#oh this ambiguously shaped mass of squares?

[croch-eeth-et]

Me starting a new project and working on it constantly and refusing to tell anyone what im making:

[god--baby]

nice to meet you ch 7 (sfw ish)

belch huggins x ambiguously gendered reader

henry bowers x patrick hockstetter

masterpost

previously on: you and the guys get high. patrick and henry get together. you try to fuck, but fall asleep instead. 

summary: a week passes. you and the guys go to a party. things don’t go as planned. also: trashcan punch, multiple boyfriends, and the perfect couple. 

word count: 3514

tag list: @cordysblog @heckstetter @agespenst @sabertooth-potato @purplezebra68 @daddywise-issues @tonguepopperr @nurserykryme @demious-sword @surahbow @lilypad1234 @sarah-bow-beara @bisexualbitchbabe

content warning: emetophobia

The next day, you watched as Henry slowly acclimated to having Patrick all over him. A hand in his back pocket, an arm around his shoulders. Sharing cigarettes. It was cute, the way Henry would blush. It was weird, too, to finally know why they had been so weird around each other.

Before school, Patrick leaned in and whispered something in Henry’s ear, ending with a bite to his earlobe. Henry pushed him away, laughing.

It was cute.

Henry refused to be kissed in public, though. Patrick didn’t respect that. He kept trying to sneak one in here and there, Henry pushing him away, getting more and more mad each time.

You pulled Patrick aside at the end of lunch.

“Patrick,” you said sharply, pulling his attention away from Henry. “Look at me.”

“What do you want, sweetheart?”

“Save the sweethearts for Henry. Just listen to me.”

“Fine. What do you want?”

“You’re just pissing him off, trying to kiss him all the time.”

“Who cares?”

“Henry cares.”

He huffed.

“Dunno why he’s such a prude,” he said.

“He’s probably afraid of what people will think.”

“He doesn’t mind my hand on his ass but kissing him is too much?”

You put your hands up.

“Listen, I didn’t say it made perfect sense. I guess it’s just more intimate than he wants in public. What I’m saying is lay off unless you’re in private. I can tell he wants to kiss you, just not right now.”

He crossed his arms.

“Why do you even care?” he asked.

“’Cause. I know what it’s like to be pressured into shit like that. Give him time.”

He set his jaw into a hard line and sighed.

“Fine.”

“Okay?”

“I said okay.”

“Good.”

He stopped trying to kiss Henry every chance he got, settling for when they were in private. A weight seemed to lift from Henry’s shoulders.

And they did kiss. A lot. Constantly. Sometimes it was impossible to hold a conversation with them without one of them deciding he wanted a kiss.

It was unbearable.

But you put up with it. They’d get over it, soon.

That night, after your parents got home, you got high with them.

You would have invited Belch, since they liked him so much, but he was at work. In fact, he was working all week after school. You hated it, but you also kind of loved it — you hated having to settle for texts, but you loved that he loved his job. He loved working with his hands, solving problems, getting shit done. He talked about it like it was his favorite thing. You assumed it was.

“So, how are things going with you and Reggie?” your mom asked.

She took a puff on the joint — she’d rolled it, and it was beautiful — and passed it to you.

“Good. I think we’re going to have sex sometime soon,” you said.

You were always this open with them. You trusted them to trust you. It was just how things worked between all of you.

“Ooh, okay,” said your dad. “I hope it goes well.”

“I think it will. We got close yesterday, and he asked me things like if I felt good, and if I really wanted it, and stuff.”

“He’s such a gentleman,” your mother laughed. “What a guy.”

You smiled. “I’m lucky to have him.”

“You sure are, sweet bean,” said your dad.

“You’ll be safe, right?” asked your mom.

“Mom. Of course we will.”

“I just wanted to make sure. I know, in the heat of the moment, a condom isn’t that sexy, but…”

“Better safe than sorry, I know,” you said.

“Just be smart, starchild,” she said.

You smiled again. “He calls me that, now, too.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. My starchild. That’s what he says.”

“What a sweetheart.”

“You’ve got a good guy, bean,” said your dad.

“I know. Trust me, I know.”

“You know who you remind me of?” your mom asked.

“Who?” you asked. You knew the answer.

“Us, when we’d just met.”

You sat back and waited for the rest of the story. You’d heard it plenty of times, but you still loved it each time it was told.

“How she looked at me the first time,” said your dad, sighing.

“Like I was looking for something, and I’d just found it,” your mom agreed.

“And then you asked him if he had any pot,” you added.

“Mm. We were at a party. This psychedelic band was playing, and well,” he said.

“It was the perfect time to fall in love,” your mom sighed. “Just perfect.”

You sighed, too. They were still so in love, even after all this time. They were really the perfect couple.

Before you went to bed, you texted Belch.

11:30pm. To: Reggie

how was work?

11:31pm. From: Reggie

fixed a sticky transmission. fucking hard

11:31pm. To: Reggie

no idea what that means. is it okay now I guess?

11:32pm. From: Reggie

yeah it’s okay. you going to bed?

11:32pm. To: Reggie

yeah. you?

11:33pm. From: Reggie

yeah. goodnight starchild

You grinned.

11:33pm. To: Reggie

Goodnight babe

The rest of the week passed without incident. You didn’t get any alone time with Belch, and it was starting to make you antsy.

You got ready for the party on Friday night, pinning your hair up into a fake mohawk again, your mom helping you get it right. She hovered behind you with pins in her mouth, humming something by the Beach Boys.

The guys picked you up, and you found that Henry didn’t have to surrender his seat to you — because he was already in the back with Patrick, a tangled mass of limbs and nasty smiles.

You rolled your eyes and got in, quietly saying hello to Belch as he drove to the party.

It was already in good shape when you arrived, and the group split to do various things. Patrick and Henry scoped out the bedrooms of the place to see where they could fuck if they wanted to. Vic went out to the back porch, where the smokers and stoners were already sitting around in little groups.

You and Belch got yourself drinks, then sat on a couch, you on his lap, straddling him. You were sharing a plastic cup of trashcan punch — various types of Hawaiian Punch mixed together with the cheapest vodka money can buy — passing it between you.

You got tipsy, and then lightly sloshed, and then flat out drunk, pretty fast. The punch didn’t taste like much of anything, but it got you there, and it got you there, quick.

Belch was fine. It took a lot to get him drunk, he swore, so you felt safe being with him.

He had both hands on your hips, holding you down in his lap. You swayed above him to the music, some Top 40 stuff you didn’t really care for but had a catchy beat. Maybe, when you were home and sober, you’d check it out. Maybe.

He pulled you down into a short kiss, just barely licking at your lips before deepening it. You put your arms over his shoulders, hands dangling limply as he continued kissing you. He broke the kiss and started kissing lines up and down your neck, pulling down the collar of your shirt to go lower from time to time.

“You want something, babe?” you teased him.

“You know what I want,” he said.

Just then, Patrick and Henry wandered by, hair mussed and clothes off kilter.

“Picked the second door on the right open, you might wanna take it before someone else does,” Patrick said, clapping Belch on the shoulder before wandering away again.

“God, those two,” you said, laughing.

“What do you say, baby?” Belch asked. “You wanna take his upstairs?”

“Let’s do it.”

He picked you up and carried you up the stairs, you giggling the entire time, curled into his chest. He set you down on a soft bed and closed the door behind him. You laid there, waiting for him. He smiled down at you.

“Look at you,” he said.

“Hm?”

“So pretty, just waiting to get fucked.”

You blushed.

“Reggie,” you said. “Come here.”

He came over, kneeling on the bed in front of you. He held your face in his hands, just looking at you with nothing less than adoration. Then, he kissed your cheeks, one after the other. He kissed you on your forehead, then square on the lips. You sighed into the kiss, winding your arms around his neck, pulling you closer to him.

His hands went to your ass, pulling you in until there was no space between your bodies, only your clothes.

Your fucking clothes. You needed to get rid of them, right now.

You broke the kiss to pull your shirt off over your head, and he smiled.

You swayed a little bit in his embrace, and he looked at you, concerned.

“You sure you want to do this now, baby?”

“I want to do this all the time,” you said. “I’m fine. Trust me.”

“Okay,” he said.

You reached down in between his legs, slowly dragging your fingernails over his jeans. You could feel him, hard, behind the denim, and you grinned at him.

“What, baby?” he asked.

“You’re so excited,” you said. “God, you’re so fucking hot.”

You undid his pants, slipping one hand inside and slowly stroking his cock. He sighed.

You backed up so you could get on your hands and knees to blow him. You licked a thick stripe all the way up the shaft and put your lips around the head and — there came a loud bang from the other side of the door. Startled, you pulled off Belch’s dick and looked at the door.

It swung open to reveal a very drunk Vic with a very apologetic Josh behind him.

“Hey, guys — oh, sorry, nothing I haven’t seen before, but — hey, guys, guess what?”

You groaned and flopped down on your stomach as Belch put himself back in his pants.

“What?” you asked, voice muffled by the blanket underneath you that smelled like sweat and sex — assumedly because Patrick and Henry had been there first.

“This is Josh. You guys know Josh, right?”

“Sure,” said Belch. He sounded pissed, but he was controlling it. He remained kneeling on the bed beside you.

“I kissed him. Josh is my boyfriend now,” Vic said. He pulled Josh into the room, grinning.

“Does Josh know he’s your boyfriend?” you asked, face smushed into the bedding. It matched how you felt.

“I’m so sorry, you guys,” said Josh. “And yeah, I know. We’re officially dating. Well, me and my boyfriend Tim are dating Vic, now. It’s complicated. Anyway. I’m really sorry, and we’ll leave you alone.”

He dragged a waving Vic out of the room, pulling the door closed behind them.

Belch took a deep breath and let it go, a massive sigh. You looked up at him, the world beginning to spin.

“You wanna get back to it?” he asked.

“Uh,” you said, stomach churning. “I’m actually — I’m gonna puke.”

“What?”

You rolled off the bed and got shakily to your feet, leaving the room and hunting for the nearest bathroom.

You found it just in time to puke in the toilet.

“Oh, baby,” Belch said, rushing after you and putting a hand on your back. “I didn’t know you’d drank that much.”

“Me neither,” you moaned, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand, and flushing the toilet just before you threw up, again.

Belch stayed by you, patting your back. Then, he stood. You grabbed his leg for a moment, frantic, before he pried your hand off of him.

“I’m gonna go find the guys,” he said. “I’m taking you home.”

“Fuck,” you groaned.

You didn’t want to go home, but he was probably right. It was probably what you needed to do.

He left you there, your forehead on the toilet seat, thinking about how many asses had been there before you.

God, what a shitty ending to a pretty good night.

“You had the punch, didn’t you?” came a snarky voice from the door.

You looked up.

“Patrick,” you said. “Help me up, I’m done throwing up.”

He gave a heaving sigh, then came over and hauled you up by one armpit. You leaned heavily on him.

“Where’s Reggie?” you asked.

“Don’t know who you’re talking about,” he said.

“Fuck you. You know who I’m talking about. My fucking boyfriend. The one you assholes call Belch.”

“He’s downstairs trying to pull Vic away from his new boyfriends. Do you know that weirdo has two boyfriends, now?”

“Yeah, I heard. Good for him. Whoopee.”

He helped you down the stairs, Henry stomping after you. When you got there, they helped you out the front door, down the steps, and out to the car. You leaned, sore and tired, against the passenger side door, waiting for Belch.

He arrived, shaking his head.

“Vic’s staying with Josh and Tom.”

“Tim,” you said, a hand over your eyes.

“Fine, Tim.” He sighed. “Let’s go.”

Grumbling, the boys got in the back seat while you waited. Then, Belch helped you into the passenger seat, a hand on the back of your head like a cop so you wouldn’t bang it.

He drove Patrick and Henry to Patrick’s house, waving goodbye without a word.

Then, he drove you home.

You got out of the car on your own, assuming he was just dropping you off. He pulled the keys out of the ignition and got out.

You assumed again that he was just being polite, helping you in the door.

“Okay,” you said. “You can go. I’m fine.”

“Baby?”

“Yeah?”

“You really think I’m gonna leave you right now?”

You looked at him, confused.

That’s what Julian would have done.

He must have seen it in your expression, and his eyes turned hard for a second.

“I’m not him. I’d never do that to you.”

You leaned until your chest was on his forehead, the closest thing to a hug you had the energy for. He sighed, and hugged you, gently, gently.

Then he picked you up and carried you upstairs. This time, you weren’t giggling. You were exhausted and your mouth tasted like bile.

He set you down on the counter in the bathroom, handing you the toothbrush in the cup.

“Brush your teeth,” he said, crossing his arms.

He watched as you slowly scrubbed your mouth clean, spitting when you were done and putting your toothbrush away.

Then, he helped you off the counter and into your bedroom. You shakily plugged your fairy lights in instead of turning on the overhead light and pulled your shirt off.

You flopped onto the bed, your still-shoed feet hanging off the end.

“’Kay. G’night,” you said with a yawn.

“Baby,” he laughed. “You’re not gonna sleep good like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like — Jesus. Lemme just —”

He bent down and pulled your boots off, then pulled on your hands until you stood up. He undid your pants and carefully pulled them down, helping you step out of them until you stood in front of him in nothing more than your underwear.

“Babe,” you said. “I don’t think this is the best time.”

He laughed again.

“Baby, you really thought…? No. Not right now. You’re not feeling good, I wouldn’t.”

“Okay,” you said.

Then you flopped down on the bed again, rolling over and pulling the covers around you.

He sighed and laid down beside you on the bed, pulling you in with an arm around your middle.

“We’ll fuck,” you said. “Eventually. I promise, babe.”

“I know, baby. I know. We’ll get there.”

“I promise it wasn’t your dick that made me throw up.”

“I didn’t think it was.”

“I’m happy for Vic. And I’m kinda glad he interrupted us.”

“Me too. He deserves those guys.”

“Yeah.”

You thought for a moment, eyes drifting shut.

“I’m glad you’re here. I like you a lot.”

“I like you, too, baby.”

“Cool.”

You drifted off.

You woke to sun streaming in your window. You were on top of Belch, blankets in a mess around you. You yawned and stretched — and then the headache hit you. And your neck hurt — it hurt just to make the little movement to yawn, to stretch.

“Fuck,” you whispered.

You got up, hunting around for your sunglasses. You found them, put them on, and found a clean t-shirt in the pile of clean things you kept in the corner. When you got it on, you sighed and went to the bathroom, sparing Belch a glace as you did.

You methodically wiped away the makeup you’d been wearing last night. Your lipstick didn’t want to budge — god bless it, it wasn’t supposed to last night, but today, today you needed it gone. And your eye makeup was streaked — you remembered tears building up when you were puking.

Once last night’s face was gone, you went back to your bedroom and closed the blinds. You put the sunglasses on your bedside table and got on top of Belch, straddling his hips with one hand on his chest.

“Babe,” you said, one hand at the side of his face. “Babe, wake up.”

He cracked his eyes and smiled at you.

“Well, hey there, baby.”

“Hey yourself,” you said.

“You must be feeling better,” he said.

“Not really. Hungover as fuck and my neck hurts from puking. But I’m still happy to have you in my bed.”

You grinned and shifted against him, feeling him hard under you.

“Looks like you’re happy, too,” you said.

He laughed.

“Sure am, baby. C’mere and kiss me.”

You leaned down and kissed him, a light little thing. You pulled back, grinning. He playfully scowled at you and pulled you down for a real kiss, licking at your lips, your tongue, the roof of your mouth. You sighed into it.

You reached down between your legs for him. Again, you dragged your fingernails over the denim over him, and he took in a short breath.

“Baby, are you sure we should do this right now?” he asked.

“Why not?”

“I hear —”

“Starchild!” called your mom from the hallway. “Rise and shine! The day’s waiting on you!”

You rolled your eyes, smiling. You slowly pulled your hand away from Belch’s bulge and set it on his chest.

Then she opened your door. Belch blushed until his face was nothing but red.

“Oh, Reggie. We thought you’d be here,” she said. “We saw your car. I love it, by the way.”

“I do, too. Amy’s my favorite thing. I hope you don’t mind I stayed over, ma’am. We had kinda a rough night.”

“Oh?”

“I drank too much and ended up throwing up,” you said.

“I take it you learned your lesson?”

“Moderation is key, but I already knew that. Mostly, don’t drink anything that you can’t taste the alcohol in.”

“That’s my kid. I trust you to be smart in the future.”

You smiled.

“I will be.”

“Well, your dad and I are leaving for work soon. You two come down and say hi.”

“We will, ma’am,” said Belch.

When she was gone, he looked at his watch. And then, he groaned.

“Fuck,” he said. “I gotta get changed and go to work.”

“Don’t you wanna stay here with me for a little bit?” you pouted, your hand going again to the front of his pants.

“Course I do, baby. But I need this job.”

He didn’t move your hand, though, so you undid his pants. When you reached in to pull out his dick, he finally caught you by the wrist.

“Baby,” he warned.

“C’mon,” you whined. You were definitely pushing it, and you knew it. “Please?”

“You know I want to. But I can’t.”

He tried to sit up, and you pushed him down playfully.

“Baby,” he said, trying not to laugh. “You keep being a brat, and I’m gonna give you a fucking spanking.”

You gasped, a little frightened but also delighted.

“Well, that’s not what I expected,” he said. “You want that?”

“Maybe,” you said, smiling.

“Uh huh. That looks like a big yes to me.”

“Maybe,” you said again.

“C’mon, baby. We gotta say hi to your dad, and if you keep trying to get in my pants, I’m not gonna be able to look him in the eye.”

You laughed and finally rolled off of him, hunting around for a pair of pajama pants.

You put them on as he got up and stretched.

Then, you went downstairs to say goodbye to your parents as they left for work.

They left, and Belch got his keys, ready to go.

“I mean it,” he said. “I’ll spank you if I have to.”

You smiled.

“Well, here’s hoping you don’t have to.”

He kissed you, pulling you in with a hand on your ass. You smiled into the kiss, and then he pulled away.

“Bye, baby. I’ll see you later.”

“Okay.”

And then, he left.

[uglymanchronicles]

Ugly Man Chronicles Reignition Chapter 1: Hard Reboot

This hasn’t been edited yet, but I wanted to finally post it.  I’ll update when it’s been looked over.

The first thing Evan realized was that something was halfway down his throat and he had no idea what it was or how it got there.  As he choked and spluttered, spraying the liquid and coughing saliva all over the table in front of him, he realized that he didn't know where he was.  He realized everything hurt to a startling degree and his gagging and retching weren't helping; in fact, he was pretty sure he was about to vomit.  Looking around desperately, he spotted a door adorned with a faded stick-man symbol and lurched to his feet.  What parts of his brain weren't trying to propel his uncooperative body forward dimly made the connection that he was in a bar, and a seedy one at that. Stumbling through the door on leaden legs, he fell to the floor in front of the nearest urinal and heaved something searing and foul into the shallow basin.  Vomit was sticking to something on his face.  What was stuck to his face?  Why did it feel like he hadn't eaten in days?  Why couldn't he remember yesterday?  How did he get here? And, most presently, why was he touching a stained-brown urinal with his bare hands?

“Uueurrghh.”  Evan had intended for it to be a groan of disgust, but a combination of confusion, exhaustion, and a wickedly sore throat resulted in a sound like a rusty gate with a drinking problem.   He shoved himself up to his feet and half-fell into the sink.  Was he drunk? No, this didn’t feel like drunk.    Was he on something?  He hoped it wasn’t coke again.  If that was the case this was probably the come-down.  No, that probably wasn’t it.  Sitting alone in a dingy bar—or just sitting still—was not a usual cocaine activity.  Could he have mixed a bunch of drugs and accidentally damaged his brain? Surely he was smarter than that!

He could figure that out later.  First things first.  The mirror was, unsurprisingly, a mess: cracks, stains, inane sharpie and/or car-key graffiti, stickers from shitty bands all around the edges.  There was enough untainted glass to provide a reflection of his face, though, and what stared back at him was a good match for the mirror.  

What he’d felt sticking to his face were bandages.  A lot of bandages.  Not a square inch of his face was free of gauze or cotton.  On top of that, he was wearing a very bulky pair of dark sunglasses, a black baseball cap, and a dark gray hoodie with the hood up.  He noted that the jacket looked like it had been sloppily repaired, but potential facial mutilation took priority.  

Maybe he was thinking about this the wrong way.  Maybe he’d finally had plastic surgery like he always considered doing.  Maybe the reason he felt so messed up was because of painkillers or something.  Great. Opiates.   He didn’t want to think about the intestinal ramifications of that. But wait…

No, he hadn’t gone under the knife.  Taking off the sunglasses for a closer look, he realized that, under the bandages, the shape of his face was still the same.  His nose—broken for the first time before he even hit puberty and at least four times since then—still stuck out over an inch from his face at the bridge, then continued downward, juking from left to right to left again before ending in wide nostrils just above his weirdly plush lips.  Said lips pursed in annoyance as Evan realized that his ‘aesthetic idiosyncrasies’, as his father had once called them, were still intact. He opened his mouth and clacked his teeth together, feeling around in his mouth with his tongue.  Nope.  Still didn’t close properly on the left.  He tilted his head to up and to the right, trying to see his jaw.  Yep.  Still crooked from where it hadn’t healed properly.  

Maybe he’d been in an accident.  A lot of other parts of him hurt besides his face.  He patted his chest gently, intending to feel if there were more bandages anywhere else on his body, and froze in place when something clanked.  He was suddenly aware of the weight he was carrying, of contact against his skin.  A sudden chill ran through him and he straightened up very slowly.   Glancing around nonchalantly to make sure he was alone, he slowly walked into the solitary stall and closed the door.

Surrounded by scratched-out phone numbers promising an ambiguous good time and cast in shadow by flickering fluorescent bulbs, Evan took stock of the rest of himself. First, he pulled down his hood, feeling his ponytail unfurl as he did so.  It felt greasy, which was no surprise, but it also felt like there was more of it than there should be.   The possibility that he’d lost a significant amount of time was looking more and more likely.  

Panic later.  Figure out the here and now.

Next, he pulled off the baseball cap, noting that it felt weirdly heavy.  He turned it over in his hands, examining it; it looked like a plain black snapback cap with a slightly curved brim, but when he moved it, the sensation of unbalanced weight and the slight sound of particles shifting drew his attention to the back of the hat.  His fingers found a strange mass at the back of the hat, just above the opening. Heavy, dense, discrete.  Just the right hardness and weight to break someone’s nose if swung correctly.

Why was he wearing a sap cap?  For what purpose did he even own such a gimmicky ‘weapon’?  That was the realm of the dangerously paranoid and the moronically edgy.  There must be a reason.  Had he been attacked?  He’d known that was a possibility, but he should have been well off the radar.  Had he gotten sloppy?  Somehow leaked his location?  More questions with no Goddamn answers.   A long, exasperated breath slid between his lips as he ran his hand through his hair.  A thought occurred to him mid-stroke.  He seized a few strands of hair at the root and tugged.  The strands between his fingers were at least a foot long, but what he was looking for was at the base.  He grunted disdainfully.  The last inch of his hair abruptly shifted colors from a nondescript medium-brown to a vivid corn-silk blond.  Shit.  That meant it had at least been a month.  He remembered getting touched up in early February.  

Christ.

So.  A concealed weapon, massive injury to his face, missing at least a month of memory.  This was going to get worse before it got better.  

Evan returned his attention to his clothes.  The hoodie had been roughly patched up on the left side of the chest, as he’d noticed earlier, but the damage was more extensive than he’d first thought.  The cloth had been torn all the way under his left arm and around the back, and seemed to have been repaired by stapling a deflated football over the hole.  Evan felt a surge of disgust at that.  Such shoddy, slap-dash, jerry-rigged ‘sewing’ was so far beneath his abilities as to be nauseating.  And he’d gone out in public like that!  Had he lost his mind?  

He unzipped the butchered garment and pulled it away from himself.  Ah.  That explained the weight, but for once it was something that didn’t fill him with a sense of panicked confusion.  He’d taken to wearing a bulletproof vest since taking to the road, but… it didn’t feel as heavy he remembered.  What was worrying was that it seemed to have actually seen some use.  There were scrapes, scratches, and more than a few patches (much more professionally done, he noticed with some pride) here and there. He patted the vest down; uneven rigidity and weight lead him to conclude that several of the plates had been replaced. He felt his jaw clench as he accepted the logical conclusion: he’d been shot at least once.

He’d have to figure out the who, when, and why later.  He was wearing something else, something hard and smooth, very close to his skin, under his shirt, but he couldn’t get to it with the vest on.  Back to that later, then.  

He was aware that he was being very systematic about something as mundane as looking at one’s own clothes, but he assumed he was in some sort of shock.  Maybe going through this weird checklist would calm him down enough to figure out what was going on.  He decided to just roll with it.  

The pants were a welcome sight.  Familiar and relatively normal.  He’d designed and sewn them himself; a decent amount of pocket space without the bulkiness of cargo pants.  Not exactly high fashion, but not something you’d glance twice at.  Apparently gray was the color of the day.  He was wearing some kind of hiking boot he didn’t immediately recognize, but that was nothing sinister.  He probably wouldn’t recognize the socks he was wearing eith—okay, what was that?

Something was strapped around his waist, right around his navel, and he realized that another was running up over his shoulder, which mean they had to be meeting somewhere in the back… twisting his arm around under his jacket, he patted the small of his back until his hand met…

Oh, Jesus.

That was a gun.

A really big gun.

Like, borderline anti-vehicular big.

Okay, that did it. This was too weird, too scary, too much to handle at once.  Screw personal inventory.  He needed to get someplace safe to wrap his head around this.  He had to figure out where he was.  Phone!  Phone, phone… he frantically slapped his pockets, trying to ignore what sounded like brass clinking against itself until her felt a familiar rectangular shape.  His fingers shaking, he fished it out of his pocket, heart racing at the prospect of understanding…

The screen had a hole in it large enough to fit his thumb.  It didn’t stop with the screen, either.  The back of the phone had blistered outward and ruptured from the inside, the metal flaring out like a sharp-tipped flower.  

Okay, fuck it.  He’d seen a few people in the bar while he was doing the 50-yard stumble.  He’d just have to get past the awkwardness and ask someone where the hell he was. The date would be easy enough to figure out, assuming he hadn’t somehow forgotten years and missed the death of print media.  A small part of him made a note to chuckle later about relying on a cliché in real life, but humor was being supplanted by panic.  It would have to wait.

Evan zipped the hoodie back up and left the stall, noticing as he moved that there were other weird weight distributions around his person.  He wondered how many other instruments of personal unpleasantness he had strapped to himself, and hoped that none of them were too explosive.  

Hesitantly, Evan stepped out of the restroom and surveyed the bar.  Boy, he'd really picked a winner.  The place was too depressing to even be called a dive.  Dives, at least, had character; this place had a patina. The few patrons at the tables looked even worse than he did, but public day-drinking tended to do that to people. None of them looked particularly friendly or like the kind inclined to help a man who looked like he'd fought his way out of a mental ward.  

There were two improvements on the scenery standing at the bar, however.  Two young women stood with their backs to him, but even from an impaired perspective they stood out amongst the grime and human detritus. Some nearly-necrotized part of his brain noted that they were both very shapely, but this concern was immediately drowned in the rising tide of stress.  Better to just get it over with.  

Evan quietly walked up to the bar, making sure to stand several feet away from the women, and cleared his throat softly.  "Excuse me, ladies, but--"

The hot asphalt didn't help the pain in his face.  He groaned and rolled onto his side, then groaned louder from the dull pain in his ribs.  

It had happened so quickly.  Before he’d even finished half the sentence, the closer of the two women had yanked a bottle off the bar and smashed it across his temple with such speed and ferocity that he was barely able to even start to flinch.  The hurricane force of the blow had knocked him against the bar and, disoriented as he was, he’d been unable to keep his footing.  He heard the bartender yell as he hit the floor, and then he heard the second woman say something about how he’d grabbed her friend’s ass, and then he heard stomping footsteps as two of the staff approached to drag him roughly to the door, toss him out into the parking lot, and kick him, field goal-style, several times apiece.  And then, while he struggled to breathe, the second girl had come out and rifled through his wallet, saying something sarcastic about ‘picking up the tab’ or something.  

He was not going to forget those faces. Anger had temporarily overtaken fear and confusion and seared every detail he’d had time to notice into his brain.

“Well.  I think that’s a vendetta,” he half-wheezed to himself as he pushed himself up on his knuckles and got to his knees.  God, it was hot.  He could see heat radiating off the pavement.  It was starting to burn his knees through his pants, so he forced himself upward into something resembling standing.   It didn’t quite take the first time and he stumbled sideways, catching himself on something metallic that scorched his fingers.

“Mother fu—huh.  How about that.”  

A newspaper vending box. Rusted and with what looked like a couple of spot-welded bullet holes in it, but still stocked.  Evan crouched down for a better look.

The Arizona Daily Star.  Tucson?  What the hell?  Last he remembered, he was bumming around campgrounds in Southeast Washington.  It had been sort of boring, but it was peaceful. He’d started working on a few personal projects during the relative stability; It was the closest to normal life he’d had since January.    Sure, it’d been barely above freezing most of the time, but he’d felt content.  What made him give that up?  

His eyes fell on the date and his heart seemed to pump backwards for a moment.  May 11th.  The last date-specific thing he could remember was from mid-February; he’d taken advantage of some cynical bar owner’s “singles awareness day” Valentine’s Day promotion and sat in the place for six straight hours, working on his laptop and drinking cheap liquor, surrounded by a strange mix of melancholy and manic patrons.  Nothing particularly interesting happened, but the specific date stuck in his head.  

“Shit, shit, shit.”

At least two months. A sizable fraction of a year, lost. Three states away.  Lots of injuries.  Weird clothes.   Above-average personal armament.  There were so many angles to the situation that he couldn’t even begin to try to put them together.  Everything felt like clouds floating around the periphery of his brain.  If he tried to focus on one, it would disperse and the others would engulf him, distracting him with suppositions, fears, and half-mad theories.  He bounced around inside his own head in a numb and ultimately futile attempt to make sense of things, until he realized that he’d been standing almost completely still in the parking lot with a vacant expression on his face for several minutes.  He looked like a homeless lobotomized mummy.  He was probably lucky nobody had called the cops on him yet.

All the confusion and mystery finally gave way to absolute panic.  Evan’s hands and lips were starting to shake, badly.  His pulse started to race and he started to have trouble catching his breath.  Desperately, frantically, he swung his head from side to side, trying to scan the parking lot while the color seemed to drain from his vision.  Security, privacy, familiarity; these things felt so far removed from the situation that they seemed almost abstract.  

Gotta get away  

find somewhere to hide

to think

After what felt like an eternity, he finally saw it, a beacon of hope and safety in his rapidly darkening world.  Heaven was a dented, dusty 2007 Gulf Stream Endura.  

Home.

Evan tried to run, but confusion had suddenly become exhaustion and all he could manage was a determined stagger.  He imagined he probably looked stone drunk, which was fine with him.  It’d stop people getting curious.  

His hands were shaking so badly he couldn’t get his keys out of his pockets while walking, and could barely hold them when he stopped at the door.  Trying to get the key into the lock felt like he was drowning, just inches away from the surface…

When the key finally slid into the lock, he gasped with relief so hard that he almost choked.  He flung the door open and fell inside, pulling it closed as he collapsed.  The relief was instant.  

The smell was what brought him around the most.  It had overtones of things that he didn’t remember being there, but underneath it all, it had the same subtle odor of lived-in familiarity.  Facedown on the tile, he breathed in deeply, savoring even the disgusting undertones that came from having one’s nose pressed to the linoleum. This was an ugly paradise, but he’d take it.

After an interminable amount of time, Evan rolled onto his back.  Sheer relief seemed to have made the pain from his earlier beating subside, as it was significantly less agonizing than his earlier rolling-over in the parking lot.  It was surprisingly painless to push himself up and collapse onto the couch.  

Evan slowly gazed around the interior of what he’d come to call home (and apparently had continued to for several weeks), hoping he could take in any changes in a calm, reserved manner and not immediately jump to pants-pissing panic again.  

The first thing he noticed was a laptop, sitting on the kitchen counter.  It was one he didn’t recognize, but that was no big deal, he tended to cycle through them really fast in the course of his normal routines. Nothing scary there.  What was concerning was the piece of paper reading “EVAN: WATCH ME.  PASSWORD IS THE DATE”, written in his own angular handwriting, taped to the screen.  

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw several more signs taped up around the cabin.  He was instinctively trying to focus on and read them, but he forced himself back to the floor.  With some adjusting, he was able to swing the carpeted panel up on a hinge, revealing a compartment below.  

All of that can wait.

The lock’s keypad beeped as it opened, and Evan swung the safe open, ignoring the unfamiliar and frankly frightening objects that now occupied the space.  

Only one thing matters right now.

He leaned down until he was flat on the floor, his arm extended all the way down into the safe. Things clanked, clinked, clicked, shifted, and on one frightening occasion, beeped twice, but Evan’s hand eventually closed around what he was looking for: a rough canvas bag.  

Out came the bag, closed went the lid.  Open came the bag, in went the hand.

And out came a weathered, worn, well-loved stuffed toy giraffe.  Evan ran his fingers across the fur, shortened and decolored with time, and looked into its dull, scuffed glass eyes before hugging the toy to his chest as though he were trying to push it into himself.  Still holding it, he turned himself to lie down on the couch, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.

“It’s been one hell of a day, Mr. Nex.”