occasionally bumping into each other causing Theo’s heart to jump. He kept his gaze glued to the street lights they passed and marveled at the nice houses that decorated this wealthy neighborhood. Her question brought him back down to reality and elicited a sigh. “I...” he shoved his hands into his pockets and stopped walking, glancing at her as she stopped too, “I don’t know what I’m doing, Zo. Everything is all fucked. Winnie....” he remembered her words. ‘Fuck Winnie.’ Who had come to find him after his brawl? Zoe. Who was trying to make him feel better despite everything they’d been through? Zoe. He wasn’t about to spend his time talking about the girl who seemed to give zero fucks about him...not when he was standing in front of the girl he still had so much to say to but never the forum to say it. “I don’t really want to talk about her,” he decided, shrugging as a sad smile tugged at the corners of his lips. “How’ve you been? I wanted to hit you up when all that shit was happening with Baby but...” he didn’t for obvious reasons, “is everything good now? How’s your mom?” It was his way of saying ‘I miss you’ and ‘I still think of you’ without actually having to say those things and he was sure she’d understand that.

ZOE: There was never going to be any sort of situation where Zoe Puckerman liked the sound of Winnie Love-Karofsky’s name rolling off anyone’s tongue, especially Theo’s. Even though they had broken up more than a year ago, there was always going to be a part of Zoe’s heart that was dedicated to Theo. He had been everything to her at one point. Zoe liked to pretend that she didn’t care,  but there was never going to be a time in her life where she didn’t think of him fondly. No matter the relationship between them, she’d always care for him and want the best for him, and it tore her apart that he couldn’t see (at least for the past couple of months) that Winnie was so blatantly the worst possible person for him. “You’re right,” Zoe responded, the harshness in her voice surprising even her. She had never cared for the bitchy blonde, and that was evident in the way she spoke. “She’s not worth your time or thoughts anymore, Theo. You deserve better. Really.” If Zoe didn’t like the way Winnie’s name sounded coming from Theo, she despised hearing Baby’s. “You should have,” she mumbled, unsure if he could hear her. “That sucked, Theo, and honestly? I could have used you just coming to me about it.” Zoe had spent countless nights lying awake, wondering if her sister had hooked up with her first love. The mental images were horrifying, but not as horrifying as having to relive them with him now. “My mom’s fine,” she paused, stopping in her tracks to turn and look at him. If they were going to do this, and really do this, they weren’t going to avoid eye contact. “I’m going to ask you this one more time, and I want an honest answer. Are you okay? Because, honestly, I feel like I don’t even know who you’ve become. Dating her, punching Austin,” her voice was softer than before, as if to convey she was genuinely concerned. “This isn’t you, T.”

THEO: There was an energy shift when Theo brought up their own past mistakes, the most recent one being the string of rumors about him and Baby. He kept his head bowed and his gaze downcast as she spoke, jaws clenched as he listened. “I know,” he sighed, finally meeting her eyes again, “I’m sorry. After we went on Joey’s show and shit I…didn’t think you wanted to hear from me. But I should’ve come to you.” He owed her that much. No matter how shitty things had gotten between them, she was still an important person in his life. Zoe had taught him so much about love, about being a good man, about being caring. That would never go away…even if their feelings for each other did. But as she approached him with a softer demeanor, genuine concern, and a truly loaded question, he wondered if their feelings really had gone away. He blinked a few times as he stared at her and considered her question. “I know this isn’t me,” he said, surprising himself with the choice to be honest, “but you know why, Zo. You know.” There was no way she didn’t know. Their falling out made a lasting impact on both of them. Zoe got a little harder, a little colder. Theo went off to the deep end by his own standards. “I don’t want to be like this anymore,” he admitted, taking a step closer as he let himself get lost in her eyes for a moment. As they stared at each other, he wondered if the girl who loved him was still anywhere inside her. He wondered if they could get back to who they were. “Can I try something?” he asked, the drink he downed earlier finally taking over as he gently brought his hands up to either side of Zoe’s face, “I just…I have to know.” Before he leaned in, he searched her face for some sign of approval, that it was okay for him to do this thing he was suddenly feeling the urge to do.

ZOE: The absolute worst part of loving someone was having to let go of them. It was really hard to look back and pin-point where everything had gone wrong between them. It truly seemed like one minute they were that couple. The obnoxious couple laughing in the hallways, always holding hands and making out, completely unaware of everyone around them. Only for her to turn around the next minute, unable to recognize them anymore. They had really gone from being in constant communication from the second they woke up to the second they fell asleep, to finding excuses to cancel plans. It had been Zoe, in the end, who had pulled the trigger and called it quits. She’d by lying, though, if she said it wasn’t one of the hardest things she’d ever done. She’d simply never forget the forlorn look in Theo’s eyes as he pulled away, leaving her with tears rolling down her cheeks on the driveway. “I wanted you to,” she admitted, confused eyes looking up at his. “I needed you tell me it wasn’t happening. You just left me to think of the worst possible scenario.” It wasn’t worth it to fight about Baby, not when there was a million and one things left unsaid between the pair. She knew, of course, why he had been acting the way he had. They both dealt with the break-up in horrific ways, and maybe, just maybe, that was a testament to how much they had cared for each other. Zoe took in a quick breath as he stepped closer to her and raised his hands to cradle her face. She couldn’t remember the last time they had been in a position like this. “Theo,” she finally whispered, her eyes widening at his suggestion. It wasn’t a complete denial. In some sort of sick, twisted way, she understood his need to be certain about this. She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t thought about kissing him again since the break-up, but there was now a lingering thought in the back of her mind. Someone who hadn’t been there before. She was utterly confused, but she was trying. She was 17, for fuck’s sake, and what 17 year old girl always got it right? It was this mass confusion that had her dropping her eyes before offering a silent nod.

THEO: Theo was prepared to back off when she said his name, but then Zoe nodded. That was a yes. He instantly moved one of his hands under her chin to angle her face upwards as he bowed his head and kissed her. With his eyes closed and for the five or so seconds that their lips were connected for, Theo envisioned their lives. Their past flashed before him and their hypothetical future, too. They’d be high school sweethearts, go to college, get married young, probably have a few kids, and they’d be happy. Kissing Zoe felt like coming home in a way—like coming back to himself. But when he pulled away and looked at her, a sad smile crept on to his face. Something was tugging at his gut and telling him that unfortunately, no matter how much he wanted it, this wasn’t it. Maybe there was a place for them somewhere, but it wasn’t here and it wasn’t now. Damn it. “It’s not the same, is it?” he asked rhetorically, strumming her cheeks with his thumbs for a moment before he dropped his hands back into his pockets, “that blows.” His tone was almost playful but it did blow. All this time Theo had been lashing out and coping with the loss of his first love only to find that she wasn’t the solution to his problems. He’d have to find those within himself. He had to let her go...for real this time. “I’m always gonna love you,” he told her with a small dimpled smile, “and I don’t want to be mad anymore. Not at you, not at Winnie or Austin or anyone.” A beat. “Thank you,” he said quietly, and because he anticipated that she’d ask ‘for what?’ he quickly added a “for everything.” Theo inhaled deeply and when he released his breath, he released all the resentment and sadness he’d been harboring with it. Enough was enough. “You should get back to the party, your highness,” he joked, glancing at her crown, “your subjects are probably going mad looking for their queen.”

ZOE: There had once been a time in Zoe Puckerman’s life when Theo Beiste, especially kissing Theo Beiste, was all she could think about. She’d go to bed dreaming of her quarterback, wake up eager to see him, and spend all of her class periods doodling their names together. She couldn’t even begin to guess how many times Zoe Beiste was scribbled in her Algebra 1 notebook (no wonder it was the one math class she ever did bad in). He had been everything she wanted at the time, and there would never be enough words to describe how thankful she was for him. Their love was quick and passionate, but it would leave a lasting impact on her for the rest of her life. Theo had taught her everything she knew to be true about love; that there really was someone out there for everyone. Theo’s lips against hers, although brief, was enough to make her realize that Theo really wasn’t that person for her, and maybe he never was supposed to be. Quinn had always taught her that people came into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime... and maybe, just maybe, Theo was her reason. Some unknown force knew that she was going to need someone to be strong for her, and Theo had done just that. “It’s not,” she agreed, mirroring his sad smile. It was the most bittersweet feeling she had ever felt before. This was really it. They were finally letting go of each other, after all this time. “I’m always going to love you, Theo.” That much was true, but there was a difference between loving someone and being in love with him, and truthfully, they had fallen out of love a long time ago. “But? I think it’s time someone else gets to love you.” He deserved that, and so did she. She wasn’t sure who it was going to be for Theo, but she had a small inkling who it could be for her. It was her turn to reach up and run her fingers across his cheek, tears filling up her eyes. “No. Thank you. You saved me.” She didn’t need to say more. They both knew exactly what she was talking about. Zoe knew what he wanted. He wanted her to leave him in the middle of the street, drunk and alone, but she wasn’t going to do that. “I’m not going back without you,” she sighed, unwilling to give in on this. This time, on the walk back to the house, their hands didn’t actually touch. Zoe slipped her small palm inside of Theo’s on purpose, holding tight the entire walk home. It was her way of officially saying goodbye.

AND SCENE. 

[quaalussy]

Dreamboy Episode 6: Jupiter’s Lifeless Moons transcript

Hi! I was looking online to see if anyone had been doing Dreamboy transcripts and I saw that there was nothing after episode five, so I’ve started on the rest, episode six first. Sorry in advance for any spelling or grammar mistakes, I’m dealing with lots of run on sentences here. Anyway I hope you enjoy, more transcripts to come (I’m gonna try to do all the bonus episodes and such). Also: if you’re looking to hire a transcriptionist for your podcast or anything else please feel free to shoot me a message, I’m always looking for work 

Enjoy! If you’d rather have a pdf copy I’d be happy to send that to you too.

DANE

The dream is different this time. It starts in the dark like always, but this time I'm laying down. I’m curled up on something rough. I lift my head up. I feel like I'm moving. Oh my god, I’m inside the fish. I’m laying on its tongue. But it’s like it’s tongue is the whole bottom of the inside of the fish, and the inside of the fish is huge. It’s like the whole thing is hollow, and it has ridges like the inside of a throat. I stand up and look around. It’s daytime outside and the light is coming through the mouth and eyes like windows. I just stare at that ghostly daylight face, swaying slowly side to side as the fish swims. I have this sudden urge to look out, to look out of the mouth. So I walk to the front of the tongue. I walk right up to its giant jaws. The bones lay open just a little bit, and then they close and I feel the water come in, wash over my face, push my hair back. Outside I can see the tops of rocky spires, like underwater mountains or something, passing underneath us, and I want to see, I want to look but that means I have to lean my head out of its mouth, between its jaws. I think about it. Another intake of water blows my hair back. 

[WATER RUSHES IN]

The mouth is exactly the height of my head, and I reach out and touch the bone jaw, and then I pull my hand back and wait. Nothing. Maybe the fish doesn’t know I’m in here. I reach out and touch the jaw again, but this time I leave my hand on it. Nothing. Just the rhythm of swimming. God, it feels so sharp. I swallow, and I lean my head out over the razor edge, and I look down into the water at the rocky spires passing underneath, but they aren’t spires, they’re not mountains, they’re buildings. The tops of tall skyscrapers all fuzzy and covered in moss and algae. It’s a whole city. It’s downtown Cleveland.

[SWOOSHING NOISES]

DANE

I wake up. The bright, late morning sun is coming through the windows of the guest bedroom, and my hand immediately goes to my dick, but it’s soft.

[SOFT MUSIC]

DANE

I get up and put on my wrinkled red shirt and slog my way to the zoo for work. On my way I text Luke, just a simple “hey, WYD”, but he doesn’t answer. He never responded to my goodnight text last night, either. Like, maybe he’s mad? About the cakes? I don’t know. I almost walk into traffic because I'm staring at the message thread. I stop at Settler’s Coffee, and I text him again. I say “I had another fish dream, they’re getting weirder.” I watch my phone intently as I cream and sugar my coffee. I use the simple syrup even though it’s hot coffee, just to have a hand free for my phone. But nothing. I get to work. Maybe he’s still asleep. He is pretty nocturnal. Work is stupid, we’re understaffed so I spend six and a half hours straight at the roller coaster podium. I stop saying that whole de-briefing room line about three hours in, and I text Luke a few more times, but he still doesn’t answer. And then I run out of things to text without feeling like a crazy creep. Now it’s a half an hour before close and I'm only just now getting a lunch break because Tammy Jammers, who usually watches the ride while I’m out on break, called out sick today. She said she had food poisoning, but I know she’s just hungover. Her last Instagram post was at three A.M. last night, and it was a picture, taken with a flash, of Taco Bell that she put on a plate. I go out to the main drag to get food like I always do, but the only food place still open is the hot dog stand, and I just can’t with those. They’re like the same temperature and texture as a human body so they make your mouth feel like it’s kissing someone you don’t like. Hot dog? Lukewarm dog more like. A breeze blows. [sighs] It’s getting colder, so I go back inside into the hall of history which is just this longstupid hallway

[OPERA ARIA IN BACKGROUND]

in the same building as the roller coaster. I have to walk through it every day when I go on lunchbreak, but I never actually stop because I only get thirty minutes for lunch break, and it takes twenty minutes just to get through the fucking food line, so I have to run through there, and it’s just like dusty plaques and old maps and stuff. There’s like a few old exhibits that don’t work. It’s, like, where grandparents go to hang out on hot days. Which you would think meant that they had more places to sit down, but.... I look down at my phone again. Nothing. There’s also this weird music playing, and it’s skipping like…. I look up and see a wall with the words “who's who” painted really big on the top of it, and underneath there’s like a bunch of buttons with flaps. I run my finger around one of the buttons and just like accidently the button pushes in and this voice recording starts to play. It’s Kritch! 

ELI KRITCH

You love grapes and naps. Before your life here at the Pepper Heights Zoo, you were an animal pioneer for NASA and actually went into space! After that, you spent many years at an interstate sideshow in the Florida Panhandle doing a high society routine. To this day you still listen to opera to fall asleep. Which Pepper Heights animal friend are you?

DANE

The recording ends. I lift up the flap. It says “you are the chimpanzee, Madam Beauregard.” Great. That’s creepy. I look back down at my phone. Still nothing. It’s not that I like... it’s not that I like need to talk to him or anything, it’s just that, like, it’s just the not knowing is fucking awful. Like, just text me back! How hard is it to text somebody back? I look back at the wall. There’s an arrow pointing to a smaller button next to Madam Beauregard’s name, and it says “push button to hear your favorite aria”, but the music is stuck in which totally explains the skipping music. Jesus Christ, it’s probably an actual CD player behind this fucking wall with this place. I look at my phone. Fucking nothing. Earlier in the day, right after I asked if he was mad, I saw the little dots

VOICES [sung]

Where is Luke?

DANE

You know, the little dots that mean somebody’s typing back. And I… I watched them, and then they disappeared and they never started again.

VOICES [sung]

Where is Luke?

DANE

And ever since then my head has just been full of all the little voices that say all the little things.. 

VOICES [sung] Where is Luke? 

Ughhh Jesus fuck, now they have music. That’s great.

VOICES [sung[

Where is Luke?

DANE

 Yeah I don’t really care where he’s at. And why are there so many buttons in this exhibit? Like, there’s no way there’s this many animals that still live here. Like, most of the exhibits are shut down, these animals are probably dead. 

VOICES [sung]

Losers

DANE

And the seven that are here are like not the kind of animals you want to push a button and hear about, right? 

VOICES [sung]

Losers 

DANE They’re like, retired circus freaks and movie animals that can’t work anymore. 

VOICES [sung]

Losers, losers, losers

DANE

It’s like this whole place just attracts washed up showbiz animals. 

VOICES 

Just like you!

DANE

[sighs] Yeah thanks I connected that. I look down at my phone. Again. Nothing. Again. I don’t even know why I keep checking. I mean, I turn my vibration notifications on so I wouldn’t have to check but I still check. So I open up instagram to see if he’s posting there, but he’s not. It’s just the picture that he posted late last night. The one of the blue hand on his neck that we took in front of the tunnel. It’s already got like three thousand likes, Jesus Christ. I check my texts again. Why am I checking it, I'm holding it. So I open up Grindr. I check his profile. He’s not on. It says he hasn’t been on in hours. So I open up my texts again and I just look at it, I just LOOK. UGHH why won’t he text?!

VOICES

Cause he’d rather spend time with strange old men than talk to me.

DANE

It’s like they practice in there while I’m sleeping, Jesus. I look back up from my phone. Now I’m in front of some sort of ice age diorama, like, why? There’s a caveman standing over a wolf that he’s just killed, and there’s blood everywhere. And behind that, really small in a cave, there’s a woman and a child, waiting for him all terrified. But right next to the cave in the dark where you can’t see is another wolf, and nobody sees it. And then another face appears in the glass. I turn around. It’s Kritch. Or, like, Kritch’s face, on a TV, in an exhibit on the opposite wall. I walk over. He’s younger. It’s weird seeing young Kritch, I mean it’s like still my boss but, you know, smoother. It’s some sort of like special news piece from like twenty years ago. 

KRITCH

Oh I certainly think the people over at Stonefall Labs can appreciate what we are doing over here. And for the record I do not believe that they are covering up any discoveries of alien life. That’s quite frankly preposterous. I can assure you they were in fact only only doing a geological survey of the moons of Jupiter, on contract from NASA, like they say. I just think they came up at the end of that, did more to make a big deal of it, we all have swings and misses sometimes, but I thought I’d take my own swing. 

DANE 

Boy, his smile hasn’t changed, that’s for sure. The video ends and there’s a black screen with a logo that says “The Zenarc Corporation”. I see my face in the screen. 

[SWOOSHING NOISES/MUSIC]

DANE

It’s taken me a couple weeks of working here to piece it all together, but I do sort of know a little bit about what Kritch’s talking about in this video. See, in the late fifties the Stonefalls built this private research and development site called Stonefall Labs on the other side of the woods from the zoo. All sorts of things were developed there over the years, everything from, like, ketchup recipes and zip-ties to lots of darker things I’m sure we don’t know about. Like they famously patented the first answering machine, for example. It was as big as a room. It got sabotaged by this secret group of secretaries, though. Which is a cool story, but later. Anyway, because of some sort of technology that they had patented, they got a contract from NASA in the eighties to survey Jupiter’s moons to look for the possible presence of a specific isotope of helium called helium two. Now, scientists thought helium two was going to be like the rocket fuel of the future, it was going to revolutionize space exploration they thought. And this was all public knowledge there was even a little article in the paper, but nobody really cared. However, Stonefall labs found nothing. Zip. And at first they just said that there was problems with their equipment, but then weeks went by and then months and they said nothing. And they stayed quiet for so long that it started to attract attention, and people started to say maybe they in fact had found something a lot more interesting than helium deposits on the moons of Jupiter. Which, of course, that blew up like a house fire and pretty soon there was this huge conspiracy theory and speculation and a media frenzy. But at the same time while that was all going on, the young Elias Kritch had just taken over the helm of the Pepper Heights Zoo from his late father, Eddie. Despite the fact that another Kritch in charge of the zoo was like the last thing the Stonefalls wanted. But Eli was intent on leaving his mark, and he vowed to turn the zoo into a profitable enterprise, rather than just another suckling on the Stonefall money teet. So he said “I have an idea, how about a full on theatrical roller coaster experience called Jupiter’s Lifeless Moons”. The whole story inspired by the controversy. It was supposed to be this stepping stone into becoming a real amusement park, but he never made the money back. Like not even close. He put the zoo into permanent debt. The Stonefalls never let him live it down. And it only took a couple of years before the entire context was completely buried anyway. Pretty soon, nobody remembered anything at all about the Stonefall Lab’s Jovian lunar survey scandal, you know. But the ride stayed and here it is after all these years. The video starts to replay, Kritch starts talking again, and I start to walk away but I notice something I didn't see before: a rough disk with a hole in it hanging from a string around young Kritch’s neck. A disk with a hole in the middle… John Stonefall. What the…. I check my phone. 

VOICES [sung]

Where is Luke?

DANE

Still nothing. 

VOICES [sung]

Where is Luke?

DANE

Why can’t he just text back? 

VOICES [sung]

Where is Luke?

DANE

Whatever. 

LADY 1 [sung]

And could he really actually like me?

DANE

Yeah, probably not.

LADY 1 [sung]

Maybe I fucked it all up again

DANE

Probably.

LADY 1 [sung]

Maybe I’ll never know again

DANE

Whoa, that seems a little melodramatic

LADY 1 [sung]

Why do I even care?

DANE

You know, I don’t even care

LADY 1 [sung]

Do I even care?

DANE

 No. I don’t think I even care.

LADY 2 [sung]

This is textbook patriarchal communication

 MAN 1 [sung]

Maybe he’s not answering for a reason

DANE

I.. I know he’s mad at me for eating his cakes.

VOICES

Guilt!

DANE

Which, I did eat his cakes. 

VOICES 

Guilt!

DANE And lie to him 

VOICES

Guilt! Guilt!

DANE

Ughhhhh 

DANE [sung] Why do I feel guilty?

VOICES [sung]

Resentment

DANE [sung] I mean it’s not that big of a deal, Cora’s just a crazy lady.

VOICES [sung] Resentment

DANE [sung]

And the cakes were sent to the wrong house

LADY 2 [sung] I don’t know if that is true

DANE [sung] Why do I care? I don’t even like him at all

VOICES [sung] Where is Luke? 

DANE Wanna know where he’s at? I’ll tell you where he’s at.

DANE [sung]

He’s off somewhere being young and stupid

HIGH VOICES [sung]

Haul him off, haul him off, haul him off!

DANE [sung]

He’s off somewhere not knowing what he wants

VOICES [sung] We just met

DANE 

Yeah, we just met.

VOICES [sung]

We just met!

DANE [sung] He’s too laid back

LOW VOICES [sung] Too laid back

HIGH VOICES [sung]

Sleeps on the floor of an empty house

DANE [sung] I wish I could sleep on the floor in an empty house…. But I can’t!

DANE

Cause I have real responsibilities

DANE [sung]

Like he doesn’t do anything

HIGH VOICES [sung]

Do anything

DANE [sung]

Maybe he does and I just haven’t asked

VOICES [sung] Do anything, I didn’t do anything

DANE [sung] Maybe I’m the one

VOICES [sung] NOPE

DANE

Being a total dick

VOICES [sung] NOPE DANE Maybe I’m being a dick

VOICES [sung] I didn’t do anything 

VOICE 1 [sung]

He’s just a narcissistic twink!

DANE Yeah 

VOICE 1 [sung]

He’s just a narcissistic twink! DANE

Yeah

VOICES [sung]

A narcisistic, masochistic, fetishistic, sorta cryptic, dirty little selfish fucking twink! Who would rather be hit by strange old men than talk to me.

DANE Yeah, but I don’t care.

VOICES [sung] I don’t care! 

DANE

I gotta get outta here. Where are the doors, where are the doors, I just need some air. I fall through the double doors, out onto the main drag. Oh, god….The air is cool, but it feels good. There’s, like, silence for a minute. At least in my head. I hear an age-guesser guessing his last customer somewhere.

[AGE GUESSER SPEAKING IN BACKGROUND]

DANE A smattering of laughing through the trees. 

[LAUGHTER]

DANE

And I reach for my phone out of like instinct.

VOICE 1 [sung]

Where is Luke?

DANE

But then I stop myself because this is stupid

VOICE 1 [sung]

Where is Luke?

DANE

Like it's annoying that...

VOICE 1 [sung]

Where is Luke? DANE Like there’s some, some sort of..

VOICE 1 [sung]

Where is Luke? DANE

My body seems to have a question. Like a body question.

VOICE 1 [sung]

Where is Luke?

DANE 

That it keeps asking.

VOICE 1 [sung]

Where…

DANE

My phone vibrates in my pocket! I pull it out. It’s a Grindr message. I open up the app. Oh, he’s cute. His message just says “hey”. It also says he’s only 200 feet away. I look up and look around. I don’t see anyone who looks like him. I look back at his profile. He’s playfully flexing his arm in his photo and making a goofy face, standing shirtless and soaking wet next to a pool in someone’s backyard somewhere, and his dark hair looks darker because it’s wet, and his underarm hair is pasted to his body in little black flames. His headline says Alex. I look at the time. I have twenty minutes. [sighs] Fuck it. “Hey”, I say. “What’s up”, he says. “On break”, I say. “Me too”, he says. “You work at the zoo?” “No, Stonefall Labs. I came to get a hot dog”. Wow, yuck, really? But I couldn't pass up the opportunity for a bad joke so I said “ah, you like weiners, huh”. Coy emoji.”LOL, yep”, he says. Then, “do you?”, and immediately he sends a picture of his dick. Whoa. Fuck, it’s huge. It’s thicker in the middle and curves really dramatically, and it’s so hard in the picture that it looks like a dead thing that’s swollen up on the side of a path. “Wow” I say, “I’d love to put that in my mouth some time.” Coy face. “You should”, he says, “how about now?” “Where”, I say. “Men’s bathroom by the Dippin’ Dots. No one’s ever in there. I’m by there now.” Fuck, my heart is racing. The zoo closes in half an hour, and there’s like nobody here, and he’s right, that bathroom is so out of the way that nobody uses it hardly. Even the Dippin’ Dots guy won’t be there cause he’s watching the rollercoaster for me right now. I look down at his message again. Then at the clock. Seventeen minutes left. My heart is getting quicker. [sighs] ”Okay”, I say “I’ll come now”. “I’ll be waiting inside”, he says. Okay. A few seconds later I’m cutting across the main thoroughfare. Walking quickly. The breeze is cool on my face. The stands are mostly all closed and the rides are shutting down. The few people that are out are all workers, all walking the same direction to the front gate. Their faces lit from underneath by their own phones. I come around the corner by the closed up Dippin’ Dots stand, and I stop. There it is. The squat, gray bathroom building with that rusty water fountain on the side that hasn’t worked for so long that an out of order sign is no longer required. I see the door of the men’s bathroom. It’s closed, but there’s an edge of seering white light all around the heavy metal door. Okay, okay okay okay okay. I walk up to it. I look around. Nobody. The whole building seems to have a low hum. I take a breath, and I open the door. There’s a loud metal creak as the door opens. 

[CREAK]

DANE And the door catches on the concrete floor and doesn’t shut all the way. I kick it a couple times until it does. 

[DOOR SHUTS]

DANE

The metal bangs ring and echo off the tile. Then I round a tiled wall into the bright restroom, and I see him, standing at the far left urinal, his back to me. He doesn’t look back or move, the cold white lights buzzing and flickering all around. I check the stall on the other side of the little room. It’s empty. It’s door off one of its hinges and hanging there like an open jaw. I walk up slowly to the far right urinal, side eyeing the guy. I keep a urinal between us. I get there and I start to undo my pants. The light directly above the urinals is buzzing, loud. I glance over at him, but he doesn’t look back at me or anything. He doesn’t talk or move or acknowledge me at all. Like, what the fuck? I mean it’s definitely him, and he’s standing away from the urinal so that I can see his dick but he’s just peeing. I look back at the wall, and then I look back over at him. He is handsome, though. He’s a few inches taller than me and muscular, in baggy Carhartt pants and a large dirty gray t-shirt. There’s paint on his elbows and grease on his arms. I look back straight ahead. Okay, now what? I start to panic. I try to pee, but I really don’t have to go. One more time, I look over. He’s done now, shaking his dick. God, even soft it’s big. But he’s still ignoring me. He’s still shaking it, like, way longer than he should. Okay, it starts to get bigger as he swings it around. And then he starts pulling on it, and I'm just standing there watching him out of the side of my eye, holding my own dick in my hand. God, it’s getting bigger and bigger and less floppy, and slowly his pulling turns into gripping and stroking, and it gets thicker and tighter until after about a minute it’s as thick as I saw in the pic earlier. God, it looks angry, and I'm watching his hand run the length of it back and forth, trying not to look like I'm looking, lost in the rhythm, when I hear it- a voice coming from everywhere at once. I look up at the side of his face, straight at it. The lights above flicker a little. It had to be his voice, but he’s still not looking at me. He’s just watching his hand move over his own dick. But as I'm looking at the side of his face I see his lips move, and I hear his voice again. 

ALEX Come here. Get on your knees. 

DANE I take a breath, I turn, and I walk up next to him. I can smell his cologne, and I kneel down in front of the urinals. The floor is hard and a little wet on my knees, and I try not to think about why. He turns, swinging his dick toward my face, and finally his eyes look down into mine. The light is buzzing and pulsing above him, his body’s like a silhouette, and then he reaches down and puts his fingers in my mouth. They smell like solvents and metal, and he feels around like he lost something in my teeth. And it doesn’t seem like this would be hot but, god, something about it really is. And then he opens my mouth wider with his fingers and takes them out and traces the wetness of my spit up my face, and then grabs my hair and slowly puts his dick in. Past my lips, and then past my tongue, gentle but also steady. I feel it hit the back of my throat and stop. He grabs my hair harder and looks down at my eyes. I don’t know how, but I sort of nod with my face and eyes and make a sort of “uh-huh” sound, and he smiles and puts more pressure in his thrust. And I feel my throat iris out like a dark, wet camera. And he slides all the way down, until my face is against his body. He just holds me against him, and he breathes. I feel the entire inside of my throat and head stretched over his dick. I feel it reaching down into my chest. I feel like a butterfly on a pin. His smell fills my nose. It’s a thick, sweaty smell- the smell of baseball and locker rooms and the back of the bus. He just looks down at me, and I look up at him, and the light buzzes. 

[BATHROOM DOOR OPENS]

DANE

The metal bathroom door. He takes his dick out of my throat.

[DANE GAGS AND COUGHS]

DANE It almost makes me puke. I scramble to my feet and quickly get to the urinal. He turns and does the same. We both just stare at the wall in front of us, become strangers again. I hear someone round the tile wall behind us. I hear Alex zipping up his pants and flushing, quick. I do the same. I wipe the water from my eyes and I go to leave, but as I turn, I see the person who entered. It’s the Dippin’ Dots guy, Trey. 

DANE [to TREY] Oh, hey man. Wait, you’re not still watching the ride...

TREY [laughs] Nah. I guess some little girl dropped her teddy bear on the track, so I closed it up early, but I left her number on the control console. 

DANE

But you didn’t go get it?

TREY

Fuck no. I'm not climbing all those jank-ass ladders. 

DANE [to listener] Alex brushes past Trey and heads out of the bathroom. Trey doesn’t even look at him. It’s funny what straight boys just can’t see in bathrooms. I watch Trey disappear into the slack jaw of the stall without even trying to close the door, and then I hear him start to pee. 

[PEEING NOISES]

TREY

Later, dude!

DANE I get back to the roller coaster, it takes like twenty seconds. I go into the side door 

[DOOR OPENING]

The door shuts behind me. 

[DOOR SHUTTING]

And I take a breath. That was fucking intense. It all feels like it didn’t happen, but it just happened like a minute ago. I can still smell the dude on my face. Whoa [sighs]. All the colored lights and space music are gone, and the big overhead lights are on, but I know Trey’s dumb ass didn’t do any of the other closing duties. I walk up to my podium and I see the ride is switched into its standby mode, which means that both cars are nestled into the shuttle bay, and the power is off to the ride. In order to turn it all back on again, you need to put a special key in and turn the red lever, then you hear a big “kerchunk”, and the whole building sorta comes alive and the lights change and the music starts, but now it just looks like bad props and old paint in a bright warehouse, which is what it is. There’s the note Trey was talking about, though. It just says “little girl lost teddy on ride” and then a phone number. There’s not even a name. The keys are next to the note. I take them both and put them in my pocket. 

[KEYS JANGLING, POCKET RUSTLING]

DANE I finish the rest of the closing duties: sweep and mop the floors, wipe the glass on the doors, wipe the coaster cars down, and when everything’s done, I go through the utility door into the underbelly of the ride to look for the damn teddy bear. Under the ride there are work lights, these bare bulbs hanging from scaffolding, but they definitely don’t work, so I pull out my phone and turn on the flashlight. It smells like laser tag. You know, that... that special effects smoke that they use. Half the time when people drop something we find it in “The Net”, and we’re supposed to check “The Net” once a week but people never check it. Also, the net is so old that it has rips and tears and whole sections that have fallen down. It’s like the web of a giant spider that got bored and said “fuck it” and crawled away years ago. So, often things end up on the dusty floor, twenty or thirty feet below. I walk to a place where I can look up through the skeleton of the rollercoaster into the net by the big turn. That’s usually where people drop things, the big turn. No teddy bear. I point my phone light down onto the concrete floor below it. Nothing. Anything new down in this dusty world is immediately visible for its lack of gray dust fuzz. If it has color, it’s new. But I only see an endless field of small, linty shapes. Look, there’s one last place that things occasionally do end up. The moon platform. See, in the middle of the ride there’s this platform where the coaster stops, like full on stops, and this video plays. It’s supposed to be the surface of the moon that you land on, and it’s where you meet the alien that makes the name of the ride ironic, I guess. I’ve never actually ridden the ride so I don’t know, but, like, a rollercoaster with a video in the middle sounds like an awful idea. I’m standing at the base of the ladder to the platform, looking up. I give it a shake. 

[LADDER RATTLING]

It’s so loose that it wobbles and buckles all the way up, moaning and creaking. I hear a screw fall somewhere in the dark.

[SCREW FALLS]

DANE

[sighs] I take a breath and start to climb. 

[LADDER RATTLING]

DANE

I feel the swaying pull of my weight on the scaffolding. Jesus. More creaking. I just climb faster and faster, I just try not to look. Finally I get up to the top of the platform and pull myself up and dust myself off. 

[DUSTING OFF]

DANE

I stand up and look around. The platform is decorated to look like the rocky surface of a moon. Foam rocks, gray paint, that kinda thing. Still no sign of a teddy bear, though. I start to look behind the foam rocks. Maybe it got thrown. But then I hear a sound, a huge “kerchunk”. The work lights go off, the colored lights come on, and space music starts. The building groans, and something huge and metal begins to slither below me. Fuck, someone’s turned on the ride! I scramble to find the ladder in the dark, but I can’t, and I hear the coaster rumbling in the walls, it’s getting closer. Fuck! I don’t know what happens if I’m up here when the coaster comes, so I try to find the ladder again, but one foot slips off the edge of the platform. Holy fuck, I like almost fall. Jesus it woulda killed me, it’s like thirty feet straight down. The roar’s getting louder and louder and louder, I pull my leg back and I scoot behind a foam rock just as the coaster rounds the corner.

[COASTER WHOOSHING]

DANE There’s a person in it. The coaster slows and stops, locks into place. The screen lights up and the video begins, and in the light of the video I see that the person is Kritch, sitting in the middle front seat of the coaster, watching the screen, his arms in front of him on the lap bar. The moonscape continues in the video, making it look like the surface of the moon goes on for miles, and then there’s like eery moon music playing. Well, then a green alien emerges from behind a rock in the video, and it gets closer to us cautiously, and then it starts to speak. 

ALIEN IN VIDEO Greetings, earthlings aboard Shuttle 5. I’m a representative for the race of beings that has inhabited Moon 34 of the planet you call Jupiter for millions of years. Your civilization has remained unaware of our existence until this moment. We mean you no harm. We have no weapons, our technology is meager, but we know why you’ve come. The resource you seek is plentiful here, but its retrieval would destroy our home and lead to our certain demise, as we depend upon it for sustenance. We will restore your communications momentarily. However, we beg of you, do not disclose our existence to your superiors upon your return. You must report no helium two on Moon 34, the future of our species rests in your hands, earthlings of Shuttle 5. Good fortune and tidings to you.

DANE The video ends and the coaster comes unlocked and starts again.

[COASTER STARTING, ROLLING]

DANE

Kritch faces front, and I see him wipe his eyes. I must have stood up during the alien’s speech. I crouch back down and hide again quickly. Fuck, I hope he didn’t see me. I listen to the coaster disappear down another hill as the onboard computer says “malfunction, malfunction, returning to Jupiter base [unintelligible]. The roar fades. [sighs] I breathe out. Then I get up and start feeling around for the ladder. A few minutes later, I fall through the utility door back into the launch room, almost coughing from the fake smoke. What the fuck was Kritch doing riding a kid’s ride all by himself in the middle of the fucking night? [sighs] What a weirdo. I hear the coaster make the last of the big turns. I just wanna get out of here, so I slip out quickly  the way that the kids come out, through the debriefing room. The debriefing room is just a room with two big light-up buttons under a sign that says “MISSION REPORT”. I stop. The buttons… The buttons. I’ve never really understood them before now. There’s a red one and a green one, and the red button says “no helium present on moon” and the green button says “helium present on moon”, but it’s the green button that’s worn so much that it’s barely legible. I get closer. The glow of green gets brighter on my face. I don’t understand, the kids rat out the alien? That’s fucked up. I reach out and touch the green button. It’s rough from years of well-behaved, terrified children. But then, and I don't know why really, I reach over and press the red button. It blinks three times. 

KRITCH

Good choice.

DANE [to listener]

It’s Kritch. I didn’t hear him slip in. 

DANE [to Kritch]

Oh, um, I was... I was just uh leaving.

KRITCH It’s okay.

DANE [to listener]

He walks up beside me and looks at the buttons.

KRITCH

It is curious.

DANE [to Kritch]

What’s curious?

KRITCH Well, I didn’t expect it either but it’s true. All the kids push the green button.

DANE [to listener]

He’s not looking at me. He’s staring at the green button, his fingers running over that same rough patch. 

KRITCH They tell the truth because they know they’re supposed to or they will get in trouble. But the grown-ups? They choose red. 

DANE [to listener]

He looks over at the red button. His hand drops and his smile flattens.

KRITCH Because they know the truth about trouble.

DANE [to Kritch]

What’s the truth about trouble?

DANE [to listener]

He turns towards me. I can see that his eyes are still wet, and his suit is, like, way too shiny, and it’s reflecting the red and green lights. He takes a step towards me. 

KRITCH That you’re always in trouble. 

DANE [to listener] And then leans down until his face is like right over mine.

KRITCH And sometimes a little lie can really help with how much.

DANE [to listener]

The zoo is deserted. It’s after close now. All the lights on all the rides are out. Kritch said he would close up the ride and that I could go, so I started to head for the gate. I haven’t checked my phone in a while, but just as I'm reaching for it I hear something. 

[ANIMAL CRYING]

DANE

A crying sound. Zoe. I stop. Something is different about the sound this time.

[ANIMAL CRYING]

DANE

I turn around and walk slowly along the side of the huge building that houses both the rollercoaster and Zoe’s enclosure. The sound usually sounds like it’s far away, like in a cave, but this time it sounds very close. I round the corner and there she is, only like fifteen feet from me, in a small cement stall with an iron gate around it standing over a drain. She yelps when she sees me.

[ZOE YELPS]

DANE I scream a little bit and turn to run around the corner, and boom! I almost run into someone.

DANE [to person]

Oh I'm sorry I… 

DANE [to listener]

it’s Jennifer. 

JENNIFER Did you miss me?

DANE [to Jennifer]

Fuck. I should have known I'd see you. Wherever there’s shadows and secrets there you are a sneakin’.

JENNIFER Look who’s talking. You’re the sneak tonight. Sneak.

DANE [to Jennifer] What are you even doing here?

JENNIFER What are you even doing here?

DANE [to Jennifer] I’m at my job. It’s a thing grown-ups do.

JENNIFER Pssh. Grown-up? Nice shirt. I’m here for the rally, stupid.

DANE [to listener]

She holds up a flier to my face, like a brat. I recognize it from Emily’s porch yesterday. It says “save Zoe rally at the zoo”. Fuck, that’s today? I don’t even know the date. I look back down at her stupid face. 

DANE [to Jennifer]

You know what? You oughta go back and say hi to your little friend Zoe, stick your face through that gate and see if she’ll kiss ya’. 

DANE [to listener]

Jennifer looks at me with almost pity, and then she starts laughing. 

JENNIFER [laughing]

DANE [to Jennifer]

What’s so funny?

JENNIFER

[laughing] Oh, Zoe can’t hurt me. 

DANE [to Jennifer]

Why not?

DANE [to listener]

She steps closer to me. She’s holding a piece of cardboard with “SAVE ZOE” written on it. 

JENNIFER Because Zoe the zebra is dead. 

[THEME MUSIC]

ELLIE HAYMEN Dreamboy is co-created by Dane Terry and Ellie Haymen. Developed and directed by Ellie Haymen. Written, composed, and performed by Dane Terry, featuring Cecil Baldwin, Avery Draut, Michael St. Peter, Jake Sellers and Chris Weingarten. Sound Designed, Engineered, Mixed and Mastered by Christopher Weingarten at Bananappeal Studio. Edited by Alexander Charles Adams. Creative Producer and Assistant Director: Ashlin Hatch. Associate producer: Adam Cecil. Executive Producer: Christy Gressman. A very special thanks to Night Vale Presents. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram @dreamboypodcast. For more info and for merch check out dreamboypodcast.com.