#normally we are the last in a class of four dogs

[wileys-russo]

the night we met II m.earps x reader

another installment on the date to remember series! find the masterlist here the night we met II m.earps x reader

"okay tiny. lets take it from the top!" your wife announced as you watched on with a smile from the kitchen where you stood making dinner. your daughter nodded determined, taking her starting position as mary clicked play on the track.

"one and two and three and four. one and two and three and four." mary counted slowly, clapping out the beat as delilah spun and danced around the living room in her tutu. "forgot it." she stopped it halfway through with a frown, bottom lip clenched between her teeth.

"hey hey thats okay tiny we still have lots of time before the concert and you have class with miss lily again tomorrow." mary smiled kindly, dropping down into a squat and opening her arms as delilah shot into them and buried her face in your wifes neck.

the footballer caught your eye as you both shared a sympathetic look, delilah exhaling shakily clearly feeling some big emotions as mary squeezed her tightly, rubbing a hand against her back and mumbling assurances in her ear.

"hey lilah." you called out and the small girl who was practically a carbon copy of your wife pulled away and looked up at you. "i need a taste tester. do you know someone who could help me?" you stroked your chin as if deep in thought.

"maybe liam from next door babe?" mary suggested as you gasped and clapped your hands. "perfect! i'll call his parents." you feigned as if you were reaching for your phone, a thundering of footsteps sounded before a small body crashed into your legs.

"no!" delilah hugged your leg and frowned up at you. "no? do you know someone else who could help me then?" you questioned as your daughter nodded furiously. "me! me me me me me! please." delilah chanted over and over again.

"you? hmmm i don't know." you sighed with a shake of your head as the tiny brunette stuck her bottom lip out, giving you her best puppy dog eyes as you melted. "well okay. you've got the job tiny!" you scooped her up as she cheered, kissing your cheek sweetly as you sat her down on the counter.

"mama too?" delilah questioned as mary joined the pair of you in the kitchen, the goalkeeper tickling your daughter illiciting an adorable set of giggles. "mmm i don't know. mama isn't normally very good at taste testing, only eating!" you teased your wife who gave you a playful glare.

though her attempts to advance on you were stopped by a wooden spoon poking at her chest holding her off. a finger pointed menacingly at you instead, your eyes rolled and the taller girl stepped back as you turned to the food.

though the momentary lapse was all mary needed to smack your backside and duck away as you shot her a glare. "hey! don't hit." your daughter echoed the warnings she was often given when getting a bit too rambunctious during play fighting with mary, poking your wifes shoulder as your glare switched to a grin.

"yeah mary, don't hit!" you mocked with a smirk and a wink. "say sorry to mummy." delilah ordered, arms crossed over her chest and a stern frown that scarily mirrored marys own on the pitch on her face.

"i'm very sorry, mummy." your wife pulled you into a hug, winking at you now with the last word as you rolled your eyes but a slight blush coated your cheeks regardless. "now kiss, gotta kiss after a fight." delilah ordered again.

"love we weren't fight-" mary tried to explain but as your daughter raised her eyebrows and widened her eyes her words fell short. "she gets that from you." mary mumbled with a small shake of her head, pressing her lips tenderly against yours, one hand reaching out to subtly squeeze your bum before she stepped away.

"well she gets that from you." you nodded to your daughter who had her finger up her nose. "delilah yuck we don't do that!" mary groaned, pulling her hand away and telling her off as her mini me frowned in annoyance.

"taste testers needed please!" you called out as her frown melted away replaced by an eager smile, little legs swinging to and fro as you scooped up a spoonful of the satay sauce and blew on it so it was cool.

your daughter opened your mouth expectantly as you smiled and fed her, mary stepping around you and sticking her own spoon in. "very good!" delilah nodded her approval firmly as you attacked her face with kisses and she giggled.

"mmm needs some more salt babe, bit sweet." mary criticized as she sucked on the spoon and you stopped to raise an eyebrow at her, delilah mirroring your facial expression. "christ its terrifying i have to deal with two of you." your wife mumbled with a shake of her head.

"no need to be jealous she's following in my footsteps and not yours baby." you smirked, marys face falling as you bumped her out of the way with your hip. "not funny. not funny at all!" mary frowned with a huff, having a hard time accepting delilahs current dreams of being a ballerina and not a footballer.

"little bit funny, definitely gonna keep teasing you about it." you whispered, leaning in and stealing a kiss from the older girl who huffed.

"lilah are you sure you don't want to play football like me? you love when we kick the ball in the backyard with your aunties!" mary protested, still refusing to truly give up on her legacy.

"can't do ballet and football mama!" delilah replied in a duh tone with a roll of her eyes, and normally you'd tell her off for the sass but it was simply too cute today.

"you can. you totally can!" mary argued, moving to lean on the counter beside her. "don't want to." delilah shrugged as you coughed to cover up your laugh and felt your wifes eyes burning a hole in your head.

"i'll get you on a football pitch in an england kit one day tiny, mark my words." mary threatened playfully, wagging a finger as delilah poked her tongue out, mary repeating the action as they took turns pulling faces at each other.

"hey lilah baby mama is gonna take you to dance class tomorrow okay?" you reminded as mary pulled herself up to sit on the counter beside your daughter.

"why?" delilah questioned, her favourite word at the moment. "cause mummy has an appointment." mary answered as your daughter looked on confused. "why?" the girl repeated again.

"i have to go see doctor amanda and talk about some grown up stuff." you poked her nose and fed her a piece of chicken as she hummed happily, mary tapping you with her foot and opening her mouth expectantly as you rolled your eyes but fed her a piece too.

"why?" your daughter scrunched her face up as you smiled. "because i do! no more why's. so you and mama get to go together to dance tomorrow." you chuckled as you poured the sauce over the chicken.

"don't want mama to take me, want you." delilah frowned as mary gave her an odd look.

"why not? we can sing to whatever song you want in the car tiny and even go visit aunty less or aunty tooney after!" mary tried as delilah shook her head, face unchanging.

"no. want mummy to take me!" delilah demanded and you both recognized the slight wobble in her bottom lip that she was dangerously close to a tantrum.

"why don't you want me to take you lilah?" mary asked gently, trying to mask the hurt you saw in her eyes. "cause mummy knows how to dance and you don't, so want her." delilah frowned as the hurt in marys face turned to offence.

"i can dance!" mary exclaimed, hopping down from the counter with a scoff. "not like mummy can." delilah exhaled, opening her arms and looking to you expectantly as you moved dinner off the heat and scooped her up into a hug.

"i don't need to dance like mummy, i'm better." mary puffed her chest out and made a face as your daughter clung tightly onto you and shook her head. "you know lilah it was dancing that made mummy like me." mary stated as you scoffed and raised an eyebrow.

"really?" her head poked over your shoulder curiously as mary nodded. "really. i'll tell you all about it after dinner and i once i do you'll never want mummy to take you to ballet ever again." mary challenged as you rolled your eyes at her theatrics and put delilah down so she could help set the table.

~

"very good! thank you for your help baby." you smiled as you handed delilah a clean spoon and she carefully placed it down in the drawer, sat on marys hip now the three of you had eaten dinner and washed up.

"story now?" the girl looked up at mary who smiled, the gleeful look in her eyes setting off alarm bells in your head. "bath first tiny, you smell!" mary sniffed her and gagged jokingly, holding the girl away at arms length who gasped.

"do not!" "do too." "do not!" "do too." "you smell mama!" "nah its you, phwoar!" mary tutted shaking her head, flipping your daughter upside down and carrying her off toward the bathroom as her giggles bounced around the house.

you were ready to sit down and enjoy the brief ten minutes of peace you'd get whilst mary was occupying delilah but someone clearing their throat in the doorway interrupted that.

"your presence is requested in the bathroom or else the child is refusing to bathe." mary announced in an accent making you sigh with a smile. "that's your daughter." you poked your wifes chest as you stepped past her.

"excuse me if she gets her stubbornness from someone my love its you!" the taller girls arms snaked around your waist, pulling your back into her front. "mm but whose the one arguing about it? seems a bit stubborn that you're so bothered babe." you teased, head falling to her shoulder and staring up at her.

your wife mocking you under her breath and pulling a face you grinned and moved a hand to grab the back of her neck, tugging her down into a kiss.

"hurry up please!" you broke apart at the sound of the little voice singing out from the bathroom, the two of you chuckling as mary pecked your lips a few more times and let you go.

"dancing story!" delilah groaned impatiently as you tugged one of marys shirts over her head, your wife watching on amused. "she gets her lack of patience from you." you mumbled to the goalkeeper as you traded positions.

"alright! get comfortable, get comfortable." mary waved her hands about as delilah practically jumped on top of you causing you to grunt, wiggling herself about until she was satisfied as you both sat on her bed.

"now tiny, as i said before it was my dance moves that made mummy fall in love with me-" mary started as you scoffed and raised an eyebrow as mary held up a hand to stop you from commenting.

"-fall in love with me, eventually!" mary corrected, the two of you having been best friends for years before finally realizing you both maybe wanted to be more than that.

"it all started at a party."

"two hours and i'm leaving." you warned your best friend who'd dragged you to this party in the first place, where you'd have much more been looking forward to a quiet night in.

"boo! you are such a stick in the mud man." sophie groaned as she grabbed you both a drink. "i'm simply a woman who knows what she likes, which is her own company!" you smiled and took a sip as the girl beside you groaned.

"oh! there's jacob." she perked up seeing her boyfriend wave at her from across the room, downing her drink and handing you the empty cup. "you're going to drag me here and then ditch me? soph!" you whined, putting down her cup and grabbing her wrist.

"i'll be ten minutes! then we're going to dance." your best friend promised, kissing your cheek and tugging her hand free as she raced off and you sighed deeply.

finishing your drink and grabbing another you started to leave the kitchen, only as your eyes roamed the room trying to find someone else you knew you hardly paid attention to your surroundings.

you swore as you tripped over something, or well, someone.

you looked down to see an unfamiliar girl sat on the floor, drink in hand and a bright grin on her face as she looked up at you. "hi." she beamed unapologetically as you raised an eyebrow.

"is sitting on the floor and tripping people up your party trick or something?" you questioned with a roll of your eyes as she leapt up to her feet. "matter of fact it is. i'm mary!" she thrust her hand out toward you and you had to marvel at her confidence.

introducing yourself you shook her hand, the two of you falling into conversation as your previous annoyance melted away, truly unable to stay cross with the enigmatic girl in front of you.

you looked away at the call of your name, finding sophie waving at you from across the room still with jacob, gesturing to the game of beer pong set up in front of them.

"well. looks like you need a partner and i am a terrific shot so you're in luck!" mary slung an arm over your shoulder and grinned. "are you always so forward?" you laughed in amusement as she shrugged. "nothing some liquid courage can't help." she knocked her cup against yours and guided you both over to the table.

"no fucking way, no way!" you slurred with a giggle, you and mary sat outside on the back deck, party starting to slowly die down in the house behind you as you were now both quite drunk.

"i can i promise!" mary grinned, eyes a little droopy from the copious amounts of alcohol you'd both had as the night dragged on. "you're telling me you can do the dirty dancing lift? nah you're full of shit." you shook your head firmly.

"i can! i'll prove it." mary decided, downing the last mouthful of her drink and pushing herself up to her feet. "come on." the dirty blonde held her hand out at you, wiggling her fingers.

"wait-no!" you realised what she wanted you to do, the girl rolling her eyes and grabbing your hands anyway hauling you up. "yes. i'll even give you a running start!" mary grinned as she stepped down into the backyard and backed up a little.

"while i'm young then!" the taller girl rolled her eyes and clapped for you to hurry as you hesitantly placed down your drink and joined her on the grass. "i really don't think-"

"what? you chicken?" mary taunted making you frown. "no! but i hardly know you and i don't fancy a broken neck." you scowled crossing your arms.

"good thing i don't intend on breaking your neck then. come on!" mary encouraged, gesturing for you to run at her as you huffed, the alcohol and hit to your pride at being called a chicken fueling your next moves.

you ran at mary as she asked, the girl bracing and readying her hands however completely underestimating the amount of alcohol running through her, things did not go according to plan.

as her hands grabbed your hips she miss stepped and suddenly you were barreling into her and her back was thudding into the grass as both of you smacked heads.

"you fucking idiot!" you groaned, rolling off of her as the two of you lay on the grass catching your breath. a beat of silence passed before suddenly marys body began to convulse, the girl clutching at her stomach as she laughed.

unable to stop yourself you quickly joined in, arm covering your face as the sound of your laughter echoed around the empty yard.

"you know normally when i do it, because i can do it, i haven't had about a litre of vodka."

"so you and mummy fell down?" delilah giggled as mary finished recounting a much more child friendly version of events. "yeah she dropped me!" you tutted, making a silly face at your daughter whose giggles doubled.

"did not! babe i slipped." mary whined crossing her arms. "do you still think mummy is a better dancer than mama?" you whispered to delilah who nodded with a cheeky smile. "we can't hurt mama's feelings." you warned as delilah paused to think.

"you can take me to class tomorrow mama." delilah announced with a smile as joy flooded marys face. "if you lift mummy!" the girl added as the smile widened on your wifes features but was wiped from yours.

"deal." mary agreed instantly with delight. "no way." you shook your head, your daughter standing up on the bed and starting to jump and chant. "yes yes yes yes!" mary joined in as they both jumped up and down and you tried to withhold a smile.

"fine!" you gave in with a sigh, grunting again as delilah dove on top of you with a cheer. "but you little miss are going to bed afterwards. its already past your bed time!" you warned tickling her as she thrashed about giggling.

"right. ready love?" mary grinned wolfishly as delilah stood on the lounge in the living room bouncing excitedly. "no!" you sighed stood across from her, the same cheeky smile on her face that had been all those years ago.

"go mummy go!" your daughter ordered with a clap as mary gestured for you to run. with a quick prayer mumbled under your breath you set off, mary bending slightly as she braced and grabbed your hips.

"jesus!" you gasped in shock as suddenly you were in the air, your wife holding you up and spinning you slowly in a circle as your daugter oohed in surprise.

"told you. would i ever let you down?" mary smiled softly as she placed you back on your feet, stealing a kiss and stumbling a little as delilah crash tackled into her legs.

"mama my turn! my turn!"

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 8: She's The Salt Of The Earth And She's Dangerous]

A/N: Be sure to vote in the poll pinned to the top of my blog AFTER you finish reading!!! 🥰

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon™️, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes, RIP Jace (again).

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “She's A Rebel” by Green Day.

Word count: 7.4k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

“I’m sorry if I was a creep when we first met,” Aegon says. He’s been oddly philosophical since he was burned. “I hadn’t seen a hot single chick in a while, and I wanted to fuck you.”

Cregan siphoned just enough gas from a decrepit Chrysler Sebring in Merna to take the Tahoe two and a half hours west to Little Thunder Bay Campground on the shores of Lake McConaughy, a manmade reservoir and New Deal project from the 1930s. You glance over at Aegon dubiously, amused. “Do I count as hot?”

“Yeah, Chippendales, you’re hot. In like a…you live in a cabin and knit sweaters by a crackling fireplace kind of way.”

You smile. “So you got over that.”

“Oh no, I still want to fuck you. Now I just know you better, so I wouldn’t want to offend you by being obnoxious about it.”

“That’s sweet, I guess. I appreciate your discretion.”

“No problem. If you ever decide you want to take a ride on a less distinguished Targaryen brother, let me know.”

The two of you are fishing from a boat launch, dry splintering planks of wood, opaque rippling water, soft wind and bright sunshine from an aquamarine, cloudless sky. Cregan found the fishing poles in the abandoned RV you’ve moved into, a Winnebago Spirit with one of those stick figure family decals on the back window, Mom, Dad, four lovely children and a dog too, all of whom are perhaps alive but more likely dead and in any case nowhere to be found here in this tranquil corner of western Nebraska, 150 miles from the Wyoming border. Helaena digs worms from the earth, then Rhaena slices them into wriggling segments with a hunting knife and brings them to you and Aegon to be impaled on barbed hooks. Aemond, Rio, Daeron, Luke, and Cregan are swimming about twenty yards down the beach, soaked boxer shorts and nothing else, splashing each other and scrubbing the grime off their skin from a morning spent gathering wood for the firepit and the grill; Ice is paddling joyfully alongside them. Baela floats on her back and peers vacantly up into the vast blue nothingness. Aegon is not permitted in the water, as his leg is an open wound beneath his bandages. You ask him as you recast your fishing line: “Why are you like this?”

“Like what?”

You shrug, smirking guiltily. You thought it was obvious.

Aegon throws back his head and cackles, slow and lazy. “Oh, I get it. A loser.”

“I didn’t say loser.”

“You thought loser.”

“I implied loser.”

“It’s alright. I’ve been called worse things by people I admire much less.” He contemplates his answer as he gazes down into the water, sluggish stoned reverie. Aemond must be almost out of morphine by now. At last Aegon says: “I think the first thing I ever learned was that no matter how hard I tried, no one was ever going to love me. Not in a normal kind of way, Disney movie love, Christmas rom-com love. So I stopped trying. Mother wanted me to play piano, so I bombed the recital. Father wanted me to be a doctor or a lawyer, so I skipped class, went golfing and yachting, didn’t even bother to pay someone to write halfway decent essays for me. If they couldn’t love me unconditionally, I wasn’t interested in meeting their conditions.” Then he chuckles, the breeze combing through his hair, ninety degrees and only getting hotter. “I refused to work. All you’ve ever done is work. You must hate me.”

“No, I get it.” You reel in your line; a fish has stolen the worm from your hook, tiny clandestine nibbles. You impale a slimy new victim and recast. “No one wants to be used.”

“Yeah. Exactly. I wasn’t going to spend my life doing shit I didn’t want to do so my parents could brag about me to their insufferable friends and absolve themselves of their mistakes. Mother married a man who didn’t give a fuck about her, Father ignored us all. Me being a success story would have given them the impression they did something right. I couldn’t have that.”

So Aemond had to be the success story instead. You glance down the beach at where he is bursting through the water and slicking back his dripping hair from his face, showing Luke a bone he found in the muddy silt of Lake McConaughy, hopefully not human.

Aegon follows your eyeline. “Aemond went the other way, I guess. Always so pathetically desperate for their approval. Scrabbling for crumbs of it like a rat. That’s what the thing with Alys was all about, it’s the only explanation I have. Older woman, surrogate mother, comforting but chilly, fawning but forbidden, always keeping him at an arm’s length and rewarding his tricks with treats.” He smirks flirtatiously, then sees that he’s hurt you. “Oh, um, I mean…look, it wasn’t…it wasn’t a good thing, you know? He wasn’t happy. It was a seven-year-long psychotic episode, not a relationship.”

“You mentioned that Criston likes Aemond,” you say, pivoting. “The…what is he? A family friend, an assistant?”

“My mother’s personal security guard. And yeah, he cares about Aemond. He’s proud of him, he trust him, he thinks he’s more capable than any of the rest of us, and that’s probably true. It’s definitely true compared to me. But that doesn’t mean Criston always knows how to express it.”

You look out over the water, trying not to imagine Aemond touching Alys, this woman you hate without knowing her face. You wonder if he ever wishes you were more like her: older, clever, entrancing, masterful. “It must have been a strange way to grow up.”

“Cold,” Aegon says. “Hollow. Holidays, birthdays, vacations, everything. You go through the motions but something’s always missing. When you’re little, you think it’s your fault, and then eventually you realize that they’re going to be miserable whether you’re there or not. But you can get out if you’re willing to run far enough.” He scratches at his forearm, and your eyes catch fleetingly on the black ink of his tattoo: It’s not over ‘til you’re underground. You had told Rio something similar when you were stranded on that transmission tower in Catawissa, Pennsylvania. “This is fucked up, and I don’t mean that I don’t feel bad about what happened to Jace, and I get that millions of people have died agonizing deaths, and that all sucks, believe me, I know, but this…” He gestures vaguely, to the zombies and the desolation and the collapse of everything you’ve ever known. “It was kind of my Get Out Of Jail Free card. And in a weird way…sometimes I feel like I’ve been happier since the world ended than I ever was before.”

You smile. You know what he means. “Even if your leg gets infected and we have to saw it off without anesthesia like you’re a Civil War soldier?”

Aegon laughs and shakes his head, his hair flopping around. It’s almost long enough for him to have a man bun like Cregan’s if he wanted one “No, probably not. Also, what’s the Civil War?”

“Forget it.”

“No, now I want to know.”

“It’s kind of a long story.”

“Aemond said something interesting this morning while you were picking blackberries with our favorite Trump supporter,” Aegon tells you, salacious and sly, offering a tantalizing morsel he knows you’re powerless to refuse. He pauses and waits for you to admit it to yourself.

“Fine. Okay. What?”

“He said that when you and Cregan are standing next to each other, you look like you belong together.”

You groan, quite loudly. “I have zero interest in Cregan romantically. Literally zero. I don’t think he sees me that way either.”

Aegon shrugs. “The dating pool is awfully small nowadays, Banana Chip. Anyone who’s not a corpse or an immediate blood relative starts to look tasty.”

“So that’s why you like me.”

Aegon grins, teeth he shows often and easily, so unlike Aemond in every way. “No. I think I’d like you anywhere.” He tugs languidly on his fishing pole. “I want a new golf club.” He forgot his at the house in Broken Bow where Jace died.

“We’ll see.”

“I want new shoes too.” One of his Sperry Bahama sneakers was burned beyond repair and filled with shreds of his own singed flesh, scraps like soft bacon fused with the padding and insole. “And some polos.”

“I’m not a Big Lots.”

“Who the fuck shops at Big Lots?” Aegon’s fishing line jerks, and he yanks hard on the pole before reeling in his catch. Suspended at the end is a long green creature, yellowish spots and a villainous angular face. “That is one ugly bitch.”

“It’s a pike,” you say, and then when you grab it you observe that the misfortunate fish has the barb of the hook piercing not through its lip but one of its bulging, glassy eyes. “Oh my God!”

Aegon squeals, horrified. He offers no meaningful assistance. “That’s so gross, that’s so gross, what are we going to do?!”

“We have to, like, I don’t know, grab the back of the hook from inside its mouth and pull it out of the eyeball, I guess…?!”

“Yeah, awesome. Good luck with that.”

You reach tentatively into the pike’s gaping mouth. Its jaws snap shut, needlelike teeth stinging your wrist. “Ow!”

“Cregan!” Aegon bellows. “Cregan, help!”

Now the others are running to the boat launch to see what’s going on, Helaena and Rhaena from the shore, everyone else from the lake, Luke helping Baela wring the water from her sundress and Ice galloping alongside Cregan. He gets a look at the pike and guffaws, loud and rumbling.

“Poor little guy. That’s some bad luck he’s got.”

“Can you get the hook out?” you ask, eager to surrender the fish, which is still thrashing franticly and gnashing its teeth, mindless cold-blooded death throes.

“Of course I can.” Cregan plucks the pike from your grasp, shoves his massive hand into its mouth, and rips the hook out with one effortless maneuver. The pike is freed, but its eyeball remains speared on the hook. Then Cregan spies blood on your wrist. “You okay there, Miss Chips?”

“Oh yeah. I’m fine.”

“Freaking disgusting, man,” Aegon mutters; he and Rio are ogling the disembodied eyeball, complete with a frayed optic nerve like a tail, with identical, stunned revulsion.

You turn to smile up at Aemond, but he doesn’t notice you. He is staring at Cregan, his sole blue eye narrow and fixed and flat like still water.

~~~~~~~~~~

“The closest town is Ogallala,” Aegon says as he lays his map across the wooden picnic table. The rest of you are seated around him and picking flaky white meat from between the thin, fragile bones of the pike, which Cregan has gutted and cooked on the large metal grill that careless camping families once roasted marshmallows and hotdogs over. Helaena is at the edge of the table and writing in her spider notebook, elegant loops of cursive. Ice is lying on her belly and gnawing on a rabbit she killed for herself, its doomed black eyes gazing up at you.

“That has to be what, ten miles south?” Rio says apprehensively.

Aegon licks grease from his fingers. “Yup. A little more, probably.”

“What about Lemoyne?” Daeron says, pointing. “Or Keystone, or even Belmar? They’re all closer.”

“See how small the names are written?” Aegon tells him. “That means they’re not actual communities. They’re like a few stop signs and maybe a Dollar General and that’s it.”

“I love Dollar General,” Cregan says, nostalgic. “Man, do y’all remember Chicken in a Biskit? I used to park myself in front of the tv and eat boxes and boxes—”

“It has to be Ogallala,” Aemond insists. “We need pharmacies and grocery stores and cars to siphon gas from, we need a real town.”

Rhaena chews her lower lip anxiously. “The Tahoe is empty. We have maybe half a gallon left and that’s it. Just enough to get down to Ogallala if we’re lucky, but not back.”

“So we’ll drive until it dies and then we’ll walk. Cregan has a gas can in the back, if we find fuel we can bring some back to the Tahoe and continue from there.”

“Walk, huh?” Aegon says, looking down at his bandaged left leg, which he can’t put any weight on. He gets around by hopping, leaning against other people (oftentimes against their will), and being carried by Rio.

“Well, you’re not going,” Aemond tells him. “And Baela isn’t either.”

Baela, gazing blankly down at the map, says nothing. A brown striped snake darts through the grass only a few feet from the picnic table, moving swiftly towards the lake, and there are alarmed gasps and yelps.

“Northern water snake,” Helaena says, glancing up from her notebook. “Not venomous.”

“Good,” Rhaena replies with a shudder.

Luke says fearfully as he reads the map: “Aemond, last time we went into a town that big was Broken Bow, and…Jace…the farmhouse…”

Aemond slams his fists down on the table. “We have to, okay? We need food and water. We need bullets. I need more pain meds and bandages for Aegon, I need antiseptic and Neosporin, and Vaseline for when he’s healing, and supplies for when Baela goes into labor too, since I’ve had to use everything I had saved.”

“We need pads and tampons too,” Helaena says as she examines the black-ink inventory in her notebook. “And Advil, lip balm, bars of soap, hair ties, and socks and underwear. And that green jelly aloe vera stuff for Aegon’s sunburn.”

“Yeah, exactly,” Aemond agrees. “We need a lot of things. And we have to refuel so we can keep moving west.”

“We could stay here,” Baela says, so softly that at first you aren’t sure if you heard her right.

“What, Baela?” Rhaena asks gently.

“I want to stay here.” Baela is more resolute now. “I want to have the baby here.”

Nobody knows how to respond. Rio gives you a troubled glance. You nod in agreement, so subtly you doubt anyone else notices. Not an option.

Aemond is calm but unwavering. “Baela, I’m sorry, but that’s not possible.”

She pleads her case. “I like the Winnebago. I like the lake. I’m comfortable here, and we’re out in the middle of nowhere, and I…I think we could make this our home for a while, now that we’ve found someplace like this. Someplace quiet and safe.”

“We’re not safe here, Baela,” Aemond says. “It feels like we’re safe, but we’re not. We aren’t a big enough group to reliably be able to defend ourselves. We don’t have adequate supplies. We have a lake to our backs, sure, but the rest of the shoreline is open for anybody to walk right into, and our visibility is blocked by trees. No one has stumbled across us yet, but that doesn’t mean they won’t. And if they do we’re extremely vulnerable. But when we get to the west coast, we’ll be home.”

“I’m tired of running. I’m tired of being afraid.”

“I understand. I am too.”

“It’s different,” Baela says, abruptly fierce. “You don’t know what this feels like. None of you do. I’ve never given up and I’ve never asked to be taken care of, I’ve always been the strong one, but I’m so goddamn tired, and I want to have my baby here, and I…I…” Her large dark eyes are glistening, haunted. “Every time we’re driving I feel like I see him sitting next to me, or standing out in the middle of the road, and then I have to remember what happened all over again, and…I just…I don’t want to do this anymore.”

Rhaena takes Baela’s hands in her own, skims her thumbs across Baela’s knuckles; Luke rubs her back reassuringly. The rest of you can only offer silent, pitying looks. There are no easy answers, no fortuitous gold strikes, no shortcuts. The only way out is through.

“Whatever you guys decide, I’m leaving either way,” Rio says. “Sophie’s waiting for me in Oregon. I can’t just hang out in Nebraska forever. I’ll walk if I have to.”

“It’s over a thousand miles,” Aegon tells him.

“Doesn’t matter, man. I gotta do it.”

You add: “Obviously, I’d have to go with Rio.”

Both Aemond and Aegon appear startled. “We’ll be on the road again soon,” Aemond promises. “Tomorrow, if we can find gas in Ogallala.”

“I’m not going,” Baela whispers.

“We have to, Baela,” Rhaena implores. “It’ll be alright. We’ll take care of you, and the baby too when the time comes.”

Baela stands, strides to the Winnebago, disappears inside and slams the door behind her.

“She’ll be okay,” Rhaena tells the rest of you. “She’s…you know, she’s shaken up. She’s not thinking clearly. But she’ll realize this was the right decision. The only decision, really.”

“It’s best if we can get set up somewhere permanent before she goes into labor,” Aemond says, as if he’s defending himself. “Traveling with a baby…Baela recovering…it would be very dangerous for all of us.”

“Luke and I are thinking the same things, Aemond. We agree with you.”

He gives Rhaena an appreciative smile, very small but sincere. Then he turns to Daeron. “Baela and Aegon will have to wait here when I go south to Ogallala, since they can’t walk in the event the Tahoe runs out of gas. You’re going to stay behind to protect them.”

“Got it,” Daeron says soberly. All the bullets are gone; his compound bow, fed with arrows fashioned from sticks, is the best weapon you have left. Cregan has his axe, Rio still prefers to bash skulls with the butt of his Remington shotgun, everyone else must make do with hunting knives from that cellar back in Pennsylvania and kayak paddles found here at Lake McConaughy.

Aemond looks around the table. “I’ll need Rio, Cregan, and Luke.”

“And our beloved furball Blue Raspberry Icee,” Aegon says, smirking. “To sniff out any zombies.”

“Yes. Ice too.”

“What about me?” you say, staring incredulously at Aemond.

“Not you. You’re staying here in the RV.”

“If you and Rio are going, I’m going.”

“No, you’re not,” Aemond says. “You’re the best shot, and we all agree about that, but we’re fresh out of bullets. You therefore have no advantage tactically.”

“What’s Luke’s advantage?”

There are awkward chuckles. Aemond leaves the picnic table and gestures for you to follow him. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Why?”

Aemond doesn’t answer; he keeps walking until he’s hidden amongst a small grove of Kentucky coffeetrees, oval emerald leaves and umber seed pods that hang from branches, reminding you of skate egg cases—what some people call mermaid’s purses—you once found washed up on the beach outside Djibouti City. Rio teases you: “Ohhh, you’re in troubleee…”

You swat him on the back of the head; his hair is getting long too, dark curls that flutter in the breeze that comes in off the lake, hot and humid, the infinite wildness of July. “If I’m not going, you have to swear that you’ll—”

“I got it, I got it,” Rio says, blasé and jolly. “I’ll look underneath things, I’ll look on top of things, I’ll look everywhere. Okay?”

Aegon kicks him with his good foot. “Get me a golf club.”

“I’m not a Dick’s!”

“Dicks?! Who brought up dicks, you sicko…?!”

You go after Aemond and meet him in the shade, an island of twilight in the omnipotent golden morning. He pushes you against one of the Kentucky coffeetrees—rough bark to your back, prodding you through your t-shirt—and nuzzles your throat as he presses his hips to yours, blissful clandestine surrender as your knees weaken and you gaze dizzily up into the canopy of leaves.

You sigh: “This is not an explanation. This is a distraction. A very enjoyable one, but a distraction nonetheless.”

“Daeron is good with a bow, but he’s young,” Aemond murmurs. “I need you to help him protect the others.”

“You’ve managed to make this sound like a promotion.”

“And,” Aemond continues. “When things get risky and chaotic, and I’m trying to make sure everyone is safe…I find you being around to be…distracting.”

“Rio doesn’t think I’m a distraction.”

He chuckles, avoidant. “That’s not an equivalent situation.”

“I get that Luke has binoculars, but I am also perfectly capable of using binoculars, and I could borrow his and he could stay here. I really don’t think he’d mind being benched, he’d probably prefer it—”

“I always ask you to stay near Rio, and you never do, and then I have to worry about you getting lost or bitten or imperiled in any one of a million other ways.”

“Because it’s not that simple! Rio gets it, I have to be able to improvise—”

Suddenly, Aemond pulls away and asks: “Do you trust me?”

You are bewildered. “What?”

“Because I could understand if you don’t.”

You search his scarred face; he has that look like he’s trying not to reveal too much of himself, to show that he’s nervous or vulnerable or afraid. You touch your palm to his ravaged cheek, your voice soft. “I trust you, Aemond.”

He seems relived. “Good. Then please stay here.”

“You’ll watch out for Rio?” you say threateningly.

“Of course.”

“And yourself too.”

He grins, those small secretive teeth he loves to hide. “That’s the plan.”

“And you’ll check under things and on top of things, and you’ll remember what I said about the racks? When you go into stores and you’re rummaging through—?”

Aemond kisses you, warm and slow and kind, the curve of his lips pleased and mischievous. “It’s flattering that you’re so concerned.”

“And don’t forget the pads and tampons.”

His scarred eyebrow rises half an inch. “Oh?”

“I’m already having pre-period cramps. I’ll need supplies in a few days.”

“You’ll have them. Don’t fear.” Then he studies you, concerned, his brow furrowing and his palm testing your cheek and forehead. “You feeling okay? You’re sure that’s all it is?”

“Oh yeah, totally. It’s very routine at this point, I’ve had a decade to get accustomed.”

“Alright. If there’s anything else you think of before we head out, I’ll add it to the list.” He takes your hand and examines the shallow scratches left on your wrist by the needlelike teeth of the pike. “Let me clean and wrap that up for you. I think I have just enough bandages left.”

“Your worst nightmare came true,” you joke. “I was bitten after all.”

Aemond doesn’t laugh, doesn’t even smile.

~~~~~~~~~~

It’s long after nightfall and you and Aegon are keeping watch just outside the Winnebago Spirit, slumped in folding camping chairs people once told their legends from: scary stories, workplace grievances, familial mythology. In the firepit, logs split and pop, and embers glow a bloody red. You’re waiting for the Tahoe to return and trying not to think about the possibility it might not.

“These suck,” Aegon says, garbled by a mouthful of Cheddar Whales, grimacing at the bright blue box. “Why do you and Rio eat these? They’re like…dodgy Goldfish.”

“Are you kidding?! They’re way better than Goldfish! Goldfish don’t taste like anything.”

“And Cheddar Whales taste like salty cardboard. The American Dream.” Aegon passes the box back to you. “They better come back with some SpaghettiOs or Rice-A-Roni or something. I can’t survive on Cregan’s overcooked fish.” He lights a Marlboro Gold cigarette by sticking it into the fire and takes a deep drag, looking up at the stars. Aemond gave him the last of the morphine before he left, and Aegon is floating on a feathery, narcotic cloud.

You say after at last working up the nerve: “So you’re a slut, right?”

He snickers, firelight dancing on his sunburned face. “Slut, loser, you’ve got me all figured out.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m a slut. Why?”

“Have you ever had trouble…” Your hands flail around aimlessly; it’s so awkward to say out loud. “You know…getting it in?”

“No, not really. But I’m hung like a hamster.” He looks over at you, curious shimmering stoned blue eyes. “Technical difficulties, Chip And Dip? Not enough dipping going on?”

“Forget it. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“You’re probably just nervous. Aemond’s a doctor, he’d be able to tell if you had something wonky down there, like those chicks who are born without a vagina. Or with two vaginas. Jesus Christ, can you imagine the possibilities? Why can’t I meet someone like that?”

You stare into the fire, discouraged. “I’m going to ruin everything.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that. Aemond will assume it’s his fault. He thinks everything is his fault.”

Through the darkness, you spot headlights bobbing as the Tahoe approaches on bumpy dirt roads. “Oh, thank God. They’re back.”

“About time. If Rio didn’t find me a new golf club, I’m going to drown him in the lake.”

“He could break you in half.”

“But he wouldn’t.”

“No.”

“Because he likes me too much.”

“Right.”

“Maybe you like me too,” Aegon says as he exhales smoke, his glazed eyes listing to you, his grin crooked and drowsy. “Just a little bit.”

You smile reluctantly. “I might.”

“Cool.” He beams up at the stars, and then says again: “Cool.”

As the massive SUV rolls to a halt, the headlights cascading over you and so bright they’re nearly blinding, you notice the red letters on the grill: GMC. “That’s not the Tahoe,” you say, panicked.

“What? Then who is it?”

“I don’t know.” You stand up, instinctively reaching for one of your M9s; but they’re both empty. All the guns are. Your hand drops to your side.

Aegon, unable to rise on his own, remains in his chair and grips the armrests tightly. He whispers: “Should we go inside…?!”

“They’ve already seen us. But they don’t know who’s in the RV.” Rhaena, Baela, Helaena. With a shiver like a bolt of cold lightning, you recall what Aemond said at the bowling alley back in Shenandoah, Ohio: I don’t want them to know we have women with us.

The GMC Yukon is still running when two men step out, the headlights disorientingly bright. They are both armed, you see immediately, pistols that you’d guess are Colts. Aegon’s hand juts out and closes around your forearm as the strangers approach. They are both young, maybe twenty, and wearing jeans, camo jackets, and baseball hats like they’re going hunting. They stand in the yellow-white glow of the headlights as they watch you.

“Hi,” you say congenially, forcing a smile.

The men glance at each other, then one greets you with a nod. “Howdy.”

“We’re set up here,” you say. “But it’s a big campground. You’re welcome to any of the other spots.”

The man who spoke earlier chuckles and scratches at his short beard. You steal a glimpse back at Aegon: his eyes are huge and horrified.

“It’s real quiet on the lake,” you continue. “We haven’t had any problems, and we’ve been here a few days. It’s a good place. We’re happy to share it. We don’t…” You deliberate what words to use. “We aren’t interested in making trouble. We just want to be left alone.”

The man replies: “I camped here every single summer growing up, learned to fish here, swam in the water with my cousins, brought my girlfriends here to fuck. And now you’re inviting me to stay? You’re not from here. I can tell by your accent. This is my backyard. You’re the one who should be asking for permission.”

Aegon is making a low, whimpering sound; his fingernails are digging into the defenseless, downy underside of your forearm. “We don’t have anything of value,” you say, your voice trembling.

“Uh huh.” The stranger’s gaze flicks to the Winnebago.

“We found it. There’s no gas, no keys. Two of the tires are flat. It’s just shelter.”

“Who else is in the RV?”

“No one.”

The second man is squinting at Aegon. “Is he a cripple?”

“He was burned. That’s why we’re resting here for a while, so he can heal.”

The first man points to the bandage on your wrist. “Did you try to kill yourself? My neighbor did that when her kid got eaten. Slit her veins open out in the middle of the street. Bad scene.”

“I got mauled by a fish,” you reply numbly.

He laughs, a slow, rolling, mocking sort of sound, not taking his eyes off you. Then they drop to the Beretta M9s you have holstered at your waist. “Are those loaded?”

“Yes.”

He signals to the nearest Kentucky coffeetree. “Prove it. Shoot that tree.” You stare at its trunk, stark in the headlights of the strangers’ SUV. Long seconds tick by, the only sound the idling of the engine and the crackling of the firepit. “You can’t,” the man says, grinning. “Because you’re out of bullets. But I’m not.”

He raises his pistol and fires, a thunderclap, a mechanical roar. A small circular wound appears in the tree. Aegon shrieks and tries to stand; he tumbles to the earth when the raw, weeping flesh beneath his bandages betrays him. The RV door flies open and Daeron is the first one out, clutching his compound bow but still blinking his way out of the dreams he was jolted from. He won’t be able to nock one of his makeshift arrows before they shoot him.

“What the hell’s going on—?!”

“Drop it!” the stranger shouts, and both he and his companion aim their pistols at Daeron. He freezes. Baela, Rhaena, and Helaena exit the RV and begin screaming, clinging to each other.

“Do what they ask,” you tell Daeron, trying to remain calm. With great hesitancy, he sets his bow on the earth and puts his empty palms in the air. There are hunting knives inside the RV, you think. Where did we store them? In a drawer, in a cabinet?

The men are now herding you all into the RV, jabbing the barrels of their pistols against your backs and bellies. “Let’s go, everybody in,” the first one says. The second man hooks an arm forcefully under one of Aegon’s and drags him through the threshold, Aegon yowling as his burned leg smacks against the doorframe. The second man forces Aegon and Daeron to kneel on the floor at the front of the RV near the driver’s seat; the other one arranges the women at gunpoint, instructing you to squeeze together to sit in a row on the floral couch. Helaena—farthest from you and closest to the kitchenette booth—is sobbing and covering her ears. Rhaena appears to be hyperventilating. Baela’s head is held high, her face furious and defiant.

Aemond, Rio, Cregan, please come back…

“Now this is interesting,” the first man is saying to his friend. He uses his pistol to indicate to each of you. “We’ve got G.I. Jane, this delicate little sweetheart, a pregnant lady, and Cinderella. Where should we begin…?”

You glance at Rhaena, catch her wide frenzied eyes, then look meaningfully at the drawers across the aisle near the kitchenette stove and sink. Knife? you mouth.

It takes her a moment to realize what you mean, then she inclines her head, an elusive nod. She remembers where they are, where they were stored once she cleaned them this afternoon in the lake water. That’s good; but in order for Rhaena to grab a large serrated hunting knife, the men will need to be distracted.

“There’s a bed in the back,” the second man is saying. “I can see it from here, down the hallway…”

Your gaze is darting around the Winnebago. Aegon is yelling something; the second man pistol-whips him, fortunately not hard enough to fracture his skull.

“Don’t worry,” the first man tells Aegon, background noise you try to ignore as you search for an opportunity. “You’ll get to watch…”

Helaena is trying to get your attention, staring at you with her wide, gleaming blue eyes. You furrow your brow at her, not understanding…and then you see the burlap strap she’s looped around her wrist. Her messenger bag must be in the kitchenette booth beside her. And as you watch, and only for a second, she arranges her fingers in the shape of a gun.

The Ruger, you realize, amazed, that tiny revolver she was always so repelled by. Helaena never used it, but she still has it. And it’s loaded.

Baela is arguing with the men, words you tune out. Helaena points to you, but you shake your head. There’s no way for her to get the Ruger to you without them seeing. You mouth to Helaena, your face severe: You have to do it. Then you look to the first man, presently waving his pistol in Baela’s face.

“I’d like to go first,” you say casually, and all the noise stops.

“No, no, no, I’ll do it,” Aegon tells the men. “You want a blowjob? You want to fuck me in the ass? I’m down. I’m not scared of no dick. I experimented in college.”

Both strangers burst into hysterical laughter. “That’s a mighty generous offer,” the second one says, swiping a tear from his eye. “But that’s not the team we’re on, is it, Wesley?”

The first man, Wesley, is smiling down at you. His gaze sweeps over your body, from your bare feet to your eyes, calm and level. “Why do you want to go first, darling?”

Shoot him, Helaena. Shoot him right now. “I’ve never done it before. I figure I should give it a try before it’s too late.”

Helaena whips the Ruger out of her burlap messenger bag and opens fire. She winces each time it goes off, and her aim is terrible; bullets pierce the ceiling and the walls, striking nowhere near Wesley or his accomplice, but their panicked ducking buys valuable seconds. Daeron and Aegon tackle the man closest to them and wrestle the pistol from his hands. Aegon presses the barrel to his skull, pulls the trigger, kills him instantly. Rhaena flies to one of the drawers and yanks out a hunting knife ten inches long. She buries it in Wesley’s throat, the blade disappearing until the hilt rests on his collarbone. When she rips it free, scarlet blood jets from his severed carotid artery, spraying you, soaking you. Blood is in your eyes and nostrils, hot coppery carnage; when you scream, you can taste it in your mouth.

People are reaching for you and telling you to calm down, that they’ll help you, but you can’t wait. You use your t-shirt to mop as much of the blood as you can from your face and bolt through the door of the RV, running towards the lake. You drop to your knees on the sand and splash yourself, cool moonlit rivulets that wash the blood away. You’re trembling, you’re crying, and when somebody grabs you by the arm you scream and strike out at them, clawing like an animal.

“It’s me,” Aemond says, and only then do you get a good look at him, blood and lake water beading on your eyelashes. He’s wiping blood off your face with his palms, he’s inspecting you for fresh wounds. “Don’t fight, it’s me, it’s me, whose blood is this, what happened—?!”

“You were right,” Baela says to Aemond from where she stands on the sand, a hand resting on her belly. Drifting from the RV are the voices of the others who have just returned: Rio, Cregan, Luke. “We’re not safe here.”

~~~~~~~~~~

The next night, rain falls as you lie entangled with Aemond in the attic bedroom of a ranch house in Red Desert, Wyoming, flashing lightning and flickering candles illuminating bare skin. You are kissing feverishly, your hands all over each other, and Aemond is pushing himself into you; or, rather, he is trying to. There is pain, and you can feel your body turning treasonous, rejecting him, shrinking away from him, fearing that you’ll never be able to satisfy him.

No, no no no…

His voice is hushed and gentle as his lips brush your ear. “Hey, you’re shaking, why are you shaking?”

“I’m okay, I’m fine, keep going.” And then, when he stops: “No, Aemond, don’t—”

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

“You have to. I’ll be okay, I promise.”

Instead, he lies down beside you and turns your face to his, fingerprints on the slope of your jaw. He asks again, more firmly: “Why are you shaking?”

All the walls and arches of you collapse, stones tumbling to crack against the earth. You are suddenly fighting tears. Your words come out in a whisper. “I want this to be real.”

He studies your face, distressed. “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t want to ruin it. I don’t want to lose you. I never thought I’d have something like this and now I’m so afraid of fucking it up.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“That’s what Jace thought.”

Aemond pulls you against his chest and holds you as you sink through him into dark, cold, watery dreams, and doesn’t make any more promises he can’t keep.

~~~~~~~~~~

“What time is it on the East Coast right now?” you ask Rio. It’s May and almost a hundred degrees every day in Djibouti City—arid, rainless, sun glare and dust that sting your eyes—so the Navy has you building at night when they won’t have to deal with quite so many Seabees dropping over from heatstroke. Outside the day is turning to a soft lavender dusk and your shift will begin soon. You are dressed—sand-colored t-shirt, camo pants, work boots—and toweling off your hair, still wet from the shower.

Rio is sprawled across the floor of your room, taking up almost all of it; housing at Camp Lemonnier consists of converted shipping containers, each outfitted with its own perpetually whirring air conditioning unit. He is reading Fifty Shades Of Grey. “Like seven hours behind here, so early afternoon, I guess.” Then he looks up at you, suspicious. “Why?”

“I should probably call.”

“Should you really?”

“I want to. I’ll feel guilty if I don’t.”

Rio shakes his head and returns his attention to his reading material. “I’m not going to tell you what to do.”

“You love telling me what to do.”

“I wish you loved listening.” He flips a page, puzzled. “Why the fuck does Sophie like this book so much…?”

You open Facebook Messenger on your phone and make a call. The wifi isn’t good for videos, but old-fashioned audio calls usually work okay. There is an answer on the fourth ring.

“Yeah?” she says, and you can hear the entire house when she turns on speakerphone: the squeaking of the recliner, the droning of a talk show, indistinct speech and chuckling from other people, glass—cups, bottles, baking dishes, ashtrays—clinking sharply.

“Hi, Mama! Happy Mother’s Day!”

“Aw, ain’t you sweet to call.” And you are testing her voice like water from a tap, icy cold, hot enough to scald. At the moment, Mama sounds perfectly lukewarm. “I didn’t count on hearing from you. I know how busy you are.”

That’s a landmine that you step gingerly around. “We definitely have a lot going on here, and there’s the time difference and everything…but I wanted to make sure to say hi, even if I can’t talk for long. What are you up to today?”

“Oh, nothing much.” You hear her smoking: breathe in, breathe out, a cunning sort of pause as she decides how to proceed. Of course there were no extravagant festivities planned. Nothing ever felt like a real holiday at home: Mama getting sloshed and burning the turkey on Thanksgiving, Christmas presents that had to be returned for grocery and gas money, fistfights and doors ripped off hinges on New Year’s Eve. You had decided years ago that Hallmark channel magic was pure fiction…but sometimes you get glimpses of it now. Thanksgiving dinner in some unceremonious chow hall with Rio and your other friends feels more like a holiday than anything else you’ve ever known. “You still in Africa?”

“It’s Djibouti, Mama, I told you. It’s on the Horn. Across the sea is Yemen and Saudi Arabia.”

“Why can’t they put y’all to work in your own goddamn country?”

“Well, we do that too sometimes.” You stall, listening to her smoking. Rio glances up at you from where he’s still reading on the floor. “They have some incredible beaches here. Yesterday morning we went down to the water and there were all these cute kids playing, and they only spoke French but Rio showed them how to play tic-tac-toe by drawing a board in the sand—”

“I like the beach,” she says, and you know you’ve made a mistake. “You remember that?”

Deflated now: “Yeah, Mama. I remember. Are the boys going to take you to Virginia Beach this summer?”

She scoffs. “We’ll see, but I doubt it. It’s expensive, girl.”

You sigh deeply. Rio was right. I shouldn’t have called. “We talked about this. I need to be saving up to get my own house one day, and my own car, and all those things I’ll need to have a life when I get out of the Navy—”

“And what about my house?!” Mama cries, damn near wails. “I’m gonna lose it! I can’t make the payments!”

You reply calmly: “Mama, that’s your house. That’s your business. And you’ve got more than one kid still living at home long after they’ve turned eighteen, so they need to be the people you’re asking to help, not me.”

“You’re gonna let your Mama be homeless? Is that what you called to tell me on Mother’s Day? What the hell kind of daughter are you?”

“I got out!” you shout into the phone, and Rio is scrambling off the floor to rush to you. “I’m learning things and I’m making money and I’m building schools and hospitals on the other side of the fucking planet, and you can’t be proud of me because you think it means you’ve failed, but the truth is that you could have gotten out too! All of you could have! But you didn’t, it was me, it was just me, and now you hate me for it!”

“You need to come home now,” Mama says. “You gotta take care of me, take care of your Mama. You only got one and she needs you, so you gotta heed me. That’s what’s right.”

“I am not going to spend the rest of my life watching you get wasted in that filthy house, and I’d work where, at the Dollar General? At Arby’s? And get knocked up by the first guy who shows any interest?”

“You’re giving me heart palpitations. I’m gonna have to go to the emergency room and it’s all your fault.”

Rio is whispering into your other ear, one of his massive palms resting on the back of your neck: “Just hang up. It’s not worth it. You can hang up, just hang up…”

“I want things to be normal,” you tell Mama, you plead, tears stinging in your eyes. “I’ve tried so hard to get along with everyone, and help you as much as I can, but no matter what I do it’s not enough, and you’re always mad at me, and you’re always fighting with me—”

“You’re damn right I’m fighting with you, because you’re a spiteful, selfish child.”

“Hang up,” Rio is murmuring. “Hang up, hang up, hang up…”

“Mama,” you say, your voice strangled. “I’m sorry. I have to go now.”

“When I’m homeless, you know you got no one but yourself to blame—”

You hit the red button to end the call, throw your phone down onto the bed, stare at the wall and swallow noisily, choking back sobs. You won’t let yourself cry. You’ve cried enough for them already. You have to keep moving forward. The only way out is through. “You were right,” you say to Rio at last, quiet and raspy. Your hands are trembling. “I shouldn’t have called.”

“Hey.” He grabs your face roughly, forces you to look at him with your miserable shimmering eyes, grins hugely. “I’m your mom now, bitch.”

You laugh as tears spill down your cheeks, let him bury you in one of his smothering bear hugs, cling to him like a life raft in a storm.

[the-sonic-crew]

tw for weapons and school lockdown stuff

So basically, I was in my last period for the day about 10 minutes before the bell rang, an announcement went off saying that the students who drive go to the cafeteria while the bus students stay in class… To add onto the announcement he said “the students who go to downtown will be in the back of the bus line, while the students who lives out of town (out of the town where the shcool is) will be at the front” im an out of town kid, so its normally where I would have to go fir my bus. The bus drivers and teachers where very scared except for the ones not having any idea going on. So we just brushed it off for a bit. My mom was worried like crazy going “are you okay?? Bo need to be scared!!” Which threw me pff cause I had no clue what was going on.. It turns out there where four armed men on the railroad tracks in front of the school, who might’ve been convicts or smtg idk. So they put all the schools in the area on lockdown. Had the students who lived down town stay on their busses on the school till the clear. So far rhey caught one of em, and got pictures of the other two, and now the police are waiting for the dogs to track the other three.

sorry for the long vent / rant a lot happened today…. have a chocolate for whoever listened ig

I'm sorry kid, that must've been terrifying. Society really needs to get its shit together and stop all of the shootings going on.

Want a hug? I hope you and everyone else is are safe.

[imtooscaredforthis]

Entrapment

Chapter Twenty Four: Unexpected

Mentions of: Dubcon/noncon themes, stabbing, death, and murder, etc.

A/N: some more pervy Johnny for you lmao

Tags: @dead-bxxxtch-walking @mama-miya @moonshineinasippycup @stwbwwychan @vandeaad @the-fandoms-georgie

“I feel like we haven’t talked in forever. How are you? How is everything?” Rachel asked as the two of you exited the building together and walked to the parking lot.

“I’m good. Work has been pretty good. Jed is a great partner.” You admitted with a shrug.

“I’m sure he is. You guys getting along good?” She asked with a teasing grin. “Yeah- what’s that look for?”

“Nothing. So you guys are close?” You don’t like where this is going.

“I mean, yeah- but..” You scoffed when you noticed Rachel’s smug grin. She’s onto you.

“Will you quit it? He and I are just friends. He’s like a brother to me.” You lied.

Rachel laughed at that. “Bullshit. I’m not dumb. I can tell when two people are fucking, and you and Jed totally are. But don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me. No judgment here.”

Before you could finish your conversation, the two of you split up, and she went to her car, while you walked home. You looked over your shoulder to make sure the coast was clear before you called after her.

“Jed and I aren’t- we’re not fucking, okay?! We’re just friends.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever helps you sleep at night, babe!” She called back. You rolled your eyes, shaking your head as you walked off, trying to ignore how flustered she had gotten you.

It’s fine. She won’t tell anyone. At worst she’ll just keep teasing you like this. Even if it was annoying, there wasn’t much you could do about it.

—

Once you got back home, you changed your clothes and had a glass of wine to wind down. But you didn’t relax, no. You never relax anymore. How could you when you know he’s still out there, harming more innocent people? Jesse, Lucia and Nate all deserved justice. You weren’t going to rest until you got it for them.

As you ate your dinner, you stared at the bulletin board you put up on your wall, with pictures of Ghostface’s victims, reports of his last sightings, and anything you could find. You managed to make some connections as to where he would find his victims.

You did find quite a few that went to Walleye’s but there were still inconsistencies here and there. All you knew was that most of them were average people, middle class and normal, which makes it even harder for him to figure out who he’s after next.

You stared at the board for a little while, before sitting down on your couch, running a hand through your hair. With all the time you had been spending with Jed, you haven’t been able to focus much on this. But today, he was out sick, giving you more room to think about Ghostface, even if you didn’t want to.

With a frustrated sigh, you grabbed the remote, clicking on the TV.

“Breaking news: Couple Marie and Carlton Thomas have been found dead in their home this afternoon.”

You stared at the screen in complete shock as a photo of them flashed onto the tv, listening as it continued. “The couple was found by a neighbor this evening when they noticed that their back door was open and their dog had escaped. They were stabbed to death, both having almost twenty wounds each. So the question we’re all wondering is: could this be another Ghostface murder?”

“We’re still figuring out motives, but the possibility is there. We’re working as hard as we can to catch this guy and all we can say right now is follow the curfew and lock your doors at night, and if you see anything suspicious, don’t be afraid to say something.” The sheriff said.

You couldn’t watch any more of this bullshit. You reached over and shut off the tv, sighing softly. Staring at the black reflection of the screen, you realized someone was standing behind you.

“Boo.” You sprung up from the couch, gasping in surprise. You turned on your heel trying to face him straight on. You moved so fast that you stumbled forward, causing him to catch you.

“Careful there, sweetheart, we don’t want you getting hurt do we?” Ghostface cooed in that same condescending tone. You tore yourself from his grip, glowering at him.

You stepped back into the kitchen, grabbing a knife and raising it threateningly. “Stay the fuck away from me.”

How did he even get in? How did you not notice him? He has been standing behind you while you were watching, and you were completely vulnerable. He could’ve easily killed you, but he didn’t. He was toying with you.

“Oh, come on, Dollface. Don’t be like that. I missed you. And from what I can tell, you missed me too.” He gestured to the bulletin board on your wall, before walking over to you. He took slow steps, like a predator ready to pounce.

Just because he didn’t want to kill you didn’t mean he didn’t want to hurt you..but you knew attacking him would only end badly. You lowered the knife slightly, but didn’t let it go.

He moved swiftly, grabbing your wrist and slamming it against the wall, making you drop the knife. “There you go. Good girl.”

“What do you want from me?” You couldn’t help but ask, angry and fearful. “What? Can’t we just have a nice little chat? You’re the one who pulled out the knife.”

He released your wrist, letting you go. “I think it’s time we catch up. You’ve been doing a lot lately, haven’t you? Had a lot of fun with your little Boy Scout?”

“Boy Scout? You mean-”

“Your little boyfriend? Jeb or Jed or whatever? The one who’s helping you write articles on me? Yeah, him. I’ve been watching you two..and you really seemed to be enjoying yourself, slut.”

You felt yourself grow flustered from humiliation and embarrassment. “Don’t hurt him.”

“Awww you want to protect him, how sweet. Don’t worry, toots. I’m not planning on it. As long as you behave, that is. Though I will say, I am jealous.” You felt his other arm hook around your back, the cool blade pressing into you and making you arch forward and into his touch, and his hand moved from your wrist to your chin, tilting your head upward while he examined your body.

“Such a pretty thing. I wouldn’t mind having you myself.” He pressed his knife into your back, forcing your waist to press against his, feeling his hardness.

He forced your shirt upwards, and you tried to stop him, but he smacked your hands away. He smirked. “No bra? How naughty.”

He eyed your tits, while you squirmed slightly in his grip, trying to get him to stop, but the harsh press of his knife and his groin managed to get you to still. His gloved hand caressed your breasts, before sliding down to your stomach.

“Yeah, we’re definitely gonna have some fun later.” You could hear the lust and smugness in his voice.

“What makes you think I would want to do any of that with you? I don’t even want to touch you! I hate you!” You hissed in disgust.

“Oh, I know you do. But you don’t have a choice do you? Not if you want your friends to live.” He leaned over and pressed his mask to your ear, his voice lowering. “You think Jed’s good? I’ll have you screaming and crying for me. And you’ll love it like the good little whore you are.”

He slightly ground his hardness against you, and you bit your lip to hold back a whimper. He removed his knife from your back, pressing it against your front instead. With the flick of his wrist, he cut your stomach, causing you to cry out.

“Just something to remember me by. Don’t worry, I’ll be back, and we’ll have fun very soon.”

He let you go, stalking off into your bedroom, and leaving out the side window onto the fire escape.

Yeah, you need to change your locks.

[confusedmothboy]

hey!! can we hear more about ranger eddie? i want to hear about this so bad.

yes ofc!! im so sorry this took so long to answer i kept forgetting about it 😭

everything about this loser is under the cut

so i've already yapped about him immediately post crash but im gonna do it again. when they were rescued, it took about a week for tabloids to start hounding him to come out, which he did, which led to more hounding. eddie, being rescued in what would have been mid-senior year, tried continuing the classes he had as a sophomore, except the harassment he and the other survivors who tried to return faced was more than he could handle, and he couldn't stand the embarassment of being so behind his peers. he studied for months, took the SAT, essentially testing through sophmore and junior year, then, when he was 19, got his GED. almost immediately after, he and travis move away to ithica, NY. eddie needed a job while he was studying at cornell, and he found a park ranger position at taughannock falls park that paid well.

interviewer: "so i see you had a bit of an unusual gap on your resume, most kids get jobs around junior year, but this is your first?"

eddie: "something came up during that time"

interviewer: "i get it, stuff happens. well, your application notes said you're a bit of an outdoorsman? former boy scout? we get a lot of those out here."

eddie: "no, i've just spent a lot of time around nature."

interviewer: "that could mean a lot of things. you a rugged survivalist, or did you spend your summers up on a nice, well-mowed campsite in mommy and daddy's rv?"

eddie: "are you familiar with new jersey's high school soccer teams?"

interviewer: ???

eddie: "do you maybe remember -it was national news- last february, 1998, those people from the plane crash they found out in the woods after 19 months? does something about me look familiar? does 19 months of rugged survivalism count as adaquate experience for a job like this?"

he's an opprotunist. he milks the trauma the public thinks he got out there for as long as he can. average grades and an unfinished high school education makes it improbably he'd get into an ivy league school? well, cornell, have you considered that he's a special traumatized snowflake whose biggest dream of all is to go to your school? try rejecting that admissions letter. turned in an assignment late? oh, sorry professor, he was having horrifying flashbacks for exactly the amount of time it takes to get caught up on the new episodes of law and order. he gets an extension.

"eddie's a logical guy, why woudn't he realize that this job would keep him from moving on from his time in the wilderness?" i hear you ask. well, at this point eddie's not logical in a sane way. he tries to treat himself the same he would have in the times before the crash. if eddie in the spring of 1996 wouldnt have a problem working as a park ranger for four-ish years, eddie in the summer of 1999 shouldn't either. he also subconsciously doesn't know what to do with himself once he's back in society. like nat, he had a purpose in the wilderness. so he returns to the wilderness part-time to keep himself sane. and it works surprisingly well for a time. eddie's not one to be scared of wandering around the woods for days at a time, because the dangers are nothing like what he had out in the wilderness.

he puts a lot of emphasis on his role of "savior", finding lost hikers, dogs, kids out there and getting them back safe and sound. he's almost obsessive about it, taking weekends away to roam the woods just to make sure no one got left behind. he doesn't talk to his co-workers, they all know who he is and know that he thinks they're incompetent compared to him.

so how does it fall apart? in december of 2002, eddie's doing his normal patrol when it starts snowing. he doesn't like to be out during early winter, but he has to finish his shift. he's humming to himself when he sees fire going in the distance. obviously, he goes to check it, and finds a group of college age kids had started it. that wasn't unusual, he has to kick a lot of teenagers out of the woods after the park closes. but unfortunately, he stumbled on some sort of frat hazing ritual. they're all wearing cloaks, at least that's what eddie said in the report, some of them are singing around the fire, one of them is sleeping in the snow wearing basically nothing, blackout drunk.

obviously, this sets off just about every awful memory eddie has from the wilderness. he fucking loses it. he's hearing voices, he's shaking and hitting the drunk guy awake, he's seeing those culty animal masks in the shadows, he tazes one of the guys with his bear tazer, it's Bad. he doesn't stop until they all get rid of their cloaks and run away, and he realizes that there is a lawsuit incoming. he finds a hoodie with their school and frat on it that one of the guys left behind, and fucking tails these guys back to their house. they talk, he explains a lot about who he is (a stupid move that he realized could be used to blackmail him in the future if these guys are out for vengance later) he ends up paying each of the people involved a thousand out of his own pocket, tanks his savings and emergency funds, and returns to the park at damn near sunrise to hand in his badge.

thankfully, no one preses charges, so eddie's able to go back to his classes and find a new job as an intern with almost no trouble. travis, who finished getting his GED just a few months before, had to work a second job because he's not going to college. rough times of empty fridges, and they joke about needing to get back into hunting and trapping. over the next four years, they keep shoving pennies into their savings accounts before eddie gets his doctorate in 2007 and starts working as a professor, the same place he works 14 years later when the adult tl would take place

holy yap 😭🙏 hope that answered all your questions on him

[seen-in-the-smoke]

…Man, the terminal does not like these messages, huh?

THE SIGNAL IS TANGENT TO NORMAL VECTORS.

Whuzzat mean?

I DON’T LIKE IT EITHER.

Pff. Okay, then, go ahead and scrap this one before we transmit. I’ve got the important bits here. Funny guys, those ones.

—————

…TRANSMITTING.

Alright! Sorry, had some confidentials to peruse— adding to the record, though, that we’ve identified a blinkspace anomaly at Annapurna Gate, roughly… eight minutes? Seriously?— yeah, eight minutes after the presumed kidnapping of AIP Abdullah. Now, I’m ringing the station manifest to see if anything was lost in that anomaly, but I’m gonna be surprised if she was there. Kaletka’s eight days out by nearlight.

TELL ME THAT MEANS NOTHING.

Don’t step on my line, you sly dog, I’ll step on yours. It CAN’T mean nothing.

Add it to the narrative, bud.

-BREAKFAST

…

[213.64H] AGO, NOAH ABDULLAH TRANSMITTED A DISTRESS-READY SIGNAL FROM IMPLANTED OMNI TRANSPONDER TO HESTIA-CLASS NHP “RENNES” FROM SOMEWHERE IN THE SUB-CAPITAL CITY OF NADUS, ESCHERI PROVINCE— KALETKA. FOUR MINUTES LATER A STAND-DOWN ORDER WAS GIVEN— SEVEN MINUTES FURTHER, AND A LOW-PRIORITY PING REACHED RENNES FROM LATENT SES MONITORING CHANNELS.

SOMETIME IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING, RENNES’ SUBJECTIVITY WAS FORCIBLY DECLAWED. CONTACT WITH N. ABDULLAH LOST FROM THIS PERIOD TO [8.11H] AGO; N. ABDULLAH SIGHTED DISEMBARKING A SHUTTLE ONTO ANNAPURNA BLINK GATE, WHERE A BLINKSPACE ANOMALY WAS RECORDED EIGHT MINUTES AFTER LAST KNOWN CONTACT.

WE MUST LEARN MORE.

[5sosfanfictioncatalogue]

Random Fics Masterlist

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a time loop soulmate au.

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[gaviicreates]

Craft week in review

Good Morning, and Happy Sunday! Here in the US, we just caught up with the rest of the world with that twice annual clock adjusting we do. Those of you without daylight savings, you know where it's at. In any case, Northern Hemisphere means we got extra sleep today, so not too many complaints from me here. Even the dogs accepted the lie in, which was amazing.

I'm still figuring out how I want to use this blog space. My impulse posts I can't put here, because I used a log in type that requires me to be on my laptop. That means you get the nice pictures, the reflections, the organized WIPs updates, but none of that is helpful in keeping the space active. What are you, blog? An archive, a journal, a gallery?

Please bear with me while I figure it out. I get that the pictures of the finished objects are what tends to inspire people, but I like writing and sharing the journey, even if those musings are not as entertaining. I'm still working on the balance.

~*~

Doilies

Last week, I primarily worked on blocking some finished doilies I had to work on over a couple of days. I only have one set of blocking boards with the circle lines for me to properly measure out the doilies evenly. I'm fine throwing my own stuff on the normal boards and eye-balling it, but not for commissions. With those finished I decided to open up some more local commissions, which quickly filled with family members, and posed the question a bit more in general to the online audience. So four more commissions have joined my schedule, though not all of them need to be in by Christmas.

In the meantime, I started another tree doily, and I plan to take pictures of those pieces soon so I can share them. Here's a phone one to hold you over.

Purchases/Acquisitions

I had a couple purchases last week - and some quick turn arounds. In the yarn world, I placed an order for some Hobbii Rainbow Lace which is one of my go-tos for when specific colors are requested. The yardage is not as much as one might get with Aunt Lydia's from the local JOANN or Michaels, but the shades they carry are so rich and varied. Plus, I'd been eyeing up a rust color I needed an excuse to add to my cart. I also grabbed some dark reds and soft greens to play around with Christmas shades.

Of the hand-dyers, one of the brands I follow is Hue Loco out of Colorado. As with hand-dyed, you're paying for what I consider a luxury material, so as much as I would like to buy everything I do try to splurge sparingly for the sake of my wallet. But I stumbled upon a colorway that was perfect for a project I'd been planning, and since it was going to be a gift for my husband, I didn't mind going the hand-dyed route. The colorway is called "Magpie" and it's a beautiful blend of blues and greys with a sprinkling of browns. SW 100% Merino in worsted. This one came in yesterday, and I couldn't resist working it up right away.

I may have also purchased something for myself while I was on their site. Shh.

I also splurged and ordered some Furls wooden streamline hooks I'd been wanting - in Ebony. One of my dogs got ahold of one of the nice resin colors that were no longer in stock, so I couldn't re-order it when it made unusable.

Expensive week for me! But it'll be the last for awhile while I budget instead for Christmas and start working on the projects these materials were purchased for. For a last hurrah before the holidays, I'm happy with these selections.

Upcoming

The sock DPN class I signed up for starts tomorrow, and knit night at my LYS on Tuesday.

I have one more more doily to block, the next tree one to finish, and the commissions pending.

The new Furls Hooks should arrive next week. Hobbii is enroute.

WIPS: My sky blanket project is making great progress - I've been able to keep up with it and the goal will be to provide an update monthly around the middle of the month. Chevron Scarf was put on hold this week, but maybe I will work on it some today to give me a knitting break.

[antigonewinchester]

Your choice of SPN character has been hit with a curse of Endless Chatter. Write one run-on sentence of dialogue for them (until your own stream-of-consciousness runs out!).

I never told you how I met Jess, did I, it was in my first IHUM class, Introduction to Humanities, and it's not actually that weird of a name, because everything got shortened like that, MemAud, FloMo, CoHo—anyway, it was my freshman year, first quarter, and we'd just watched Blade Runner, and yeah, we did get to watch movies for our coursework, it wasn't just books, or research papers, or—and the class was about death and mortality and meaning, and that's exactly what the movie is about, right—and this was when everyone still seemed like they knew more than me, I guess, all those kids who'd had SAT tutors and parents who worked at Google and stories about clubbing in Rome, and they just, they just knew how to talk, they all sounded so smart and I was sitting there with in my old holey Silverpark sweatshirt and I'd gotten a B- on my first paper and had absolutely no idea what I was going to write for my second one—and then Jess spoke up and said she hated Roy Batty's monologue, which got everyone really heated because, well, you know—but she stood her ground, said his death was beautiful but that wasn't what death was like, not really, and I kept thinking about the werewolf, the one you and Dad hadn't wanted me to see, the way it kept trying to crawl even after, until Dad finally—and nobody else was agreeing with her, and I could tell they all thought she was stupid, that she didn't know what she was talking about, so I said I thought she was right, and I don't remember the rest of the conversation but I do remember her grateful look, and when we talked afterward she said her dog had died suddenly over Thanksgiving break, she'd had him since she was four, and she'd been the only one there when it happened and she'd held him and tried to make him feel better but he'd looked so, so frightened, and maybe she was being stupid because he was just a dog, and I said no, it wasn't stupid, because I was thinking about its eyes, yellow and monstrous and scared, and then we got lunch and when I finally made her laugh it made me feel normal for the first time in a long time, and sometimes I wonder what would've happened if I hadn't tried to help, if I'd—because I can't forget, what she looked like—her eyes—and I saw your eyes too, right before—so I swear to God I'm gonna—screw whatever the doctors say—screw whatever Dad's not doing—I'm gonna save you, Dean, just like last time—and everything's gonna be okay.

[icyfox17]

https://www.tumblr.com/icyfox17/730188258577907712

just going thru your ask games tag at this point

rain, fog, oak

oohhh this is a fun ask game HELP i miss ask games...

rain - What makes you feel at home?

hmmmm... my pets:) i get homesick really easily and the one thing i miss normally is my pets. coming home to nes wagging her tail and then flopping on the floor asking for belly rubs is so so lovely. it's warm and i love hugging her and shes home (the cat is home too i just see the dog more hahahah)

fog - Name four things you'd like to know more about.

DUDE these are all such good ones... hmmmm

i'd love to know more about cat psychology. i reallyyyy wanna take an animal psych course lol. i wouldve if i hadnt switched uni's but hopefullyyy in the future i can. if not just study cats in the future. i'd love that

recently (as we discussed yesterday lol) ive been super into plants!! i wanna learn more about wildflowers and mushrooms and trees and just rahshshsh i loveeee nature <3

i love linguistics!!! before switching unis n stuff i was going to take a linguistics class and im SO SAD I DIDNT GET TO IT SOUNDS SO INTERESTINGGG 😭😭😭😭😭

idk what specifically but i really like music so i'd love to learn about music lol like maybe music theory? idkk i just find it super neat:0

oak - What is the wisest thing someone has said to you over the last year?

UHH UHHH UHHH FUCKKKK im so bad at knowing off the top of my head ermmm

i swear i wrote it down somewhere..

yep nope i have no fucking clue HELP

[ashsostrange]

i hope y’all like reading cz it’s storytime! 🗣️

lemme tell y’all ab the time i (allegedly) got two ppl onna hitlist when i was like 10 or 11

so in middle school (sixth grade i think it was) i stayed at this after school program cz my momma didn’t get off work til, like, four to five. we would eat snacks, talk shit, do hw, normal middle schooler stuff.

there was this one strange new-ish kid that just gave everyone weird vibes.. he was one of the class clowns, nd real disrespectful. he was also a lil mean so i didn’t really fw him. we gon call him jason.

one time, me n some other sixth graders were in a science classroom doing work and talking or wtv, and bro is sitting at a table by himself with a computer turned away from everyone. i’m talking those large black lab tables. i was w my friend (we gon call her lara) and she’s always been really pretty, so she was one of the girls all the guys would crush on.

including this nigga apparently.

atp, wbk that he wanted her cz he didn’t try to hide it. she js wasn’t interested 🤷‍♀️

me n lara were sitting across the room, minding our black ass business and jason started doing that thing with your eyebrows where you wiggle them up n down real fast in attempt to be “seductive.” he was smirking too. at lara.. from ACROSS THE ROOM!!

idk y.. but i came to the conclusion that bro was up to no good on that laptop. i had just learned how to check search history, so i walked my ass on over there unprovoked and pulled up his history. i cannot tell you what possessed me bc idk.

the last page he was on was youtube and ts said “sex”

like JUST sex.

i just gasp then look at him like he’s crazy and then eb starts walking over and looking while jason swears up and down it wasn’t him that looked that up. this other girl (we gon call her diana) was being loud as hell, basically indirectly snitching. the teacher that was watching us eventually caught on and came over. she was so pissed. she made us shut down all the computers and go down to the library 😭 she also said sumn ab not letting us use them again, but obv that wasn’t gna work. we needed them to do hw…

yk middle schoolers are EVIL.. so this one guy, (we gon call him ryan) and this diana were js dogging on jason’s ass like he wasn’t right there with his head hung in shame 🚶‍♀️i never liked those two. they were bullies frl

when jason’s mom came to get him, the teacher snitched ab his search history and that was the start of his villian origin story..

fast forward to idk when, i’m starting to hear that jason is gna shoot up the school and that he’s coming for ryan and diana first?? and at some point in time, he had stopped coming to school.. so we were all freaked tf out. he didn’t mention my name though, so i was like 🙆‍♀️💆‍♀️💁‍♀️ yes, i remain untouched!

n e way, word spread that bro was gna shoot up the school. nobody knew where it was coming from tho, like there was no source

i was sittin’ there like “damn, if everyone dies then it’s kinda my fault..” and diana gon agree w me.. like girl.

anyway nothing happened, thank gawd. me and jason had english class tg, but when he stopped coming to school, he never came back. my english teacher said that everyone was spreading nasty rumors about him so he had to transfer. she was like “poor kid”… GIRL.

i don’t know if he ever truly claimed to shoot up the school or if it was even him lookin up “sex” on the computer 😭 all of this is a mystery to me!

nobody ever found out that i was lowk the one that started this mess 🤫 i wasn’t “popular” unlike miss diana and ryan, so nobody was gna talk ab me. those mfs were real life bullies. this is y you be nice to everyone 🙃 there’s a reason i wasn’t a “target”

whew, anyway.

moral of the story: don’t fuck around and you won’t have to worry about finding out! 👍

[britneyshakespeare]

i have been working with kids for four years and i had to write my first ever note just now about a seventh grade boy being inappropriate towards me. i don't know what the hell this could possibly lead to or what. he was trying to feel my legs repeatedly to the point where i had to stop sitting next to him (and i was subbing for his one-to-one para!!!). he's got high support needs. in that kind of job, you're supposed to sit next to them all day and look over their work.

the teacher whose classroom this was happening in could also tell something was wrong. the whole class was acting kinda crazy because it was the day before school vacation week and there was another class coming in to share projects. so like, he was swamped with keeping order already. but we were sitting two feet away from his podium at the front of the room. the kid was giving him and me a hard time when he wouldn't take out his chromebook as he was instructed. and then when he did take out his chromebook, he immediately, for some reason, places it on my lap. he had been ogling my legs the whole time. he puts his computer ON MY LAP. and i'm just like, stunned, because what the hell? can you not keep it on your own lap, for some reason? i don't even know what to say, i just hold it a little above my lap while i'm thinking why on earth would this be happening? he would NOT do this to his regular para if she were here, would he? this can't be normal.

and the teacher sees this and within a minute places a stool in front of the kid for him to put his laptop on. and i'm like. oh ok. yeah. he notices exactly what's happening and that that's not appropriate. and then when the other class comes in to share projects he tells me "miss b——, you don't actually have to sit next to c—— this whole period if you don't want to." and he grabs me a chair for me to go sit with the other paras in the back opposite corner of the room. like he KNEW. and thank you mr. d—— for recognizing that because i was just kind of shocked and didn't know if i was overreacting in my head to all of this.

when there's a point in the class where the kids are discussing stuff, i privately mention what's happened to the para who's sitting closest to me. and she says that the thing about him calling me pretty is something he's been known to do, but the fact that he kept trying to touch my legs is new behavior. and that's a completely different class of behavior. i was telling him NO, don't do that, and he kept doing it. and the fact that he was calling me pretty repeatedly, even when i was giving him instructions that he wasn't taking. and this is the second to last class before the end of the day, so she says she'll take a walk with him before learning center and talk to him about it, and i'm grateful for that. she does. the kid apologizes to me as soon as i come into learning center. but like. WHAT the hell.

i'm STILL like what the hell. this is unfathomable to me. the other adults who i told about this or who witnessed it were supportive of me. but. what to do??? i wrote a long note to his regular para about this, because i knew she was going to hear about it at least from the first para i told. the second para i told about it after school had a kind of... i'm not gonna say enabling reaction, but i suppose since it had already been "taken care of" (or at least, he had been spoken to and apologized) she didn't really have much to add in the way of discipline. i told her what happened after school and she was just like... a little bit, laughing? like oh, yup, that dog. she at the very least confirmed he KNEW what he was doing, that that was not an accident. she said to me "i had a feeling he was going to develop a crush on you" (me and these other paras were together for most of the beginning of the day too). but it's like. it's not about that.

i have worked with children for FOUR years. children have had crushes on me before; i'm quite unfazed by it. boys from the ages of 5-to-15 have told me i'm so pretty before and asked me to marry them. i've never had them feeling up my legs before. i've never had them making me physically uncomfortable. it's NOT about this seventh grader having a crush on the pretty substitute. he is NOT unusual for that, at all. but i've never had a boy of any age or education level repeatedly touching my knees and thighs. THAT is problem behavior!!!

because what if i wasn't assertive enough with him to tell him to stop? what if i was a girl his age? worse, what if i was an adult who encouraged this behavior? i don't come to the middle school to be a seductress. i had no intention in putting on a pair of tights and a skirt this morning of being viewed as an attractive object, especially not by a pubescent boy. what if i did though? what if his interpretation of me wasn't so incorrect and offensive? what if i let him keep touching me inappropriately and saying flirtatious things to me? me, an adult in my mid-twenties, towards a middle school boy?

in no world would that be ok. if i had been feeling up and overly-complimenting a CHILD at my place of work, holy shit would there be reports about me. so a child acting that way could never be ok either. if it'd be firable for me to be reciprocating that action, then that action should not be happening to me. ever. and that child should never repeat that action again to any other adult again.

like i am simply not there to be treated as an attractive young woman. i put on a skirt that shows too much knee and get paired with a boy, though, and that's apparently just a natural consequence. hooo-ly shit. like i don't know what to do. first of all, the more time passes since this has happened, the more i am just unable to stop thinking about it. i wasn't "hurt" or too emotional in the moment but i'm just still processing it and it gets worse. i'm just more and more disgusted.

i don't know what i expect to come out of this, or the email i sent to his regular para. like, am i gonna have to attend a fucking meeting? what is the precedent that this sets for him? WHY do i feel BAD for him about this? well, because he's a child, of course. a child who has done wrong he may not be able to understand. but he knows WHAT he did. he just doesn't know WHY it was wrong.

and i couldn't even say something to him that was like, "well, how would you like it if i was touching you like this?" because young boys do not understand how inappropriate it'd be. i'm sure this kid thought he was gonna get away with what he was doing at the very least. but probably not unlikely he (being a child with no concept of how wrong it'd be) thought he could get some sort of "positive" attention for treating me like this. either way he was simply doing what he wanted to do, with no perspective of how it would make me feel or that it could be classified as harassment. teenage boys think it'd be awesome if the older attractive woman would reciprocate their affections. they're wrong. i, as the older attractive woman of his affection, cannot be the one to convince him of that, though.

i don't know. i don't know. like it's just so not ok. but if i didn't tell another adult about this, he would've gotten away with it. he would probably do it again. and him being in trouble for it is not the same as him understanding that it was wrong. unless someone has a REAL talk with him about inappropriate attention and consent, it's not unlikely that he'll just repeat the behavior in a setting where he thinks he won't be caught or told on. THAT'S the problem. me, i could just never have to be this boy's para again. in my email, i didn't say that i would never be ok working with or around him ever again. he already knows i didn't like it and i'm not afraid to tell on him; as far as that lesson applies to me, individually, i think he's become too ashamed to repeat that.

i don't know. i don't know. i very much expressed that i, i guess, "forgave" him in the email that i wrote. i clarified that i was writing it for the sake of having it on the record. i think that could potentially be very important for the purposes of preventing further similar or escalating behavior from him in the future. i don't want him to be in trouble. i don't think i will be blamed for this, especially not with how promptly i acted, although i don't know to what extent this will be framed as me thinking i'm a "victim." i'm not... i don't feel victimized. i feel disgusted. i feel afraid for the sake of what could happen to or with him in the future, if he thinks behavior like his towards me today is ok.

i feel like if i end up having to further respond to this, this will be made about me. in a way it kind of was. is? in the moment it was happening, it was certainly about me. because i was the one this boy was giving all this unwanted attention to. but to make the consequences of this about me and to involve me any further, i also don't want. because i said what i said already, i don't care if a student has a crush on me. this isn't about me being the pretty substitute. i'm the pretty substitute all the time, to tons of people. that's not really something i've been concerned about up until now.

but do i have to reexplain my personal embarrassment? that i was wearing a skirt? that he was ogling my legs? really? what more do i have to gain from sharing that, other than having the adults at my place of work confirm or deny me in their heads as the pretty substitute? i don't know. perhaps that's REALLY overthinking it. but i don't want to be the substitute that caused a problem for this special ed kid. i don't wanna be the reason that he can't be around me anymore, the person people think of when they're monitoring how he's acting around girls and young women. i DON'T want to be the one people think of when they think of his past misbehavior. i'm NOT here for that.

that's just fucking humiliating. and in this being a thing that could follow him, i have to be ogled and touched over and over again in people's minds for this to be taken seriously. but for this to be swept under the rug would be even worse, no? i don't know. i hate this. the principal is a nice guy; i wouldn't be surprised if he and/or people from the special ed department reached out to me sympathetically about this. but i don't wanna be reached out to. i don't wanna have ppl i work with tell me "sorry that kid was just so attracted to you he couldn't help himself" like come on. if the kid himself doesn't change then i don't really care to remember this incident. and no one reaching out to me and saying they've talked to this kid will actually prove to me he understands. this is the kind of inappropriate behavior it takes years for people to understand why it was wrong, especially a child who has no idea. i mean come on.

[doyouhearthefranzising]

suburraeterna episode 1 spoilers under the cut (liveblog)

context: i have not seen suburra season 3 except through tumblr posts 😂

spadì has a normal-people job? or at least hobby?? is he enjoying his life?? and then he gets a call from his mum? the cold-open is already giving me so many feelings

hm who are these people with the many glasses on the table? new players?

he's being nice to a dog :) and then annoying anacleti-family shows up being dicks :(

wait, those priests are the same dudes that were just watching football on the telly very working-class guy like??

very intrigued about the new players on the church-side of things.

he's pulling up to the anacleti residence with this ridiculous family car, isn't he? okaaay isn't that the door to the apartment angelica and spadino used to live in? oh!! angelica's baby-daddy?? angelica got herself a boyfriend! (husband?) who sees to enjoy sleeping with her! you go girl!

nadia!! with the aureliano neck tattoos!!!

"you think i took angelica from you." OH alright

after this conversation between the siblings i have questions about the current relationship between nadia and the anacletis

and we have a name for likes dogs and sleeps with angelica!

oooh a flashback! so those four children are damiano, his two siblings and spadì. the german subtitles omitted his name in that conversation, btw, which i find unfortunate. so, damiano and spadì go way back. that's gonna be interesting.

oh shit that is a big portrait of aureliano. i hope that means he's gonna be plot-relevant in some way?

second sex-scene in less than 25 minutes. it really is european.

would having seen season 3 explain why adelaide and angelica are so chummy with nadia, or is that something that happened in the gap?

the world of politics. i had not missed it.

oh, cinaglia has left politics. but more like, "left" politics.

oh shit was that scene in the flashback the last time spadì and damiano had had contact?? and that's the connection between damiano and the anacletis? that is a complicated situation to be in, to say the least

alas, the spanish (?) leftist (?) cardinal (?) dude is also buddies with shady people. how could he not be.

jesus christ, that is a massacare

OH SHIT ANGELICA

so that was not a call from his mamma telling him to come back, but a call telling him his ex-wife had stabbed his mamma to death. alright.

way to shuffle the cards.

how am i supposed to go to bed after this

[wingsy-keeper-of-songs]

15 Questions for 15 Mutuals

Tagged by: @alphedhel

If you're not comfortable with answering, just say "I plead the 5th." I find it hilarious

1. Are you named after anyone?

I was going to be named after my uncle if I was a boy, but that didn't work out. She didn't like the female version, so she went with something Christmas-y since I was born so close to Christmas.

2. When was the last time you cried?

Today, as a matter of fact. In a fit of rage while trying to dispose of a very stubborn and very rude cottonwood sapling.

3. Do you have kids?

No, but if I were in the right headspace and had a partner who wanted them and we were financially secure, I wouldn't mind adopting or fostering a couple.

4. Do you use sarcasm a lot?

It's one of my love languages. But I will admit to needing to lay off the snark once in a while.

5. What sports do you play/have you played?

I was a hockey player as a kid and I played soccer (football for you Europeans). Now, I take long walks with two obnoxious dogs and my parents. I'm not very sports oriented anymore due to a back injury.

6. What’s the first thing you notice about other people?

If they have a dog or not. I'm an anxious person and I don't like looking at people out of habit, but if there's a dog, I'm asking to pet it.

7. Eye Color?

Green. The only 1% I'm part of is the percentage of the population with natural red hair and green eyes

8. Scary movies or happy endings?

(Spanish girl "why not both?" meme)

I love happy endings and horror movies. And when a horror film has a happy ending? Even better.

9. Any Special talents?

I can unnerve a voice teacher with an unusual vocal range, maybe? My usual speaking voice is considered really low and normally shouldn't be able to clear three octaves. But my singing range is about four and a half octaves to five.

10. Where were you born?

Alaska and I have been stuck here for nearly thirty years. It's a beautiful state, don't get me wrong, but egads I want to leave. And no, we cannot see Russia from our house. That's in Wasilla and that's because of all the crystal meth they cook.

11. Free space (there was no 11 on the prompt I received)

My favorite movie of all time is the Princess Bride. I watched it so much as a kid that I wore out the old VHS tape. My mom got a copy of the DVD and we quote it at the screen when we watch it sometimes to annoy my dad. (he loves it)

12. Do you have any pets?

Two dogs named Luka and Rosie and two cats named Selina and Brucie.

13. How tall are you?

About 5'7 or 5'8, depends on the doctor

14. Favorite subject in school?

English and Social Studies. I was one of those kids who loved every book we read in class and would read ahead because I wanted to know what happened next. I read during class and got in trouble when I supposed to be doing work. And I'd read ahead in my history book to find out cool shit and then look that up in the library. The other kids thought I was weird as fuck. Wouldn't find out until I was 13 that I had The Autism™

15. Dream Job?

Used to be Disney World, but the Mouse destroyed my dreams and crushed my soul like a grape. Now it's something involving wild animal rehabilitation or something like that. I like critters and I want to help restore habitats and endangered species and things like that.

[antofstory]

[107]

Dear Molly,

It’s now been two days since the search began. And three days since you went missing. Your mom, I haven’t seen her. It seems as if she disappeared together with you. Lucas is angry or sad, I don’t know exactly. Yesterday, I saw him yelling at the lawnmower. It did nothing wrong. But then he started crying, and I got it. He was scared.

Everybody’s scared. You know. Nothing like this has ever happened in our town. Apparently, we haven’t had anyone disappear in sixty years. Which is nice when you think about it. But then a girl goes missing, and it shakes the town.

But don’t think about us. You shouldn’t think about us, please focus on your own mission. I hope you’re keeping yourself warm.

L, B

Dear Molly,

It's been a week now. Steven has been called by the police two times. I spoke with him, and he knows as little as I do. The last time he saw you was when you left school. He said you jumped on the bike as you usually do and started cycling as if there was no tomorrow.

The police are asking so many questions: What is your favourite colour? Who did you hang with? Did you play with alcohol? Did you have secrets? Or did you have a boyfriend? I don’t know, did you? I’m not sure I know you anymore.

I thought that when we kissed under that tree, I became your boyfriend. There was so much shade under that tree, it almost felt as if we entered midnight. It was strange. And also, I’m not sure about the social part of this. So I said that you were single. Was I wrong?

Also, I saw your mom. So you don’t have to worry.

L, B

Dear Molly,

Now it has been ten days.

Sarah asked me if I was dating anyone. That was a hard question, because as I told you earlier, I don’t know if I do. It’s like I button up my lip, I just froze. Good thing Steve showed up and took all the attention.

Steve is also getting angry now. Yesterday, he was called to the principal's office. There was a fistfight, and he was losing, so he almost bit the kid’s finger off. People are starting to suspect he’s somehow related to you going AWOL. But I don’t think so. I think Steve is protecting you, he’s taking all the attention on himself, one for the team, you know. But I feel like I should do that. But I don’t do anything, I just write. Hopefully, it is helpful.

Otherwise, life on the streets seems to go back to normal. We only went on two searches this week, and it feels like we go the same ways. Pretty useless, if you ask me.

L, B

Dear Molly,

I’m not sure if it’s been thirteen or fourteen days. I know it’s been long enough for some people to start mourning. There was a search party today, and I counted four people, besides your mom and Lucas. Everyone seemed normal, as if they were walking their dogs.

You knew I was allergic to dogs? That’s why I sneezed so much when I came over to your place. But I guess you figured, you always felt such things.

Also, I baked bread today. I don’t know why.

L, B

Dear Molly,

They’ve found your body.

It was under the tree, just like I thought. I didn’t want to tell anyone about it, I thought you had your right to true peace and quiet. But now you don’t have to worry anymore. I’m sorry you had to experience so much pain, and I hope it doesn’t hurt anymore.

L, B

Dear Molly,

It’s been five years and fifteen days. I’m sorry I haven’t written in such a long time. I’ve wanted to write many times, but always found an excuse to throw the paper away. The latest of them being, I got a girlfriend. This is the news. I thought it’s not nice to write to my ex. Again, I’m not sure how the social part of this works.

For the arts class, we were asked to draw something special to us. At that moment, I thought of your tree, the one we kissed under, the one you were resting under. I drew it in full bloom. It’s so green I don’t think it looks natural, but it makes me happy. Also, I never knew what tree it was, maybe it’s a stray tree, a wayward tree, like you.

Attached, please find the original painting of your favourite tree.

L, B

[paupermodern]

Pauper Modern Tournament Report 10/23/2024

A great misfortune has befallen our normal venue. But thankfully, Jesse and Chris stepped up to host!

I was pleasantly surprised by my deck! I brought a mono-white enchantments list using a handful of new cards from MH3 and Duskmourn. The deck list (including some thoughts and theorycrafting in the primer) is on Moxfield. Feedback always welcome.

Round 1 - Chris - Goblin Storm 

I won the first game with a solid start, building up a big Eidolon. Chris Resolved some Wrenn and Impulsed Recklessly, but did not find what they needed. Meanwhile, I made a big dude and get those beats in. Felt good.

Second game I started a bit slow, and then got stormed. Storm count of 6 = 12 goblins. First Day of Class means they were 2/2s with haste. That’s a lot of damage!

Third game managed to gain enough life to stay out of danger, got in with early beats, and the attempt to storm fizzled. In all a great match, I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.

Round 2 - Daniel - Breathless Knight

Game one had a pretty good start for both of us. Daniel played an early Breathless Knight from the grave. Left unchecked, this card is a menace, especially with the inclusion of Sneaky Snackers. I opened with a Dog Umbra to answer it, and managed to keep the pressure on from there.

Game two was superbly grind-y– I opened mostly removal with few creatures. Daniel started with a couple creatures, which I spent my Dog Umbras and Journey to Nowhere on. I managed to build up a sizable Transcendent Envoy, and swing in for a good amount of damage. Then, Daniel turbo’d out three snackers and used a Stinkweed Imp to repeatedly block my Envoy while getting in chip damage with snackers. But realizing they were in danger of milling their deck by dredging Stinkweed, they made a risky play with Crypt Rats to wipe most of both boards (and many dog umbras!). It was anyone's game. Unfortunately, Daniel did not find enough follow up or removal, and I closed things out. 

Round 3 - Jesse - Frog Mill

Both games were a race- Jesse ignored damage until it would be fatal to get the requisite four advisors online. Thankfully both games I was able to establish an early threat and force unfavorable blocks. I came out victorious, ending both games with just a few cards left in my library. We later played a game for fun in which I got milled for game. Frog mill is a contender to keep your eye on. It feels like one of the many decks in the format that is one card away from being totally busted, and where you are just one well-timed Fog away from losing your library.

Round 4 (the finals!) - Jared - 8-plate

In the finals, I played the latest iteration of Jared's Rakdos 8-plate. Jared has another name for the deck that I will not include here. This is a potent artifact deck that can quickly setup lethal swings, but also has great advantage in the grind game. We discussed card choices last time we played, it was cool to see the updated and refined list in action.

Game one - I played a turn one Sleepy Boy, which got bolted. But then I was able to build a big body and keep swinging my way to victory, forcing Jared to block with Vault Skirge, germs, etc. First strike felt especially busted against the plates.

Game two - Sleepy Boy in the opener stuck, and helped filter my draws to find what I needed and avoid flooding. The game stalled out a bit with both of us trading back and forth with lifelink. Vault Skirge is a hell of a card, and Jared managed to find two of em. I was eventually able to land an Armor and All that Glitters to make two independent big threats. Jared fought back with a cast down, but at that point he was on the backpedal and was forced to block lethal a couple turns until he was out of blockers.

In all, I had a great time. Thanks again to Jesse and Chris for hosting, Rob for pizza, and for the group for making time in the middle of the week to meet and play. It is truly a joy to test one's mettle against such a fierce group of competitors in a wide-open and quickly evolving format!