#my alien enthusiast ass is through the roof about this

[live-from-flaturn]

I have some next level Wuju Bakery brainrot.

[frightgothcar]

HEY! Hey, you, reading this!!! I fuckin love writing but what I need to be able to write is a little thing called approval!! If you like this please comment and/or reblog!!!!!!!!!!

Area 51 au thingy. Danny/Wes. Songfic? Not really but the whole idea came from this song. V is based off of @its-towarzysz (main)/ @we-all-horny-here (sanders sides sideblog)/ @cockworktower (dp side blog) you should check them out, they make hella good content. Thanks to all my friends who helped me with motivation/proofreading. Tw for Death, Blood, Guns, and Violence. (Tell me if I forgot anything). I love this pairing and the lack of content sparks deep anger in my soul!! :)) Thanks for reading, enjoy!!

EDIT: Posting this on ao3 also @/godcannotdefeatfanfic 

September 20th, 10:30 am

Area 51

Wes Weston had nothing to live for. Ever since his Mom had gone out for cigarettes on his 6th birthday and never come back his life had been a constant downward spiral. Maybe that was why he was in the middle of the Nevada desert, preparing to attempt to rush a highly armed government facility with a million other suicidal Millenials.  

He fanned his face with his hand. It was over 86 degrees and he was practically melting in his Casper High spirit T-Shirt and blue jeans. He contemplated getting into his pickup truck and blasting the a/c but considering he only had a quarter tank of gas left, and it was a good 20 miles to the nearest gas station, he decided against it. Instead, he got onto his phone and texted his friends for the third time that morning. 

Basketball-Boi: where r yall? its hot.

Phurry: we’re just driving in!! Do u see us?

Basketball-Boi: uhhh whats ur car look like

Phurry: the silver one

Basketball: V there are like a million silver ones what kind of car

Phurry: uhh Val says its called a subaru we’re right by a black car

Red_Huntress: They’re standing on the roof and waving. Can you see us now?

Wes looked up from his phone to see a person, about his age, standing on the roof of a silver Subaru, wearing a black band t-shirt and neon green booty shorts. Their long blond ponytail swished around their face as they jumped up and down excitedly. A girl stepped out of the car and began scolding her friend. She was wearing a matching red pair of shorts, there was black lettering on her backside that he couldn’t quite make out. He began waving back, which only excited the blond more. They lept over the brown-skinned girl and bolted towards Wes.

“Ready to fuck some aliens, Basketball-Boi?” They pulled him into a tight embrace.

“I was born ready!” He laughed, “How are you, V?”

“Pretty gay, thanks for asking.”

Wes opened his mouth to speak but V cut him off with an excited shout.

“Oh! That reminds me!” They slipped their arms out of their backpack straps and dug through the mint green bag for a minute before pulling a pair of hot pink shorts, “I wanted us all to match! Made ‘em myself!”

They flipped the shorts around to reveal ‘100% Nasty’ embroidered onto the ass in black. They then turned around to show off their own message, that read ‘Trash Man’.

“I made one for Val too, c’mon, we have to wear them!!”

Wes grabbed the shorts and held them to his hips. “Is this what you needed my measurements for?”

They nodded enthusiastically, “I was gonna make us team jackets, but that’s so cliche.”

“Huh, I mean, don’t get me wrong, these are… great, but are you sure pink is my color?”

V rolled their eyes, “Of course I’m sure, Wes! Just put them on, you’ll see.”

Wes sighed and walked behind his red truck for some privacy, not that there was much of that, the field was crowded with cars. He pulled down his blue jeans, thankful for the breeze on his legs, and pulled on the shorts. They were a perfect fit, clinging to his waist, and resting on his barely existent hips. The feeling of showing so much skin was odd to him, he’d never worn anything that short in public, but the look on V’s face made it all worth it to him. They didn’t laugh like he’d been expecting them to, instead clapping their hands and going on about how relieved they were that the shorts actually fit. He did a quick turn for them, and they nodded in satisfaction.

“I think it’s about time we caught up to Val, did y’all remember to bring soda?”

“Only the finest Mountain Dew the 7/11 could provide, M’lady,” V grinned. 

“Than shall we be going, M’lord?” Wes held out his arm.

“Indubitably.” V linked their arm through his and they wandered through the crowd, searching for Valerie’s silver Subaru. 

“Wes! V! Over here!” Val called, waving the hand that wasn’t holding a Mountain Dew at her friends. The two of them waved back and jogged toward her. 

“Hey Val, long time no see,” Wes grinned as he pulled her into a hug.

“I missed ya, Weston,” Val reached up to ruffle his hair, but Wes dodged, pulling her into a headlock instead. 

“Missed ya too, Grey,” He gave her a noogie and released her, leaving her free to jump onto him and boost herself high enough to get revenge.

“Aww, adorable! Old lovebirds rekindling an old flame?” V fluttered their eyelashes at their friends, who immediately recoiled.

“Ew, no! Wes? If I had to pick a guy, maybe. And that’s a hard maybe. I’m too gay for this.” Valerie picked up her can from the hood of her car and took a swig.

“Yeah! She’s like my little sister!”

“Hey, I’m older than you!”

“By like two weeks!”

V broke into laughter, “Cool it lovebirds, I’m only joking.”

Val and Wes rolled their eyes at V, who was now on the ground, rolling with laughter. 

“Permission to pour some soda out onto our hilarious friend’s head?” Val asked teasingly.

“Permission granted! Fire at will!” Wes saluted. Val tipped her can enough to sprinkle V with the sticky green drink. They got to their feet, still laughing, and lunged for Val’s can. They knocked it backward, spilling soda all over Val’s shirt.

“EEK,” She squealed, “You’ll pay for this, Trash Man, If it’s the last thing I do!” 

She tried to push the can towards V, but they still had a grip on her arm. They tugged the can back and forth for a few seconds before it crumpled under the pressure.

“Shit!” Val swore, letting go of the can and cradling her palm. “I think I cut myself.”

V dropped the can, game of tag forgotten, and crowded next to their friend. Wes joined their huddle. 

“I think I have a first aid kit in my truck. How bad is it?” He asked.

Val opened her hand to reveal a small, but deep wound on the side of her palm.

“Shit, I’m so sorry, this is all my fault, if I hadn’t-” V began.

“Naw, it was as much my fault as yours. Anyway, we were having fun, and it’s really just a scratch. Keep focused on those Aliens, Private!” Val reassured them.

“Aye aye, Captain!”

Wes walked back to his truck, ignoring the stares of passerby. He grabbed his first aid kid (thank god for boy scouts) and walked back to Val’s car.

“So,” Wes ripped open a disinfecting wipe with his teeth and got to work cleaning her hand of blood. “How’s your dad?”

“He’s doing-” She drew in a sharp breath as he dabbed along the wound with a clean wipe. “Fine. The new job’s working out great, he’s happier than I’ve seen him in a while.”

Wes nodded and began wrapping her hand in gauze, “I’m glad. He wasn’t himself when you left.”

“It really all did work out for the better, didn’t it,” V smiled and handed Wes a length of medical tape. “Oh! I forgot! Val, show Wes what your ass says!”

She groaned, “Do I have to?”

V scowled, “Of course you have to, it was your idea!”

“I was just joking!”

“Tsk tsk, I think you’ve known me long enough to know that when it comes to cursed content, there are no jokes.”

“C’mon Val, it can’t be worse than ‘100% Nasty’,” Wes smirked.

V gasped dramatically and feigned offense, “You’ve wounded me! I work so hard, and for what, ungrateful friends?”

“Fine, if it’ll make you happy I’ll show him my ass. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She winked at him before turning to show her backside. Black embroidery spelled out ‘Booty Hunter’.

Wes burst out laughing, which quickly turned to hysteric noises only vaguely resembling laughter, squeals, and snorts with shrieking giggles between them. V and Val couldn’t help but join in. The second one of them stopped laughing someone would whisper Booty Hunter and it’d start all over again. 

“Okay, okay,” Wes gulped in air, “We- hic -should calm down now.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Val wiped a tear from her eye, “I am the Queen of Calm.”

V got to their feet and dusted themself off. “Totally calm. Calmer than a… something calm.”

“When does the raid start?” Wes pulled out his phone and checked the time. 12:00.

“Around, 12:30ish, we have time.” V waved their hand.

“I dunno, it’s already 12, maybe we should start getting ready.”

“What do you mean it’s already-” V snatched the phone from his hand, “Huh. Time sure flies when you’re having fun.”

“Wait, get ready for what exactly? I mean, we’re here, we’ve got our shorts on, there’s enough Mountain Dew in my car to drown an elephant, what else is there to get ready?” Val questioned.

“Uhhh, I dunno, stretch?” Wes shrugged, “It just feels like we’re forgetting something. What exactly is the plan for this whole thing anyway? Are there gonna be waves? Do we all go at once? This is a pretty poorly organized event.”

Val shrugged, clearly unphased by the lack of organization, “We’ll just go when everyone else starts running. I’m sure the start of gunfire will tell us when.”

“Look, if it’s making you so worried, we can stretch before. I’m sure everything will be fine. Plus, we all get alien Girlfriends, so it’s a win-win!” V put their hand on his arm. Wes smiled thankfully down at them.

“Yeah, that’s probably it. Yall must think I’m being a nitpick-”

“Not at all! You’re probably right, after all, it must be at least a mile to the base from here, and we can’t let cramps keep us from sweet sweet alien romance.” Val propped her leg up on the hood of her car and pressed her head to her knee, “Plus that’ll give us an advantage over the Kyles.”

V nodded and fell into a lunge, “We’ve been training since July for this, can’t let it get away now because we forgot to stretch.”

Wes bent over and touched his toes, “Thanks y’all, you’re really the best friends I could ask for.” 

The screech of a megaphone rang out through the valley. A voice came through the static, “Raiders! Get into position, we’re storming the gates in exactly fifteen minutes!” 

A cheer broke through the crowd as people began chugging what was left of their sodas and migrating towards the front lines. 

“Well, this is it I guess. If I don’t make it out of the raid, put this on my tombstone.” Wes gestured downward, where he was holding his hand in a circle. 

“Dammit!” Valerie chuckled as Wes gave her a playful punch in the arm. 

“You’ll never take me alive!” V shouted and sprinted forwards as Wes moved towards them.

“On your marks!”

“Wanna bet on that?” Wes shouted back, weaving through the crowd to catch up with them.

“Get set!”

V pushed forward, using their small frame to their advantage, easily losing the taller one in the crowd.

“Raid!”

The mob roared, then began thundering forward, but the deafening sounds of the people were nothing compared to what followed. Thousands of guns began firing at once, hitting everyone and everything in the vicinity. Wes watched with horror as the first wave of people were mowed down right before his eyes. A flash of neon green caught his eye through the carnage. He ran towards his friend, who was standing, paralyzed, next to a few other survivors. He shouted their name, and just as they turned their head another hailstorm of bullets rained down. The first one embedded itself right into V’s chest, right above their heart. Wes sprinted to catch his injured companion, but by the time he got there the life was already draining from their eyes.

“V! V, can you hear me? Don’t go into the light, hold on, ok? You’ve got this, V, answer me!”

He pressed his head to their chest, a weak heartbeat answered him. “It’s gonna be okay. Shhh, you’re okay.” 

Something wet dripped down his face, and he realized he was crying.

“...Wes,” V rasped out, then began violently coughing up blood. Little flecks of red peppered Wes’ face like freckles. “Fuck an alien for me, okay? Can you promise me that?”

Their body went limp in his arms. 

“V? V! V, wake up, please, that can’t be it, please V, you’re only 17, please!” He shook their corpse, but to no avail. V was gone. He closed his eyes and let out a shuttering breath before standing up, still clutching their body in his arms. 

“Second wave! On your marks!” The megaphone blared to life.

The crowd let out another, less confident cheer. After seeing all the carnage most of the raiders were less enthusiastic to ‘see them aliens’. But this time Wes had made up his mind. He was going to make it into that Government facility, and he was gonna burn that motherfucker to the ground.

“Get set!”

He laid his friend on the ground and pressed a kiss to their forehead. If it wasn’t for the massive amount of blood they could’ve been sleeping.

“Go!”

Wes screamed with all the anger he had in him and charged forward. Bullets rained down near him, but this time there were less of them. This time he had a chance. He saw the gate coming closer. He was only 50 feet away, he could make it! He hopped over the fence, ignoring the blaring of sirens, and kept running. He pushed his way into the building, where, surprisingly, there was no security. It looked like they had invested all their soldiers into protecting the outside of the base. His adrenaline rush began to slow down. He dragged his feet down the linoleum hallway, looking at his bloodsoaked hands. 

“What the fuck just happened?” He whispered to himself, still shellshocked. A flicker of light caught his eye. Grateful for a distraction, he turned his attention to what looked like a futuristic control panel. The buttons were labeled in some sort of code, their luminescent surfaces grinning up at him.

“Looking for me, Short-Shorts?” A calm voice echoed through the hall. Wes whipped around, ready for a fight.

“Why so on edge, Ginger? Surely I’m not that intimidating.” It purred.

“Who are you?!” Wes shouted. He winced at the echo. Did he really sound that unhinged?

“On your left.” 

He turned and found himself face to face with the most beautiful boy he’d ever seen. He looked about his age, maybe 17. His skin was tan, but had a slight blueish tint, as if he’d been without oxygen for a while. Poking from his tuft of pearly white hair was a pair of blur antenna. He had a small build, maybe 5 feet tall at best, but was floating at eye level with Wes. Speaking of his eyes, they were quite possibly the most gorgeous thing about him. He had eyes greener and glowyer (is that even a word? Either way it was true.) than toxic waste, his pupils were like a cat’s, slit down the middle. He was clothed in a baggy black prison jumpsuit. He looked almost alien. Wes realized with a start that he must be an alien. 

“Are you done staring?” The boy asked, snapping Wes out of his trance. “It won’t be long before the guards realize you’re in here, and I’d rather get out without a bullet hole.”

“I- I don’t- what are you?” Wes stammered.

“I’m Project Phantom, or Danny if you prefer. What’s your name?”

“I’m… Wes?”

[aeon-borealis]

If you could write the Alejandro one off that’d be great! But if you do honeymoon, throw in some nsfw ;) jk jk

NOTE: As promised, here is the follow-up. I didn’t include any big NSFW, but there are a few Stargate references no one asked for! For anyone that missed the first part: Heather’s Time-Warpy Experience.

Alejandrohad been especially wary of scoping out the halls near Chris’quarters, let alone the plane cockpit after the challenge in London.Ruse or not, he had been so startled it’d shaken hisself-confidence a bit. As someone who liked to believe he could win agame of fourth dimensional chess, Alejandro didn’t take it lightlywhen someone managed to successfully trick and gain the upper handover him. That’s exactlywhy a certain mean raven-haired beauty was on his radar (and hecouldn’t deny he had other non-game related hopes for her as well).

Buthe couldn’t let his hair-on-its-end instincts stop him from gettingwhat could be incredibly useful intel. The kind of intel that couldmake or break his success on this stupid show. Heplayed by the rules for the most part, but he wasn’t above finding,exploiting, and pushing the envelope with loopholes or “convenientlyacquired” pieces of information.

Sohe took a deep, calmingbreath, then slowly crept along the wall towards Chris’ quarters.As he crept closer, he heard at least three different voices: Chris’all-too-familiar snark, a slightly deeper baritone, and a morereserved, soft-spoken voice. Alejandro sneaked a few glances aroundfor Chef’s larger, imposing form. While he’d been able to smoothtalk his way out of the past few times he hadbeen caught skulkingaround here, he just couldn’t shake the feeling this time was goingto be very different. MaybeChris was cracking down on Chef a bit more?

Whenhe didn’t see Chef anywhere, he steeledhimself again and stealthilyslipped under the doorknob. Thenhe peered through thecomically convenient keyhole. 

Therewas Chris, leaning as far back in his luxury recliner as he couldwhile one of his poor interns massaged his feet. A man with a buzzcut and a fully decorated military uniform leaned on the wall nearestto the recliner. While his uniform gave off the impression of a veryimportant authoritative figure, his expression carried the sameobnoxious nonchalance Chris’ expression usually held. That aloneunnerved Alejandro. If Chris was borderline psychotic with what kindof legal ambiguity he had access to as a famous reality TV show host,Alejandro could only imagine how much worse he might be as a hard-assmilitary general. Just the passing daydream was enough to sendshivers down his spine and threaten nightmares worse than the realityof the idiotic Owen as a teammate.

Tohis disappointment, Alejandro couldn’t quite see the third figurein the room. Every so often, he saw the dull brown glint of the rimson a pair of glasses and sporadically moving hands, but that was it.He turned his attention towards eavesdropping, waiting for a goodpoint to start at least trying to piece together what the ongoingdiscussion was.

“…timesdo I have to say it’s dangerous?!”The soft-spoken man complained.

Chrisand the military man chuckled.

“That’spart of the fun!” Chris brayed enthusiastically.

“Theteens on this show have dealt with worse and they’ve all signedpretty iron-clad contracts,” the military man added.

“General,with all due respect, I am part of the classified project that dealtwith some of the artifacts in that warehouse. I waspretty appalled by how many broken and sparking pieces I came across.I almost sprained my ankle just trying to climb around piles ofjunk!”

“Iwonder if somebody will die…” Chris stroked his chin thoughtfullywith a sinister glint in his beady eyes.

Thatwas enough to make Alejandro shiver as if he’d been hit with an icygust from Antarctica itself.

“It’llbe impressive if they make it past security alone.”

Chrisgrinned like a kid in a candy store. “Ratings are gonna be throughthe roof! I can feel it.”

“Ihave another surprise in store, too.” The military man smiled withsimilarly fiendish delight.

“Tellme! Tell me!” Chris squealed.

Alejandrosuppressed a sigh when the military man leaned in and whisperedsomething to Chris. As much as he strained to listen, Alejandro onlyheard Charlie Brown “wah wah” noises and watched Chris becomethat much more eager.

“Willyou guys listen for one damn minute?!” The soft-spoken man raged.

“Iknow, I know. Dangerous tech endangering lives. Yada, yada….”Chris rolled his eyes.

“Ireally wish they’d sent that little spitfire Samantha instead ofyou,” the generalmuttered.

“Sinceyou both have such disgusting disregard for human life, especiallychildren at that.”The soft-spoken man stood up and folded his hands. “Allow me to putthis in a way you’ll understand: There are highly classifiedartifacts in that warehouse. Artifacts that even General McClean haslimited clearance and knowledge of. I don’t care how iron-clad yourcontracts are or what clearance you already have. Step foot in thiswarehouse. Find one of these artifacts and have it show up on camera.You’ll be facing some pretty dire consequences. Thrown in prisonfor the rest of your natural-born life consequences.”

Alejandro’seyes widened at the name “McClean.” That explained a lot here.

Thegeneral cleared his throat and folded his arms behind his back,trying to appear professional. “Daniel, I had a team thoroughlysniff out those artifacts this morning. You’re only here to signoff on everything and give me the go-ahead.”

Therewas a beat of silence as Daniel fished something out of his pantspocket. Alejandro couldn’t quite make out the details from this farof a distance, but it looked like a small golden locket with a brightred gem in the center. Daniel cleared his throat while GeneralMcClain’s face turned bright red.

“Thoroughly?”Daniel sighed. “I found this the minute I walked in!”

“That…?”General McClain stomped over and snatched the weird locket fromDaniel’s hands. “That’s a bauble I got for my niece’sbirthday. She’s a big fan of this kind of old…antique-ystuff!”

“Uh-huh.You conveniently got her a present that looks exactly like somethingfrom the dossier .”

Chrissnickered and folded his arms behind his head, obviously enjoying theshow.

“Igot it two weeks ago.” General McClain replied haughtily.

“Where’dyou get it?” Daniel was in full view now. He was surprisingly leanand muscular for a bookish type with slightly ruffled brown hair.Sweat was dripping down General McClain’s face to the point hemight need a few buckets. The more nervous he appeared, the angrierDaniel became.

Suddenly,Daniel’s pocket buzzed. He pulled out his cell phone andimmediately stalked to the other side of the room. “Now isn’t avery good time…”

GeneralMcClain dabbed at his forehead with his arm. Gritting his teeth, heshot a look at the weird bauble in his hand, then ran a hand throughhis hair. Rolling his eyes, Chris snatched it away. The reality TVshow host took one look at it before hefting it towards the door withas much strength as he could muster.

Secondslater, Alejandro felt something lightly bump against the toe of hisboot. He looked down and was surprised to find the weird locket lyingthere. He heard the general and Chris arguing, but it all becamemuffled background noise as he gingerly scooped up the locket to takea closer look. It wouldn’t hurt to try and develop some better ideaof what this bizarre object was before squirreling it away andreturning to his team. The more he could figure out here and now, thebetter an advantage he’d have later.

Smirkingto himself, Alejandro idly ran his thumb around the circumference ofthe strange artifact. Upon closer inspection, there were twoconcentric rings around the beautiful red gem. The ringsfeatured various Egyptianhieroglyphs. Admittedly, Alejandro’s knowledge of ancient Egyptianart and hieroglyphs wasn’t as up to par as he’d like, but none ofthe symbols looked like anything he had ever studied personally. Thesymbols were utterly alien to him. Carefully, he ran a finger overthe hieroglyphs, in turn rotating the ring on front-

-Alejandrofelt himself lurch forward slightly. The world around him blurredcrazily in what appeared to be a wobbling, almost hallucinogenichaze. After a few dizzying moments, Alejandro found himself floatingout in space. He felt like hewas weightless and drifting about aimlessly like a fisherman’sbobber. Moments later, the nameless, hypothetical fisherman starteddrawing in his line at a breakneck speed. Cringing, Alejandrosqueezed his eyes tightly shut.

Therewere a few moments of darkness and silence. Then he felt a lightsqueeze on his upper arm. Hehesitated, wondering if he’d fallen unconscious or experienced someother bizarre episode. He took a deep breath, feeling slight reliefwhen he heard his steady heartbeat. Now he was ready to wake up inthe crap-tastic makeshift infirmary in the plane: He could alreadysee the worn-outcouch and the worrying duct tape pieces slapped over mystery holes inthe pale yellow wall.

“Alejandro…?”His arm was squeezed again. And he immediately recognized that voice.Both his heartbeat and hormones took off like a dual pair of rockets.Maybe his infirmary trip would be more pleasant than he otherwisebelieved.

Grinninggiddily and preparing for snarky banter, he finally opened his eyes.

“Areyou okay?” Heather leaned closer towards him, her expression a mixbetween concerned and mildly irritated.

“Iam now,” Alejandro replied, putting on his most charming smile.“I’m waking up to an angel.”

Heatherlaughed, rolled her eyes, and playfully hit his shoulder. Thatreaction set off alarm bells and Alejandro took a closer look atHeather. She looked mucholder: she had a fuller figure, a naturally confident set to hershoulders and brow rather than forced, and other details Alejandrocouldn’t accurately pin down or describe unless he took the time tothink it over. But those details were significantly differentnonetheless.

Inaddition, she was wearing a…wedding dress. A form-fitting,high-fashion, glitter and sequin-covered wedding dress. The dress wasalmost tacky but in style enough that Heather justified her choiceswith her bold personality. Alejandro felt his face burn up as herealized just how many little things he’d picked out about her.Yes, he had a laundry list of obscure, ridiculous details about allof the contestants, but the more he learned about Heather inparticular, the stronger his rose-tinted glasses.

“You’reblushing!” Heather leaned towards him and pinched his cheek. “Aww,you’re so cute when you’re vulnerable.”

“W-what?”He couldn’t help it. Alejandro had completely lost his composure inthis surreal situation. And he was losing more as he drank in more ofhis surroundings.

“Scaredof your first official night as Mr. Heather?” She teased, running afinger along his collar bone.

Swallowinghard, Alejandro was very, uncomfortably aware of the canopy bed withgold satin sheets and matching curtains. The bedroom itself wasequally high-end luxury: the walls were aquariums full of variousexotic and colorful fish. A potted palm tree sat in one corner nextto a plush velvet armchair and an old-school record player.

“Ah…giveme a moment to collect myself?” Alejandro managed.

“Yeah.”Heather chuckled as she carefully climbed off of the bed and stoodup. “I want to be seduced tonight, Alejandro. Level 10 of yourspecial charm, got it?”

“Yes,ma’am.” Alejandro swallowed again. In his mind’s eye, his facewas an even darker shade of red than before. The same shade as thefreshest, ripest tomatoes in Mama’s little garden out back.

Nervously,Alejandro watched as Heather sashayed towards the record player.There was only one record and his heart sank deeper in his chestbecause he knew exactly what it was. It cemented the legitimacy ofthis bizarre daydream. There was one song in the universe that hookedhim and pierced him right through the heart. This one song drew outevery sappy, saccharine emotion in his body. He swore it’d be themost romantic thing ever to make love to someone he washead-over-heels crazy for.

Thesong started up, and Alejandro closed his eyes while he let out along, slow breath. For a few moments, he let himself enjoy the rhythmof the song and get lost in this weird, but strangely welcomeself-indulgent dream. Because it was just a dream. And because it wasjust a dream, he could thoroughly enjoy what was about to happenconsequence and guilt-free…

“Al!Al! HEY AL!” Owen’s scratchy voice sliced through everythingworse than a record scratch.

Alejandro’seyes snapped open to the big buffoon grabbing him by the shouldersand shaking him like a salt shaker with little contents left.Thankfully, the big oaf stopped as soon as he realized Alejandro wasawake.

“Hey,buddy. I’m so glad you’re awake! Are you okay?” The wordstumbled out of Owen’s mouth in one big rush.

“Yes,”Alejandro growled through gritted teeth.

“I’mso glad!” Owen wailed, diving towards him and ensconcing him in atight bear hug. “I thought you died!”

Alejandrowas sure death was imminent from being snapped in half with everypassing moment and Owen squeezing that much tighter.

“Lethim go before you kill him, you big lug!” Heather cried.

“Oh…yeah…heheh….Sorry.”Owen immediately let go. Alejandro hit that dreaded worn-out couchwith a heavy thud.

AsAlejandro tried to collect himself and his bearings, he felt like thewind had been completely knocked out of his lungs now. His attentionzeroed in on Heather. This was his Heather: eternally grumpy, quickto anger, and mean to the core Heather. Currently, Owen was thetarget of her piranha-based ire. He cowered slightly, taking a stepback as she chewed him out, and Alejandro could swear he saw aglint of canines in her mouth.

“Alright,alright…” Owen snickered. “I’ll leave you alone with yourboyfriend.”

“He’snot my boyfriend!” Heather barked.

“Riigght.”Owen winked at Alejandro, clicked his tongue, and wiggled his browsobnoxiously as he bowed out of the room.

Heather’sdemeanor fell slightly once it was just her and Alejandro in theroom. Alone. The gravity of the situation pressed down on Alejandro.Normally, he’d take this opportunity to flirt very openly andobnoxiously with her, but that weird honeymoon dream was just toofresh in his mind. It was one thing letting his unconscious mind playwith such an absurd scenario. It was another thing entirely to belooking at the real Heather, thinking about their current standingand dynamic, and then worrying about how smitten he must be toentertain fantasies like that so soon.

Heatwas crawling up his face again. He desperately hoped he could justplay it off as a slight fever when Heather finally looked back up athim.

“So…youcame to check on me?” His tone didn’t have the flirty element hewanted. Instead he just sounded matter-of-fact.

“No!”Heather’s face was slightly red and her fists clenched. “As if. Iheard you were lurking around Chris’ quarters and faintedunexpectedly. I came to see what you’re up to.”

“Howsweet of you.” This time hewas able to bounce back to his usual bravado. But he couldn’t helpthe doubt prickling at the back of his mind as he remembered bits andpieces of the scene in Chris’ quarters.

“Seriously,Alejandro. I’ve got my eyes on you.” She folded her arms andglared.

“Idon’t mind,” Alejandro replied with a low, flirtatious growl.“I’m quite a sight to behold.”

“Shutup.”

Alejandrogiggled.

“SHUT.UP.”

“I’llbe fine, by the way.” Alejandro gingerly sat up, touching his ribsto make sure Owen hadn’t cracked anything.

“Areyou sure?” Heather asked despite herself. She even took a few stepscloser. “Owen’s a pretty big guy-”

“Aww…”Alejandro tilted his head back and batted his eyelashes at her.

“Guhh!You’re so insufferable!”

“Kissme better?” Alejandro made an exaggeratedly dreamy sigh.

Heatherplaced a palm in his face, then turned and stomped off withoutanother word.

Onceshe left and Alejandro couldn’t hear her retreating footstepsanymore, the room felt that much smaller and unbearably silent. Themore he thought about her, the more his heart started roaring in hisears and a blush crept up his face again. Images of her now flashedthrough his mind followed by visions of an older Heather.

Ifhe were a cartoon character, there’d be clouds of steam pouring outof his ears by now. He was thankful for the thin blanket covering hislegs. Wait? Where’d this blanket come from? He pulled up one cornerof it and blushed even harder at the name stitched onto one of thecorners in gold thread: Heather.

Suddenlyhe was gripped by an insatiable, irrational urge. The strange pendantentered his mind. He started pawing at his neck, finding only histrademark bull pendant. Then he rifled through all of the pockets inhis pants and even went so far as emptying out both of his boots.After that, he sprung up and pulled the couch apart, digging undercushions and picking through the holes and patches he could reach. Hestopped after a few minuteswhen he realized how foolish he might look and the fact that anyonecould walk into the room at any time.

Blowingout a long breath, he tuckedhis feet under his legs and ran his fingers through his hair, hatinghow hot his face was and trying to regain his composure. A strongsense of disappointment gripped him as he realized that Chris, Chef,or that Daniel guy had probably taken the pendant.

Therewas only one thing to do now: meditate on his long list of pettyschemes and pranks to pull on Owen. He just couldn’t focus on thegame right now because a lot of his plans were, of course, tied intostopping her…

[mst3kproject]

Journey to the Seventh Planet (1962)

Oh, shit, it's another John Agar movie.  This one comes to us from Sid Pink and Ib Melchior of Reptilicus, co-stars Carl Ottosen (Colonel Grayson from the same movie), and is about a bunch of astronauts landing on an unknown world where they find lots of beautiful women.  Get Jonah and the Bots on this one, stat.

In the far-off future of 2001, after world peace has been achieved, the UN sends a spacecraft to explore the seventh planet, Uranus (they pronounce it yer-AWN-us, if you wanted to know).  Upon landing, something very strange happens to the astronauts on board – they all lose consciousness for a few hours while an ominous echoey voiceover informs them that it will possess their bodies and use them to conquer the Earth!  Whatever it was seems to have already read their thoughts, because instead of a frozen wasteland, they find themselves in the woods around a little village, all very cozy and Earthlike and inhabited solely by beautiful women plucked straight from each man’s personal fantasies.  Just what a hostile intelligence needs to lure a bunch of red-blooded astronauts to their doom!

Once again, I’m going to start by being a pedant.  The people who made this movie know nothing about Uranus.  I tried to do some research on what was known about the outer solar system in 1962 and it seems like it wasn’t very much, but the term gas giant has been around since at least 1952, when James Blish used it in his short story Solar Plexus.  Based on that, it seems like people in the early sixties probably knew these planets didn’t have solid surfaces, but unless I manage to find an astronomy book from that era it’s hard to be sure.  Suffice to say, Uranus does not have snow, or volcanoes, or anything remotely like that.  It’s methane and ammonia all the way down.

That shouldn’t ruin one’s enjoyment of the movie, though.  Like its sister Reptilicus, Journey to the Seventh Planet is cartoony and colourful and quite a lot of fun to watch.  The special effects are never good, whether they’re a view of Saturn from space or an amusing but also kind of scary one-eyed dinosaur-rat monster, but they tell us what’s going on.  There’s also a couple of really clever moments in it, having to do with the malevolent intelligence hiding beneath the planet’s surface, and the illusions it creates to try to draw them in.

When the astronauts start to explore the woodland around their landing site, they quickly discover that the plants and trees around them have no roots. John Agar’s character, Don, tries to pull one up, and immediately falls on his ass when the plant does not resist him as he expected.  This is a very nice metaphor for what almost everything they find on Uranus turns out to be: a pretty surface with no substance to it.

Then there are the women they meet there, each of whom is a match to the man she targets.  In the opening scene we met the characters and heard them talk a little about their current girlfriends and lost loves.  Commander Eric recalls Ingrid, a girl who took part in a local Christmas festival when he was a boy.  He describes her as looking like a queen or a goddess, and so the adult Ingrid we meet a few minutes later is not just beautiful but regal and articulate, and a little bit commanding.  Virginal Karl remembers Ursula, a childhood crush he never dared to approach.  When she turns up, she’s in what seems to be a little girl’s frock, and claims she wants nothing more than to care for him.  Fuckboy Don is the proud owner of an extensive collection of pin-ups, and they turn up in their scanty costumes to throw themselves at him.

It is also rather interesting how the men treat these women.  They know the women are not real, because they know nothing around them is real – in their spacesuits they can pass through the force field around the little wood and village and find the real Uranus, cold, icy, and airless, outside.  They know that something threatening is here, because they met the monsters it created to drive them out of its lair.  The women know what this entity is planning because it created them.  And yet, for all that, the men never seem to consider them a threat.  When they go to confront the evil intelligence at the end, they find that the women have sabotaged their equipment – Karl, who was supposed to be keeping watch, let his guard down around Ursula.

Why do the men so completely disregard the threat of these women? Possibly because they know they’re not real, and are assumed to be incapable of doing any harm (although they do not make this same assumption of the equally unreal rat-dinosaur and giant spider).  Possibly also because they are women, whom the men – being sixties men – assume are not as intelligent or resourceful.  In this sense, using images of women as its agents was the evil intelligence’s smartest move in more ways than one.  When it probed the astronauts' minds it must have seen not only their desire for females of their own species, but also their low opinion of them, and it used both against them.  Though why it spends so much time having sex with them by proxy instead of getting on with conquering their wills, I really can’t say.

Even at the very end, as the planet apparently collapses all around them, the characters don’t seem to realize that the women were a threat to them.  In a moment I do not begin to understand the logic of, Eric attempts to save Ingrid, who says she needed to see him one last time, and takes her aboard the ship, only for her to vanish a moment later when the evil alien dies.  Honestly, I think this was a pretty lucky escape.  The movie tries to present the moment as a romantic tragedy, but I’m pretty sure it was the alien’s last-ditch attempt to get a piece of itself on board the rocket.  Eric should have known better at that point, and trying to take her with him is almost the stupidest thing any of them do in the whole movie.

Of course, there are a lot more problems with this movie, too.  Earlier I said that most of the special effects were okay, and by and large they are – but when they eventually fail they fail very hard, and right at the climax, too.  The aforementioned dinosaur-rat monster is not among the better pieces of stop motion in history but it’s not awful.  Later, however, the men are confronted by a giant spider which is nothing but footage from Earth vs the Spider, tinted blue in a feeble and ultimately completely unsuccessful attempt to make it match the colour film of Journey to the Seventh Planet!  You don’t believe in it for a moment, and even worse, they suddenly switch to a shot that doesn’t match at all when the astronauts bring a cavern roof down on the monster.

In this image, you can see a very little bit of a completely different creature that is evidently some kind of Claymation thingy with eyes on stalks.  Apparently the sequence originally featured this beast instead of the spider, but the distributor didn’t like how it turned out and replaced it with the borrowed footage.  I have a hard time imagining how embarrassingly awful the other monster must have been to be rejected in favour of this, and it makes me very, very sad to learn that the original footage probably no longer exists.

The other big effects fail is the moment when the malevolent intelligence, which of course is a giant brain with an eye in it because what the hell else would it be, eats Karl.  We never see this happen, just the brain pulsing and the other astronauts shooting at it while Karl screams.  It’s very confusing and it’s only because the characters talk about it that we realize Karl’s actual fate.  I have not been able to find out if there were originally an effects shot here that was so bad they threw it out, or if they didn’t bother attempting one.  Either way, it really deflates the climax.

My biggest complaint about Journey to the Seventh Planet is not at the end, but at the beginning.  While the astronauts are unconscious on board their ship, the alien gloats in a voiceover about what it’s going to do to them. Then, as if this never happened, they land on the planet and start trying to figure out what’s going on, while the audience already knows.  Wouldn’t it have been far more effective to let the audience try to solve the mystery with the astronauts, rather than waiting for them to catch up?  Imagine if a Sherlock Holmes movie opened with a voiceover from Moriarty, explaining his evil plan – that would suck. Any supervillain knows that expository monologues happen at the end of movies.

Considering the fun they had with Reptilicus, I’m sure MST3K could do great things with Journey to the Seventh Planet.  I don’t really want to try to guess what they’d say about it, but there is an obvious Stinger moment when Karl enthusiastically offers to try to penetrate the force field and immediately regrets it.  I also want to think that Crow and Tom would have been personally offended by the way the actors pronounce Uranus. I can see a host sketch in which they get all angry about how it’s supposed to be your-anus and when Jonah asks them if they’re just saying that because they wanted to make crude jokes, they chorus “YES!” and insist that they were robbed.

[italicwatches]

Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online - Episode 02

Okay, let’s get into this a little deeper. It’s Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online, episode 02! Here we GO!

-It’s July 2025. We come in on Karen, who’s been attending university in Tokyo for the last three months. She thought things might change, but…They’re not. She’s still awkward, and shy, and taller than any of the other women in her classes. She’s still having no luck finding a job, and spending her days going from apartment to school to apartment if she goes out at all.

-A gaggle of schoolgirls pass by, and Karen can’t help but be deeply envious of the tiny adorable things. Made all the more real when she tries to walk past, and cracks her head on a hanging sign. The pain is real.

-Opening! Which, the more I watch it it’s very interesting how much…*fulfillment[i] they wrap into the game environment. This is very clearly a space where not just Karen/LLENN, but a lot of the people around her, find themselves.

-August. Karen went back home for the summer break. With nothing better to do, she ended up getting curious about VR games after seeing a news report on the new, next-gen hardware made to simplify the VR connection and block off a lot of the safety problems with the SAO-era gear. And something about the idea grabbed her…

-Which is how she ended up snaring an old acquaintance to learn about the things…An acquaintance who was, of course [i]very* eager to tell her everything about her passionate hobby.

-She got the gear, and a copy of Alfheim Online, and settled in to try it back at her place….And it was in! She picked the name LLENN for the first time, went through the creation process….

-And became a tall, graceful elf.

-She was NOT into that. At all. It freaked her out so bad that she actually tripped the safety sensors and got forcefully logged out.

-And learned from said acquaintance, Miyu, that the whole system automatically creates characters for you…She could try again, or try shifting her account to a different game in the same engine. Which is not how game design works, but, you know what, okay. So Karen tried something else…

-And again and again, her characters kept being big. Racing game? Tall sexy racer. Flight game? Thicc pilot. Sci-fi game? What a halloween store would call “Sexy Chilled Alien” because it’s off-brand Frieza race. Fantasy games? A buff-ass barbarian queen and a…I think they’re going for orc there but the Western and Eastern ideas of ‘orc’ have diverged so fucking far it’s hard to tell. Sexy mermaid. And finally Karen was just pushing on through sheer god damned stubbornness.

-When she stumbled onto Gun Gale Online.

-And it put her, after 37 different games attempted, as like three and a half feet tall. At that point it officially stopped mattering what the game was about. It officially stopped mattering what kind of crazy mechanics she’d have to learn. All that mattered was being a tiny adorable waif of a girl for the first time since she was a child. The identity of LLENN ended up filling her heart that day…

-And then she did the tutorial. And got to learn that her true LLENN was in a shooty shooty game and being taught by a dominatrix drill sergeant. This was not what LLENN planned on doing on this day. She learned of the two core gun types, laser guns and slug throwers.

-Side diversion! This is actually an interesting thing to be using in a representation of an online shooter, because shooters tend to divert into two key types of handling their bullets; Some games(or even some guns in games that use both) use hitscan, where at the moment you squeeze the trigger it instantly draws a straight line and sees where it hits, while others use projectile based systems where a bullet is actually spawned and sent at high speeds with physics and time applying. Both of these are entirely valid systems, but which one you’re dealing with has strong implications for higher level play.

-But here in Gun Gale Online, another core difference was put into play; namely, laser guns(or as they call them, optical guns) could be defended against by energy fields. Live ammo’s a different story.

-So LLENN got to learn about the Bullet Line, the singular warning sign that an attack is imminent. She got to shoot her first gun, and learn about the system’s Bullet Circle idea to model the randomness of bullet spread…Which would be fine if LLENN could keep the fucking pistol steady enough for the Circle to stay in a single place.

-She got to try pistols, and sniper rifles, and submachine guns…And at least the submachine gun was vaguely suited to her skills.

-Cut to September. LLENN’s decided to stick with the game. Because being this tiny adorable figure was just too good to give up. She ended up doing PvE, just learning the systems. The whole time she was playing solo, just thrilling in the experience of being LLENN…But she hit a bit of a problem.

-A distinct lack of cute and adorable outfits in this grim serious game. …On the other hand, they had a color palette system. So she took her drab green military garb, and turned it BRIGHT PINK. She even had her optical gun done! And hearing comments from other players, was enough to keep her playing…

-Until one day she was out in the field, had set up a trap for some monsters, and put on some tunes while she relaxed. It’s at this moment that I realize they keep using the same artist name, so I have to imagine that one Elsa Kanzaki is either a really neat reference I don’t get, or going to be relevant. Either way, I should probably note it.

-She could eat cookies and drink tea as much as she wanted, with no worries of calories…But, this trap she set up was in a free-for-all area. And another group of players spawned in. She considered running, or logging out, and ultimately ended up hiding…Not noticed…Her trap went off, and in a panic, she raced in and started firing wildly!

-That whole time, she’d been cranking her SPD stat through the roof with her XP, needing it to deal with giant monsters solo…And so she tore through the three in a flash…When LLENN had enough time to stop and think, and notice that her pink outfit was actually almost the same color as the sunset-lit desert sands…

-Within a few weeks, people were talking about the Pink Devil in chat. A PKer who operates the desert field, ambushing anyone who gets close…A tiny, speedy little demon with two submachine guns.

-Because, indeed, LLENN had thrown some currency into a pair of live-ammo guns, and had turned the desert into her domain to roam freely in, to run far and wide on her tiny tiny legs…

-Until one day, someone caught her and put a gun to her head. A woman in all black, who liked the Pink Devil’s style…Enough to not shoot her. To think the infamous Pink Devil was so teeny and adorable. And she offered a trip back into town to get some tea, since this game didn’t have anywhere near enough female players…

-That was how LLENN met Pitohui, or Pito. Who, true story, added those tattoo cosmetics to her face to reduce how many guys were hitting on her in the game. And played GGO since launch day. While LLENN had only been in for about three months at this point.

-Pito found her more than interesting enough to send her a friend request, and the two ended up in an obscure shop in the corner of town, with rare drops from the PvE segment…Which is how LLENN found her P90, a hot new arrival sitting on the shelf for mere minutes. She bought it right then and there…And with Pito’s encouragement, she named it.

-P-chan. She named that gun P-chan. And let me tell you there is nothing that has made me laugh quite so hard as LLENN enthusiastically saying she’ll do her best to kill lots and lots, while the swelling meaningful-moment music plays.

-Anyways, she and Pito became a squad, and would go hunting and PKing a lot. But aside from having enough real-world money to keep dropping premium currency on fancy shit, LLENN barely knew anything about Pito.. She barely ever listened to music, didn’t watch a lot of movies…And of course LLENN still had lots of anxiety about any talk of real life.

-So Pito ended up putting down a challenge. Take her down in the PvP mode one day, rookie. Get a kill on her, and she’d made sure they could meet in real life. Take that challenge and live up to it. And LLENN was fired up about it, as they made a woman’s promise!

-January came, and they celebrated together in the game. And LLENN learned about the new battle royale mode, the Squad Jam…

-Credits!

I did not expect this much feels from my cute-girls-shooting-cute-guns anime.

[avengerdragoness]

Meeting the Archer [Jason Todd x Reader]

Requested by anon: "Jason x reader where the reader meets Roy for the first time"

A/N: I love this idea! Love love love! <3 Hope you like it darlings!! ^_^

________

Today was the day, you’re meeting one of Jason’s ‘coworkers’ as he liked to call them. But you knew it was one of the other members of the Outlaws. Today you were meeting Roy Harper aka Arsenal.

And you were terrified! This is Jason’s best friend! What if he hates you? Or thinks you’re not good enough for him? So many things could go wrong!!

Jason had suggested that you should meet Roy first in order to ease you into this, saying, and I quote “An orange alien may be a bit overwhelming to start with” leaving you rather confused. 

But let’s focus on the problem at hand. You’re currently overthinking this, remember?

“[F/n] calm down, Roy’s going to love you.. Well maybe not ‘love,’ we’ll leave that to me.” Smirking as he lead you by the hand. Through the park, to a cafe you both enjoyed.

“I don’t know if I can do this Jay, what if he doesn’t like me?” Insecurities on full display at this point. Your hand gripping his slightly tighter, but enough for him to notice.

“He’s going to like you I promise” he stopped walking and turned to stand in front of you. Gluing his blue eyes to your [e/c] ones.

“What if he thinks I’m not good enough for you?” diverting your hues to your intertwined hands.

He shook his head, “That’s nonsense, if anything I’m not good enough for you. You’re beautiful, smart, kind, an amazing listener and person in general, shall I go on?” pulling you a bit closer to him.

“I’m flattered by the compliments Jay but I don’t think I’m ready” pulling your hand from his. Turning to retreat, but feelin a grip on your wrist.

You were tugged back and lifted over his shoulder, squealing “JASON!”

“Sorry babe, but Roy’s waiting and I’m not letting you chicken out. I’ll carry you the entire way if I have to” You could hear the blatant smirk in his tone. This boy.

“Jason I swear to all things holy, if you don’t put me down” Threatening in the most intimidating way you could, but in the current situation you were anything but intimidating.

You heard his chuckle, “You’re cute you know that” patting your ass in the process. You normally wouldn’t blush at the gesture, but he usually did it in private. And currently you weren’t in private, getting giggles and chuckles out of every person you passed.

Feeling your face heating up in the process. “FINE!” giving in, “I won’t run just put me down!”

“Magic words?” he stopped walking and smirked over his shoulder so you could see him. “Please” you smiled innocently at him.

“Not that magic word, the other ones” Giving him the ‘you’re joking, right?’ glare. “Say’em”

“Fine... Red Hood is better than Batman” muttering so only he could hear you. “And?” he lead on, “ and was the best Robin” you finished. He laughed before putting you down, “Damn straight”

“Let’s go before I change my mind” chuckling while tugging at his hand. Obeying he followed, making your way to lunch. 

It was a nice little cafe. Having outdoor seating on warm days like today. Making your way inside, you watched as Jason examined faces. He stopped on a man that matched Roy’s description.

Standing when Jason walked over to him. They did that bro hug thing that guys do with their buddies. Smiling you walked over to the pair, Jason wrapped an arm around you. “Roy this is [F/n], [F/n] meet Roy”

Shaking his hand he looked you over before allowing a large grin to make it’s way onto his features. “Ah, so this is the one true love. What the hell Jay I thought you were always talking about me?”

You laughed at the hurt expression and tone he used. Jason only shook his head chuckling. You both saw across from the red haired male, holding the others hand on the table.

“I never thought I’d see my jaybird falling in love” Roy wiped away a fake tear. You’re liking this guy.

After ordering a couple drinks, Roy began to dive into stories about Jason on missions. Highlighting his most ungraceful moments. Even making Jason’s cheeks flush from embarrassment.

“And then this one time, he was jumping rooftops with Kori and I. Though Kori doesn’t need to jump roofs. Anyways, Jason thought it would be fun to see who could do it the fastest, and we raced. He was about to win until he got cocky and misstepped. He ended up getting his foot caught on the ledge and he straight up face planted. He.. he” getting cut off with his own laughter. “He ended up breaking his nose and needed stitches on his forehead.” You were both laughing now.

“Oh man that’s nothing! On our one month anniversary..” You began but was cut off.

“Don’t you dare!” his tone darkened but you couldn’t help yourself. You only laughed it off, “Oh come on it’s funny. So anyway, he had called me earlier that day asking me to come over his place that night. He sounded super stressed and I knew he would be out. I went over before he would be home. Set up this whole elaborate relaxing night. Candles, his favorite take out, favorite whiskey, me~ if you’re catching my drift.” He nodded suppressing laughter, while Jason was hiding behind his hands. “So I’m waiting in his room for like an hour after he was supposed to get back, I get tired of it and walk out into the living room. To find he had eaten the food, drank the whiskey and passed out on the couch”

“Oh god no way” Roy laughed. “I’m dead serious. But I didn’t have the heart to wake him up. He felt so bad the next day.” Nudging Jason’s arm.

“I’m disowning both of you” he mumbled before lifting his head to look at you. “Aw but you love us” Roy jutted out his lower lip.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t dare disown me” Pecking his cheek after speaking. “Yeah you’re right I wouldn’t disown you” he pecked your lips, eliciting a teasing ‘aw’ from Roy. “But him!” pointing an accusing finger at the archer, “He started the embarrassing stories”

“But you still love me, right Jaybird?” You were beginning to love that nickname and were definitely going to use it.

Jason only rolled his eyes, “That’s ‘yes’ in Jason speak” Roy made you laugh once again.

Though your laughter was cut off by his phone ringing. “Sorry to cut this short love birds but Ollie needs me and duty calls” he said whilst reading the text.

Before he left they gave each other another bro hug. “It was so nice meeting you Roy, let’s all get together again soon” you hugged him. “You bet” he replied enthusiastically.

When he pulled away and went to leave he made sure to tell Jason, “Treat her right Jaybird, she’s a keeper” patting his shoulder before leaving.

After he left you and Jason followed suit soon after.

“And you were worried” he chuckled, walking through the park once again.

“I was but I’m glad you talked me into going. He’s a really good guy” you smiled, leaning into Jason. “I think I’m going to be the one worried to get you two together now, in order to save my dignity” he chuckled.

Laughing you kissed his cheek, “What dignity?”

“Ouch” he mocked offense, making you both chuckle. “What do you say we head back to my place and I make up for what happened on our anniversary?”

“Oo, someone’s eager” teasing laced in your voice, an amused grin on your face.

He tugged you back toward him throwing you over his shoulder again. “Very eager” he laughed before carrying you through the park.

“Goddammit Jason” yelling as he carried you.

Only getting laughs out of him, smirking he said “You shouldn’t have told that story.”

[bravevulnerability]

Imagine your OTP looking up at the stars. Person A is really enthusiastic, pointing out the constellations and person B just falls asleep to their voice (taken from the prompts blog I hope you don't mind 🙈)

“And that’s Cassiopeia,” he listens to her murmur, her voice low, so soft in the darkness of the car that he has to blink a few times to stop the drugging sensation of sleep from lapping at his consciousness.

“I still only know the Big Dipper,” he states, smirking at Beckett’s huff of exasperation from his side. They’ve been at this for nearly half an hour now, camped out in her dead cruiser in the middle of a New Jersey highway after being abducted by proverbial aliens, staring into the sky full of stars while they await Ryan and Esposito to come pick them up.

He never would have guessed Beckett to be such an astronomy nerd, to know the constellations like the back of her hand, to want to share them with him.

“Look,” she says, scooting in closer to him, her shoulder bumping his as she points her finger to the glass of the windshield, and he holds his breath to avoid inhaling the sweet scent of cherries. “See that ‘M’ shape?”

Castle sits forward, genuinely tries to follow the direction of her index finger towards the sky, to locate the constellation she speaks of, and - oh, oh he sees it.

“There?” He traces the ‘M’ with his finger along the glass and Kate nods, actual excitement radiating from her body, transferring like waves of pleasant energy into his.

“Yeah, and to the left is Cepheus,” she continues, curling her knees up onto the seat, just a breath away from folding atop his thigh. “You know the Greek mythology behind stars, don’t you, Castle?”

“Mm, no, actually,” he replies, sitting back, narrowly avoiding the spring beneath the leather that always pokes him in the ass, settled comfortably in the middle instead. Sharing space with Kate Beckett. “I always wanted to know more, but I just never got around to it.”

“You’re missing out,” Kate quips, her gaze still roaming the sky, the stars alight in her eyes, brighter there than they are up above in the blanket of inky darkness.

Mythology, tales of gods and monsters and unfathomable heroic feats, doesn’t seem like something she would be interested in, not when he knows her stance on magic and fate, but he doesn’t want to question her intrigue in the subject, doesn’t want to dissect and overanalyze it.

Doesn’t ever want that spark in her eyes, the rare look of celestial wonder, to disappear.

“Fill me in,” he suggests, casting his gaze to the sky once more, attempting to find the stories she speaks of in the slew of constellations they can hardly catch a glimpse of in the city without a telescope.

Beckett is silent for a long moment, but he waits, releases a shallow breath of surprise when she relaxes beside him, the caps of her knees brushing his outer thigh, their arms flirting as she gets comfortable. Prepared to tell him a story.

“Cassiopeia used to be a queen,” she begins and Rick rests his head back against the top of the seat, tries to stare at the sky instead of her. Despite how severely she rivals their heavenly view. “But her vanity had her exiled to the sky in punishment.”

-

Rick drifts in and out of sleep beside her, dozing through her soft spoken lecture in Greek mythology, but he blinks and straightens every so often, tries his best to stay awake. She doesn’t mind, though, caught up in the stories her dad used to tell her when they’d sit in front of her telescope throughout the nights when she was ten years old on her bedroom floor, sometimes in the city, usually at the cabin.

The myths never fazed her, but the older she grew, the more fascinating she found them. The idea of being turned into a star, sentenced to illuminating the night sky for centuries to come, trapped but burning so bright.

“Don’t stop talking,” Castle mumbles, his head a mere inch away from falling to her shoulder, and part of her craves the warmth of it, the way she had felt waking up with her head on his chest only an hour ago, that split second of fleeting but blissful unawareness before memories of a dark room and bright lights and bruised necks had rushed back in.

“Hmm?” she replies, realizing she has in fact gone quiet, lost to the train of her thoughts, her eyes drifting from the constellations overhead to skate along his face.

She still wonders what it would have been like in the summer, in the Hamptons, with him, if they could have been on the beach, under a sky glittering with stars like they are now. Wonders if she could have curled into his side, pointed out constellations to him until his fascination was fed and the trace of his fingers up and down her arm became too much, until she shifted to find the dark blues of his eyes gazing at her instead of the stars, claimed the crescent moon of his upturned mouth. Two stars colliding, exploding-

“Like listening to you talk, Beckett. Great storytelling voice,” he continues, snapping her out of the silly - and totally inappropriate, jeez, Kate - fantasy.

“Great for putting you to sleep,” she retorts, watching his eyes slit open, ascending to locate her angled above him.

“Getting kidnapped by the men in black took a lot out of me, not my fault your voice can soothe me to sleep,” he quips, the corner of his mouth curling with a grin. “But I can promise you, I caught almost the entirety of the story about Cassie up there.”

“Cassie?” she chuckles, following the nod of his head towards his recently learned constellation.

“I want to learn more. We should have weekly stargazing sessions,” he muses and she hates herself, her utterly stupid heart, for internally jumping at the idea. “I actually have access to the roof on my building, and Alexis’s telescope… it’d be fun.”

Kate chews on her bottom lip, glances to Castle’s and lifts her gaze to his eyes when she notices the subtle breath he sucks in, the ripple of his throat as he catches the slide of her gaze to his mouth.

“Unless, of course - I mean, I know Josh is-”

“Not in the picture,” she fills in quietly, watching the constellations in his eyes come together, forming galaxies that illuminate the shades of blue as he shifts beside her, straightens in his seat and angles his body towards her.

“Kate-”

“Kinda sounds like the setup for date,” she hums, bearing witness to the explosion of those stars in his widened eyes, the supernova of colors shining bright and sprinkling stardust throughout his features, and she’s tempted to taste it on his parted lips.

‘It - yeah, it could be,” he murmurs, echoing the rise and fall of his gaze to her mouth and back again. “After this case? If the aliens don’t take us?”

Kate rolls her eyes. “Chances of the date are starting to dwindle.”

“Oh, I am so not getting abducted if it means missing a date with you,” he states, startling when a flash of light beams through the car, but it’s coming from their side. Headlights from Ryan and Espo’s cruiser.

“We’re going to find a completely logical, earthbound solution to this case, Castle.”

“And then we’re going to have a date under the stars,” he sighs, ridiculously wistful, but he grins at her, bright and true and making her heart leap, and she shakes her head, but… it sounded nice, kind of perfect, and she can’t wait.

The boys are emerging from their vehicle and Kate moves to join them on the road, but Castle catches her hand before they can exit the car, his thumb landing on the inside of her wrist, caressing the line of her pulse and momentarily stealing her oxygen, causing her lungs to stutter and seize.

“Thanks for showing me the stars, Beckett.”

[castanews530-blog]

One of the first short stories I’ve written...

Does The Coyote Ever Win?

You are like the Sun

With your smile being its rays

Beaming brightly and like a

Thompson Submachine Gun

It rips through my dark clouds

Of sadness and

Makes all my days.

I hope this isn't cheesy

Like a Packer fan at Lambeau field

But I really like you

And I’d like to be your boyfriend.

I gave this poem to my high school crush. The paper, once crisp and fresh from the binder, was crinkled and stained from age. The message however, was still fresh from the heart.

“Hey man, I think I like like a girl,” I confessed to my buddy, Tico, the day before I gave it to her. The lunch bell had rung and people squeezed out of classrooms towards the cafeteria or little food carts that were stationed just outside the cafeteria. People were with their cliques. Jocks in their lettermans howling in laughter over some penis joke, preppy girls covering their mouths in shock over some gossip, and geeks having a debate over whether Batman or Superman was better. We were under a shade of a tree, waiting for the rest of our friends to meet us there. He was tall, yet lanky. He carried a constant look of ogle on his face, as he checked out every female that walked by him. I was a little shorter than him, lean and handsome, although at the time nobody could convince me of this.

He dropped that look and his eyes widened.

“Really?! Who is it,” he demanded to know.

Having never shown much interest in women, he constantly made jokes about my sexual orientation. I was not surprised he was surprised.  

“Well,” I slowly started to sputter, “I-I kinda like Lyd-Lydia.”

“Her!?” he squawked with his jaw agape in confusion. “You’re joking, right?”

“What wrong with her?”

“Everything bro. She doesn’t have an ass or tits.”

“That’s not all a woman is.”

“Yeah it is.”

“Ok, maybe to you, but there’s more to a woman than that. There’s their personality, their character, and how they really make you feel.”

A voluptuous girl passed by and Tico gave her an eyeful. I did too.

“Well, I’m pretty sure I know how she makes me feel and it isn’t hard to figure out even though it’s literally hard.”

“Really? Is that all you think about, asses? Have you ever seen Forrest Gump?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Well, what Forrest and Jenny had, I want that. That bond they had together. Did you not see the beautiful moments they had together?”

“No, I fell asleep halfway through. It was a hella long movie.”

I gave up. Nobody seemed to be interested in deeper connections to each other. Especially him. The only connection he was concerned about was the one that happens between genitals of the opposite sex.

“Then what’s so special about her? Is she easy?”

“I don’t want her for that. She’s an amazing person, always smiling and bringing cheer to everyone when she high-fives everyone. I just want her to be with me like Jenny was to Forrest.”

“Hey, didn’t the Jenny girl avoid him for most of the movie?”

“I thought you fell asleep through the movie!”

“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”

“Nevermind that. I have been trying to figure out how to get her to like me.”

“Just ask her out.”

I was stunned. It had been on my mind for awhile.

“I can’t just ask her out. I haven't even talked to her besides saying hi and goodbye. I gotta talk to her first, right?”

“Just ask her out.”

“That’s it? That’s all I have to do? She’ll be my girlfriend if I just ask her?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“I don’t know, don’t I have to do something cool, like be good at some sport or be really smart that I can teach the class, or if ninjas came to kidnap her, I’d use some hidden kung fu ability in me to kick their asses, save her and ride off into the sunset?”

“You don’t even have a car.”

“That’s not the point, but still. All I have to do is ask her?”

“Hmm, if you don’t believe me then why don’t you write her a love letter.”

“Really? That works?”

“Yeah, I think it will. Girls like honesty or some shit like that.”

It started to make sense. It was perfect. I was a pretty good writer, even though I had never written any kind of poem before. If I could masterfully use my words to show her my feelings, then she’ll be by my side the moment she finished reading my passionate and romantic poem.

Later that evening I immediately went to my room. At my desk, littered with old papers and doodles, I searched my bag for a pen and some binder paper. The old stuff on my desk was cleared and expecting to start pumping out my amorous epic, I stared into the paper.  

My little brother then knocked on the door.

“Hey, that movie you like is on TNT!” he informed me.

“Which one?” I responded still staring at the paper.

‘The one about a guy named Harry and how he met Sally.” He answered.

“Oh, I think I’m gonna skip it for tonight.”

“Really?” he voiced with an air of bewilderment, “You always watch those cheesy movies! Are you ok?”

“Yes, I’m ok. Leave me alone.”

“Can I play the PS3 then?”

“Go for it.”

Suddenly animated, he ran to the living room.

Finally I convinced myself that whatever comes from my mind will be honest and true so without fear, I wrote nonstop for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, I told myself: She is gonna love it.

“Bro, she is gonna hate it .” I said the next day.

“Nah, man she’ll like it.” He was reading it and giggling.

“Then why are you laughing bro?”

“Nah man, you’re good. It’s fine. Make sure you give it to her.”

Lydia hasn't come in yet and I had to make a move. I made up my mind.

“Bro I don't think I can do this.” I said as I started to put the letter away in my backpack. Tico then abruptly reached in and snatched it.

“ I’ll do it.” he said as he rushed to Lydia’s desk.

“No! Wait!”

He left it on her her desk and when he got back to his respective seat, he gave me a double thumbs up.

“Hey!!!!” a shrill and feminine voice squealed out. Lydia had walked in. My face suddenly filled with the cold air of anxiety.

With black hair that she kept in a bun, she had soft hazel eyes, with a tranquil look. But her mouth was brimming with a smile as she greeted everyone joyfully. Her petite skinny frame walked around the class, making her rounds to say hi to everyone. She approached me and with that clarion voice, semi screamed out, “Wiley!!! What’s up!!!?”

“Um…. hi.” I managed to mumble out as I timidly smiled back. She smiled back and walked on to her desk while saluting the classmates on her way there.

As Lydia walked over to her desk, my face went from cold to hot as it sweltered up. I foresaw all the scnenarios that could occur. Maybe she will read it and smile at me across the room. Maybe she’ll read it and look at it in disgust. Maybe some sweet savior was gonna pull the fire alarm as a prank and as everyone would leave the room, I would snatch the letter and rip it up.

Lydia spotted the letter when she got to her desk. She put down her bags, picked up the letter and started reading it as she sat down with a serious look on her face. I could not bear to look at her reaction, so I just scoped on the teacher for the rest of class, never looking at Lydia’s direction.

When class finally ended, I was already out the door and free from a blundering disaster.

“Hey, Wiley!” a shrill voice resonated in the hall before students started to fill it. .

I stopped and looked back. Lydia stood there with the poem in her hand. She had a stoic stare.

“Hey, uh, Lydia.” I stammered out. I slowly walked towards her. I briefly looked at her eyes then away in angst towards the floor. Then I looked at her again.

“I read your letter,” she told me, looking at my eyes. Her face was not enthusiastic nor was it disgusted.

“Oh yeah? Um,....what… what did y-y-you think?” My heart was beating as if it was trying to get out of my chest like some Alien creature. That would have been preferable.

She took her time to find her words and with a fresh smile, she chimed, “Well, Wiley it was very nice!”

I saw hope.

“But I don’t really think of you that way. I really appreciate the letter, though.”

The hope was stomped on.. I was done. I had to transfer to another school. Another county. Another state. Mars was a possibility.

“Oh yeah, I mean,” I jittered, “that’s fine. I-I-I….,” Words could not leave my mouth. Visibly trembling, I looked up and took a breath.

“ ...had to try, you know,” I blabbered off as I turned and ran away. I could never face her again.

I spent the next 3 years in self-imposed exile. I spent my lunches in the band room where it was desolate of people, save for a few people practicing their instruments. I never talked to Tico again, since he was responsible suggesting and giving that poem to Lydia. I didn’t hang out with anyone. My evenings were filled with homework and early 90’s Tom Hanks romcoms. I still yearned for my Jenny, my someone to meet on top of the Empire State Building. But the fear of bungling another attempt to talk to a girl crippled me, until prom season came around.

Everywhere I went on campus, someone was asking someone else to prom. Some guy was able to get an extra large pizza with PROM? written on it with pepperoni. Another guy wrote it on his car. One guy simply got on top of the roof and screamed it out. I admired all these efforts in envy. I had to get a prom date. So as I went through one school day, I scouted for a girl I can like.

In one of my classes, I was sitting in my desk, browsing at all the females in my class. I was too afraid to make any move.

Suddenly a tap on the shoulder broke my concentration, and I turned around.

“Can I like, borrow a piece of paper?” said Liz, my classmate behind me. She had black hair with streaks of blonde. Chubby yet buxom, I found her sexually attractive, but she put on an overkill of make up. Her lips were bright red and her blush made her skin look like pastel. She also had a reputation of being easy, as I remember Tico telling me three years ago. But I decided to take the plunge.

“Um… yeah… sure, hold on, let me get it,” I suddenly said, “So… how’s your day going?”

“OK.” she guilelessly replied.

“That’s good.” I responded. “It’s pretty hot out there, huh.”

“I'm actually cold.”

“Oh really?” I nodded my head in search of a different topic, “You know… I’m wondering if you would… you know, like come with me….. um I mean…. if you would like to…. you know… get…. some… coffee?”

“Yeah, sure.”

I was astonished. I had finally gotten a girl to go get coffee with me!

“Ok, great…. um let’s go to that one Starbucks near the grocery store?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s cool.” she answered back.

“Alright then, see you then.” and turned back around. The class was barely starting.

Later that evening, I was waiting at a table outside the Starbucks with two frappucinos. I had asked her if she liked frappucinos, and she simply replied with “yea”.  A car pulled up and Liz exited it. She saw me and walked towards me.

“Hi” she said.

“Uh, hey,” I replied awkwardly at first, then quickly flashing the smile I had practiced in front of a mirror the night before. She smiled back and sat down. On a roll here.

“So I got you a caramel frappucino,” I told her, pushing the beverage towards her on the table, “I didn’t know if you liked whipped cream or not, but I thought that if you didn’t want whipped cream you could have mine which I ordered without whipped cream. Is that cool?”

“I don’t care.” she quaintly said.

“Oh ok, then I’ll take the whipped cream one. Unless you want it I mean, it’s totally cool if you want it.”

“It’s ok”

“Ok, then it’s settled.” and I took a sip of the beverage, while looking away from Liz.

“So what are you doing after you graduate?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, I see. Do you like, want to go somewhere?”

“Not really.”

“Mmm, that’s cool. Say have you got a prom date?”

“No.”

“Oh that’s interesting.”

“Yeah.”

I took another sip of my drink, and kept sipping for 10 minutes in silence.

“So I have to go,” Liz then said, “My mom only brought me here so she can shop and she’s done.”

“Oh that’s cool,” I said, then as she was about to get off from her seat, I hurriedly added in, “but-but hey maybe we could a movie on Friday?”

“Sure.”

“Great, I’ll see you then.”

Friday finally came, and I had decided to ask Liz to prom. Originally, I was going to get the movie theater to print out a ticket that said, Will you be my prom date? Unfortunately the employees  could not figure out how to work the machine so I decided to draw my own ticket and have her find it somehow.

With the fake movie ticket on hand, I waited for Liz outside the theater. A drove up and Liz exited it. Said our hi’s and went to the box office to get our tickets.

Once inside the auditorium, we sat on the right side with all the lover seats of two. We were armed with popcorn and drinks. I was still trying to figure out how to indirectly give her the ticket. She was constantly grabbing and eating her popcorn. So when she was not looking, I slipped the ticket in the popcorn bucket and stared at the movie screen. I surveilled her from the side of my vision, waiting for her to find the ticket, smile and say yes.

Thirty minutes have passed and she was still munching away at her popcorn, but she was starting to slow down. I was starting to get restless.

Suddenly, I hear a gasp and then a puking sound. I looked over and she was choking. I got up and I tried to stand her up. She stood up but fell to the littered ground, gasping for any air. I tried to do what I thought was CPR. I put my hands on her chest and she looked at me like a pervert. I pushed down and she moved my hands away in suffering anger. Finally someone else jumped in and did it correctly. She coughed out a piece of paper. It was my movie ticket.

At the beginning of the last week of school, for some reason I decided to get there really early. At five in the morning I set off to school, with the sun barely beginning to rise. This caused the sky to look purplish, as if night and day were mixed together. I walked through the chill suburb, and crossed the main streets that were starting to grow alive with people going to their jobs, truckers leaving after shipping in the night and bums starting to wake up from the bus benches.

The school was empty at this hour. The sun faced the bench and glimmers of it were slowly hit it. I took off my glasses and put them on my lap. A pretty girl then approached me, and asked me for directions to a classroom. I promptly got up and showed her where it was. She thanked me and I went back to the bench, proud of the good deed.

I sat down and took a book from my backpack. Then realized that I did not have my glasses. I inspected the bench and they were not there. I figured that I must have accidently put them in my locker, so I went over to my locker and tossed it around in search of my glasses. I gave up and went back to the bench blind.  

I noticed a person sitting on the bench as I walked over. It appeared to be a girl. I could not recognize her because of my Velma vision. Part of me wanted to go get my stuff and go somewhere else. But determined to learn how to talk to girls once and for all, I decided to engage her. I will make friends with this girl. It was my mission and I was going to accomplish it. It was Lydia.

“Lydia?” I astoundedly asked. Oh shit. Abort! Abort!!!! My mind rang out.

“Wiley!” she shrilled in delight.

“What are you doing here so early?” I asked.

“Well, my mom has work early in the morning and she’s using my car so I have to come to school at this hour.”

I chuckled, “This is funny. I never expected to see you at this hour.I never expected to see you at all!”

“Yeah, me neither!” she said. “Where are your glasses?”

“Oh, yeah, funny story. I think I lost them helping out a cute girl.” I said with a sly grin on my face.

Immediately she burst out laughing.

“That’s so funny. You are so clumsy Wiley.”

“I guess I am,” I chuckled.

As the sun began to rise and fully beam the bench as we engaged in deep conversation about what we had been up to.

We went to a Starbucks later that day. It was close to a supermarket, and the shoppers coming out were interesting looking characters. We made up stories about them. Middle aged guy with a shaggy beard was probably in Vietnam and if he talked to you, he would show you all his gun permits, tell you what he thought about Woodstock and go on a profanity laced rant about it even though you did not ask for it. A big lady wearing a nightgown with a cart full of cat litter. Most likely a crazy cat lady. Dude wearing a tight dress shirt, untucked, with slim jeans and dark shades even though it wasn’t even sunny, so he was most likely a axe spraying, womanizing douche. It beat looking at clouds.

She talked about how she loved golf, how she loved being a babysitter, and how close she was to her former middle school teachers. She was going to attend the same college as one of them.

I told her about my desires to help people too. How I wanted to be a lawyer and hopefully run for office. I admitted that I had my anxiety but I was willing to work on it.

For lunch the next day, we went to McDonalds. Lydia had her car so we would go through the drive thru. I’d order two McChickens and she would order a Happy Meal.

But we would also order twenty piece McNuggets for us both and eat them while she drove. I was the sauce man, holding the sauce for us both, while she, with one hand on the wheel, recklessly drove as she dipped and ate her nuggets. We were the fast food Bonnie and Clyde.

On a different night, we were eating at Panera Bread and I was enjoying my cheddar broccoli soup so much that I took the unfinished bowl with me without thinking when we left.

“Oh my god, Wiley!” She told me when we got in the car. “Did you just steal a bowl?”

“Oh Jesus, I did,” I said finally realizing what I did. “But it was so good!”

She stared at me with serious look, “Oh Wiley! You are going to get me in trouble! I am your accomplice!”

Oh no, not again.  This can’t be happening again.

She then broke her stare and busted out in laughter, “Oh, Wiley you are so clumsy and badass!”

Oh thank you, sweet baby Jesus.

“Yeah, so that means you are just as bad ass as me since you are my accomplice!” I responded back, with a brimming smile.

“ Um, excuse me? I was already badass, ok?” he mockingly said, “Have you seen Pulp Fiction?”

“Yeah, it’s a pretty awesome movie!”

“Well, you know what Samuel Jackson has inscribed on his wallet?”

“Yeah, bad ass motherfucker,” I laughed.

“That is what we are! Bad ass motherfuckers! We are BAMFs!”

I burst out laughing because I could not believe that such words would come out of someone so nice and respectful.

High school ended and we were both shipping out of town for college. I was bound for UCLA, while she was heading off to an all girl school in Missouri. On the last day before she was to leave, we hung out at the Starbucks.

When she drove into my driveway to drop me off, I looked at her with a serious look.

“You know, this last week with you was awesome, especially because of you.” I said. “You are really the best friend anyone can have. You cheer me up with that smile, and make me laugh.”

She looked at me, and then smiled with tears starting to develop.

“Wiley, I want you to know that you are an awesome guy, and you have been so important in my life, but I am just not about dating or things like that. And also we are young, and heading off in different directions. We have to expand our horizons and meet new people.”

I looked her and smiled, with tears starting to develop in my own eyes. “Ok, I understand. I really appreciate you being my BAMF.”

And with that we hugged tightly in the car.

“I gotta give it to you though,” she said after letting go of me. “That was better than that letter.”

“Hey, now, you told me you liked it!” I joked. And with that, we said our goodbyes and off she was to Missouri.

I found the poem in her belongings up in the attic. She had the Panera bowl. Pictures of us that she took. A wave of reminiscence washed through me. After sixty years of being together, 50 of those years married and with four kids, I realized I didn’t find my Jenny. Jenny was hardly together with Forrest. I found my Lydia. I may not have had the smoothest record with women, but nobody ever takes the same exact path to get to where they are going or to get what they want. Every path is unique, just like my Lydia.

I left the poem next to her when she was buried. Although I may be sad now, I know I’ll see her again. She came back into my life that last week of school. She came back after college to be with me and get married. By now, I know it’s not a coincidence.