#no he’d do what he’d like which is to smash the office and go off in the woods

[daydreamerdrew]

The Hulk! (1978) #26

[uluvjay]

Glory days- S. Vettel

Sebastian Vettel x wife! Reader

In which you ask your husband to fuck you like he did in your glory days

Warnings?; SMUT, p in v, unprotected sex(plz use protection!), oral(f receiving), fingering(f receiving), dirty talk, ass slapping, degrading, cursing, porn with a small plot, prob many errors & bad grammar 

Part of my 1k celly:)

You blamed the internet for being the reason you were seeking out your husband. The damn tik tok you scrolled upon showing your husband being drowned in champagne by two of his closest friends and then him showing his tongue with his index finger up to the world.

You loved the way Sebastian treated you in the bedroom, there was no doubt about that.

But the video had you missing the RedBull days where he was more wild and would have you pinned against a wall with tears streaming down your face as he spat things at you in German, how he’d tease you for so long you were sobbing and begging for him, the quickies in his drivers room while the entirety of the RedBull team were looking for him.

Finally finding him sat at his desk in the office you snuck up behind him, running your hands down his chest to signal your presence.

“Hi meine Liebe” he smiled taking your hand in his, bringing it to his lips.

“Hi” you greeted back.

Turning around in his chair the man smiled up at you before pulling you onto his lap.

“The girls go down easy?”

“By the second story they were both snoring” he laughed at the thought of his sweet twins fast asleep.

“I’m glad, they love having you put them to bed” you beamed snuggling deep into his chest.

“And I love doing it”

You two sat like that for a minute , his large hand running along your back while he replied to emails he’d been putting off.

“Hey Seb?” Your soft voice broke the comfortable silence.

“Yes darling?”

“Remember the night you won your third championship?” You smirked at the sound of the him taking a sharp breath.

“Of course I do, what about it?” He coughed slightly shifting underneath you.

“Remember how drenched we were in champagne? How you poured it down my chest before licking it up? How you made me come three times in three different ways?”

A cry tore from your throat when his hand slotted in your hair and pulled you from his neck.

“What are you trying to do here Schatz?” He grunted

“I just…We haven’t gone at it like that in a long time, and don’t get me wrong I still love the way you fuck me but I kinda miss us being messy and rough” you spoke looking up at him with his favorite doe eyes.

A growl, an actual growl broke from the mans throat before he smashed his lips against yours, the kiss was hot and sloppy, something familiar but yet forgotten.

His free hand reaching down to grip your hip, pulling you so close you could feel his chest moving in and out against your own.

“Seb” you panted pulling away from his lips.

“What?”

“I need you, please. I need you to fuck me so hard that I don’t remember my own name-like you used to.” You begged the blonde.

Without anymore pleading he slipped his hands under your thighs before standing and making his way down the hall.

“Seb you passed the bedroom” you spoke with confusion.

“I know”

Confusion clouded your mind for a moment until you realized he was opening the door to one of your guest rooms.

“Further from the girls, don’t wanna risk your pathetic noises waking them” he spat, his hands hastily pulling your leggings down.

Slotting himself between your thighs he began trailing soft kisses against the insides of your thighs, lips brushing right past your wet cotton panties.

“Seb, please” you begged.

“Hush Kleiner Hase” he smirked at the yearning whimper that broke from your throat at the name.

His torturing kisses continued along your skin, nipping and sucking along the skin coaxing whines and whimpers from you.

“Sebastian baby-please, I need you” you begged, hands running through his soft and overgrown curls.

“Your the one that asked for this baby, wanted me to take care of like I used to.” He tutted and as much as you wanted to argue he was right.

Sebastian hardly made you wait anymore, usually due to the fact that kids made it hard for you two to take your time.

Finally running his fingers over the elastic of your panties Sebastian hooked a finger in the material and pulled them down your legs.

“So wet for me” breathed, mouth watering at the sight of your dripping folds.

“Oh god seb please” you whined.

Your body was aching for him at this point, wanting nothing more than his body pressed against yours while he fucked you silly and made you come over and over again.

A groan left your husbands throat as he left kisses along your folds, his tongue teasingly running through them. Your body shuddered at the feeling of his mouth finally coming into contact with your cunt.

Your fingers gather his hair in a vice grip, pulling on the locks so hard it had Sebastian whimpering.

“Feels so good Seb” you heaved, body shivering as he ate you like a starved man.

His tongue ran along your folds, moving in multiple different patterns while his nose bumped and prodded against your clit.

Sebastian’s hands pinned your hips down as you attempted to grind against his face, a sharp slap against your skin letting you know to knock it off.

Your thighs shook as you felt the knot in your stomach tighten by the seconds, your moans getting louder and your tugs on Sebastian’s hair getting harder.

“M’ gonna-fuck, gonna cum seb” you cried out.

“Go on pretty girl, cum for me. Want you to cum all over my face.” He encouraged as he slipped two fingers inside you to help guide you to your high.

You arched your back, breath quivering as you came, thighs closing around Sebastian’s head drawing the man even closer to your cunt then before.

Broken sobs escaped your throat as you came down from your high, Sebastian left wet kisses along the skin of your lower stomach while his fingers continued to work you open.

“So pretty Schatz” he cooed in your ear before your body was flipped over and you were placed on your knees with your face shoved into the comforter.

You could feel him shuffling before the warm head of his cock was placed against your folds, teasingly running through the cum and spit covered skin.

Sebastian shuddered as he slipped inside, his hands gripping your hips so hard you knew there’d be bruises in their place tomorrow.

“My fucking god..” he growled at the way your walls hugged him.

He could hear your muffled cries as he kept up a brutal pace, the sounds of skin slapping mixing in with your shared moans filled the room.

Your breath hitched with every thrust, you could feel every ridge and vain as he split you open. His deeps grunts and growls making you clench even tighter around him.

“Ah-fuck. Seb it feels so good” you whimpered as he placed a foot onto the soft mattress to allow him a deeper angle over your body.

“Yeah? Like when I fuck you like a little slut?” He spat, leaning his body over your back to whisper in your ear.

The man got nothing but muffled cries in return as your body squirmed underneath his, your toes curling in pleasure as he fucked you deep.

“Clenching me so tight” he panted into your neck.

Your breath hitched at every thrust, the heat in your lower stomach getting hotter and hotter by the second.

“Se-oh!-m’ gonna cum” you stuttered.

He smirked at the way your body shook due to his movements, how you cried as his hand came down hard against your plump ass.

“Go on Meine Liebe, come all over my cock like a good whore” he taunted as his thrusts picked up and soon his hand was placed on the back of your head; shoving your face into the mattress.

Your mouth opened in a silent scream, body trembling, and toes curling as your climax washed over you. Your entire body shook as Sebastian kept going, his thrusts unforgiving as he chased a high of his own.

Grunts filled the room as Sebastian felt the familiar shiver run down his spine and he came deep inside you, your cunt milking him dry.

He smirked at the sight of your fucked out face when he turned your body over, tear tracks covered your red cheeks as you panted for air.

“So pretty Liebling” he shushed as he ran his thumb along your warm cheek.

“Tha-that was amazing” you laughed as you pulled his body down to press against yours.

“Yeah?” He smirked as he placed kisses along your neck.

“Mhm”

“I’m glad because I’m far from being done with you”

-

[intothedysphoria]

It was expected that moving in together, there’d be some initial teething problems but Steve hadn’t quite thought that Billy was going to break his bubbe’s antique vase with a yo-yo.

Well, in fairness, Steve had seen Billy do far worse. Drop a baseball bat onto a car windshield from a third floor window, vandalising the mayors office, that one time he threatened to establish a nudist cult. Billy lived to shock people and now that they were in a relationship, Steve appeared to be the prime target.

Fucking hell.

The relationship wasn’t exactly public and the moving in wasn’t exactly official, which may have been causing some of the tension. Neil Hargrove would still rock up every night, screaming every word under the sun at Billy but never stepping a foot over the threshold. Because he was a coward, Billy said. But he was still spooked.

Thus, coming to the point where Billy had smashed his bubbe’s antique vase with a yo-yo. Breathing heavily with shards of pottery imbedded deep into his hand. Then he looked up at Steve, audibly gulped and ran for the bathroom.

It took a while to get Billy out. He’d point blank refuse if he was in one of his bad patches, seeming to prefer to simmer in isolation than to turn to help. But Steve was patient and always wore him down. He just had to sit and wait.

Eventually the bathroom door opened with a quiet flick of the lock. Billy’s face was unusually blank, apart from the red rimmed eyes that clearly denoted that he’d been crying. Steve cautiously tried to go in for a hug only to get a grunted “I’m fucking fine Harrington” and an angry teenager barrelling past him.

Which was not exactly ideal.

Steve cleared up the shattered vase on the floor, silently apologised to all his cousins who were still in Romania and knocked on Billy’s door. The groan of acknowledgment made Steve feel like he was good to come in.

What Billy had managed to do was bleed all over the floor and go through about ten cigarettes if the slowly growing pile on the floor was anything to go by. Steve’s offer to clean up his hands got an eye roll but no obvious resistance so he went ahead.

It wasn’t until Steve had managed to create a rudimentary bandage for Billy’s hands that Billy actually looked at him, now appearing more than slightly sheepish. There was a blush slowly rising over his cheeks that looked so genuinely adorable Steve just wanted to kiss it.

Instead he pulled back and asked “you doing ok Hargrove?”

Billy snapped “why the fuck wouldn’t I be” which didn’t exactly bode well for Steve’s plan to sort the situation out and put it to bed.

“Well you know, you seemed kind of upset earlier so I thought I’d ask” Steve had learned over the months of knowing Billy that it was best to not sound accusatory and instead act like it was no big deal.

Billy stayed silent for a few minutes while Steve just waited for him to be ready to form a response until he blurted out “it just pisses me off so much how he treats us. It’s bullshit!”

Steve didn’t need to ask who the “he” Billy referred to was. Instead he set a hand on Billy’s knee in a way that would hopefully be soothing, not annoying and rubbed small circles on Billy’s leg while he breathed.

“I know” Billy looked up quizzically, clearly wondering where Steve was going with this. “I know it’s bullshit and I wish it were different now but it will be in the future I promise. We’re gonna move you back to Cali, Neil’s sorry ass is gonna stay here and everyone who ever hurt you can get fucked. Ok?”

Billy sniffed loudly before nodding an affirmative, then wrapping Steve into his arms, doing what Steve knew he’d swear later wasn’t crying. He then leaned in to give Steve a surprisingly tender kiss on the lips and smacked his ass. Something Steve probably should have expected.

“Come on, let’s go watch Halloween before Munson holds us hostage because we haven’t watched a John Carpenter yet.”

Things weren’t perfect after that. Neil was still an ever looming presence in their lives, Billy still got pissed off and broke shit, they still fought pretty much weekly at least and Steve had expected that. It was what he’d signed up for in dating Billy. But Billy was still out to shock people.

Leaning across Billy’s chest, not dealing with a horror film nearly as well as Billy was but still having a hand gently squeezing his shoulder to make sure he was ok was the best shock Steve had ever been given.

[keyh0use]

We know how well Barry comforts Rafe, but I’m curious if you have written about Rafe comforting him (or trying to, anyways) when Barry cries either openly in front of him or when he thinks Rafe can’t hear/see him? Can’t help but wonder how he’d deal with it

Have I written published pieces about this? Probably...you don't read my stuff and I write too much to even remember what happened in the previous chapter of whatever I'm currently working on, so really your guess is as good as mine. Unfortunately I can never settle on a proper hc for how Barry was brought up; big, loving family who lend support and thrive off physical affection or a broken, abusive one. Which plays a big part in how I think this scenario would go. Regardless, I do make him very emotional because I feel he is underneath all the sarcastic comments, and that his chill persona is only 50% real. But he masks well after so much practice, either from his upbringing or the army or drug dealing.

Rafe doesn't care about some stranger whining about a breakup in the country club bathroom or one of Rose's snobby friends sobbing in the pool house after one too many margs BUT he's not unfeeling or clueless when it comes to those he cares about. I've written and hc that Rafe was responsible for his sisters a lot of the time growing up, mainly Wheezie, because Ward was very untrusting when it came to who he let around his children unsupervised. (In case they revealed something, embarrassed the family name, got a reputation for not looking after his own kids, etc.) So Rafe is a pro at making a slow, calm approach followed by easy questions, picking away at the tension until whoever is ready to let it all out. He'll side-hug and shush softly and then provide solutions, because solving the problem is how he would show he cares.

At least that's what worked with Wheezie when her ant farm smashed on the driveway after show-and-tell (Rafe helped her order a new starting kit and cleaned up the broken glass and dirt) or when Sarah had a project due the next morning she forgot about. (He knew where the key to his father's office was and broke in to raid the supplies closet, then spread out on his sisters bedroom floor to help her glue information cards to Bristol board)

But would Barry appreciate Rafe trying to step in and tell him what he should do? I doubt it. Chances are Barry already knows what needs to happen and is just frustrated and overwhelmed. In the early days he could lash out, act angry in place of hurt and it would be convincing. He would tell Rafe to leave him alone, or he'd rush outside with the excuse to smoke or take a call and hide around back. If Barry cries, there's a chance Rafe would be able to tell, so he practices breathing to calm himself down like he's taught himself to do when he was hiding away in his childhood bedroom or surrounded by dozens of other men in the barracks. (I mean think of when the pogues robbed him. Was his first instinct to hunt down Rafe at the country club and subtly ask for help? Yeah. Is it likely he went home and kicked the now empty bag his stolen money was stuffed in before collapsing on the bed to shed a few tears? Also, yeah. I hc that Barry sends all his spare cash home but even if that's not the case, there goes his car payments and rent/mortgage, and rainy day fund and any potential trip to the emergency room.)

So...I don't know that this would happen before there's something serious between them, because I think Barry would go to great lengths to avoid any potential slip-up with big feelings, besides anger, since men don't tend to think that's an emotion. (And this isn't just about crying, either. He'd fall for Rafe hard and keep his mouth shut, suffer through months of lingering touches and longing stares because like hell is he showing his belly first) I mean I could write it, but I don't think it would be very interesting..

Alright, so they're dating or whatever, and Rafe comes back to a silent trailer. Barry's definitely off work and his truck (or whatever vehicle you want buddy to have) is parked in the usual spot in the makeshift driveway. Fishing poles are by the front door right where they were left last night, worn-out wallet is on the scuffed-up kitchen table, dirty boots are left by the couch. Rafe would creep down the hallway and peek into the cramped bedroom to find Barry on the edge of the bed, face in his hands and shoulders shaking. It wouldn't be loud and whiny and dramatic, frankly, like Rafe cries but it's unmistakable what the older man is doing.

And it would naturally freak Rafe the fuck out because it's such a foreign sight. Rafe would tell himself to approach the older man as if he's dealing with Sarah or Wheezie but abandon that the moment he hears a sniffle, rush in and kneel and try to get Barry to look at him, talk to him, give him one single hint about what's wrong. And Barry would be so embarrassed even though he's been on the other side of this interaction a million times before, tears are dripping off his jaw and his face feels so hot and Rafe is bombarding him with questions. What happened? Did I do something? Is it your mom? Barry, what happened? Are you mad at me? Did I do something? (He's insecure, of course he is, and is so used to being the problem so Barry can't blame him for worrying) And Barry would shake his head but wouldn't answer. So Rafe would lay him back, hold him and it's strange for both of them. Rafe would untangle unruly curls with slender fingers and chew on the nails of others, trying to keep from prying and upsetting the dealer any more. Barry would feel so, so embarrassed; open his mouth and close it, contemplate shrugging the whole thing off and pretending everything is fine. Then something small would make him cave like Rafe wrapping him up in an awkward hug (that's crushing, despite the odd position they're in) or kissing his head, and then he would have to let it all out.

Or, better, Barry would know he's safe with Rafe and seek his boy out when upset. This feeling inside him has been building and building until it reaches a dangerous crest and if he doesn't get it out, he'll probably lose it. So he waits with wet eyes for Rafe to show up, long legs barely over the threshold when Barry knocks into him. Yeah, it's the first time Barry has cried in front of Rafe and so what, the kook is relieved and grateful he's being trusted. (Even if his heart was beating erratically when he felt the collar of his (pink) shirt dampen) In either scenario, or any scenario the older man is crying really, I'm sure Barry would be plagued with doubt about the whole thing. Since the very beginning of their relationship, they fell naturally into certain roles...would Rafe think of him as less of a man now? Would Rafe stop crying to him? Would Rafe treat him like he's fragile? Was Rafe laughing with his little kook friends behind Barry's back? No, of course not. All his worries are settled when Rafe doesn't look at him differently afterwards. Once Barry's tears have been wiped away, his kook is being just as bratty and arrogant as usual, expecting Barry to act as a guard dog (when Rafe is quite literally so fucking capable of handling himself, not that Barry's ever complaining) and carry in all the groceries and let Rafe be passenger princess and toss him around in bed, not even bringing up what happened earlier that day.

[clickerflight]

Esial: Part 10 - Night walk

Aaaaand we're back, bois!!! I know I said I was going to do Fallen, but Fallen is complicated in my head right now so I came over here. Hopefully there will be even more writing since I'm feeling recovered from the story I put on here in October.

Masterlist

Part 9

Content: Mostly just sad boi hours. Mentions of tramatic expiriences and that's about it. Our boi does break down.

..........................................

Joseph was tired, but significantly more relaxed as he went back into work after his day off. He had to keep from opening his phone to look at the pictures he’d taken with Muir at the museum together. 

He reached the front desk to pick up the paperwork he needed to do for the evening before he got on with his other tasks and nodded to the vampire behind the counter. 

“Evening, Paliop.”

“Evening,” she said, not looking up from what she was typing. “You clocked in?”

“Not yet.” 

“I’ll wait to tell you, then.”

Joseph felt his heart sink as he opened his phone and clocked into work. He put his phone back and asked, “What?”

“Now, don’t get too freaked out,” she said in the way of person who fully understood that you would freak out upon hearing their next words, “But there was an accident with Esial yesterday. One of the glass hallways got smashed and he got roasted. I did most of the paperwork for you since you weren’t there and it needed to be done quickly. I deserve a coffee for that, by the way. But he’s fine. Anastasia took it upon herself to watch after him and he seemed fine. Well, as fine as he could be, I guess. It would probably be a good idea if you talked to him.”

Paperwork and chatting would have to wait, then.

“Right,” Joseph said, trying to keep the sigh out of his voice. “I’ll get right on that, then. Thanks.”

Paliop nodded and went back to typing as Joseph picked up his packet of paperwork, stopping at his office to drop it off, and headed through the halls to Esial’s door. He didn’t hear anything inside, though he could smell the ancient vampire. Esial was a strange dilemma. He was so incredibly old, but really not mentally older than a couple centuries. It made the task of helping him a little more tricky. Joseph would of course do his best, but it was a lot to try and navigate on top of all of his other tasks. 

He knocked gently on the door and listened quietly as there was movement inside. 

Esial opened the door, dark eyes watching Joseph with a softness that wasn’t there before. 

“Hello,” Esial said politely before simply turning and disappearing into the darkness of his room. Right. Even before Esial’s incident he was a loner. Manners weren’t really necessary out on your own. 

Esial came back with the two crocodiles that Joseph and Muir had picked out for him, one tucked under each arm. Joseph noticed the damage the two appeared to have taken, and after a long moment of silence, Joseph asked, “Did you like them? I hope it didn’t upset you. I just wanted to get you something that might help.”

Esial looked down at each one carefully and nodded. “Yes. They are….” he cleared his throat and Joseph recognized the emotion that filled his face. “They are good.”

“Do… did you name them?”

Esial nodded. He turned to show the one with damage to the tail and said, “This is Jesep. And this one is Keta. They were… my favorite crocodiles.”

Joseph nodded. “Right. I’m glad I got them for you, then. Um… do you want to go for a walk?”

Esial hummed. “Is it dark?”

“Yes.”

He nodded and turned, putting the crocodiles back and coming back out with a cloak that appeared to have been made of one of his blankets. Joseph didn’t comment as he turned to lead the way to an exit, opening the door for Esial. 

They stepped out onto the grass, which had Esial pause to feel the soft plant life on his bare feet before he continued. 

Joseph put his hands in his pockets and cleared his throat as they started walking. “So, I know that things are… confusing. And hard for you. I want to help you in any way that I can. If you have questions you can ask me or anyone else, for that matter. We want to help you feel comfortable in the world again and go on living your life.”

Esial was silent, but nodded faintly, watching the ground in front of him as they walked, like he was making sure he wouldn’t step on anything that could hurt him. 

“I think we’ll just start you off in the language classes. You’ve learned English really quickly, actually, but I know it’s hard to really get everything when you still don’t-”

“You lied to me. You said they were called forms. They are called paper.”

Joseph nearly choked on his surprise at the accusation. He searched his memory and faintly remembered the small talk they had at the precinct. “Oh, right. I didn’t lie to you, Esial, though I should have been more clear. I’m sorry. Do you want me to explain what forms are?”

Esial seemed to approve of the apology and nodded. 

Joseph breathed an internal sigh of relief and said, “Right. So, paper is a sheet made from wood pulp. It’s used to write things down on.”

“Oh,” Esial said, nodding a little. 

“The things written down on them can have different names as well. Like when you start classes, you’ll be giving homework, which is usually paper with the tasks witten on it given to you to help you learn. And forms are kind of like that. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to explain it very well to you, but forms are just important things written down on paper so we can look at them and remember what happened.”

Esial nodded, brow wrinkled with thought. “Okay. I understand.”

Joseph, once again relieved, said, “Learning a new language is hard. You’ll get it, though. Hey, I heard you made a friend yesterday. Anastasia, right?”

Esial nodded again. “Yes. Although, I do not know if we are friends.”

“Ah, gotcha,” Joseph said. “Well, she wouldn’t be a bad friend to have.”

The two vampires walked through the dark for a few more paces in silence, Esial still watching the ground and giving no indication of what he was thinking until he spoke again. 

“I do not think I am safe for the humans to be around.”

“Oh?” Joseph asked, more worried than confused this time. 

Esial nodded. “I… ever since I drank her blood, I want to drink theirs. I was hurt and I wanted to bite the human who came to help. I do not want to hurt them, but I want human blood all the time now.”

Joseph was surprised by this revelation and asked, “Wait, you never had any human blood before Joanna?”

Esial shook his head. “Only hippo blood and grains. Occasionally pig’s blood.”

“Ah,” Joseph said. “I’m surprised. Being a vampire born in the age you were, I would have thought you needed human blood to stay healthy.”

Esial shrugged. “I feel…. Stronger now. Breath better, sleep easier.”

Joseph nodded slowly. “Sounds like you needed some human blood. Animal blood will get you by, but you would have eventually gotten sick. I’ll get you into one of the therapists that help with the bloodlust issues. Controlling yourself really isn’t that hard and they can train you to help you keep your cool in intense situations so you don’t bite anyone on accident. Okay? You’ll be fine.”

“You’re sure?” Esial asked doubtfully. 

“Yes. I’m sure. We have a lot of vampires who have some issues with controlling their thirst. We have people who will be able to help you pretty easily. Alright?”

Esial relaxed and nodded. “I am… glad. It is strange to not be on my own in things anymore.”

“I can imagine. Were you always alone? Besides your crocodiles?”

Esial shook his head. “No. I lived in a village with my parents, once.”

“How and when did you turn, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“There was a man traveling through. He spoke to my father about his magic… I think my father refused? I cannot remember well. The man stole me in a rage. I don’t remember anything until my father found me. I was unable to die after that, and I craved the blood of the forest creatures.”

Joseph nodded. “Do you remember what the man looked like?”

Esial shook his head, leaving Joseph not surprised but a little disappointed. There was a tale told by the older vampires that the whole stock of them originated from a single man who had gained immortality at the price of almost everything else. The stories changed from telling to telling, but Joseph entertained the idea and asked because Esial was old enough it was possible he had been turned by the oldest of the vampires. 

“That’s alright. It was probably pretty traumatic. You don’t have to try and remember it for me.”

Esial nodded. They fell into another silence, this one a little more comfortable than the last before a detail registered in Joseph’s mind. 

“Wait, magic? Your father could use magic?”

“Yes.”

“And he was human.”

“Yes. Is that strange?”

“Well, there’s never been a first hand account of a magic user being human. Some vampires can use magic and there’s a few giant folk around still that can give it a go, but no humans.”

Esial simply shrugged. “My father used magic. He created a stone for me that would protect me from the sun. It was the last thing I had of the village when that man came back and killed all of them while I was hunting for blood. I did not see him, but I recognized his smell.”

“I’m so sorry, Esial,” Joseph said softly. He wanted to hold back, to not let his curiosity and burning eagerness take from this moment, but he had to know. “That stone must have been incredibly precious to you. What happened to it?”

“I lost it,” Esial said, stopping in his tracks with great sorrow in his voice. “I lost it while I was being hunted. It was how they finally caught me.”

He rubbed at his eyes as Joseph gently put a hand on his shoulder, but Esial dropped out from under Joseph’s hand, soft sounds escaping his lips as he buried his face in his crouching knees. 

Joseph sat down in the grass next to him, folding his hands in his lap while he waited. 

Esial cried for a long time, occasionally slipping into the ancient forgotten language he had been raised with, pleading or apologizing from the tone of it over and over and over again until he finally calmed down. 

He slowly leaned back till he sat on his butt, uncurling his legs and staring at his feet. 

Joseph opened his mouth to say something, to comfort him or ask him if there was anything Joseph could do, but Esial got there first. 

“Kyle,” he said, voice still watery. “I would like to speak with Kyle.”

Part 11

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[shostakobitchh]

chapter 60: sneak peek!

Remus had slowly come back to the world of conscious beings Sunday morning, when the sunlight had beamed behind his eyelids and woken him up. 

He staggered to the toilet and managed to lift himself into the tub long enough to actually get a bath going. He fell asleep — again — to find the bath overflowing and became very annoyed that the castle didn’t have the sense to stop something like that from happening. 

There was a note from Snape on his nightstand where he returned, along with a cloudy vial. 

Drink this. Now. 

There was something scratched out underneath it — Remus could almost make out an obscenity. 

Do NOT take on an empty stomach unless you want to give yourself an ulcer. 

There was an “I don’t care either way” somewhere in there, but Remus was too tired to feel annoyed by Snape’s callousness. Remus downed the potion and then rinsed his mouth out for the fifth time, iron between his molars, his tongue dry and heavy. 

Maybe he was dying. Maybe this was his punishment — being eaten alive by what he could not say aloud. 

"Or perhaps," Remus murmured aloud, breaking the silence. "I am already dead, and this is my purgatory." 

The room gave no response, and Remus collapsed back onto the bed with a groan. He nearly dozed off again before he shook off the haze and stood up, put on his robes, and started making a pot of tea. Lily had given him a particular blend during her last trimester, when she’d finally been able to match his level of fatigue, a calming concoction meant to soothe the nerves. It wasn’t much, but he hoped it would stave off his constant exhaustion, at least momentarily. 

With unsteady hands, he poured the hot water into his mug and watched as the steam curled up towards the ceiling.

And then, there came a soft knock from the door. 

“Professor Lupin?” a muffled voice called hesitantly. 

Remus went very still. 

Ariel. 

He hadn’t seen her since Halloween — well, he’d seen her, but he certainly hadn’t tried to have another conversation with her. Between Sirius and the full moon and Snape’s deadly suspicion, Remus had been forced to push Ariel to the back of his mind, a painful reoccurrence that he'd hoped would fade. 

But hopes, Remus had learned long ago, were brittle and easily broken.

"Professor Lupin?" the knock repeated, a touch louder this time. Ariel's voice was perfectly composed, so unlike the last time they’d spoken, her thin face shining bright with betrayal she didn’t even know the true depths of. 

But then Professor Snape said something — 

You knew him, didn’t you? My dad — 

My dad my dad my dad 

I told you I heard him with the Dementors — 

It took Remus a moment to summon himself back into the present, fingers tightening around the warm mug as if it could provide some form of fortitude. He thought of Sirius smashing mugs the night James had told them they’d need to go into hiding — for the baby. 

Did you — know me? 

Remus threw the door open. 

Ariel looked momentarily startled before her eyes widened as she took in his appearance. 

“Hello,” she said, very matter of factly. She folded her hands together tightly in front of her, cheeks rosy from the chill of the corridor outside, which seemed to seep down into Remus’ bones. 

He raised an eyebrow at her, rallying his parched vocal cords to sound somewhat normal, but nothing came out. 

She swallowed, as though she were steeling herself, and lifted her chin up at him. “Can I come in?” 

Remus didn’t know what else to do, so he gave a nod and stepped aside. 

She glanced around the small chamber, eyes taking in the cluttered desk, the rumpled sheets of his bed that had wound up on his office floor, the worn out rug beneath their feet. Remus could almost see her mind cataloging each detail. 

“I came to talk,” Ariel finally said, crossing her arms up at him. Something shimmered in the back of her dark eyes, something hard and quick. “About Halloween — but you look dreadful.”

How very Lily-esque of her, being that blunt. Remus had to swallow his laugh. 

He rubbed a hand over his face and smiled. “Thank you.” 

“I’m serious,” Ariel scowled. “Hasn’t anyone been taking care of you?” 

Something like a fist curled around his heart. “There isn’t much to be done, unfortunately.” 

She didn’t look like she liked that answer very much. She did that strange movement with her jaw again, which gave Remus an even stranger sense of deja vu before her dark eyes flicked back up at him. “Is there anything I can do?” 

The question hung in the air between them, hanging heavily like the truth that remained unsaid. Remus felt a chill run down his spine, an instinct telling him to move away from this dangerously innocent question.

Her face fell when he did not answer, before something like resolve twisted her lips and corners of her eyes. 

“I’m still quite cross with you,” Ariel began. 

“I figured.” Remus said automatically. 

She scowled. “I’m being serious.” 

"So am I.” 

There was a quiet moment between them, punctuated by the distant ticking of the clock somewhere in his office. The silence made Ariel uncomfortable — he could see it in the way her eyes darted around the room, avoiding eye contact. 

"But," she started again with some hesitation. "I don't want to be mad at you anymore. I — I want to understand."

Remus crossed the room, motioning for her to sit. He took the chair behind his desk as he Summoned a mug for her, floating it to her as she chewed at her lip and settled her rucksack at her feet. He tried to muster together every ounce of energy he had — and perhaps it was the adrenaline kicking in, the prospect of explaining, of clearing the air that made him feel suddenly alert.

“I owe you an explanation.” Remus’ voice was rough.

“If that’s what you think,” Ariel shrugged, but her voice was cold, colder than Remus would’ve liked. 

His gaze burned into the worn desk between them, the murky brown of his tea reflecting back at him. For a moment, he wished he could lose himself in it, drowning out Ariel’s expectant stare.

“I could give you many reasons,” he began. “But I’m afraid none of them would suffice. Your parents would be — just as cross, I’d imagine — were they here. They wouldn’t really credit anything as good enough for why I’ve been so distant, why you’ve never heard from me. I — I owed your parents more than that. I owe you more than that. I made them many promises, and I’m afraid I have broken them. I know I can’t rectify it, not completely, but I can hope that I can start with — this.”

Ariel watched him with an intense stare, her features unreadable. Then, folding her arms across her chest, she tipped her head slightly, as if contemplating his words. “What does that mean — this?” 

“Answering your questions. And explaining my absence.”

Her eyebrows furrowed. “Just how — how close were you? I didn’t recognize you in any of the photographs. I had a whole trunk full of them that Mum left.” 

He shifted his gaze away guiltily. “That would be my doing. I took most of the pictures with me after — everything. I didn’t think I would ever see you again, if I’m being quite honest.” 

"And why did you think that?" Ariel asked, her tone sharpening. "Did you not want to see me?”

"No, Ariel." Remus' voice was strained. "It's not that at all."

The intensity faded from Ariel's eyes as she watched him, replaced by a glimmer of something else. There was the same stubborn tilt to her chin that her mother used to have — a defiant little twist of her lips that James had never worn. It kept dawning on Remus, over and over, that he could not find James in her, and it hurt more than he would ever admit.

The silence that followed was a tangible thing, expanding until it filled every corner of the room. Ariel's gaze did not waver, fixed on Remus in a relentless demand for answers. He could not recall Lily or James’ own stares holding such power — even Lily, who had snarled and bit at every attempt to make her more comfortable, to everyone who had tried to tell her what to do, whether it was well-intentioned or not. 

She would have snarled for him to stop with the bullshit already. James would have cut through it already, seen down to that unreachable, shiny thing he saw in everyone. 

"I didn't want to see you because I didn't want you to see me," Remus admitted finally.

Slowly, Ariel set the mug of tea down on the surface of the desk, the sound shockingly loud.

"I don't understand." she confessed, her voice little more than a murmur.

"You're not supposed to." Remus replied, running a hand through his graying hair in frustration. "I didn't want you to know me as I am now. I wanted you to remember me as I was — when your parents were still alive and everything was — better."

"But I don’t remember you.” 

“I know. And I — I would think it was for the best.” 

She looked genuinely stunned. 

“How could it be for the best?" her voice shook suddenly, betraying the fierce composure she had clenched onto thus far. "I grew up without any of you. I didn’t even know what they looked like until I found Mum’s trunk.” 

Remus's gaze dropped to his hands, lost in the aged lines and scars. "Ariel, we were in a war. We were all soldiers, all risking our lives every day. I didn't want that to be your first memory of us. Or your last."

"You should have let me decide for myself," Ariel said, her anger simmering just beneath the surface. “That’s a pretty bad excuse, if you think the war that took them from me was the reason to keep them away forever.”

"I suppose it is," he conceded softly, his throat tight with regret. 

Ariel watched him quietly, her eyes reflecting a strange mixture of anger, confusion and an inkling of understanding. It was that last emotion that startled Remus — how could such a young girl understand the complexities of his guilt? How could she understand the countless nights he had spent haunted by it, shrouded in loneliness? He knew what she was getting at — they could of had one another, could have had that much at least, but the full moon and the horror of that night, knowing they were all gone — all of them — 

The memory cut through him with icy precision, slicing open old wounds. The grim despair through which Albus had told him — Remus, half-mad with grief and blaming himself for not being there. The way the world seemed to end and start anew in the same dreadful moment. And the baby — the baby had truly been collateral, but before he could even comprehend what had happened — last piece of a puzzle he wished he could forget — yet he wouldn't dare to, because forgetting meant losing them completely — 

Ariel’s voice cut through the past, threatening to drag Remus somewhere he’d buried, somewhere thick with dirt and darkness. 

"I guess it doesn't matter now," she said, her voice quiet but resolute. She stood up, the slight tremor in her hand the only sign of any inner turmoil. "But I would — like the chance now — now that I have a say. At least, I think I do.” 

Remus blinked, the shadow of his grief lifting in the face of her words.

"Of course, you do," he agreed softly. He could not strip her of that right, not when she had been deprived so much already.

"Then I have a lot to catch up on," she said, lips curling into a half-smile that was more wistful than truly happy. She looked older at that moment, like a ghost of a future not yet arrived. “And — you owe me.” 

Remus just stared. “I beg your pardon?” 

Her smile turned into something — mischievous. 

And for the first time, Remus could have sworn it was an echo of James.

[jeanniebug623]

🕸️🕷️ Weaving the Web 🕷️🕸️

Chapter 9: Filling In the Blanks

Quaritch waited outside the interview room while Nash McCosker gave his statement regarding the incident in the cafeteria.  Miles had not only smashed his face against a metal table which left the man with a broken nose, but he’d landed three more solid punches before the colonel tore the boy off.  According to the medical report, each additional blow left him with a facial fracture to the right cheekbone, orbital fracture, and a dislocated jaw.  To put it bluntly: McCosker was a fucking mess to look at because Miles seriously fucked him up.

Quaritch couldn’t even be proud of how well Spider could fight.  He could have killed the man.  Just what the hell was Miles thinking?!  With the help of some heavy painkillers and a bit of force, McCosker’s jaw was reset but he was a swollen, discolored, bloody mess.

”Thank you for your time, Mr. McCosker.” 

The security officer ending her interview and exiting the room brought the colonel back to the present.  She nodded in acknowledgment that Quaritch could now go in and have his own interview with McCosker.  Taking a long breath from his mask, the recom ducked under the low entryway and mentally reminded himself to let the man tell his side of the story first.  It’s not that Quaritch didn’t trust Spider, or Miles for that matter, but he would get more information if he was sympathetic to the victim.

”Mr. McCosker.” Quaritch said, appraising the man sitting at the table with butterfly stitches holding a gash together under his right black eye and heavy duty sutures holding his upper lip together.  He was holding an ice pack over most of his face but managed to make eye contact with Quaritch and nod.

”Yea, that’s me.” McCosker said gruffly.  Quaritch couldn’t blame him.  If he’d taken hits like that, he’d take a shot of morphine with a shot of whiskey and call it a night.  McCosker stared at Quaritch, narrowing his good eye slightly.  He looked like he was trying to remember why the recombinant looked familiar and finally asked, “Do I know you, sir?  I didn’t realize there were new avatar pilots…”

Avatars?  No.  Recombinants?  Well, that was a need to know and if Nash McCosker had a history of switching sides, the last thing he’d have is the clearance for knowledge of the Sec-Ops first recom unit.

”There aren’t.” Quaritch said, only eliciting more confusion from the man, but quickly changed the subject, “How you holdin’ up?  That was a hell of a beating you took.”

Despite the discoloration of his bruised face, McCosker’s face turned red.  Quaritch couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or anger.  Based on the clenched fists and furrowing brow, the colonel went with the latter.

”For what it’s worth, you ain’t the first person that kid’s put in the hospital.” Quaritch remarked.  Spider had gotten in some brawls when he was first captured but it was more justified.  It would have been strange if he didn’t try to fight back given his upbringing.  Maybe this Nash guy could fill in some of the blanks…

”That fucking kid…” McCosker growled, “I didn’t even know he was here.”

”I doubt prisoner records show up in your work.” Quaritch said smoothly, crossing his arms as he continued the small talk.  It was no surprise that the man knew Spider.  All the humans that stayed behind all lived at Hell’s Gate so it was likely they’d crossed paths at some point.  But from that remark, Quaritch figured the man knew more about Spider than just that he was a baby left behind.

”We’d heard about someone getting captured…” McCosker said, “…we figured it was a Na’vi.”

”Would that have been better?  Given how much help you offered the RDA a year ago.  You’re practically a damn hero for humanity.” Quaritch praised, putting up a good act.  Nash McCosker’s loyalty was low on his list to trust, given he’d switched sides twice already.

”I’m no hero.  I was looking out for my family…and Jake was…” he started then let his sentence trail off.  He readjusted the ice pack with a slight hiss of pain.

”You were loyal to Jake Sully.” Quaritch said, his ears pinning back.

”Yea…back when Jake was loyal to us too.” McCosker said with a growl.

”Guess that’s fair…Sully switched sides and doomed a lot of good people.  He’s got a decent following.  Includin’ the kid who tried to turn your face to ground meat.  That must be why…” Quaritch said, baiting the man to keep venting in whatever way would get more information about Spider out of this.

”That little bastard is the reason Jake and his family got away!” McCosker snarled, immediately regretting it when shouting required him to open his mouth more to do it.

Quaritch’s tail flipped angrily and he set his jaw.  He’d heard plenty of people make comments like that about Spider since being captured but it hit him differently to hear how visceral it was coming from Nash McCosker.  The soldiers who’d guarded and escorted him around made comments about him being ‘wild’, ‘out of control’, or ‘savage’.  But those remarks came after a scuffle.  McCosker’s rage was old.

”The RDA lost the Sullys due to a, what…?  Fifteen-year-old at the time?” Quaritch said, remaining calm but wanting to smack the guy himself.  He knew what it looked like to have a deep rooted anger in one’s eyes; he’d seen it every time he saw his reflection after Sully’s betrayal.

”We’d managed to catch a few of Jake’s kids.  He would’ve surrendered and none of the shit that followed would’ve happened.  But Miles busted them out and the Sullys got away because of it.” McCosker said, remembering the night like it was yesterday.

Quaritch frowned but noted that McCosker had called him ‘Miles’.  Of course Spider had done something like that…the colonel had seen how he acted when they were all caught in the forest and how defensive he was of the Sully kids.  Especially the older girl.

“Not surprised he turned out so wild.” McCosker grumbled, “Sure as fuck never listened growing up.”

There it was.  Confirmation that McCosker knew Spider on a more personal level.  It was time to pull that stitch loose.

”You used to look after the boy?” Quaritch asked, the keycard and tooth burning a hole in his pocket.

”Yea…” he answered nonchalantly then continued, “We took him in.  That kid was a terror.  Older he got, the less he listened.  My wife and I tried to raise him to be a good kid but he’d just run off whenever we tried to enforce any rules.”

”And you’d let him?” Quaritch asked, slipping his hand in his pocket and catching the contents in his palm.

”It got tougher when we had kids of our own,” the man admitted, “Someone else should’ve taken him.  It was a mistake.  Miles was a mistake to begin with…”

Quaritch couldn’t stop the growl that escaped his teeth, not going unnoticed by McCosker.  The man suddenly got a nervous look on his face recognizing what an angry Na’vi, or recom in this case, looks like.  Quaritch slipped his hand out of his pocket and put his hand flat on the table, slowly sliding the keycard and broken tooth over to him.

“His parents made a mistake, but SPIDER is not the mistake.” Quaritch growled. “Let me take a good guess on how it all went down.  You took in the little tike because you didn’t have any kids yet.  Just being a Good Samaritan, right?  You sure seem like a family man but that boy was never part of your family, was he?”

”Who the hell do you think you are?” McCosker asked, getting to his feet but still being towered over by the colonel. “We put a roof over his head, food in his stomach, did everything we could to raise him as one of our own.”

“Did you?” Quaritch said, feeling his anger rising, “Your sons are model citizens, aren’t they?  Good students, helpful in the community.  Real poster child quality for the recolonization efforts.  AND they were born on Pandora.  Just like Spider.  Except Spider isn’t like them…it’s almost like you stopped caring as soon as you had your own.”

McCosker froze when Quaritch mentioned his sons.  The room turned silent as the colonel took back his hand and the battered man could see his ID keycard and tooth on the table.

”Spider didn’t attack you because you betrayed Sully…he already got you back for that by freeing those halfbreeds.” Quaritch said, eerily calm, “He bashed your face in for somethin’ else so what’d you do to him?  He said you threw out his teeth.  Did you knock them out when he gave you a hard time?”

”His goddamn baby teeth, I never hit him in the face!” McCosker huffed out but regretted the latter half of his statement at the narrowed gold ears and wrinkles on recom’s nose from the start of a growl.

”But you did hit him…” Quaritch said, his quiet tone not matching his facial cues.

McCosker was flustered but still tried to defend himself and said, ”We didn’t abuse him!  Put him in his room, maybe spanked him once or twice.  Nothing we did worked and it’s clear he’s still a lost cause as he was back then.  Too wild and dangerous!  It’d be best for everyone if you just had him put down-…”

The sound of the metal table crashing into the wall drew the attention of security minding their own business out in the hall.  When they peeked into the interview room, they were too shocked by the sight of Quaritch having pulled the table right off its bolts to get at McCosker.  The man was terrified, back against the wall with the recom’s massive hand across his collarbone.  

Quaritch had a fraction of a second of sense to push this sad excuse for a human being against the wall by his chest and not his throat.  He was growling low in his throat and wanted to finish the job his boy had started in the cafeteria.  There was much more to Miles attacking McCosker the way he had than an ass whooping or being sent to his room.

”Colonel Quaritch?” one of the guards had the courage to say, “What’s the issue, sir?”

Despite the bruises, all the color in McCosker’s face drained.  The ten-foot-tall blue version of the old head of Sec-Ops suddenly looked VERY familiar.  Quaritch slowly took his hand back and stood back up straight.

”Not at all.” Quaritch answered, “Isn’t that right, Mr. McCosker?”

~~~~~~~~~~

Several excruciatingly long hours later, Quaritch received an alert from the staff in solitary that Spider was awake.  He’d spent the time decompressing in his apartment and absorbing all the information he’d learned from Nash McCosker.  His annoyance that Spider was the reason Sully got away a year ago was easily overlooked now knowing how hard the boy’s childhood had been.  But despite it all, Spider was still a great kid…

He was down in the solitary confinement cell with Spider as fast as possible, borderline jogging through some of the long corridors to get from the living quarters to the prison block.  Quaritch stared at the boy, tucked into one of the corners as small as he could make himself.  When he was sedated, they’d changed him out of his native attire into a hospital gown and boxers.  What really completed the ensemble was the straight jacket.

It made Quaritch sick to see this poor boy snared like a maniac…

”Hey, tiger.” Quaritch said with a sigh.  The boy looked up and the colonel felt even worse seeing the tear tracks on his cheeks and terrified expression.  He sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Shit really hit the fan…everythin’ will be ok.  But, goddamn it, kid…we gotta do better.  Alright?”

Spider bit his lip and sniffled, nodding his head quickly.

”Good.  Let’s get you something to eat.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

Not wanting to risk triggering Miles again, Quaritch had some breakfast delivered to his apartment instead of going to the cafeteria.  Spider hadn’t said a word since leaving solitary.  He hovered very close to Quaritch as he led him back to the apartment and sat on the oversized couch with his legs hugged tight to his chest in complete silence.

”Eat up, kid.” Quaritch said flatly, putting the plate of scrambled eggs and bacon on the cushion next to him.  He sighed for the umpteenth time since coming back to the apartment as he sat on the other side of the couch, rubbing his eyes against the tension headache relentlessly pounding in his skull.

Spider looked up from where he hid his face in his knees but didn’t move to eat yet.  His eyes looked glassy like he was on the verge of tears again.  After a few minutes of silence, the recom looked at him with a disgruntled look.  It made Spider flinch.

”Eat.” Quaritch said more firmly this time.  The boy nodded and ate quickly.  The colonel watched him finish everything on his plate like his life depended on it.  He cleared his throat to get Spider’s attention and said, “I’m not mad at you, Spider.  I know you’re all mixed up right now and…didn’t mean to hurt anyone.  That McCosker is a prick…”

Spider stared at Quaritch wide-eyed then looked at his bandaged hand.  His eyebrows pinched together and he bit his lip as it trembled.  He sniffled again.

”Kid, I’m not good with whatever this is.” Quaritch said annoyedly and waved his hand to reference Spider’s emotional response.  “You gotta talk to me.  Or if you just…need time to yourself, you can go to your room.”

Tears started to slowly fall but Spider nodded and got off the couch.  He walked over to the two open doors with almost identical bedrooms and paused.  Quaritch watched him, concern brewing over the boy’s strange behavior.  He leaned his arms on his knees and observed him carefully.

Spider was standing in front of the bedroom doors, his fingers fidgeting with the hem of the hospital gown.  He seemed unsure of himself.  Lost.  Scared, even.

”Left door, Spider.” Quaritch said, realizing the boy didn’t seem to know.

Spider looked back at him, gripping the shirt tighter.  Quaritch raised an eyebrow but waited this time for the boy to speak.

”Um…” Spider finally started in a quiet, uncertain voice, “…uh, are we friends?”

”Uh…” Quaritch’s ears went back and eventually he nodded and responded, “Yea, I like to think so.  Why?”

”I-It’s just…only my friends call me Spider.” the boy started with a shrug.  His voice was quiet and meek, completely unlike anything Quaritch had ever heard from him. “Grown ups usually call me Miles.”

[indigosunsetao3]

Would It Be Enough?

Chapter 16 - Captive (TW for torture)

Masterlist of Chapters

Warnings: 18+ - No minors Rated E - Please read the tags on A03 for any of your triggers

Johnny "Soap" MacTavish x Original FMC 11.3k words - AO3 Link

Emma had been placed roughly on the snowmobile before they headed toward the barn, her body pinned tight against Crane’s behind her as he steered. He knew Soap and Ghost wouldn’t risk a shot with her so close to Crane and with them moving, but Emma still didn’t make it easy for him. She wriggled, grabbed at the steering, and attempted to throw him off of her before he smashed her face into the windscreen causing her to see stars and taste blood. She stopped the fight as they got closer to the barn and more men with guns walked outside and opened the doors, their weapons raised scanning the area.

“Get off,” Crane instructed Emma as they pulled inside the building. He lifted himself off the machine and ripped his comms from his ear before reaching over and doing the same to Emma, stamping on the earpiece and microphone with his boot into the straw-laden floor. “Take her to the holding room,” he instructed two men who had walked over. They quickly shouldered their guns and one grabbed Emma roughly by the arm and began dragging her to who knew where. “Don’t break her either,” Crane instructed as he walked over to speak to another man before adding, “not yet.”

Emma yanked her arm hard out of the man’s hand which only caused him to laugh as he grabbed her again and quickly backhanded her across the face for her troubles. Spitting on the facemask that had been shoved in her mouth Emma saw there was blood on it as it fell to the floor and she ran her tongue over her split lip to try and assess the damage. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Emma called out to Crane as the man grabbed at her again and began marching her forward, “because the 141 isn’t going to just let you walk away you bastard.”

Emma didn’t see if Crane reacted, she was pushed through what looked to be a stable door to find stairs that lead down, concrete ones at that. Deciding that fighting wasn’t in her best interest at the moment Emma let the men push her down the stairs that seemed to go on forever before they came to a steel door. One of the men punched in a code and when they saw Emma discreetly glancing they quickly turned her around so it was out of view before shoving her through the sliding door. Once inside it was just another long concrete hallway that was lined with doors with plaques written in either Russian or Ukrainian, Emma wasn’t sure. No wonder they hadn’t seen much activity in the barn, they were all underground and it looked like this place could hold up for a while.

“In,” the man said as they stopped at a door and used a key to open it before shoving Emma inside. She stumbled a bit as she looked around, whirling on her feet just as the men shut the door behind her. The room was dark, the only light that came in was from under the solid metal door and she had to squint to see what was around her. It was carpeted, a small desk in the center with a chair tucked into it and an empty bookshelf. The room seemed to be an office or was one at some point, and Emma quickly went to the desk to start wrenching open drawers. All of them proved to be empty and she huffed before digging around in her vest to see what she had on her.

All of her vest pockets were full of medical gear but none that could be a useful weapon, just gauze, a tourniquet, and some other wrappings. She still had gun magazines full of bullets but no gun, nothing she could do with those. If she was Soap she was sure he could have come up with some sort of explosive with his demolition expertise but she hadn’t learned any of that yet and she sighed in defeat as she laid all her inventory on the desk and looked it over. For a moment, just a moment, she let her heart ache thinking about Soap, about what he would do if he were here and how he’d keep her safe. She knew he was already out there planning with the rest of the group but rescue right now seemed utterly impossible. She was underground behind steel doors and locked in a room where she couldn’t even read the plaques with no way of reaching anyone in the outside world.

Emma had one weapon left though, one that she had been keeping on her without anyone’s knowledge except for Soap. It was his knife from all those weeks ago when he had come to see her with his broken and battered body after a mission. It had been tucked carefully into his boot and when he had kicked them off at her insistence the knife had fallen out and slipped under her bed. She found it a few days later and had kept it safe in her room since. He never asked about and she never offered it up until he noticed her tucked into her boot one day while they had been out patrolling near the farmhouse. He had thought it was a smart idea and let her keep it, showing her a better way to hide it in the folds of her pants so no one would see. So today when they had headed out she had tucked it safely away when she had gotten changed. She didn’t want to use that card just yet though, not knowing what else was in store for her. So she just left it where it was, digging into the inside of her ankle as a feeble comfort.

She wasn’t sure how long she had been in the room when she heard a key in the lock. Scrambling back up to her feet from where she had been sitting leaned against the desk Emma slipped around behind it holding the chair as the door swung open. Her eyes stung at the sudden blast of light as Crane appeared and he flipped the overhead light switch from the outside on, illuminating the room in a yellow dingy light. His eyes went to the desk where some blood-soaked gauze sat where Emma had tended to her lip and cheek as best as she could. It was aching like crazy and she could feel, and see, a large lump had formed over her cheek.

“Been busy?” Crane asked as he shut the door behind him and walked over to the desk to look over the discarded packaging and medical supplies. “I probably should have done this earlier,” he said before his eyes flicked up to Emma, “strip.”

“Excuse me?” Emma asked, her hands tightening on the back of the chair as she stared at him. She had tucked all of her materials that she hadn’t used back into her vest after she inventoried them, not wanting to leave them behind if they suddenly came in to move her.

“You heard me,” Crane stated as he gestured his hand toward her, “strip. I need to see what you have on you,” he smirked a bit as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Make sure you don’t have any weapons or something you can use against me,” he continued.

“I don’t have anything, just medical supplies, gauze, and a few magazines for my pistol that you took,” Emma explained feeling her heart rate kicking up again.

“Too bad for you, I don’t believe you,” Crane stated simply before he moved to go around the desk toward Emma, “either you can strip down or I can do it for you.”

“Fine,” Emma answered with a snarl before her shaking hands began to rip open the pockets on her vest and she started throwing her things onto the desk. A few rolls of gauze slipped down to the floor in her haste and the bullet magazines clattered loudly against the metal desk. Once all the pockets were empty she held her hands up, “happy now? All my pockets are empty, even my chapstick,” she said as she pointed to the small tube.

“While I appreciate your thorough work, you still haven’t actually stripped,” Crane said as he stacked the gun magazines atop one another and slid them to the corner of the desk to take later. “You forget, I’ve been part of that team for a very long time, Emma,” he smirked, “and I know how they work. You think they don’t keep weapons under their clothes? You don’t think I know Soap would teach you the same thing?” His hand darted out quickly and grabbed at the velcro strap of Emma’s vest and tugged it open, “like I said you can do it, or I can do it for you.” He laughed as Emma pulled away from him and held up his hands in an innocent gesture.

“I don’t have any weapons,” Emma emphasized again as she pulled her vest off and threw it on the desk, knocking the neatly stacked magazines to the floor. “I’m the medical person, I don’t fight unless I have to. You should know that by now,” she continued as she unzipped and unbuttoned her outer jacket and tossed it onto the table too. She stopped and stared at him hoping that was enough evidence, she didn’t have a single holster on her, and her shirt was tight enough to reveal if she had anything hidden. But Crane simply gestured for her to continue so she did, taking the emotion out of her face and thoughts as she wrenched the shirt up over her head and tossed it, leaving her in her pants and sports bra.

“Pants too,” Crane added as he leaned his hip against the desk and picked up her vest to feel around in the pockets just to be safe. He wasn’t watching her as she bent down and undid her boots, careful to let the knife inside just fall down into the boot before stepping out of them. She removed her tactical belt and undid the pants letting them fall to her ankles before stepping out of them as well. Despite trying to not feel the emotion of the situation Emma could feel her cheeks redden as she held her arms out and slightly up in a submissive gesture and Crane finished checking her tactical belt.

“Turn,” he said and Emma did as she heard him get up from the desk and walk over. She cringed as she felt his hands on her, his fingertips sliding under the back strap of her bra to feel around before patting around her ribs and right over her breasts to see if he felt anything. She was burning red, she could see it spreading over her chest and her ears were on fire as he moved to pat her underwear and slid his hands disgustingly down her legs to her knee-high socks. “Shame on Soap for not better preparing you,” Crane tsked as he righted himself again and moved to stand in front of her. “Not a single knife or hidden weapon. You were shit at hand to hand anyway, no matter how much Ghost tried. Probably thought you’d hurt yourself before you could do anything else so he never gave you a weapon.”

Emma nearly breathed out a sigh of relief that he hadn’t thought to check her boots, probably thinking her too much of a simpleton at weapons to be able to hide anything. “Can I get dressed now?” Emma asked, not wanting to rise to his taunting, “or are you planning on leaving me half naked for fun?” Her hand reached out for her shirt and when he didn’t stop her, she pulled it to herself and tugged it on before going for her pants. She reached for the belt but his hand shot out to stop her.

“Shirt, pants, and shoes, that’s it,” Crane said as Emma bent down to put her boots on, internally wincing as she set her foot atop the sheathed blade. She’d fix it later but she couldn’t risk adjusting anything now with Crane in the room. “I’m taking the rest with me, don’t need you trying to hide things on me, Soap mentioned you can be very…resourceful,” he smirked. “Medical supplies are coming with me too, your face looks fine enough now, I had to shoot one of the guys out there and we’re low on supplies. Thanks for the medical bag by the way,” he said with a snark as he started stuffing her supplies back into random pockets of her vest.

“Fuck off Crane,” Emma answered him as she stood up again, tired of hearing his voice sounding so proud of himself. She had never seen him so arrogant and almost excited as he worked, he had always been confident, a little bit of a swagger to him, but he was never outright full of himself. She supposed all of it had been an act though and this was truly how he was. “You know it’s just a matter of time before they get to you. It may not be today or a month from now but all you’ve done is made yourself a marked man.”

Crane dropped the vest back down on the desk at her words before taking a few steps to close the gap between them. His hand grabbed her face hard, fingers digging into the lump on her cheek as he wrenched her closer to him. “Are you really that stupid?” He asked as he twisted her face to the side a bit to look at the lump on her cheek, “I know they are going to come for you, those self-righteous heroes can’t help themselves. They can’t stand the thought of you here trapped with me, not knowing what I’m doing to you,” he smirked and moved his thumb to press into her barely healed split lip that instantly started bleeding again. “I’m ready for them, and when they do come for you Emma…I’m going to make it the last thing they do. They’re the last roadblock in this whole fucking thing and while you were inconvenient at first, slowing down my timeline, you’ve proven to be the best thing to happen in my plan.” He grinned and sarcastically patted her cheek right over the bruise causing her to wince. “Why pick them off one by one when I can just finish them off at once in their attempt to get to you,” he finished before shoving her face away hard.

“I almost had Alex though,” he laughed bending down to pick up the scattered magazines, “fucking sap. He couldn’t leave Soap to blow himself up properly with the laced C4. He thought something looked off and tried to get Soap’s attention,” he rolled his eyes. “So, I had to switch gears, shot him with a dead Russian’s gun so the bullet wouldn’t be traced back to me. But then Soap had to be all noble to help him and left the door to explode on its own so he barely got hit,” he shook his head a bit. “Ah well, worked out in the end, didn’t it?” He looked up at Emma who was staring at him, her mouth slightly agape at his confession.

“How long have you been at this?” She asked quietly, figuring the longer she got him to talk the better. Perhaps if she got intelligence out of him and she somehow got out of the bunker they were in it could be valuable down the road. “How could you turn on them? They treated you like family,” Emma continued.

“I’ve been ‘at this’,” he used a mocking tone at her words, “for years Emma. I was never theirs to turn on them; I’ve always been on my own side. The Russians paid better and have better perks.”

“What about at the club with Mikhail? You killed some of his men, surely your boss or whoever you work for wasn’t happy about that?” Emma continued to prod, hoping that his arrogance and need to brag about all he had accomplished would win out over his logic and he’d keep talking.

“Mikhail?” He laughed as he zipped shut the last pocket on her vest before throwing it over his shoulder. “He was just an annoying competitor for me. I laid that trail down so we could go in and get rid of him without it being obvious it was me. He recognized Soap that night thanks to an ‘accidental’ leak of my files and was instantly paranoid which is why he tried to get anything out of you. Too bad Soap didn’t just off him for me, but I got him in the end. They’ll find his body come spring when the lake’s thaw,” he smirked and headed toward the door.

“You know Soap is going to kill you right?” Emma asked, knowing in her heart he would if it were the last thing he did. He would make Crane pay for everything he had done, especially once they all figured out how far and long this deceit went on.

“It’s almost adorable how you think he has a chance against all this,” Crane gestured around the room. “This is a cold war era bunker made to withstand a nuclear blast. Your little boyfriends aren’t going to be able to just waltz in here and save you. There’s a better chance that you’ll be dead before they can even clear the main door,” he looked at her and noticed her eyes flared a bit at the underlying threat. “Oh, I’m not going to kill you, not yet anyway. I need the bait, a little more taunting to get them all riled up and chomping at the bit,” he walked to the door and wrenched it open. “Get comfortable you’ll be here for a while,” he finished before walking out and cutting the lights plunging Emma into the dark once again.

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Soap had been ready to go in full-bore into the farmhouse the minute the doors had shut behind the snowmobiles. Ghost had held him back however and instructed Alex and Gaz to meet them at the tower. Price had finally stirred and awoken, his words were a bit slurred as he came around but once he was fully aware of what had happened, he was on the move and on his way to meet up with the rest of the team. They needed to act fast before all of their information and intelligence was compromised, the safehouse was no longer safe but they had things they had to get out of it first. Ghost drove while Gaz and Price shoved into the front, Alex and Soap in the truck bed braced with their guns waiting for any threats but nothing came. The farmhouse had remained still this whole time, with no movement in or out or even a hint of a threat the whole way back to the safe house.

They tore apart the safehouse with brutal efficiency. The hard drives were pulled from their databases, papers burned in the fireplace, and all weapons and supplies packed and stashed in their van in less than two hours. Gaz had taken up watch in the extremely cramped attic space to make sure no one was coming but all remained quiet which was setting Soap’s teeth on edge as he tossed a duffle in the back of the van.

Soap had packed up the room he and Emma shared last, throwing all of his and her clothes and other personal effects into their duffle bags. He didn’t attempt, nor care, to separate their belongings into their respective cases at this point what was his was hers and what was hers was his. He had to dig under the bed on his stomach for Emma’s new favorite slippers he had bought at a local shop after she complained about frozen toes. He had kicked them under the bed in his haste to gather everything and cursed when he realized they were missing from the bags. She’d want them once she was back, not getting her back wasn’t an option in his mind. After one final sweep to make sure the room was clear Soap stopped and stared at the bed for a moment, his hand resting on the doorknob. His eyes roved over the still sleep and sex-mused sheets from just hours ago, where he had finally dug up the nerve to tell her he loved her before he left the room clicking the door shut quietly behind him. It wouldn’t be the last time he told her he loved her he told himself as he jogged down the steps.

Ghost had taken on the task of going through Crane’s items, tearing through the man’s personal belongings as if it were Crane himself. He ripped apart clothes, pulled his duffle bag apart at the seams to look for anything that may have been hidden inside, and made quick work of his green and brown turnout gear when he finally found something. It was small, no bigger than a fingernail, but it was a memory card. It was hidden inside the flashlight mount for Crane’s gun and Ghost had only found it when he noticed one of the screws was loose. The bastard either forgot to move it between his flashlights in their rush to leave earlier or he had done it on purpose.

“When we plug this in, we need to assume he’ll know,” Alex said as Ghost handed him the card in the living room. “And we won’t have much time to pull everything off. There’s always a risk it's password protected and it’ll wipe itself if we don’t have the password,” he added as he dug around in the bag of hard drives to plug one back into the computers to extract the information.

“Do it,” Soap said as he stood behind Alex, arms crossed over his chest and eyes narrowed. “Just grab as much shit off of it as you can and we’ll look it over later,” he continued and Alex nodded before he brought the computers back online and plugged everything in. The memory card had a wealth of data, it had dates, times, locations, weapon stores, contacts, banking information, schematics and Soap spotted a file called Emma, along with other files titled with all their names, as Alex dragged it onto his data drive. “This fucker has been at it for ages,” Soap stated after a moment, noticing the date on one of the files was almost three years old.

“Time to go,” Price said as he came in from the back door just as Gaz came down the stairs brushing insulation and debris off his clothes. “Laswell’s set up another place for us but we have to go now,” he gestured for all of them to move, his hand resting on the butt of his gun. He was on edge after everything that had happened, not saying that he didn’t trust the rest of his team but he certainly was giving them all a second glance and was stiff around them. Alex had given him a preliminary once-over in the field to assess his injuries while they waited on Ghost to go get the truck. There was a suspected concussion and when Alex merely breathed the idea that Price should be resting Price told him he’d sleep when he was dead. To which Alex reminded him sleeping with a concussion was not a good idea anyway so he was glad they were all on the same page.

“I’ve got everything,” Alex said after a moment before popping out the hard drive and choosing to pocket it over putting it in his bag of other computer equipment. “Once we’re settled, I can start going through it all,” he stated and Price nodded as Alex bent down and grabbed his bag and his gun. Soap brought up the rear as they exited the house, his hand slamming the door hard enough that the windowpanes in it rattled.

“What do you think his play is?” Soap asked once they were all in the van and Gaz had turned onto the main road. All of them were sitting with their guns in their laps ready for anything, Ghost had taken up the back seat and was watching out the read window. “Why take Emma of all people? He had you right there Price,” Soap stated, “you’d be more valuable to him if he was looking for information.”

“He wasn’t looking for information,” Ghost said quietly from behind Soap, not bothering to turn his head to face them while he talked. “He’s been around us for years, he probably has more information than all of us combined with all that shit he’s been compiling,” he continued. “He took her because he knows we’d go after her and he has a shot of subduing her. Price wouldn’t break so easily and Crane would run the risk of him escaping. He’s not looking for a hard fight, he wants it done fast. He wants us, she’s just a ploy.”

The rest of the car was quiet as the words sunk in. Deep down all of them knew that was the answer but no one wanted to say it. Ghost had never been one to shy away from the ugly truth. Crane wanted them all dead, for whatever his agenda was, and Emma was going to be his means to his end. Crane knew they wouldn’t leave Emma, even if they were ordered to stand down and let her suffer at the Russian’s hands, they’d defy orders. Or even if the chances were not all of them were walking out of the fight alive, they still were going to try.

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Without having a watch or clock it was impossible for Emma to know how long she had been sitting in the dark for, but it certainly seemed like hours. She was starving, her mouth was dry from lack of water and she needed the restroom in the worst way. But she hadn’t given in and gone to the door to try and get someone’s attention, though she did almost crack a few times. Curled up under the desk for some semblance of safety, no one could sneak up behind her if her back was pressed against the leg covering, Emma stared off into the dark. She was listening for anything around her that could help, people talking, sounds of doors opening and closing, any type of pattern or routine. She squirmed a bit under the desk to relieve some pressure in her back from the position she had rolled into when the lights suddenly cut on in the room.

Scrambling out from under the desk she was on her knees pulling herself up with the help of the desk when the door opened. It wasn’t Crane this time and Emma narrowed her eyes at the person to try and figure out what they were doing here. They had a tray in their hands and Emma could see a bowl on it and a glass of water along with a package of what looked like soup crackers. She fought the urge to charge at the person and try to run as they walked into the room and set the tray on the desk. They were armed, the gun was draped across their back and if she had felt braver or more confident maybe she would have gone for it but the man was huge. He was bigger than Ghost and Ghost overpowered her without even trying and Emma had a feeling this man would break her.

“Bathroom?” Emma asked after a moment and the man blinked at her and she said it again hoping she wasn’t going to have to resort to mimicking what she was asking for. She asked once again, slowly this time, and stared at him before he backed out of the room and called down the hall to someone in Russian. His eyes darted between her and the person coming as he stood in the doorway, as if afraid she’d try to run when a woman appeared. She looked even less friendly than the man and she quirked an eyebrow at Emma as she asked for the bathroom a fourth time.

“Come,” the woman said and as Emma moved to the door the man grabbed her roughly around the biceps and marched her down the hallway. Emma twisted a bit in the grip, not trying to get away because there was nowhere to go, but more so he would loosen his hold. She was going to be bruised and if he held on much tighter, she thought, she was going to lose blood flow to her fingers. He finally let go when they reached what Emma was hoping was the restrooms as the woman opened the door and ushered her in. It wasn’t much but it was better than nothing and Emma was quick about it before exiting.

She tried to look around on her way back to familiarize herself with the area but the man released his grip on one arm to grab the back of her neck and force her to look down. They didn’t even want her to take note of what the hallway looked like, though it all looked the same to her. A dreary grey cement with equally grey metal doors and signs she couldn’t read. Not fighting back Emma stared at the floor until they shoved her back into the room she had been kept in. They flipped the light off again and Emma resigned herself to eat in the dark. The soup was lukewarm at best and the water had an interesting metallic taste to it, as if it had been sitting in metal pipes for ages, but she gulped it down anyway. It only dawned on her halfway through that it could have been drugged but she was hungry enough that she continued to eat. If it was drugged maybe she’d at least get some sleep to pass the time.

Leaving the empty food bowls and tray on the desk Emma sat down in the chair and pried open the desk drawer again to feel around for anything in them. She’d even take a pen at this point but they were all barren, not even a loose screw that she could find. The food they had given her had no utensils so she couldn’t fashion a weapon and while she had the knife Emma told herself that was a last resort. Sighing she shoved the drawers shut as the lights in the room came on again and the same man walked inside. He quickly took up her tray turned and left the room without a word, plunging her back into the dark.

And so it continued. Emma had lost track of the time a long while ago and there was nothing else to help her figure out how many hours slid by. The only pattern she could pick up on was the fact the people who brought her food and water three times a day were different for each meal and the food varied with them. Breakfast was some sort of cold porridge that nearly made her gag by the gooey texture, lunch was stale hard bread with a little butter slapped on and dinner was more lukewarm soup and crackers. All of them were accompanied with water and each time before her meals she was taken to the bathroom, head shoved down to stare at the floor as she walked.

She was going stir-crazy. She was left alone without anyone saying a word to her for days on end now. There was only so much sleep she could get in and without burning much energy she was too awake to even try to doze. During the daytime, there was much more activity outside her room and she would spend her time leaning up against the wall listening through the crack at the bottom of the door. All of the conversations were in Russian but Emma did pick up on a few keywords that she knew from her training, mostly guns and she heard Crane’s name thrown around a few times.

When the door opened for her fifth lunch time Emma stood up and dropped her head like she was supposed to before being led to the restroom. Despite having to stare down at the floor she was learning her surroundings a bit, she knew how many doors they passed thanks to her peripheral vision and just how many steps it took her to get from her room to the bathroom. “Is there a shower?” Emma asked the woman who had led her to the bathroom. The woman just stared at her and Emma lifted her hands to her head, to which the woman instinctively went to her gun like Emma was going to hit her, causing Emma to hesitate before she mimed washing her hair. She was itchy all over from lack of bathing, she had done her best in the sink to clean up a bit with the short amount of time they gave her in the bathroom but it hadn’t done much without any type of soap. “Shower? Bathe?” Emma asked and the woman just shook her head and shoved her into the bathroom shutting the door behind her.

On the way back to the room, Emma’s face and neck damp from washing them in the sink, the sight of Crane waiting for her stopped her in her tracks. The woman shoved her hard to keep her walking and Emma stumbled a bit coming to a halt in front of her capture. The two talked briefly in Russian before Crane dismissed the woman with a wave of his hand and turned his attention to Emma. “She said you asked for a shower?”

“Yes,” Emma answered, reaching her hand up to scratch a bit at the nape of her neck. “It’s been, well, four or five days? I’d like to clean up a bit, I can only do so much in a sink,” she stated before dropping her hands again. “But I’m going to guess you aren’t going to allow that,” when he didn’t answer she sighed and reached a hand for the door, hoping he was just going to let her pass and he was only there to check up on her.

“Not yet, we’ve got some work to do.” He grinned as he placed his hand on her shoulder and clamped down hard as he turned her back around the way she had just walked before leading her down a hallway to the right. She tried to remember the amount of turns and twists they took but everything blended before he finally opened a door and shoved her in. The room was empty save for a lone chair in the center of the room that had leather cuffs on it and it was positioned suspiciously over a drain.

Emma knew exactly what this was before Crane said a word and she started to backpedal on her feet as the door behind her clicked shut. “Ah come now,” Crane crooned as he pushed her toward the chair, “sit like a good girl and it’ll be over before you know it.” He smirked before he forcefully shoved her down into the chair and Emma began thrashing.

“Why?” She questioned as she shoved hard at him with her hands, curling her fingers into talons to scratch at him as he secured one arm down. “I don’t know anything to tell you! I’ve been in a room for days without any type of news or information. Please Crane,” she was panicking as he finished the buckle on one before turning to the other side and attempting to catch her still flailing arm. Emma could feel the tears as she started to sob, the fear getting the better of her as she continued to fight. She had been locked up for days not knowing what was next and the mental exhaustion had turned into a full-on panic.

“That’s just it,” Crane said, his words frustrated as she squirmed and bucked up against him trying to get away. “It’s been days and nothing but radio silence from the 141, they haven’t even come back to scope out the farmhouse. So, either I sorely underestimated Soap’s affections,” he paused, “or they just need a little prodding because Laswell is dragging her feet.” He grinned as Emma faltered for a moment, letting her realize that no one had even attempted to get her. That her saviors hadn’t even tried yet.

Emma’s hesitation didn’t last long before she continued to fight back again. Her hand connected with a sharp slap across Crane’s face as she kicked out and twisted. When he was whirled to the side she frantically reached to undo the buckle he had already done on her left hand. Crane wasn’t down long, he recovered and lunged up and grabbed Emma’s throat hard with one hand cutting off her air supply. “Stop fucking moving,” Crane ordered bringing his face inches from hers. “You like taking orders, don’t you? You practically drool all over yourself when Soap tells you to do something, so pretend I’m him and sit still.”

He shook her for emphasis and when Emma gave a small nod he let go before kneeling to get her ankles as Emma spluttered for air, gasping and retching. By the time she had caught her breath, she was fully locked into the chair and Crane was standing up looking her over like a predator sizing up a meal. “See? Not so bad, was it?” He pointed behind him at a camera that Emma hadn’t seen before in her attempts to fight him off, “make sure you look right over there when we start. We want them to see your pretty little face.”

Emma was holding onto the chair as best as she could watching Crane move over to a small table and bucket in the corner, wincing as he dragged it along the floor the scraping sound echoing around the room. She strained up a bit to try and see what was on it but Crane blocked her view as he picked around, the sound of metal pieces clanking sent a shiver of dread down Emma’s back. She glanced at the camera again, noting that the light was blinking red so it was on and probably recording. Or was it live? Would he risk sending out a live file where it could be traced? Though they already knew where Emma was so it wasn’t that huge of a risk.

“You know,” Crane said as he turned around and spun a small knife between his fingers, “if they hadn’t sat on their asses this whole time this wouldn’t have to happen.” He grinned as he walked toward Emma who pushed backward against the chair in an attempt to get herself as far away from him as possible. “If they would have just come after you right then, or hell even a few days ago, you wouldn’t have to go through this,” he leaned down when he was close enough, turning toward the side so he could look at the camera as he pressed the knife into Emma’s cheek. She sucked in a sharp breath as the blade pressed in, not breaking the skin just yet. “So, you have Price to thank for this. I figured your little highlander would have kicked in the door by now,” he flicked the knife against her cheek and Emma hissed feeling the slice and dribble of blood that came.

Emma squirmed as Crane dragged the blade down to her jaw, to her neck, and came to rest on her collarbone that was visible in her v-neck shirt. “This isn’t going to work,” Emma said, her breathing coming in short panicked pants, “they aren’t going to rise to this. You know how it…” she shrieked a bit as the knife pressed into the hollow of her neck and she felt the searing pain of the skin being broken. Her fingers dug into the arm of the chair as he continued the cut down to the edge of her shirt and felt the blood trickle down. She had tears in her eyes as she sat there and she was biting on her lip to keep from yelling out again.

“I’ve known them for longer than you,” Crane said as his other hand came up to smear the blood around her chest and neck a bit with his fingers. Emma twisted against the touch and jerked her body to the side to get him to remove his hands from her. She would prefer the knife at this point than him touching her bare skin. “Trust me when I say,” he leaned in to lick her cheek where she had bled which only caused her to splutter in revulsion, “they’ll be here to get you.” He ran the knife down to the front of her shirt, hooking it into the material so it split like butter, revealing her sports bra and bare stomach. “Soap isn’t going to stand for me touching you,” he ran the back of his fingers down her neck and between her breasts before coming to rest on her stomach. “And Ghost,” he tsked a bit as he moved to stand behind her in the chair, keeping his hand on her the entire time so his fingers brushed over her skin, “he can’t stand losing. He’s been suspicious of someone in the task force being a rat for weeks but could never quite pin anything on me. He thought it was Soap at first,” Crane laughed a bit at that.

Emma couldn’t fight back the tears now, utterly terrified and humiliated as she sat bleeding and exposed in a tattered shirt. She tried to follow Crane’s movement as he stood behind her but didn’t dare to tilt her head back because she knew she’d touch him he was so close. His hands were fiddling with the knife as he used it to flick the split shirt off her shoulders to expose more skin and he dug the knife in as he traced, leaving little cuts in its wake. “Just be done with it,” Emma hiccupped after a moment as his knife had worked its way under one of the straps of her bra and he twisted it up so the sharp edge was dug into the fabric. She suspected where this was going and at this point, she just wanted it over with, the toying was the worst part.

”What is it exactly you think I’m going to do?” Crane asked as he tilted the knife up a bit, the fabric splitting ever so slightly over the blade. “Oh,” he smirked before yanking the knife up and the strap gave with the motion. The scraps of the elastic fell forward and back but her bra didn’t budge from its position thanks to her arms and back pinning it into place. “I’m not interested in any of that,” he dragged the tip over her shoulder gently, “I don’t need the Scot’s sloppy seconds,” he paused and pushed down in the soft spot between Emma’s neck and shoulder over a hickey that Soap had left there. She hissed at the pain and squirmed a bit to the side as Crane kept talking, “I’m not Alex.”

Emma stilled at his last words and cut her eyes over to him, afraid to move because the knife tip was still poking into her neck. It was so sharp she was afraid any movement would just plunge it right into her throat and it would be over. “What do you mean you’re not Alex?” Was he in on this too somehow? Surely not. As if doubting her self-assurance her eyes darted toward the door as if expecting him to walk in, but the door remained shut.

“You didn’t realize? Oh, my Emma,” he smirked pulling the knife away and leaning down to talk right into her ear, his lips brushing over the shell of it as he stared into the camera. “Alex panted after you like a lost little puppy for weeks. I tried to tell him you’d pick the foreign little prick, American cunts always love little boys with accents, but Alex was still heartbroken nonetheless. He faked it though, acted like he was happy, and was just content on just being your friend. Pathetic.” He laughed before he grabbed the back of her head and shoved her forward on the chair in a surprise move, obviously using his words to distract her and prod at the 141 even more.

Emma yelped at the sudden jarring before she let out a loud scream of pain that turned into a shrill pleading shriek. Crane had slid the knife blade along a scar from one of her surgeries on her shoulder, tracing down the three-inch mark before coming to the edge near the bone and twisting the blade a bit before he pulled it out. Emma was groaning and panting as she sobbed before he yanked her face back up by the hair so she was staring into the camera. Her face was red and she was grimacing in pain but she fought back a bit as she twisted against the grip which only made Crane shake her to get her to hold still.

“That hurt, didn’t it?” Crane crooned as his finger swiped at the blood and prodded the open wound. “Tell them how much it hurt,” he ordered her as he scrapped a nail over the sensitive flesh causing Emma to cry out again. “Tell them what I’ve done, what I’m doing,” he pressed down on the cut now and Emma slammed her eyes shut trying to keep the cry of pain in.

Blood was seeping quickly from the wound; she could feel it freely flowing down to pool in her bra and soak into the fabric, Crane’s ministrations with his fingers were making it worse. This was why he had cut the bra away, so he had access to her scars because he knew she still dealt with pain in the area thanks to all the information he had on her, on all of them. “I’m not going to beg,” she said after a moment of gathering her breathing, “if that’s what you’re looking for. I’m not going to beg them to save me.”

Crane held her hair in a tight fist as he pulled her back to sit up against the chair again. The hardness of the wood dug into the wound and Emma huffed behind her teeth which were digging into her lip hard enough to split it back open again. “You will,” Crane said after a moment, “I promise you will. You’re going to be begging someone to save you, hell you’ll beg me end you to just get the pain to stop.” He moved away again and grabbed at the bucket that Emma had seen before and he lifted it by the handle, the water sloshing inside as he walked pulling out a hood from his pocket. “How about that shower?” He smiled before pulling the hood down over Emma’s head and pulling the ties tight around her throat.

Emma thrashed against the bag as it was tied over her, plunging her into the darkness again. The fabric was thick, too thick, and she felt like she wasn’t getting any air with her panicked breathing. She was squirming as Crane tilted her head back and the first splash of water came. It hit her hard in the face and soaked the bag, splashing down her front over her bare skin and onto her pants. The water was freezing and she yelped out only to get a mouthful of water. She spluttered and attempted to shake her head away to breathe but Crane held her head firmly in one place. He was going to drown her. She wretched and squirmed as best as she could, her shoulder screaming in pain as it rubbed on the chair and the water splashed into the wounds all along her skin stinging. The restraints were digging into her skin as she wriggled and fought to no avail, she felt like she was about to pass out, her body barely moving when Crane finally let up.

He laughed a bit as he released her head and peeled the hood off, turning to the camera, “four hours Price. Four hours or we raise the stakes.” He shoved Emma’s head away hard before going over to the camera and flipping it off, ejecting the memory card from it as he wiped Emma’s blood from his hands on his pants. Emma stared at him as he threw the hood onto the floor by her feet before he headed toward the door and opened it. “Don’t go anywhere,” he taunted before shutting the door tightly behind him and flicking off the light leaving her to shiver and bleed in the dark.

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

“Laswell just sent the file,” Price said as he stood behind Alex and waited for him to pull up the server. After a few clicks, Alex opened the message before moving the mouse to hover over the video file. Alex didn’t click to open it though, he just stared as they both read the name of it Emma_Conversation. He flicked his eyes up to Price who was standing at his shoulder and they both sat in silence for a second. “Give me the headphones,” Price stated as he held out his hands to Alex to remove them from his head, “go make yourself busy. I’ll watch it first.” Alex opened his mouth to protest but Price shot him a look and Alex removed the headphones handing them over as he rose from his chair. He had a look of relief mixed with uncertainty that he wasn’t going to have to be the one reviewing before he swept up his gun and headed out to the garage.

Soap had been led outside by Ghost to do a perimeter sweep when Laswell first called, the Lieutenant taking the hint from Price’s body language that Soap needed to be out. Soap had been getting antsier by the day, his rage barely being contained on a very short leash. A fight had broken out the night before between Soap and Alex, they argued about the best tactics to get into the farmhouse, and Gaz had to step in to drag the latter outside before fists started flying. They were all on edge waiting for any type of news, any sort of order to move in but there had been nothing. No movement at the farmhouse, they had been taken off actual recon and instead Laswell was using satellite imagery, and no one could agree when to move in.

When everyone was safely away from Price, he took a breath and double-clicked on the file to open it. The still image of the video was that of Emma sitting in the chair, her eyes huge as her fingers gripped the armrests that her wrists were bound to. Aside from the bruise on her cheek that was healing, she looked relatively fine, panicked, and scared but physically no harm had come to her, yet. He continued to look at the picture to take in the surroundings she was in before he clicked play.

The room was bare, nothing but concrete behind her and there was a single light above her that was bright enough to illuminate the room which meant it was small. The floor was sloped inward and Price could see a small drain under her chair and he cursed knowing what that was for. The audio and video were crisp and clear and he crossed his arms over his chest to mentally prepare himself for what he was about to watch.

The clip wasn’t overly long, just a few minutes, but it got the point across well enough. Price had nearly come out of his chair at the scream Emma emitted as Crane dug his knife around in her back. He was growing more and more frustrated as the battle of wills between Emma and Crane continued but she didn’t give in. She didn’t beg. It made him proud on the one hand but on the other, he knew she had just made it ten times worse for herself. He had leaned in when Crane waterboarded her as her limbs stopped fighting but Crane finally let up, opting not to kill her. The video cut as Crane walked over to the camera with his timeline and Price cursed looking at the time on his watch before the time stamp on the video. They had already lost over an hour, Laswell’s team had taken too long scrubbing the file for any type of virus or whatever else they were looking for.

“Alex,” Price called as he wrenched the headphones from his head. He knew Alex hadn’t gone far and sure enough, the man pulled open the garage door and stepped inside. Price caught a whiff of smoke and knew he must have picked up a discarded cigar and was smoking to take the edge off. “Get the rest of them,” he stated after a moment as he unplugged the headphones and slid the progress bar on the video back to the start. The team needed to see it, needed to know what they were facing, even if it scarred Soap and sent him into a rampage. Rising from the chair he moved to call Laswell back and stepped into the study of the house. This house was much nicer than the last one, more remote on an estate with lots of land and tree coverage.

“What is it?” Soap asked as Alex called everyone back inside over the radio, “are we finally moving in?” He inquired as he cut his eyes to Ghost who was standing by him listening. Gaz had set himself up at the edge of the property near the road to be able to watch for any cars. He had responded right away that he was on his way back, his breathing ragged indicating he was running.

“No,” Alex said and paused, “Crane sent a video. Price already reviewed it and he wants us to see it,” he breathed, “she’s alive Soap. You aren’t going to like it, based on Price’s face, but she’s alive.”

Soap was already on the move, not caring if Ghost was behind him or not. He was running through the snow, his gun gripped tight in his hands as he moved dodging the trees and brush. Looking over to his side Ghost was keeping pace and they made quick work of the trip back. Gaz came out of the woods on their lefthand side, causing Soap to raise his gun for a brief second at the movement before lowering it again. Once they were all at the door they scrambled in, Soap taking the lead not bothering to kick the snow off his shoes. He saw the laptop with the still image of Emma first and he went right to it, pulling up Price’s vacated seat. She looked okay, not perfect but alive and breathing though her face looked terrified as she was tied up to the chair.

“Fucking hell,” Soap breathed as he tried to take in the background of the room. Moving his hand to the mouse he went to click play only to have Ghost grab his shoulder to stop him. “Piss off,” Soap muttered as he shoved him away and went to click it again. He needed to see with his own two eyes that she was breathing, alive, and somewhat healthy.

“We wait for Price,” Ghost said quietly. As if on queue Price opened the door to the study and stepped out to the living room where everyone was gathered. He walked over to the folding table that the laptop was set up on before finally speaking.

“No matter what happens in this video,” he cut his eyes directly at Soap and held his gaze for a moment, “we don’t lose focus. Our focus is to get her out of there and eliminate Crane. We do it right, we do it properly, we don’t rush in and we don’t fight amongst ourselves anymore. I had enough of that shit the other night.” He then turned his gaze to the rest of the team, lingering on Alex for a moment as well before gesturing for Soap to start the video. He moved further back from the group to let them all see better, not particularly wanting to watch Emma be tortured again.

The group was silent as the video began and as it progressed Soap’s body grew more and more tense. His hands were grabbing tightly onto his legs, curling into the fabric of his pants as he watched Crane restrain and taunt Emma. She put up a fight the whole time, trying to twist away from him, and had even landed a good hit on him before he choked her into submission. Ghost’s hand hadn’t left Soap’s shoulder and he could feel the pressure as the man’s hands also curled tightly in anger at what he was seeing. Emma wasn’t trained for this; she didn’t go through torture training like the rest of the team had when they joined their respective special forces yet she was the one going through it for Crane’s sick enjoyment.

When Crane got around to mentioning Alex, all eyes cut to the man standing there with his arms folded across his chest. He didn’t give a single emotion away as he stared at the screen, not meeting anyone’s eyes as he watched, the only indication that he was uncomfortable was a slight shifting of his feet. Soap didn’t look at Alex long before he was back to watching the screen and when Crane dug the knife into Emma’s back Soap visibly flinched but he didn’t pull his eyes away. He struggled through Emma’s screaming that turned into undiscernible pleading and he felt Ghost give him a small squeeze as the screaming finally stopped and Emma was pulled to sit properly in the chair again.

When the hood came down over Emma’s head and she started fighting against the water Alex finally cracked. He dropped his arms from the crossed position over his chest and he turned away for a moment, running a hand over his jaw which was clenched so hard it was a wonder his teeth hadn’t broken. “Fuck,” he muttered as Emma’s fight finally subsided and she sat limp in the chair, her chest heaving for air. Crane smirked as he walked toward the camera and Soap had to restrain himself from slamming the laptop shut to not look at his damn face.

“Four hours,” Gaz said when the video stopped, only letting the silence linger for a moment, and then he looked at his watch. “How long has it been now?” He asked bending down to look at the time stamp on the video, “fuck Price. It’s already been an hour and a half,” he looked at Soap who was still staring at the screen, at the still image of Emma tied to the chair back again.

“Tell me we have a plan,” Soap said as he turned his gaze back toward Price who was standing there. “Tell me we have a goddamn plan right now or I am going in there without you,” his voice was calm as he spoke but his words were not and Price raised an eyebrow at him.

“You’ll do as you are commanded sergeant,” he reminded him. Even though he was sympathetic to Soap’s feelings, they all were, he wasn’t about to lose him to do something reckless. “We have a plan. The Americans are getting in the way though and are insisting they be involved since she’s a citizen,” he was cut off.

“Fuck the Americans,” Ghost said after a moment, “they always need our help and just slow us down,” he looked at Alex and Gaz who nodded their heads in agreement. “They are too busy licking one another’s boots and working their own agendas to actually get anything done.”

“I agree,” Price responded, “but this time we need the help. Britain has already said no,” he caught Soap’s flash of anger, “she’s not one of theirs so they aren’t risking a fight with Russia. Shadow company has offered up help us with aerial coverage. I called Graves myself,” he paused, “but we’re still waiting on approval from his Colonel. He’s having some issues getting the clearance.”

“You have got to be fucking kidding me. Price, he said four hours. Emma doesn’t have time for them to figure their shit out,” Soap snarled. He was beginning to shake with anger and adrenaline and pushed to rise from his seat but Ghost held him down in his spot by the grip on his shoulder. “You cannot expect me to sit here and just fucking wait and see what other sick shit he decides to do to her,” he shook at Ghost’s hand but the man’s grip remained firm.

“I can and I do,” Price answered him, not frazzled by the temper or glare in Soap’s face. “The schematics that Alex found on Crane’s memory card show the facility is a huge underground bunker. It’s built to withstand nuclear attacks. We need the extra coverage, if we go in with just us as is it’ll be suicide and Emma will be dead along with us, which is what Crane wants.” He sighed, “Crane isn’t going to kill her, not yet.” He held up his hand as Soap opened his mouth to argue, “I know he’s going to hurt her Soap. I know. But there is nothing I or you can do right now.” He was just as agitated with the situation as Soap was but he had to make the proper call that would keep them all alive, it was his sometimes unfortunate role as Captain. “You knew what you signed up for, what I warned you about when I saw your relationship started. How things got messy and judgments get clouded when feelings get involved but you’ve proven you can handle it so I need you to keep proving you can. You are a soldier first, you take orders and I am ordering you to sit and wait. I’d give the same orders if you were stuck in there and I’d expect Ghost to give the same ones if it were me.”

Soap chewed on the words for a moment before shoving the laptop away from him, hard enough that Alex had to stop it from toppling over the other side of the table. “FUCK!” He yelled loud enough that Gaz flinched before Soap rose from his seat and properly threw Ghost off of him, stomping out toward the garage. No one followed him right away, they all looked at one another for a second. Price knew Soap was going to take the order, he wasn’t worried about him running off on his vendetta, but he still listened to make sure he stayed in the garage.

“I’ll go,” Alex said after a second and he moved around to follow Soap outside. The two of them had been the most tense with one another the past few days and now the whole team knew why. They needed to work out whatever it was between them now before they went in, there was no room for awkwardness or tension on this mission, and Price just watched Alex disappear behind the door before turning to the last two men to work out his plan.

Soap was in the garage seated on a folding chair, his body bent over with his hands on his knees and head hanging. He was frustrated with Price, angry at Laswell for letting the Americans get involved, relieved to see Emma was still alive but mostly scared about what was going to happen to her next. Just because Crane didn’t kill her didn’t mean that he would permanently scar her for life, physically or mentally. “I’m fine,” Soap said without looking up to see who it was that came out to check on him. He assumed it was Ghost.

“You’re not,” Alex said after a moment, stopping a healthy distance away to pick up the cigar he had been smoking a little while before and fiddling with the lighter. “I’m not either. The rest of the team isn’t, nothing about this situation is fine.” He got the cigar lit and took an extremely long drag, enjoying the feeling of the burn in his lungs. “I’m sorry,” he said after a second, “Crane lied about a lot of things but he wasn’t lying about what he said about me. About how I feel…felt, about Emma.” Alex hesitated, “I don’t anymore though. Not like that anyway…I’d never try to step in or,” he broke off as Soap pushed up from his chair and moved to walk toward him. With how bad everything had been these past few days he wasn’t sure how Soap was going to react to him, if he was going to just start swinging or walk away. He was willing to take the hits to let the man vent his frustration, he would prefer the anger of a fight then the sadness of defeat.

“I’m not an idiot,” Soap stated after a long pause of him just standing and staring at Alex. When he got close enough, he reached his hand out for the cigar. “I knew. I could tell because you smiled like a fool whenever she came into the room like I’m sure I did. Always volunteering to help her with training or watching her when you thought no one else was looking at you. I played the same game; it was a friendly competition in my eyes though. I guess Crane thought it was something more.” He laughed though it sounded hollow. “Ghost tells me not to trust anyone. And after what Crane did, I guess I shouldn’t…but I know you aren’t going to do anything to hurt her. Or me. Just as I wouldn’t if she had chosen you. We’re in this shit together and we'll continue to be in it.” He took a hit off the cigar and turned his head to exhale it quickly, he only smoked them for the action of smoking, not to feel the burn. “I’d rather have people that care about her on my team versus the political aspect of it like the Shadows. The rest of your American friends can fuck right off,” he grinned a bit and reached out to pat Alex on the shoulder, a gesture of friendship and to show him he wasn’t upset with him.

“Why do you think I spend all my time with you guys? I can’t stand Americans,” Alex grinned a bit before the garage door opened and Gaz poked his head out.

“Glad to see you didn’t kill one another,” he gave a half-hearted smile. “Price has a plan and we need to get moving so we are ready when the Shadows are. Laswell is pushing hard on them to figure something out, she even threatened to go ask the French for assistance if they don’t hurry up. We know American’s egos can’t handle being pushed aside so we need to be ready to party when they are.”

[silvfyre-writings]

Ranpo's Bad Day (BSD Fanfic)

This is a short fic (that's actually a vent fic) because I had a terrible day at work, and well apparently, my way of coping is to torment poor Ranpo. Sorry, Ranpo!

May you enjoy this short sweet and painful fic and feel free to leave a like if you liked it!

Until next time!

Ranpo had had a bad day.

Correction, he’s had an awful day.

He’d woken up ten minutes before his day at the Agency was set to begin, and while Fukuzawa was rather lenient on what time they came to the office—provided it was reasonable and that they actually came to the office of course—he’d started to get annoyed with Ranpo’s consistent late starts and had scolded him for it. That had annoyed Ranpo, because there’d never been a problem with what time he started, and besides, if they needed him, they could just call him. And he’d tried to say that, but Fukuzawa had been firm, telling him that he needed to set an example for the younger members of the Agency since he was the oldest member, so Ranpo had reluctantly agreed.

It wasn’t that he was still sleeping when he was supposed to start work, it was just that he couldn’t be bothered leaving the dorms until he had to, which just to happened to be a couple of hours after his shift started.

But yes, Ranpo had woken up late that morning, taken one look at the time and thrown himself out of bed, only throwing on pants and a shirt before racing out the door. He’d been late, because of course he had. All it had taken was one wrong turn, and he’d gone from being a few minutes to late to over an hour.

He’d received a lot of looks from his co-workers as he’d dashed into the office, but he was grateful when they didn’t say anything, going back to their work instead. Ranpo had sat at his desk, pulled his work towards him, and figured that was that and that the day would go by as normal.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

First, he’d started to doze off, so he’d gone to get himself a coffee from the café downstairs to try and wake himself up, only to run straight into that waitress friend of Atsushi’s and send the both of them crashing to the floor… along with the tray of hot coffee that she’d been carrying. Fortunately, the girl hadn’t been hurt in the fall. Unfortunately, Ranpo had; ceramic cups smashed against the floor, and hot coffee went all over him, leaving him with a few minor injuries.

The owner had apologized profusely, well tried to at least, but Ranpo had quickly excused himself and raced back upstairs, facing—and skin—burning red in embarrassment. He pinned it on his already bad day for making him so clumsy, and resounded to not leave the office until he was supposed to clock off for the day. Thankfully, Yosano had been in the office, taken one look at him and whisked him away to patch him up, and with a few bandages and a new shirt, he was back at his desk, working away.

Second, he’d run out of snacks by the time lunch had come around, and no one had been available to take him out for a quick snack run, so he’d had to sit there at his desk, tired and hungry, and unable to focus. Ranpo ended up spinning in his chair, ignoring Kunikida as the younger man tried to get him to do some work at least until Atsushi had taken pity on him and shared his lunch with him. It was only then that Ranpo had been able to get back to work, even though he was still hungry—he hadn’t wanted to take all of Atsushi’s lunch, not when the boy was finally eating regular meals without feeling sorry for himself.

The day had improved a little after that, and Ranpo had started to think that maybe, just maybe, he could get through his shift today without anything else going wrong. So naturally, the moment he’d thought that, cases had rolled in all of a sudden, overwhelming the office to the point that he’d had no choice but to solve them all; he could’ve just sat there and watched as his co-workers floundered and flailed about, but it just didn’t seem right for them all to have a bad day, so he’d stepped in and taken care of it.

Had it left him feeling overwhelmed and ready to crumble? Absolutely.

But seeing everyone’s grateful faces when the workload had finally died down had been enough for him to keep any and all complaints to himself. The workday was nearly over anyway; all he had to do was survive the next three hours and then he could go home.

Which brought him to the final moment, the moment that had truly made his day go from bad to awful in the blink of an eye; being called to Fukuzawa’s office. Ranpo hadn’t known what to expect when he’d been summoned, since usually, the older man would just talk to him in the main office; rarely was he called to Fukuzawa’s office specifically. That was how he knew it was bad.

And it was.

Apparently, he’d offended a police officer the last time they’d called him for help, and that officer had just called to complain to Fukuzawa about it. So Ranpo stood there, in Fukuzawa’s office, listening to the same lecture he’d heard several times in his life since he’d been taken in by Fukuzawa, about watching what he said to others, and that he needed to treat others with the same respect they showed him, otherwise people would stop coming to him for help. Ranpo continued to listen and nod, his eyes starting to sting—not from the words being spoken to him, but from the expression on Fukuzawa’s face.

Disappointment.

It was the expression he hated the most, and in his current state, after the day he’d had, it was the final straw. The stinging grew stronger, and he felt it when the first tears ran down his cheeks. That had been enough for Fukuzawa to cut himself off, expression changing from disappointment to concern in the blink of an eye.

Great. He thought, as the tears began to come that much faster. Ranpo opened his mouth then to try and reassure Fukuzawa that everything was fine, that he was fine, but if there was one thing he and Fukuzawa had never needed, it was words, and before he knew it, Ranpo found himself being wrapped up in gentle arms that had kept him afloat for the past twelve years. Fukuzawa didn’t say anything as Ranpo hid his face, just continued to stand there, and hold him whilst Ranpo tried to get it together.

Ranpo pulled away after several minutes and wiped his eyes.

“Go home, Ranpo.” Fukuzawa said, the concern still on his face as he placed a hand on Ranpo’s shoulder.

Ranpo shook his head. “But work—”

“Work can wait. You need to take care of yourself first.” Fukuzawa interrupted before Ranpo could even begin to argue. “Everyone has bad days, Ranpo, so don’t force yourself when you are going through one yourself.”

He waited a moment before responding, letting out a heavy sigh as he nodded. “Okay.”

And that was how he found himself, not back at his own place, but someone else’s that was quickly becoming his second home. He’d already texted beforehand, letting the person inside know he was on the way, and knocked upon arrival. Ranpo could hear shuffling from inside while he waited, before the door opened, and he didn’t even give the person time to greet him before he threw himself into open arms.

To his credit, Poe didn’t even flinch as he caught Ranpo in his arms, able to quickly deduce what was going on. His eyes fell to the bandage on Ranpo’s hand, and he’d noticed the way his partner’s eyes were red with unshed tears that he was so desperately trying to hide from him. Not to mention that Ranpo was here on a workday when he usually preferred to remain at the Agency dorms as to avoid the long commute. Poe tightened his grip around Ranpo, drawing the other as close as he could as they stood in the doorway, burying his own face into the crown of Ranpo’s head. “Bad day at work?”

Ranpo nodded, and relaxed into the warmth that was Poe. The stinging in his eyes had returned, brought on by the fact he was being held so gently, and that Poe was Poe—a calming and sturdy presence in a sea of wild emotions and a vengeful world. Poe was always there for him when the day’s got hard, never judging, and somehow making everything seem so much better after being in his presence for just a few minutes.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Poe asked him, pulling back from their embrace enough to look Ranpo in the eyes, one hand coming to rest against Ranpo’s cheek, and—and—

Ranpo began to cry.

Poe’s mouth dropped open slightly as the tears began to fall in earnest, but he reacted quickly, dragging Ranpo inside enough so that he could close the door, hiding the both of them from the world as they sank to the ground; Poe leaning against the wall as Ranpo lay crumpled against him, sobbing into his chest. “It’s alright.” Poe whispered as one hand came up to clutch at the back of Ranpo’s head, providing a much needed shield from the world. “It’s alright.”

The tears wouldn’t stop, but somehow, Ranpo managed to speak, brokenly managing to tell Poe about everything that had gone wrong with his day from the moment he’d woken up until the moment that Fukuzawa had told him to go home. All the while, Poe continued to hold him and listen as he spoke, letting out the occasional hum to show that he truly was listening. And when Ranpo was done ranting, and when the tears finally began to slow, Poe raised his hands and lifted Ranpo’s head to meet with his own.

Poe smiled and pressed his lips to Ranpo’s forehead. “It’s alright.” He said for the third time.

And Ranpo believed him.

It would be alright.

[harrison-abbott]

Mickey B and Me

Some kid wanted to beat me up after the final school whistle. I heard it in maths class when I was trying to do sums. One of the girls said,

“Mickey B is out to get you at the bus stop.”

I didn’t know what I had done to offend Mickey B. But I’d also seen what he’d done to other, smaller kids in the playground. He was only fifteen or so but he was also about six foot already. Man-size. If you put it that way. There was no chance I was going to win in a fight against him. And when it came to notions like legality; Mickey B was underage and therefore could violently attack as many people as he wanted, without retribution.

What could I do about this dilemma?

Well … I knew where Mickey B lived. He lived four streets away from me. I’d seen him around the road many many times and even though we were in the same year and same classes he had never once said Hi to me on any level.

I had my coat on the back of the chair and in my bag I had my phone (which wasn’t allowed in school) and my sandwich and some coins for the bus and something to eat on the way home. I retrieved the coins and my phone and put them in my trousers. Would have to leave everything else here. And then I got up from my desk and walked towards the maths teacher.

“Excuse me, Mr Atkinson,” I said, “I’m feeling a bit sick. Is it okay if I go to the toilet?”

“Eh, yeah. Okay.”

I was in the new corridor. Without my coat and with my new mission there seemed a new possibility across my body. I quit the corridor and headed out into the playground. And then I crossed the ground and went up the path to the main road and waited at the bus stop. The bus came pretty quickly and I was on my way home.

After twenty minutes I got off into my neighbourhood. With the dreary houses. It was around three o’clock in the afternoon. I was fairly determined not to get beaten up again; for, it had already happened to me so many times in my life; and it made me feel like I was no man; and just because I was skinny and didn’t speak like my beaters, just because I didn’t enjoy violence: it tended to make me be pathetic, drab, a failure, a lost cause.

I walked past the post office and the newsagent and ventured down the streets, passing my street, until I got to the road that Mickey B lived on and I turned right on to that. And walked all the way up to his house. I opened his gate and then I went straight up to his door and rang the bell.

To see if anybody was in. I waited five minutes after ringing the bell several times and there was no answer. And so after that I went down the side of the house and into his back garden. His side gate was unlocked. And suddenly I was in the garden, with the flowers and gnomes and mini windmills … All of these attributes bespeaking of a nice mother. She hadn’t created a nice child.

I remembered him kicking that boy in the nose repeatedly. The sheer span of gore. And the boy was half the size of him. And all he did, so I was told, was to call him “fat”. Mickey B. Yeah, he was a bit overweight.

I picked up a boulder that I found next to the little pond in the garden that Mickey B’s mother had made and then I lugged the boulder back over to the house and I threw it through the kitchen window. It smashed with this bristly crackly sound. And no alarms went off. Rather than pick my way through the broken shards, I unslipped the lock above the frame, and then lifted the frame up. And crawled into the kitchen.

There were photos of Mickey B and his family. Dotted around the walls in pinpoint portraits, all of them in full happy smiles; Christmas, birthdays. His mother and Dad both looked like him. And he was an only child. Nae siblings. I wondered if they knew about his playground assaults … Yes, very likely.

A cat. There was a photo of a cat, too. I didn’t want the cat to die in the fire.

So what I did was head through to the living room, scouting for a possible pet animal. I’d seen no meat bowl in the kitchen. And when I checked the two bedrooms upstairs there were no signs of fur or anything there either.

It wasn’t my intention to slay a little cat.

When all was clear, I returned to the kitchen.

There were tubs of vegetable oil and sunflower oil by the cooker and I poured out all of those into pots and I put the pots on the hobs and ignited the hobs full blast. And then I lit the cooker with the matches. And there were tea towels and bunches of tissue roll laying around. So I put those into the cooker, and made sure that the fabric caught alight with the flame. And soon there were these noxious scents snarling in the air.

I tied the towels together in a string and I made a loop of them that led into the sitting room. I got the matches and I lit the towels form that end, in the sitting room. My efforts were small and didn’t seem to be working much. So I went down the corridor to the downstairs toilet and looked in the cupboard above the sink. Found an aerosol can. [One of those cans that you see in commercials all the time, promoting sexual masculinity.]

I took the can through to the living room and I got another of the matches and I began spraying the sick chemicals all over the couches and pillows in the room. I tried the flameflower trick with the match. But the flame was a bit weak and the scoosh tended to blow it out. So I lit fire to the liquid that had soaked into the fabric.

All the while, the kitchen was burning.

I looked around my back and the kitchen was pulping these hard grey clouds.

Ha.

It was time for me to vacate.

The kitchen made me cough when I went in there; a full gust of burning plastic went up my throat and made me gasp and hack. I climbed out of the window.

Then took off back down the path by the side of the house and then I was in the street again and it was odd and sublime and perfect to be a criminal.

I quit the street and I returned the three blocks back to where I lived and then I simply went back to my own house, where I lived with my mother and my elder brother. My elder brother, who bullied me whenever he saw fit. And my mother who didn’t like me a toss. Neither of them were home when I unlocked the front door and went inside. I went into my kitchen and plonked some bread into the toaster. Got out a jar or jam. Boiled the kettle.

Maybe they would send me to prison. I put a tea bag in the cup and I spread the jam around the bread.

They weren’t going to send Mickey B to prison for repeatedly kicking that wee boy in the nose, outside of the high school, one random afternoon, over nothing. Nothing happened to Mickey, over that.

I took a bite of the toast. I sat on the floor of the kitchen and thought about what my life would be like in a jail cell. Was I a Baddie? Who cared …

[eric-the-bmo]

Blood and Silicon Ep5: The Dice Hate Us

[Summary: Blake and Leo decide to go check out the garage without Pauline. It doesn’t go well.]

Picking up from last episode, Blake goes off to feed from the woman Pauline brought in, leaving her and Leo alone in her office. There’s some silence, and eventually Pauline pauses from her typing (where she’s typing up all the information we gathered from the census quest) and lets Leo know that if anything is bothering him, he can talk to her about it. He holds his hands and says he just can’t tell her those things at the moment. She goes back to typing. Sebastian enters the room and asks Pauline for some time off, since college classes are going to be starting up eventually in the spring. She grants it to him, and he leaves. She goes back to transcribing the documents we got from Victor, and Leo pulls out his notebook to try and decipher some of the code he’d written down.

Blake returns from feeding and asks what they should do next; Leo suggests the garage and once again is immediately shut down. Blake offers to drive Leo home, and the two start to exit the club.

On the way out, Seb stops the two of them and recommends Leo change his wardrobe, since he doesn’t dress like everyone else at the club and is getting looks about it. Leo acknowledges this, drawing his coat closer around himself, and he and Blake exit the club and get into the Gangrel’s car.

Leo starts smoking a cigarette as they drive, and few minutes into the ride he realizes this isn’t the way to his apartment.

“Where are you taking me?” “...Somewhere I shouldn’t be.”

Leo is reasonably a bit terrified hearing that, but Blake is all “wait no hold on im not gonna kill you,” and it turns out they go to the garage of the Ashen Rose gang. There’s a chain link fence surrounding the perimeter, and a guard standing by the garage door entrance.

They get out of the car, and Blake asks Leo how long they should stake this out- Leo, a bit impatient from hunger, says “Or I could just do this” and turns invisible. Unfortunately, this causes him to gain a point of Hunger; His Beast begins yelling at him, and he tells it to shut up. Blake asks if he’s okay, but Leo ignores him and goes to investigate. His Beast tells him to go after the guard, she’s a Thinblood, won’t her blood taste great? He heavily considers this, but decides to stalk the perimeter of the chain fence to find an opening.

While trying to do this and be stealthy, Leo avoids kicking a can, and he’s very proud of himself, but then accidentally kicks a cat, which lets out a yell (and then knocks over a metal pipe!!!), and he’s like “oh god we fucked up,” and due to the hunger and anxiety of creeping around, he starts to dissociate because oh shit, oh my god they might get caught.

Trisha, the Thinblood guard, looks over and begins to head towards the sound; Blake realizes he should cause a distraction, and so he does a great impression of another cat.

Leo, still invisible, tries to continue finding a way through the fence, but ends up hitting the fence. His Beast goes full-paranoid- Leo fucked up, the guard is going to notice, they fucked up, they’re going to get caught oh god they should run- and so he runs away.

Smash cut to Pauline, still doing her paperwork. Sebastian enters her office and asks how long she’s been working with Blake and Leo [the answer is about a month for Blake, and only a few days for Leo]. He then asks if she’s certain she can trust them. Pauline responds that she can, and warns Sebastian to be careful.

Cut back to Leo. He’s stopped running now, as his paranoia has now worn off, but he’s still incredibly hungry. He goes off into the alleyways of the city, still invisible, and eventually finds an extremely drunken man sleeping behind a liquor store. He bites down and begins to feed, ending his invisibility.

Blake, not knowing that his companion ran off, tries to see if Leo had managed to make his way into the garage or not. He spots a vent on one side of the garage, and determines that no, Leo didn’t make it in, actually. He decides to wait and see if Leo will come back, and that he’ll go out and search for him after enough time has passed.

Meanwhile, Leo’s still been drinking the man’s blood, and is aware that if he continues to do so he’ll also get drunk. He doesn’t really care- in fact, part of him is looking forward to it. He drinks, and while his Beast is practically chanting at him to drain the man, and while he’s still a bit hungry, Leo pulls away so that he doesn’t end up breaking one of the Chronicle Tenants [The weak deserve protection]; and at this point he realizes he doesn’t know where he is. That’s fine; he can try and retrace his steps.

Blake decides to go find Leo, going down alleyways and whisper-calling his name. He eventually finds the Malkavian, and is relieved at this a bit, because 1) he found him, and 2) Leo being drunk at least means he fed, yknow? He asks Leo what happened and Leo responds that he got lost, and the two of them sit down. Blake asks how he’s feeling, which leads to an interesting interaction:

[”At least he’s not yelling at me anymore!” “??? Why would I yell at you?” “No, no, not you- J.” “...Is J still here with you?” (laughing) “He’s just not yelling at me anymore.”]

Blake gets Leo to look at him- letting him know he doesn’t have Pauline’s dominate abilities- and gets him to agree that they’re not going to tell her any of this; it stays between them. They head back to the car.

Inside, Leo asks Blade why he took them to the garage, since he seemed against it; Blake said it was his way of apologizing for being a stick in the mud (and also Leo needs to learn some lessons). Leo then asks what was up with the look Blake gave him after meeting with Victor (specifically, after Leo asked the Nosferatu to look into someone named Jeremiah). Blake says it just reminded him of his own past, and refused to elaborate any further. Blake sends Leo a text after dropping him off a few blocks from his apartment to make sure he got home safe.

The next night we meet up at the Asylum- Leo actually has on a black sweater this time to try and blend in better. Pauline’s printed out her documents and has put them all in a black folder. The trio heads to her office, and she calls up Zane the drug dealer, telling him she’s got someone interested in the drugs the Ashen Rose gang is selling. He says to go to the Northeast dealers, and warns her that their stuff is dangerous; also, it’s too early in the night for them to be out selling it at the moment. She thanks him and hangs up.

Blake and Leo somehow manage to convince Pauline to let them go check out the garage, and she’s all “okay, you wanna go so bad? fine.”

Pauline does not want to do this, but here we are, at the garage. Blake pretends to just now spot the vent, and he and Pauline try and do a “stand on the shoulders” thing to get Leo up there, but the dice continue to hate the players here, so even after two tries they’re unable to do this. Blake somehow ends up ripping the vent off its hinges, I think, which makes a Loud Noise. This, like the night before, alerts the guard.

Blake gets on the roof somehow???? Leo uses Obfuscate to hide, and Pauline waits. When the guard shows up, Pauline casts Dominate [”There was a thief here, but you scared him away. Everything is fine.”], and when the guard leaves she heads the other way.

Trisha the guard meets up with another gang member who wanted to see what was up, and the two get into an argument; because why would someone try to steal from this garage, as far as everyone knows nothing is in there?- they should change locations, the other guard is saying. Trisha is adamant it’s okay, since she scared the thief away. The other guard opens up the garage door; Leo sees his chance and goes in.

There's all sorts of alchemical stuff in there; tables with shelves and vials and weird components in jars, notebooks with alchemy equations/numbers, some of the weed the gang was making- but the main thing was this: There is a fridge laying on its back. Black tubes are running from it, dripping liquid into containers and running up to the alchemical equipment on the tables. Leo is certain there’s a vampire in there, perhaps, but is unable to check; The two gang members were in front of the open garage entrance, and doing something like that would cause the invisibility to end- and even if he were to do it again super quickly, it wouldn’t hide the fact that the fridge would be open.

However, Leo manages to grab some stuff (alchemical components, a notebook, some weed), and does the Quick Invisibility idea mentioned above for it. The trio all gets tf out of there and into the car, where Leo tells them about his Vampire Fridge theory. 

The session ends with the coterie heading over to meet Harrison at his bar- It’s time to give him the information they learned from the census interviews, and to receive their reward (aka, feeding territory so they can eat without trespassing/fear of getting staked)

[bihanspookies]

A/n: a counterpart to this

Moments like these were the ones Alora despised the most.

The ones late at night when her fellow Black Dragon members (minus a few sane ones) were celebrating a job well done, one that could’ve easily gone down in the shitter if she hadn’t tucked away her conscience and shift into Kano’s stone cold muscle to get him the answers he wanted. She hated the moments she had to forcefully isolate herself, her fingers raw and caked with dry blood, white knuckling the neck of a liquor bottle she swiped from the Aussies office. It wasn’t necessarily rare for her to let herself slip, to drown herself in the familiar burn that she turned to whenever Kano told her to not hold back.

She’s used to having her fists crunch and smash bone, making blood gush from every orifice possible, making her opponents beg for sweet mercy. She was a fighter, that was obvious, it was something she did professionally and underground.

But the difference between fighting in an arena and fighting someone that had no idea what was going to happen in the next second was that at least both parties knew what they were getting into. In the arena, both people knew that there would be blood, sweat and tears, both fighting to be a winner.

When you’re someone on the other end of a Black Dragon deal and you didn’t pull through with your promise then you were just asking to be ripped apart until you fulfilled your side of the bargain.

Alora brings the bottle to her lips, taking large gulps and squeezing her eyes shut to push away the scorching taste that slides down her throat with every swallow. When she finally pulls it away half the liquor is already gone, its dark amber color sloshing around the pretty glass.

It’s around 3 a.m and she stands outside against one of the brick buildings, a minor breeze whipping past her face and making her stray hairs wisp around. The wind soothes the flush in her cheeks, her already naturally warm body heating up a smidge more due to her alcohol consumption. Shang Tsung’s magic had given her an impeccable tolerance to liquor, meaning it would take a lot more than one bottle to even get her a little buzzed. But she wasn’t necessarily trying to get drunk, just attempting to do something to distract herself and drown the little voice in her head that always came after a mission gone awry.

It was supposed to be a quick exchange, her and Kano had left to go and pick up a batch of weapons from someone they had done business with plenty of times. When they got to the meetup location, Alora immediately sensed something was off and Kano did as well not too long after. The first indication was that their usual seller wasn’t there, someone completely new in his place stood there with two big cargo bins right behind him, one with a sort of lock on it. Alora lingered back and watched as Kano proceeded like normal, a hand behind his back and ready to signal her if something was about to go to shit.

Which it did.

When Kano popped the lid of one container open, he was visibly confused and ready to tear a new one into man and ask why only half of what they agreed upon was in there. Alora clenched her jaw, a muscle ticking because she already knew where this was going.

Kano gave the good grace of allowing him to explain himself, the poor man doing his best to seem like he wasn’t about to absolutely vomit his stomach out. Alora faintly registered him saying that his boss wanted more money than they were getting, that once payment was made he’d get the code and other half of what was already promised.

It’s all Kano needed to send out Alora like a raging hurricane.

With a simple gesture of his hand Alora pushed herself off the wall and made her way towards the man who coward in fear as he saw deathly gaze in her blue grey eyes. He barely got to block his face before she sent a fist flying to his jaw, a sickening crunch echoing throughout the port. Blood and teeth spewed out, followed by horrid cries of pain but she didn’t relent, she couldn’t. She continued to beat him until Kano told her it was enough, the end result being several missing teeth, a destroyed nose and two busted and bruised eyes.

Adding insult to injury, Kano lobbed a wad of spit onto the man, saying that next time he wouldn’t be so lucky. They made off with their weapons, leaving the man a whimpering and bloody mess on the cold hard ground.

Alora takes another swig from the bottle, giving a small belch and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She blinks wearily, vision slightly blurry as she stares blankly at the ground. The distant cheering of her teammates blend into nothing in the background, the whoops and hollers of a job well done being lost under the ringing going through her ears.

She doesn’t allow herself to think of the man, doesn’t let herself wonder if he’s still there struggling to get up or if help came.

Or if he simply died.

She goes to take another a sip but realizes she’s finished the bottle and in a heat of the moment, turns and forcefully shatters it against the wall. Glass flies and a few pieces nick her on the face and arms but she doesn’t care. Instead she embraces the minor stinging because it’s something.

She’s feeling something rather than nothing.

[jodilin65]

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2012 Just sitting here enjoying the peacefulness of the predawn hours before the scattered loud trucks, motorcycles and barks start up.

Tom wonders if he’s got too much iron in his blood and that may also be part of why he’s tired. I asked how he’d deal with that if that’s true, and he says the way to help that is to lose some blood. So what’s he gonna do, become suicidal and start cutting himself? He said he may consider donating blood.

Yesterday turned out to be a miserable day. The net wasn’t out too long, but now the hot water is leaking in the tub, and my allergies nearly drove me to smash my nose right off my face. Tom checked the leak and said it isn’t anything to worry about and that we won’t lose propane over it. I still want out of here like yesterday! I’m sick of all the problems this place has and I know it’s only a matter of time before another crisis hits. Something huge. Well, I don’t want to be here when the roof leaks, the floor caves in, the electrical fails, and the stove and fridge crap out. Those are the only things left that haven’t let us down yet. Old places may have problems but I’ve lived in places much older than this that didn’t have nearly as many problems. I swear there’s been a breakage curse on us ever since we met, which means it would follow us from place to place, but I’d rather play fix-it in a place of our own so we could fix it our way and on our own time. Right now I worry we’ll never get out of here. Tom wants to wait till we get Walter’s update. If we get any money - and there are still no guarantees - it’s not going to be till January or February.

Tom got me Nasal Crom nose spray. Hopefully, it will stop the attacks.

Hope I can get copies of the letters my mom exchanged with The Queen of Mean. That oughta be interesting. Really, I’d just love to read them, LOL.

Renate and I agreed to swap postcards because to her that’s more “real” than being just virtual friends. She’s mailing a card to me next Monday and I think it takes something like 14 days to get halfway around the world. She’s going to write in both English and German and so am I. Within a week or two I’ll pick up a card for her and off it will go to Austria.

Nane had me laughing my ass off earlier saying she wasn’t going to play my voice post at work. Smart. :) She knows Lady Rainbow isn’t exactly office material, hahaha.

Poor girl isn’t too happy otherwise. Winter’s hit her full force and her boss is pissed at her for making a fatal mistake.

Mary and I exchanged Halloween ecards, even though I’m not big on holidays, and when I used to be, New Year’s Eve was my favorite.

What happened to Phillip? He never returned to Facebook.

Last night was the second night of not hearing any mice, so maybe the thing we have plugged in really does work. It’s supposed to send a high-frequency sound through the wires underneath the place that only they can hear and that they find annoying. It cycles on and off, but doesn’t run continuously or else they’d just get used to it. It’s also good for keeping spiders away. Too bad we can’t use it when we have rats.

Later…

I’d really like to know if northern Connecticut lost power due to Sandy yesterday afternoon. That’s where Kim is, and if I could know she was without power, that would rule out thinking she could be one of the ones who asked me if I track old friends online. Then I would know it was Molly. Kim doesn’t live far from Andy, and Andy never lost power, so I think it probably was her. If it were Molly she would’ve checked my blogs. Molly never makes any attempts to hide. Kim does. Yet I know damn well she reads my blog due to the comments she’s left.

I went to take a shower this morning, shoved the shower curtain aside, and then I saw a miracle. An honest to God miracle. The tub wasn’t dripping at all. Not one single drop was visible and it was completely dry. Same with after my shower.

It’s been an amazingly quiet morning so far, though it’s not even noon yet.

Saw some pictures of Sandy’s damage. Damn! Makes me realize this place ain’t so bad after all. At least it’s not floating in 4 feet of water and it’s got power.

I’ve lost 5 pounds in 16 days. Hope I can keep the trend going. Speaking of trends, if the net’s up to speed I’ll go do another VP on LJ

I looked out at the cage on the porch and tears stung my eyes. We’ve got bedding, we’ve got food. I can’t wait anymore. I’m getting new baby(ies) this weekend.

I realize, based on reading back on past journals and by what people say, that I’ve gotten to be a rather “dramatic” and “dynamic” writer. I once wrote a story that contained an earthquake scene. The person who read it and gave me feedback said I didn’t really make her feel the fear one should feel if caught in an earthquake. And so I vowed to improve on getting the emotions across, so to speak, whether they were positive or negative. Well, it seems I’ve gotten a little too good at it. While my life isn’t perfect any more than anyone else’s, 2012 has been good to me for the most part. When Andy pointed out that one wouldn’t know that based on my writing, I could see what he meant. One who didn’t know me well would think I was miserable just with the things I’ve had to say about my parents. Oh, they’ve made me miserable, all right. Just not directly for many years. But the things they did were horrible and I can see where that would have a negative effect on the reader, thus giving them the impression that I was miserable at the time I wrote it, much in the way I was miserable as a kid. Guess I need to work on being less of a melodramatic writer, so to speak.

I’ve noticed this when reading back on certain things. Like my life in Oregon. I read back on some stuff from that time and some of it sounded like I was more stressed out than I remember feeling. I was depressed during the first year, but I wasn’t nearly as anxious as I made myself sound in the last two years.

It’s been the opposite with other things. In some ways, my writing while at this project in Connecticut may lead one to think it wasn’t that bad, but it was hell. No doubt about that.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2012 My allergies are on the warpath again. Had the windows open and the cooler running, so yeah, it’s definitely something outside that’s bugging me. No working out or cleaning for me. I’m too groggy from the semi-worthless Benadryl I took, and I don��t want to go sneezing all over the treadmill.

It hit Tom that if I look back in my old journals for the name of the snot spray I was on back in 2000, we may now be able to get it over the counter. He’s going to look for names, or at least similar versions, to Vancenase and Nasonex. The snot sprays prevented the attacks from starting altogether and eventually, I could stop taking them.

Superstorm Sandy has been rocking the northeast, but amazingly the mega storm hasn’t knocked Andy’s power out. He said it’s been windy, but that’s it. So far anyway. They’ve canceled flights, and schools and basically shut down everything and anything all over the Northeast. As I told my overseas friends, though, I’m safe from the storm being on the other side of the country, 3000 miles away.

Left a voice post on LJ speaking German, Spanish and Italian. Just a few quick sentences. I appreciate Renate’s feedback. I guess I’m doing better than I thought with just one shaky word.

I spoke with Walter yesterday and just when I thought my mom wouldn’t be full of any more surprises, he had quite a bomb to drop on me. She was exchanging letters with The Queen of Mean, Leona Helmsley, imprisoned for tax evasion! I was like Leona Helmsley?!?! Did she write to Aileen Wournos too, before they executed her for the 7 guys she killed? Why didn’t Tammy tell me that one? That one beats flunking out of high school any day! The high school thing wasn’t overly shocking. We knew she was a fucktard. Hey, even the pervert’s probably smarter than she was. I wonder if Dad knew about this. I didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. It’s funny in a way as I hate the government, but it’s sad that my mother cared more about writing this mean bitch than her own kids, and even Walter agreed.

I once worked for the Queen of Mean as a housekeeper in one of her hotels, though I never met her. From everything I read up on her, though, she was one mean-assed bitch. An awful lot like my mother was, so I can see why she’d have been drawn to the woman. Both were mean, rude, selfish, materialistic bitches from hell, only one was rich and one just pretended to be. This is a woman who left 12 million to her dog and anywhere from nothing to 5 million to her grandkids.

Walter seems like a very liberal, kind and empathetic guy. It came up when Walter was sympathizing with me and saying that while everyone loved Dad, no one had anything nice to say about Mom. He said he could relate as he came from an alcoholic family. That’s when he told me she was writing the bitch.

We got to talking about writing and blogging and he said Tammy said I was a fabulous writer and I guess he likes to write too, but has been shy about it. I told him not to be and when I told him about my books/blog he seemed interested. I let him know I’d send him links once I got the email he plans to send. He’s very liberal, too. I told him he needed to be to read my stories and why and he said, “I don’t care. I’ve had lots of gay and lesbian clients and friends.” Then he whined about the Republicans.

The good news is that I still may get something. The condo’s up for $124K and the store sold for 37K, I think he said. He’s gonna be mailing a detailed email about all the debt and things for sale. The bitch apparently went credit card crazy after dad died and racked up tons of debt. The more she had to care for him in the end, the less attention she was able to pay to the store.

Later…

As I sit here with my nose plugs on so I can get through this entry without sneezing, I wait for my second round of Benadryl to knock me out. Until then I’ll write about the highly disturbing dream I had last night that isn’t going online even in a private entry.

It was the blacks. They couldn’t get me from Arizona so they all moved here in order to be able to fuck with me. The only odd thing was that we were living in a hotel at the time. Yeah, a hotel and the blacks all rolled into one. It was a fancy hotel, though, seeing that Lady Gaga performed in the parking lot every night. But still… I really hope this isn’t a sign of anything bad to come! God loves to kick us when we’re down but He also loves to kick us when we’re up, too. I never know if they’re going to hack into my computer and set me up or fabricate something else if they can’t.

Only in part of the dream did my dream self believe they followed me here. In another part of the dream, we learned that she actually moved here first and we coincidentally ended up here as well. I realized it wouldn’t look that way, though, and that it wouldn’t make me look good at all.

In real life, I would never go to court unless I was forced to but I was given a bunch of printouts in court nonetheless, of stuff I supposedly sent the bitch. It was weird, though, as it was mostly weather reports and other senseless stuff, but my dream self knew I did indeed send it. Next thing I know I’m in a crowded courtroom and someone’s saying, “The media needs to get this stuff out of the paper,” shaking a copy of the printouts.

Then I walked up to a table in which an older woman, who I knew to be the judge, sat going through some papers. Several others buzzed about the table. She looked up at me and said something about the media, apparently thinking I was with the media. When I told her who I was she regarded me with shame in her eyes.

That pretty much told me enough right there, and after there was some discussion about how I would attend to all my little court calls since Tom had to work, I promised myself I’d never return to court. I don’t think I was supposed to return till March, though. The dream ended with me wondering if we should leave the state.

I REALLY hope to hell I’m not psychic anymore! I just worry this is a sign of bad things to come even if they don’t have anything to do with the blacks.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2012 I’m surprised but flattered to learn that Tammy already read Renting Ginny. She read the copy I sent Dad. As much of an enabler as he was, I’m still glad that he got to read one of my books right before he died.

She’s also been reading my MD blog. I’m not surprised. I figured she’d prefer to go to my trackless blog, but maybe not. Some people really do like it for its simplicity. Still, I’m not surprised she’s going somewhere because I know she likes to read my journal, probably not just to see what’s up with me, but what I may say about her as well. Well, when I failed to see her show up on TIP, I figured she was going to MD.

The attorney did try to call me back but we missed each other, and as usual, there were phone issues. The MagicJack won’t work right cuz of the shitty connection and I wasn’t sure how to retrieve messages from the cell. I only use it to call out so I never got to learn much about how it functions. I’ll try calling him back on Monday, though I don’t see what he can tell me that Tammy hasn’t already told me. My folks, who always had to put on a show, were in debt. I know that. I’m not getting anything. I know that, too. But at least others particularly Jennifer, won’t be getting anything either.

The store just sold, but between the two mortgages the bitch took out, they’re still in the negative.

Tammy totally regrets promising Dad, as he lay dying in his hospital bed, to take care of Mom. Even her kids can’t figure out why she’d bother to take care of someone who never gave a shit about her. Giving birth doesn’t make one a mother. BEING a mother is what makes them a mother. Yet she was hardly a mother to Larry and Tammy and even less of one to me since she cut out of motherhood a few years early with me by sending me away when I was 15. Except for a few months after my 16th birthday, I never returned home till I was 18. By 19 I was gone for good. Tammy’s lost thousands of dollars and countless hours with her husband just to pamper this abusive bitch till it croaked in the end, much more peacefully than it ever should have. As I said in my last entry, God will see to it that my husband and I, who never harmed a child in our lives, go out alone and in pain. Then again, unless we die together in an accident or something, one of us won’t be alone. Just in pain.

While Tammy and I may be two totally different people with different likes, abilities, interests, lifestyles, etc., we’re both big on keeping promises so she kept hers to Dad. I don’t know why, but that’s just how I’ve always been. If you tell me not to tell anyone something you tell me, I never will. If I fail to keep my word to you it’s only because something came up to prevent me from keeping it and not because I chose to break my promise.

Despite being happy overall, there is so much anger toward my parents. Much more so than ever before, and sometimes when we’re angry it’s hard to focus on the good things we have in life. Damn them for leading me to believe they would leave me a substantial amount after they croaked! I didn’t expect millions, but I expected something and not just a grand or two either. And damn God for letting me be teased with money yet again! But next time I will know better. It isn’t that I didn’t know this time. I knew. But that doesn’t mean it still doesn’t get frustrating as hell seeing the same old shit play itself out over and over. What if I did win serious money? Would God see to it that it was stolen? I bet he would.

Tammy totally understands how I feel and she feels the same way. Again I am grateful to her for letting me scream my frustrations in her ear and cry on her shoulder, though I didn’t literally cry. It’s just a figure of speech.

She also understands me when I say I’d be waiting with a shovel in hand if they could come back to life. Really I would. And while they were quick to remind me how they saved our asses in 2007 and beg for a break, I would be just as quick to remind them of the many times they didn’t help me when I needed it. They didn’t answer my cries to get me out of Valleyhead. They didn’t do shit about me roughing it in the slums on food stamps that couldn’t even feed a mouse for a whole month while they lived high off the hog in sunny Florida. And what about every slap, kick and punch they delivered, along with every hurtful word and the unnecessary things they made me do that they knew damn well I didn’t want to do like attending summer camp. That isn’t for everyone and it sure as hell wasn’t for me. I need freedom and privacy more than structure and routine. But camp was just like Valleyhead and jail. We all ate together, we all slept together, we all SHIT together.

So no, I’d say I don’t owe them fuckers shit.

On the flip side, the thought of them suddenly being alive and well again is rather amusing when you think of the fact that they’d have less than we had when my husband and I were forced to be little street bums for 36 hours and spend nearly a year in a motel. They’d have no home, no money, no clothes, no food, no nothing. Hell, them fuckers wouldn’t even own a pair of shoes! But knowing how fucked up God is, He’d see to it that some sucker felt sorry for them and gave them what they needed. Then I’d have to book the next flight out of here and fly to them in a murderous rage, and you know what? I would. I really would.

Later…

I’m sorry I bit you in preschool, whoever you are. I really am! LOL

During my talk with Tammy yesterday there was actually something funny she told me and that’s that I was thrown out of preschool. It doesn’t surprise me as I was one wild kid, all right. I don’t remember it, but she says I bit some little boy. Did my sexism start that young? LOL

I do remember the pea incident, though. There were these little hard green peas. I don’t know what they were for. Some art project, I guess. Well, for some stupid reason, I felt compelled to shove one up my nose. I vaguely remember one of the women there holding a Kleenex to my nose and firmly saying, “Blow.” I don’t remember the pea shooting out of my nose, but it must have at some point.

Tammy wasn’t sure if it was me or one of her own kids who shoved a Barbie shoe up their nose. Definitely wasn’t me.

Being 8 years older than me, though, I’m sure Tammy would remember a helluva lot more shit I caused than I ever could.

I wonder…if this boy suddenly spotted me walking down the street, would he finally want to bite me back?

Anyway, my weight is struggling to reset itself, but although my body is going to fight like hell to hang onto the extra weight, I’m determined to fight harder.

Later…

Did some digging into the past since Norma told me my paternal great-grandmother’s name was Sylvia Mary W. She was married to a guy named Joseph, her daughter eventually married a guy named Joseph, and my maternal grandfather’s dad was Joseph. So I guess Joseph was a popular name in my family. My maternal great-grandparents’ names were Joseph and Sarah G. So it was later shortened. My maternal grandmother’s maiden name was spelled with a K and not C, but I can’t figure out who her parents were. I can’t believe they listed one of my grandmother’s SS#, though. Aren’t criminals always looking for dead people’s socials?

So, Shirley Ida K and Jack (Herman?) G.

I’m once again wondering if our best bet would be to forget about getting the best of what we can get for 10K and just take what we can get right now with 5K. I not only don’t think we’ll have 10K by the end of the year (though Tom says it will be close) but looking back on our life together, a clear pattern emerges. It’s only the nicer places that we’ve lost. Clearly, something up there doesn’t want us to have a place we really like. Sure, we’ve struggled in dumps and we almost lost it all there, but when have we ever lost a dumpier place? Old places are what I’m used to, so as long as it’s ours, has enough space and a spot for a washer/dryer (I can do without a dishwasher), maybe we’d be safer in a place not as old and as dumpy as this place but close enough. A '70s place instead of a '60s place. But it would still have paneling and paper-thin walls and even single-paned windows. Jesse sheetrocked the kitchen and bedroom here and double-paned most of the windows. Nonetheless, I’ve been living in overall dumps since 2005. I can keep on doing that if that’s going to keep us safer. An expanded single-wide should be enough for us, and the lot would be cheaper than the lots the double-wides are on. Just trying to think of all the safety nets I can possibly think of in preparation for the next poor spell. All good things come to an end and so I don’t expect to always have this kind of money. As I’ve learned, the less you have (or the cheaper it is), the less you have to lose. Well, I don’t want an 80s or newer doublewide that we’ll only be fated to lose sooner or later. No matter how smart and prepared one may be, circumstances beyond our control still can and do arise. Like it or not, the cheap dumps are safer. That’s what I think we should aim for. So, no problem. :)

Tom came down with a cold. It’s that time of year when everyone is sick. Fortunately, though, I’m still able to do my influencing thing which has been deader than dead lately, and has been keeping it from getting that bad. He got a blood glucose monitoring kit to see if he’s diabetic and perhaps that’s why he’s rundown sometimes, but thinks he’s probably just overworked since it’s fine. Is he just now figuring that out? I could have told him this ages ago. First no one will let him work; now he’s being run ragged 6 days a week. The money is so NOT worth it if it’s going to mess up his health. If he has to give them an ultimatum and tell them to either cut his hours or expect to lose him, he will. We have more than enough money to live on while he found work elsewhere. We’d hate to give up such great medical and vacation benefits, but like I said, his health isn’t worth the risk.

He got one of those mouse-repellant things that you plug in but I don’t see how it’s going to kill or drive away mice that are UNDER the house, so we’ll see. It says it can take up to a week. Haven’t heard anything yet tonight, but sometimes they don’t start moving around and chewing up a storm till after midnight.

It’s almost time for my protein bar and then my workout. That’ll scare them silent for a while if they do come around.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27, 2012 It was exactly 25 years ago that I wrote my first journal entry. That was a paper entry, of course, all of which have been digitized since the mid-90s. Had I known it’d one day be published for the entire world to see I’d have laughed my ass off. It seems like so many lifetimes ago that that young, naïve, and sometimes incredibly stupid girl on disability and food stamps froze her ass off in the cold and snow as she rode the buses through the scummiest sections of Springfield, MA while her mommy and daddy lived in warm comfort and style 1400 miles below her. I don’t miss that loveless life full of pills, cigarettes and hopeless dreams one bit!

How could I forget to mention the dreams? I had 2 - possibly 3 - Florida dreams. One was too vague to remember but the others took place over a couple of days. It was like one dream for each day. In dream #1 Tom was complaining about the humidity, though I didn’t seem to mind. In dream #2 I was asking if he felt it was better today, and he said it wasn’t that bad.

The past has proven that reoccurring dreams are the most “meaningful” and the most likely to happen. While it’s awfully hard not to think all these Florida dreams aren’t just a product of my wishful thinking, what else can they be? It’s not like I’m going to win 100K or that Walter’s going to call and say, “Good news! Your parents had a few hundred grand stashed under the carpet in the trunk of their car!”

We may very well end up there when he retires, but why would I be dreaming about it now? I don’t usually have these types of dreams till it gets close to actually happening. That’s part of how I know our new home isn’t just right around the corner. The lack of dreams about it pretty much tells me so. Besides, without anything from my parents, it’s going to take the rest of the year to save up the money we want for a nicer, newer, bigger place. Or at least nicer and bigger even if it’s still a 70s model which is as old as they start at. Then it will probably take another month to find the right place, then another month for the paperwork and all that stuff, assuming that every park but the “sardine” park doesn’t reject us for not having perfect credit even though we’d be buying the place outright. So the March vibe kind of makes sense.

Later…

Got my second royalty payment, and while it’s not as much as I’d like, it’s still weird in a nice kind of way to get paid for my writing. God will see to it that I never get nearly as much as I may deserve for my time and efforts, but it’s still cool to get what piddly payments I do get.

Tammy called yesterday and at first I was annoyed that she didn’t just message me. She knows I hate phones. I’ve made this very clear to her. But she said Facebook was messed up and apparently didn’t think to email me instead.

So I called her back, and as usual, spent more time chatting than I intended or wanted. Not because she’s boring or anything like that, but because I was tired and the poor girl sounded like shit. She has pneumonia. I swear she’s always got something! She’s so like I was when I smoked not that I’ve been problem-free as healthy as I am. I still have more dental work to take care of and I still have to deal with my ear and allergies. So I’m not perfect. But there don’t seem to be many comparisons between us two. She’s up to 222 pounds and really has a lot of problems and so does Becky. I guess she’s dealing with glaucoma, had eye surgery, and is worried about losing an eye, which would totally suck.

And then she pissed me off with the news she hit me with even though I totally expected it. Funny how one can still get pissed even though they figured as much. Like I said in my last entry, I know God. I know He not only protects my perps and sees to it that things go well for them, but I knew he’d snub me one last time where my parents are concerned. My abusive parents who had all the pampering and catering in the world in their final days, and who got to exit this world peacefully in their sleep. If anything it’s my husband and I that are going to suffer slow, painful deaths all alone without anyone around to give a damn. Why? Because that’s just how twisted, unfair and fucked up God truly is and I swear I’ll strangle the next person that tries to tell me I should play nicey-nicey with Him and that He just loves the hell outa me the same as everyone else! Sorry, but I don’t kiss up to those who harm me or allow harm to come to me whether they’re of an earthly source or not. And allowing the things to be done to me that have been done to me is NOT love. I can’t make people get this; I can only state the facts. Then again, am I really obligated to explain to people why and how I know their theories about God, at least the ones that pertain to me, are pure bullshit? Those who love me and will do whatever they can to protect me walk on two legs just like I do. That’s all I can say.

Another thing I wasn’t surprised to learn was that my know-it-all mother flunked out of high school. Tammy learned this from a long-time family friend. At least I think that’s who she said it was from. She was surprised but not surprised. My parents weren’t the dumbest people alive but they weren’t nearly as smart as my sister and I either. Dad didn’t, but Mom sure loved to pretend she knew it all, all the while she would critique and criticize others. Yeah, a true hypocrite at heart, but strangely and sadly enough, it is often those with the same problems they’re picking on that do the picking. The fat picks on the fat. The poor picks on the poor. The fearful picks on those with fears. The dumb pick on the dumb.

They never could have learned one language let alone several or become published authors if they had tried. Nor could they sing as well as I came to sing. I may not be the smartest person alive either, but there was no comparison and I know my mother was even jealous of me in some ways. It was embarrassing to her to have her kids end up smarter than her. She wasn’t proud. She was jealous.

Gotta pull a load of laundry out and then shower. After that, I’ll continue on with my bitchfest but don’t be fooled. Just because I’m pissed and hate my parents and God doesn’t mean I’m unhappy. If anything I feel freer, happier and less stressed now that they’re gone.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2012 Lost 4.6 pounds in less than two weeks on this Special K diet. Not bad. Gonna hit the treadmill in a few.

They’ve been turning us off more and more in the mornings and evenings and it’s so damn frustrating. This “service” isn’t even worth the $25 a month we pay for it, but we both agree we don’t want to pay $200 - $300 a month for our only other option while we’re still here trying to save for a house. So as much as I’m tempted to go online on and off throughout the day I’m going to try to make a point of checking in just once or twice a day to avoid the frustration my dependency on the net has brought me. I’m gonna just pick up messages, check in at my regular sites, post my entries, and submit my work for my job, then that will be it for the day. It’ll be hard, but I can do it. It will be good for me because I spend too much time online as it is when I should be doing other things. So as long as the net doesn’t cut out when I want to make my daily rounds, I can’t be so frustrated if I avoid the source of frustration altogether.

I’m going to stop posting old journals for now, but I hope to finish my designer book titles for the doc files I’ve been making on a site called Muzy. Yeah, I’m loving the photo quotes that writes text in big fat letters that you can fill in with the photo of your choice. Nothing like colorful, flowery titles, LOL.

I feel bad for Andy cuz his neighbor’s dog has been barking. Even though he’s got a helluva deal where he’s at I could never stand to live attached to others. Even when we didn’t have anyone above or below us they still managed to drive us crazy in just about every way imaginable. TVs, music, cabinets, doors, footsteps, loud chatter, kids screaming… But what happened to dogs being pets in the East? Are they not household pets anymore or something? This is one of the things (besides how liberal it is there) that I miss about the East.

Where I had to use sound machines for the dogs here that are anything but pets, now I have to use them for mice. Yeah, they’re still chewing up a storm somewhere under the floorboards between the bathroom and living room, and they get annoying as hell. I worry they’re going to damage something vital within the electrical or plumbing and while we won’t have to pay for it since we’re still renters, I worry we’ll need Jesse down for that or some other emergency before we leave and he’ll discover the bathroom leaks we’ve been dealing with ourselves so as not to have to deal with him. We put a cookie sheet under the leaky sink pipe and Tom removed the handles of the leaky shower faucet (fortunately it was the cold one) and put a wrench on it to make it easier to turn on and off.

Left a message for the attorney but never heard back from him. That’s not good. Makes me think I really won’t get shit after all. That’s so God, too. It’s so God to add one more insult to injury by making sure my abusers don’t leave me shit. And let me guess…they’re living it up and having a grand old time in the afterlife too, right God? Well, we can’t know for sure what, if anything, happens in the afterlife, but I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if they were going first class.

People say God works in mysterious ways. Try twisted, sick and unfair ways. Really, there’s nothing “mysterious” about why some people live in beautiful homes that do next to nothing while my husband works his ass off just to come home to this.

In reading back in my mid-90s journal (I am at least proofreading them for when I finally do publish them) I read about Minnie, someone who also knew the late Bob P, a friend who died in prison around 2005 or so. We exchanged a few calls and letters back then. I looked her up on Facebook and sent her a message. She replied and requested to be added.

Someone in San Francisco spent a half-hour on my blog tonight. Michelle?

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2012 They turned us off earlier than usual tonight, so I’ll have to post this later on as I’m getting ready to eat, work out, and shower. Right now I’m running a few loads of laundry through.

The OT wages on and Tom will have to work his eighth Saturday in a row this Saturday. Before my appointment on the 14th is when he’ll run the cans into the recycling center, which by then may not make it in just one carload. We could very well have $40 or $50 in cans out there! We’d give them to Andy if we could.

It’s just a rumor, Tom says, but he heard from a couple of people at work that they’re going to be giving out bonuses. Well, if anyone deserves a huge bonus it’s Tom!

I’m going to call the attorney soon to see if I can get a sense of what’s up. As in how much longer things will take and how much, if anything, I can expect to get.

Looking forward to the weather returning to the 70s. I like how the cooler and open windows allow for fresh air but since I’m on nights now I’ll have to sleep with my mask on. I hate sleeping in light, but I’ll have no choice but to crack the bedroom window and leave the bedroom door open. How I miss having a normal setup! Someday. Someday we will get out of the Jes pest’s bummy old trailer and into a real house of our own. Well, it won’t have been built on-site, but it’ll be built more like a real house because it will be newer. A mobile home or manufactured home as opposed to a trailer. Many people think bigger is better and that’s what I used to think too, but 1000-1500 square feet is really all we need.

I didn’t hear any mice the night before last, but then I heard them last night. It can take up to two weeks for the poison to kill the whole group. Again, I hate to resort to killing the cute little things, but the damage they can cause leaves us no choice.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2012 Got a message from Christiane. She said she hasn’t had time to read much of my story and put a frowning face next to this sentence. Really? Or is she just not interested? Well, I guess it doesn’t matter either way as once again writer’s block is setting in.

I wonder how many blog visitors I get that I can’t see? Visitors that deliberately hide from my tracker.

Tammy posted some more baby pics and I realize I still have mixed emotions where her kids are concerned. Well, I have mixed emotions about anyone in the family except for my cousins. I was browsing through some of Tammy’s comments on Sarah and Becky’s stuff and I guess Becky has eye surgery coming up. She and Sarah thanked their aunt Etta. Thought they “never had an aunt?” Yeah, that crack Sarah made really pissed me off. I tell myself she was just a brainwashed kid who didn’t know shit, but I remember that crack when I think of her, and I’m still hesitant to reach out to any of the kids and getting sucked up in another family feud of false accusations and the he said, she said game. Maybe Lisa’s changed, but I don’t need her coming out of the blue at me again with some lame bullshit accusation. Oh, I’d dump them if they started any shit. I have no problem with that at all even if it meant getting harassed and hounded online to hell and back. I’m just not so sure I want to burn a bridge we may need to one day cross. We have been poor so many times in life. Why couldn’t we be again? Why couldn’t God line things up to fall against us in all kinds of ways no matter how smart we are with money or how much we save?

I’d love to fuck with Bill, but the pussy’s hiding or it has no account. Besides, if I did that it would only get the DQ and brood on my ass about it.

Andy won a case involving a car accident he was in 3 years ago. He gets points off his insurance and a reimbursement check. Yay for him! I hope the check is big and arrives swiftly.

Can’t help but feel a pinch of regret for myself as well as happy for him, for I know that had it been me, God would have protected the guilty party and I’d have gotten nothing. Just a big fat nothing.

I also have mixed emotions where Mary is concerned. For years my husband looked for a job and didn’t get one till the economy nearly killed us. But she gets two jobs right off the bat? This woman who allowed herself to be abused and her child to be killed? We live like bums in a tiny old dump, but as soon as she’s released she gets to live in a big beautiful house. How fair is that?

Later…

Got sick of Lori and blocked her for the final time. Besides, I couldn’t have public posts if I wanted them and still be able to block her from seeing them. I’m just sick of all the messages, comments and likes, most of which are needless and silly anyway. I don’t need messages from her urging me to vote. If I want to vote I’ll vote. She’ll think it’s a glitch, though, and this way her feelings won’t be hurt. I didn’t want to come out and tell her, “Look, you’re not a bad person. You didn’t do anything wrong. I just don’t want to be friends with you.”

I never liked being overly sociable online with the same person anyway. I’m not only too busy for that but unless the person is interesting or hot as hell, I get bored with that sort of thing. I don’t think I’m basing my decision on Lori on her looks, though she was an ugly duckling. No doubt about that.

Really wish Facebook would allow a way for us to hide people’s likes and comments while still going public.

Decided to compromise with myself on whether or not to go public on Facebook or keep it friends of friends. I had kept going back and forth on the idea of which to go with, unable to make up my mind. I’d love a public account; it’s just that I’d hate to expose certain people who are more private that may still want to leave comments. So I decided to start with public posts, but then whenever I get comments or likes from certain people, I’ll go in and reset those posts to friends of friends.

I’m pissed at myself for going back up nearly a pound. Yesterday I was more sluggish and hungry for some reason, so I ate a little more. I also had my main meal too early in my day.

Tom is sick of all the OT. He says there’s no doubt it will continue for the rest of the week, but he would really love it if it stopped and he could have an entire weekend off. I agree, even if it would slow the savings down dramatically and I still may not get anything from my parents which could mean we couldn’t move for a long, long time. Oh well. We are where we’re meant to be. Been here so long that while there may be things to complain about, as with any place, this is what I’m used to. I don’t know that I could ever have adapted to having people an arm’s reach away like they are in those parks, so I’m ok with staying here. There are so many places that would be much, much worse to be stuck in. I know we could be moved into a similar old single-wide in the “sardine” park within a month, no questions asked, and it could be all ours, but if we’re going to settle, why not settle for staying here?

This weekend I’m going to unpack the bins I packed and just assume we’ve got another year or two to go before we get out of here and into a place decent enough. Tom doesn’t think the OT will stop after this week, though, just because he wants it to. LOL, I always did say that the more we want something the less likely we are to get it. I don’t see us moving anytime soon either. In fact, I don’t think we’re even remotely close. But he must be meant to be making all this money for a reason even if it means having no life. He hasn’t had a Saturday off in nearly two months, he’s tired, and things are getting neglected around here that I can’t do on my own.

I’m using Nane’s leaves for my blog background. She likes to take nature pics and one of the shots in her newest album was of a maple tree. I told her it would make a great blog background, but not to worry, I wouldn’t steal it. She said it was ok, though.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2012 Still not sure what to do about Lori. She’s such a pest at times, but I also know that right or wrong, I wouldn’t mind nearly as much if she were a hottie. I wish she’d get sick of me or something, LOL. I can block her from viewing my posts to keep her from commenting and butting into all my discussions, but I’m not sure I can stop her from seeing other people’s posts. Even if I could, she still posts to my wall and messages me. I don’t want to hurt her feelings, but I’m tempted to block her for good.

I wish it would rain more often during the daytime instead of mostly at night like it usually does. That would keep the Jes pest indoors more often. But just because the ground may be wet doesn’t mean he can’t be out working on whatever vehicle, woodworking or another project he’s building. I cringe every time I hear something like, “I want to plow a little road in back down to the well,” though it’s been a long time since I’ve heard that one. I’m sure he’ll want to cut down dead trees for firewood for his dad, though the bulldozing will have to wait till the ground dries out. We’re on for rain for tomorrow, and then it’s back to the sunny 70s.

Tom didn’t have any OT today. He liked that for obvious reasons but I did say I feared them cutting the OT the closer we got to our goal. He said it’s just one day and he’s sure there’ll be a huge order waiting to be filled tomorrow. He said the only reason he got to leave early (though not everyone did) was that the order was delayed. Meanwhile, I’m trying to enjoy how well things are going and not worry about the 10 million things that could go wrong to trap us here.

I’m now just two-tenths shy of a 3-pound loss since beginning the Special K diet 9 days ago. I just hope it keeps on working! It’s beyond fabulous with the way it curbs hunger better than any other diet. Sometimes I get hungry but not all the time and not to the point where I feel I have to eat a whole cow to stop it. The end of my day used to be the hardest, yet I didn’t eat for the last 4 hours of my day yesterday and wasn’t one bit hungry.

Nane also couldn’t pull up Irene’s account. I thought it might be a glitch at first since that happens on and off with my Chile friend. I knew she hadn’t blocked me since we’d gotten along just fine, then Nane confirmed that she deactivated. I’m guessing it had to do with her depression, the poor girl.

Nane really holds the record for stepping into my dreams. In the last dream, which was very short, I guess I was in Germany. She was pissed cuz she had to take a day off from work to bring me to the doctor. Then she got even more pissed when some Arschloch cut in front of us and nearly got us into an accident. By the time we got to the doctor’s office and I realized I’d forgotten my purse with my medical info she was so furious I was almost afraid to leave with her, LOL.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2012 Someone asked on Ask if I ever worry my online stalkers will get to me in real life. Wow, I’d really like to know who asked that. But no. I don’t see how they could find my exact whereabouts and jump out at me in the flesh, but as I said in my answer, let’s hope for their sake they’re armed or a lot tougher than me if they do.

The net’s down now and the fact that it goes out every weekday evening around the same time only makes me suspect even more that it’s a person fucking around with us and not just a combination of old wires and incompetent service. Probably just some kid with nothing better to do that thinks it’s pretty fucking funny. What else can one do in such a tiny town but waste time pulling pranks, right? Anyway, I’ll post this when I can.

The thought of being here till the spring with our change of plans makes me want to scream, but not just because of the lack of space and shitty connection. Yeah, you probably guessed it - the Jes pest is already out and about banging, hammering and doing God knows what else. If he were just a driveway away I’d kill both him and his damn mutts if I didn’t go batshit crazy first. I was really hoping to be out of here before the cooler weather projects started back up again, but we refuse to settle and take just any old place simply because we can. We can afford many places that are adequate and comfortable, but adequate and comfortable aren’t good enough for me anymore, this person who has been made to live in dumps as if she and her husband were nothing but a couple of lazy-ass dope heads. I don’t have to love it so much that it takes my breath away, but I better really, REALLY like the hell out of it. If it doesn’t call to me, really grab me by the heart and stir my excitement, I don’t want it.

For now, I expect to hear our latest mouse that’s been living in the space between the heater and tub in about 10 minutes. Whoever came up with the saying about being quiet as a mouse didn’t know shit. They are NOT quiet when they’re chewing on shit. We put bait out but I don’t know if it will find it.

We got our first real rain in many months starting at midnight last night. It has rained on and off since then and there was even some thunder and lightning. I’m glad the thunder held off till after I got up. I’m also glad to see we’ll be back in the 70s this weekend. I like the rain as long as it isn’t day after day after day. It’s the cold I could do without.

I rejoined Tumblr but am not sure if I want to share this account with anyone I know because I might want to use it for sharing things I wouldn’t normally share in my other blogs. As a blogging fanatic, I love the variety that the different sites have to offer. I kind of miss Blogger but I refuse to sign up for anything powered by Google, thanks to their shitty security and “privacy” policies. I probably won’t post private stuff on my Tumblr blog, though, as Googlable or not, there’s always a chance that the wrong eyes may spot it. I either make private or keep offline anything I don’t want just anyone seeing. But Tumblr is one of those all-or-nothing blogs that doesn’t let you set different security levels per post. I even made a story blog there, but I’m not sure if I’ll keep that going or not.

I stupidly brushed my teeth too roughly and caused my gums to start bleeding again so I rinsed with salt and baking soda. I think the reason the last two pulls were rougher on me is that they had to dig as well as pull. With my wisdom teeth and the impacted baby tooth, they could just pull.

Tom said jury duty was cool and it was nice to get paid for a whole day’s work even though he wasn’t there too many hours. It had to do with some stupid drunk driving case. Just some stupid, clean-cut drunk driving case that didn’t involve anyone getting hurt or anything like that. Again, it never ceases to amaze me the time, money and legwork the pigs and courts spend on such things that should be resolved as simply as writing out a ticket. But apparently, you can fight a DUI charge same as you can a speeding ticket. He didn’t get called for the case, though.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2012 “Why you gotta be so mean?” Kim asked me on Ask in regard to my last entry. I just deleted it. I decided to compromise with myself and instead of being so black or white, I’d allow for anonymous comments and not deprive myself of the fun that goes with that and just delete anything that’s either obviously from her or Molly, or that might be from them.

I first told myself I wouldn’t post it unless I ever heard from her again, but then I told myself, “You know you will. Just post the damn thing. It’s your journal anyway.”

This is the first Sunday I can think of where Andy hasn’t been on Ask. He usually at least checks in before he leaves if he’s got plans for the day. It’s a little weird but not too worrisome. I’m sure he either ended up busy or just not in the mood for Ask. We all have our days. I’m not even blogging today. I don’t think I will be anyway, but that isn’t just because there isn’t much to say but because Opera’s fucked up again.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2012 The only dream I remember having last night was one where this homeless woman approached me trying to tell me God just loved the hell outa her even though she’d had all kinds of hardships. Then she tried to tell me God’s blessed me with my language abilities and hogwash like that.

I said, “Lady, if God loved you that much you wouldn’t be in one mess after another, and God didn’t bless me with my language abilities either. I learned what I learned through years of hard work and study. Give credit where credit is due and quit kidding yourself about God and considering your enemies to be your friends. After all, you wouldn’t consider a person a friend who let bad things happen to you, would you?”

When I woke up I realized that part of the reason why I could never forgive God isn’t just the magnitude and the number of hardships and curses He’s tossed my way, but because forgiving Him would be too much like a woman forgiving an abusive man. It’s just all wrong to me. Simply backward. But the one thing I can do is appreciate the good times. Things are wonderful now. All we need is a decent place of our own, then they couldn’t get much better than that so long as there were no unexpected problems there that we couldn’t anticipate beforehand.

Other than life’s usual annoyances that everyone has to deal with, it’s just a waiting game from here on out. Until then I expect the upcoming change of weather to bring about more barking, bulldozing and other projects. I really hoped to be gone by now but things always take longer than you expect. Always. We’re no exception to that rule.

Today may be the last day that we’ll be in the 70s this year. Tomorrow will be cloudy and 60s, then 50s and rainy.

I was disappointed but not surprised to wake up and find I’d gone up a pound. This is right around the time (a week) when my body weight tries to reset itself and fights to hang onto the extra weight. Plus, as I shift onto nights I don’t lose as much weight in my sleep. I’ll stick to the diet another week but if I either gain back what I’ve lost or don’t lose anymore then I’ll have to go to a doctor one of these days and see if I can find out why they only work for a week for me. I think I can lose a little more, though. At least I hope I can. If not, then I would think something must be wrong somewhere.

Later…

Tom’s got jury duty on Monday, but he’ll be paid for his time, so that’s cool. Instead of bustling about a sweaty warehouse he can just kick back in our tiny town’s no doubt corrupt little courthouse.

I was just sitting here thinking of Kim and reflecting back on our “friendship.” Why didn’t I see it? Why didn’t I see just how fucked she was till the very end of our two-year friendship? I’m usually pretty good with this sort of thing, too. I could tell right away that she was a bit slow and that she wasn’t very bright. But being flaky and sometimes annoying while writing silly, off-the-wall stories doesn’t necessarily constitute crazy. Yet it was there all along. The classic signs of MPD.

The annoyances first began with odd and excessive behavior. First it was the overtweeting back when I used to have a Twitter account. I couldn’t figure out why it had to take her 16 tweets to get a point across that could be done in 2 or 3. Yet despite being given up to 150 characters per tweet, she’d usually use just half or less of the allotted characters. But we all have our annoying quirks and so I just dealt with it, though I did complain a few times hoping she would take the hint before she deactivated that account. She followed me from her newest account, but I didn’t follow back. I didn’t want to have to scroll and scroll to get to the tweets that actually interested me.

Then came the constant, and I mean constant, a never-ending slew of self-portraits she’d take of herself and post on Facebook. They were always the same old face shots, never any body shots. She’d post them by the hundreds and I eventually kicked her stuff off my stream because, well, I just got sick of looking at her. I sometimes wondered if she did it to try to convince others – or perhaps herself – that she was attractive. Not to sound rude or mean but Kim really wasn’t anything to look at. The self-proclaimed blue-eyed blond who was clearly a gray-eyed and extremely heavy woman with muddy brown hair, had such bloated features that it was hard to tell what she really looked like. Colors were easy enough to see, but was she pretty? Was she plain? Was she ugly? Even her nose seemed enormous, and again, I don’t mean to sound cruel, harsh or judgmental. No one’s perfect, including me. But she did one time come crying to me about her weight after admitting that all she basically did was stuff herself and sit at her computer all day. Therefore, it was kind of hard to feel sorry for her. No one can change our weight but us, so if you’re going to complain, at least do something about it along the way while you’re at it. Yet day after day she would continue to complain, eat, and post her incredibly swollen face, and I still didn’t see the craziness within. I simply thought she was a bit on the weird side and simply didn’t know how to begin to help herself. She didn’t seem to have much of a support system either.

Next came the repetitiveness. She would ask me the same damn questions over and over, and her mile-long blog entries would say the same damn things again and again, just in different ways.

Then the lies began. First she wouldn’t admit that she wasn’t really reading my stories when I would ask for her opinion, even though I told her it was perfectly ok to admit it if suspense wasn’t her cup of tea and she wasn’t interested. After all, I wasn’t interested in her fantasy stories, most of which contained celebrities for most of its characters, along with a few of her former friends, myself included.

Then it was on to one contradiction after another, but again I dismissed it on pure silliness and her being an airhead. Finally, a red flag went up. The Kim who could speak six languages on Facebook could now only speak one another site. The vows to not base characters in her silly stories after Molly was quickly forgotten and the Kimantics were beginning to really add up.

Next up were all the celebrity impersonation gigs. At first she admitted they were “fan” sites, but then she became these people. Literally. It was a bit chilling to watch this middle-aged woman with no life, who never had a real job or lover, and who was still living at home, literally become these various celebrities. She morphed into these beings and spoke to the fans she fooled and deceived not like it was some big old fucking joke she was getting a kick out of but as if she were really these people. She merged right into their minds, their personalities, their likes, their careers, and their entire lives. The transition was as smooth as glass. Only she did it in a childishly silly way with tons of typos and grammatical errors that gave her away to those who knew her.

When confronted, she was quick to delete, deny and delude. No matter how obvious it was to those who knew her, she reacted as guilty as guilty gets. After being confronted, she would deactivate her accounts only to create new ones doing the same thing. And once again she’d be called out and she would delete, deny and delude. “It was really so and so that did it, not me!” she’d insist. But she was beyond a bad liar. One didn’t need to know her that well to know she was lying.

It wasn’t until someone on Ask started hitting me with all kinds of nasty “questions” that the sad reality of this person I had considered a friend, despite her imperfections, and that I thought considered me a friend as well, hit me full force. The magnitude of her insanity shone through and hit me like a semi out of control. With all the things I was learning about Kim I was beginning to suspect more and more that the insults flung at me on Ask that I had assumed were from Molly and her mother (though I’m sure some were) were really from Kim. And so I asked her a question right after I got one of the usual “I smell a loser called Lady Rainbow” questions written much in her style of writing, and sure enough, she was on at the time and answered back.

Had I known what would happen next I never would’ve confronted her. I’d have simply walked away quietly. Instead, I confronted her with, “Ok, I know it’s you, Kim. Ha Ha, very funny, but the joke’s over now, ok?”

I would have been prepared to let it go at that and move on so long as she didn’t do it again, but what she did do was react with that classic guilty reaction. Only this time she went beyond delete, deny and delude. She got nasty on me. And now I had another Molly on my tail only this one was of a worse kind because she was too crazy to even know who the hell she was. This one wasn’t just playing around. This was a sicko. A genuine loon. Molly may be crazy in her own kind of way and say some mean things at times, but she was always just Molly and she was never nearly as big of a liar either. Trying to reason with someone who had anger issues and was a little off-balance was one thing. Yes, Molly could be a pest and yes she was very stalkerish in many ways by not going away when I asked her to until she took measures to better herself and her life, but looking back on it now I can just imagine how often Kim must have been instigating Molly and harassing her just as much if not more than Molly ever harassed her. Once Kim’s true colors emerged and all this anger came out I didn’t even know was there, I know she couldn’t possibly have been totally innocent where Molly was concerned. I have no desire to ever again be friends with either one of them, but Molly had to have taken some serious harassment from Kim. No doubt about that!

I always wondered, and still do, just how much awareness Kim has. I’ve read up on MPD and she really does seem to fit the profile. They are said to lose awareness for hours at a time while other “personalities” or “alters” take over. I remember once she said something about a place where one of her alters lived and I thought she was joking, but this statement tells me she must have some awareness of her behavior, at least some of the time. They are said to do things the “host” which is basically their main self, as funny as they may sound, doesn’t remember later on. Maybe one of Kim’s alters harassed me and maybe it was the “real” Kim I confronted and she reacted with so much hate and anger and all the relentless taunts and insults because she truly believed she was innocent and that I dumped her for nothing. I don’t think so, though. I think for some reason she is just a very hateful person who hated me all along. It does take a lot of hate to do what she did, not that she still may not have MPD and not that she isn’t a very sick person.

But still, why didn’t I see it? Why didn’t I see it coming, this craziness within?

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2012 Starting to wonder if maybe I have two mystery fans who have contacted me on Ask. The more I think about the last two questions and compare them to older ones that I always assumed were from Kim, the more I see the difference in the writing. In fact, the spelling and grammar are radically different. My mind started to revert back to Kim on the older ones, but then a VH sister came to mind. I asked her about it.

I knew they both couldn’t have come from Kim because if you’re dumb, then all of you are dumb. I know that sounds funny as hell but when you have MPD, or at least seem to have it, your alters may act differently, but wouldn’t they all write the same? If her “main” self has shitty spelling and grammar, why would her other selves write better? Anyway, I’ll write more about her tomorrow. For now, she’s welcome to keep the evidence coming.

As far as my more intelligent fan that says they’re overseas, I love a good mystery, but I also like to solve them, too. I’ll figure out who they are sooner or later. I’m now down to 9 possibilities for the more recent questions. I think I know who it is and if I’m right it’s a he.

Kathy’s been giving me Kim’s “fan” site links on FB to block. Even though I’ve gone private and she’ll keep creating new accounts, I knew she had to be looking in on me from somewhere on FB. So I block whatever I can.

Kathy set up a bogus Ask account of her own that the trolls won’t catch on to.

Poor Nane’s been sick again. I hope she gets better soon and will be online more than she has been.

Later…

Rasvi, a guy in India, admitted to being my overseas FB friend I rarely talk to. Maria picked up my message asking if she made any requests for me to keep that diary open, but didn’t reply. So unless something came up and she was in a hurry, I’d say I’ve figured out my two mystery fans.

Got a quick visit from Lee, MA. That’s where the As are.

Later…

It’s early evening now, which means the net’s down. Don’t know if it’ll be for just a half-hour or if it’ll be for the whole night, so I’ll just focus on writing and post what I can when I can.

Turns out that the bridge I need is only going to cost about $450 and not a grand. At the dentist’s office, we were told our plan covered 50% of it yet we read online they covered 80%. So they said they’d check into it and left a message yesterday saying, yup, 80% will be covered. Tom said we’d still have to pay a grand anyway because I still need fillings done and we’ll have exceeded our benefits for this year. They go fast when you need a lot of work done that has been neglected for so many years, but as I told him, I’m in no real pain anymore now that the worst teeth have been filled and pulled, so the fillings aren’t urgent. They can wait till the next rollover, which isn’t too far from now. Next month, I think it is. The bottom cavity they filled was painful, though, and the broken tooth definitely had to go because that was potentially dangerous.

Today has been amazingly pain and allergy-free and I’m now down 2.6 pounds – yay! But I worry it’s going to stop anytime now. If it doesn’t, it’s definitely going to slow down the closer I get to my ideal weight. Well, at least what my body considers ideal for a short 46-year-old. Due to getting my period, which causes my iron level to drop, I got lightheaded and sluggish, so I had to eat more and cut a few minutes off my workout.

Next week we’re expecting our first real rain in many months and highs only in the mid to upper 50s. :( This means I’ll have to listen to that fucking bulldozer for 4 hours or so. As much as I hate the cold, I’m hoping that having the windows shut and the cooler off will back off my allergies more than just a few days at a time.

I also had a couple of dreams Nane was in, one of which is hopefully a good sign, the other hilarious as hell. It was long and detailed, too. Instead of paying a cab to drive me to her place (guess there was no ocean between the US and Germany in the dream), she sent a car that ran on autopilot like an airplane. It was programmed to take me to her apartment building. Inside the car was a cell phone with a rather mysterious caller. Once the car pulled up sort of toward the side of her place and I was admiring the various trees, flowers and other plants, the cell rang and I thought it was Nane.

I heard a muffled female voice and said, “Nane?”

More muffled sounds.

“Nane?” I asked again.

Then someone clearly said, “No, not Nane. Just a close friend of hers.”

“A close friend?” I asked. “That’s odd.”

The caller asked why and I said, “Because your accent sounds as American as mine. How many Americans can she possibly be close to?”

“She loves someone else, Jodi.”

So she knew my name. “That’s ok. I love someone else, too.”

“But she might still kind of be into you. She says you make her laugh and are there for her.”

“Well, we must be somewhat into each other to be drawn to each other despite being so damn different, and after all the chats we’ve shared.”

“What about?”

“None of your business. Where’s Nane?”

“Ich weiß nicht wo sie ist.“

“Well, find out. It’s getting cold here.”

She was surprised I knew what she’d said in German. “Crushes,” I said. “They tend to make you smarter than you intended to get.”

The dream ended then. I never did see Nane, LOL.

In another dream, we were waiting for the go-ahead to move into a particular place. At least I think it was a house we’d picked out and not just the park we were waiting on. I’m not sure if I was imagining my reaction and how thrilled I’d be if Tom said we were in after he talked to them, or if he actually did say we were in and I was reacting for real, but Nane was there too, and I’m hoping this is a good sign.

Tammy said she doesn’t know anything about Mom breaking one of our arms when we were 5 by roughly pulling something out of one of our hands and then later telling Joyce about it. That’s Judy’s sister. I have no such memory of her doing that or telling anyone about it, but Tammy sure is pissed at Judy still, calling her a bitch and a liar who needs to shut her mouth or she’ll shut it for her. LOL, typical drama queen. She’s also still a hypochondriac. I’m sure some of it is real, but she always seems to be sick. Much more so than I was when I used to smoke. She’s got a chest infection and is awaiting more test results.

As I told Andy, the thing that gives me peace of mind is knowing I can dump her if she stirs up any real shit for me again and that she can’t go running to Mom and Dad with it who would only get on my ass about it as well. The DQ loves to get others involved and drag people through all kinds of feuds right along with her.

She’s a bridge I’m hesitant to burn right now, not because of what she can send me or what Walter might send me if my folks cough up any dough from the sale of their shit, but what if we are poor again? It’s happened before, so who says it can’t happen again as determined as we are to do all we can to prevent it? God loves to let circumstances beyond our control line up just right (which is really all wrong for us) so that He can get a kick out of making bums out of us and watch us struggle. Just because we’re doing well right now doesn’t mean He suddenly likes us. Personally, I don’t know why He’s allowing things to go well for us right now, but no one who’s been as cursed/hated as I have from my childhood to my ear, from my sleep curse to being sexually cursed, from my once being denied the right to choose to my driving phobia and lack of job, is suddenly liked.

Just for the record, though, my dad was NOT exempt from any of the family violence. Oh no, not at all. He gave us kids a good one every now and then and I even remember one time when he slapped my mother. I was still kind of little and it was a pretty memorable experience for me. In a bad way, of course. My mother later excused his behavior on his newly discovered heart problems and the fact that he was having to go through heart surgery and all that shit, and well, just your typical piss-poor excuse too many people make for abusers. But like I said, I was just a little kid at the time so I bought it hook, line and sinker and accepted the lame excuse as well as I would these days when I hear about cases of self-defense.

I remember being woken up by the sounds of scuffling and crying when he was beating up one night on one of my siblings, though I don’t know which one. He just loved to use that belt of his for reasons that went beyond holding his pants up. Believe it or not my mother came into my room and comforted me because I was crying, terrified out of my mind. Other than that she did absolutely nothing to pull her husband off of whomever he was attacking, nor did she call the cops. Back in those days, though, the cops would’ve been useless but at least there’d be a record of it.

I don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me. Hell, I don’t even feel sorry for myself. Maybe I should but instead, I just feel pissed. I have come to hate my parents like never before for the shit they’ve pulled, as well as God for letting it happen. He didn’t have to let me be abused. He could have protected me. Instead, He chose not to and proved throughout my life that I am NOTHING in His eyes. Just a worthless sack of cells, blood and bones for anyone to do whatever the fuck they may feel like doing, good or bad. But unlike Him, I care about myself and so do my husband and friends. Those that really give a damn about me are those I can actually see and hear and they walk on two legs just like me. As for my parents, yeah, they might’ve saved our asses back in ’07, but if they could suddenly rise from the dead I’d be waiting right there with a shovel.

People have been asking me about my second stalker. It’s Kim. At first I was against writing about her so as not to give her the attention she just might crave and so that’s why I removed the entries about her being under investigation. Yet I’m not doing anything wrong, it’s my blog, and so I don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to discuss her shit as long as I’m not posting sensitive info.

Someone on Ask must have a very guilty conscience since they yelled at me to “STOP TALKING ABOUT ME YOU LIAR!” Yet I never mentioned any names. I know damn well it’s Kim and I really wish she would grow the hell up, get a life and move on. Really, I’m embarrassed for one who can hate themselves so much that they feel they deserve to pay attention to nothing but people who hate them.

Maybe writing about her pisses her off instead of amuses her, but she should’ve thought of that before she pestered me on Ask if that’s the case. What part of “fuck off” does she not understand? What part of “our friendship is over,” does she just not get? There’s no point in hanging on to past friends, for to do so means you’ll never move on. Then again, what has she to move on to? Probably nothing or pretty damn close to it. Nonetheless, I’m not going to worry anymore about whether or not writing about her will set her off or if not writing about her will make her more determined to try to get my attention. I’m going to write about her because I feel like writing about her. Period. However, it makes her feel is of no concern to me.

I’ll discuss it more later. Right now I have to get ready to work out and wonder how many more stalkers I’ll accumulate in my lifetime.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2012 The Special K diet is still working wonders with the way it’s high in fiber and protein. The fiber helps fight hunger and the protein helps fight random cravings. I’ve lost 2.2 pounds so far, but I still worry it’ll suddenly stop working even if I keep sticking to it long before I’ve lost all the weight I want to lose. A woman my height and age should be 120-125 pounds and not the 100-110 I’d like to be, but I’ll settle for the 120 if I have to.

The bad news is that the bridge I’m going to have put in on November 14th is going to cost a grand. Better than the 2K Tom was expecting, but he also didn’t think they were going to do the bridge for 6 months or so. This is exactly what I mean by the unexpected curveballs I fear being thrown at us with more frequency cuz I still feel like something up there doesn’t want us moving. Tom will make that back in no time, but too many setbacks can really start adding up. Things are going frustratingly slow enough as it is.

The gums where the tooth was pulled are healing nicely. No dry sockets or whatever it’s called. She gave me a soft toothbrush and some Colgate toothpaste and I think I’m going to switch to these old-fashioned brushes and toothpaste tubes from electric toothbrushes and foaming toothpaste that comes in a pump. The electric toothbrush is too rough on my gums. I was able to brush my teeth more thoroughly with the non-electric softie, and the tube is less messy than the pump. This Colgate tastes much better, too.

Other than that, things are wonderful. The weather won’t be for much longer, though. We’re on for a high of just 58° for next Tuesday with some rain too, but I won’t believe the rain part until I see it. I hope it’s not raining on moving day, whenever the hell that is, though each year seems to get drier and warmer here, so I’m not worried about it. I just appreciate whatever daytime rain we do have, because so long as the roof continues to hold up and not leak, it keeps Jesse indoors and quiet.

Later…

Whenever I have made my diary at MD private, someone has been quick to ask me on Ask to please reopen it, saying they find my blog fascinating and that they like the way I write. I first thought it was Kim just trying to get me to keep that one open because it doesn’t have a tracker. That way she wouldn’t have to have her “sources” peek in on my other blogs for her. But now I’m not so sure it’s her. I asked for some hints as to their identity and they say they’re an overseas Facebook friend and that we’ve talked very little.

Well, there are about 20 possibilities, some being more likely than others. First I would need to know if they’re an “immediate” friend or an “extended” friend. I deleted some friends who weren’t really friends since we hardly ever even spoke, but they could still see my updates and may not even know I deleted them.

I thought of who I rarely talked to who would write similarly to them and came up with 11 possibilities, 6 of them being the most likely.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2012 Today’s the 1-year anniversary since the supposed pigs were snooping in my old Google accounts. I can’t believe God protected ME this time. BUT… it hasn’t been a year since they supposedly made whatever fictitious little case from my emailed blog entries. As I said, they were obviously altered with threats because I didn’t send enough stuff to constitute spam according to the Can-Spam Act’s legal definition. It’s gotta be a jurisdiction thing that’s been saving me. No God would really save me since it didn’t save me 13 years ago. Arizona doesn’t give up on its precious blacks. I’m sure they still want me as bad as they want the guy who molested or raped somebody’s kid.

Tom called me on his way home from work yesterday saying he’d be an hour or so late since one of the tires blew. It was a bad blowout too, that he couldn’t fix. So he got a whole new set for $450 since it was just about time to replace them anyway. It was great to be able to buy a whole set and still have thousands in savings, but these are the kinds of curveballs I feared would start coming at us as we neared our goals. If they escalate, don’t think it’s a coincidence, I told Tom.

I was shocked and thrilled to learn he discovered a completely petless park that says absolutely NO pets are allowed! I’m sure God will make sure it’s too far away, but oh how I would love to be in a totally dogless park! I still think the dogs closest to us would be annoying as they were taken to and from the place on walks and that dogs being walked around the park would go barking by the place whenever someone else happened to walk or drive by, and that could get annoying at times. Not utterly maddening like Jesse’s dogs who are left to bark outside anywhere from 2-10 hours at a time, but still, I’m going to have to listen to car doors, people gabbing, and landscaping. Who needs barking on top of that?

I don’t understand why I haven’t adapted to all this barking after 20 years of living with it. Aren’t we supposed to grow accustomed to things the more we’re forced to deal with them? Yet if anything barking drives me crazier and crazier each year.

The pest up the hill is now going out for a couple of hours on random weeknights. So now I have 3 possible nights per week I can’t get any peace, not to mention when he’s out in the mornings. Weekend nights are still the worst. When he leaves between 7 and 8pm, they don’t stop barking till 3 or 4am. Sound machines are a must if I want to be able to hear myself think, let alone concentrate on reading, writing or anything else. And of course there’d be no way to sleep without them either. I hope the next people in here are native Westerners for their sake! Usually, if it’s all you’ve ever known, it’s a lot easier to deal with. Tom can sleep through the racket and pretty much live anywhere. As conservative/hateful as most of it is, a part of me wishes I were from the West. Then barking would seem like nothing to me and I could simply tune it out.

A part of me is considering chucking my dad’s urn out in these woods. Do I really want the ashes of a guy who lived in denial and let his wife abuse their kids?

Later…

Forgot to mention that I’ve now lost a total of a pound and a half but I’m not ready to get all excited and think I can lose 30 or more pounds. Not unless I’m still losing weight after the first week. Many things seem to work well at first. It’s common for me to plateau after a week.

Andy says the woods are too good for Dad. Bust the urn open, dump the ashes in the toilet, shit on him, then flush him into the Jes pest’s septic. LOL, he would come up with that one.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2012 My dreams last night consisted of the mutts barking their asses off, and a couple that suggested we’re still months away from moving. This makes sense considering that we’re approaching the time of year the dogs are at their worst when left alone, and we haven’t hit our monetary goal yet. How fast we hit it is going to depend on the OT and when and if I get anything from my parents, along with how much.

I still think whatever’s up there wants us renting bummy old dives we can barely fit into and not owning our own place, so it’s not so much as going to stop us as it is going to do all it can to delay things. I think it’s going to keep throwing curveballs at us. They may be minor obstacles we can overcome, but they’ll still be there. We can’t get a loan with our not-great but not-bad credit, so now we have to hope the park will still accept us if we just buy the place outright which is what we’re saving to do and part of what’s taking so damn long. When I realized we’d waited this long anyway and were so close to the “magic number” that would open so many more opportunities, we agreed we might as well stay back and listen to the mutts and saws a while longer, though I’m not hearing as many saws as I expected to.

They cut back everyone’s OT at work but his so something up there must want us to have a lot of money. IDK, maybe whatever’s up there isn’t trying to stop us but is keeping us from making a mistake and settling for the wrong place. Well, I’m definitely tired of settling, all right. We may only be there for 10 years, but 10 years is still 10 years. I don’t have to love the house, but I want to like it. I don’t want to settle for some shitbox we’ll have to work hard at to pretty up. He works hard enough at work, and I’m going to be working hard enough when I go back to artificial intelligence work and sweeping. I just need a fast connection that holds steady to do it.

Yesterday my ear was driving me nuts and my allergies were borderline. I almost didn’t want to get out of bed and face whatever pain and suffering God had in store for me for today, but so far I’m doing ok. Not great, but ok. I just hope my allergies aren’t worse tomorrow! Today, my head is congested, my nose is a bit stuffy, and I’ve had a few sneezes, but nothing major.

I think Tom’s right about it being something outdoors that I’m allergic to. As soon as the weather warms up again and the windows are open and the cooler is on, off goes my allergies.

My ear is going to need to be professionally cleaned every 6 months or so. We just don’t have the proper tools to do it right ourselves. I’m just so glad we have insurance now so I can finally catch up on my health needs, not that I’m unhealthy, and not that I plan to tell anyone other than Tom should a new health issue arise or be discovered.

I keep hoping that someday I won’t have to live with chronic pain. Teeth, ears, allergies, whatever, but it hasn’t happened yet. It’s getting better, though I still have so many doctors to see. It’s a pain in the ass and a bit overwhelming but totally worth it so long as the doctors aren’t quacks and really know what they’re doing like my new dentist. So I’ve got to finish up with the dental work, then see someone for my ear, allergies, and then there’s the sleep thing. Anything else I’m forgetting? Well, I suppose I should add a female exam to the list, but I won’t. Oh yeah, the eye doctor. Gotta get new glasses soon. I need two pairs. Single visions for working on the computer and reading, and bifocals for like when I go out to the store. I’m tired of having to choose between glasses that’ll let me see distance or glasses that’ll let me read things on labels and shit like that.

Lost another two-tenths of a pound. I’m only doing half-hour workouts on the treadmill since more is not better when it comes to weight loss because the body can only lose so much weight so fast. Although it varies, they say the average weight loss on the Special K diet is about 2 pounds a week. I think I might lose that the first week, but I’ve always been a slow loser. Like 3 pounds a month kind of slow.

Special K is pretty good with hunger, cravings and fatigue (though I do feel a bit sluggish today even though I slept forever) but expect to shit more on this diet. It’s very high in fiber as well as protein.

Oh, I also had a dream Jesse told me he made a $350 bet with Tom and Tom lost. I don’t know what the bet was about, but I was pissed. I sort of shoved Jesse and said, “You let him make that bet with you? You stupid idiot!” Then he stepped up behind me as I was walking away and tried to put his arms around me. I shrugged out of his grasp, turned around and shoved him down on the ground on his ass, even though I didn’t mean for him to actually fall.

Meanwhile, other than waiting to move and dodging some pain, life is going great. I am so, so happy with the way things are going, especially after what we’ve been through in the past. Couldn’t ask for much better. :)

Later…

Kim’s harassing me on Ask again. I can’t believe there are people in this world who hate themselves so much that they would surround themselves with those who can’t stand them when there are millions of others to befriend on and offline. How can one degrade themselves like that and have such little self-respect for themselves? Maybe a part of it is that they can’t make new friends to replace the old ones because they’re just too fucked in the head and they only keep getting worse and worse with time.

She’s actually lashing out at Aly through me saying things like depressed people like to kill themselves, etc., so to make it at least a little easier to ignore the cunt, I’ve disallowed anonymous comments. She’ll probably create a bogus account to come at me with, but we’ll see. I know how easily she scares. So, if Aly can keep her mouth shut, and I think she can now, especially since cutting ties with her, the entry I’m going to do about contacting the police may scare her off for a while.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2012 Lost half a pound on Day 1 of the Special K diet. Guess I can take the time to describe the diet I’m on. Well, I eat 6 times a day in 3-hour intervals. So if I get up at 9am, I eat then, and then again at noon, 3pm, 6pm, 9pm, and midnight. I have approximately 1000-1200 calories a day and work out for 30 minutes on the treadmill. I also work my arms and abs. This takes an additional 15 minutes.

Yesterday I had 1 real meal (the pork dinner I made), 2 Special K meal supplements (1 bar, 1 cereal), and 3 Special K snacks (chips and a couple of snack bars).

I wasn’t as hungry or as sluggish as I expected to be. Especially since it’s the week before my period when I tend to experience more hunger and fatigue.

My ear - and yes it’s definitely my ear - is doing that familiar ache right behind the ear. There are two different ear pains I have, one’s right behind it, and one’s right in front of it. I am so, so dismayed but so not surprised. I figured it wasn’t all on account of my teeth. It saddens and frustrates me to know that having this canal made was one of the biggest mistakes I ever made in my life and that I will forever have to live with the near-chronic pain it has caused me. At the same time, pain is all I know and is what I’m used to.

Random memories of my parents surfaced again last night. Once when I was in my early 20s and living in Springfield, MA in the late 80s Dad came over for a visit. I tried to talk to him about his shitty wife and her abuse and he said something to the effect of walking away if I kept it up cuz “that’s his wife I was talking about.” That really pissed the shit out of me to hear him basically admit he’d put his wife first and walk away from his kid while continuing to stand by such a cold, cruel abusive bitch. I always favored Dad over Mom. There was no comparison between the two. But I gotta wonder about a guy that could stand by a woman like that even if she’d ended up killing one of us.

The only thing abusive parents make “easier” for the kids they abuse is when they grow old and die. A friend of mine lost a parent recently and was/is just devastated. I can’t imagine being that close to my parents that I could possibly be that miserable.

The only thing I’m glad about is that my family was/is liberal. I guess you could say this is due to a combination of what part of the country they’re from and how they were. Also, Judaism tends to be a more open kind of religion that doesn’t see sin in everything from abortion to watching more than 5 minutes of TV. To come from an abusive family is bad enough, but an abusive and conservative family? OMG!

I remember when I told my folks I liked women. This was back in 1990 when I was still young and naïve and at a time most people would believe I was 1 in 1000 and not 1 in 10. Sometimes we don’t get certain things that happen until we’re older. Well, I expected them to go ballistic on me when I said that I liked women too, yet they just shrugged and were like whatever. I might as well have come out and said I had chicken last night for dinner. Well, later on in life I knew why, LOL. I hate the climate there but I’m kinda glad I come from MA, the most liberal state in the country.

Anyway, Mary’s 35 today, and I jinxed myself by writing about how “good” this place has been for its lack of spiders. There was a huge one in here yesterday.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2012 Decided to throw myself on the Special K diet to see if I can still lose weight or not. If not, I will go to the doctor I go to find out why. It’s starting to get to the point where having an “aw, fuck it” attitude isn’t so easy when you find it’s getting harder just to bend over to trim your damn toenails. I’ve slacked off before, so I’ve been there before. I know what to do too, it just won’t be easy. Lots and lots of hunger. But my comfort and flexibility are more important to me than my looks. The older I get the less I give a shit what others think although I would still rather have my picture taken at 120 pounds rather than 150.

I chose the Special K diet because it’s what I lost 30 pounds on a few years ago, and it’s a happy medium taste-wise. Zone, Atkins and Slim-Fast are too tasty. So much so that I’m more likely to get a little too snack-happy with their products. But I also didn’t want anything so nasty that it’d up my cravings and desire to step out of line. The most important thing is a high protein intake. That’s what helps with cravings, hunger and regularity, though the ends of my days are still the toughest.

They shut us down for a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours in the evening, so I’m hurrying through this entry before the assholes cut our connection. They seem to love to turn us off from 6am – 8am. At night they start at around 7:20. I have a bad feeling we’ll be here another 4-6 months, but it’s better than forever. Still, it’s nothing I like to remind myself of too often, as I know we can’t possibly go that long without something serious breaking. Maybe someday we’ll get to live where I don’t have to exhale a sigh of relief when I jump in the shower or start a load of laundry and find there’s enough water.

Yesterday I organized our huge but dark and creepy closet. I thought all kinds of things would jump out at me, but the few spiders I did find were small and dead. This place has been surprisingly good with its lack of spiders for an old dump that sits in the woods.

Later…

Sure enough, the person who seems to be following me on MD quite regularly wasted no time on Ask asking that I reopen it. I did, though this time I asked to know who they were or at least a little hint as to who they were and where they were. Not surprisingly I didn’t get an answer. Makes me think it’s someone I know who’s going there cuz it’s trackless. Molly, who’s been visiting my blogs more and more, obviously isn’t afraid of being tracked, so I’m wondering if it’s Kim.

Kathy said Kim hasn’t mentioned me to her and that she rarely speaks to her. She keeps her at a distance and that’s it after I told her how she went wacko on me.

I first thought Aly deactivated her newest Facebook account. But then when Kathy gave me the link saying she’d added her there, I thought she blocked me. I was stunned. I said to myself, “Aly? Aly!?” She’s the last person I’d have thought would ever dump me! I’d let her go if that’s what she wanted, as I’m not in the habit of forcing my existence on those who don’t want it, but it would’ve been nice to have at least been told why. Turns out, though, that she blocked me by accident. So now we’re connected there, but the fact that I can’t see her friend list makes me wonder if Kim’s on it and she’s not as done with the skitzo as she said she was.

Then Aly emailed me. She said she was really sorry and that Molly got a hold of her cell phone number and wouldn’t leave her alone. Worse is that she tried to kill herself. She’s been battling severe depression, but this is the first time I’ve actually known her to be suicidal. She cut herself and was hospitalized for a few days.

God just won’t give that poor girl a break!

Later…

Now I’m more convinced than ever that it’s Kim who’s been asking me to keep MD open. She came out as if nothing had happened and we were all buddies and said on Ask to both Andy and I, “This is Kim. How are you doing?”

I asked both Andy and Aly what they thought I should do. Ignore her? Be nice? Play dumb? I don’t want to be rude, as Tom and Aly agreed, cuz that’ll cause her to go ballistic on me. But I also don’t want her to think we’re going to be buddies ever again. We’re not. Even if I could forgive her, she’s just too damn crazy. People like her don’t usually change and if they do they don’t do it in 4 months.

I haven’t heard back from Andy yet, but Aly suggested I could go funny on her and be like, “Kim Kardashian? Wow!” But that idea doesn’t really appeal to me. It seems – IDK – too childish I guess.

Aly was also saying that she had hoped that her new life at her group home would help her to move on and let go of the past and the people in it. It’s scary and strange how one can hold onto the past year after year after year. Those who can’t let go of old friends must not be able to make new ones. They’re that unlikable! I wonder if she’ll still be pestering or at least looking in on us 30 years from now. So far she hasn’t crossed the line from peeping tom to annoying or harassing and I hope it stays that way! She hasn’t commented on my blogs or tried to friend me there or on FB, so that’s good.

Really, though, I wish the people of my past would stop returning to haunt me! Especially the bad ones. But no matter how rude I might be to them, they just won’t go away. Any normal, sane person with any self-respect wouldn’t put up with the kind of abuse I’d love to dish at them, yet they would. Why do some people thrive on abuse, and what is it about me that people just can’t let go of? I don’t know what annoys me more. People who think they can waltz back into my life as if nothing ever happened, or people who try to buddy up to my friends as a means of either trying to win me over or annoy the hell out of me. I think they figure that if they can’t remind me of their existence directly, they can do it through my friends. Thank God I cracked down on my Facebook privacy.

Finally, I decided to play dumb. I figured that since being mean would only set Kim off and ignoring her would only make her more determined to get my attention, why not go with dumb? So I said I didn’t know anyone named Kim. No reaction of any kind yet.

Molly created a new blog at MO. What a surprise, huh? So far there are just two quick entries about her group home and her weight.

Got a Harlingen, TX visitor and my first thought was Mommy Dearest. But the location was wrong and so was the provider. They’ve always had Road Runner but this person has AT&T. Their browser was always FF but this one’s Chrome. Both have Win7, though.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2012 Where Tom once spent over two years wishing he could work and looking for work, now he can’t stop working, LOL. Yeah, those 6-day weeks still wage on, but boy is it making us rich. I still get the feeling, though, that the OT will stop as we near our goal.

Yesterday and the day before were so fall-like that we didn’t need to run the cooler or even have windows open. Today summer will be back and by the end of the week, it’ll be close to the 90s! Still, I will wish we were on the Mediterranean side of Spain or in Florida until the spring.

Tom said it’s too bad my parents’ condo wasn’t all paid for, then we could’ve just taken the condo. Like anything up there would let us have a free place? Yeah, right! Besides, then he’d have to scramble all over again to find a job and I’d hate the attached living.

My so-called friend opened one of my emails again last night, but I couldn’t tell which one. It doesn’t matter. She’s still ignoring me and so now I’m going to ignore her.

I mentioned “DeadlyDiva” on KB on Ask and was asked if Kiwibox allowed for tracking. It’s gotta be one of the trolls or Aly. Molly was in twice yesterday cuz I mentioned Alison. Really wish I knew what was up with her. Is she playing with me? Is something wrong?

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2012 We’ve now been in this little dumpy trailer for 4½ years. That’s pretty sad, but I know it could be worse and that we’ll one day have much better living quarters. God may try and try to stop us and throw all kinds of curveballs at us, but eventually, we’ll have too much money to be stopped unless something kills us. While Tom would love to be able to get some Saturdays off for a change, I’m guessing that the closer we get to meeting our monetary goal, the more Saturdays he’ll get off and the less OT he’ll have during the week. But at least he’ll have more of a life and won’t be so damn tired.

We’re definitely not going to bother with the park where we applied for a loan. Tom said she made the comment about renting places like crazy. We don’t want to live with renters. That’d mean more turnovers to have to deal with and the potential for rude and noisy neighbors. We’ve been down that road enough times before. Owners are much more likely to be considerate of those around them and much less likely to flip out on you if you make a reasonable request of them like to keep their music for their ears only. I also don’t like how the park took its sweet time in getting back to us.

Now that bitch of an abusive mother of mine is abusing me in my sleep. :( In the dream, she was still alive and I called her with Andy on 3-way to tell her something about birthday present ideas for a friend. Next thing I know she starts insulting me and cussing me out. Andy was making these whooshing sounds by blowing into the phone. The first two times I told him to shut the fuck up, he did, but then he just kept on doing it and drowning the bitch’s rant out. So I had to hang up on Andy and call the bitch back so I could return fire, so to speak, and let her know just what I’d like to do to her. I said something like, “You didn’t quite go belly-up last time, but if you ever talk to me like that again I’ll make sure you do!”

I��m so happy to be connected to my favorite first cousin Phillip on Facebook! Exchanged messages with Mary and my German hottie, too.

But where the hell is Alison and what in the world is going on with her? She was supposed to return to Facebook, yet after I bitched about her constantly creating and deactivating accounts she goes and deactivates the latest one she was supposedly going to add me to. Something must be going on. Something I may not know about. She’s not answering my emails and her online life has ceased to exist. She’s not on Facebook, she’s not on Ask, she’s not anywhere that I know of. But I know she must have her reasons for it and that she has a right to do what she wants, so I’m not going to worry about it. If I hear from her again, fine. If not, well, that’s her choice.

At first I wanted to kick myself for going off on Phil’s mother and sister (I don’t think they picked up the messages yet) and I warned him that while I was rather distraught, not that it’s a good excuse, I really let them have it for some things I’ve wanted to get off my chest for years, mostly pertaining to Marty. He said he and I have no issues and he understands my negative feelings toward Marty. He wasn’t nice to him either, but he did try to change during his last few years and so he gives him credit for that. He said he misses me (me too) and that we’ll keep in touch and he’ll send more info soon. The only other thing he said was that the economy has been rough and there aren’t many jobs in Florida. I guess he was in the RV business and now it’s no longer a good one to be in.

Due to the job market being so shitty in Florida, it shocked the shit out of me to learn that Mary has gotten two jobs in less than a month. And being fresh out of prison, too! One at Burger King, the other as a paralegal. I was also glad to hear she only has two years of standard probation. I thought she’d be on it for life.

Anyway, she’s staying with friends and her lawyer was kind enough to hold onto and then give her the incense and makeup I sent her when she was supposed to be released a couple of years ago. I said to thank him for me. She said, “Are you kidding? You’re like a sister to me,” when I said I wasn’t sure I’d ever hear from her again.

It was funny to cut some of our old jokes like how S had a crush on Palma. Just what is that gorgeous Mexican officer up to these days? I wonder. And “Teddy Bear?” If she hasn’t been fired I’m sure she’s still as much of a slut as my brother is.

Maliheh is continuing to confirm my suspicions that she’s not really a true friend and that her “not being very sociable” is a piss-poor excuse for the REAL reasons I rarely hear from her. Now why in the world would it have been so damn hard for her to leave a quick reply to my last message as I asked her to? Because she’s determined to keep me at enough of a distance so as to not have to deal with me, but a close enough one to keep me from badmouthing her in my blog. Oh, I’ll make any mention of her private, but still, she really pisses me off. Like I said, the fact that she never added me on Facebook, even though she could’ve hidden me the way I’ve hidden Tom, made me wonder right off the bat just what she was up to. I wonder if she ever would have contacted me in the first place if it weren’t to demand her name and location be removed from Evil.

I’m not going to send her a message letting her have it or letting her know how I feel. Instead, I want to see how much longer she goes until she contacts me. I’m curious to see if she even remembers my birthday. One thing I do know for sure is that if I do hear from her again, I’m not about to be quick to reply to her as I always would in the past. No, she’s going to wait on me for once. Fuck one-sided friendships! I take the time to send her journals because she claims she’s “spoiled” though I really think she’s afraid to go to the site cuz of my tracker, and I decorate them with the cats she loves, yet she can’t even take the time to keep in touch more often? I would never want to keep in touch every day. Even sites like Ask gets a bit much for me at times. Too much is too much and has a way of losing its specialness if it’s overdone. But once a week or two would be nicer than a few months.

It took her a few days, but I know she picked up my last message last night. I even edited one of the entries to say that I was pissed about someone I thought was a friend for not giving their condolences when my mom died even though she was a bitch.

The trolls have been behaving, even though I know that at least one of them still peeks in on my blog at times, but I realize I shouldn’t be so public with my Facebook account. Friends on other sites are one thing since most of them aren’t really “friends.” But these are real friends AND family. Even if Kim and Molly don’t go back to being a real problem on a regular basis, who says I couldn’t meet someone else online that would gladly love to harass my friends and family should they get pissed at me? I know I can’t protect others forever, but I can at least try to do what little I can. So doing my part will mean revamping my FB account later on this morning. I’m going to make most of it friends of friends. What sucks is that cover photos are public. I will have to delete those with likes and comments.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2012 So I get up to find a “Mary J” sent me an invite on Facebook, and automatically assumed it was a friend of a friend. Then I studied her profile pic and could clearly see it was Mary G! Wow, I was starting to think I’d never hear from her again. As long as she doesn’t go asking for a million favors (cuz then I feel used) it’s great to have her back in my life. I had assumed she was threatened against communications with “ex-cons” and that vindicated or not, she was ordered not to have any contact with me since we were cellies, after all, back in January of 2001. Wow, it’s been nearly 12 years!

I saw other pics of her and she looks great. She actually joined FB a few days after her release. She has about 20 friends, but none of her sons are connected to her. Her oldest is an adult now, so they can’t order her not to contact him, but her other two, who were adopted, she probably doesn’t know their location. She is friends with her lawyer, though, who she describes as also being her friend and mentor.

She’s showing up on my tracker as being in Ft. Lauderdale and has only checked out my LJ journal that I know of. I’m surprised she was only there for 2 minutes, but I could’ve had other Ft. Lauderdale visitors for more than 2 minutes, and in all my blogs, but just don’t know it. I wouldn’t have thought she’d come up as being in Ft. Lauderdale, for one, since she was supposed to be in a place in western FL, and I can’t go back and check cuz she’d be scrolled off the list by now. But yeah, it seems I did have some Ft. Lauderdale visitors even though she appears as a first-time visitor.

What I don’t get is how the hell she could’ve jumped to a specific entry from the landing page when there was no link to it there. Maybe it was on my FB wall.

I’ve thought of her over the years. I believe we were last in touch when I was “with” Marie, so that would’ve been in early 2010. I have so many questions for her! Like who she’s staying with and what kind of probation she’s on and for how long. I won’t be providing certain details in my public journals, though, and I never use real last names.

Mary is a very kind, sweet, compassionate person whose worst crime in life was being too nice to the wrong people thus resulting in deadly consequences she’ll have to live with for the rest of her life, as she’ll be the first to admit. She has never tried to play down or deny what happened 13 years ago, and I have always admired her strength, her intelligence, her courage, and her will to go on. I don’t think I could’ve done it myself.

Later…

Andy’s pissing the shit out of me again, this time by making fun of my driving phobia, saying that after a few times of driving it will dissipate. I have driven a few times. More than a few times. But I don’t like being called a chicken and shit like that. There’s being supportive and encouraging, and then there’s being mean, insensitive, pushy and insulting. I don’t make fun of his fears, and yes, there’s a difference between teasing and making fun. I tease Tom about the dentist but I would never push him to see one.

When am I going to learn to keep my mouth shut and quit broadcasting my fears, phobias and medical problems? I’m just going to keep on being laughed at and picked on for them, though it’s a shame when it’s a “friend” doing it, and come to think of it, he really is the only one that has so far. Sad. Real sad. What’s even sadder is that he’s making fun of shit he can relate to and that he’s been through himself. Usually, it’s those that don’t get it that do the picking and the prodding. Ok, so maybe he didn’t get the sleep thing, but he’s been poor, he’s been fat, and he once had his own driving phobia.

Had a strange concoction of dreams last night. First we were dirt poor and living in an apartment. Then we were living in a nice house.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2012 Survived yesterday’s dentist trip and came back with 2 new fillings and 1 less tooth. In Oregon in 2005, the 4th upper tooth from the center broke up, leaving just a little shard that turned a sickly shade of green. I thought it was dead. Had I known the sucker was still partly alive and would take an hour to pull I’d have been shitting bricks! Part of that was because it was broken and there wasn’t much to grab onto. They gave me Valium cuz the Novocain caused me to be jittery. So, a happy pill is a must when given Novocain!

It wasn’t nearly as torturous as when the county pulled tooth #18, which is what was pulled, according to the tooth numbering chart I looked up after reading what numbers they worked on that were written on a print-out of the account history. But it took forever! It took an hour for the fillings and another hour to make the pull. When I asked her how long it would take to pull it and she said she didn’t know, I thought, uh-oh! So after the fillings were in it was on to one hour of tugging, digging and drilling. This was the 7th tooth I’ve had to have pulled. My wisdom teeth all let go in seconds. The impacted baby tooth took just a few minutes. But the last two just didn’t want to let go!

They ended up giving the next patient a Starbucks GC cuz of how long it took to work on me. LOL, I always did say I was meant to profit others.

We only had to pay $106 for what came to $488 of dental work.

So now that the left side is done (except for the bridge that’s going in when my gums heal), next week they’ll tackle the right side and replace old fillings. That drill is absolutely deafening even to me. The staff is super nice, though. Oh, yeah, they just loved my funky nails and thought I was so “cute.”

I’m surprised they worked on #10. #19 had the super huge cavity and #12 was pulled, but I thought they worked on #13. The Novocain and happy pill worked really well seeing that I couldn’t tell where they were working. I asked why they hadn’t done the big cavity and they said they just did, LOL. It would’ve eventually become infected like the other one did. I didn’t keep waking up in pain like I did after the county pulled the infected one and I haven’t had to take anything since I got up. As long as I don’t bite down too hard, cuz the gums ache over there, I’m fine.

I had to bite down on gauze and put an ice pack on my swollen face for the first few hours after we returned home at around noon. I have to go back on the 19th for a checkup, plus whatever else they want to do at that time. I’m so glad I’m FINALLY getting this over with!

They were training a young girl who oversaw the extraction. It was the first one she’d ever seen. I asked if it grossed her out and she said no, she wasn’t usually grossed out by that sort of thing. That’s good cuz Tom would’ve passed right out on the floor, LOL.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2012 Dear busted tooth: In 8 hours your ugly Arsch will be outa my mouth. Never again can you torment me or cause me pain when I eat certain foods. Then as soon as my gums heal, something nicer-looking will take your place.

Meanwhile, I’ve been smoke-free for 15 years!!! My quit date was actually the 4th, I just forgot to mention it with other things going on to distract me. I was flattered when Christiane congratulated me on FB, but again I wonder just how reliable the “message read” indicator really is because again she appeared not to have picked up the message I sent yesterday. Could more people than I think have actually picked up messages that don’t appear to have been picked up? Maybe it’s the other way around, too. Maybe some of those that appear to have been read weren’t really read.

Time to get working out and then hit the shower.

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2012 Tom was able to see the house yesterday but isn’t sure it’s what we want. We’re both going to see it next week after my dentist appointment. He said that for every old, ugly thing he saw, there was something gorgeously new and that it was the oddest mix of a place he’d ever seen. Where there were old, bare floors there was a brand-new dishwasher. He said the place was spacious enough, but if we got it we would have to do the carpet and flooring right away.

There were other weird things, too. It had a window AC, but an old downdraft cooler like we have here. The bedrooms are bigger but I hate that the windows in them are big. I never could understand why they bother with more than one small window in bedrooms. You’re supposed to be in there to sleep, not gaze out the window, right? Bigger windows would be more expensive to replace, too.

It has a $300 TV antenna on the roof and a fairly new refrigerator, but the fixtures, cabinets and countertops are kind of old.

I’ll have to see it to get a sense of just what we’re up against, but sometimes I think it may be better to keep saving for a newer place than to bother renovating old dumps. Yeah, I like the idea of making it exactly what we want it to be, but I’m sick of going from one dump to another. That’s the thing, though. The single-wides generally start at 3K while the doubles usually start at 10K. I’m open to a single-wide with an expando, but again, I’m sick of old crap! There’s gotta be an in-between. Something nicer but that isn’t on a more expensive lot so we wouldn’t have to risk our security. But we’re still a few grand from hitting that magic number that’s the starting point of the nicer doublewides. Really, though, I don’t want to live like a bum all of my life. I just don’t. Enough is enough already, and I think my husband and I both deserve better.

I also wish to hell I knew when the poodle was going to pay up, and how much, if anything at all. 2-3 grand wouldn’t make much difference, but as Tom said, we’d hate to be wrong and take this thing just to find out we’re really getting 5K from the poodle. If God makes sure my abuser leaves me nothing, then we could hit 10K on our own by the end of the year, depending on OT.

Nane said don’t take a place if I have any doubts and to wait for what feels right and all that. She has a definite point. Only problem is that what “feels right” is probably going to be either out of our league or suck every last dime out of us if it’s not. We don’t ever want to go back to living paycheck to paycheck.

I’ve been thinking of deleting Lori. She pesters me too much and I really get sick of her butting into so many of my conversations.

Later…

Lori has been deleted. I’m sure she’ll contact me through someone else or on my blog to ask what’s going on. The ugly ones always keep in touch while the hotties like Christiane ignore me. But the funny thing is that I know she’s reading my messages, some of which include my current story, thanks to that feature FB added that lets you know when messages have been picked up. I’m totally playing with her head, LOL, thanking her for blog comments she never left, etc. I don’t know how thoroughly she’s reading my messages, but why is she ignoring me? That much I don’t get. I told her to tell me if she doesn’t want to hear from me anymore and I will totally respect her wishes.

Anyway, when I hear from Lori via other means I’ll just play dumb and blame it on tech issues.

We discussed it some more and we decided not to bother with the house he last saw. It’s not only not what we want, but the roads in that particular park are just too damn narrow and the houses are set too close to the street. In the picture of the place was this strange black box right in front of it and we couldn’t figure out what it was till he got to the park. It’s to keep vehicles from backing up into it. He said he passed someone along the way and they both had to pull onto the shoulder, and while they did, he was just inches from the wall of one of the homes. To hell with that shit!

So we decided that since we’re so close to the magic number that would open up a world of additional and better options for us, we’re just going to save a few more grand and do it right. Nane’s words kept playing through my mind about not going with anything I had doubts about, and well, the last thing I want to do is go into a place with any doubts. So we’re gonna get it right and quit settling for old dumps. Yeah, we could fix them up to be exactly what we want, but not only are we kind of sick of having to play fix it, but Tom realized that he would have little to no time to oversee the work that was done in an old junker before we could move into it, like painting and laying down new carpet and flooring.

It would also come out to be the same cost-wise if we got a more expensive place closer to work than a cheaper one further away. Besides, Miss Doesn’t Know Money here got her facts wrong. For some reason, I thought we wouldn’t be able to save if we got a lot that rented for over $600 a month, but according to Tom’s calculations, we can go as high as $800 and still have money for other necessities, plus be able to save a decent amount each month. We just hope the OT doesn’t stop until after we move and get everything situated, though he will have to take some time off for the actual move itself. That’s ok, though, he’s got nearly 3 weeks off accumulated already. He still makes a lot of money without OT, thanks to his impressive work history, which quickly allowed him to be one of the top dogs there. But good things sometimes do come to an end, and so we will make sure our asses are covered in the event of a lay-off.

We were thinking about Oregon and wondering why we didn’t save there. We could’ve saved a fortune up there too, had I not been such a shopaholic! We both agree it was fun as hell while it lasted, and while they had the killer insurance and tax thing up there, he was making a lot of money where our rent was half of what it is now. We didn’t even have vehicle expenses there. Why register a vehicle when it’s a 6-minute walk to work and an 8-minute walk to the grocery store? A part of me misses it there and some of the people, though not the insurance, tax and climate deal. The 4342-thousand-foot-high little town was colder than MA! I still think of Jan, Randy and Liz at times and wonder how they’re doing.

Anyway, while it’s true that new pink carpet would be better than old tan carpet, getting a new place with newer stuff, even if all the colors aren’t my top choice, would still be nicer than having to deal with the hassles of renovating so much shit. I just can’t get into the “old dump” thing. Never have, never will. If I could, I’d be in love with this place. Even if I could keep a schedule and he had more free time, it would be such a pain to resurface old cabinets and replace cabinet doors, along with fixtures, windows and so many other things. All that money can be spent on a newer place that already has dual-paned windows and stuff like that.

So… we’re going first class! Well, more like second class instead of tenth class. :) looks upwards Yeah, God, you ain’t gonna hold me back and keep me in dumps forever. It just may take us 3-6 more months to get out of here.

Don’t laugh but we had to fire up the heater early yesterday morning now that we’re hitting down in the low 50s to high 40s at night. From 3am - 9am it’s pretty chilly in here, though great for sleeping and working out.

Norma explained to me how we’re related because I honestly didn’t know. We’re cousins because my dad’s mother’s sister and Norma’s mother were sisters.

The net went down hard yesterday and Tom had to call the incompetent assholes. I guess a technician will be out tomorrow unless, as usual, they discover the error is on their end. They love to cross the wires at their office whenever someone disconnects or activates service in the area. They still love to shut us down for a while just before 7:30 pm and early in the morning, too.

The more I learn about my mother the more I wonder just how “great” of a guy my dad really was. He was always a million times better than my mom, but still, what kind of man allows his wife to treat his kids the way we were treated? He knew. He had to have known what was going on. Yet what kind of guy simply shrugs and looks the other way? Accepting those we love as they are should end with child abuse, shouldn’t it?

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2012 Andy is really sick at times. Just sick. Sometimes I wonder if something’s wrong with him or if he just has a totally gross, sick and twisted sense of humor. He took a picture of his shit sitting in the toilet and emailed it to me. Now why in the world would he even think for a minute that I want to see his shit? Really, what is wrong with him? And why is it so damn hard to not send me things he knows either gross me out or that I’m just not interested in?

I can’t believe there’s such a thing as Simple Assault. What in the world is “simple” about assault???

It’s nice to have my cousins Sharyn, Michelle and Norma added on Facebook and a part of my life. Sometimes our extended family can be a lot nicer than our immediate family. At least some of them, anyway.

Just like some people are addicted to drugs while others are addicted to porn, I’m definitely addicted to languages. I haven’t yet decided what I want to make language #8 be. So far I range from knowledgeable to fluent in sign language, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese and Esperanto. The possible languages I may study include French, Hindi, Urdu, Hawaiian and Russian. I’m not going to decide till we’re back on cable and away from this crappy DSL deal. For the most part, I may end up fluent in a few, but knowledgeable in many.

Tom has an appointment to check out the house we found yesterday that seemed promising, on his way home from work. I’m excited, though trying not to get my hopes up too much. The woman showing it has flown in from South Carolina. Her mother lived there until she died.

I left Paula a message but never heard back from her. Hmm… now I’m starting to wonder if she is in jail. Wish I knew how to get ahold of her son.

I unblocked Tammy’s brood to see if they reach out to me when they see any posts I put on her wall which would now be visible to them depending on how Tammy has her page set up, but if there’s any drama I’m so gone. There’s been nothing yet, though.

My Reading reader returned but only for a second. I still don’t know who it could be, but I still think it’s someone I know.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2012 I always said that 4 was an unlucky number. Well, today, the 4th, the park gave us bad news. The fucking scamming management company up in Oregon is going to hold us back after all. Why they waited this long to tell us after they just told us to stop by sometime to see what’s available, is beyond me, but it really pisses me off.

I tell you, something up there does not want us owning again. No, it wants us to live in someone else’s little shitbox that costs hundreds of dollars more a month than necessary and comes with part-time Internet service. Every night at 7:30 they’ve been turning us on and off and on and off.

We only speculate it’s the scammers in Oregon. It could actually be something a whole lot worse, like identity theft for thousands of dollars. Tom only pulled up his credit report with one agency. Who knows who they used until he talks to them and finds out exactly what’s going on. He intends to dispute it, but what good would that do? The bastard above will continue to use whatever/whoever He can to hold us back like He always does. Sure the “sardine” park will take us with no questions asked, but why move from one place we don’t want to be to another place we don’t want to be just because we can and it’d be better than nothing?

He said he’d still ask them about outright sales. This was an application for a loan from the park if we decided on a more expensive place, not to buy a place outright. Besides, our credit isn’t as bad as we thought it was; just not great. Still, if they found something we don’t know about, we want to know what it is. Really wish they hadn’t waited so damn long to tell us, though.

Then Tom came into the room and said he found an estate sale wanting cash only in a 55+ park that’s family-owned vs. the corporation the other park is part of. It’s in a different town, even closer to work, and I can’t deny it seems like a helluva deal. That’s how I know we won’t get it. Nothing up there would be that nice to us so I’m sure it will be gone by tomorrow. Tom’s still going to give it a try and call them tomorrow.

No point in going over the ins and outs of this place since we probably won’t get it, but I will say that I love how the back of it is by a freeway instead of other backyards. I’d love to be backed up against a freeway cuz it would act like a sound machine of sorts and help mask any car door slamming. When a place is predominantly quiet and then you hear something here and there, it makes it stand out even more. Freeways are a fairly steady sound, sort of like a fan, that has never bothered me like barking, screaming kids and car stereos.

If we can get anyone to accept us other than the sardine park, we decided to go with old and cheap vs. new and not so cheap. That way we not only save a few hundred on the lot rental, but we can make it exactly what we want it to be. Brand new tan carpet is better than old, worn tan carpet, but tan is not what I want. I want pink! It will be like a work of art in a sense as the plan is to remodel everything from top to bottom. New windows, carpet, counters, paint, fixtures… and if necessary, new sink, toilet and finishing for tubs and cabinets. You can resurface old ugly tubs and shower stalls with what’s called a shell. We might even have to do the roof, too. But – and it still shocks the shit outa me to be able to say this – we’ll easily be able to afford to do this in a few months or less.

Later…

Some people have asked why spend money on fixing up an older place when we can spend the money on a newer place, and well, it all comes down to lot rent and utilities. We can afford to pay a lot more than we’re paying here, but we’ve become security freaks after the hell we’ve been through in the past. The way to get security is to get a place that doesn’t suck every last dime out of you. The pricier places are on $850 lots that don’t include sewer and trash. The place we’re hoping to get is on a lot that’s about $600 a month, and all we’d have to pay would be gas and electricity. Maybe water too, but I’m not sure.

My new Austrian friend, who is a teacher, has been teaching me even more German. Just reading her wall posts makes it so that I can’t help but learn more vocabulary.

Got a message from Paula but she got cut off. I’ll call her tomorrow. She’s obviously not in jail, something that brings me mixed emotions. Unless the sentencing has been delayed or something, I’m happy as hell for her but pissed off for myself and made to feel even more hated from above and singled out. Whether you actually committed the crime or are being set up, who in their right mind wouldn’t agree that violence should earn you more jail time than words on paper? Sticks and stones may break our bones but words can never hurt us, right? Especially if we’re full-grown adults? But right or wrong, violence isn’t taken very seriously in this country.

On the flip side, it’s nice to know that if someone ever pissed me off bad enough or it was the only way to get them off my back, I could beat the snot out of them and expect little to no punishment so long as I wasn’t in Arizona or Texas. I would prefer no one to ever set me off that bad, though, or to become such a problem that the only way to scare them off was to beat them out of my life for good.

Tom has to work Saturday again, but they gave him Tuesday off so he can take me to the dentist that day. He won’t mind, though. He gets to sit in the massage chair they have while I’m being drilled, poked and pulled, and watch movies on their 60-million-inch TV. :)

Just like alcoholics can’t always quit on their own and sometimes need help, I think I’m going to have to get help with my weight. I’m not just struggling to get the weight off, I’m struggling to stop more from coming on! :( After my teeth are dealt with, the first thing to do would be to make sure nothing’s wrong like a wacky thyroid or something else. If not, then as Tom said, we could see a nutritionist or even afford Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers or whatever. If nothing’s wrong, I hope they can figure out a way for me to be able to have 1200-1500 calories a day and still lose. Right now the only way down the scale is 1000 a day and that’s like starving. I can do it some days here and there, but I simply can’t stand the hunger and fatigue of doing it day after day after day. I’m hoping there’s a “magic combo” of foods that when thrown together into a dietary menu, will be the proper formula for more effective weight loss. I always thought a calorie was a calorie whether it’s from chocolate or fish, but I guess certain calories are harder to burn. I’m hoping they can put together a more effective regimen that will allow me to lose without feeling like I’m going to die of hunger. I expect some hunger and sluggishness, but not to the point that I feel as if I haven’t eaten in years. If no one can help me then I might very well gain 10 pounds a year for the rest of my life. :(

I’m going one priority at a time, catching up on bodily repairs that have been neglected anywhere from 1999-2004. I know I should have a female exam, but eh, fuck it. After I get my teeth pulled I will then know if it’s necessary to see an ear doctor for my artificial ear canal. If it turns out it was the teeth and we can keep it clean on our own, then why bother? Chances are it will need to be professionally cleaned once or twice a year, though. Next up will be the eye doctor. Whoever does my physical about my weight can probably diagnose my sleep thing. That only takes a blood or urine test.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2012 There isn’t much in the way of Internet service here at night lately. Starting at around 7pm they turn us on and off all night long, so I’m only going to go on once more to post this when I’m ready to if I can get on long enough to do it. After being out and about dealing with people most of the day I don’t need to come home just to do the same thing anyway. I’m going to just relax with writing and reading for most of the night. Maybe finish the Chinese food I got at Safeway’s buffet that’s pretty good, too.

So while I sit here wondering if Paula, the man beater, is in jail tonight (I doubt it since she’s not in AZ or TX and this country considers thoughts and words to speak louder than actions), I can say that the dentist appointment went well. Yay for me.

The staff was very friendly and it does look like my teeth will be salvageable after all. It’s just going to take half a dozen appointments and probably a couple of grand of work to do it, but our insurance covers 80% of it. They’re going to tackle the left side first cuz that side’s worse. All in all, I’m looking at 1 cleaning, 1 pull, 1 bridge and a million fillings. Then I can just go every 6 months for a regular cleaning. My soft tissue around the gums, cheeks and lips looks just fine and my BP is fine too, at 130 over 80.

Next Tuesday morning they’re going to do a cleaning, though not a deep cleaning, and fill the back bottom molar in. Then they’ll pull the “problem child” which is the tooth that died and broke up on top. It’s the I-tooth next to the molar where the retaining wire used to be cemented in behind the teeth. She was confused at first as to the little lump on it which is leftover resin. They may or may not remove the bottom wire. I’ve got a lot of calcium buildup there which makes cleaning harder. We’ll decide later on whether or not to remove it. So Tuesday she’ll pull what’s left of the broken tooth and maybe do another filling or two along with that back molar. After another week or two, they will do the bridge/crowns and finish filling whatever else needs to be filled. I have several old fillings that are cracked that will need replacing.

For today they just did x-rays, and gum measurements, and then decided on a game plan.

My teeth are yellow again too, so she recommended I start with Crest Whitening Strips. I never considered that because I didn’t think anything over the counter would be all that effective, but she did say that I could have them whitened if I wasn’t happy with the results. It’s not covered by insurance, but we can afford the $250 it’d cost. That’s what the new mattress cost. The last time I had them whitened I did it at home using trays. This was way back in 2002.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2012 Ended up contacting Andy, Sharyn, Polly and Ruth on FB, but none of them has seen my message. The child-woman apparently hasn’t yet either. Well, she’s either ignoring it or I don’t understand how Pinterest works.

I really hope that if we don’t actually move this month we will at least have a place picked out and that the sale will be in the works. I was really hoping to get out of here by November and it’s too bad we probably won’t. I’ve lived here enough years to know that that’s when the Jes pest and his mutts get noisier. They’ve already started up with the chainsaws, though I’m not hearing them every day, and they’re not all Jesse’s.

Still a little worried about vehicles in the park waking me up when I’m on nights there and people hanging out gabbing and distracting me when I’m on days and trying to work, but the small sound machine should take care of the little sounds. It’s the bigger sounds I worry about more, like car doors slamming close by or delivery and trash trucks. Tom thinks I’ll be just fine and yes, I’m probably just worrying for nothing, which is quite understandable. Even though he can keep a schedule and is far from a light sleeper, it’s going to seem weird to both of us at first being wedged into a park like that after being secluded in the woods for so long.

Whatever downfalls the place may have – and no place is perfect – I think it will be totally worth it. Just to own a place of our own again without having to worry about pesky landlords, although Jesse’s left us alone for months now, is going to be so wonderful. To be able to do any non-urgent repairs, upgrades or other household projects at our own leisure will also be wonderful.

We’ll probably end up with something in between a single-wide and a double-wide. We’re considering a single-wide with a pop-out, as many of them have in the park. That way it will still have 2 beds/2 baths, but each room will be a little bigger. It will still be small as a whole but should be plenty sufficient enough while costing us less each month both in lot rent as well as cooling/heating. The 12’ single-wides really are a lot roomier than 10’ single-wides when you think about it. If you stood in this room I’m in and envisioned it a couple of feet wider and without the “square” that houses the hot water tank, which they started putting in the bathroom in the 70s, it really would make a huge difference.

I’m also glad to learn they started treating the wood in the 70s in Cali instead of continued using raw wood like they did in the 60s, thus giving the place a “rotting” smell to it. Every time I go in the closet or open a drawer it smells like old, rotting wood.

Been loving the hot weather, but it looks like we’ll definitely be shutting windows at night by the end of the week. When the nights dip under the 60s is when it can end up pretty chilly in here come early morning.

Later…

Fucking phony bitch! Not only did Maliheh pick up the journal entries I sent her (it was TIP-rigged), but she also changed her profile pic on FB. So there’s no doubt that she’s not only alive but also getting my messages and just blowing me off.

Even though she knows my mother was a bitch, what kind of “friend” doesn’t have the decency to at least send a quick message? And what would be wrong with a quick message once a week saying, “I don’t want to chat right now, but I’m fine and hope you are too?”

I really, really think she only chose to be my friend to keep her name out of my book and out of my blog. Maybe a part of her felt guilty for what she did in the past, but just the fact that she did do what she did makes the way our “friendship” has turned out less of a surprise. I should’ve figured that after a few months she’d drift away enough to keep me pretty much out of her life, but without dumping me. Maybe one of these days she will dump me and maybe I’ll never hear from her again at some point. Just her refusal to add me on FB was enough to make me doubt her sincerity. She’s not obligated to be my friend, though. So if her heart isn’t into it, and it’s obviously not, why doesn’t she just say so?

I feel like our “friendship” is way too one-sided. Ah, but I’m not gonna let her in on what I know. Instead, I’m going to make her wait a few months to hear from me when she sends a message. We’ll see how she likes me coming around when I happen to feel like it and not when she wants me to. I’m sick of running to her the instant she contacts me while she keeps me hanging for weeks or even months when I contact her. Time to give what I get!

Andy said the only reason he didn’t tell me about his Facebook account was that I said I basically only hung onto my own account there cuz of Nane, and because he’s only been a member for a short time and isn’t at all impressed with it. That’s true. I saw his sign-up date was August 15th, and who else do I really care to keep in touch with that much besides Nane?

What pisses me off is that he didn’t get the message I sent him. Then when I think of how Sharyn tried to send a message that wouldn’t go through it all makes me wonder how many other messages I’ve sent that no one will get. One time I thought it weird that Christiane would ignore one of my messages, though she did read my last one. Well, maybe she didn’t get it. And maybe Sharyn, Polly and Ruth won’t get mine either.

MONDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2012 I really REALLY hope dentist day isn’t allergy day. But I counted the days and I’m right about due for the next attack come Wednesday. It’d be really hard on me to have to go to the dentist while I’m struggling not to sneeze my ass off. Tom thinks it’s something in these woods and that I’ll be ok when we move. Well, we’re not moving this year so if he’s right I’ve still got lots of sneezing and runny noses ahead of me.

We continue not to find the perfect, or near-perfect place, yet our money continues to grow. Tom’s to call the park people today. Even if they turn us down for a loan on a more expensive place, we’ve now got enough money to buy something less expensive outright. Most parks require you to make at least 3 times the rent. Well, the most the lot we end up on will probably be $600 a month and he makes way more than that. He doesn’t get how the company can afford to pay him so much and why they’d want to pay him 46K a year to do such tedious jobs that could be done in more sufficient ways, thus saving the company money. We would still think that sooner or later they’ll stop working their employees 10-12 hours a day, 6 days a week at which time they’d be paying him 30-something grand a year, but that’s enough for two low-maintenance people with not many expenses. Plus, he’s still got lots of vacation time accumulated and great benefits.

We just don’t get why people would want to lease cars and have to make payments every month when you can buy something used for 3-5 grand that will be plenty sufficient and comfortable enough. Our 1994 car may not have all the bells and whistles of modern vehicles, but it’s comfy and has been good to us since we got it in 2007, it’s not a gas-guzzler, and it doesn’t come with payments attached to it. We own it free and clear. All we pay for is gas and insurance. Tom does his own car maintenance and repairs, which has cost very little so far.

Andy and I were talking about the prospect of Israel and Iran really getting into it and he went on to say something about the New Testament saying Israel would be destroyed and that the rest of the world would suffer and all that, and I’m like, to each their own in their thinking and beliefs, but as far as I’m concerned all the various bibles are hogwash. They’re not “God’s” word, but the word of the women/gay-hating fanatics that wrote it. It is simply their beliefs and opinions, but not necessarily facts. Until God jumps down from the sky, shakes my hand and introduces Himself to me, I cannot assume for a fact that God exists. I suspect there’s a higher power of some kind(s) both good and bad, but I cannot believe what I haven’t actually seen. Same with what happens to us when we die. We can speculate. We can theorize. But we cannot know until we’re dead.

Many people believed the world would end in 1999. They were wrong. Many people believe it will end this year. I’d say there’s a damn good chance they’ll be wrong, too. I don’t doubt that Israel and Iran will continue to pick on each other, though. They always have so why would they stop now? But just because they may kill each other doesn’t mean it’ll affect us. At least I don’t see how it could anymore than I can see how it would affect those in California if some wife beats her husband to death in Japan. Or even if some man burns someone’s house down in Chicago. As I also told him, though, why worry until and if something actually happens that does affect us?

Later…

Should I be pissed that Andy joined Facebook 6 weeks ago and never told me? Well, I surprised him by letting him know I accidentally found him. I linked from Sharyn to Norma to him after Sharyn left the sweetest comment on my blog. I’m guessing Andy didn’t say anything because he doesn’t want to add me and let his sisters (and possibly others) know we’re friends. He probably doesn’t know you can hide friends from other friends. I’ve still got Tom hidden from everyone not just to keep him safe from trolls, but because the guy isn’t into the online social scene. He only joined FB for contests.

About a month ago someone anonymously asked why I went private on FB. I do this every now and then if I feel my friends are a little too exposed to the public as their comments add up. I know I can’t protect them from the world, nor is it my duty to, but Molly and Kim are still out there and they’ll never change. They’ve backed off somewhat, but they’re still there. Although quick and quiet, Molly still peeks in on my blog and I’m sure Kim still is too, but is disabling cookies or having her “sources” check me out for her. Anyway, I wonder if he was the one who asked why I went private on FB, though I had assumed it was Kim or Molly, but probably Kim. Andy swears he doesn’t ask me things anonymously, but who knows?

Sharyn left a message on my blog saying she tried to write to me but couldn’t get through. She says she’s so sorry for what I went through. This was on an entry sharing my hate for my uncles, though one is now dead. She said: BTW, your shitty uncle Marty tried to pick me up on the streets when I was 15… until he realized it was me.

Now, why oh why doesn’t this surprise me?

Anyway, I replied to her comment, sent her a friend invite and a message, and we’ll see if she gets it.

The original plan was to let Jennifer have it for accepting her 15% when she knows she shouldn’t, or I at least hope she knows she shouldn’t. I was also going to give Larry’s child-woman a heads up about her Romeo through a friend of hers since she can’t be contacted directly, and then I was going to let Polly and Ruth know just what I think of them and Marty, dead or not. I know that anything I do will get back to Tammy and I’m ok with that because Tammy can no longer go running to Mom and Dad and start a family feud much like Larry did years ago. All she can do is not like it. So I don’t have a problem with people going to Tammy, and I already warned her that since they couldn’t go whining to Mom and Dad, they would be going to her.

But then I unblocked Lisa’s account long enough to see who was on her friend list and was surprised to see she was connected to Jennifer. I can’t tell if she’s connected to Larry because the bastard blocked me. If I go off on Jennifer, then she’ll end up dragging Lisa into it as well as Tammy. I mean, I can’t believe she wouldn’t mention it to Lisa, and I know Lisa would certainly mention it to Tammy. Well, I’d like to try to keep it so that people only go running to Tammy. Besides, Jennifer didn’t ask or demand to be included in the will.

I’m also not sure I should waste time on Larry’s child-woman. I wouldn’t mind letting her know that she’s foolish to think Larry won’t trade her in for a newly minted coochie once hers gets older like he did with his ex, knowing how it’d piss Larry off, but I also don’t want them making trouble for me over it. With the little bastard about to drop into the world anytime now, hopefully they won’t have much time to pick on me. I don’t know her well, but neither of them strikes me as the type to go Molly or Kim on me. But I knew that going through Stefanie’s friends might make her harass my friends, so I dropped her a link on Pinterest to her own special blog post I wrote for her, LOL.

Tammy surprised me with a message on Facebook today. I didn’t expect her back till Wednesday, but she arrived, tired but glad to be home. I don’t blame her! At least now she’ll never have to see or speak to Larry again. Unless by some miracle they patched things up and are actually getting along now. Well, she can do what she wants, but I don’t want anything to do with the bastard. He’ll only end up making me wish I could race across the country and strangle him. Tammy and Sharyn are one thing but I don’t want much contact with other family members, not because I don’t like them (some of them) or anything like that, but because that way there’s less chance of any drama.

What didn’t surprise me was that only 16 people showed up at the services held for Mom, and 5 were Tammy’s friends. How the hell did she get so many friends in Florida anyway? LOL Then there was Walter, Mark, and the pervert himself (at least he had the decency to leave the child-woman home). Wonder who the other 8 people were. Then again, do I really care?

The best news is that it looks like we got accepted into the park! We’re going to check out what’s for sale there real soon.

[vidiaofthewind]

Silence {Vidia & Max}

An Alarm goes off at town hall

Set: March 12

@trackedbymaximus

Previous Reading

Bubbling to the Surface Like a Tornado From Blood to Dust

VIDIA 

The alarm blared and Vidia for once in her life had stayed completely still as she stared at the dust in her hands.

She destroyed the crown.

It didn't make sense. 

It wasn't that old. The case wasn't pressurized. Why was this happening?

Vidia's ears were ringing as blood from her hand and where she had punched through the glass dropped in an unknown pattern.

She didn't even hear the sirens.

She didn't hear the door slam open. 

Vidia didn't run.

MAXIMUS

It was Maximus’s turn to work the late shift, although those were usually quiet in Swynlake. Unless some magical disaster happened, the city tended to roll up the sidewalks which meant there wasn’t a lot to attract the criminal element. He didn’t mind, as it usually served as time to go over the information for ongoing cases in between patrols. 

Until the alarm went off for Town Hall.

Within moments, he and the officer that was working the shift with him were up from their desks and into the waiting patrol car, sirens on for safety as they raced down the street and to the steps of Town Hall. 

When they raced inside, Maximus could see a single woman standing there frozen, along with the glints of shattered glass on the ground. 

“Police. Don’t move.” 

VIDIA

Vidia didn't move. Not because she was demanded not to but because the crown was now dust in her hands.

How did that happen?

Why did that happen?

It had to be the humans fault.

Fairies crafted Items that would never crumble like that. But even that thought process didn't make her feel better that she may have destroyed a priceless Artifact.

The only motion in the room was the dust falling. The blood dripping from her hand.

MAXIMUS

Maximus cautiously approached the still woman, quickly taking in the scene in front of him. He knew the officer with him would have already taken pictures of the scene for reference since there didn’t seem to be any immediate danger, and they would take more when they were able to return to properly investigate and clean the scene. 

For now, the story told was obvious. The case for the Fairy Crown was smashed. The woman standing there had blood on her hand from the glass of the case. The crown was gone. 

“Ma’am, I am placing you under arrest for breaking and entering and for destruction of public property. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defense if you do not mention something you later rely on in court.” The rote phrase slipped out of his lips as he approached her with the handcuffs that he’d pulled off of his belt. 

When she didn’t make any sign of running, he quickly handcuffed her. They’d have to deal with the cut as soon as they got back to the station, but as it wasn’t life threatening, he wanted her out of there first. 

VIDIA

Vidia’s first reaction was to pull back. To not let the cuffs go around her wrists but he already had a good grip on her.

She could have used her magic. She could have him blown away. But that would make this worse.

She wasn't violent.

Even if the display here didn't prove that.

“I didn't take the crown. It just turned to dust. It shouldn't have done that.”

MAXIMUS

Internally, he raised an eyebrow. He found that hard to believe. That was supposed to be a gift from the fairies, and there was nothing in there that should have dissolved that quickly. 

But that was only one detail among many. 

After all, whether or not she currently had the crown didn’t change the fact that she had clearly been intending to take the crown, as evidenced by everything else on the scene. It didn’t change her other charges regardless. Theft was only one part. 

“When we’re back at the station, you can tell me exactly what happened.” 

Taking her elbow with a firm grip, he started to walk with her back towards the car. 

VIDIA

Vidia Cursed mentally. She should know more about police matters. What to say. What not to say.

Did She call Clarion?

Did she call Tofi?

What did she do?

As Vidia frantically worked all this in her Head James could be seen running to townhall. Stopping short as he saw the flashing lights and the fairy in handcuffs.

“Fuck.” Glancing at town hall and the police officers, James pulled out his own phone. He'd get some records and information before pulling Clarion in.

The RAS didn't need to interfere if this was just Vidia acting brash but brash and as impulsive as she was she did deserve proper representation. 

Put into the car Vidia let out a small Huff her magic blowing her hair away from her face.

First thing first.

Dont get in more trouble by talking.

MAXIMUS

It was a short ride back to the station before Maximus was helping her out of the car and inside. He walked past the initial desks and straight into the interview room with her. 

He hadn’t used the magic suppression handcuffs on her as he hadn’t thought of it in the moment, although with the better light he was questioning if he should have. But she hadn’t done anything stupid since he’d arrived hopefully she would keep it that way. 

As they’d walked past, he’d given a nod to the officer who had peeled off to grab the first aid kit and call the paramedics to take a look at her before handing him the kit. 

Entering the room, he let go of her elbow and took the kit, walking over to start the tape recorder before he said anything else. He set the first aid kit down on the table and let her choose which seat she would prefer.

“Interview begun at 11:30 pm on March 12, 2024 Deputy Sheriff Maximus Keaton is here. Please state your name for the record.” 

VIDIA

It was weird, he was weird. Letting her choose a seat. A trick. Something to get her guard down. Like he wasn’t out to get her.

Vidia didn’t like it.

She didn’t know what to expect.

And she really liked knowing what to expect.

Staring at the tape recorder, then the first aid kit and then him as he spoke. 

She didn’t trust him.

“Vidia Windwhistler.”

MAXIMUS

Her silent hostility didn’t bother him in the slightest. He was used to the distrust people held for the police, and as a fairy, that was likely to be even worse. In some corner of him he sympathized. 

But not enough to change what was happening here. Whatever she thought of herself, she had been caught in the act of breaking into a public building, destroying property, and interfering with something that was considered a town treasure. Fairy or not, there were laws she needed to respect. 

His tone stayed even and careful. “How do you prefer to be addressed Ms. Windwhistler? Do I have permission to perform some basic first aid until the paramedics arrive?”

VIDIA

“The paramedics don’t need to be called.” Honestly Vidia was relying a little bit on the pain to ground herself. It stopped her from going into her head. Lost in the thoughts that would and could strangle her.

She should have just run.

“Vidia is fine too.”

MAXIMUS

“Vidia, do you realize that you are bleeding? We will need to make sure that there isn’t any glass in your wounds.” 

He kept his voice steady, not sure what degree of shock she was in. He couldn’t interrogate her about what happened until she was stable, or until she formally refused medical care on record. 

He didn’t see the point in mentioning that the paramedics had already been called and were likely on their way there. She could argue with them when they arrived, as that wasn’t his problem. His problem was to respond to the emergency using his best judgment. 

VIDIA

Vidia leveled her gaze at the deputy. No shit she knew that she was bleeding. But why would she accept help from someone who just wanted the worse from her. 

“It's a biohazard Or something?” Vidia questioned though her voice lacked the usual bite it would have.

“Fine. Whatever.”

MAXIMUS

Technically yes and no in response to her question. If it was human blood, it was absolutely a biohazard. Fairy blood was something more complicated than that, and he knew how desirable some people had found it. He’d been involved once in arresting a black market dealer in fairy blood when he’d been relatively new to the Force, and what he’d seen in that place still lived in his memory - including how his fellow officers had reacted. 

So. He would treat it like a biohazard and clean this room thoroughly, and make sure that everything else her blood had touched was cleaned just as thoroughly. Better to think of it as a biohazard. 

He didn’t respond to the question as he saw the paramedic through the window of the door and he waved them in. 

Maximus took a moment to relate what he had seen and the potential concerns, and the cheerful medic quickly cleaned Vidia’s hand and ensured there wasn’t any class still inside. Once she was bandaged, the paramedic nodded to Maximus and stepped out again, presumably to talk to the officer who was still out there. 

“Now. Will you tell me what happened this evening?”

VIDIA

The man moved carefully. With purpose. Every movement he made. Every Movement the paramedics made she eyed carefully.

As if they would lunge at her. Dragging her into some black hole that she would never be able to escape.

But as soon as that process started. It had ended.

Would she?

Should she?

“No. I'd like to call a lawyer instead.”

MAXIMUS

Maximus bit back a sigh. He’d hoped that she would make this easy, simply confess and they could move on with their night as he started to move through all the steps that came next. But nothing in this town was ever that easy. 

Although this case was pretty cut and dried, and they would have all the forensic evidence they needed. But he preferred to have everything as neat as possible. 

“Very well. I’ll walk you to the phone so you can make your call. Interview terminated at 11:47 pm.” 

He stood up and stood at the door, holding it open for her so she could choose to walk through. 

VIDIA

Vidia had two options. Clarion who probably had a lot of say but there was part of her that thought Clarion would leave her to rot. The Queen had told her to leave it and yet Vidia couldn’t.

Even if the plan hadn’t been all of this.

The other option was more likely. Someone that would actually help her spin a tale.

Making the phone call, Vidia was careful as she spoke as she was advised.

She wouldn’t speak anymore, not until someone else that knew the system could intervene.

Vidia was in the right and honestly, considering the fairy crown was so obviously fake. The whole town could get fucked.

MAXIMUS

As Vidia made her call, Maximus stood nearby, making sure he was in between her and the door. He didn’t listen beyond first identifying that it wasn’t Belle she was speaking to. He didn’t know enough of the lawyers in town yet to recognize who else it might be. 

He’d know them all before long, he was sure. 

Whatever she thought, she had broken the law today and she would be answerable for that fact. 

As soon as she was done, he walked her back to the cell and locked her inside. She could make herself comfortable in there until the lawyer came, and then they would finish this conversation. For now, he had paperwork to fill out and clean up to organize. 

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #592

Top Ten Xbox Games That Could Be Movies

For the last thirty years, adaptations of videogames into film and TV has been met mostly with scorn, derision, and a good deal of suppressed laughter. Amidst the 16-bit console boom of the mid-nineties, the first round of adaptations – Super Mario Bros., Street Fighter, etc – weren’t exactly of the highest calibre, and it seemed that the best a game could hope for was to be adapted into a movie that was “okay”; “not bad”; “better than you’d expect” (e.g. Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Sonic the Hedgehog). It didn’t help that for the most part these films weren’t exactly setting the box office alight, let alone burning up the loins of film critics the world over.

Things have changed recently. You could argue that, as games have become more complex, their narratives have become easier to adapt; the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot has an awful lot more story and script than the original 1996 game, and as such the 2018 film adaptation was able to skew closer to the game’s plot than the weirder 2001 version starring Angelina Jolie. Even as far back as the nineties, there was talk of adaptations of adventures such as The Dig or even The Secret of Monkey Island, but sadly they never came to fruition; instead we got Doom and Mortal Kombat. Nowadays, though, a generation of filmmakers who grew up on games, and who understand their nuances and culture, have produced a string of successful adaptations – both critical and commercial smashes. This year alone has seen The Last of Us on TV receive rave reviews, possibly on its way to awards glory as it’s hailed as one of the best new shows. At the cinema, in what has generally been seen as a disappointing year for big blockbusters, The Super Mario Bros Movie went bananas despite a mediocre critical response; it’s currently sitting at $1.3 billion internationally, easily the biggest film of the year so far, and with a very good chance of retaining that position. It feels like, eventually, films and TV shows based on games are taken seriously by filmmakers, studios, and audiences alike, and hopefully this will lead to some more interesting adaptations going forward (like – ahem – Monkey Island).

One common thread here is that the big game-to-film-or-whatever successes tend to be properties closely associated with, if not owned by, Nintendo or Sony (or Sega, I guess, with the pretty successful Sonic movies). Whither Microsoft, third player in the console race? Well, they had the Halo show on Paramount, which I’ve not seen all of so far; but it’s not been amazing and really it’s incredibly divorced from the Halo games anyway. It’s probably fair to say it’s not been an out-and-out success, and given how streaming services are killing off films and shows left and right, I do wonder how much more we’ll ever see of it. Maybe if he’d left his helmet on, eh, fellas?

But it doesn’t have to be this way! For Uncle Dave is here to give Microsoft the massive cinematic hit in requires. Commercial and critical success awaits, because they do, in fact, have a wealth of properties to draw upon in order to make their filmic dreams come true. Below, then, are ten gaming franchises owned by Microsoft (some, er, they’ve not owned for very long, to be fair). By adapting them in the way I describe they’re sure to become culturally relevant and part of the conversation. Just the thing to celebrate the FTC giving the greenlight to them purchasing Activision/cheer them up after the FTC ruled that they’re not allowed to purchase Activision [delete as appropriate once I know what’s happening]!

Fable (2004): the slightly tongue-in-cheek sword-and-sorcery world of Fable would fit perfectly into a movie. The games have often been described as Python-esque, and they perfectly capture a particularly British sense of whimsy and sauciness. I imagine Simon Farnaby and Paul King could write a perfect script, perhaps following young heroes who have to step up to face off against Jack of Blades. A little bit of smut and silliness could offset the high fantasy, separating the film from the likes of Lord of the Rings or even Dungeons and Dragons; but similarly the cheery tone, humour, and heart would make it distinct from Game of Thrones. As a moderately-large-budget fantasy film it’s got its own hook and style and could stand alone, and could really be quite a decent hit if done right.

Gears of War (2006): nearly didn’t put this one in because I think it’s supposed to be in development, but after Halo this is probably Xbox’s big franchise. As the games focus on a team of at least four or more characters, there’s actually a lot of scope here for an interpersonal team movie. I think taking it back to the beginning, and adapting the story of the first trilogy of games, is probably simplest; following Marcus Fenix and crew as they try to stop the Locust invasion. Apparently Dave Bautista wants to play him, but sadly I think he’s a bit old now; I’d probably go for Tom Hardy, Henry Cavill, or Channing Tatum as Marcus. Whilst I think this does need a big budget, it also should be R-rated, directed with a sense of fun and an awareness of the absurdities of the source material so it doesn’t get bogged down in grimness or the weird locker room tone of the first couple of games.

Banjo Kazooie (1998): basically this could be Xbox’s Super Mario move. Rather than go the Sonic route of bringing a CG Banjo into the real world, I think this should be a fully animated affair. What would be important here is – a bit like Fable – there’s a strong vein of British sensibility running through the Banjo games, with incredibly silly Beano-style humour. This could be reflected in the voice cast: I’d go for Daniel Kaluuya as Banjo, building on his great turn in Spider-Verse; Karen Gillan as Kazooie; and Susie Eddie Izzard as Grunty.

Perfect Dark (2000): Xbox’s Bond, in more ways than one. This could be a sleek, stripped-back sci-fi spy romp; get Chad Stahelski in to direct it, make it super-swish and have loads of John Wick-esque gun-fu, with a suitably athletic young woman shooting people in the head with a lot of CG blood splatters. I imagine that a Perfect Dark film nowadays would hew closely to whatever the rebooted game turns out to be – and maybe trying to get a film together at roughly the same time is a nice bit of brand strategy – but if I was going for it right now, I wouldn’t go quite as broadly sci-fi as the first game; I’d hint at the aliens, maybe, rather than taking you to their world. Instead I’d make it a tale of corporate espionage and nefarious political skullduggery in the near future, with a young Agent Dark on an early mission. Who to cast? I think Anya Taylor-Joy would be a fine it.

Forza Horizon (2012): the new Gran Turismo film looks quite fun and interesting, even if I imagine its triumphant-underdog story might turn out to be a bit clichéd. I think here, rather than following the traditional path of the racetrack-bound mainline Forza Motorsport series, they should adapt the expansive and wilder Horizon games. Using the festival backdrop that most of the games have, it could feature loud music and fast cars, but also have a rollocking off-road feel – which would also help differentiate it somewhat from the Fast and the Furious movies. Perhaps our plucky young hero (I’m seeing Anthony Ramos, for some reason) wants to be a “proper” racer but gets in with some wrong’uns and ends up in a no-holds-barred chase across southern France and Italy to get to the Horizon festival in time, pursued by the bad guys and the Law. It could be a little bit Fast, a little bit Cannonball Run.  

Microsoft Flight Simulator (1982): this one might be a little similar to that Gran Turismo plot, but who cares; it’s cool. So it’s about a couple of amateur flight enthusiasts – maybe a big brother who has a microlight, and his kid sister who, get this, only plays Flight Simulator. But then they’re on an aeroplane and – oh no! – something befalls the pilots and, amidst a growing series of interconnected crises, the plucky rando has to fly an actual commercial jet. See, it’s actually part of some nefarious plot by bad guys to drug the pilots and hijack the plane or something, but they weren’t counting on some gamer chick to take the reins and fly the damn thing. Starring Millie Bobbie Brown, with John Hamm as the pro pilot who you think has been drugged but really he was in on it the whole time and is A Nasty.

Age of Empires (1997): loosely spinning off from the popular strategy franchise, this offers a degree of realism to counter the high fantasy and comedy of Fable (and also the dark supernatural elements of Hellblade – see below). The plot follows a Roman general, exiled for some reason (he’s been set up, basically) who washes up in some Celtic village and tries to warn the populace that entire Roman army is on its way. He has to earn their trust, learn their ways – he thinks they’re savages, basically – and help them prepare for the Romans, teaching them to fight the Roman way. It’s a muddy, Gladiator-style affair, with some period drama and intrigue before culminating in a huge, epic battle the likes of which the game is famous for. Starring Henry Cavill as the Roman with an assortment of Brits with regional accents as the Celts.

Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (2017): this is one where you could actually follow the plot of the film relatively closely – although maybe you’d have to come up with something else to challenge Senua other than the weird trippy puzzles. But her mental status and the voices she hears as the game progresses – and the visions that could be supernatural or could be all in her head – would make for an excellent cinematic experience, and one that was thrilling, unsettling, and poignant. It would make a great Ben Wheatley film, actually.

Psychonauts (2005): another one that could be Xbox’s answer to Mario, a fully animated adventure. But, again, this is one that has its own sense of humour and style, delightfully weird. Journeying through someone’s subconscious inside their brain is an almost Pixar-ish idea (and sort of explored in Inside Out, although Psychonauts is more like a visualisation of psychiatry principles rather than anthropomorphising emotions). You could actually go fully Spider-Verse with this one, adopting different animation techniques and art styles as you venture through different parts of the psyche.

Crackdown (2007): this one would be a riot, just an absolute balls-to-the-wall violent gun-fest. It could follow a team of Agents – lead, naturally, by Terry Crews – who are assigned to take out a major kingpin and their henchmen, taking some cops with them for the ride. The rest of the film is a drawn-out firefight across the city as they work their way to the villain’s hideout, the Agents using enhanced abilities of their suits – and whatever is near to hand – to fight, at turns delighting and disturbing the locals. It would tap into that RoboCop sense of satire and critique, lampooning not just similar action movies but also wryly commenting on the notion of a state sending such firepower against its own citizens. As the film progresses, the true, nefarious intent of the Agency would be revealed, and our beleaguered Agents would have to make one final stand. But, like, it’d be funny, too.

So there we are. I nearly had Fallout on here, but thought as a film it might hew too closely to the Mad Max template; also Quake, but then it kinda treads similar ground to Gears and Hellblade; and Monster Truck Madness, but by that point I thought I was getting a bit silly. Anyway, the point is, Microsoft has tons of cool game properties it could adapt, and it should pull its finger out already.

Unless they’re waiting till they can make a movie of Call of Duty, of course.

[aggressivelyclueless]

@starfleetrambo this one was for u ^_^

in which martin calls in sick and jon feels the heavy absence of his insufferable assistant. he tells himself he just needs to make sure he's not being haunted by another flesh hive again as he heads to martin's apartment carrying ingredients for soup and his favourite tea.

For an early Tuesday afternoon, the train was quiet.  Jon shifted the bag from one hand to the other, checking its contents yet again: potatoes, onion, carrots, beans, ham-hock. . . he couldn't possibly have forgotten anything.  That was absurd.  He knew exactly what he was doing, and it wasn't like there was any difficulty to it.

But this was stupid.  It was probably nothing.

Probably.

When he'd grabbed his coat and left the Institute an hour prior, he hadn't thought he'd be taking the whole afternoon off.  Just an extended lunch, he'd told Tim on the way out -- you and Sasha both, eh? Tim said, feigning surprise, leaving me unsupervised?  Y'think that's wise?

Perhaps it wasn't, Jon mused, although he wasn't going to say so.  He told himself he just had to get out of the Archives for a while, that he'd spent too many hours shut into his office, that it was somehow too quiet that day, that maybe he was finally driving himself insane and he needed a break.

That must have been it.

Kindness?  Of course not.  Jon couldn't even stand him.

The train carried a chill but the cold drifted in, bitter, when the doors opened, and by the time Jon ascended the steps to street level he'd pulled the collar of his coat up as high as it would go.  Wishing for gloves (ah, perhaps he had forgotten something after all), he went into a trot down the sidewalk, clutching his little bag of supplies and heading the handful of blocks across Stockwell.  It was due to snow after nightfall, said the weatherman, but Jon didn't see it.

Clouds, maybe.  Snow?  Probably not.

The flat was a square building comprised of battered red brick, and the naked hedges out front shivered under a line of twinkling net lights as Jon made his approach.  He didn't envy them.  He tread carefully, minding the ice, and paused at the front door.

His thumb smashed the button on the callbox, inches away from numb at this point with his nose and the tips of his ears to follow.  The hand tried, almost successfully, to make a dash for his coatpocket; it might have gotten there if the little light on the callbox hadn't blinked on.  The other hand, closed stiff around the bag, was condemned to suffer for another minute until he got inside.

Assuming he got an answer, anyhow.

But the crackly callbox speaker came to life, although it didn't sound healthy.  "Hullo?"

"Martin?  . . . it's Jon.  Can I come in?"

Audible surprise from the speaker, which may or may not have dissolved into a coughing fit as the sound cut out.  A moment later, somewhat recomposed: "Jon. . . ?  What are you doing here?  It's Tuesday -- ?"

"Yes, I know," said Jon, convinced that his hands were never going to forgive him for such horrible abuse.  His fingers had given up on feeling: the one planted on the callbox was retaining the indentation where the button had been pressed, but refused to acknowledge any sensation of it whatsoever.  Lovely.

But Martin, damn him, took his time.  "Thought you had work to do. . . ?"

"Erm, well," said Jon, knowing the longer he hesitated, the longer it would be until he could get any functionality in his fingers back.  He closed and opened them a few times, minding that he didn't pull the new scar on the back of his hand too tightly.  "I. . . heard you were ill."

". . . so you came all the way to my flat?"

Jon sighed.  "You remember what happened the last time you took sick leave?"  He hoped that Martin wouldn't press it, and that this reason was one he could stick to.  He didn't; it was; the front doors clicked open a second later.  Jon let himself in, taking in the warm air for a moment, trying to coax his hands to regain any shred of dexterity.  The stairway to the left, its banister assaulted with tinsel and lights, took him right to the landing for Number Three.

The door had been left ajar.

Jon gave the wooden frame a few raps with his knuckle.  "Martin?"

"S'open," came the reply from the pile of blankets on the sofa, only visible as Jon pushed the door open further.  Martin was in there somewhere, presumably -- only once the blankets shifted did Jon actually see his face.

"Oh, good lord, are you doing all right?" said Jon, swinging the door shut again behind him.  Martin looked to have slept less than Jon had (if that was at all possible), which became doubly obvious without his glasses on; his face was paper-white, his eyes somehow dull.  The smell of sick hung lightly about him.

"Yeah?" Martin croaked, squinting for a second; remembering the glasses on the coffee table, one hand came out from under a corner of quilt and retrieved them.  "Yeah, I'm okay.  Will be, I mean, I've been taking it easy. . . "  He elected not to mention the three hours he'd spent that morning almost-throwing-up.  Since then he'd had nothing but juice, and even that was only when he could drag himself to the fridge to refill his glass.  That hadn't been for a while.

"Yes, well," said Jon, setting the bag on the counter so he could shirk his coat off.  "I brought you something -- ah.  Well.  Some things.  I thought they'd help."

"What?"

"It's all right, don't -- no, don't get up.  Stay there."  Jon looked back at Martin, who had already shifted one leg over the front of the couch; at Jon's command, he froze.  "Stay there."

Martin complied, too confused not to.  Was this another fever dream? he wondered.  He was fairly certain he was conscious, but then again, Jon-inviting-himself-into-his-flat seemed like it should have been in that sort of territory.  At least it wasn't as panic-inducing as the one from earlier where Elias had left him a voicemail saying he was fired (he'd had to check his phone no less than four times after coming round from that one).  So, really, it could have been worse.

At least it was Jon here.  Fever dream or not, Martin didn't think he'd be able to handle it if it were anyone else.

"Jon?" he said carefully, having settled back down again amidst the least-sweat-damped of the blankets.  "What's this about, really?"

Ah, Jon wasn't getting off the hook after all.  He should have known.  "Excuse me?"

"Why are you here?"

"As I said.  I had to know nothing happened to you," said Jon patiently, having decided well in advance that that was the reason he was sticking to.  Any other justification for it was unnecessary, definitely not worth thinking about (oh, but the Archives had just been so quiet) and even less worth mentioning.

"And. . . it hasn't?" said Martin, and Jon got the feeling he was expected to elaborate.

He did not.

"You're still here?" Martin spelled out, and added before Jon had a chance to misinterpret him: "And you've got. . . what's in there?  Potatoes?"

"Erm, quite."  Jon's hand pulled one out, didn't exactly know what to do with it just yet, held onto it.  "I didn't want to have wasted the trip, seeing as you're -- well -- "  The vague gesture he made to the sofa nest said it for him.  "I thought making some soup might help."

"Soup?"

"Well you've got to eat something," said Jon, frowning at the taste that left in his mouth.  He didn't like having to say it, especially after the number of times Martin had caught him right after a statement to say the same (at least he had the decency not to interrupt these days, although the idea of him sitting around and listening right outside Jon's office door didn't appeal too much either).  "Besides, you'll have leftovers after so you won't have to make anything for a few days if you're not up for it."

For a moment Martin just stared, as if his brain had been shorted out and was in the process of redirecting his entire train of thought.  Once it was back on its tracks again, he found his voice, although it was faint.  "You'd do that. . . for me?"

Jon said nothing, only nodded once.

"But I thought you hated me. . . ?"

Jon was not prepared for how badly that stung.  Admittedly, he'd made no secret of it -- not at first, not to Tim and Sasha, not on tape, not for months.  At least once (probably more, he suspected), he'd made Martin cry; he was more than capable of voicing that dislike to his face. . .

. . . but it wasn't really true anymore, was it?

Why had he come out here, again?

"I don't," said Jon at last, but he found he couldn't look Martin in the eye now.  What's he good for; useless ass; can't he get anything right; and that was just the beginning of it.  "Maybe I shouldn't. . . "

No, there wasn't room for the maybe.

"I shouldn't have been so hard on you."

It's just that. . .

Jon bit it back.  Let the stress stay at the Archives -- please, just for a few hours -- lord knew he'd be back.  There were a hundred excuses he could have made, a hundred things he didn't dare to tell anyone.  He wanted to; holding that much distrust was tough.  But he couldn't.  Not yet.

But, damn, how much damage was he going to do in the meantime?

"Martin. . . I'm sorry."

Martin said nothing.

He didn't have to.  Jon knew what he must have looked like -- how many nights he'd spent whispering things into his tape recorder that no one but him was allowed to hear.  What he wanted -- what he said he wanted -- was no more secrets.  But did he, really?

His eyes went down again to the scar on the back of his hand, barely healed.

Wasn't he becoming another one of them anyway?

The loud, wet sniffle from the couch made Jon look up: Martin was staring at him, now pink-faced, those huge eyes brimming with tears.  "S'alright," he said, barely above a whisper.  "I know you're -- "

"No," said Jon, "it's not alright.  I. . . it's been a rough few months.  Since -- well."  He sighed.  Count that twice now he'd made Martin cry.  "I know I've been -- ah, off -- and I'm sorry.  I want to help.  Honest."

Martin ran the back of his wrist under his eyes, regaining his composure for the most part.  Exactly what to make of this, he wasn't sure just yet -- but, sick or not, he couldn't turn down the idea of Jon maybe being a little less bristly for once.  "Okay," he said, and Jon visibly relaxed.

"Do you think you could stomach some tea?  I could put the kettle on for you."

"Maybe," said Martin, indicating the looseleaf cabinet with a glance.  "And maybe a nap, too."

"Okay," said Jon, "take your time.  Now, how about I'll get that soup started? so it will be ready for you by dinnertime."

Martin nodded slowly, tugging the blankets a little more closely around him.  "All right. . . but you'd better have some too.  I'm not the only one that's got to eat, you know."

"I know."  Usually, Jon would say it only to get Martin off his back, but this time he was right.  He'd forgotten about lunch, having been busy at the market, and he'd be an irritable prick (moreso than usual, at least) if he skipped dinner as well.  Yes, Martin was right about that.

More than just that, he supposed.  He looked over; Martin had settled back down again, no doubt minutes from dozing off.  Jon let him.  He really had needed to get out of the Archives, needed to take everything in his mysteries-box and just put it down for a few hours.  He hadn't realized how heavy it had gotten, only the things he kept dropping into it.

Besides, it was still going to be there tomorrow, and every day after that.  He had plenty of time to sort it all out.

Maybe, once he stopped making so many excuses, he would allow himself to have a little help doing it.

Outside the window, the first stirs of snowflakes had begun to drift down from the clouds.