#someone taking a sharpie and going to town

[bleh1bleh2]

Just a little Post-Training Bonding

[solarmorrigan]

“Hey.”

Eddie looks up from the inventory sheet he’s bent over (the new shipment of records isn’t going to record itself – Christ, that was awful, Henderson is contagious) to see his coworker Kyle poking his head into the back room.

“Someone left something for you at the counter.”

“Who?” Eddie asks, brows furrowed.

Most everyone in town seems to have let the murder accusations drop (embarrassed enough by their own fanatical reactions that they’d much rather forget the whole thing), but a few people still treat him like a felon walking free; it doesn’t hurt to be cautious.

“Uh, real normie-looking guy. Gives you a ride sometimes.”

Eddie blinks. “Steve?”

“Yeah, sure.” Kyle shrugs. “Says you left it in his car.”

Whatever Eddie is expecting to see when he follows Kyle back out to the front counter of the music shop, a brown bag lunch isn’t it. He most certainly hadn’t left that in Steve’s car this morning.

Steve hadn’t even given him a ride that morning.

But it’s got his name on it, sure enough, in Steve’s weirdly neat handwriting. The asshole even drew a little heart next to it.

Eddie can already feel a smile pulling across his face as he snatches up the bag. Maybe he hadn’t forgotten his lunch in Steve’s car, but he certainly hadn’t brought one in with him. He’d been planning to hit up the McDonald’s down the street if he got desperate, but whatever Steve’s brought him is bound to be better.

“Your girlfriend pack that for you?” Kyle asks.

Eddie lets out a little huff of a laugh, for a minute not quite sure how to answer.

Gender assumptions aside, Eddie doesn’t know what to call this thing with Steve – this thing where they’d started screwing and then they’d started falling asleep together without screwing and then they’d started spending all their free time together and now Steve does things like pack Eddie lunch and bring it to him at work.

“Sorta,” he finally settles on.

“Dude, if she’s making you lunch and writing little hearts next to your name, she’s more than ‘sorta’ your girlfriend,” Kyle says.

“Yeah… Maybe,” Eddie allows, because – well, because maybe.

“Pretty nice of your friend to drive it over, though,” Kyle says. “Pretty sure at least half of my friends would’ve just eaten it.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says again, warm and a little smug, “Steve’s a good dude.”

He digs into the lunch sack and finds an apple sitting on top (of course), a baggie of Keebler fudge cookies (score), and a Tupperware container filled with–

“Oh, fuck yes!” Eddie hugs the precious little tub full of macaroni and cheese to his chest like he’s doing his best Gollum impression. There is nothing in the world better than Steve’s mac and cheese.

It’s still warm.

“I’m taking my break!” Eddie declares, skittering off to the back room before Kyle can argue.

He sits himself down in the employee break area (a crappy folding table, two mismatched chairs, and a microwave so old he’s probably getting radiation poisoning just by sitting next to it) and digs in to the cheesy goodness that is Steve’s cooking.

He’ll eat the apple after, he reasons.

(No he won’t.)

As he eats, his eyes drift back to the crumpled brown bag, to the little heart drawn in bleeding black sharpie, and he thinks.

-

Steve’s house smells like chicken and herbs when Eddie lets himself in early in the evening, and oh, Steve must be in a good mood today.

Eddie feels spoiled.

He finds Steve in the kitchen, wrist-deep in sudsy water as he sways back and forth absently to the tune of the rock station coming from the radio on the windowsill. The room is warm, and something delicious-smelling in a covered pan is simmering on the stove, and the space behind Steve is invitingly empty, just waiting for Eddie to sidle up into it.

Eddie feels so, so spoiled.

Steve doesn’t startle when Eddie slides in behind him and wraps his arms around his waist, but Eddie isn’t really surprised anymore; it seems like Steve can always tell when someone is there.

He does glance over his shoulder, though, just long enough for Eddie to see the smile on his face before he turns back to the dishes. “Hi.”

Eddie’s pretty sure the smile on his own face is softer and infinitely more besotted. “Hi.”

“Good day at work?” Steve asks.

Eddie hums, pressing a kiss to the top of Steve’s shoulder. “You brought me lunch.”

“I’m glad Kyle actually gave it to you,” Steve says. “Wasn’t sure someone else wouldn’t eat it.”

“I got it,” Eddie says, as if there was any doubt with the way he’s still smiling in between trailing little kisses up Steve’s neck.

Steve shuts the water off and dries his hands on the towel hanging off the cupboard door before turning in Eddie’s arms to give him a proper kiss. “It was good?”

Eddie hums again. “You brought me lunch.”

“We’ve established that, yeah,” Steve laughs, allowing Eddie another kiss as he grins.

“You made me lunch,” Eddie says, pecking another kiss to Steve’s lips, still smiling like an idiot. “And you drove it up to the store for me.”

Steve shrugs, a little coy. “It’s my day off. I had time to kill.”

“Kyle says that makes you more than sorta my girlfriend,” Eddie replies, as if that will make any sense at all to Steve.

Whether it makes sense or not, it does make him laugh, and Eddie peppers kisses all over his face while he does.

“So it was good?” Steve asks again, when he’s caught his breath.

“You made me lunch and then you drove it over to me,” Eddie stresses. “It could’ve tasted like ass, and it still would’ve been the best thing ever.”

Steve rolls his eyes, but is more than obliging to the deep kiss Eddie pulls him into after that.

“But just so we’re clear,” Steve says when they break apart, “it didn’t taste like ass, right?”

“Oh my god, no,” Eddie finally relents. “It was literally the best thing I’ve ever eaten. I’m going to marry you so you can make that mac and cheese for me every day.”

“Every day, huh?” There’s a funny little smile climbing back over Steve’s face. “You sure you won’t get sick of it?”

“Nah,” Eddie replies confidently. “Never.”

They’re both smiling a little too much now to really kiss, but they make a good go of it anyway.

[Prompt: Smiling between kisses]

[sematarygirls]

        COWBOY!RAFE x FEM!READER

WARNINGS .ᐟ oral (m! receiving), reader is kinda sheltered, mommy issues, parental death, running away from home, getting picked up by a handsome stranger

NOTES .ᐟ this was pretty fun to write tbh. i started this like a year ago and recently found it in my drafts, which led me here, so i hope yall enjoy it as much as i do.

Your worn cowboy boots thudded against the asphalt as you walked down the deserted country road, dragging your suitcase along. The summer sun shone brightly overhead, heating the atmosphere and causing a thin layer of sweat to coat your body. Your daddy's old cowboy hat sat atop your head, shielding your face from the sun's unrelenting, unforgiving rays. A loose white sundress swished softly with every step you took, slowly making your way farther and farther from your old life.

The death of your beloved father sent your already troubled mother into a state of disrepair. You watched as the mother that had sung you soft lullabies and stayed with you until you fell asleep transformed into someone you didn't recognize.

Most nights, you weren't sure where she was or if she was even alive until she inevitably came stumbling home in a drunken stupor through the front door of your little farmhouse in bumfuck nowhere, the screen door slamming behind her and startling you awake.

On the rare occasion that you saw her, she seemed to look through you. Her eyes were sunken with dark circles underneath them that greatly contrasted how bright and full of life they once had been. She was a shell of the woman she once was.

You tried your best to be there for her, but eventually, you realized that she wasn't going to change. She didn't want to get better, and you couldn't force her to.

On your eighteenth birthday, you made a difficult decision. You had been weighing it for a long time, wondering if you were doing the right thing. You wondered if your dad would be disappointed in you, if he would've wanted you to stay, but eventually, you knew that you had to do what was best for you.

You couldn't handle the constant worrying, only to be greeted with a cold shoulder the few times you did see your mother. You felt like you'd never have a life of your own in that house, suffocated by the memories of the happy family that once lived within the walls. You needed to start fresh—to give yourself the opportunity to be something more than a small town drunk like your mom.

You were leaving, and you were never coming back.

And for the first time in a long time, you had something to look forward to. You had a future that didn't revolve around taking care of someone else. You had hope that you could find something better out there, something more than this lonely life you'd grown so accustomed to.

You grabbed an old suitcase from the basement and threw it onto your bed. Opening it, your heart ached as you saw your name written in black sharpie on the light brown fabric. It was written in your father's handwriting, little doodles of stars and hearts surrounding it. For a moment, you had second thoughts about your decision, but ultimately, you pushed them away. you knew he would've wanted you to live a life worth something. He wouldn't want you to be confined to this house, worrying whether your mother would make it home every night.

You packed an assortment of clothing and little items that held sentimental value to you. You knew you had to choose carefully because there was only so much you could bring. Rifling around in your closet, you discovered your father's old cowboy hat. You stuffed it into the way back the day of his funeral, never wanting to see it again, but now, you knew you needed it more than ever.

It served as a reminder of home—not the house you were running away from, but the home that had once been filled with life and love. It reminded you of cold winter nights spent huddled by the fire and spooky stories told during thunderstorms. It reminded you of dancing in the kitchen while the three of you prepared dinner and listening to the rock station with a popsicle in hand as you curiously watched your dad work on his truck. It reminded you of a time before forehead kisses and goodnight stories were replaced by slamming screen doors and absent mothers.

You placed the hat atop your packed suitcase and went to sleep, your plan for tomorrow already set in motion. You woke up before your mother, quickly getting dressed and gathering your things before creeping into the living room. She was nowhere to be seen, probably having actually made it to her bedroom that night, but her purse was laying on the kitchen counter, a couple items spilling out from the way she had haphazardly thrown it when she got home.

Careful to not make any noise, you rummaged through, looking for her wallet. You didn't expect to find much, but you would take what you could get. After stuffing the cash you could find into your bra, so in the event that your suitcase was stolen, you'd still have something to your name, you took one last look around. You admired the height markings your father had made on the doorway, and the hole in the wall that he always swore he'd get around to fixing after bringing in a new couch went terribly wrong. A sad smile graced your face as you said goodbye to the place that had been your only home for as long as you'd known, turning the page and getting ready to embark on your journey to a new life.

Walking through the front door with your suitcase trailing behind you was like a weight had suddenly been lifted from your shoulders. For the first time in a long time, you didn't know what would happen next, and it frightened you in a way that was exhilarating.

The sound of a car approaching made you jump a little, the sound cutting through the quiet atmosphere that had previously only been filled with the light swishing of your dress, the sound of your suitcase wheels and boots on the asphalt, and the occasional chirp of birds. It was rare to encounter people on the deserted road you were traveling down since the area you were in was secluded and a good few miles from any houses or towns, so you knew to be cautious.

You turned your head, tilting the cowboy hat up to get a better look at the approaching vehicle and it's driver. It was an old grey-blue pickup truck with a white roof, a thin layer of dirt and grime built up along the exterior. You squinted your eyes to try and get a better look at the driver as they got closer, but the glare from the sun on the windshield hindered your view.

Hesitantly, you looked away from the truck, your gaze returning forward as you waited for it to pass, but to your surprise, it didn't. You clutched your suitcase tighter as the man pulled up beside you, not stopping completely, just rolling along to keep pace with you.

When the driver rolled the window down, you turned your head to face him, continuing to walk as you studied his face. He was a handsome man; you couldn't deny that. He had bright blue eyes that shone with intrigue, his pale pink lips pulled up into a smirk that had you torn between being deeply unsettled and utterly smitten for him. His brown hair was buzzed short, and he had a bit of stubble on his chiseled jawline along with a mustache on his upper lip—something you usually wouldn't have been privy to, but he made it look effortlessly good.

"What's a pretty little thing like yourself doing out here all alone?" He asked with the faintest hint of a southern drawl, looking you up and down. It should have disgusted you—a random man hitting on you in the middle of nowhere—but for some reason, it made butterflies erupt in your stomach.

You debated on what to say. At first, you were gonna say that your mama always told you not to talk to strangers, but that sounded so childish that you immediately pushed it away. You weren't really great at talking to people. You'd often spent more time alone than with others. You simply shrugged, deciding against saying anything at all and making yourself sound foolish.

His gaze darted to your suitcase, finding himself intrigued and undeterred by your lack of an answer. "Where you headed, sweetheart?" He asked, continuing to drive beside you.

Truthfully, you didn't have a destination. You were just sorta planning to go wherever the wind took you, which admittedly, wasn't a very solid plan. "Anywhere but here," you said cryptically. It sounded a bit cheesy, but it was true. You just wanted to put as much distance between yourself and your childhood home as you possibly could.

His smirk widened into a full-blown grin as he leaned across the seat to throw open the passenger door. "Well, climb on in then. I can take you wherever you'd like to go," he offered, eyes glinting mischievously.

You didn't notice this, however. You weren't all that great at reading people due to your sheltered upbringing. You had gone to school, but it was a small one that you'd dropped out of at sixteen to try and take care of your mother.

You looked over at him, your eyes filled with hesitance as you nervously chewed your lip. You may have been a little naive, but you weren't completely stupid. You knew how unsafe it could be to catch a ride from a stranger. "That's awful kind of you, but... well, I don't think I should."

His demeanor didn't falter, an air of confidence surrounding him—like he was used to getting what he wanted, even if it took a little convincing. "I get it, darlin'," he nodded understandingly. "A pretty thing like you can't be too careful nowadays, but I promise you I ain't gonna hurt ya. Can't say the same for others, though."

Your eyes widened a bit at his words, and for the first time, you seemed to be able to look past your rose-colored glasses. You were a young woman walking alone in the middle of nowhere—an easy and vulnerable target to anyone that could have wanted to hurt you.

"Look, I ain't tryna scare ya," he said, seeming to notice the fear that his words had ignited within you. "But... well, there's a whole lotta bad people out here, sweetheart. I'd hate to go home and find that pretty face on the news or somethin'."

"Well, how do I know that you ain't some serial killer?" You asked, quirking an eyebrow. You stopped walking to face him fully, to which he abruptly stepped on the breaks.

"Serial killers don't usually offer their victim's rides now do they?" He grinned wolfishly, leaning back and draping his arm over the passenger's seat. "I reckon they usually take by force, but I s'pose I wouldn't know since I ain't one."

A frown tugged at your lips, your eyebrows furrowing in thought for a moment. "I guess you're right..." You didn't really know much about serial killers either if you were being honest. Well, not enough to know how they rounded up their victims anyway.

He grinned wider, as if he could tell that you were doubting yourself, and he found it amusing. "So, how 'bout it then? You gonna get in?"

"Promise you ain't gonna like kidnap me or somethin'?" You asked softly, apparently trusting that he would tell the truth.

His grin softened into a warm smile, and he chuckled lowly as he brought his free hand up to place over his chest. "Cross my heart and hope to die."

You nodded, seeming to accept this as an accurate description of his intentions or rather, lack thereof. You picked up your suitcase and put it into his truck bed, all the while he watched you intently, his gaze lingering on the tantalizing view of thigh that your dress provided.

You climbed into the passenger's seat, pulling the cowboy hat off your head and placing it on the dash before closing the door and buckling yourself in. You weren't really sure where this handsome stranger was going to take you, and that's when it dawned on you that you had gotten into his car without even knowing his name.

You looked over at him, finding him already staring intently at you. You offered a shy smile, your fingers playing with the hem of your dress as you softly told him your name.

"Pleasure to meet you," he said, his deep southern drawl causing your name to roll off his tongue with a warmth akin to the way the summer sun had heated your skin. He put the truck in gear, the engine purring as he continued down the desolate highway. "Name's Rafe," he introduced himself, his gaze darting to you.

"The pleasure's all mine Mr. Rafe," you said politely. The man was not that much older than you—maybe two or three years—and thus was probably nowhere near old enough to regard as Mr, but you were taught that it was respectful to do so.

He grinned at the title, his fingers flexing on the steering wheel. "Just Rafe's fine, darlin'," he insisted, casting you a sideways glance, his gaze lingering on your lips as you smiled shyly.

"Okay," you nodded, looking down at your lap as you fiddled with your dress. Rafe was awfully handsome, the hottest guy you'd ever seen by a longshot—not that that was a huge feat—and you found yourself extremely nervous with the fact that you were alone with him.

"So, what are you doin' out here all alone?" He asked, casting you a questioning glance as he took his eyes off the road briefly. "You didn't say earlier." His gaze fell to your lap, watching as your fingertips brushed the edge of your dress repeatedly, the fabric having ridden up due to your sitting position and revealed even more of your soft looking thighs.

You shrugged in response, just as you had earlier. You didn't really know how to explain your situation, and you hardly wanted to trauma dump on someone you barely knew, especially when you'd be in such close quarters for God knows how long. "I'm just... travelin'."

"Travelin'?" He echoed curiously, quirking an eyebrow. His grip tightened on the steering wheel as his gaze dropped to your thighs once more, the fabric of your dress inching up even more as you absentmindedly fiddled with it. He knew he shouldve been focused on the road and not his pretty passenger, but you were making it hard—in more ways than one. "What's got you on the road by yourself?"

"It's a long story," you mumbled, looking up and casting your gaze out the window, watching the scenery blur by as he did 80 on the interstate.

He hummed, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel rhythmically as he looked back at the road. "You runnin' from somethin', sugar?" He asked curiously, your evasive nature leading him to believe that there was more to the story.

You rubbed your sweaty palms on your dress, something your father would have scolded for being unladylike. Your gaze darted to the cowboy hat on the dash as you spoke. "More like runnin' toward somethin'."

"Toward?" He asked curiously. "So, where you headed then?" He prompted, his fingers stilling their movements as he looked over at you again, trying to read your expression.

A smile pulled at your lips as you turned to him, your eyes locking for a moment. "It's more of a... metaphorical somethin'."

His eyebrows raised, intrigued by your cryptic response. Everything about you seemed to intrigue him. You were one big mystery wrapped up in just about the prettiest package he'd ever seen. "Metaphorical, huh?"

"Yknow, you got this tendency to just repeat what I say back to me in question form," you grinned, your tone slightly teasing as you settled more comfortably into conversation with the man. You examined his side profile carefully as he turned back to the road.

"And you got a tendency to talk in circles," he replied with a grin of his own, his eyes flicking back to you briefly before returning to the road. He liked looking at you, even if for a brief moment.

You thought for a moment, deciding that perhaps Rafe deserved a bit of an explanation, given that he was nice enough to give you a ride and all. "I ain't going nowhere specific," you shrugged, your eyes finding the cowboy hat again. "Just... looking for somethin' bigger, somethin' better, I s'pose."

"Bigger and better than what?" He prompted, casting another sideways glance at you. His gaze lingered on the way your lips parted as you spoke, feeling himself twitch in his jeans. He was a man that liked understanding things. He didn't like being on the outside looking in. He wanted to know everything. He was curious; it was in his nature.

"The life I had before," you said, your tone growing solemn, gaze never wavering from the worn cowboy hat as memories flashed before you.

He noted your shift in demeanor and the way you were staring at the hat like you were willing it to turn into something. "What's the deal with that?" He asked, feeling like he needed to know.

"It was my daddy's old hat," you smiled reverently. "He um- he died a couple years back," you explained, clearing your throat and tearing your gaze away to look out the window.

"I'm sorry, sugar," he said sympathetically. He wasn't the best at comforting people, but he wanted to try. He took one hand off the wheel, placing it atop one of yours on your lap, and as much as it was not the time, he couldn't help the way his dick hardened further at the feeling of your soft skin under his rough, calloused hand.

"'s fine," you felt your cheeks warm at the feeling of his large, warm hand on yours. Despite yourself and the topic of conversation, butterflies erupted in your stomach.

He left his hand there, feeling a bit like he was taking advantage of the situation but unable to pull himself away. He liked the way your lips parted and your eyes widened ever so slightly when he touched you. "So you're both runnin' toward and away from somethin' then?"

"Yeah, I s'pose," you nodded. He reluctantly pulled his hand back to the steering wheel, readjusting himself in his seat to find a more comfortable position for his hard-on. You found yourself missing his touch, his skin leaving a lingering sensation on yours.

He was hyper-aware of every little movement and sound you made. The way you shifted in your seat, the little hitch in your breath, the way your thighs pressed together. He swallowed thickly, trying to focus on the road, his jaw clenching as he tried to get a handle on his body's reaction to you.

"So, what about you?" You prompted, glancing over at him. You had told him a bit about yourself and thought it only fair you got some information in return.

"Me?" He asked, his voice a bit gruff. He cleared his throat, trying not to let his gaze wander to the way your dress's neckline dipped, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of your chest. "Well, I'm headin' home. I've been away for a couple months, workin' on a ranch up north." He said, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel as he continued to drive.

You hummed in acknowledgement. "Did you like it?" You asked awkwardly, not really knowing what else to say. You weren't awfully good at carrying conversations.

"It was alright. Good money, good people, but it ain't home." He said with a small shrug. "'Sides, I got a lot of responsibilities back home. Family 'n all that. Couldn't stay away forever."

You nodded, listening to him explain. You were a little intrigued. You'd never been anywhere outside your home town. You yearned to travel, to see what the world—or at very least the country—had to offer beyond small town gossip and local church services.

He glanced at you, wondering what was going on inside that pretty little head of yours. He wanted to know more about you, wanted to know everything. He wanted to know what you were planning to do now, why you'd actually run from home, what you tasted like, how you'd sound moaning his name, how tight you'd be wrapped around him.

You pondered your next steps during this beat of comfortable silence. You were starving, so food seemed like it needed to be the first stop on this little roadtrip of yours. Then, you figured you'd find a bus stop and hop on the first bus outta town, letting fate decide where to take you.

As you sat there lost in thought, he was watching you intently between bouts of watching the road. He noticed the way your gaze would occasionally drift out the window, the way your hands would fidget with the hem of your dress, the way your lips would purse slightly as you seemed to be debating something in your head.

"You can just drop me at the next town," you finally spoke up, turning to look back at him as you seemed to have made up your mind. A semblance of a plan was better than no plan at all. Besides, what would this new life be without a little of the unknown. You had no idea when you left that morning that you'd run into a handsome cowboy, and that had turned out to be incredibly thrilling for you.

He frowned at the prospect of you leaving him so soon. You'd only just met, but he found himself wanting to spend more time with you. "The next town?" He repeated, echoing your words back to you again like he'd done before. "And, what's the plan when you get there, huh, sweetheart?"

"Gonna catch a bus," you shrugged noncommittally. "Go wherever the wind takes me."

He let out a short, humorless laugh, clearly expressing his disproval for your so-called plan. "You ain't never been nowhere before, have you?" He asked, already knowing the answer. You seemed so innocent, so naive. He couldn't just let you wander off alone, could he?

"Well... no," a small frown tugged at your lips. "But that's kinda the whole point of goin' where the wind takes me," you said, crossing your arms over your chest.

He shook his head, his hands tightening on the steering wheel. "That's a fool-proof way to end up in some real trouble, you know. A pretty little thing like yourself, wanderin' 'round alone. You could end up anywhere, with anyone."

"Well, thus far, I've ended up here, with you," you pointed out with a small smile. "So, I'd say my plan is workin' pretty well so far."

"That's only 'cause I'm a gentleman," he said, his eyes flicking briefly to yours. You couldn't help but wonder what if he wasn't such a gentleman. You weren't completely naive. You knew about sex and had always wondered what it was like, and now, with this incredibly sexy man before you, you found your thoughts particularly impure.

He watched the way your tongue flicked out to wet your lips, the way your breathing picked up ever so slightly. He could practically see the wheels turning in that head of yours. "What're you thinkin' 'bout, sugar?"

"Oh, um, nothin'," you said softly, your body heating up as his voice, so low and husky—definitely not helping your situation—tore you from your thoughts.

"Nothin', huh?" He drawled, not believing you for a second. He had been with enough women to know that look on your face, and he was pretty sure he had a good idea of where your thoughts were headed.

You bit your lip nervously. You knew he had at least some attraction to you because you had eyes. You could see the bulge in his jeans but had done everything you could to resist staring at it, despite the growing urge to reach out and touch it. You wanted to see him, feel him, maybe even taste him, but you were completely out of your depth here.

"You're thinkin' 'bout somethin' that's makin' you bite your lip and press them pretty little thighs together," he said, his voice low and sultry. "So, why don't you just tell me what it is, hmm?"

You looked over at him, your eyes widened a bit at his forward words, also at the fact that he had noticed. Though, it wasn't exactly like you were being discrete. "Wh- I- well, it's not very ladylike," you replied sheepishly.

"Sugar, there ain't nothin' ladylike 'bout the way I'm feelin' right now either," he said, his hand moving from the steering wheel to rest high up on your thigh.

You couldn't help but laugh at his choice of words, looking up at him through your lashes as you tried to find the words. "I don't know how to um- say it." You said, your heart beating nervously in your chest at a speed that doctors would probably find concerning.

"Then show me," he encouraged, his hand slowly inching higher up on your thigh. "You can do that, can't you? Show me what you were thinkin' about?"

You hesitated before nodding. You couldn't believe you were about to give a man you'd just met head for the first time in your life, but your body was moving quicker than your brain, unbuckling your seatbelt. You pulled your legs onto the seat underneath you, kneeling on the worn leather with your body facing him. You looked at him for confirmation before you made another move.

"Atta girl," he praised, his voice husky with desire. His hand moved to the back of your head, fingers threading through your hair encouragingly. "Go on, sugar. Show me what that pretty mouth can do." He shifted in his seat, spreading his legs wider to give you better access.

The lack of center console in the old truck was a blessing as your fingers fumbled with his belt. You were already nervous, and you knew you didn't have to tell him that you'd never done this before because it was written all over your face.

He watched with an amused smirk as you struggled with his belt for a moment. He found your inexperience endearing. After a beat, you finally managed to undo his belt, your shaky hands moving to his jeans, popping the button and unzipping them with much more ease.

"That's it, baby. You're doin' just fine," he encouraged, his voice strained with barely contained desire. His hips lifted slightly to help you tug his jeans and boxers down just enough to free his hard cock, the tip flushed and glistening with precum. You took in a sharp breath, your eyes widening a little. You'd seen one before but never in person and never quite that big.

"Wrap your hand around it, sugar," he instructed, his voice low and commanding. His hand tightened in your hair as you wrapped your hand around the base tentatively. "Just like that. Now, stroke it. Nice and slow." You followed his directions, slowly running your hand up and down his hard length, coaxing a low groan from his throat as his hips jumped just a little at the feeling of your soft hand on him.

"Fuck, that feels good," he groaned, his head falling back against the headrest and his grip on the wheel tightening. "Now, put that pretty mouth on me." You wrapped your lips around his hot tip, sucking gently and coaxing his precum onto your tongue.

"Mmmm... That's it, sugar. Just like that," he praised, trying to keep his eyes on the road and the truck in the correct lane. His hand guided your head, his hips gently bucking forward as he slowly pushed himself deeper into your mouth. "You're doin' so good, baby."

Your fingers flexed around the base of his cock, your grip tightening ever so slightly as yoy took more of him into your mouth, your brows furrowing in concentration while you did. "Relax your throat, baby. You can take more of me," he coached gently, his hand tightening in your hair. You did as he said, trying to relax and take more of him into your warm, wet mouth. "That's it, sugar."

The combined sounds of your heavy breathing mingled with the wet noises his cock was making as it slid in and out of your mouth. You gagged a little as the tip of his cock nudged your uvula, triggering your body's built-in safety feature against choking.

He felt you gag and knew he should have pulled you back, reassured you that you could go as slow as you needed to and that there was no need to rush, but shit, you felt so good and seemed so eager; he couldn't bring himself to stop you.

He kept pushing forward, his cock hitting the back of your throat, forcing you to swallow around him. He could feel your throat constricting around his length, and it was the most incredible feeling. You whimpered around him, your nails digging into his thighs and eyes watering, but still, you didn't pull away.

Your little whimper only spurred him on, sending a vibration through him that had him moaning, his grip on your hair bordering on painful. "You're taking it so well, baby," he praised, his voice strained with pleasure. "Shit, I'm so close."

Not long after, his hips jerked forward, and he held you in place, his cock buried in your throat as he came hard with a groan, his hot cum shooting down your throat in thick, salty streams. The unfamiliar taste clung to your tongue, even after you forced the warm liquid down your throat and pulled off of him, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand.

He sat there for a moment, trying to catch his breath and calm his racing heart before he tucked himself back into his pants with one hand, his other keeping the truck steady. "You did so good, sugar. Real good." He murmured, his voice still husky from his orgasm.

You felt a wave of satisfaction roll over you at his praise, but you didn't know exactly what to do from here. Your plans hadn't changed just because you decided to expand your sexual horizons in the front seat of a barely-stranger's truck. Though, it felt a little awkward still asking him to let out you out at the nearest town after what you'd just done.

"We'll be comin' up to the next town soon," he said, as if reading your mind. "How 'bout you let me take you out for a bite to eat, and afterwards, if you still want me to drop you at the bus station, I'll oblige," he proposed, willing to do anything to spend more time with you.

You smiled, nodding. That seemed like a perfectly reasonable request to you. Besides, you had already planned on stopping for food before heading to the bus station anyway. "Okay, that sounds nice," you agreed softly, buckling yourself back in because safety first.

"I know a real good diner in town. They serve the best burgers and milkshakes this side of the Mississippi," he said with a grin, placing his hand back on your thigh, his thumb brushing back and forth across your skin. Your smile widened, stomach doing flips at his touch, and you found yourself thinking that maybe your adventure could wait just a little while if it meant spending more time in the handsome cowboy's presence.

tags .ᐟ   @starkeysprincess / @cometmultiverse / @iheartjjmaybnk / @all4l0vee /

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

Musician Age Gap AU Pt 4

Dropping Esme off at home turns into more than just a simple kiss and ride. She parks and walks Esme to the front door. The tears had petered out halfway home, but it had left Esme shaky and exhausted. And when Alex opens the door to welcome them home, she can barely get out a "how was it?" before Esme bursts into fresh tears and darts up the stairs to her bedroom.

Alex watches her daughter go, then turns back to Kara with an accusatory look. Kara sighs. "It's a long story."

"I'll put the kettle on."

Over tea, Kara gives her sister the rundown of the evening-- omitting certain bits of her own exhanges with Lena. By the end, Alex is stunned, but heartbroken for her daughter.

"The highest of highs, and lowest of lows," Alex moans. "I was already going to call her out of school tomorrow, but now I really need to."

Kara nods. "I hope she'll remember the night more for what actually happened than the fact she lost the pictures of it. She really did have a good time, til she realized."

"What a night," Alex sighs. "Well, thank you for stepping in. I know she appreciated the time with you, in any case."

"Yeah," Kara nods. "Me too."

"You should come over more. She's not the only one who misses you."

"Alex..."

"You're not the only busy, I get that, but it sucks being the only one to reach out."

Kara closes her eyes. They've had variations of this conversation before, but it didn't make it any easier to hear. It's been busy lately, the last few years. And she knows she's missing out on key times with Esme, but... she's never been very good at juggling.

"I know." Then, "I should go. I'll call the venue in the morning, see if maybe one of the cleaning crew finds the phone and turns it in to lost and found or something."

All Alex can do is nod. "Thanks."

All thoughts of the ticket in her pocket disappears until the next day. Her calls to the arena have been fruitless-- no one had found anything, and no amount of cajoling or bribery could make them devote manpower to look for it. So when she's emptying her pockets to run a load of laundry, she's so frustrated she's willing to chuck it into the sun.

Until she sees a loop of a swoopy letter written on it, half hidden by a folded crease. Puzzled, Kara smooths it out and flips it over-- and finds a phone number written across its face in silver sharpie.

Stunned, Kara stares at the offending digits.

"What the fuck?"

---

It's probably her manager, Kara reasons. Or her assistant, at the very least. But when she punches the number into her phone, driven by the echo of her promise to Esme in her ears, she instantly recognizes the voice that answers.

"Hello?"

Kara's mouth goes dry. "Uhhhhhh.... hi? Shit. I mean--"

"I'm glad you called," Lena interrupts smoothly. "I have a phone here that's sorely missing its owner."

"Oh thank god," Kara releases with a heavy sigh. "Thank you."

"Sorry we weren't able to catch you before you left. I didn't see it until late."

"Esme was heartbroken," Kara tells her, unnecessarily. "You've saved a life."

"Her life? Or yours?" There's a tease in Lena's voice.

Kara grins. "Both. Definitely both."

A chuckle rumbles across the line. "Well, how can we get this to you?"

"Oh, if you could ship it..."

"No need," Lena says simply. "We're in town for another day or so. Is there a place we can deliver it?"

Kara blinks, surprised. "Um, sure. I'll be at my office in an hour."

"Perfect."

Kara rattles off the address to her, then books it to the office, determined not to miss the delivery. She stays on edge for the first hour, but soon finds herself distracted by her work-- until her assistant knocks tentatively on her door before poking her head in.

One look at Eve's baffled and somewhat dazed expression sends a bolt of electricity down Kara's spine.

"Miss Danvers? Um... there's someone here to see you. She-- she says its a personal delivery?"

Kara is already on her feet. "I'll take care of it. Thank you, Eve."

"It's--"

"I know," Kara assures her.

"You... know her?"

Kara sighs. "It's complicated."

She makes her way to the lobby, finding Lena Luthor leaning casually against the front desk, completely unbothered by the gazes peeking at her from between frosted sections of the glass walls.

"If you'd have told me you planned to bring it yourself, I would've given you a different address," Kara says drolly. Lena looks up at her with a puckish grin. "You're about to give the entire office an aneurysm."

"Sorry, not sorry." Entirely unapologetic, Lena straightens, pushing softly away from the desk to face Kara directly.

Kara folds her arms across her chest, unable to help the smile spreading across her own features. Lena lifts an eyebrow, retrieving Esme's phone from her back pocket to waggle it teasingly.

"Thank you...." Kara reaches for it, only for Lena to tilt it out of reach. Kara rolls her eyes. "What?"

"I'm... gonna be honest," Lena drags out, smirking. "I didn't come here with truly altruistic purposes."

Kara resettles her weight, cocking one hip. "This is becoming a pattern with you, Miss Luthor."

"I'm only human, you know." She taps Esme's phone on her chin. "And I'm not above taking a teenager's phone hostage, if it gets me a coffee with a gorgeous woman."

Bold. Entirely *too* bold. But Kara can't quite bring herself to mind.

"You have me at a disadvantage," she returns. "I really need that phone."

"Then a coffee with a charming lady seems to be in your very near future."

Kara rolls her eyes. "Let me grab my purse."

Lena waits patiently, and Kara doesn't bother pausing to explain a damn thing to anyone. It's none of their business, and right now she's a woman on a mission.

To get her goddaughter's phone.

And absolutely nothing else.

[wheredidhiseyebrowsgo]

Do you know any bestfriend peter and stiles fixes no steter just really good best friends I just feel like there so underrated <3

Yeah!

Accident by Chattalgi

(1/1 I 964 I Not Rated I Sterek)

Stiles hurts himself.

Derek is there to help.

I’ll Go Through a Million Tragedies Just to Be with You by Ghosted_Redacted

(1/? I 993 I Not Rated I Stackson)

Stiles is suffering after the nogitsune, but that doesn’t mean he has to suffer alone. Sure, no one in town other than an (ex) homicidal werewolf, but that’s…fine.

But then he gets a call from London.

And maybe people do care.

(In other words: everyone suffers. But everyone also finds someone to love)

Two of Swords by pixieblade

(1/1 I 7,484 I Teen I Sterek)

Denial, blocking off emotions, avoidance of and not seeing the truth, stalemate, impasse.

---

They gather to stare at the orb. It's cold, where it should be warm. There's death, where life should flourish. One reaches out a hand, takes the freezing orb and presses it deep against his chest, sharing warmth and life and love.

'Breathe, little spark,' he whispers softly. Finding gentleness when it was once so lost to him. 'Breathe,' he coaxes. 'We're here. You're not alone anymore. Never again.'

The orb shudders in his embrace. Tears, like a melodic tinkling, dance across it's surface as it gives in and sinks into the heat of the other.

Never again, it repeats, and prays the other is right.

Wild (Blue Neighborhood) by BeautyOnFyre

(1/1 I 11,029 I Teen I Sterek)

Peter's lethargic body was unresponsive as he sat in the wheelchair, endlessly staring out the window of his hospital room. His side twinged a bit from the rough scrubbing the nurse had given his mottled flesh earlier and he ached to move even a finger.

"Uncle Peter?" The small voice was behind him in the doorway. He remembered that voice. Contrary to the title bestowed from the small girl that rounded his chair into his line of sight, Stiles Stilinski was not related to Peter at all.

Or how Stiles and Peter became best friends for life and brought Stiles into the Pack.

A Wolf's Ribbon by Dexterous_Sinistrous

(6/6 I 36,091 I Explicit I Sterek)

Derek had been coached on how to approach the child heir apparent while hundreds of eyes watched him. He kept his eyes focused on the cradle, leaning over the edge as best he could to see the baby everyone had been talking about.

Stiles smiled when he saw Derek, kicking his legs out as he reached a hand up for him. He cooed at Derek, his fingers grabbing at the older boy in an attempt to touch him, all to no avail. He gurgled out a laugh when Derek reached a hand down into the cradle, snatching hold of his fingers as best he could.

Derek offered a small smile in response, allowing Stiles to playfully tug on his hand.

The two children made an adorable sight before the Court and their parents. That was the moment Queen Talia and King John decided to arrange their marriage. Every second was planned out without the voiced concern of the children.

It takes a village by pixieblade

(32/? I 78,312 I Mature I Sterek)

Stiles is tired. He's tired of always having to defend himself to his so-called best friend. He's tired of being ignored and he's tired of the Pack never having his back.

So this is his line. He'd draw it in the sand, but all he has is a glitter sharpie.

It'll have to do.

Baseball Bats and Sour Wolves by Erin1324

(68/? I 84,425 I Teen I Sterek)

Derek is cursed with some sort of spell, and for some reason only responds to Stiles as a result. He tries to attack everyone else, even his Alpha, he's also acting super overprotective of Stiles, hardly letting anyone get close to him.

Joining the Fang Gang by AClosedFicIsNeverRead

(21/? I 87,645 I Explicit I Sterek)

“Lydia? Lydia, look at me,” Derek urged, a slight tremor in his voice as he fought to be gentle with her despite his alarm. She blinked through tears and struggled to meet his gaze as he crouched in front of her. “What did you see?”

“Forest… It’s dark… His Dad is screaming for him…” Her lips trembled as she shook her head and gasped, “Oh, God… He’s dying, Derek. I can feel it… It hurts so much… Oh, poor Stiles…”

- OR -

The one where Stiles is turned into a vampire, hides it from the pack, and tries to manage his new 'condition' without them noticing.

[shojizbae]

Just take yourself back to 2006

Tom Kaulitz x Reader

It's the later days of MySpace and the early days of YouTube, and Tokio Hotel is starting to take off. Fan girls are really beginning to amass, and the world getting very familiar with Tokio Hotel. One young German girl had since seen the band and their aesthetics and decided to change her appearance almost entirely. One walk down to the convenience store later, she locked herself in the bathroom for the night. She pulled an all-nighter, and when she emerged from her bedroom the following day, her mother jumped at the sight.

Gone was the good little Jewish girl she had raised. Drugstore eyeliner was coating your waterline. Different locks of your hair were bleached or had been dyed neon pink. Your once sensible collared shirts and khaki pants had been exchanged for a pair of low-rise bootcut jeans you accidentally bought when out with your great aunt. A lack of cool bras was exchanged for a leopard print bikini layered under a white camisole, which you had tied around your waist. You had taken a sharpie to your nails, and your lips were drenched in strawberry glaze lip gloss.

"Oh, good morning, liebe!" your mom quivers behind the batter bowl. "Do you want pancakes?"

"Nein, I'm going to the mall with some friends." you look disinterestedly at your pink razor. Just then, your mom notices that you're dragging a bag of clothes behind you

"What are you doing with those?"

"I'm not going to wear them anymore, so I will sell them to one of those charity shops. Yeah, and I think I will go to the music store, so can I have 50 euros?"

"Why don't you ask your father?"

"Ugh, fine." You sling the trash bag over your shoulder, and your mother is not happy when you return with a hundred euros in your hand. God dammit, you have your dad in your back pocket, your mom remembers. You walk into town, sell your old clothes, get another hundred euros, and then take your new look for a spin. The bus ticket only eats up two of your euros, and when you get to the mall, you instantly grab the attention of some emos.

They take you under their skinny wings and drag you around Hot Topic. You're dragged through Victoria's Secret, and the girls show you the most natural push-up bras in the subtlest shades of neon magenta and bedazzled turquoise. They show you the matching G-strings and outfit you with all the best.

All your brand new best friends take the bus home with you and show you all the best music. Your parents aren't home, so you drag four random kids to your apartment. Your parents were horrified when they got home. Sure, it was natural to experiment at your age, and sure, 15 was a little old to still have horse posters up in your bedroom, but this was a real change.

Posters of men in tight leather pants with piercings covered your bedroom walls. Your sensible synagogue clothes had been smushed in the back of your closet to make room for miniskirts and ripped-up band tees. Your father nearly passed out when he saw that not only was your tongue pierced but also your eyebrow on your precious face? When they asked you what spurred on this change, all they got was

“What? I’m not your little girl anymore.” Your new friend may have overstayed their welcome, playing loud, trashy metal and eating all your snacks, but it was with you when Jax, a tall, spindly emo with purple highlights, said he would teach you how to make out with someone. You were just barely getting to second base when your mom walked in with a plate of carrots and hummus and sharply kicked all the kids out.

The next few months were a living hell of wresting you out of baggy jeans so your parents wouldn’t be kicked out of Temple. For that, you would abide because you did enjoy faith and your relationship with god, but as soon as you got back to the apartment, you would smear makeup on and practice with your new shitty Yamaha.

Getting more immersed in alternatives styles and culture you started posting covers of Metallica and eventually Tokio Hotel. Your covers start gaining traction some for your musical finesse and others for your looks. Accidentally you get really famous in almost a few months. When you start making money off your live shows, your mom takes over as your manager. She didn't like her 9-5 anyway.

When your gigs start making enough money to pay the bills for your dad, he lightens up on his disdain for your art. Slowly, you begin jotting down poetry, posting short videos of you noodling on your old acoustic guitar. Slowly, you sign a one-album contract with Universal Music Germany. While you juggle school and micro-fame, you spend every weekend at their recording studio.

It's one warm May Saturday when you meet him. You're both reaching for the same bottle of Coca-Cola when you brush his hands.

"Oh, entschuldigung!' you chime and continue reaching for the glass bottle.

"Entschuldigung," his slightly deeper (although still mid-pubescent) voice echoes as he reaches for the bottle. Your hands wrap around the neck as you stand together. Twin eyes flick from the bottle to each other. You relinquish the bottle and take a step back.

"Oh, I just wanted some soda." You offer kind of weakly

"Yeah, it was getting hot in the recording booth." He replies

"Oh, you're an artist. I thought you were some spoiled singer kid." You bend over to look for a different soda in the refrigerator and find that all that's left is carbonated lemonade. You ignore the gut feeling that the boy with your soda is checking your ass out. "So, are you a soloist?" You crack off the lid and flick it into a nearby trashcan

"No," I'm the guitarist at Tokio Hotel." You choke on your drink. "You don't know who I am?"

"You're Tom Kaulitz?" Your voice cracks as you point at him. You give yourself a chance to study his face, the lip piercing, the dreads, the eyes. He looks more normal than his usual promotional photos.

"You've probably heard this before, but I'm a really big fan." His face shows a wash of emotions before he settles on a bit of a snide smile.

"Really?" He steps a little closer, turning up the charm

"So are you some rich spoiled little nepo-girl. Usually, they make pretty hot babies." with his soda at his waist, he lifts your chin to look him in the eyes. "I mean, you're pretty hot, so you must be." you lean against the wall and tilt your hips toward his.

"Nein, I'm an artist. You're not too bad looking yourself, Tom Kaulitz from Tokio Hotel." You slowly take the Coca-Cola from his hand and take a sip. He gulps at the sight of you holding eye contact as you swallow. Slightly, you hand him back the bottle and duck out of his hold. He watches in awe as you strut to your recording booth. Tom rakes a hand down his face as he watches your ass move, and his band members join him in the break room.

"Who's the babe?' Gustav slings an arm over his shoulder

"My future wife." Tom holds back from a whimper exiting his mouth

[iamnotoriginalphil]

Early Morning Coffee (Larissa Weems x Reader)

Synopsis: You have a new favourite customer

Words: 2.1k

Warnings: none

You’d been warned about the people from Nevermore. Whispers around town told you the kind of freaks they were, the trouble thye caused, how little people wanted them around. Being new in town, people had been more than willing to fill you in. It left you with a feeling of apprehension of when you might have your first experience with Nevermore.

Despite it all, you weren’t prepared for your first glimpse of someone from Nevermore.

Working as a barista wasn’t the worst job you’d had. You enjoyed it, being able to meet all kinds of people. Chatting and seeing the same people every day, it was soothing. It gave you a nice routine. Plus, you’d always loved working with your hands.

It was an early morning, sunlight filtering through the wide open windows. The Weathervane was light and airy despite the name, and the woody smell mingling with the coffee beans behind the counter calmed your heart. With a damp rag you wiped down the counter, the repetitive movement putting you in the right head space for the day.

The little bell above the door jingled. You looked up, smiling at your first customer of the day. Your smile froze on your face.

Walking up to the counter, high heels clicking on the floor, was the most gorgeous woman you’d ever seen. Statuesque, tall, pale skin almost glowing in the sunlight, her bright blue eyes pinned you in place. Red lips quirked up in a smile, and her silver hair was swept up, showing off the long line of her neck. You couldn’t do anything but watch her walk towards you, hips swaying. You hadn’t had the pleasure of seeing her before, of that you were certain.

“Hello,” she said and you could have melted on the spot at her voice. Deep and husky, it wrapped around you, stroking your brain just right. You would have been happy to listen to her all day every day for the rest of your life.

“Hi,” you squeaked out. She gave you an indulgent smile.

“Could I get a take away black coffee and one of those delightful looking pastries?” she asked.

“Of course, what size would you like?” you asked, finally able to move. Your fingers trembled as you made your way over to the register.

“As large as you have,” she replied, chuckling, “I sense it’s going to be a trying day.”

“A day worthy of an IV full of caffeine,” you said, nodding along, “I’ve been there.”

“I can imagine you need to be on top of your game working here,” she said.

“Only during the breakfast rush,” you said, trying for an airy laugh but worried you’d come off as insane, “can I get a name for the order?”

“Larissa.”

“Larissa,” you repeated, liking the taste of it on your tongue, “it’ll just be a couple of minutes.”

You looked up from behind the machine, watching as she lowered herself into one of the booths. She caught your eye and you ducked back behind the machine, cheeks heating up. You picked up the coffee cup, uncapping the sharpie in your hand with your mouth. You paused a moment, before putting pen to paper.

“Larissa,” you called out.

It was completely unneeded, given she was the only other person in the shop. You enjoyed the way she looked at you as she rose, so elegant in every movement. Each step another sway of the hips, making your mouth grow dry.

You handed over the paper bag and the cup, disappointed all that brushed against your fingers were soft gloves. You gave her a smile. You enjoyed seeing her face but watching her walk away was also a pleasure.

She paused outside the door, looking down at the cup. A flush coloured her cheeks. You watched her mouth form the words, reading the message you’d left on her cup.

You’re beautiful

She glanced back over her shoulder at you. You lifted your hand in a wave. She quickly looked away, footsteps hurrying down the street. You smiled to yourself, loving that you were able to make such a woman flustered.

The next morning, you waited in anticipation, wondering if you’d see her again. Hoping you’d see her again, more like. Smiling to yourself when you saw the towering figure walking past the window, your heart skipped a beat. The bell tinkled and you looked up, offering your best smile.

“Larissa,” you said, “black coffee.”

“You remember,” she said, a slow smile spreading over her face.

“I make a habit of remembering the orders of beautiful women,” you said, deciding you’d already made your move and she’d come back. Time to go for gold. The flush on her cheeks and the sparkle in her eye was worth the moment of courage it took.

“I’m sure you’ve memorised a lot of orders then,” she said, tugging on her gloves at her wrist, avoiding looking at you.

“So far there’s only been one person worthy of it.” That might have been a step too far.

“I’m honoured,” she said, a look of surprise crossing her face.

You began making her the coffee, the largest you had. She lent against the counter, those enigmatic eyes watching you work. There was something so enjoyable having her watch you, a shiver of pleasure going down your spine.

“You must flirt with a lot of customers,” she said, “you’re rather good at it.”

“I see no other customers here,” you said, “only you.”

The pretty blush on her cheeks was the best thing you’d ever seen. Two interactions and you were ready to pledge your life to causing that look on her face forever. You ducked down, putting a pastry into a paper bag and quickly scrawling a message on the cup.

You passed her the cup and the bag. Her eyes swept over you before she took them, a small smile gracing her features. You were so enamoured, just wanting to stare at her. There weren’t enough seconds to drink up how beautiful she was.

“Thank you,” she said, practically purring the words.

She turned, giving you a view you wanted burned into your brain. She paused, halfway to the door, inspecting her coffee. She turned to glance at you over her shoulder. You shot her a wink.

Caution: Almost as hot as you

You kept the image of her swaying hips in your mind for the rest of the day.

You were expecting her the next morning, waiting with anticipation for the bell to ring. So you waited. And waited. Until you began to deflate, thinking she wasn’t coming back in. You’d pushed too hard, been too forward, and now she wasn’t ever going to come back in.

The bell ringing was coming more and more frequently, and with each new customer your hope slipped another notch downwards. It wasn’t until late in the afternoon when you looked up from the register, finding her towering figure standing in front of you, a smile on her face. She’d kept you waiting, and you thought she’d done it on purpose.

Still, that didn’t stop your breath catching at the sight of her.

“One black coffee, coming right up,” you said, doing your best to ignore the fluttering in your heart.

“Such service,” she said, “I’ll have to leave a good review on Yelp. Make note of the wonderful barista.”

Your cheeks warmed from the compliment. You ducked your head, finding the paper cup and scribbling your note onto it. When you glanced up again she was watching you, a pleased smirk on her face. Perhaps you weren’t the only one who enjoyed flustering the other.

“Take a seat, it’ll be ready in a moment.”

You couldn’t help but watch her make her way to one of the booths. She was like the sun, drawing you into her orbit, giving you life. You could bask in her glow for the rest of your life.

You placed the cup down on the table in front of her.

“Coffee for Larissa,” you said.

“Table side delivery, I am a lucky girl,” she said, looking up at you. You couldn’t help but imagine her looking up at you under very different circumstances.

“I aim to please,” you said on a shaky breath.

“I’m sure you do.” Did her voice just deepen? She was going to be the death of you.

“Oi, keep your flirting to your own time,” your manager called over to you. You glanced guiltily over your shoulder at her. Larissa chuckle drawing your attention back down to her.

“I get off in half an hour,” you said, “perhaps you can wait around until I’m done.”

You spent the rest of your shift very aware of her eyes on you. It made it difficult to focus on your job, knowing she was watching. No one had ever had this effect on you. It was making your head swim.

The moment the clock ticked over you had your apron off and were around the counter. You slid into the seat across from her, finding those lips curled up at your eagerness.

“‘You are more dazzling than the moon’?” she asked, quirking an eyebrow.

“You do dazzle me,” you replied, “you must have noticed.”

She bowed her head in acknowledgment, a wide smile gracing her features. Glancing around you could see wary eyes turned in your direction. You stood, offering your arm to her.

“Shall we get out of here?” you asked.

“I would be delighted.”

She slipped her hand into the crook of your arm. You led her out onto the street, strolling with a calm gait, revelling in the moment. You wanted to stretch out your time with her, until it spiralled into infinity.

“You’re new in town, aren’t you?” she asked.

“One month and counting,” you replied, flashing her a smile.

“Finally something worth making the trek into town for,” she said. Your heart pounded hard in your chest.

“You don’t live in Jericho?” you asked.

“No, I live on the school’s campus,” she replied, sounding unsure. You paused.

“You’re from Nevermore,” you said, puzzle pieces sliding into place. You couldn’t believe you hadn’t seen it before. No one normal looked like this. Only someone special could be that beautiful.

“You didn’t know.” It wasn’t a question, more of a statement at your realisation.

It wasn’t a surprise you hadn’t realised before. She was nothing like all those descriptions from the other people in town. They’d suggested that Nevermore was full of monsters wearing the skin of people. Larissa was… well she was hardly a monster. You couldn’t imagine her every terrorising townsfolk or causing chaos. She was calm, like a deep water, hardly one for mischief.

“I can see I’ve shocked you,” she said, “I’ll leave you to your afternoon.”

She slipped her hand from your arm, turning away. You wanted to see her face, desperation clawing at your heart.

“Wait.”

You grabbed at her arm, not caring if you were making a scene on the street. She froze, slowly turning to look down at your hand on her arm. You jerked back, certain it wasn’t a welcomed touch anymore.

“Sorry,” you said, “but I’d like you to stay. If you want. If you don’t want to then yes, go. But don’t leave on my account. I’m enjoying your company.”

“Even after discovering where I’m from?” she asked.

“We can’t help who we are,” you said, offering her a shaky smile.

“I truly thought you knew,” she said, “most people recognise me.”

“I haven’t lived here very long,” you replied with a shrug.

“And no one warned you about us? About outcasts?” she asked.

You shrugged again, “idle town gossip is hardly the stuff of truth.”

“You can’t mean that.” She shook her head. You reached out to her again, laying your hand on her arm, loose enough to be easily shrugged off.

“You’ve been nothing but kind to me, hardly the way they paint Nevermore,” you said, “and if you’re willing, I’d like to continue this date.”

“Date?” She raised an eyebrow.

“Yes,” you said firmly, “date.”

She considered you for a moment, and you braced yourself for the inevitable rejection. You didn’t expect her to slip her hand through the crook of your arm again.

“I supposed I’d better be on my best behaviour then, or else I may not be offered a second,” she said.

“Have you not been on your best behaviour?” you asked, elation filling you.

“Darling, you’ll know when I’m not on my best behaviour,” she purred and it sounded like a promise.

You’d take your Nevermore woman over any of the other people in town any day, no matter the gossip.

[archangeldyke-all]

What about Sevika as a librarian👀

omg im crying

men and minors dni

it doesn't seem like it'd make sense at first, but if you think about it, it's a quiet job, and sevika loves quiet. it's a way to help people, and i think deep down that's all sevika wants to do. she also loves reading, so it's perfect for her.

sevika in glasses???? omg...

she loves helping people working on research projects. whether it's a kid doing their science fair project or a phd student scouring the shelves for an obscure academic publication. it's like a puzzle for her, scouring the shelves, searching the databases, helping someone find the answers they seek.

she swears she hates kids, but on thursday evenings she can be found reading aloud to the kids who come in for after school activities. the material isn't always appropriate for school aged children-- murder mysteries and horror stories-- but the kids love it and sevika tries to censor herself when she can remember.

she's a huge advocate for all the free services the library offers. always tells people about the electronics available for checkout, the job fairs they host every month.

you come into the library after moving to town, looking to get a new library card for your new city.

sevika's eager to clock out and go home, but she sees you waiting at the tail end of a long line of people wanting to check out books, and she sits her ass right back down in her rolling chair.

when you finally get to the front of the line, sevika gets tongue tied and flustered trying to help you.

you think she's cute, stumbling over her words and repeating your name under her breath when you give it to her.

you notice the little lesbian flag in her pen holder and grin.

"is that yours or is this a co-workers desk?" you ask, nodding to the flag. she chokes.

"m-mine." she grunts out. you grin.

"cool." you say. you pull your keys out of your back pocket, showing her your own pride keychain. "me too." you say. sevika gawks at you for nearly a full minute before she manages to pull her eyes back down to the screen in front of her.

she finishes printing and magnetizing your card, handing it over to you.

"you don't need my number?" you ask. sevika shakes her head no.

"your address and email are enough for a library c--"

"not for the card." you say. sevika freezes. you shrug. "sorry. thought we were flirting a bit." you say, embarrassed, collecting your new card and turning to leave.

"wait!" sevika shouts, scrambling to reach over the desk and grab your wrist. "yes. please. i'll take your number. if you want... to... give it to me." she finishes awkwardly. you grin, and grab a sharpie from her pen holder, jotting your number down on her hand.

she watches you go, ignoring the next customer until you're out of sight.

the first thing she does once you're gone is program your number into her phone, holding a finger up in a 'one second' motion to the patron standing before her.

she gets shit from him for being so slow, but it doesn't even bother her. nothing can bring her down now that she's got your number.

taglist!

@lesbeaniegreenie @fyeahnix

[scrumptiouskoalahottub]

☁️Happier, without you| Arthur Hill

Summary: you wake up one morning to see a note left beside your bed labelled "sorry" the contents made your world crumble.

You wake up to a crisp morning in London, a linger of Arthur's aftershave brushed your nostrils as you opened your eyes, you turn to cuddle him but he wasn't there. You see a white piece of paper propped against your lamp, you shuffle over to grab it it had a sharpie mark across it with the title "sorry" your brows furrow as you open the paper and start to read.

"Dear y/n, I'm sorry i had to do it this way but I didn't want you to try and talk me out of it, I love you, I truly do and it's not you, it's me; I've loved the time I've shared with you and the memories we've made, but I just can't see myself with you for a lifetime and I don't want to fill you with false hope, so I've left. I don't want you to call me, text me or try to make contact with me, I think it's for the best, once again I'm sorry. Your Artie"

Tears form in your eyes, a wave of heat fills your body as you jump out the bed, checking the wardrobe, the drawers, the bathroom everything of his existence had gone, like he was never here. You crumble to the floor, your heart beating rapid as you start to hyperventilate. You went to bed so happy last night, there was no indications of any upset. Your mind couldn't comprehend as you pick up your phone to call him despite his asks not to.

"The number you've dialled is not in service, please try again later"

A pit in your stomach gathered, why? Why? WHY? Did you do something? Has he found someone else? Is he okay? Your mind races at the thoughts, you rush to the kitchen everything Arthur has ever owned in this house was gone, you frantically pace. Tears streaming down your face, you call his friends. Non of them answer. You sink into your floor as you accept defeat, he was gone and he wasn't coming back. But where was he?

-

A week had past and no sign of Arthur, nor any indication of where he went, you were blocked on social media and any other interaction. Until Chris posts a story, there were in town a local pub you were familiar of. You pull your every muscle to not go, keeping your sanity. You sit and twiddle your thumbs, a mirage if you both plays in your head, you needed closure, you needed to know why. "Fuck it" you mutter as you get up, throwing some casual clothes on as you gather your car keys, heading to the car park. It takes you 10 minutes and you're there, you hands become sweaty at the thought. Scenarios play in your head like no other, what if he's with someone else, what if he hates you? What if?

You sink a gulp of spit and lock your car, making your way inside. You scope the bar, arthur not in sight. You order a half pint of Guinness acting as if you were out for a beverage, as you make your way to the back of the pub, a familiar voice rings in your ears "honestly, I've never been happier mate, a weight has been lifted" your stomach sinks, were you really that much of a burden to be with. The pub had an app ordering system, you decide order a drink to their table, checking the ones near to find out which one it was, you leave a note on the ordering receipt to be given to him.

"I'll forever love you and nobody will love you like I will, but I can see you look happier, you do"

As you place the order you sink your pint, hoping to walk past when he's recieved it as a parting gift, you see it being poured. Your heart sinks once again as the bar tender takes it over with the note in clutch.

"Oh I didn't ask for a receipt or order this" Arthur says to the bartender "no but someone else did that needed to reach you in some way" you see Arthur glance at Chris, having an inkling you were behind it. You stand up as you brush your t-shirt down. As you walk past their table, you catch his gaze; his hazel eyes glare at you as you send a soft smile "bye Artie" you say as you continue to walk out. A sense of relief washes over you, although you never found out why he left. The smile on his face told you that he needed to leave for whatever reason and that settled something inside of you.

-

🫶🏻

[doomedhowell]

'tis the damn season

Title: 'tis the damn season

Words: 2,438

Genre: AU + Fluff (coffee shop + minor bakery, grumpy x sunshine)

Summary: Dan is the coffee shop regular at the shop Phil just started working at. Phil quickly learns that Dan is a bit of a Grinch who refuses to try the shops' holiday drinks, or anything new really. Phil's determined to change Dan's mind about the holiday drinks.

Written for the @phandomgiftexchange

This fic was written for @heyitskoye! I had a lot of fun writing this fic and I really hope you like what I came up with. I came up with a coffee shop au tied in with the grumpy!dan x sunshine!phil trope which I personally love, so I hope you love it too ❤️ Happy Holidays!

[READ ON AO3]

Phil’s head snaps up as soon as he hears the doorbell ding, and smiles as soon as he sees a customer walk in through the door, the first customer he’s had in twenty minutes so he’s ready to serve. “Hi there! Welcome to The Bean Counter, how may I help you today? Would you like to try our new holiday drink?”

The man lifts his head up, a frown on his face. “You’re… new?”

Phil blinks, and he slowly nods. “Yes. I just started two days ago,” he says. “So, I guess I am new.”

“What happened to the one girl? Uh… Louise?” The brown-haired man asks. “She knows my order.”

“Afraid she’s not in today. She’s actually out of town for the weekend,” Phil explains to the customer. “But, I’m sure I'll still be able to help you. What can I get for you today? I strongly recommend-”

“I don’t want to try one of your annoying holiday drinks. I just want my coffee,”

Phil huffs, feeling himself slightly annoyed by the customer, but the quicker he makes this coffee, the quicker this customer can leave. He’s not going to let this Grinch ruin his perfectly good day. “Okay. Then what kind of coffee would you like me to make?”

“I would like an Americano,” the man grumbles, and he starts pulling out his wallet.

“That will be-”

“I know how much it is,” the man says, handing Phil a five dollar bill.

Phil stares at him for a moment, before taking the bill from him, and starts to pull out the change. “So, are you always this rude to people who make your coffee?”

“Excuse me? I’m not being rude. I just don’t have time to bother with your holiday drinks, and it is way too early in the morning to be so… chipper,” the man takes the change from Phil.

“We have a holiday drink designed after the Grinch. You should try it,” Phil says. “Name?”

“Daniel,” the man grumbles, and he crosses his arms against his chest.

Phil writes the name Daniel on the cup with a sharpie, before turning around so he can finally start making the Americano. How boring, Phil can’t help but think as he makes the drink.

Phil finally gets the coffee made, and he turns around so he can hand it to the customer. “Thank you, have a wonderful evening,”

“Unlikely,” the customer mutters before turning, and walking out of the coffee shop.

“Grinch,” Phil mutters under his breath, and he shakes his head.

“I see you’ve met the ever-so kind Dan,”

Phil looks over and sees the manager, PJ, who’s just walked out from the back. “He’s a regular?”

“Comes in every morning. He orders the same thing, and as long as I’ve known him, he’s never gotten anything but his usual.. I know I’m not supposed to tell you this, but I would recommend not recommending our holiday drinks to him. He’s never bothered to try any of them and gets grumpy when you try to recommend them to him,” PJ informs Phil.

“But, I mean, how could you not love the holiday drinks? They are the best part of the holiday season!” Phil exclaims. “And I’m saying this as a customer, not as someone who works here now.”

PJ chuckles, and he nods in agreement. “I agree. Unfortunately, not everyone agrees,”

Phil huffs once more. “I’ll get him to try one of our drinks,”

“If he comes back,” PJ says, and he shakes his head. “Anyways. Are you ready for your first break?”

“Yeah, I could use a break. Thanks PJ,” Phil says, and starts untying his apron. He gives PJ a smile before turning, and heading towards the back. He walks back to the break room, and plops down on the couch. Phil frowns as he sits there for a moment, staring at nothing, pondering over the interaction he had early with the customer, Dan, his name was. “Who hates holiday drinks?” He shakes his head.

Phil goes about his day, and eventually forgets about the Grinch who hates holiday drinks. He doesn’t think about it again until the next day, when Dan comes in at the same time.

Phil looks up, and freezes slightly when he sees the familiar brown headed man come into the shop.

Dan looks up, and seems just as disappointed to see Phil as Phil is to see him. “Oh. You again?”

“I work here. Still feeling just as Grinch as you were yesterday?” Phil asks in a calm tone, and starts getting Dan’s order up, because he made sure to remember what Dan’s coffee order was previously. Americano. It’s pretty simple to remember, and pretty easy for Phil to make. “You’ll get the Americano?”

Dan blinks as he stares at Phil. “Yes?”

“Excellent, and since you already know how much it is, you can just hand me your payment,” Phil says, unable to stop himself from smirking as he sees the surprised look on Dan’s face.

Dan stares at Phil as he hands him the money, and takes the change back from Phil. “Really? You’re not going to try and force your holiday drinks on me today?”

“Well, uh… do you want me to?” Phil asks. “Because, I can recommend some to you if you’d like me to. My favorite holiday drink is currently the peppermint mocha.”

Dan makes a disgusted face. “That sounds horrific. Peppermint mocha?”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds, y’know?” Phil says, and he turns around to start making the drink.

Dan stands there, quietly, watching as Phil easily makes his coffee drink. He’s impressed, because this is going a lot different than it was yesterday, and Phil’s not as unbearably chipper either.

Once finished, Phil turns around, and he writes the name Dan on the cup, before handing it to him. “Hope you enjoy it. I’m sure I’ll see you tomorrow morning,”

“Uh yeah. Thanks,” Dan mumbles before turning and exiting the coffee shop.

Phil grins, feeling proud of himself. No, Dan didn’t try one of their holiday drinks today, but he didn’t get all completely grumpy when Phil mentioned their Peppermint Mocha, and he was only mildly disgusted. But, Phil’s still determined to get Dan’s heart to grow three times bigger.

The next time Phil sees Dan, it’s not actually at the coffee shop. Phil’s in the local mall doing some Christmas shopping. There’s only a few weeks until Christmas and Phil needs to find his family the perfect Christmas presents for when he sees them on Christmas day.

Phil’s just gotten some hot chocolate and is about to turn to exit the bakery shop he’s in, when he bumps into someone. Luckily, he doesn’t spill his hot chocolate, because that would have been more of a disaster, and Phil would have felt extremely bad if he spilled fresh hot chocolate on a stranger.

“Oh my gosh. I’m sorry!” Phil exclaims, his eyes widening in panic.

“No worries, mate,”

Phil looks over at the man he ran into, and stops when he recognizes that it’s actually Dan. “Dan?”

The man’s head instantly snaps up, and it is indeed Dan. “Oh. I didn’t expect to see you here,” he says.

Phil lets out a soft laugh. “Yeah, I can say the same to you. Doing some Christmas shopping?”

“Yeah, kind of. My brother needed to go Christmas shopping and asked if I wanted to tag along, and I’m just grabbing things for my family if I see anything I like, so-” Dan shrugs his shoulders, and then he notices the cup in Phil’s hand. “You got hot chocolate and not your lame holiday drinks?” Dan smirks.

Phil rolls his eyes. “They are not lame. They’re delicious. Have you ever even tried one?”

“Nope, and I don’t plan to,”

“Dan! There you are!”

Dan looks over, and a younger boy runs up to him. “Adrian, I told you I was coming to the bakery,”

“Yes, but I got lost so it took me a couple extra minutes to find you,” the boy, Adrian, pouts. Dan’s brother looks over when he notices Phil standing there. “Do you know him?”

“Kind of. He works at the coffee shop I go to regularly. I told you about him,”

“Ah yes. I remember you mentioning him before, and how he dared recommend a holiday drink to you,” Adrian says, rolling his eyes, which makes Phil chuckle. “Honestly, you’re so dramatic, Dan.”

“I’m not dramatic!” Dan exclaims, and he glares at his younger brother, before looking at Phil. “Anyways. We need to get something to eat. I’ll uh, see you tomorrow morning?”

“I’m actually off tomorrow. But, I’ll be there the next day,” Phil tells him.

“Cool,” Dan says, and he clears his throat. “I’ll see you. Adrian, come on. The line is getting long.” He tugs on Adrian’s jacket, pulling him towards the line.

“So, that’s the coffee guy you have a crush on?” Phil hears Adrian say to Dan.

“Adrian!” Dan exclaims as his eyes widen in terror.

Phil can’t help but smile to himself, and quickly exits the bakery shop. He continues his Christmas shopping, but all he can think about is how Dan thinks he’s cute? He told his brother he thinks he’s cute? Of course, Phil thinks Dan is quite attractive. He can admit that, even when he thinks Dan’s a Grinch. But, Phil would have never dreamed that someone like Dan would think he’s cute.

When Phil is at work next, he can’t help but tell Louise about running into Dan.

“His brother was there, and apparently Dan thinks I’m cute!” Phil exclaims. “His brother said it.”

“You sound like a little schoolgirl who has a crush,” Louise laughs.

“Do you know how long it’s been since a boy has shown any interest in me whatsoever?” Phil asks, pouting. “Plus, a person like Dan never likes me. We’re total opposites.”

“Well, are you going to do anything about?” Louise asks, raising her eyebrows.

“I… I don’t know. Do you think I should?” Phil asks, biting his lip nervously.

“I think you should if you think you have a chance with him,” Louise says. “I mean, it would work, Phil. You would see Dan every day. I mean, as long as you don’t let a relationship get in your way of work.”

“Of course not,” Phil says, shaking his head. They both turn their heads when they hear their door bell go off, alerting them of a customer. Phil can’t help but smile as soon as he sees that it’s Dan.

“Speak of the devil. There’s your loverboy,” Louise whispers to Phil, smirking when Phil glares at him. “Have fun.” She giggles, and then she walks away.

Phil takes a deep breath, and walks over to the cash register. “So, we meet again,”

Dan looks up. “Hi,” he says.

“Come back for your usual?” Phil asks, getting ready to put Dan’s Americano into the register.

“Actually,” Dan begins, holding his hand out, stopping Phil. “I’d like to try something new today.”

Phil lifts his head up, surprised to hear this. He’s only known Dan a few days, but he knows from what PJ and Louise have told him that Dan never wants to try anything new. “Oh?”

“How about that Peppermint Mocha you were telling me about?” Dan asks.

Phil grins. “I think that would be perfect,” he says, and rings up a Peppermint Mocha for Dan. “Great. That will be five dollars and seventy five cents.”

“I’m sorry. That much for a drink?” Dan scoffs, but he gets out his money anyways. Ah, there’s the Dan that Phil knows. “Sounds a bit ridiculous if you ask me. The things I do for cute boys.”

Phil’s cheeks instantly turn bright pink, because he knows Dan is talking about him,  at least he thinks, and then he takes the six dollars from Dan, and quickly hands him back his change. He looks up at Dan again. “I’ll have your drink ready in a few,” he says. He turns around and starts working on Dan’s drink.

Phil makes Dan’s drink silently, and then he turns around and hands him his drink. “Peppermint Mocha, I really hope you enjoy your drink,” he says.

Dan’s grip tightens around the drink as he stares at Phil. “Yeah. I guess we’ll see,” he mutters, before turning and starting to head out the coffee shop without saying another word.

“Phil,” someone hisses. Phil looks over and blinks when he sees Louise standing by the employees door, looking unamused. “What on Earth are you doing? Go ask that boy on a date!”

Phil’s eyes widen, and he looks over at Dan, who’s about to exit the shop. He quickly hurries around the counter. “Hey Dan!” He shouts, before running over to him.

Dan blinks and he looks up at Phil. “Yeah?”

“Are you doing anything this Saturday?”

“Uhm,” Dan begins, and a smile on his face. “I don’t have any plans at the moment.”

Phil smiles back at him. “Well, how about we go see a movie together? I’ll buy dinner after,”

“Well, how can I say no to an offer like that?” Dan asks, and he laughs softly. “I’ll see you Saturday then?”

“Saturday it is. Here,” Phil says, and he pulls out a notepad, and he writes down his phone number, and hands it to Dan. “Text me later with your details. We’ll work something out.”

Dan raises his eyebrows as he takes the paper from Phil. “Of course you have a notepad in your apron,”

Phil huffs. “Don’t judge me. It comes in handy!”

Dan laughs, and he shakes his head fondly. “Whatever you say, nerd. I have to get to work before my boss yells at me for being late again. Thanks for the drink. I’ll let you know if I hate it,” he says, and winks at Phil, before finally walking out of the coffee shop.

Phil stands there staring at nothing, stunned, for a moment, because he has an actual date. With an actual boy. For the first time in who knows how long. “Holy shit,” he whispers, and then his eyes widen. “What am I going to wear?” He turns around and looks at Louise with terrified eyes.

Louise cheers, clapping for Phil. “Don’t worry, Philip. Louise is here to help,”

Phil can’t help but sigh in relief, because thank God for Louise.

Just a couple hours later, Phil gets a text from an unknown number ‘I didn’t hate the drink x’

Maybe Dan isn’t so much of a Grinch as Phil thought he was.

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

QUIT: a One-Shot Magnus Archives Fic

It’s a stupid-drafty manor—huge, never properly lit, all its frippery fraying at the edges. It has literal skeletons in the walls. It has too many rooms, a foyer right out of Crimson Peak, an empty cement hole with crumbling cherubs in the back yard that might have once been someone’s idea of a pond, and a library with more cursed books than Gerry could shake a match at.

The part of Gerry that once used Sharpies to blacken his eyebrows loves this place with a truly unholy passion.

If only it didn’t belong to the reason the world was going to end.

——-

Tragedy one-shot? Check.

Extinction Martin? Check.

Gerry/Jon if you squint? Check.

Bittersweet ending? Check.

Major character death. Y'all are warned.

AO3 link | Playlist

QUIT

“Really?” says Gerry.

Jon won’t look at him. Instead, he exhales, smoke funneling between his lips in a slow, controlled fog. “Really.”

Gerry rolls his eyes.

“I felt that,” says Jon, who isn’t looking at him, who doesn’t need to look at him anymore to know what Gerry does.

“So today’s a day of broken promises, is it?” says Gerry, leaning on the wall beside him. The brick shows through his arms; breeze picks up, erasing the evidence of Jon’s transgression, but doesn’t move Gerry’s long hair at all.

“I’m not breaking a promise,” says Jon. “I’m… relapsing.”

“Elias?” says Gerry.

“No,” says Jon, and takes another drag.

Gerry’s sigh matches pace with Jon’s exhale. Elbow on the wall, he props his head on his hand, watching Jon.

“So it’s floors and short walls, now,” Jon remarks, still not looking at him. “Or are you just pretending to lean on that? Getting a ghostly core workout? Or is it only horizontal structures that support you?”

Gerry laughs softly. “Keep asking, Archivist. I’m sure it’ll all make sense someday.”

“There have to be rules of some kind,” Jon says, and points at Gerry with the cigarette. “And you know not to call me Archivist.”

“If you’re going to be a twat, I get to call you what I want,” says Gerry.

Jon doesn’t rise to that, doesn’t respond at all, and that’s how Gerry knows it was really bad today.

Jon exhales again.

The smoke drifts away from them, lingering over dead grass, past the few old-growth trees in the back of the estate, dissipating in the direction of the town.

“So,” says Gerry, drawing the word out. “What’d he do?”

“Made me watch,” says Jon, which means exactly nothing.

“That’s every day.” And he guesses. “Did you finally find Martin?”

Jon’s jaw tightens. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s nice,” says Gerry, who never learned good boundaries growing up, who never lived in a world that rewarded them. “What was it then? Basira hot on the trail?”

“Fuck,” says Jon, so quietly it almost didn’t happen, and finally stubs out the cigarette on the wall. Defiantly, he leaves it there.

“You know that won’t upset Elias, right?” says Gerry as Jon walks away. “You’re littering, Dickavist.”

Jon pauses. “Pick it up yourself, then, unless the rules say you can’t,” he snaps, and walks away.

Wow. It was really bad today.

Gerry shrugs to no one and floats back inside.

#

Gerry still doesn’t feel things the way he should.  There’s a numbness there, silently stifling; it got really bad when Herbert and Montauk still had his book. When he still was a book.

But like his ability to touch, it’s been slowly getting better, too. Maybe it’s because of Jon, maybe not; this is all unknown territory.

One thing Gerry feels quite keenly now, as he floats inside: Elias is a monster, but damn, the man has taste.

It’s a stupid-drafty manor—huge, never properly lit, all its frippery fraying at the edges. It has literal skeletons in the walls. It has three cellars and an underground rail line to an abandoned coal mine. It has too many rooms, a foyer right out of Crimson Peak, an empty cement hole with crumbling cherubs in the back yard that might have once been someone’s idea of a pond, and a library with more cursed books than Gerry could shake a match at.

The part of Gerry that once used Sharpies to blacken his eyebrows loves this place with a truly unholy passion.

If only it didn’t belong to the reason the world was going to end.

“Still here?” says Elias, who manages to pull off the velvet dressing gown look. The man looks sleepy; he’s got tea in a china cup so fine that even the diffused light of this place makes it glow. “You’re free to wander, you know. You could go elsewhere and bother other people.”

Slowly, languorously, Gerry flips him off with both hands.

Elias sighs. “I will find your book, Mr. Keay. When I do, there are many things I could do with it that do not involve your… release. One might think you have better things to do than aggravate me in the interim.”

“One might think you have better things to do than suck a dick,” says Gerry with great cheer.

“So you talked to Jon.” Elias sips his tea.

Gerry doesn’t deny it. He knows he’s always bitchier after Elias has finished with Jon for the day, and he is long past the point where anything like that could embarrass him. “Get anything out of the daily torture session?”

“Yes,” says Elias. “Martin’s taken a primary school.”

Ah.

Gerry sighs. “Well, that explains that.”

“Indeed.” Elias sips. “Unfortunately, it seems to have brought out Jon’s more… obstreperous nature.. He walked out before we were finished. Quite inconvenient.”

Even knowing how awful he is, some days, Elias still takes Gerry’s breath away. “Wow,” Gerry says. “Wow.”

“Yes, yes. I’m quite the monster. If you see him, do tell him we need to continue, won’t you? Unless he wants more schools to be taken, of course.” And Elias continues down the hall toward whatever psychopath thing he has next on his agenda.

Gerry had been going to give Jon some space. Jon wasn’t fun to be around when he was in his head quite this deeply, but a school…

Children…

Gerry sighs. “Damn,” he mutters to himself, going through the trouble of walking up the stairs instead of floating.

He doesn’t want the Extinction to win.

He doesn't care that much about what any of the Fears are doing these days, particularly. But the Extinction just feels so… personal.

Offensive, Gerry realizes, and puzzles over that thought. He finds the Extinction offensive, and isn’t sure why.

He doesn’t bother to knock on Jon’s door.

#

Jon’s on the canopy bed, fully clothed, face down.

“Nice,” says Gerry, floating over. “I’d paint this, if I could still hold a brush. Call it, Perfectly Useless Despair, and hang it on the front wall.”

Jon is silent.

Gerry goes for broke. “Elias told me it was a school.”

“Primary school,” says Jon into his pillow. “Children. Small children, turned to pieces of warped plastic and concrete. Small children, their shadows ripped away from them with screams and transformed into Inheritors that only vanished in the sunlight because we got damned lucky. Children. Martin… Martin’s…” Jon stops.

Gerry climbs onto the bed and lies on his back next to Jon, staring at the faded canopy. “Well,” he says. “That sucks.”

Jon pushes himself up on his elbows just so he can scowl at him.

Gerry looks at him, expression mild.

Jon’s scowls are cute. Gerry wants to muss his hair. He suspects he might be able to, soon. He’s getting a lot better at touching things these days.

“So?” says Gerry. “What’s to be done about it?”

“Nothing,” Jon snaps. “That’s the… that’s the whole thing. There’s nothing to be done.”

“Not according to Elias,” says Gerry.

“Elias is wrong,” says Jon, just because.

“Then why are you still here?” says Gerry. “Letting him use you like this.”

He wonders if Jon has any idea how good his sad puppy look is. Probably not.

“Because he might not be wrong,” says Jon, softer. “What if I can stop him, somehow? What if I…” Jon flops back down, face into the pillow.

“I mean, you can’t,” says Gerry. “That’s not what you’re trying to do, remember? Not stop him. Expose him. But you still think you can save him instead, don’t you? Pull him back from the fire, and all that?”

“He doesn’t know what he’s doing,” says Jon into the pillow. “He’s not… evil. He’s lost.”

“I think you’re half right,” says Gerry. “He’s lost. He’s lost his hope, lost his way, lost everything. Thinks this is what has to happen, somehow. But he does know what he’s doing.”

Jon makes a small, heartbroken sound.

Gerry likes Jon’s sounds—he’s such a vocal person—but not the bad ones. Not this.

So he goes for truth as the only healing balm he knows.

“I can’t even see him like you do, and I know he knows what he’s doing. You won’t be able to help him if you don’t acknowledge that much.” Gerry’s tone isn’t gentle. He doesn’t really do gentle; it seems like false comfort, unfamiliar and cheap.

Jon shakes a little. Possibly crying.

Gerry purses his lips. “Hey.”

Nothing.

“Hey. Let me ask you this. If you could talk to Martin now—but not as he is now, before Peter got hold of him, and it all went wrong—what do you think he’d want you to do?”

“You sound like Elias,” says Jon, and the tightness in his voice says Gerry was right about the crying.

“Stab a man in the heart, why don’t you,” says Gerry. “Really, though. Would he ask you to just let him wander around doing this? Or would he ask you to stop him?”

“He’d ask me to save him,” says Jon, and they both know it’s a lie.

“Uh, huh,” says Gerry. “So you think he wants you to save him, while it’s costing lives. Not stop him. To let more people die while you try to figure out a way to rescue someone completely consumed by a Fear.”

No one can undo that. They both know it.

“I,” says Jon.

“First time he’s done children, right?” says Gerry. “Won’t be the last. He’s been building up to it.”

“I know,” whispers Jon.

Gerry sighs.

Gerry knows Elias is waiting upstairs in hopes that Jon will resume their session—this intense diving into the Eye via both their powers, extending Jon’s abilities, utilizing Elias’ experience.

It’s brutal. It’s violational. It’s increasing Jon’s strength tenfold by the day, and… that’s what seems to be needed.

The more keenly Jon can see Martin, the better chance he has of seeing past his protections, making him vulnerable, somehow. Because apparently, Martin can’t just be shot, or blown up, or whatever, so it’s going to require something extra.

No one from the other powers will go near him anymore. Not since Martin turned Peter Lukas into a pressed-ash statue of himself. Not since Martin reduced Jared Hopworth to a pool of grease like dirty fossil fuel. Not since Jude Perry’s fire turned toxic, and she burned, screaming, leaving weird, sulfurous smears all over the road.

The Extinction isn’t vulnerable in any of the usual ways.

But Martin Blackwood might be. Which would require seeing him, stripping him free like peeling off his skin. Gerry’s not fully clear on how it works because he was never an avatar of anything. Just knew how to work the system, like his mum.

It’s all a mess.

“So,” says Gerry. “I have a growing suspicion.”

“Good for you,” mutters Jon.

“I think you’re already strong enough to do it.”

Jon goes so, so still.

Bingo, Gerry thinks, and is inordinately pleased that he knows something Elias (possibly) does not. “I’ve got an idea.”

Jon grunts.

“Let’s go for a walkabout.”

Jon turns his head slowly to stare at him.

Oh, hi, Gerry thinks, because their faces are inches apart, and it’s nice.

“A walkabout,” grumps Jon.

“Yeah,” says Gerry. “I’ll go with you. You don’t have to do anything. We’ll just… walk and see. Get out of the Haunted Mansion. Remember why you’re even bothering to try to stop the Extinction in the first place.”

Jon scowls.

“Afraid?” Gerry smirks at him.

“Don’t be absurd. Of course I am.”

“Good. You’ll go all superpowered then.”

Jon rolls his eyes.

Gerry thinks he can almost feel Jon’s irritated huff. Or maybe not, but it’s nice to imagine. “You really just want to stay here playing Vulcan mind-meld with Elias all day?”

“Ugh, no,” says Jon.

“Sooo?” says Gerry.

“You can do that?” says Jon, brow knitting thunderously. “Walkabout?”

“Yeah, I can.”

“How? Are you ever going to tell me how you’re getting stronger?” says Jon. “You don’t even seem to be… suffering anymore.”

He isn’t. “Sure, someday, I’ll tell you,” says Gerry. When Elias can’t see. When Elias can’t get involved, ruin things, bury them both in a bog.

Jon balances on the precipice of decision, and Gerry dearly wants to tip him over.

“You can eat ice cream while I moan lasciviously,” he says.

Jon laughs. “All right, all right,” he says, struggling off the over-soft mattress.

Gerry grins and hopes Elias is keeping score.

#

“I just don’t know why Martin came to Wales,” mutters Jon, his greatcoat fluttering in the wind, hands stuffed in his pockets. “Why we all had to get dragged here.”

Here is a lovely town called Caerphilly. It’s picturesque. There’s a cheese named after it. Merlin filmed here. It even has a castle.

It’s currently quarantined, traffic nearly gone, silent in the eerie way cities can be when humans have to stay inside.

“What, Elias’ Playboy Mansion doesn’t make it all worth the journey?” says Gerry.

Jon snorts. “He stole it.”

“Color me surprised. Did he kill anyone?”

Jon sighs. “Not exactly.”

Gerry waits. Jon doesn’t fill him in.

“Evil overlord, just less evil than the other evil overlord,” says Gerry, striding along beside him and absolutely unconcerned if anyone thinks he’s a ghost.

Jon doesn’t care, either. It’s all gone beyond that.

A woman hurries by, almost running. She’s carrying an umbrella, which she holds up to hide her face.

“They still think if he can’t see you, he can’t get you,” Jon murmurs, not turning his head to see her.

He. Martin.

“Makes sense,” says Gerry. “He was Eye, first. They all feel watched.”

“It’s not going to protect anyone,” says Jon. “They’re still going to work. They’re still going to school. He’s aiming for gatherings. Someone needs to tell them.”

The news hasn’t told anything much. Terrorist attacks is all that filters through, because nobody knows what it is, and the ECDC doesn’t know what it is, and whatever Section 31 officers are involved here have either succumbed to the trouble or have found nothing of use.

They won’t, either. There’s nothing of use to find.

“Good news,” says Gerry. “Nobody will tell them, and it’ll all get swept under the rug, and the conclusion will be utterly unsatisfying.”

Jon eyes him. “Thanks for that.”

“Not my first merry-go-round,” says Gerry.

“It’s the Senghenydd Disaster,” says Jon suddenly, knowing it. “It wasn’t the worst colliery tragedy,  nor even the most damaging, but… for some reason, that’s the one. That’s the reason he came here.”

“A coal thing? Huh. Guess that works. Pollution, or whatever.”

“This isn’t Captain Planet,” Jon mutters.

Gerry beams at him like he won something. “A pop culture reference? Really?”

“I don’t live under a rock.”

“Debatable,” says Gerry, pleased that he can pull Jon out from under said rock.

“He came here because it’s the only vacation he remembers taking when his father was around, and he learned what happened, and that hundreds died because the recommended safety updates were ignored. Greed mattered more than lives. Martin learned about the explosions, and felt awful,” says Jon. “He got angry. Angry at humans for it. It seeded… something in him.”

“That’s sad,” says Gerry, and means it. “How does it all feel to you?”

“Doomed.” Jon sighs and hunches his shoulders. “I think he could be moving much faster than he is, though.”

“But he hasn’t. Maybe he’s waiting for you.”

Gerry hadn’t meant that to punch Jon in the chest, but it seems to have. Jon stops walking and closes his eyes.

“Hey. You’re supposed to eat ice cream while I moan at you, remember?” says Gerry.

Jon smiles weakly. “Yeah. Even though it’s cold.”

“Shop up there’s open.”

Jon doesn't order ice cream. He does get a tea.

The person behind the counter won’t look at them. Is wearing a hat with a visor that covers the top half of their face.

Jon sighs.

“What are they calling him now?” says Gerry.

“The Smoking Man,” says Jon. “That’s what the children who—“ He stops.

“They called him that? To his face?”

“They never even saw him. He walked into the school, and just… just walked through the halls, doing nothing, doing… everything. He didn’t even stop. He just walked through one door and out the other, and when he left, nothing in there was alive.”

“Definitely escalating, then.”

Jon stares at his tea.

“How many people live here?” says Gerry.

“Currently, down from 43,407 to 34,248. Most have left, but… quite a few have died.”

Gerry whistles, low. “And the rest can’t leave.”

“Definitely not. The ECDC won’t let them.”

“You’ve been strong enough to end this for a while now, haven’t you?” says Gerry.

Jon looks… so sad.

Gerry gets it. Sort of. He suspects Jon’s love is different from his in manifestation and form, but he sort of gets it. “Why, then, are you letting Elias do this to you every day?”

“As long as I cooperate, he won’t… he won’t just… try to use someone else,” says Jon.

“Can’t, can he? Long as you’re the—“ Gerry stage whispers—“Archivist.”

“He could do loads of things with cannon fodder. He could shoot me and pick someone else, too. But…“ Jon stops.

“But?”

“Something I figured out, is all. During our sessions.” Jon finally sips his tea, and makes a face. “Ugh.”

“Don’t leave me hanging.”

“I don’t know if he can hear us now, or see us, or anything,” says Jon. “I can’t say.”

“You think you know something he doesn’t know you know? He’s literally splashing around in your head like a kiddy pool half the day.”

Jon says nothing.

“You know, you could just… remove the problem,” says Gerry.

Jon understands what he’s saying. “If I kill him, I kill everyone who works at the Institute.”

Gerry sighs. “You can’t save everybody, can you?”

“You think I don’t know that?” Jon looks up, eyes burning, power thrumming through his gaze, and it’s so much.

Wow, Gerry thinks, and almost has to look away.

“You think I don’t know I can’t save everybody? That I keep having to… watch them die in front of me, or find out they died after a coma, or—“

“People die. It’s awful, but it happens.” Gerry puts his hand on Jon’s, and it works.

Jon freezes. Stares down.

His hand shows beneath Gerry’s, like an optical illusion.

“I know,” says Gerry. “All right? I know this isn’t easy. Neither of us have ever had easy choices to make. I get it.” It’s not gentle, but it is real, and it undoes some knot in Jon.

Jon slumps forward over his tea, not moving his hand. He covers his face with his other one. “I can’t save Martin. I know that.”

“So you’re just putting off the hard thing.”

“I… don’t want him to be him when I have to do whatever it is I have to do.”

“But if he’s gone that far, how many people will he have killed?”

Jon says nothing.

“What are you going to do, anyway?” Gerry says. “I get the exposing him, or whatever. But what then?”

“There’s a sniper.”

Gerry blinks. “What, really?”

“At least one. I haven’t looked that closely.”

“That would be a thing,” says Gerry, shaking his head.

Jon looks at their hands. “How did you do this?”

“Doesn’t matter right now,” says Gerry. “Wasn’t actually sure it would work.”

“Feels like a puff of air, almost.”

“Better than nothing. Hey—you’ll be able to share that cigarette soon.”

“After you made me promise to quit? You hypocrite,” says Jon, smiling weakly.

“Can dead people even be hypocrites?”

Jon laughs softly. It’s got a note of wonder in it, and Gerry privately determines to make him laugh like that again. “I don’t think even Thomas Aquinas thought of that one.”

“Bet you he did,” says Gerry. “And it’s in a weird manuscript that somehow got written by him three years before he was born, and Leitner got hold of it in 1973.”

“And it belongs to the Vast, and makes you dance on the head of a pin,” Jon says.

They both laugh.

Jon’s smile fades, and he holds Gerry’s gaze with one that no longer burns, but is just a man’s. “Elias wants me marked by the Extinction,” he says.

“What?”

“That’s why he’s so determined it’s got to be me. That… desire is enough for him to keep me alive, and not go after anyone else. And it’s important to me he doesn’t go after anyone else.”

“Marked by the—why?” says Gerry.

Jon looks down again. “I don’t think he wanted me to know, but… a little late for that.”

“I usually know more than you do in terms of the esoteric stuff,” says Gerry, “but you’ve lost me on this one.”

“He wants me marked by all of them. All the Fears. Then he thinks if I… do the Eye’s ritual, for the Watcher’s Crown—”

”But why would he… that wouldn’t just bring the Eye. If you were actually marked by everybody. That’d…” Gerry inhales. “Fuck me, that would work.”

Jon looks at him. “You got it already?”

He snorts. “The way I was raised? Yeah, of course. And yeah, it really would work. Heh—my mum would be eating herself if she found this out because she hadn’t thought of it first.” Gerry makes a face. “Though if she had….”

“She’d have tried it with you,” says Jon, quietly.

“Maybe,” he says. “After she figured out the whole von Closen legacy thing wasn’t going to happen.”

“You’re not exactly old,” says Jon. “She gave up on it awfully quickly.”

“Yeah, well.” Gerry shrugs. “She took it personally when I came out at fourteen. What can you do?”

“My grandmother never asked, nor addressed the topic in any way,” says Jon, looking at the table. “I have absolutely no idea how she’d have responded to something like asexuality. Physical intimacy did not exist in my house.”

Gerry shakes his head. “Meanwhile, my mum used to bring in random men for rituals she made up, and whatever she did to them, they always left tasting blood.”

“That’s… specific,” says Jon.

“Yeah, breakfast conversations were real fucked up,” says Gerry cheerfully.

“Makes me wonder how we aren’t all completely insane,” says Jon.

“We’re miracles,” says Gerry, so seriously that Jon laughs again.

“Dancing on the head of a pin.”

“Wings?”

“Of course we have wings, if we’re taking the place of angels,” says Jon, and it’s a smile like the hint of sunrise.

Then Jon goes very still. All the color drains from his face.

Gerry doesn’t even have to ask, but he does. “What?”

“He’s here.”

That was fast, thinks Gerry.

“Did you know this would happen?” whispers Jon.

“No.” It’s mostly true.

Jon stands, leaving his tea half-drunk, and heads out the door.

#

Gerry really wishes he’d been there to see Martin take out Peter Lukas. Though from what Jon told him, maybe it wouldn’t have been so good to see.

It had all been building for months to that one moment beneath the Institute, in the heart of the Panopticon that Gertrude hypothesized but never really found.

Months of Martin forced to study the Extinction, to obsess over it, to consider it from every angle.

Months of avoiding Jon while trying to save him, of bleeding himself out to keep Jon from drowning.

And there, standing over Jonah Magnus’ body while Elias and Peter had a smug-off, Martin was quietly breaking.

It must have been happening for some time, but who knew? It wasn’t like he’d talked to anyone.

And when Jon had arrived, trying to help, desperate to save Martin, Peter had just… reacted, shoving Jon into the Lonely without so much as a by-your-leave.

Because of a bet. Because, somehow, of Elias.

Jon had been trapped, separated as if by glass, and won’t talk about how it felt—but oh, he could still see what was happening.

Saw Martin’s face twist, something behind his eyes breaking.

Saw Elias’s expression change when he realized there’d been a miscalculation.

Saw Peter’s smirk as he turned back to Martin and told him to get stabbing.

Instead, Martin turned Peter into volcanic ash.

It wasn’t fast.

It wasn’t quiet.

Elias had already run, or he’d probably have died, too.

Jon had watched, his shouts muffled as if in snow, his self insubstantial and forever alone. Crying words he could not hear as he watched Martin sob on his knees, watched him beat his fists bloody on the ground, and then watched him… calm.

Watched Martin lift his head and look right at him, trapped in thick and choking mist.

And Martin watched Jon aching, watched Jon weeping, watched Jon feeling more separated than he ever had in his life.

And Martin had nodded, and just… walked away.

Like this had decided him.

Like he was done.

It had taken Jon a week to walk out of the Lonely on his own.

By then, it was far too late.

#

Gerry understands being done.

He’s been done. It’s a bad place to be.

Jon understands, too, though, and that’s… not so good.

Jon’s like a bloodhound now, marching up the street, up the hill, unerring in direction while Gerry follows behind.

It’s surprising to Gerry that he can feel Martin coming. It’s cold.

Not temperature-cold. This is some other kind of thing, a sucking thing, draining color and air and life.

They crest the hill, and there he is.

It just looks like Martin. A large man, sweet-faced, in a simple cable-knit sweater and jeans. There is nothing in his body language or expression that indicates any kind of threat.

With one exception.

Martin’s eyes are gone, and smoke curls from his skull like the lazy smolder from a dying junkyard fire.

“Hi, Jon,” says Martin, and it’s his voice, but it isn’t, and it itches in Gerry’s head, even though he doesn’t have a head to itch.

Jon is already crying, though quietly. Tears stream down his face, dampening his beard.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” says Martin, and it’s so gentle, and so kind. He holds out his hand.

Not what Gerry expected, that’s for sure.

“I’m so sorry,” says  Jon.

“It’s okay,” says Martin. “I’ve fixed it.”

“Fixed… Martin, you’re killing people.”

“I’m saving them. Do you know what happens if they stay here? Do you?” And no one with smoke pouring out of their heads should seem so kind, and so certain, and so good. “They get eaten, or burned. Or chased, or manipulated. They get twisted, and isolated, and burrowed into, and stared at until they go mad. But you know that, Jon. It’s all happened to you already.”

His hand is still out, and it feels like the world has gone still.

Gerry says not one word. He has no idea if Martin could do something to him or not, but if they all get through this, he wants to be there after.

It surprises him, honestly. But it’s a good feeling, so Gerry settles into it and waits.

Jon seems to be trying to answer. He keeps swallowing, over and over, looking from Martin’s face to his hand. “I don’t understand.”

Martin smiles, and it is sweet like setting sun shining on honey. “I know. But I do.”

“Martin, they… were children.”

“Remember when you asked me to gouge out our eyes together and run away?” says Martin as if recalling a date.

Well, Jon hadn’t told Gerry about that. Mental note made.

“Yes,” whispers Jon.

“And I wouldn’t do it. Remember?”

“Yes,” whispers Jon.

“I’m sorry. You had the right idea.”

“I…”

Martin’s hand is still out.

Jon, seemingly unaware, has taken one step toward him.

“You put the choice on me, and I didn’t listen. Remember?”

Jon doesn’t answer this time. He’s unblinking, staring.

Martin waits. He’s as unmoving as the mountains.

“Why are you… telling me this?” says Jon. He takes another step.

“Because I made the hard choice this time. You don't have to, Jon. It's okay. Take my hand.”

Jon looks at it for a long moment, then back at Martin. “And what then?”

“And then we stop all of this. No rituals. No Entities. It’s all over. Take my hand.”

“I don’t… want to kill anyone,” says Jon.

“You don’t have to. I’m doing the hard thing so you don’t have to. I’m done, Jon. So are you. I’m done watching you be hurt. You’re done with all these people and everything as much as I am.”

Jon’s voice breaks. “I… I can’t.”

“Can’t what? Just be with me? I love you, you know.”

Jon’s shoulders slump. “I love you, too.”

“Just be with me. That’s all I want.”

“Until… it’s over?”

“Until it’s over. Just be with me. I don’t really want anything else.”

Jon’s walking, and reaching out.

And then Martin has him by the hand, and Martin is pulling him in, and they’ve come together with a slow perfection like the inevitable clash of stars, and Jon’s eyes close as they kiss, but Martin’s don’t.

And Martin’s dipping him just slightly, just enough to keep Jon off balance, and Jon’s arms are around his neck, and the kiss goes on, and on, and on.

Gerry forgot that Jon doesn’t need to have his eyes open anymore to do things.

Things are changing.

Jon fits in Martin’s arms, fits in a way Gerry has trouble parsing, a way he’s never seen fitting before. Martin’s arms go from steady to tight, his hands from holding to clutching, and desperation speeds their kiss into something like gasping, into starvation and sharpness and need.

And when Jon opens his eyes, he is in grief and at peace and on the precipice of great sorrow, and it pierces even though Gerry isn’t the focus at all.

“Until it's over?” whispers Jon.

“Until it's over,” whispers Martin, and his voice doesn’t itch, and tears are sliding down his cheeks and onto Jon’s collar. Smoke still rises from his empty eyes, but it’s turned white like a clean, sweet fire of freshly hewn wood, and he is trembling. “I’m sorry, Jon. I’m so sorry.”

“I love you,” Jon whispers back.

The shot rings out.

Gerry thinks, Oh. We were being followed by a sniper, and then Jon is sobbing, and all the sound in the world comes back, including all the sirens they hadn’t known were there.

#

They couldn’t make Jon leave Martin’s body until it had completely turned to dust.

Dust is the wrong word, but it… well, it didn’t decay. There was no odor, and no rot; it just… wasn’t alive anymore, in a way that defied paltry things like bacteria and the release of gasses.

What’s left looks like cotton so old it’s gone brittle.

Organic matter is what Gerry hears some of them mutter when Jon is finally coaxed away.

It’s all been so weird of late that nobody even cares that Gerry’s hovering around like a ghost.

Jon has not spoken.  Daisy speaks—Daisy, who made the shot, who’s been following Jon since they came up here, waiting for the one moment her shot would actually count.

Jon ignores her. And the emergency workers. And everyone. He sits in the back of an ambulance, wrapped in a thin, silvery blanket, staring at nothing.

Gerry is familiar with grief, has always known sorrow. He doesn't know how to do comfort like an ordinary person, but he can be here, so… he will.

Gerry sits beside him. “Hey.”

Nothing.

“I’d like to share that cigarette now,” says Gerry.

Jon manages to look at him. “It’s over.”

“It—” says Gerry, then realizes Jon isn’t looking at him. Jon’s looking through him.

He turns to find Elias.

Elias, who looks like Christmas came early. “Jon. You’ve done so well.”

“It’s over,” says Jon. “I know what you planned. It won’t happen.”

“Of course, Jon, whatever you say,” Elias lies through his teeth, and smiles. “I take it you’re going back to London right away?”

Jon doesn’t answer. He keeps staring.

Elias’ smile falters.

Gerry can’t see a change in Jon’s look, but he can feel it.

A heat, this time, the opposite of what Martin was doing, a tidal thing, a filling thing, renewing color and air and life.

And whatever it is, it is making Elias shake in his fancy shoes.

Elias looks like he’s seen… well, a ghost. He can’t seem to look away from Jon.

“Do you believe me now?” says Jon.

Elias nods sharply. He sets his jaw. “I’ll see you back at the Institute,” he promises, dire, and walks away.

“Go to hell,” Jon mutters, and huddles under his thin silver blanket.

“You have got to tell me what happened there,” says Gerry.

“I started to unravel him.”

“Right. What’s that?”

“Untie him from his god. I can unhook him.”

“You… what?” Gerry stares. “You can make someone unbecome?”

“No. No, he can’t be… freed. Nobody can. But I could end him.”

Gerry whistles, low. “Would you really do it? What about all the other people connected to the Institute?”

“I can’t save everyone,” Jon says darkly.

This is a hard day to be Jon, Gerry thinks, and touches his hand.

Jon looks up as though swimming up from a deep well. Tears still fill his eyes, unshed.

“Let’s get out of here,” says Gerry. “Not back to the Playboy Mansion, either. If you’re willing to do a little impersonation, I do have a good bit squared away in the bank. Bet it’s still there.”

“Look, this is absurd. Can you even do that?” says Jon. “Where is your book? How can you run around like this, and… do this?” He puts his other hand over Gerry’s, and it works.

Gerry grins. It’s a naughty grin, the one his mum used to call up to trouble. “Still haven’t figured it out?”

“No, I haven’t figured it out. You just appeared, a few days after the Lonely. You’ve been with me ever since, and you haven’t told me how.”

“Some Archivist you are.”

“Gerry…”

“It’s you.”

Jon blinks at him in confusion that Gerry honestly finds adorable. “What?”

“Sims,” says Daisy, wandering over. “They need a debrief.”

“I won’t give one,” says Jon.

Daisy ignores Gerry with a will. “You have to.”

“No, I don’t, any more than you have to report all the bodies you buried in the woods. Make it go away, Daisy. I’m done.”

Daisy gives him a searing look, but she walks off.

Jon turns back. “Explain.”

“Like I said, it’s you. When you read my page. It didn’t matter that you burned it, because I’m… archived, I guess.” He shrugs. “I don’t know how else to explain it. I’m written in you. So, uh. Bit awkward, but you’re stuck with me.”

Jon stares. He wipes his face on his sleeve. Looks more than a little lost. “I… I think I’m… actually fine with that. I’m sorry you’re stuck with me, though.”

“I’m not. Though I’m sorry about Martin,” says Gerry, trying.

Jon smiles a strange smile, small and sad and final. “I did save him, in the end. In a way.”

“He was himself when he died.”

“Yes.”

“The thing you didn't want to have happen.”

“This was about him, not me. It… was all I could give him.”

Gerry studies him. “I don’t know how to be… comforting. But I can be with you while you figure it out. And I still owe you some inappropriate ice cream. So… let’s go, Jon.”

Jon hesitates.

“It’s a choice, you know? Grief has to be walked through. You can’t outrun it, or hide.”

Jon exhales slowly. “I… I think I understand. What will we do?”

And Gerry says the first thing that comes to mind. “Quit.”

Jon laughs weakly. “I can’t. I can’t quit being Archivist. Quit the Eye. Any of it.”

“Maybe not, but we can do it our own way, can’t we?”

“I…”

“Look,” says Gerry. “I followed Gertrude around, and she did whatever the hell she wanted for fifty years. I think the world can handle you going just a little bit rogue.”

Jon looks him in the eye.

It’s almost too much.

Gerry loves it. “Intense,” he says.

Jon looks at their hands. “Like touching a whisper,” he says.

“Is that a yes, or…” says Gerry.

“Yes. Let’s go. Back to London, and then…”

“Quit.”

“Quit.” Jon smiles a little. “Somehow, some way. We quit.”

“They’ll never know what hit them,” says Gerry, hopping down from the ambulance.

He offers his hand. Maybe it’s too soon; maybe it’s wrong of him, to do this just after Martin.

But Gerry doesn’t think so. He thinks it’s maybe the most important thing he ever could do.

Especially when Jon takes it, grips, and it actually works.

“I won’t be okay for a while,” Jon says, softly.

Gerry nods. “I think you’re allowed.”

Jon smiles. It’s barely there, like Gerry’s hand, but it is there.

They’re gone before Daisy or anyone even notices, only the thin silver blanket left behind.

[mortemoppetere]

TIMING: current LOCATION: deersprings, near la sauce PARTIES: @vanoincidence & @mortemoppetere SUMMARY: van tries to support a local business and buy some fondue and instead gets bullied by a mean old man. CONTENT WARNINGS: none!

IT’S IN THE SAUCE! IN THE SAUCE, GET YOUR SAUCE! 

Van looked up from her phone, mildly interested in what the man in the trench coat was yelling about. In the cart next to him were bottles of what looked like off-yellow cheese. The cardboard sign taped to the cart had CHEESE FONDUE, SAUCE FONDUE, IT’S IN THE SAUCE written on it in bright green and blue sharpie with an assortment of cheese drawn into the corners. Van hadn’t ever heard of fondue cheese being sold in bottles, but then again, she didn’t know much about cheese like, at all. She was lactose intolerant, so why would she? Then again, the box of Kraft with dinner written all over it would beg to differ. But like, that wasn’t even real cheese, even if the box insisted that it was. 

The man caught her eye and she muttered obscenities under her breath before she quickly looked back down to her phone. Van winced as the man began to yell at her in an attempt to gain her attention. “YOU LOOK LIKE YOU WANT FONDUE FOR TWO!” Aside from the terrible pun (she thought it was supposed to be a pun), he was aggressively friendly with wind burnt cheeks and a wide smile that displayed a silver tooth. Van shook her head, pointing to the earbuds in her ears, motioning as if she were trying to say that she couldn’t hear him. He waved away her attempt and held up two bottles of the fondue, quickly shuffling over to her. 

“I’ll give them to you for free, little missy, as long as you use that there QR code about your expe– happiness with the sauc-y fondue!” 

It impressed Van that the man even knew what a QR code was. “For free?” She looked at the bottles in his hand, then back at him with a less than enthused expression. “I’m not–” 

“Nonsense, everyone wants the sauce! The cheese! The sauce is in the cheese, the cheese in the sauce, it’s yellow like the sun, only you have never seen the sun! We can’t see the sun.” 

He had lost her then. “Uhh…” She regretted meeting his eye now, regretting even leaving her house. Now, she just wanted to be left alone. “Fine, I’ll take a bottle.” 

The man lit up like the fourth of July and he handed over the two bottles.

—-

This had to have been the stupidest fucking case he’d ever gotten. And that was saying a lot, all things considered. He’d found missing cats who were napping under the furniture the clients who hired him were sitting on when they’d hired him, had hunted down ‘missing’ kids who had just forgotten to text their moms back, had been paid his full rate just to run a quick search and confirm that, yes, SHVITZ was an actual word, and this was still the stupidest fucking case anyone had ever brought across his desk.

But the college kid who’d brought it to him had paid up front, so, here he was. Looking for someone selling the stupid fucking sauce that had popped up in town under the guise of selling fondue to anyone stupid enough to buy it. 

He couldn’t imagine that business was booming, because even if it were real cheese… who would want to buy cheese from a stranger in the middle of nowhere? What the hell kind of a business model was that? Emilio was hardly a seasoned businessman, but even he knew that this was no way to go about things.

And yet, when he got to the location the kid had given him, there was someone standing across from the fucking sauce fondue guy, reaching a hand out to take the recycled water bottles full of gooey, dyed, definitely not cheese right from his grubby hands. Emilio didn’t think. He marched forward, planting himself beside the kid who was apparently in dire need of cheese, and slapped the bottle right out of her hand. “What,” he said through gritted teeth, “the fuck is wrong with you?”

—-

Van jumped as a man charged forward, slapping the bottle from her hand, just before she could even grab the second. She stared at the ground, then looked up at the cheese man who now wore a surprised and fearful expression. He sputtered something before taking off at a brisk jog, his fingers hooked through the belt loops of his jeans to keep them from falling down. Van watched in disbelief as he wheeled his cart deeper into the common. 

The bottle at her feet was now covered in wet grass and she frowned. Van looked back up at the man. “What was that about? If you wanted it, you could’ve asked him for some! He was giving it away for free!” She leaned down to pick up the bottle and she began to wipe it against her pants, ignoring the newly formed grass stains on her jeans. “What is your deal?” 

—

Cheese guy ran, and Emilio wondered if he should be chasing him. He’d left his ‘cheese’ behind, so there was no danger of him selling it to anyone else, but… He could probably collect more. It was something Emilio would have to deal with sooner or later, but he didn’t exactly foresee the guy being hard to find. He walked around the woods screaming about cheese and sauce. Even without his detective skills or hunter senses, Emilio would have been able to track him down just fine.

And he probably had… other things to deal with first, anyway. He could have been a little gentler with the would-be sauce consumer, he knew. Smacking the bottle from her hand might have been a little bit dramatic, but what was he supposed to do? If she drank it, there was no telling what might happen. (The kid who’d hired him claimed that his buddy had ‘become the sauce.’ Emilio couldn’t even begin to comprehend what that might mean, and he didn’t think he wanted to.) So, he didn’t have the best approach. What else was new?

“If I — You think I wanted some?” Emilio sputtered, turning to watch in disbelief as the girl picked up the bottle he’d just smacked to the ground. “Put that shit down, kid. You know what could happen to you if you’re stupid enough to put that in your mouth? What the hell are you doing, wandering around taking bottles of shit from strangers? Jesus.”

—

The man looked angry. He must have really liked the sauce, or the fondue, or whatever the hell the man had been selling. Van was sure it was cheese, even if it was colored weird. Some cheeses weren’t as vibrant, right? Van stared up at him, brows pulled together in obvious confusion. He was upset that she… took the sauce from the guy? Sure, maybe it was a little sketchy, but he was being loud enough that if anything bad happened, he’d surely be tracked down. 

“It’s cheese. I’m already lactose intolerant, so what’s the worst that could happen? Shit my brains out?” Van tugged the bottle closer to her chest, now frustrated that the anti-sauce man wanted to take away the free thing she’d been given. “He had a QR code on his poster! It looked legit!” Granted, calling it a poster was too high of a compliment for the jagged cardboard he had written on in sharpie. “Did he sell you spoiled cheese or something? Is that why you’re upset? Here, really, you can have mine.” She shoved it at his chest. “It’s probably all messed up now that it fell onto the ground anyway. Molecules and shit.” 

—

She thought shitting her brains out was the worst thing that could happen here? Emilio was beginning to wonder if she was one of those people in town who had no idea what Wicked’s Rest really was. It was always strange to think about, especially for a man who’d grown up with his life so intertwined with the supernatural that he found it impossible to separate himself from it, even if he was still technically human. But in this town? It seemed even weirder. A giant puddle of sludge had appeared in town overnight and spit out bones at random. How could people write that off in their heads without accepting a world that was wider than they’d always assumed it to be?

“What the fuck is a QR code?” How did that make something like this look ‘legit?’ “You know what? It doesn’t matter. He didn’t — I don’t want that.” Emilio took a large step back, scrambling to avoid coming into contact with the sludge. Some of it that had gathered on the outside of the bottle got onto his shirt, anyway, and he quickly swatted at it with his hand. “It isn’t cheese,” he snapped. “Look at it. It’s obviously that shit that’s been coming out of the ground with three bottles of food coloring in it.”

—

“What do you mean what is a QR code? It’s a QR code!” Van wasn’t really sure how QR codes worked either, she just knew they did. And so what if cheese came out of the ground, didn’t that mean it was really rare or something? Didn’t they bury fancy cheeses in certain countries so it would mold faster? The bottle was on the ground now and though it did look a little less like cheese and more like what the man had mentioned, Van was still certain it was the fondue the man had promised. 

She leaned down, grabbing the bottle off of the ground. Some of the fondue’s residue had gotten onto the outside of the bottle, which didn’t mean anything at all to Van. “Dude, why are you just throwing it around? It’s just cheese!” She let out a frustrated sigh and got to her feet. As soon as she did so, she felt small. The man was much taller than herself, but she could feel tall when she had something to prove. “Here. Look!” Van uncapped the bottle and shook her hand slightly as some of the fondue got onto it. The smell of the fondue was not reminiscent of cheese at all, but she was committed to the bit. Van held the bottle, cheersing the stranger before lifting it to her lips. 

—

“Saying it again doesn’t tell me what it is,” Emilio snapped, frustration abundantly clear. Why did people do this? Just say things that made no sense and expect him to understand them? And why did they think that repeating something would make it make more sense? If he didn’t understand them the first time, he wouldn’t understand the same words repeated back to him! That should be obvious! 

But clearly, obvious had no place here. Not when the girl was leaning down to pick up the damn bottle again, scolding him for throwing it around. “No es queso,” he snapped, emphasizing each word with a shake of his head. But then she was uncapping the bottle, was holding it out, was putting it to her lips. And that was — fuck. That was bad. That was really bad. Emilio wasn’t about to watch some fucking kid get turned into sauce trying to prove a point to him. He reached out again, intent on snatching the bottle away from her before she could do any real damage.

—

Not even Van’s high school Spanish class could help her there. Though, she had heard the word cheese. Maybe he was finally agreeing with her. If she were to ever look back on the moment in wiser years, she would kick herself for not hearing the no before es queso.  

The strange man grabbed the bottle again, and Van was left speechless. She stared at him, her hand still cupped around the air as if the bottle were still in her grip. “Dude!” Van wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take. She didn’t understand the big deal. It was just cheese. Maybe this man was upset that he was lactose intolerant and that he couldn’t share in the fun. “I’m also lactose intolerant, it’s okay, I’ve got lactaid in my bag somewhere. Are you really that upset?” 

—

He managed to yank the bottle away from her again, but it didn’t feel like much of a victory. What was the point in stopping her from drinking the cheese if she was going to keep trying? Was she going to hunt down the man who’d been selling it after he left and buy more? Why did she want to drink it so badly? None of it made an ounce of sense.

Neither did her refusal to believe that it wasn’t cheese. It didn’t even look like cheese. Was there some other kind of cheese, some kind Emilio had never seen that looked like this? Who would eat it? It wasn’t exactly appetizing. “I don’t even know what that means!” The frustration and stress were bubbling over now, leaving him angrier than he ought to be. “But this isn’t cheese! Look at it! It’s fucking —” He gestured vaguely, unsure how to put his thoughts to words. He’d always been bad at that. “The only other person I know of who drank this turned into goo. Do you want to turn into goo?”

—

“What do you mean you don’t know what it means?” Van blinked at him, still confused. “Do you not know what being lactose intolerant means?” Clearly he didn’t. He’d been blessed with good bowels, good for him. She pouted slightly, the urge to stomp down on the toe of his shoe with her own growing rapidly as she stood across from him. The poor cheese fondue on the ground was useless to her now. 

“Nobody just turns into goo.” She watched him carefully, brows pulled together. “Are you trying to sell me your cheese? Are you also selling cheese, so you want me to think this cheese is bad?” She knew that wasn’t the case, but it seemed like it’d exasperate him more, and this was becoming a game to her. Van should’ve been more careful, and deep down she knew that. But with everything that had happened, she needed a laugh, and this cheese-hater was providing it. “I still don’t know what you mean by the goo, but hey,” she shrugged. “I’ll trust you this once, but only if you don’t make me buy the cheese you’re selling. I bet it doesn’t even melt.” 

—-

“You hate cheese?” That was what intolerant meant, wasn’t it? And lactose, based on context clues, must mean cheese. English was a stupid language. Why couldn’t they just say cheese when they meant cheese? Why was that so hard? In any case, Emilio was pretty sure that his deduction was wrong. If she hated cheese, she wouldn’t be so adamantly trying to drink the sludge from the woods just because a stranger told her it was cheese. 

She also didn’t seem to know the goings on of Wicked’s Rest, because in this town? Someone turning into goo was very, very far from unbelievable. Emilio’s brow furrowed, and he tried to ease the frustrated anger rising in his chest. Count to ten, Juliana used to tell him. He’d counted to a hundred now. He was still furious. “I am not selling cheese,” he said slowly, enunciating each word to the best of his ability so he couldn’t be misunderstood. “I do not have cheese. There is no cheese.” At least she seemed willing to trust him… if only because the ‘cheese’ she’d been going to eat was now spilled all over the dirt. Emilio winced internally. That couldn’t be good for the ground. He made a note not to tell Nora or Ren about it. One of them was bound to get angry. “I will buy you different cheese if you agree not to buy that guy’s cheese again. Is this fair?” He probably had enough cash to buy cheese. How much could it possibly cost? 

—

Van sighed, relenting from her joke. “It means that you get fucked up when you eat any kind of dairy.” She had it worse with sour cream. Cheese, for the most part, just gave her indigestion and itchy skin. “But it doesn’t matter.” The joke seemed to have run its course. It might have been a little mean to pull on him anyway. If she had paid attention, she might have seen the genuine concern etched into his features. 

“That’s a bummer.” Van looked back down at the bottle of spilt fondue. She was no litter bug, that was for sure. “Since you know so much about the cheese–” She was about to ask him if it was safe to pick up, not that she really cared or believed him, but she stopped at his offer. She narrowed her eyes, considering the offer. “With a yoohoo and a slim jim, then you’ve got yourself a deal. No more cheese from the dude with the questionable sales tactics, but hey, he gave this to me for free. You think I would just buy weird cheese?” She would. She had proven she would. 

“Do you mean like, right now?” Stranger danger went out the window yet again as she waited for his answer expectantly. Van paused. “By the way, what is your name, mister fear-cheese-monger?” No, no, that was a terrible joke. She winced. The bit of who she was primarily online had come out in droves today, apparently. Maybe it was a sign that nature was healing. Nature, being her attempts to draw puns out of thin air. They’d always fail, no matter how hard she tried. If she could convince herself that she was somebody else right now rather than the scared little girl with blood beneath her fingernails, then it would be okay. If she could make this guy seem to believe she was stupid enough to eat the cheese fondue (she was stupid enough), then she could have a laugh later. 

—

“Then why do you want to eat it?” That made even less sense. He’d heard of self destruction — he was a pretty good example of it himself, even on the days when he refused to admit it — but fucking yourself up for cheese? Especially when the ‘cheese’ in question looked like what had been in the bottle he’d smacked out of her hand? It wasn’t even appetizing. He was beginning to realize that he didn’t understand the youth population of Wicked’s Rest even a little. He wondered if kids in their late teens and early twenties were like this everywhere or if this place was just special.

She seemed genuinely disappointed at the loss of her ‘cheese,’ though Emilio couldn’t bring himself to feel guilty about stopping her from drinking it. She’d have been far more disappointed if she’d turned into sludge and sunk into the ground, he figured. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he nodded. “Okay,” he agreed. “If you show me what a — yoohoo and a slim jim is, I’ll buy it for you.” He stumbled over the words, and they sounded wrong in his accent, but at least it meant an end was in sight. “You just tried everything you could do to eat the weird cheese. I think you would buy it, yes.” 

Right now? She wanted him to buy her things right now? At least it would end this whole charade. Hopefully, before she found the sludge cheese man again and replaced her lost bottle. “Sure. Right now.” He could come back and finish his ‘investigation’ later. “Emilio,” he replied, ignoring the pun… mostly because he didn’t quite understand it. For a man who had a thin grasp of English, English-based puns weren’t the ideal joke format. Not that he would have found it much funnier in Spanish; Emilio’s humor tended to lean more towards desert-dry sarcasm than clever plays on words. “What about you? If you don’t tell me, I’m going to keep calling you Cheese Kid in my head.”

—

“Because do you know how good cheese can be? Have you ever had a really good mozzarella pull?” She quirked a brow, crossing her arms over her chest. Van knew that Sly Slice’s cheese pulls weren’t as intense as what she’d seen from the Goofy movie, but maybe she could show this guy what she had meant and why she’d been so adamant about trying the fondue in the first place. “It doesn’t matter. You will one day.” It came off as more of a threat than it did anything else. 

Either this guy was as clueless as he made himself out to be, or he was fucking with her, too. She deserved it, after the stunt she had pulled. Van could get fondue anywhere, and the longer she looked at the goo– as the man had called it, on the ground, the less she wanted it anywhere near her mouth. Maybe he had been right, but she sure as hell was not going to admit that she thought so. She took his word for not knowing what either a slim jim or a yoohoo looked like and gave him a curt nod. “Sure.” At least it meant she could con him into buying the bottle of yoohoo. That was so much better. “I think you’ll like them, they look like something you’d eat too.” He didn’t seem very healthy, and he smelled a little like booze now that she was paying attention. “That’s your opinion, who am I to change it?” 

Van wanted so desperately to be this person she was pretending to be now. To pretend to be the idiot girl begging to eat the cheese. Because if she did, it meant that she wasn’t an anxiety ridden mess on no sleep and no hope that tomorrow would be better. 

“Emilio.” She sounded out his name, nodding, as if it were an appropriate name for a guy like him. “I’m Van. Not. Like. The. Car.” She paused, grabbing her bag from the bench, then looked down at the ooze. It continued to bubble, but she forced herself not to notice too much. If she cleaned it up with something else, it’d only prove the man’s point, and she couldn’t have that. So instead, she grabbed the cleanest part she could find from the base of the bottle and tossed it into the trash can. “There, it’s gone. Happy?” 

—

It sounded like she was threatening him with cheese now, which wasn’t the strangest thing he’d ever been threatened with. In any case, Emilio decided to ignore it. Let her show up at his apartment with cheese and a plan to use it against him. Nora would probably have fun scaring her off, anyway. Or Ren. Whichever one. 

He wasn’t sure if he believed her that the ‘yoohoo-slim jim’ combo was something he’d like or not; it seemed stupid to take any kind of culinary advice from a girl who’d just been bound and determined to drink dubious ‘cheese’ out of a recycled water bottle she’d gotten for free from a stranger in the woods, but who was Emilio to judge? He was hardly a culinary expert himself. If not for his client ensuring he knew better and the fact that his appetite had been a nonexistent thing since Mexico, he might have been the one taking cheese from strangers. He’d grown up taking his cues from Rhett, after all. The latter half of her statement had him scoffing in offense, however. “My opinion? You picked it up off the ground and put it to your mouth. That’s a fact.” He suspected she’d only been trying to prove a point at that stage of the conversation, but… The principle remained, he figured.

“Why would it be like the car?” He watched as she leaned down, tensing a little as if he half expected her to try to drink the cheese again. Instead, she tossed it into the trash. Emilio relaxed, letting out a small sigh. “Ecstatic,” he replied dryly. “Come on. Let’s go get you your slim-yim and joohoo or whatever.”

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball GT 50

✨GT Stands For Galvanic Twerp✨

Ugh, okay.  Rage Shenron.  Here we go. 

This episode has very little to do and it takes a long time to do it. 

We open on Pan and Goku at lakeside, admiring how the sky and environment seem to have dramatically improved since they defeated Haze Shenron.  Goku reasons that if they defeat the other six Shadow Dragons, then it should restore the rest of the world the same way.  Which... I think was made abundantly clear in the previous episode, which was recapped very thoroughly at the beginning of this episode.  I’d ask why we’re going over it again, but I already know.  Rage Shenron.

Then we cut to the womenfolk back at Capsule Corp?  I guess?  Videl’s sore about Pan running off on her own, so I’m not sure if she knows that Pan went with Goku.  Everyone just sort of restates the situation and hopes Goku’s doing okay out there. 

Then we slowly meander into the plot, as Goku’s team arrives in a town where a Dragon Ball is located.  Pan wants juice, so she stops at a vending machine and really takes her time with it.  They show her putting the money in, and she lingers over the buttons while she makes her selection... just milking this moment for all it’s worth.  Then purple goop comes out of the machine instead of juice, which gives her a scare.

Coincidentally, the only two people left in the town happen to walk by and explain to our heroes what’s going on around here.  This purple slime has been appearing all over the city, “stealing all the electricity.”  Everyone fled the city to get away from it, and this couple is the last to leave.  They give Pan some juice before they go, so I’m glad GT made sure to resolve the “Pan’s Thirsty” subplot.

✨Positivity Page✨ 

Oh, hey, it’s the Dragon Ball Building.  So this is kind of a cool place.  If you’ve ever been to this town, you should check it out.  I guess it’s open to the public?  I mean, the doors aren’t locked and there’s no one inside, so I’m not really sure.  Anyway, there’s this big statue of Piccolo in it.  It’s like ten feet tall, and it looks really old and ratty but you can tell it looked really awesome when it was first made. 

And there’s a bunch of plastic bins full of loose action figure parts.  Like you just walk around and there’s a box with nothing but Perfect Cell arms or Vegeta heads or whatever. 

There’s also a concession stand, like in a movie theater, so maybe they used to show movies there?  I don’t know.  It looks like it hasn’t been used in years, and all the candy in the display case is like fifty years old.  You can just walk around to where the employees would go and check out the popcorn machine and stuff. The weird thing is, you’d think it’s been abandoned, but they have one of those modern soda dispensers, with the touchscreen and you can get like Coke Zero with orange or lime flavor shots.  And there’s a standee of Goku next to it and it looks well-done, but it’s clearly just some fan-made deal.  Anyway, he’s got a real apron and paper hat on him, and a word balloon that says “Have some soda!” And it looks like someone’s taking care of that part of the building at the very least.  I mean, the power’s on in the building.  Restrooms are nice and clean.  

Oh, and on the top floor, there’s this really neat wall mural.   All these little tiles on the wall are arranged to make this cool diorama of Gohan through the series.  His first appearance, his Namek look, SSJ2 Gohan, Great Saiyaman, etc.  The last one is a skeleton, and someone wrote a little caption next to him with a sharpie: “Momento mori.”  Which is Latin for “Remember that you have to die.”  That’s a weird thing to put on there, but I don’t know, the aesthetic kind of works for me.  Also there’s a big water fountain in the middle of the room that looks like it hasn’t had water in it for decades. 

So yeah, it’s kind of neat that they put the building in this episode.  I should go back sometime, see if anything’s different.

✨"Good" "Ideas", Poorly Executed✨

Okay, Rage Shenron.  Tell you what, I should explain the naming system first. 

So far we’ve seen Haze Shenron and now Rage Shenron.  That’s not what they’re actually called.   “Haze” and “Rage” are dub-isms.  Apparently Funimation decided these characters should have their own names, and I’m pretty sure “Shadow Dragon” is a dub-ism as well.  This is my first time watching it in Japanese, and so far Goku just refers to them as “those guys”.  The narrator calls the Dragons by the Dragon Ball they have embedded in their bodies.  Rage is known as the “Five-Star Dragon” or “Five Star Shenron”.  Whatever.

Funimation went a different way with it, probably to make the brand easier to market.  The cute part is that if you order the dragons by their star number, their names make an acrostic:

Syn, the 1-star Dragon

Haze, the 2-star Dragon

Eis, the 3-star Dragon

Nuova, the 4-star Dragon

Rage, the 5-star Dragon

Oceanus, the 6-star Dragon

Naturon, the 7-star Dragon.

See?  They spell “Shenron”.  You might not ever notice this because in the anime, the Shadow Dragons are introduced in no particular order.  I only found out once when I looked them up on the Dragon Ball fan wiki. 

Here’s the thing: It probably doesn’t matter much, because these characters are so stupid and boring, but I appreciate Funimation for making it easier for me to remember which one is which.  Some of the names are a little out-there, but at least I know “Nuova” is the fire guy, even if I don’t understand why he has a ‘u’ in his name.  “Eis” is spelled like that because they needed it to start with “E”, and I’m assuming “Rage” got his name because they couldn’t think of any good “R” names that had anything to do with electric slime. 

And people always crap on the dub.  “Oh, the Funimation dub is the worst!” I’ve seen people say that the GT dub is the worst example of Funimation’s dub problems, which is pretty rich considering Dragon Ball GT sucks so hard.  What difference does it make if the dub sucks or not?  Chris Sabat could have made fart noises for the whole recording session, and it still wouldn’t make this show worse than it actually is.  All I know is I’m watching it in Japanese, and I feel like I hate GT now more than I ever did before.  It’s not that the Japanese version is worse, but it’s just that I’ve peeled back the last possible curtain.  This is the original version that aired on Japanese television in 1996-7, and they didn’t even bother to name these stupid evil dragons, because even Toei knew it didn’t matter.  At least Funimation was like “Hey, if they make an action figure of the little purple chicken dude, it’d be nice if they had a name to put on the blister pack.”

All right, so Rage Shenron.  He’s even smaller and crappier looking than Haze was.  He’s the one controlling the electric slime, so he sics it on Pan and Goku and gives them an electric shock.  It hurts them, but it doesn’t stop them, so he summons all of the electric slime to surround his crappy little body with a giant simulation of himself.

Then he tells Goku that he was created from the minus energy produced when the Dragon Balls were used to resurrect Goku at the climax of the Saiyans Saga. 

Rage then uses his signature only attack, Dragon Thunder.  And he uses it a lot.  I only got four stills of him saying “Dragon Thunder!” but it felt like he said it about 100 times. 

Goku turns Super Saiyan 4 to counter this, and you know, if he had just done this at the start, the fight would have already been over with.  You know, the same way he should have taken out Haze in the last episode?   That whole debacle was supposed to be a life lesson for Goku, and he and Pan even said as much when they beat Haze, but it’s like ten minutes later and they’ve already forgotten.   So Goku tries a 10x Kamehameha, and it doesn’t work because the electric slime surrounding Rage’s body just absorbs the blast and bounces it back on Goku.  For some reason, this forces Goku back into his base form.  I don’t know if he just wore himself out blocking the effects of his own attack, or what. 

So Rage starts making himself even bigger, and Goku tries to get some distance.  But Rage sends out tendrils of electric slime in all directions to pull even more electrical power from the local infrastructure.  He claims to have taken all the electricity in the world, but that sounds a bit  hard to swallow.  Anyway, he has more than enough to kill Goku and Pan, so he catches them in slime tentacles and starts electrocuting them. 

This is sort of like the last episode, where Haze had Goku and Pan dead to rights, but Giru rescued them because he was immune to the pollution.  Well, this time Giru can’t make the save, because he’s more vulnerable to electricity than Pan and Goku are.  So Giru bugged out pretty early into the fight.

So how does Goku beat Rage Shenron?  He doesn’t. It just happens to start raining while all this is going on, and it shorts out Rage’s powers.  He tries to disperse all of his electric slime, but there’s too much of it in one place to separate in time, and he’s too big to seek shelter. 

Let this sink in.  Rage Shenron defeated himself.  This is the final arc of GT, and the big villain gang is supposed to include seven world-ending dragons.  So far we’ve seen two of them, and they both absolutely suck. 

But wait, it’s not over yet.  Pan tries to recover the Dragon Ball, and Rage appears to surrender it peacefully, but it’s just a trick to zap her with slime again, so Goku blows him away with a regular base-form Kamehameha... which he could have just used from the start to save himself a lot of trouble. 

See, the big problem with this Shadow Dragons nonsense isn’t just that the Shadow Dragons suck.  The big problem is that they also make Goku look incredibly weak as well.  Rage defeated himself, so what was Goku supposed to do while this was happening?  That’s right, Goku defeated himself too. He forgot the moral of the Haze Shenron fight, and made the exact same mistake all over again.  Then he tried to overwhelm Rage using Super Saiyan 4 and it backfired, so the worst hit Goku took in this whole encounter was his own finisher. 

We already saw Super Saiyan 4′s reputation take a beating in the Super 17 arc, but this arc takes it to a whole new level.  When Goku resolved to defeat the Shadow Dragons, he insisted on going alone, because he was confident that his SSJ4 form would see him through.  But he didn’t even need it against Haze, and it actually made things worse when he used it against Rage! 

And Super Saiyan 4 ended up being GT’s greatest legacy!  But it’s like this show was desperately trying to make it was weak and unappealing as possible.  This whole episode is a farce.  Goku had so much trouble beating Rage that Rage took himself out before Goku could get his shit together. 

✨Is This Episode Worse than "The Roaming Lake"?✨

Yes. Oh my gosh yes, this is so terrible. 

I’m not sure if there’s any point in doing a “Ten Worst GT Episodes” list, because they’re all so bad, but Rage Shenron has got to be somewhere in that field.  He’s like the bad guys in the Imecka arc back when the show first started, just a complete joke of a threat.  Except Imecka was the first real adventure of the series.  This is Episode Fifty and we’re still doing this idiot-versus-idiot combat.

This is what’s wrong with GT.  It never figured out what it wanted to be, and now the series is almost over, and it shows.  There was never any build to anything, because it keeps starting over with a new dumb premise.  The Rage Shenron right feels like Episode 3 of a whole new anime. 

✨The Blade Braxton Memorial Haiku*✨

Now! Dragon Thunder!

Dragon Thunder! Dragon Thun-

der!  Dragon Thunder!

[ppeacekeeper]

I'm just going to put more remake opinions under a "Read More" Again, I'm a hater and a bitch, but I'm still having fun.

I'm in the hospital right before a boss fight and I still stand by the opinion that there is too much combat in this remake and considering how may bullets and health items are thrown my way, they want you to fight, which is crazy because I remember hoarding my ammo and my healing items in the original.

Also, enemies are way more annoying and lethal. SH2 was never about combat, the terrible combat and tank controls etc were part of the atmosphere and modern combat systems just make it feel weird?

The camera has truly destroyed some of the most interesting perspective shots. The game looks pretty graphically, but I've yet to be like thrilled visually by it? It doesn't feel like the same game. I usually spam f12 when playing games because I really appreciate beautiful shot, but this game just lacks it.

I do like that Maria will just chat with you when you're exploring, but I noticed that she started to do repetitive lines in outside exploration areas, like if you smash a car window in she'll be like "again?" That's just a small video game thing that gets annoying after awhile.

BUT ALSO she will tell you when you're not going in the direction that she wants you to go, so that's helpful if you're trying to get the Maria ending because (at least in the last game) one of the things that determined your ending was going exactly where she told you.

I still think the voice acting is terrible.

I feel like I'm in places longer than normal? There is a lot of added content which kind of prolongs sections somewhat unnecessarily?

There are changes that don't make sense to me. For example, Eddie and Laura are talking in a movie theater instead of the bowling alley and I don't feel like there was any reason to change that. There's an achievement for looking at the pizza box in the bowling alley and it erases the funniest line in SH2: "This town is full of monsters! How can you sit there and eat pizza?!" If you're rewarding people for finding a classic bit, why not just respect the classic bit by including it in the remake? Why do we need a movie theater? Typically when you make changes it's for the betterment of gameplay or storytelling but I find that it doesn't really improve anything.

Another example is the diary entry you find on the roof. The original ends with: "It's clear outside. The doctors told me I've been released - that I've got to go home. I......." And on the paper you can see that someone just scribbled out of frustration. The remake letter ends with: "I should be happy. But I'm afraid. I'm so afraid. It feels like something's about to happen. Like the last gasp of air before the plunge. But deep down, I know it's too late to turn back." That's not bad, but it's those tiny little things that really change the mood. It feels like the game has to spoon feed you information. It has to be very literal and clear about the intention of the notes you find around the world. I don't know how else to put it other than less is more. A letter on a hospital roof that ends in distressed scribbles says everything.

Oh, and the map is good. I like seeing James actually take it out and mark it up with the magical red sharpie. Also, it's nice that it's labeled so clearly like "Combination lock" or "Safe" and when you pick up codes in memo's it puts those codes in the margins.

[m0mmat0rtle]

FANCY FNAF MOVIE ➵ Ch. 7

"By the way," Mike said as he walked with Fancy out of the Pizzeria, stopping to lock up.

"What are you doing later today? Like three o'clock ish?" He asked. "I'll be at the library." "Seriously?" "Seriously." "Doing what?" "Research for this case, what else, Mike."

"Do you think you could uh, babysit?" "babysit?" "Yeah." "for how long?" Mike hummed as he thought.

"Just for a couple of hours. I have to go talk with Vanessa about some of the security systems at the pizzeria, one of them has been malfunctioning. If you could just babysit until Max- my other baby sitter can come over."

"And what time is that?" "like seven?" "babysit for four hours? Hmmmm...." "I'll pay you.... At some point." "It's fine, Mike. I don't need your money, my father is a brain surgeon." "Damn."

"Yeah. But I can babysit. Can you pick me up at the library?" "Yes. Thats on the way back from Abby's school so that works perfectly." "So I'll see you then?" "Yeah. three o'clock. Library. I'll meet you there, Fancy."

He walked her to her car. Why? Was it to make sure she got there safely? Or was it malicious? Was he blocking her from seeing something? Another clue? Another note? To grab her when her back was turned and tape her wrists together, her mouth shut, and force her into the trunk of his car? Again? Seriously? She was fine, she was okay. Mike wasn't going to hurt her.

Mike said goodbye to her and returned to his car to head home to his little sister while She prepared to head to her only sanctuary she had left, the library.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

The poor librarian had to think she was crazy.

Who else comes in for three days straight and asks to see newspaper articles from the towns only cold case from twenty years ago?

Fancy, that's who. She pulled open the drawer with articles that the librarian had pointed her to and pulled out a stack, ready to head to the microfilm viewer when something brushed against her leg.

A folded piece of paper, newspaper. She must have dropped it. She hoped she hadn't messed it up. She reached down to pick it up and walked over to the table with the microfilm viewer and unfolded the newspaper she had dropped.

Her blood ran cold and all the color drained from her face. This article wasn't from Hurricane Utah. This one was from Bear Forest Tennessee. Her own picture stared back at her. A younger her, a twelve year old her.

Only, someone had decided to take their own artistic approach to the article. The edits only made the article more haunting. Her eyes were scratched out with what looked like sharpie. The paper where her eyes had once ben was thin and had wisps of rolled up paper, stained black from the ink of the marker. Whoever had done this to her picture was aggressively scribbling over her pupils. Anger, passion. A crime of passion.

The article heading was circled.

"FRANCINE MARIE JENKINS ABDUCTED FROM EASTERN AVENUE NOVEMBER 13th AT 11 PM".

but what caught her eyes again was everywhere in the article where her name was listed it was circled in red. Under the picture, her picture, someone had taped a message that had been made with a type writer.

Who still used type writers? This person did, apparently. But the words scared her more than anything else. More than the aggressively defaced picture. More than the circling of her name. Someone had typed,

"HELLO AGAIN, FRANCINE :)"

But it was no question who. She knew exactly who it was. The same person who took her almost ten years ago.

She looked around, snapping her head in every direction, frantically looking at and analyzing every person near by. There weren't many people for her to look at. A child with a book on dog breeds, an elderly lady with a copy of a knitting book, and a young boy struggling over his algebra homework.

Who ever had left this had been long gone. She let out a breath. She was shaken, obviously, but she couldn't let this deter her. No, it was a challenge, an added bonus. Catch Afton and then the Bear Forest Snatcher. It was too perfect. She crafted her own note, her response to the Bear Forest Snatcher. On a spare note she scribbled with a red glitter pen she brought with her.

"MURDER, I WILL GET YOU"

And left it where she found the note left for her.

˗ˏˋ ★ ˎˊ˗

"OUT OF MY WAY!"

A shriek sliced through the silence of the quiet library like butter.

"I told you, if you ignore me one more time, Michael, I won't let it slide." "Well what do you want me to say?" Fancy knew that voice. She looked up from her book, she placed her thumb in it to keep her spot marked, and got up from her seat. She headed in the direction of the noise and that's when she saw it.

Saw them.

Michael, a little girl who she assumed to be Abby, an older lady who was clearly furious, and a frantic librarian trying to get them to quiet down or take it outside.

"I want you to tell me that you've thought about the custody battle and that you're going to make the right decision." "I can't talk to you about that, and you know it." "Please! This is a library! Keep it down!"

"Excuse me."

Fancy said, stepping forward from between two shelves. She still had her readers on and her book in her hand with her thumb still marking her place, pressed against the inside of the seam.

"Who are you?" The old lady snapped at her. Oh boy. This would be so much fun. Fancy instantly knew what to do. Her shoulders back and standing tall she stepped forwards, next to Mike.

"I'm his lawyer."

"Yeah right." She rolled her eyes. So this must be the aunt. "I know for a fact that my nephew doesn't have nearly enough money to hire a lawyer."

Yep. Definitely the aunt.

"Then you must also know that according to state law, custody matters are private and cannot be discussed outside of meditation. You are giving my client grounds to sue you for slander, do you understand that?" She scoffed. "Well! I'll just take you to court! I know I'll win!"

"Do you know that? I don't think you do. Because according to state and federal law a judge will do what's best for the interest of the child, while you obviously think of yourself as the better choice simply because you have a fixed income that's not all a judge views when deciding a custody order. He also takes in account of the child's relationship with the perspective legal guardian. Correct me if I'm wrong, and I doubt you will, but miss Abby doesn't seem to be too terribly fond of you right now, does she?"

The both turned to see Abby hiding behind her big brother Mike, clinging to his leg.

"Do you really think she will testify in court to a judge and say otherwise?" The aunt opened her mouth to respond but nothing came out. Yep. she couldn't prove her wrong. "That's what I thought." She turned to Mike. "Mr. Schmidt I believe it's time we left to discuss your legal actions, perhaps a lawsuit of slander might be in order."

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[onbearfeet]

I feel like the people screaming about the existence of gender-neutral bathrooms need to attend a small community theater performance and/or a large quilt show with tightly scheduled events. They must observe The Taking Of The Men's Room.

I first encountered this phenomenon at a local repertory theater, so I'll use that story as an example. The rep company was putting on a musical--In The Heights, if you must know--at a small outdoor amphitheater in a small California town. The show had a ten-minute intermission. This caused problems.

You see, the average audience at a show like that in a place like that skews old and female. Now, for a variety of reasons, people with uteruses tend to have smaller bladders than people without (an abdominal cavity is only so big, okay?), and bladder issues increase with age, so any show with a lot of middle-aged or old women in the audience will have a bathroom line around the block at intermission. And this place had maybe three or four toilets in the ladies' room. Consequently, if you didn't snag a spot in line within the first minute or two of that narrow window, you simply weren't going to be able to pee AND see the start of the second act.

Old ladies do not put up with that shit.

I was standing in that line, 30 years old and grimly resigned to missing the curtain, when a woman who was 85 if she was a day marched right past me and into the empty men's room.

A heartbeat later, five or six other older women followed her.

There was general consternation among the younger women present until the first old lady popped her head out of the gents' and asked, "What are you girls waiting for? The toilets in here work just as well."

At which point we split into two lines and got nearly everybody through the bathroom by curtain.

Every time I tell this story, I get some mix of laughter and horrified staring. But I've seen The Taking Of The Men's Room happen over and over. Any event with a 50/50 gender split will have a longer line for the ladies' than the gents', and as far as I can tell the lines don't even out until you get to something like 75/25. And if there isn't anywhere to pee other than The Forbidden Bathroom, and ESPECIALLY if there's any kind of time crunch, lots of people will decide they can't read signs today.

And the thing is, as someone who used to work a job where she was required to clean a public restroom every 15 minutes (long story), I can tell you people of the "wrong" gender don't really leave a distinctive mark on a bathroom most of the time (unless they have a Sharpie, ho ho). I've seen desperate women in the gents' (usually trying to pee) and desperate men in the ladies' (usually trying to change a child's diaper). Once they walked out, you'd never know they'd been there.

It's not just on airplanes. It's not just in homes. I'm pretty sure just about every bathroom you've ever been in, with the possible exception of those at single-sex institutions like prisons and Catholic high schools, has been used by someone who didn't match the silhouette on the door. And you'd never know it by looking.

The toilets in there work just as well.

🤣🤣🤣🤣