#swingin around. like old times

[voidshrub]

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(Smells vaguely like rotten fruit)

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(He can’t even disinfect any tools he might have, is thAT A SAW-)

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[blondieeu]

still in love. onyankopon

onyankopon who plays “u send me swingin’ “ by mint condition when he’s making dinner.

onyankopon who tries his best to make things romantic, plating the dinner he made for the two of you and lighting candles around the table.

onyakopon who you actually have to fight because he won’t let you wash the dishes and he just does it himself.

onyankopon who runs you a bath after a long day and helps you undress, kissing down your body while he does it.

onyankopon who even takes the time to bathe with you, kissing your arms and massaging your shoulders in the bath.

onyankopon who helps you out of the bath, rubs lotion on you, and almost worships your brown skin while he does it.

“so perfect.” “pretty thing,”

onyankopon who’s always humming some old ass r&b song. “i’m still in love with you” by new edition, “beauty” by dru hill, “i’ll make love to you” by boyz II men.

onyankopon who fluffs and shapes your ‘fro for you, making sure to be careful and to not mess it up.

onyankopon who doesn’t like to fuck fast, he likes to really take his time with you and make love to you.

he’d kiss your neck and keep a hand on your side under your ribs.

and roll his hips into you, always making sure to keep a hand on your skin or even holding your hand.

onyankopon who always makes sure you cum first no matter what you’re doing. like he literally cannot let himself finish if he knows you haven’t.

“you dont have to do that baby, let me take care of you,” or “oh baby get off your knees, lay down.”

onyankopon who’s respectful to other women but not too friendly and makes it known he’s spoken for.

onyankopon who’s patient and takes his time listening and loving you.

onyankopon who takes extra time if you’re insecure about your skin to constantly remind you how beautiful black skin is.

onyankopon who still dresses like he’s in the 70’s-2000s.

onyankopon who’s two toned lips are always soft and taste like honey when you kiss him.

onyankopon who KEEPSSSS a small tub of aquaphore on him at all times “just in case”

onyankopon who always brings you some gift or something he had because he thinks about you so much.

“thought you’d like it babe.”

onyankopon who’s a sweetheart. <3

blondieeu xx

[chronically-ghosted]

i'm swingin' blind and you're stunning me without any gloves

rating: E for Explicit! 18+

word count: 9K

pairing: dieter bravo x f!reader

summary: the night continues while the two of you dance around the inevitable. dieter's restraint is foiled by dreams of a water bed.

warnings/tags: depictions of drugs, age gap, cum eating, piv sex, not actually incest but close, concerns about getting old, reader is at least 18 (by how much is up to you), no use of y/n, oral (f receiving), hand jobs (m & f receiving), unprotected piv, squirting, the barest hint of overstimulation, oh and SMUT.

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“Do all movie stars have six empty bedrooms they don’t use?” 

“They’re not always empty . . . I mean, it’s good for parties. Gives people space to get out of the chaos if they want, or if they need a place to crash. Keeps the energy, uh, flowing. Keeps the vibes good.” 

He uses the joint to take the place of having to explain that the room you just passed was in fact used as a revolving door for anyone who wanted a bump only two weeks ago. The second floor stretches out into the darkness, the nasty weather outside beating against the windows. He keeps a slow steady pace, the high making his insides comfortably warm as you wander in and out of rooms, like a less frantic, totally-fuckable version of that Scooby Doo gag. He’s quite sure he’ll never be able to watch Saturday morning cartoons the same way.

So far, you’ve been content with asking rather inane questions, filler questions that he suspects you’re hoping reveal more than he’s giving. The response to the question being more important than the answer itself. 

So no one lives in these rooms? No.

Do you ever use these as anything else other than bedrooms? No.

What’s outside by the pool? A gym.

A gym with full length mirrors that he used to adore snapping selfies in, in his younger cop show days, and without much prompting, would admit to masterbating to on occasion. 

You’ll always be your own greatest critic so fuck ‘em.

You come out of the last bedroom, smirking faintly as though someone had told you a particularly naughty secret, humming faintly to yourself. He never much cared for giving tours but given that you walked ahead of him and gave him adequate time to ogle the backs of your thighs, he could think of worse ways to spend time with you. 

“Mhm hmm,” you mutter to no one in particular. The carpet is plush, but that is the only thing you could say you really enjoyed about the style of the house. Everything else, especially the almost clinically clean air to it, makes it feel like a hotel, as if Dieter is mold growing in someone else’s house. Again, these are filed as things that helped fill out the picture of the man your uncle had become, if not the man he wanted to portray.

“So where do you sleep?” 

He had been lulled into such a stupor of quiet fantasy fueled by his warm high that he didn’t even think twice when he pointed down the hall. 

“God, it just keeps going, doesn’t it?” 

Turns out the path to moral degradation isn’t a straight line, but a curved slope. One he finds himself on, going down round and round and round, the longer he watches your legs, the curve of your ass, the bright smile as you quite obviously tried to get a glimpse of the old Dee. But that's the thing about drugs that he finds he so actively craved – of course there is the euphoria, the chemical sensations, the wires of your brain plugged into different outlets and restarting the whole system. But he's found that’s when people tended to be their most honest, most unpolished and they weren’t afraid to be like that. 

There was a lot of talk around the ego and the ID in his early acting classes. Who was your character when their ego had been pulled back like strips of skin? 

But as he got older, the question he became more obsessed with was, who were the people around him when they weren’t being paid to like him?

You, of course, are different from all that. You hadn’t built up an ego quite yet. You hadn’t built up the mechanisms required to survive the world because you hadn’t needed to. Sure, you could deflect and get what you wanted by batting your eyelashes, but there are times he felt ugly in the skin he had built. Like somewhere along the way, he had tried on all these hats and now they had all attached themselves to his head and he couldn’t tear them off if he tried. His costume didn’t fit– his face wasn’t even visible any more. 

And who exactly had spent the last fifteen minutes trailing after his beautiful, carefree niece, a single breath away from getting so hard it hurt, in this massively empty mansion? What version of himself wants to snake a hand into those shorts and effectively ruin you for anyone else – wanted to grip you so hard there’d be bruises and tears in your eyes when you came? 

Which one of them is he willing to show you?

All of them. None of him. The ID.

You glance over your shoulder, curious that he hadn’t answered you. 

“Yeah,” he sighs, smoking between his two fingers again. “Could get lost in a place like this.”

You pause in your inspection, eyes soft because of the drugs or the low lighting or something else, and take his hand. “Lucky I’ve got you then.” 

His mouth is instantly dry in a way that has nothing to do with the weed. He offers you the joint and you smoke too, eyelids drooping, allowing him another second of looking. 

And then another smile breaks across your face.

“Fuck,” your laugh turns into a cough. “Did you ever get that stupid fucking waterbed you wouldn’t shut up about? I remember you swearing the first thing you’d buy when you were rich and famous was a waterbed – which I thought was so fucking cool because I’d never heard of a waterbed before because I was seven and it sounded like something totally made up — so of course, someone rich and famous could have one.”

You’re still holding hands, your palm dry and warm, when he laughs too. He takes the joint back from you, eyes narrowing as he looks at you out of the corner of his eyes.

Turns out moral degradation is a fucking cannon ball. 

“Why don’t you go see for yourself?” 

You squeeze his hand, eyes bright, before almost sprinting down the hall to the room on the right. He follows you, struck by the notion this is the first and last time you’ll ever enter his bedroom. This has to be the end of something.

He hears a grunt and a groan and he can’t help but smile. He saunters into the room, leaning up against the door frame with his hands in the pockets of his robe. You are face down on the mattress, hands under your chest. 

“This is not a water bed,” you grumble, the sound muffled. 

Once again, Maria deserved a raise just for making his bed. 

“No, it’s not,” he says slowly, as he edges a teasing tone into his next words. “Look, I did get a fucking water bed, alright? Just about a century ago when they were still a thing.”

You ease up onto your elbows and glare at him. “Can’t believe you got rid of it. What a waste.” 

And then you’re sliding back onto your knees, hands planted on the covers, and for just a second, he swears he can see the outline of your cunt through the material that could hardly be called shorts. 

His knees actually buckle for a second before he stands up right and physically has to close his eyes. Looking away wouldn’t have been enough. 

But you don’t see all of this. You’re frowning down, as if glaring hard enough will bypass physics and liquidate the mattress. 

“What happened to it? The water bed, I mean.” 

Just as he’s gotten his heart rate back under control, your question throws everything into a spiral again. 

Do not fucking tell her about the hookers and the brass pasties. Or the cock ring. Definitely do not mention the cock ring. 

“It, uh, popped.” 

You smirk over your shoulder. “It was a sex thing, wasn’t it?” 

The question lingers, Dieter unable to make a coherent word that didn’t sound like take your pants off right fucking now, so he swallows and shakes his head. By some minor miracle, you shrug and don’t push it, sliding off the bed and completing your assessment of his life by regarding the book collection against the opposite wall. 

It’s bigger than you expect someone like Dieter to have, but its placement in the house – almost hidden in his private bedroom – suggests that its volume is not there to impress. It’s his personal collection and, judging by the bent spines, books he’s actually read, perhaps several times. There’s a small desk next to it, crouching in the corner and littered with sheets of paper that look like they were torn from a sketchbook. 

He couldn’t decide which version of himself he wanted you to see less: Dieter, full of vices, or Dieter, bratty actor who only acted in the first place because he couldn’t cut it as a real artist. 

Your hands run over the sketches, eyes annoyingly unreadable, and just as he’s about to leap forward and scoop all of the sketches into the trash, you move on. Your interest is caught by some of the books. You make noises that are both outside of the realm of approval or disgust and he finds himself nervous. Book reading is about the last thing on anyone’s mind once they’ve reached the final destination of The Bedroom, so he’s never worried about what someone might think. But this isn’t just someone, it’s you. 

His mouth opens to make some quippy remark, when you gasp and lunge forward, grabbing something at the back of the shelf.

“Holy shit, that’s you!” 

You hold up a picture of his high school’s production of Othello and there he is fifteen and smack dab in the middle of the cast. 

“Oh fuck, I forgot that was there,” he groans, dropping the nearly gone joint into an ashtray by the side of the bed. You’re practically glowing with excitement and he rolls his eyes as he takes it from you.

“Jesus Christ, look at that kid. Has no idea what kind of dumbass he’s going to grow up to be.” 

Three years after that photo was taken, he had left in the middle of the night for Hollywood. Of course, just as he had finished packing up his piece-of-shit Chevy, Enrico caught him. Exploded in his face and scolded him in his old man ways for leaving without saying nothing. 

He kept this photo because it was the last thing that reminded him of home and yet so distant it didn’t hurt as bad any more. 

“I think he did spectacular for himself,” you grin at him. “Who knew The Dieter Bravo was such a softie for the old days?” 

He smirks at you, finally sick of you kicking his ass all night. There is a line between fucking you and out sassing you, one he could live with. You aren't fucking ready for that Dieter. 

“No way,” he rubs the bottom of his lip with his thumb, artfully contemplative, and purposefully distractingly hot. “Just keep it around for the spank bank. Ms. Lemons was a babe.”

You narrow your eyes at him as he leans across you to put the photo back.  “Oh yeah? I gave my first blow job in that blackbox.”

“No, you fucking didn’t.”

“Yes I did!” 

“What was his name?”

“Jeremy.”

“Jeremy what?” 

“Jeremy . . . Barnes.”

“Pssh, fake name, fake boyfriend, fake story.” 

“He was real! I just . . . can’t remember his last name right now.” 

“Blurs together with all the other guys you’ve blown, right?” 

You bite the corner of your mouth, your smirk so tight he can almost picture your toes curling. Not that he’d dare break eye contact with you now. Now that he’s got you practically pinned to the bookshelf, photo forgotten and something that’s been slinking around for the past three hours finally rolling on its back and exposing its belly. 

He knows The Look, he practically invented it, and he can’t quite remember why it’s not okay to get that from your niece and someone twenty years younger than him. Right now, the portion of his brain that can sort that’s fucked up and it’s not that hard to refrain from being a fucking creep is filled with smoke, a sort of hissing sound there that is not unlike a shaken soda begging for release. 

And dear God does he want release. But he’s willing to edge it just a bit longer, scrape that muscle as gingerly as he can before touching it where it needs to be touched.

“I have no idea what you mean,” you say softly, meekly being cowed for the first time all night. Fuck, do you have to make it so easy?

“That’s right. You don’t. Because if it were any good, you’d remember it.” 

He puts a hand above your shoulder to stop himself from sinking into you. Weed made the world feel plushy, moldable – and he just wants to lounge in the dip of your bottom lip. You look so different from the girl who showed up soaking wet at his front door. 

Your breathing hitches the closer he comes, your eyes fluttering as you watch his fingers dig into the spines of the books. 

“What’s his first name again, darling? Do you still remember that?” 

You gasp, loudly, as if his itching fingers had finally sunk in between your legs, but you’re sliding away from him and pulling out something from the shelf. Something white and something he should have fucking hidden better. 

“Oh my God, is this my senior yearbook?” 

You’re wandering over to his bed, leaving Dieter reeling, his own spell so alarmingly effective he is caught beneath it too. It takes him a moment to blink as he realizes maybe this is where you reneg and decide you don’t want to fuck him after all. 

“It’s not as weird as it sounds –,” he begins, heart in his throat, and hands safely in his pockets as he joins you near the bed. You still haven’t looked up as you flip through the glossy pages.

“Sure, sure.” 

“Look, your dad sent it to me and I didn’t even open it,” he says honestly. The package was delivered on the Tuesday afternoon when he woke up so hungover he actually thought he might die, and couldn’t bear the thought of not recognizing you in the class photo. 

Funny how that all fucking worked out. 

You hadn’t leapt off the bed, called him a dirty old man, and ran away to call the police. Which are probably good signs. So, slowly, he sits down next to you, halfway on the bed and halfway off. 

“He sent it just a few weeks ago. I didn’t really think much of it at the time,” he says quietly. So you had been on the high school’s newspaper staff, as well as being the captain of the journalism club and ran the book club. You were on the volleyball team and co-Secretary of the student body government. Here, he spent all night trying to find out what kind of person you are when half your life is waiting for him upstairs. “But maybe he sent it as, like, some sort of . . . fond reminder.”

You snort, your thumb tucked under your chin as your hand touches the memories on the page.

“No, it fucking wasn’t. He was guilt-tripping you.” 

So your dad definitely still remembered the fight all those years ago. Dieter grimaces. His gaze slides from the stock pages, to your knee, down the crease of your thigh. 

“You know, he would have made me your godfather if–,” 

“If you weren’t such a fuck up. Yeah, he told me that too.” 

You finally look at him and find him nearly out of breath, eyes wide as though he had been struck by a sledgehammer right to the chest. 

“Actually, he told me if I came around more.” 

Your face crumples, the flippancy gone.

“Fuck, Dee, I’m sorry.” You cup the back of his neck with your palm in a soothing gesture and it stirs something within him. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“It is what it is.” Deflection, distraction, escape.

You smile gently, thumbing his curls as your eyes roam his face, seeing right through his bullshit.

“You know, you kinda became the cautionary tale around us growing up,” you murmur, gaze searching his face. “Not sure why, though. Since you’re, like, a gazillionaire.”

Not worth it. None of it’s worth it.

“I get that. I get why he didn’t want me around. Probably best that I fucked off and never looked back.” 

The corners of your eyes crinkle, as though he had said something that didn’t make sense. You stop combing his hair and run your thumb over his ear. 

“But I don’t think you are,” you say slowly, as though you didn’t need to explain. “A cautionary tale, I mean. I think you’re . . . an inspiration. No one in our town ever fucking leaves, but you did. You got the fuck out and lived your dreams. And that’s pretty cool.” 

There’s not any hope for me, not if you knew all the fucked up shit I want to do to you. 

Don’t look at me like that. 

When he looks around for some self control, something to pull himself out of the pit he’s dragging you both in, there’s nothing. All eroded. 

Moral degradation is a smooth fucking shot. 

The yearbook drops from your lap, clatters to the ground as he takes your face with both his hands, his rings pressing into your cheeks, and kisses you so hard his lips knock against your teeth. The force of it rocks you flat against the mattress, your fingers wrapping around his wrists, grounding you to him – don’t take this back, don’t let go – and his tongue runs against your bottom lip once before your mouth opens without hesitation. He can feel that, that desperation, that eagerness to let him in, and he groans into the hollow of your mouth and you take it, you match it, just like everything else he'd given you this night. 

Your tongue rises to catch him, to guide him, to show him the places you need to be touched. He’ll get there, you little thing, so he nips your upper lip and you gasp, your body tightening beneath him. He grins – there’s so much you have to learn. 

His palm drifts away from your jaw, thumb gentle as it coaxes your cheek to the side, before he latches his lips to your neck, sucking and then a quick bite– all eased by his tongue. Your fingers dig up into his hair, clutching him to your chest as there is anything, anywhere else he’d rather be in the world. As if anyone could pry him off you. 

He dives back into your mouth, air rushing out of your nose in a silent moan, and your knee hooks out around his hips, pulling him into the cradle of your lap. You jerk back –

“Dee, you’re – holy shit –,” 

Your hips brush up as if you had somehow gotten it all wrong the first time. As if he isn’t rock hard above you. Your eyes widen as he smirks down at you.

“Yeah, baby, that’s all you. All you do to me.” 

He chuckles, dropping his head to your chest, breathing deeply, head spinning from kissing you so thoroughly. He inhales, nose rubbing against the soft material of your shirt, ideas of peeling it off you with his teeth. Your scent, it’s all at once intoxicating, mesmerizing, and . . . familiar. 

He groans, almost nuzzling your chest.

“Fuck, this smells like that nasty deodorant from 711 I used to buy ‘cause I couldn’t afford anything else.” 

You slowly open your eyes up at him, a distantly embarrassed smile curling up the corners of your mouth. You look hazy, blurred, lips flushed and pink from getting them sucked and bitten. Had he not just licked your entire mouth clean from spit, you might have blushed.

Your fingers curl gingerly around the back of his neck. “Well, you never forget your first.”

His mouth falls open. You had successfully knocked him back on his ass for a second time that night. 

“Shut the fuck up,” he husks, a grin breaking across his lips as the hand at your shoulder pulls gently at the sleeve. “This is my shirt? This has got to be older than you are.”

A small part of his brain, the part that definitely would object to fucking his pseudo-niece, goes warm at the thought that some part of him still lived in that neighborhood, was still there for all the important moments of your life. 

That is until the very active part of his brain lumbers in, quashes all gentle feelings and promptly wrestles for control of his mouth to ask you flat out if you ever touched yourself while wearing it. Not that he didn’t want to know, but if you said yes, he would have come right there on the spot, perhaps so hard his dick popped off. So he did not ask you that, but he did satisfy that part of his brain by molding his hand around your hip, so he could feel the cool fabric on the back of his hand, and your warm, plush skin against his palm. 

You like her being drenched in you, don’t you? 

You swat at his chest, rolling your eyes, oblivious to his rapidly darkening thoughts. “It is not older than me, but if it was . . . would that be a problem?”

You pick at imaginary lint on his shoulder, hips rolling just enough to indicate it better not be a fucking problem, and a smirk on your face that reads innocent and filthy all at once. 

Dieter shakes his head, grinning as he inches his wide palm up your hip, across the thin flesh of your ribs and – 

Does not find a bra. 

You had not been wearing a bra the entire night.

Your smirk deepens, your back arching into his palm, as his thumb brushes the underside of your breast, then over your tightening nipple. You moan softly, eyes fluttering, when he pinches it deftly. His jaw ticks, teeth grinding from the pleasure of watching your mouth arch open. 

It’s like you had been given a list of all the things that turned him on and you are crossing them off one by one. Like you had skinned him and read all his little nasty thoughts written on his ribs and made them your own.

Like you were made for him. 

He leans forward, the bristles of his beard and mustache rough like matches against the shell of your ear, his voice so weighty it could have been another physical thing he intended to drive into you, intended to rub against you to make you keen with pleasure. 

“It’s not a fucking problem, you little brat. Only problem is gonna be if it keeps me from watching those pretty tits bounce while I fuck you.”   

There it is. Out in the open. As if all his flirting and touching and tongue between his teeth hinted at something else besides you spread out under him. Half delirious from being so hard, he grins as he bites the bottom of the shirt – his shirt, Jesus Christ – and pulls it up and he ducks his head under the material and presses a sucking kiss into the valley of your tits. 

He likes giving head from underneath the sheets because, yes, it was hard to breathe. It was hot and stifling and everything smelled of sweat and sex and eventually his brain was forced to make a decision about what motor functions to hold onto and he made it focus on sensations until he was sure he’d be swallowed up by the cunt under his mouth or impaled by the cock in the back of his throat and if that’s how they found him dead, he’d be absolutely fine with all of it. 

Dieter Bravo – died doing what he loved. Giving immaculate, delicious head. 

The heat under the shirt is nowhere near as intense but it’s enough to make him flush with want. He licks the sweat gathering underneath your right tit, holds it on his tongue before he lathers both his spit and your sweat over your clearly-painfully tight nipple. Every touch of his makes you stutter and he can feel you unconsciously rubbing your hips up against him. 

“This isn’t going to end up on Youtube or some shit, right?” You ask above him, your voice rough as though your throat is dry. “You don’t have cameras filming this, right, Dee?” 

He chuckles with his nose rimming your left nipple. Do you have a voyeur kink? He muses vaguely. 

Fuck, I knew I shouldn’t have gotten rid of that mirror. 

“No, baby, it’s not going on Youtube.” He runs his warm palms up the curves of your side as he tugs his head out from underneath the shirt. “All the videos go directly to a password-protected server in the Cloud.”

“Dee–,” you groan as he lunges forward and kisses you hopefully so hard it knocks those silly thoughts from your brain before pulling back to grin helplessly at you. 

You cannot physically describe how impishly adorable he looks with his hair mussed, his lips pink and twisted in a smirk – you cannot really do anything at all, really – but your hand slides up from his shoulder, across his warm neck and settles into his cheek. The last bit of brown is swallowed by a swelling blackness as you rub your thumb across the bottom of his lip. This thing that has been eating at you the longer you’re around him edges you on, daring you to push him just a bit further because it knows you’d just love what he’ll do. It knows more than you, but it’s not exactly smarter than you. It’s just simply fascinated by Dieter Bravo. 

Your own mouth parts, your eyelids growing heavy, as you swipe across his lips one more time before sliding your thumb into the warmth of his mouth. Eyes never leaving yours, his tongue greets your thumb, massaging the pad before licking around it like he’d swirl off the top of an ice cream cone. He sucks gently and you can’t fight the noise that comes out of you. Almost shocked, surprised that you can feel this aroused with all your clothes on and just his tongue. He drags his tongue across the back of your knuckle and the groan is louder now – you want to bite into him – and he pushes his hips into the mattress. 

“C’mere, baby girl–,” 

Dropping your thumb, he dives in again for your mouth, this time the back of his hand grasping your neck. He kisses you and kisses you and kisses you as if forgetting there was another way to relieve the tension in his gut, the spark that's fanning smoke like a brushfire into every place your skin, your spit, touches his. 

“Take– this– off–,” He pants between the hot presses of his mouth to your jaw, your neck, the spot beneath your ear that makes you keen in a new way. His hands are scrambling over yours to get the shirt up and over your head, desire almost making him panic that everything is going too fast but not fast enough – he wants to be inside of you in every way that matter – he wants you to smell like him – to breath his same air – 

He’s not so much kissing as opening his mouth over your skin, his teeth and tongue and lips fighting over themselves to get to you first. He wants to linger, wants to take his time but the pressure – he deliriously thinks he can smell you – and only when his fingers clamp down on the waistband of your shorts – he has half a mind to punish you for walking around in these things, making his sanity unwind in the hallways of this fucking place, until the only truly sane thing to do is fuck you and fuck you good – the thought is so strong, almost violent he pauses. 

He looks up to the devastation he’s left in his wake – bright, purple spots on the inside of your breasts, under your ribs, the small swell of your stomach, your chest heaving – and he watches your face. You realize he’s stopped moving, slowed in his volcanic thunderous roll down to the clutch of your cunt, and you meet his gaze. You swallow, mouth too dry to form words, so you splat a hand on his shoulder. 

"No robe. I’m not – not going to let you f-fuck me in a bathrobe.” 

He grins. Of course, you would sass him after a make out session so intense he doesn’t even care if he comes in his pants. But he obliges, pretty much willing to cut off a finger if you continue to purr at him like you are. 

“Excuse you, this is lounge wear.” He leans back onto his knees and shrugs himself out of the green robe. Your eyes flash to the triangle on his forearm and he’d be fucked to admit he didn’t get it entirely for the look in your eyes right now. Chicks always dug the tattoos. Your tits bounce as your breathing hitches. 

Not Daddy’s girl, his smoke-heavy, lust-soaked brain chants at him, not Daddy’s girl. 

God, he’s so hard it hurts. 

He goes back down, dropping himself between your legs, arms tucked up under the backs of your thighs. He mouths the inside of your thigh – a distraction as his hand, like some sort of fucked up, horny magician performs a slight-of-hand, “iiiis this your clit?” – rubs you over your shorts. You are soaking wet and he’s fighting the urge to just dig in there, suckle you through the wet spot. He hadn’t actually made someone come that way before, but now seemed like an excellent opportunity to try. 

“You know, for someone who has to couch-surf, you talk a lot.” 

He noses the rim of the bottom of your shorts, allowing a full gaze down to your ass. 

“Sorry if I’m sick of fucking boys who look like their mom dressed them.” You are breathless, shaky, unwinding at the seams and you know exactly what to say to dig right into him. 

He bites the soft place at the back of your thigh and you groan. 

“I thought you couldn’t remember any of them before me,” he purrs, watching that damp spot grow darker the longer he talks, the longer he holds off on touching you where you and him and the entire fucking world knows you need to be touched. 

Maybe you ran your mouth too, when you were nervous, overwhelmed. Maybe you laughed too loud when you didn’t know what else to do, and maybe you gave him shit because the second words stopped coming out of your mouth, you’d have to sink into whatever he was giving you. You’d have to kneel to the white lighting between your legs. Maybe you were afraid there wouldn’t be white lightning at all. 

Families share similar insecurities, after all. 

He waits until you open your mouth again before hooking his fingers under the band of your shorts. 

“Hmm, there’s actually a fairly long list of guys before you. Guys who–,” 

He sucks the skin just an inch to the right of your hip bone, just before the patch of curly hair, he sucks it into his mouth and bites so gently he knows that your brain nearly splits in half from the hairline fracture between pleasure and pain. 

You gasp and you’re already arching off the bed. He breathes across those coarse, damp curls and inhales. 

Girlsex. 

Girlsweat. 

It’s like there’s acid corroding his brain, eating away at the clamps holding his sanity together and he’s gonna go fucking ballistic if the acid doesn’t get to him first. But he wants the burn. He wants the chemical smell. 

He wants . . . to put his dick into something. 

But first – 

You’re pliable. Easy to move as he scoops your shorts off your ass – Oh, fucking Christ, there’s her entire backside, isn’t there? – over your thighs and he hurls the shorts over his shoulder. He inhales–

God, this pussy is going to kill me, he thinks or maybe says out loud before he tips forward into that black, fluttering hole. When he licks you, you both moan. 

He remembers specifically doing planks for as long as he could to build up the upper body strength to languish here for hours.

Well, at the time, here wasn’t here here, but if everything before this was practice, then he was ready for the Olympics, dick as hard as a goddamn gold medal. 

He swipes up with his tongue, licking and sucking and swirling like frosting was going out of style. Frosting, that’s it. That’s what you reminded him of. Fat, sweating, sweet frosting. And there was the cherry on top. 

He guides your clit into his mouth, his fingers digging into the tops of your thighs as if to pull himself deeper into the wettest goddamn pool at the fucking YMCA. He sucks once and your hands fly into his hair. You’re making sounds that somewhat resemble his name, but they’re too high, too pitchy, too airless to be anything coherent. 

He wants to tease you about all the boys you mentioned. Wants you to go back on your word, beg for him to believe that there was no one else before him. If there was, it didn’t matter because this is it. This is the best you’d ever have. 

Even when you left him, you’d never forget – 

Disgustingly, he slurps up one lip of yours into his mouth and you cry out, fingernails digging into his scalp so hard that it hurts and sends another rush of blood into his weeping cock. He mouths up before teasing your clit again – around it but never on it – before diving back down and lapping up your other lip. 

“Dieter–,” you garble as if you know it’s filthy. He can hear your breathing tighten in your chest, feel your thighs clench around his ears, and he swears if he gets out of this with hair in tact, that’s the most he’s going to ask for –

And he french-kisses your clit.

You come, gasping, writhing, back arching off the mattress and he bares his forearm across your stomach, reaching up to pinch your nipple. 

Settle down. We’re only just getting started. 

He’s got to control himself but staring up at you, your face flushed with pleasure, he can’t quite remember what he’s supposed to do next. 

You are naked underneath him. Naked and heaving and he licks the dampness staining his mattress just to have your taste in his mouth again. This is going to be a problem, if he can’t think straight without his mouth on you. 

Oh my God, duh, fingers. 

He pulls himself up the length of your body, and his hands sink into your hair. His fingers curl around your ear as he makes you look at him.

“How are you feeling?” It’s an echo of what he asked earlier. You’re still warm but your breathing has slowed. Your eyes are open, even if they’re fighting to stay open as if you are concussed. 

“Good. Great.” You mutter, hand falling to his chest and tangling with his shirt. 

“You wanna keep going?”

Your eyes open wider as if someone rang a dinner bell and you’d been walking on hands and knees, starving for weeks. You swallow thickly, nodding frantically, and the hand leaves his chest, winding down between you and, before he can stop you, slides under the material of his sweats and strokes him. 

Your hands are like velvet.

Fuck, then what’s your cunt gonna feel like– 

Do not fucking come right now. 

“Oh, I see,” you huff, a smirk curling your mouth up, as if you had won some unnamed battle. You roll your shoulder to go aaall the way down his cock and stroke him. You think about licking your hand, but the precum leaking out of the tip of his head at a truly flattering rate is enough lubricant to keep your hand from sticking. “I can’t walk around without a bra on, but you can walk around in these thin fucking sweatpants and no underwear.”

He grits his teeth, dropping his head to his chest, trying to breath through the freightcar rattling down his spine.

“It’s my house, you little cocktease,” he pants, gasping as you run your thumb against the vein underneath his shaft. You pump him again and again and he groans low, with his eyes shut to keep them from rolling back in his head. “I can– yeah, right there – do whatever I want. Move your hand. I want to stick my fingers in you.” 

His words aren’t so crass they make your ears red, but it’s the unrestrained need in his voice. You slowly withdraw your hands and you go wipe the threads of him on the mattress as he sits up to take his shirt off. 

“Don’t. Just– gimme a second.” 

He yanks the tank shirt over his head, setting down in between your legs again and blinking like he’d forgotten where he was. He takes your hand, licks your palm as clean as something as dirty as this could ever get, and then penetrates your hole with his middle finger. His tongue slides in the crevice between your ring finger and your pinkie and when he adds a second finger below, you both can feel the moment your brain is wiped blank and your body twitches along with it. 

“Mhmm, good.” He pulls you down closer to him, fingers plucking your strings like the finest guitar. Your knees are spread wider than when he had half his body down there. He’s watching you practically drown his hand in the wetness seeping out, his other hand holding or balancing your knee. 

He hovers above you, watching you roll and writhe and beg. His forearm is strained, his hand must be soaking, and he thinks your face contorted in pleasure might be permanently burned into his brain. There is still some part of him that knows that’s wrong. He shouldn’t have the faintest idea of what you looked like, high and blissed out of your mind, while his fingers stroke and dig and pluck and rub to drag you higher and higher – 

The pad of his middle finger brushes something spongy and you nearly slam your legs shut over his arm, if it weren’t for his free hand pinning you open. 

“Dee,” you croak, head shaking, “that was – you can’t–,”

His eyes flutter at the sound of your voice so wrecked. He needs to memorize that exact spot, save it for when you don’t have enough sanity left to push back. It’s scary, he knows, but you must be out of your goddamn mind if you thought he was going to let anything bad happen to you. 

“Look at my thumb. Baby, look down.” 

You wrench your eyes open, past your quivering chest, down his long forearm, down to where the black bullseye on the meat of the space between his thumb and palm is winking at you. 

He’s stroking you with his thumb on your clit and the bullseye winking up at you. It’s eye-fucking you and that’s enough to break you. He wants to drink whatever drips out of you as your body locks up, head thrown back, and you come. You break through and his hand curls around your knee, gently, as he watches your body crescendo for the second time that night. He sucks his fingers, almost pensively, as if he is going to carve something out of you. Remake you. Split apart your atoms and rebuild you whole. Sex as an act of re-creation. 

He kneels his way out of his pants, cock pounding red, leaking, the hot center of where his want for you is infecting him like a sickness. 

Slowly, he drags one of your knees over his shoulder, half of your body hovering just above the mattress. 

He wants to ask if you need it rough or slow. He can’t be gentle right now but he does have enough awareness to keep from hurting you. But maybe you, like him, like a little bit of pain. 

He wants you on top, wants to see you sing for him, but he knows your legs are jelly. He knows there’s a white static hum in your brain and he’s so grateful for the pleasure of it. 

He rubs the top of your thigh and noses the back of your ankle up by his ear. 

“Do you want me to put a condom on?” he asks quietly, before kissing that spot below your ankle.

“Are you clean?” He’s so fucking broad and his rings pinch your skin when he pushes too hard and he’s asking for your comfort. You also want to feel every inch of his cock and you beg him to say yes. 

He nods, suddenly irrationally thankful of Paul’s monthly mandated screenings. You get the clap once, and your fucking manager never lets you forget it. 

You huff, realizing you’re so close your cunt can almost taste it. “I-I’m on the pill. A-a-and I’m clean too.” 

As if he had ever denied you anything, as if his willpower hadn’t barely lasted four hours, you tense at the anticipation of his cock. 

He’s just as warm, just as ready, so he grabs your other ankle and draws it next to your other one against the back of his neck. He sinks back just a bit on his ankles, fingers spreading you and grabbing himself and then–

It’s like getting the wind knocked out of you and getting sprayed with a hose of fire all at once. 

“JesusfuckingChrist, you’re tight.” 

He edges deeper as he sits up right, going slow not because he hadn’t unwound you properly but because if he went any faster, he’d obsess over the idea of getting rug burns on his dick. 

“Dieter, oh God–,”

Hands leaving your ankles to wrap around your thighs, he rocks his hips back and drags out his cock just as much as the both of you can handle before thrusting forward. Again.

Again. He can’t seem to fill you enough. He wants to be bigger, thicker, girthier, if only to plug you up more. 

But, fuck, your cunt is better than your hands but only because it’s so warm and wet and throbbing and he swears his heartbeat is in his ears. 

He thrusts almost lazily, dipping his head to kiss your shin before dropping it back, your toes brushing his hair. His hands greedily squeeze your thighs, thumbs rubbing circles. 

It’s like he has to recover from the shock and sensation of fucking you. It’s too good. It’s too much. 

He’s inside of you.

If there’s a relief fund for grilled cheese, he’s going to have to donate every red cent he’s ever owned. 

Your hands clench the sheets, mouth open and, yes, beautiful tits bouncing with every thrust. It’s not them hovering above him, begging to be bitten, but it’s close and he smooths his hand down from your thigh over his chest, down your hip and he kneads your breast. 

“Oh, fuck, Dee, fuck . . . you feel so fucking good.” 

I want to die in this cunt. 

“So good, baby.” 

It’s back, that pressure that connects the backs of his eyes, to the back of his gut, all the way to his pussy-soaked cock. This time he lets it build, lets it dangle out of reach, and his thrusts become faster, hurried. You jerk beneath him and let out a full whine as if he had spanked you. 

He fucks you some more this way, just to feel that tightening in his gut, before he pulls your legs off his shoulders and you whine again, this time out of annoyance. 

He has the where-with-all to smirk.

“What, baby doesn’t like it when I take away her toys?” He pants, almost feeling light-headed. You scowl at him but don’t push back in the least as he turns you onto your hands and knees. 

“It was just starting to feel good, you a-ahh–ss–,”

He jerks his hips into you without warning, fully seating you on his cock and your head drops between your shoulders. 

“If you weren’t such a brat, you’d be kind of cute,” he murmurs as he rubs his thumb over the knots in your spine, the sensation of your cunt sucking him in almost detaching him from this plane of existence. He knows you like to be teased, with his words, with his fingers, his mouth. He wants to give you everything – anything – he’s so pussy-obsessed he can feel it like ozone in his mouth.

He never wants to stop fucking you. He’s being unstable about it. 

“You like that I’m a brat,” you say and push back with your hips. The sensation does make him stutter and you take it as a win. His rings sting as they squeeze your hips. 

He’s sliding down that pressure, winding himself up so tightly in it he wants to stop breathing – 

He starts pumping faster. The sounds that echo in that room are like music to his ears.

The sheets ruffling as your hands clench around them. The jolt of the bed as it lurches back and forth.

Your moans as he fucks every thought out of your head. “Fuck, you’re so big. It’s not fair.” 

The wet slap of his thighs meeting yours. 

And it all narrows down, the universe closing to a single focal point–  all of it runs right to his cock rubbing up inside your cunt like it owns the place.

“Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck,” you groan, head down. “Please – please fuck me harder, Uncle Dieter.” 

With a growl that surprised even him, he drops forward, one hand anchoring himself to your hip and the other coming up around your throat. You gasp as his fingers dig painfully into your skin. He pulls you both up right, nose in your ear and teeth tight in his jaw. 

He punctuates every word with a particularly brutal thrust that gnaws at something truly devastating inside you. 

“Don’t – fucking – call me that – while – I’m inside – you–,”

You turn your head, flush with his and the hand that’s on your throat slides up to your cheek and he holds you there, pins you there as his cock pounds the daylights out of you. 

“Say my name.” He husks. There’s something cataclysmic happening inside your cunt and he has the launch codes. 

You can’t remember feeling so full before. So up your eyes and your mouth and your ears and your heart – God, maybe there really hadn’t been anyone before him. 

“Oh, fuck, Dieter,”

“No, honey, my real name.” 

Your eyes flicker open and something in his chest roars. He’ll kiss you after this. He’ll kiss you so hard you end up on another fucking planet. 

“David.” 

The sweat on his temples mixes with yours and he wants to smear himself in your fluids. This close, his beard and mustache rub roughly against your skin and you wonder how long the burn will last after all this. You’re clenching his arm, clenching his lower back to you, you think you’ll make him bleed in half-moon cuts of blood. 

“All of it. All of it, baby girl,” he whispers to your cheek, your jaw. “Say it. I need to hear it. I need to hear it from you.” 

Your fucked-out mind spins, clutching at the memories of the past, to a name you hadn’t heard in a decade, while the man you’ve known all your life threatens to undo your sanity. You lock eyes with him, the precipice of something so large and looming, you can’t wait to be crushed by it.

“Davíd Moralés.” 

And that bastard’s cock intentionally pushes against that spongy spot and you shriek. Honest to God, yell, as you come, with Dieter wrapped up against your back, sweat streaking both of you.

“Get down,” he hisses suddenly and almost throws you off him. You land on your back, your entire body pulsing as one single organism, and he grabs his cock in time to aim it at your chest. 

He comes, mouth open, eyes squeezed shut, as he sprays you with white ropes. It’s warm on your tits and you shudder through your aftershocks. You feel like you’re sinking into warmth as he keeps coming, your inner thighs drenched and dripping, and finally, he leans away and collapses on the bed next to you.

There’s ringing in your ears. 

You feel swollen all over, your nerve centers humming and firing and crackling as though someone whapped you over the head with a 500 volt electric baton. You want to keep sinking, keep drifting, keep existing in this warm, non-corporeal form. Everything feels so good here.

You had no idea you, or anyone else for that matter, could come that hard. 

“Holy shit.” 

You can’t help but grin through the short huffs of breath you swallow down in gasps. 

You want to sass him but it feels a bit like spitting in the face of God. “Yeah. Holy shit.” 

He sits up on his elbows, glancing over his side at you, the begrudgingly fantastic cock between his legs as deflated as you are. 

“Are you okay? Fuck, sorry, I got a little crazy there at the end.” 

You shake your fist loosely, with your thumb and pinky finger extended. “I don’t hear customer service calling. In fact, I think the line has been permanently disconnected.” 

You both laugh softly and his eyes roam over your face. This is why he only saw vampy women. It was easier to wake up to something almost over-the-top hot, than this. Than you, with your beautifully flushed cheeks, plump lips, and eyes that searched only for him. 

His gut twisted painfully. Okay, you nutted so hard you’re pretty sure your dick isn’t going to work for a week, now wake up. Wake up and smell the fucking arrest warrant. 

Uncle Dieter. You're his niece. 

What the fuck were you thinking? Where could this possibly go?

Instead of inspecting the small-starting-to-grow painful throbbing in his chest, he sits up and pleasantly inspects the mess you both made all over you. You follow his gaze, smirking as he intentionally smears his cum over your skin with his thumb.

“Oh, and that thing you did at the end, where you made me–,”

“Yeah?” He grinned wickedly, almost begging you to use your words, but you had been so good for him. He’d save that for later. “You liked that?”

“At the risk of sounding desperate, yes. A thousand times yes. But totally unfair and totally cheating.”

He snickers and leans down to your thighs. “Yeah, okay, Ms. I’m Not Wearing a Bra.” 

The smell of you is intoxicating and it’s drenching your thighs, the sheets below you. Maybe he could strip the bed before Maria came – oh, fuck, what if it’s in the mattress?

He hauls those thoughts out of his mind, his dick twitching uncomfortably, as he bends forward and licks the inside of your thigh.

“Oh my God, Dee, you can’t possibly be –,”

“Relax. I’m not. Just wanted to clean you up.”

He licks the drying liquid from your skin – you hiss, so very overstimulated – dragging his tongue up, never breaking eye contact with you as he slinks up your body, shoulders rolling – “Dee, wait, you’re gonna–,” and licks the cum off your chest. His own cum. 

“Oh, fuck, that’s nasty,” you murmur, eyes transfixed on his mouth as he swallows. He chuckles, finally deciding you’ve had enough for one night, and he leans forward and presses his lips on your temple. 

“I’m not ready, but it sounds like you might be.” 

He reaches back to the floor where his shirt was so casually discarded. He gingerly wipes your thighs, your hips, your stomach and chest. There’d be time for a proper wash later, but right now he thinks he’s going to pitch forward into unconsciousness in less than thirty seconds. His limbs are heavy, his eyelids are heavy but he can’t stop smiling.

You grin at him as he tosses the very used shirt back onto the ground and gets up from the bed to disappear into the bathroom. You roll onto your side, after unpeeling the bedsheets like you had done it a thousand times. When he comes back, you rub your face against his pillows and he realizes if he’s going to hoard the sheets, then he’s going to have to do the same to the pillowcase. 

“I’m not gonna wake up and find you mouthing that shirt, am I?” You ask, a smirk already cradling your lips. He huffs at you as he hands you a glass of water. You take it, gratefully, only vaguely aware that he probably did that kind of thing all the time with his other conquests. 

That thought threatens to sour your good mood so you put the glass back onto the bedside table and curl deeper into the sheets. 

He climbs in behind you, and rubs his nose over your shoulder and up into your ear, his hand spread across your hip. 

“Only if I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t mouth your tits.” 

He’s purposefully being sexy, being teasing, but there’s a question there. A request. A quiet ask that for all his thick dick swinging, doesn’t have the cojones to verbalize. 

 You smirk at him and roll back slightly to catch his mouth. You thread your fingers through his hair and squeeze once. 

“Baby, I couldn’t stand up right if I fucking tried.”

He grins, eyes warm. “Wow. Even if you fucking tried?”

God, this is such a bad idea.

“Even if I fuck-in’ tried.” 

But despite all his not-at-all begging, he wakes up alone. 

He wakes up in broad daylight – the storm had passed. Too bright light streams in from between the gray curtains, illuminating the one thing he never wanted to see: your side of the bed empty. 

His heart clenches so fast he thinks he might be sick. There’s real nausea as he stumbles to his feet and pulls his pants on from last night. He’s about to rush down the stairs, frantically flipping over everything in hopes of finding a note, even if it told him to fuck off. 

You’re twenty years older than me, you fucking creep.

Just wait until my dad hears about this. 

I never want to see you again. 

Just as his mouth dries up till his lips crack, he sees something on the other side of the bed that makes him freeze in his tracks. It’s your phone, plugged into the wall. He goes over and taps the screen. The battery has only 15%. 

And then a post-storm breeze rattles the patio door handle and it opens slightly. He sees your barefoot through the cut in the door frame. 

Holy fuck, you’re still here, just outside. 

Heart now jettisoning into his throat, he opens the door to a truly spectacular morning. His patio looks down to the freshly-washed Los Angeles, the sky a cobalt blue, the air cool and faintly smelling of rain. People run and lead their dogs through the streets and for a minute he thinks he can hear the ocean. 

But what makes it truly spectacular is you. Curled up at the small table in one of his white shirts and those sanctimonious shorts. You’ve got a cup of coffee in your hand and you’ve got his favorite book, Eco’s The Name of the Rose, lying flat beneath your fingertips. But you aren’t reading. You’re looking at him.

“Well, hi there. Did you dream you missed a flight?”

He blinks. “What?” 

“You just, sort of, rushed out here, looking like you forgot something.” You frown. “Is everything okay?”

He swallows and it’s all he can do to keep from dropping to his knees and pressing his face into your lap. 

“Yeah, fine, fine. All good. Fine.” 

You turn back to the book, staring at it as if it was giving you a pep talk. Then you shut it and turn back to him.

“So, um, last night . . .” 

Here it comes. I regret it, all of it. You drugged me and took advantage of me. I can’t believe that you would–

“Was great.” 

He swears he hears his blood rushing in his ears. You smile at him, but clearly uneasy. As if you are the one second-guessing it all. 

Fuck, Bravo, put on your big boy pants.

He pulls out the other patio chair and sits down next to you. He clasps his hands, leaning forward on his elbows. His rings clink together. He nods, trying to catch your eyes.

“Yeah. It was fucking fantastic. I mean it. One for the books.”

He waits for you to say but. 

You wait for him to say but.

Neither of you do. You grin and put your coffee on the table. 

“So, in the events of last night . . . surprisingly, I forgot to charge my phone.”

He doesn’t want to touch you because he thinks it might spook you so he runs his gaze over your lovely knuckles, your wrist. 

“Sounds like, then, you might need to stay awhile.” 

You swallow, unable to contain the growing smile on your face. You duck your head and he follows you and your breath fans his face. 

“Guess so.” 

If he tells it, he says he kissed you.

If you tell it, you say you kissed him. 

Doesn’t matter though. Doesn’t matter that the coffee grows cold and he ignites something in you that you didn’t know existed.

When he finally pulls away, he’s still smiling. 

“This might be a bit weird, but . . . wanna see my other kitchen?”

The End

[daryltwdixon]

The Promise of Us: Chapter 41

Daryl 

Later, with the sun fully set and the darkness deep around them, the crickets’ chirps are the only sounds breaking the quiet night. Daryl and Beth sit across from one another on the porch railing, the silence heavy but not tense—more like an uneasy understanding has finally been reached.

Beth sighs, the words coming out slowly. “I get why my dad stopped drinkin’.”

“Ya feel sick?” Daryl asks, absently digging his knife into the wooden post in front of him.

“Nope. I wish I could feel like this all the time.” She pauses, the admission still with an edge of playfulness in her voice, “That’s bad.”

“You’re lucky you’re a happy drunk,” Daryl mutters, his voice softer than before, almost as if he's trying not to break the fragile peace.

“Yeah, I’m lucky,” Beth says wryly, “ Some people can be real jerks when they drink.”

Daryl breathes out a humorless laugh. “Yeah, I’m a real dick when I’m drunk,” he admits, his gaze distant. After a pause, he adds, “Merle had this dealer. Janky little white guy–tweaker. One day, I went lookin’ for Merle, figured he’d be over there watchin’ TV with his buddies.”

Beth watches him carefully, sensing the shift in his tone as he speaks.

“It wasn’t even noon,” he continues, his voice dropping to a low rasp. “Place reeked of weed and cheap beer. I could hear folks talkin’ inside, but the TV was on so damn loud, I couldn’t tell who it was.” He pauses, a visible tension in his jaw as he tries to force the words out. His voice grows quieter, rougher, almost as if he's unsure if he can say it.

“But… Y/N…” He stops, the weight of her name lingering in the air, his throat working as he forms the name out loud, swallowing hard. It’s like saying it makes the memory more real, more painful, and he has to blink a few times to steady himself before continuing, voice hoarse and raw. “She was there. We weren’t on good terms. Hadn’t been for months. She’d gone off to school, was seein’ Shane. But when I walked in and saw her…”

“They had their hands on her,” he says finally, his words almost a growl, “Like a pack of hungry wolves. I hadn’t seen her in so long, and then I see that. I snapped.” His eyes darken, his grip on the knife tightening, shaking his head, “I grabbed those bastards off her and started swingin’. All I saw was red. I hit ‘em hard, as hard as I could.”

Beth stays silent, her eyes wide with sympathy.

“Merle finally came back inside, pulled me off and she ran out. And when those assholes got back on their feet, one of ‘em pulled a gun on me. Had it right in my face, said, ‘I’m gonna kill you, bitch.’ I thought I was done for. Merle pulled his gun too, ready to go down with me.”

“How’d you get out of it?” Beth asks quietly, voice barely above a whisper.

“Tweaker punched me in the gut. I puked, right there in front of ‘em,” Daryl says bitterly. “They laughed, patched up their faces, and I saw ‘em back at Merle’s the next day, like nothin’ even happened.”

Beth doesn’t know what to say. The weight of it all hangs in the air between them.

“You wanna know what I was before all this?” Daryl says suddenly, his voice low. “I was driftin’. Mostly with her, till she went off to school. Then it was just me and Merle, doin’ whatever the hell he said we’d do that day. I was nobody. Nothin’. Some redneck asshole and an even bigger asshole for a brother.”

Beth’s eyes soften, her own pain visible in the dim light. “You miss her, don’t you? And your brother.”

Daryl doesn’t answer, his jaw tight. The words catch somewhere deep in his chest.

Beth takes a shaky breath. “I miss Maggie,” she says softly. “I miss her bossin’ me around. I miss my big brother Shawn. He was so annoying, so overprotective. And my dad… I thought he’d live the rest of his life in peace, y’know? I thought Maggie and Glenn would have a baby, and he’d get to be a grandpa. I thought we’d have birthdays and holidays…summer picnics. He’d get old, and he’d be surrounded by people he loved.” Her voice cracks, tears welling up in her eyes. “That’s how unbelievably stupid I am.”

“That’s how it’s supposed to be,” Daryl says gently, his voice surprisingly soft.

Beth looks down, her face crumpling. “I wish I could just…change.”

“You did,” he says after a pause.

“Not enough,” she replies, wiping her tears. “Not like you. You and Y/N… it’s like you two were made for this.”

“Just used to it,” Daryl mutters, eyes shifting away. “Things bein’ ugly. Growin’ up in a place like this.”

“But you got away from it,” Beth insists.

“I didn’t,” he snaps quickly, his voice rough.

“You did,” Beth presses.

“Maybe you gotta keep remindin’ me sometimes,” he says, and though his tone is gruff, there’s a flicker of something almost playful in his eyes.

“No, you can’t depend on anybody for anythin’, right?” Beth laughs weakly, then her face shifts, her voice turning serious. “I’ll be gone someday.”

“Stop,” Daryl says sharply.

“I will,” Beth continues firmly, but not with sadness. “You’re gonna be the last man standin’. You and Y/N. But you’re gonna miss me so bad when I’m gone, Daryl Dixon.”

“Man, you ain’t a happy drunk at all,” Daryl mutters, almost amused despite himself.

“Yeah, I’m happy,” Beth says with a small, sad smile. “Just not blind. You gotta stay who you are, not who you were. Places like this…you have to put it away.”

“What if you can’t?” Daryl asks, his voice low, eyes distant.

“You have to,” Beth says quietly. “Or it kills you… here.” She puts a hand over her heart.

Daryl’s gaze lingers on her for a moment, the raw vulnerability of the moment palpable. “We should go inside,” he says finally, his voice rough.

Beth wipes her eyes but a smile appears on her lips, and after a long moment, she says, “We should burn it down.”

Daryl stands, grabbing the moonshine. He walks to the door, then pauses. “We’re gonna need more booze,” he mutters, giving her a half-hearted grin before stepping inside, the darkness swallowing him up again.

❥・・❥・・❥・・❥・・❥・・❥・・❥・・❥・・❥

Flames engulf the small house, the crackling fire consuming everything inside with a ruthless finality. Memories of Y/N fill Daryl’s mind—her laughter in that living room, the warmth of her body pressed against his on the worn couch, and the soft moments of peace that were so rare. Now, those moments are swallowed by fire, the heat searing away what’s left of his connection to her. It’s as if the flames are taking not just the house, but every last scrap of what they once had, reducing it all to ash.

But the memories don’t stop there. They dig deeper, pulling up images from his childhood, the kind he’s spent years trying to forget: broken glass on the floor, the stench of cigarettes, his father’s drunken rages. All of it is burning now, the orange glow illuminating the yard in a mix of destruction and twisted liberation. The flames lick at the night sky, sparks flying upward like dying stars, leaving behind nothing but smoke and charred wood.

Beth stands beside him, her face awash in the fiery glow. Her eyes are wild, filled with a strange mixture of excitement and catharsis. She nudges Daryl with her shoulder, grinning as she throws her middle finger high into the air. Daryl hesitates for a moment, his hand hanging limply by his side. He’s not sure if he’s ready to let go, not sure if he’s ready to raise that middle finger to everything that house represents—to Y/N, to his past, to everything that’s made him who he is. But then something inside him breaks loose, a dam that’s been holding back years of anger, regret, and pain. Slowly, he lifts his arm, raising his middle finger high. It feels raw, almost too real, as he aims the gesture at the burning wreckage. It’s a defiant act, one that carries every bit of his frustration and grief. He’s flipping off not just the house, but the entire twisted life that led him here—the mistakes, the heartbreak, and the endless goddamn survival that’s taken more from him than it’s ever given. Beside him, Beth smiles, a wild, reckless look that seems to match the chaos of the fire. The flames dance in her eyes, reflecting a strange sort of triumph. For a moment, it’s like they’re both shedding something old, something rotten that’s been weighing them down for far too long.

However, the reality of the world dawns, and they can only stand there so long. The fire has caught the attention of nearby walkers who begin to descend on the scene, attracted to the sudden rush of light illuminating the woods, and Daryl touches her arm, turning Beth around to leave. But for the first time in a long while, it feels like he’s done something that’s his choice, not survival’s. The anger still simmers, but there’s a strange, raw satisfaction that cuts through the heaviness in his chest. It’s not joy—he hasn’t felt that in longer than he can remember—but it’s a victory, however small and bitter. With one last look at the dying flames, he turns away from the burning wreckage, that hint of a smile still tugging at his lips. For now, it’s enough. It’s a step forward, however small, and for once, he’s leaving something behind on his own terms.

[azuregiggles]

Spontaneous Sanji HC!?

This is about fluffy tickling, if that's not for you kindly keep scrollin ty :D

Art/fic where Sanji is down and sour / sleep deprived and Robin decides to cheer him up /tire him out by tickling him as she does luffy and chopper.

The different spots and teases bring back memories of him being cheered up via tickles throughout his years with his mom and zeff.

Robin tickles his ears and it brings back memories of his mom cheering him up when he drops something he made for her (again) and she blows raspberries on his cheeks and nibbles on his ears. "Don't worry, I'll eat your giggles instead~ they're so so sweet~"

Robin tickles his neck and he recalls his mother twirling a pretty feather he brought her across his chin and neck. "Do you think this can help me find your smile?"

Robin tickles his sides and he recalls Zeff accidentally discovering how ticklish he was and begins using it to punish him for his snarky ways. "Why so jumpy, I hardly touched ye? Are you bruised or something?" The geezer inspected his wounds until he was interrupted by squeaky laughter.

His ribs bring back memories of being with Zeff not too long after rescue when his ribs only showed a little bit and Zeff decided to count them (croneing on and on about how he thought the brat had lost one during their time on the rock) as payback for Sanji calling him an old bastard. After all, hit the kid and he comes back swingin, tickle him to pieces and he learns his lesson fast.

And lastly his stomach is a particularly fond spot for his memory as zeff caught the kid snooping in his room one day; when asked what he was searching for the little brat replied "what kind of shitty pirate were you? You don't even have a treasure map! Shitty old man!" And zeff, in a particularly vengeful but amused mood told Sanji that the map was on his little blonde head and poked him in the brow "are you senile already? The hell is that supposed to mean?" Zeff smirked and scooped up the rowdy boy, placing him on the bed. He replied "I'll show ya, see? Your brow is the map, it starts up here-" he tickled Sanji's ribs on one side, earning loud squeals and swears "and it trails off down and around like this~" he scribble, scritched, and squeezed and ticklish swirl around the boy's midriff ending at his bellybutton and digging in around it. Shrill screams and boyish laughter rang throughout the room as the assault continued "see? Now that's treasure." Not that sanji could hear.

Robin leaves a sleepy cook to reminisce upon the kitchen floor, a blanket over his body and a genuine smile upon his face, he finally gets some rest.

Sorry if it's out of character at all but it's my head and these are it's cannons ty for reading

[shefanispeculator]

Blake Shelton grew up idolizing Country Music Hall of Fame inductee John Anderson. The little kid from Ada, Oklahoma, had no way of knowing that he would grow up to be touring partners and turkey-hunting buddies with his hero. But that’s what happened. Shelton asked Anderson to join him on his Friends & Heroes Tour two years in a row. All the men did was talk about hunting and fishing. Anderson took Shelton turkey hunting in the Everglades, and Shelton returned the favor. He took Anderson hunting on his Oklahoma farm. “It was pretty crazy to be with John Anderson down there in the Everglades and see all the shit that he’s singing about in ‘Seminole Wind’ and be down in there with him, spend an entire day with him down in that country,” Shelton told American Songwriter. “That was cool.”

Songs including “Seminole Wind,” “Swingin,’” and “Straight Tequila Night,” along with his instantly identifiable voice, propelled Anderson to the pinnacle of country music. He’ll be inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame on Sunday. Toby Keith and James Burton complete the 2024 class. Anderson singing “Swingin’” is Shelton’s first memory from an awards show, although he doesn’t remember which one. Fast forward a decade, and Shelton has his driver’s license. He’s riding around in his first pickup truck listening to “Seminole Wind” and “Money in the Bank.” Shelton credits Anderson’s career longevity to his peerless artistry. “I think it is as simple as, for me anyway, to look as an outsider, how unique and different and special he is as an artist to stand out among, at the time, probably a completely new generation of country artists who were out having hits,” Shelton said. “Then here comes John Anderson from the ‘70s and early ‘80s and just absolutely goes on a tear again all the way up into the early 2000s. He was having another string of hits again out of nowhere because his voice just sounds like home.” At 48 and after more than 20 years in country music, Shelton said he relates to Anderson differently than when he was that kid in Ada. “I’ve been doing this a long time,” Shelton said. “I know how hard it is to have a career that long and to have a resurgence and the work that goes into that. And for John, when you hear him sing, you’re like, ‘Oh, those are the good old days, and they’re back again, and everything is going to be okay.’” Shelton is mounting a resurgence of his own. He recently inked a new record deal with BBR Music Group/BMG Nashville.

(Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images)

[spotsupstuff]

Please tell us more about THE GREAT PAN WHEILDER

• they were wandering about some old house when they tripped right next to an edge, tumbled off of it, and cannonballed headfirst right into The pot. haven't put that thing down since • their first active interaction with the horde of overseers following them was one of the iterators asking them to do a backflip • someone made a song consisting entirely of them nailing lizards on the skulls. NSH listens to it religiously

• they are prone to running into walls. one time they pounced Directly into a wall that was like. 5 centimeters away from their face • they could oneshot Inv • despite the best efforts of like 50 separate iterators, Potscug has never gone into an iterator can. until they came across Pebbles of course ( ꈍᴗꈍ). animal magnet magnets • their left arm is so Fecking Stronk from constantly carryin n swingin that pan around that they could win an arm wrestling match against a red lizard. i believe in them • Potscug Has used the pan as a snowboard Once. they sailed far far away right into a crown of a tree and then needed help getting down • their wawas have a metallic echo to them cuz of the pot. one of the iterators almost broke down cuz of it, they couldn't stop laughing • the overseas iterators think that either an entire continent worth of demigod cousins has finally gone fucking insane or some kind of mythical beast has spawned into existence on the other side of the puddle • when i said they have the mindset of a truck i mean that they've repeatedly threw hands with red centipedes and king vultures. common sense Does Not burden the Potscug • the party-pooper iterators call them a threat to society (this includes Pebbles)

[devnmon]

When You're Lost in the Darkness

Summary: a little drabble that came to me when rewatching the first tlou episode; basically reader and Tess when she returns from talking with Robert and reader's concern for her&lt;3

tess servopolous x fem!reader

wc: <500

Rubbing your eyes from sleep, boot steps on the hardwood floor alerted you of your partner's return. You looked over to the woman approaching you from over by the coffee pot, with two mugs in her grip. You hadn't gotten a chance to look at her, being half-asleep and all. When your eyes finally met hers, the abundance of cuts and bruises on her face made your heart jump a mile high.

"Oh my god- Tess? What the fuck happened? You look like shit.."

Sunlight from the window above the kitchen sink shone on her facial injuries and bruises. She was still so gorgeous under those lacerations, some fresh and others halfway healed. You almost jump up from the table, hands immediately lifting to inspect the amount of damage done to her flawless skin.

"Robert's guys jumped me.. Tried to intimidate me with some 19 year-old douchebags. Said some shit, probably shouldn't've. Then there was a fuckin' explosion-"

"An explosion? What, Fireflies?" you questioned, knowing repetitive blasts having been set off multiple times this week by the resistance group.

Tess nodded, one of her eyes bruised and swollen around her lid.

"Well, it's a miracle you're alive. My god.. look at what they did to your pretty face.. Oh, your poor eye..." You turned her face around in the natural light, getting up to grab the bottle of whiskey on the countertop and a rag as she sipped her coffee.

"Come on, you know these guys were born after the outbreak. Never learned how to argue, they just start swingin'. Fuckin' nineteen year old pieces of shit."

"Tess, c’mon. These guys are working for Robert, so they clearly don't have any real brains in their skulls."

"Yeah, well, you're right about that."

"I'm right about mostly everything, Tess." A chuckle from the woman sat across you triggered your own. Knowing Tess's stubborn aspect always reiterated everything you said, it was genuinely funny. "God, that piece of shit Robert- I'm gonna fuck him up for what he did to you."

Standing in a huff, you walk over to the loose floorboard where you stored pills for smuggling, and your gun.

"No- baby, I need you to take a breath. Robert is terrified of you. So you march out of here all Charlie's Angels, he's gonna get wind of it and skip." Tess stood, walking over to you, sitting down as you pulled each object from the floor, "I need you to take a breath.”

Your eyes turned to her, meeting with the hazel orbs hidden by her bruises, focusing on her face as you inhaled and exhaled deeply. Her hand was placed on your shoulder, rubbing softly.

What Tess said must have done something to calm you, because your heart slowed just by her physical contact, immediately having a clearer head on the issue.

"Okay, but I'm still gonna fuck him up." You clicked the cylinder of the revolver out, replacing three of the shells with new bullets. Tess only watched as you gathered everything, smirking at your persistence.

"That's my girl."

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

Four theatrical posters for THE JUNGLE BOOK, each one for one of its four theatrical releases. One each decade. Original release 1967, and re-releases in 1978, 1984, and 1990.

I love how each poster kinda sums up each era in Disney's poster design, in how Disney's marketing department did these kinds of one-sheet theatrical posters over the years. The original '67 poster is not only very much like the other ones for contemporary Disney films and re-issues, but it is totally of its era. It just screams swingin' '60s, it lines up with some of the pop culture of its time. There's a real beat energy on that one. Though I am questioning Shere Khan's scale here in relation to the other characters.

The 1978 poster is a little more timeless I feel, as the film was now over 10 years old by that point, and some of its contemporary aspects became a bit dated. So that one focuses more on a singular scene than the colorful cast of characters, who are still there, but at the bottom around the logo. Much more subdued, but it's a nice touch. The 1984 one brings back a lot of the characters in full size, even the village girl at the end (I know, the Disneytoon sequel released in 2003 gave her the name Shanti), but also has that timeless feel of the 1978 poster. Very storybook on that one, the art style reminding me of those hardcover Gallery Books storybooks Disney made of their animated features back in the '80s and '90s. The "Disney Classic Series".

The final one from 1990 is that glossy, on-model look that came to define a lot of the video cover artwork of the era. Makes it look like it could be a newer movie alongside the Disney features coming out at the time, like THE LITTLE MERMAID and THE RESCUERS DOWN UNDER. Disney video covers, all the way up to the Blu-ray/4K days, have a tendency to go for this particular look, which starts becoming a thing by this point - again, mid-1990. The images would only get glossier and cuter and whatnot from there. Here in its early form, there's still - I feel - a fine balance between the actual vintage look of the movie and enough of a new sheen to it. The '78 and '84 re-issue posters, much like the Classics video covers from the mid-1980s, approach the subjects with more of a fine art execution, I feel.

Each poster also preserves, in some way or another, the art style of the film. The way the big leaves, the jungle foliage, etc. were all designed. So that remains. That's very cool.

[carry-on-big-bang]

Carry On Big Bang 2023 Masterlist

As sign-ups for Carry On Big Bang 2024 open today, it seems like the perfect time to share the masterlist of last year's fics as an example of works that have been created for this event before and to reshare some amazing collaborations!

Note: I believe I rounded up all the fics, but if I missed one, feel free to send a message with the link, and I will be happy to add it to the list!

Rated T

Signs of the Past written by @seafoampuddings with art by @palimpsessed

Upon Further Research written by @onepintobean with art by @not-mandip

Changes written by @yeonjunenby with art by @enbynoodle

Good Old-Fashioned Loverboy by @yeonjunenby with art by @artsyunderstudy

storm the castles written by @dragoneggos with art by @anikamercat

The Last Cruel Summer written by @nerdishnonbinary with art by @myawfod

Hounds of Love written by @sailorblossoms with art by @not-mandip

Rated M

Hot N Cold written by @whogaveyoupermission with art by @cutestkilla

Rated E

Sugar, We're Going Down Swingin written by @prettygoododds with art by @dohrnaira

Strictly Professional written by @palimpsessed with art by @knitbelove-draws

All I Ever Wanted was the World written by @facewithoutheart with art by @yellobb

Threads of Fate written by @aristocratic-otter with art by @moments-au-crayon22

Eirlys written by @theearlgreymage with art by @shrekgogurt

Aster & Narcissus written by @theearlgreymage with art by @ivelovedhimthroughworse

For You, Around You and With You: A Study of Dragon Sociology in Human Society (or: Sending my Love from the Other Side (of the Apocalypse)) written by @myawfod with art by @ic3-que3n

[cosmicjoke]

A Friend for Me

Levi is 14 years old when he meets Conrad for the first time.

Well, almost 14.  He’ll be 14 in just about two weeks.  Levi knows, ‘cause he’s been keepin’ count ‘a the days, religious-like.  Countin’ each one as it comes and goes.

It was always real obvious, too, when his birthday was comin’ up, ‘cause it was in December, and December got real cold down here.  Real cold.  Lotta’ people died, come December.  You saw more dead bodies in the streets.  And that let Levi know his birthday was comin’ up.  That, and he kept real good count ‘a the days, these days.

Well, he hopes they’ll keep lettin’ them work the mines, even if it gets real cold.  Colder than it already is, anyhow, ‘cause he got no more money, and he don’t… don’t like to steal.  Not unless he’s got to.  He weren’t no good at it, really.  Didn’t got the brains for bein’ sneaky, even though Kenny’d taught him good how to do it.  He always seemed to get caught, and then he had to get to crackin’ skulls, or he’d be dead, sure.  But he don’t like it.  Don’t like crackin’ skulls.  Don’t like killin’.

Kenny’d laugh.  But Kenny’s been gone these four years, and it don’t matter, no more, what Kenny’d think.

Well, and Levi’s good at this job.  It don’t pay shit, but he’s good at it.

He’s small.  Smaller ‘n the other kids they got workin’ the mines.  And stronger.  He guesses it’s the fact ‘a both that makes him so good at it.  Other kids his size, they was all younger.  Like nine and ten, so’s they didn’t have his strength or speed, and they died down here, real easy.  Real easy.  Levi could get the jobs done didn’t nobody else could.  Could get into them real tight spaces, down deep where it was darker even than in the streets.  So dark, you couldn’t see your hand in front ‘a your face.  Could set the charges.  He was good at swingin’ a pick, too.  Could crack rocks all day and find what they was lookin’ for.

Ice Burst Stone. 

He knows it’s a big thing up top. 

They use it for all kinds ‘a stuff, he reckons.  Though he don’t particular know what.

‘Cept the military.  He knows they use it for that gear they got to flyin’ around on.  He don’t know what it’s called.  They turn it into gas for them canisters that get ‘em in the air.

He saw it plenty in action, though.  Them police pigs, flyin’ around down here, crackin’ heads and arrestin’ people didn’t do nothin’ to no one. 

Seen a couple ‘a them Scouts, too. 

Them’s were crazy bastards, Levi knows.  Had to be.

Heard all kinds ‘a crazy stories ‘bout them folks, goin’ out beyond the walls and fightin’ Titans. 

Crazy.

Levi couldn’t figure the point.

Up top, he figures, you had all you could ever want. 

Blue skies, far as the eye could see.  Clean air.  Fresh water.  And the sun.  The big, warm sun, just sittin’ up there in the sky, so close you could almost touch it.

He’d heard some ‘a the other boys talkin’ ‘bout up top, one day.  They was sayin’ they got so much food there, they was just givin’ it away to folks.  Just hadin’ it out, free.

Levi’s not so sure he believes that.  Wasn’t nothin’ in this world free.

But the point is, he don’t know what them crazy Scout bastards feel the need to go ‘an fight Titans, for. 

Not enough appreciation for the things they had, he figures. 

Didn’t know how good they had it.

Even if they wasn’t really given food out fee, they still got the sky and the sun, and Levi figures, that’d be enough for him.

Well, weren’t no point, dreamin’ ‘a all that, though.  He wasn’t never gettin’ up top.

He sits here now, pickin’ at his stale slice ‘a bread, and listens to the other boys talkin’ and laughin’.

Didn’t no one ever talk or laugh with him.  The other boys don’t particular like him.  They tell him he’s a freak and weird, and Levi guesses it’s true.

He’d tried that socializin’ when he’d first got picked up by the company, but he weren’t no good at it.  Didn’t know how to talk right.

By the time Kenny’d left ‘em, he hardly was talkin’ two words a day.

These days, he’d down to nothin’, really.

Well, the other boys said he gave ‘em the creeps, on account ‘a how quiet he was, and how low he talked, when he did, and he guesses ‘cause ‘a his strength.  They said it weren’t natural, and told him to fuck off. 

They was all plenty happy, though, for him to do all the dangerous jobs.  Gettin’ down deep where all the good rock was, where couldn’t none ‘a the older boys fit, settin’ charges and findin’ open caverns, sending back up what he could find with his pick. 

It’s alright.

Levi figure, his strength’s gotta’ be good for somethin’ more ‘an killin’.  Gotta’ be.  And if he can keep some ‘a these boys from gettin’ killed, blowed up or crushed under fallin’ rock, he’s happy to.

They don’t like him particular, but he don’t wanna’ see none of ‘em die.

He tries not to think how, during their lunch break, like now, he always gets into his head how he’d like to go over and join in their conversation.

He pictures it. 

Pictures goin’ over there and all them boys smilin’ at him and tellin’ him to have a seat, and he could just listen, and it’d be alright.  Wouldn’t nobody expect him to say nothin’, just happy to have his company, and he’d be happy to have theirs. 

He’d like that, he thinks.

But he knows better, by now.

They’d tell him to fuck off, and throw rocks at him, ‘till he got the message, and slunk off to sit alone.  They’d laugh, and he’d know, deep down, they was laughin’ at him, and it got Levi to feelin’ that pain in his chest he sometimes still got, and he’d crush it down and think ‘a nothin’.

He reaches down into his pocket, puttin’ the thought from his head, pulls his purse.  He pours his coins out into his palm and count’s ‘em.

Ain’t much.

Just enough for another slice ‘a bread, maybe a couple carrots, if they’s a few days old.

He puts the coins back in his purse.

His fingers are black with soot and grime, and he rubs ‘em together and frowns. 

Don’t like that.  Don’t like his hands bein’ filthy.

He’ll have to wash ‘em, later.  If he can.  Find some water and boil it and wash ‘em ‘till they’re clean. 

He got to washin’ and scrubbin’ so hard, sometimes, he split the skin, and he’d watch his own blood ooze on outta’ him, slow and thick.

Some days, it made him think what it’d look like, if he were to slash his own throat, ear to ear, like how Kenny taught him to do on other men.

He wonders if his eyes would be big and startled, like how other men looked when you took their throat outta’ them.

He didn’t like it.  Didn’t like those startled looks.  Made him sick.  Made him think bad thoughts, and dream bad dreams.

Don’t like killin’, and he wants to keep his job workin’ the mines, even though the pay weren’t hardly enough to get by, day to day. 

Well, he’s thinkin’ all these thoughts when he feels someone come on up behind him, and he turns, quick like, and is on his feet, and he grabs the bastard by the collar and shoves him away.  Puts his purse back in his pocket.

“Whoa, whoa,” the kid says.

He’s an older kid.  Gotta’ be 16 or 17, Levi figure, on account ‘a how tall he is.  Gotta’ be 5 foot nine or ten.  Tall and skinny, like how Kenny looked, though he ain’t that tall.  And he know he ain’t strong like Kenny. 

The rest ‘a him ain’t nothin’ to look at.  Shaggy black hair that falls into blue eyes, pasty and pale like all ‘a them down here.  He’s got a pimply face.

The kid grins at him, and then he’s holdin’ out his hand.

Levi stares at it a long moment, before his eyes move back up to the kid's face.  He’s still grinnin’, and Levi feels somethin’ like suspicion lurch in his gut.

He takes a step back.

The kid pulls his hand back and holds ‘em up, shakin’ his head.

“I don’t mean nothin’, little guy,” he says, “hey, you talk?”

Levi’s frown deepens, and he takes another step back.

“I ain’t never heard you talk, so I figured maybe you was a mute.”

“… I talk,” Levi finally answers, voice hoarse from disuse. 

The kid grins wider.

“I’m Conrad,” he says, and he sticks his hand out again, “What’s your name?”

Levi still don’t move to take the kid's hand.

“Listen,” he goes on, like he ain’t bothered, “I see how the other boys treat you, and I think it’s real rotten.  You’re our best asset, down here.  You must keep a dozen kids a day from gettin’ caved in on, what with you takin’ on all the dangerous work yourself.”

Levi don’t say nothin’, just keeps starin’ up at the older boy.  Conrad, he said his name was.

Nobody else had ever told him their name.

“Well, I figured maybe you could use a friend,” Conrad says.

Levi’s eyes shutter.

He shakes his head.

“No?” Conrad asks, “Come on, kid.  How old are you?  Nine?  Ten?”

Levi swallows, self-conscious, all ‘a sudden.

“I’ll be fourteen, end ‘a this month,” he says, a little defensive.

Conrad huffs a laugh, and Levi looks away finally.

“For real?  What are you?  Four foot seven, I’m guessin’?  You look like a little kid.”

“I’m stronger ‘an you,” Levi tells him flatly.

He expects the kid to get angry at that.  Most boys didn’t like bein’ told they was weaker ‘an you.  But Conrad just laughs.

“No shit,” he says, “I see what you can do.  The other boys think it’s unnatural, but I figure you’re just gifted.  Hey, what’s your name, kid?”

Levi blinks.

He hadn’t expected that.  Hadn’t expected him to just accept it.

Most kids, you told ‘em you was stronger than ‘em, and they wanted to prove it otherwise.  Always wanted to fight.

“… Levi,” he finally answers, voice a cracked whisper.

Conrad grins at him again, and again, holds out his hand.

“Well, Levi, I’m Conrad.”

But Levi shakes his head again.

He don’t know what this kid wants.  Don’t know what game he’s playin’.  People didn’t want to be his friend.

“Alright, Levi,” Conrad shrugs, his hand fallin’ away, “that’s alright.  Hey, I’ll come back tomorrow and see if you want to shake then.  Alright?”

Levi’s frown deepens, and he don’t say nothin’, just watchin’ the kid turn around and go back toward the group of other boys.

Conrad, he thinks.

Ain’t nobody ever told him their name, before.

Ain’t nobody ever asked him his.

//

The next day, Conrad comes back, just like he said he would, and this time, Levi shakes his hand.

He’s got big hands.  Swallow Levi’s right up, and Conrad laughs about it, and says he don’t know how Levi got such strong hands when they was so little.

Levi puts his hands in his pockets and don’t say nothin’, starin’ at the ground.

Conrad laughs.

“Don’t take it personal, Levi,” he tells him, “you’re just a little marvel, ain’t ya?  You’re stronger ‘an most grown men, I figure.  Hey, you know what else I figure?  This ain’t the place for you.  You bein’ gifted and all.  You could be runnin’ this whole neighborhood, with that gift ‘a yours.”

Levi frowns and looks up at him.  He shakes his head.

“What?  You don’t think so?”

“… Ain’t smart,” Levi mutters, and Conrad laughs again.

“Well, I am,” he says, “don’t let a little thing like that hold ya back.  Hey, what you think?  You and I could do big things together.  My brains and your brawn.  You know, this job sucks.  What you say we get outta’ here.  I got big plans, Levi.  Got some marks.  What you think?”

Levi shakes his head.

“No?  Just like that?  You gotta’ at least consider it, Levi.”

Levi shakes his head again.

“Can’t lose this job,” he tells Conrad, and Conrad shrugs.

“Well, you just think about it,” he says, “hey, Levi… I like you.  I think you’re a pretty cool kid.  Don’t let these other jokers get you down, okay?”

Levi watches him walk away again, and somethin’ shifts in his chest.  Somethin’ he don’t recognize.

He thinks about Conrad for the rest ‘a the day.  Thinks about him when he goes to the abandoned shack he’s been holed up in the last, few weeks.  While he lies there in the dark, starin’ up at the black ceilin’, everything around him silent and still as death.

He’s disappointed, the next day, when Conrad don’t come by to say hello.

//

There’s a cave in the day after.

Levi gets caught in it.  He’s strong enough, he’s able to lift the rocks up off himself and go to help the others. 

Some of ‘em is dead, crushed to death, their skulls done in.  Levi bites the inside ‘a his cheeks and looks away from ‘em, moves on to the ones still breathin’.

There’s dirt and dust cloggin’ the air, and he coughs and coughs against it as he works to dig the others free, his eyes stingin’ and burnin’, tears down his face.

Conrad is one ‘a the kids, and Levi feels his heart kick hard in his chest as he pulls the rocks up off him.

He ain’t so bad off.  Just a little scraped and bruised. 

Conrad laughs when he sees him. 

“You got a big gash in your head,” he says, and Levi reaches up, feels the slick ‘a his own blood, pourin’ down his face.  He hadn’t even realized.

He hauls Conrad up, tells him to get to the entrance.

“You should just leave the rest of ‘em,” Conrad says, “they’re all dead, probably.”

Levi shakes his head.

“Suit yourself,” Conrad tells him, “but I got a feelin’ this cave’s gonna’ collapse again.”

Levi ignores him and keeps diggin’. 

He finds three more kids still breathin’.  They’re all unconscious, and Levi has to carry ‘em out. 

Conrad helps Levi get the gash on his head cleaned up, wraps it in some gauze that Levi don’t know where he got from.

“Hey, you wanna’ come back with me to my place?” He asks after, when they cut the day short, “I got some friends I’d like you to meet.”

Levi don’t know what to say, so he just stands there.

He’s dizzy.

“Come on, Levi, don’t you want some friends?”

Levi frowns, stares down at his hands, covered in grime and soot and cut all up from the rocks.

“Come on,” Conrad says, and he puts his arm around Levi’s shoulders.

Levi pushes him off and steps back, shakes his head.

Conrad frowns at him.

“Now you’re hurtin’ my feelin’s, kid,” he says, “come on.  Come with me.”

Levi’s breath comes too fast, and he don’t know what to do.

Conrad acted like he wanted to be his friend.  But didn’t nobody ever want to be his friend. 

He didn’t fit. 

“… Why?” He finally manages, and Conrad keeps frownin’ at him.

“Why what?”

“… Why you act like you wanna’ be my friend?” Levi asks.

And now Conrad grins again. 

He’s got a nice smile, Levi thinks.  He’s nice.

“I told you, Levi, I like you,” he says, like that explains it, “I think you’re a cool cat.”

“… People don’t like me,” Levi tells him.

“Pff, well, I ain’t people, Levi.  I’m just me.  Come on.  What?  You think I’m gonna’ pull somethin’?  The hell could I do to you?  You’ll snap my neck like a twig, if you’re so inclined.  I just wanna’ be your friend, Levi.”

Conrad wants to be his friend.

That’s what he says.

Levi ain’t never had no friend, before.

Kenny been gone four years, just about. 

Mama’s been gone nine.

Levi spends his days and nights alone, now.  Always alone.  He stares up at the ceiling of his hole and thinks about friends and what it might be like, to have someone with him who wanted to talk to him and everything.  Who wanted to be near.

Conrad says he wants to be Levi’s friend, and Levi thinks he wants to be Conrad’s friend, too.

Conrad was nice.  He was nicer to him than anyone.  Talked to him and all.  Guesses he don’t gotta’ imagine no more, since Conrad came and really talked and asked Levi questions, liken he was for real curious.

When Kenny left, Levi cried once, and then he didn’t cry no more.

Bein’ alone was how it was for him, and no sense cryin’ over what was meant to be. 

Well, but… some days it got to feelin’ like he couldn’t breathe from it.  Like there was a big weight, pressin’ down on his chest, crushin’ him worse than any fallin’ rocks ever could. 

He stares at his hands, and thinks about the other boys who told him to fuck off, and thinks ‘a how he don’t fit.

Conrad was nice.  He was nice to him.  He was kind.

Levi looks up at him, and he thinks how he’d like to go with him, and be his friend.  Imagines the two of ‘em, sittin’ together and talkin’ and bein’ friends and…

It gets him to feelin’ somethin’ warm all through his chest.  Liken he was sat near a big fire, and he could feel all that heat, seepin’ into his skin and bones and warmin’ him all up from the inside out.

Conrad is lookin’ back at him, expectin’ and all, like he really cares what Levi’s got to say. 

Nobody never cared, before.

So he nods, and the big grin on Conrad’s face makes the warmth in his chest bigger.

This time, when Conrad puts his arm around his shoulders, Levi don’t push him away.

//

Conrad’s friends are all kids around his same age.  Sixteen or seventeen.

They’re all together, laid up in their own, abandoned hole, a lot like the one Levi’s got for himself.

“Look alive, boys!” Conrad shouts, pullin’ Levi in through the door, “lookey what we got here!”

Nobody seems to hear him.

There’s six of ‘em, Levi counts, lost in their own worlds, and he hears Conrad scoff.

He looks up at him, sees the frown on his face.

“Dumb bastards,” he mutters.

His arm slips offa’ Levi’s shoulders, and he wanders forward, leavin’ Levi to stand there.

He don’t know what to do, so he stays in place and watches Conrad slump down into an empty hammock they’ve got hung from two hooks in the walls, his eyes closin’ like he’s goin’ to sleep.

Levi shifts, puts his arms around himself.

“Hey, Conrad, who’s the pipsqueak?” Someone’s voice cuts through the air.

Conrad’s eyes stay closed, wavin’ a hand.

“He’s with me,” he answers, “kid I told y’all about.”

“The freak?” One of the others asks, and Levi steps back.

He thinks maybe this was a bad idea.  Thinks maybe he should leave.

Conrad sits up, glarin’ at the other boy.

“He ain’t no freak, Russo,” he says, “don’t talk ‘bout my new friend that way.”

The other boy smirks.

“Sure, Conrad,” he says, and goes back to what he was doin’ before.

Conrad looks at him.

“Come here, Levi,” he says, and Levi hurries toward him.

“Don’t mind these clowns,” he tells him, “come here.”

And he’s reachin’ down then, pickin’ Levi up off the floor and into the hammock with him.

Levi feels himself tense, and he almost pops Conrad in the face, just pressin’ down the reflex.

Conrad laughs, like he sees it in Levi’s face.  He was always laughin’, and Levi thinks he likes the sound ‘a it. 

Couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed.  Thinks maybe he never has.

“They’ll come around,” Conrad tells him, and he’s got his arm around him again, “hey, you like it here?”

Levi nods.

He likes bein’ near Conrad.

And suddenly the smile drops off Conrad’s face, and he looks at Levi, real serious.

“If you’re gonna’ stay, though, you need to earn your keep.  You understand?  Can’t tolerate no freeloaders,”

Levi nods.  He understands.

“Hey, how about you let me tell you some ‘a my ideas, huh?  Them mines ain’t the place for either of us, kid.  What you say?  You wanna’ hear some ‘a my ideas?”

Levi frowns.

He don’t wanna’ lose his job workin’ the mines.

But Conrad keeps insistin’, so he nods.  Says he’ll listen, at least.

Conrad smiles again, and Levi thinks that’s a good enough reason.

That’s good enough.

//

Conrad tells Levi about a merchant’s caravan that’s meant to be comin’ through this part ‘a the Underground, a couple days from now.  Says they just need someone strong and fast to knock it off.

“It’ll be heavily guarded,” Conrad says, “ain’t none of us got what it takes to get around all that.  But you do, Levi.  You know, you could provide for the whole lot ‘a us, if you bump it off.  At least a week’s worth ‘a food and water and whatever else you manage to grab.  Hell, it could last us the month, if it’s as rich a haul as I’m hearin’.”

Levi frowns, picks at a loose thread, comin’ undone at the knee of his pants.

“What do you say, kid?” Conrad asks.

“… I don’t wanna’ kill nobody,” Levi tells him, eyes fixed away.

“Who said anythin’ ‘bout killin’?” Conrad says, “Hey, but even if you have to, it’ll be worth it.  You don’t care ‘bout some fat-cat merchants, do you?  Fuck them rich bastards.  Think they can hoard all the wealth.”

Levi don’t think Conrad understands, really.

He ain’t got no love for them fat-cat merchants.  It’s just… he dreams about it.  The crush ‘a bone and meat beneath his hands, the sick sound ‘a flesh, tearin’ apart between his fingers.  Spray ‘a warm blood on his face.

Killin’s ugly business, and he don’t wanna’ knock nobody off ‘less he got no choice.  ‘Less they tryin’ to do him, first.

He don’t wanna’ kill no guards.  They was just doin’ their job.

But he killed so easy.  Just a little too much, and people broke like sticks in his hands.

“Hey, we’re friends, ain’t we?” Conrad asks, and he pulls Levi against his side.

Levi swallows.

He thinks… it’s stupid… but he thinks, if he says yeah, it’ll make it so it ain’t so.  Somethin’ bad’ll happen.

So he just stays quiet, and holds on to that warm feelin’ in his chest.

“Well, I think we’re friends,” Conrad says, “and friend’s help each other out, don’t they?  Hey, I’m lettin’ you stay, ain’t I?”

Levi nods.

That was true.

Friends help each other out. 

Levi ain’t never had no friends, but he figures, that’s what friends do.  They help each other. 

He wants to help Conrad.

Conrad was nice to him.  Nicer ‘an anyone. 

So he says yes, and Conrad smiles at him, and Levi feels warm inside.

//

Conrad tells him where and when the caravan’ll be comin’ through, and tells Levi they’ll all be waitin’ for him, back at his place.

Levi don’t know what he’s doin’, really, but Conrad said he trusts him. 

Hadn’t really given him no instructions, though, so Levi’s got to figure it out on his own.

There’s six guards, and a driver for each wagon.  So nine total.  Levi counts.  Two guards per wagon.

He thinks maybe if he goes for the one at the back, first, he can grab an armful ‘a stuff and hightail it ‘for anyone up front really took notice.

He tries.

Things go south, one ‘a the guards puttin’ out a warning ‘for Levi can knock him cold.

He’s been workin’ on holdin’ back, puttin’ just enough juice into his shots not to kill nobody.  But it’s hard, and he still thinks he hits the guy too hard, his head snappin’ back weird ‘for he crumples to the ground. 

Levi tries not to think about it, hopes he’ll be okay.

There’s no time to think.

He scrambles into the back ‘a the wagon, grabs whatever he can, tossin’ it into the burlap sack he’s brought, stuffin’ it halfway full before the second guard shows up, blockin’ his escape.

Levi swings with the bag and hits the guy full in the face, knockin’ him back off the wagon.

“You little bastard!” He hears someone shout, just as he leaps to the ground beneath, and then the crack ‘a gunshots, and he’s takin’ off, runnin’ fast as he can.

More shouts behind him, more gunshots, and Levi ducks down an alleyway, grippin’ the bag tight in his hand as he grabs hold of a drainpipe with the other, usin’ it to launch himself up the side ‘a one of the buildings, vaulting himself over and onto the roof.

He runs, jumpin’ between buildings, breath hot in his lungs.

He don’t stop ‘till he hears the shouts and gunshots fade, and he drops down to the ground beneath, slumping against the wall, knees weak, suckin’ air in through his nose.

He hopes no one got a good look at him.

He hopes he didn’t hurt that guard too bad.

He lets the sack ‘a stolen goods fall to the ground, and sinks down with it.  He opens it up to see all what he got.

Bunch’a canned goods.  Some cartons ‘a water.  Managed to grab up a couple bushels ‘a fruits and vegetables, too.

It’s more food than he’s seen in a while.  More ‘an enough, he thinks, to keep everyone fed for at least a week.

He wraps the opening of the bag around his palm and hauls it over his shoulder, pushin’ himself back to his feet.

He tries to imagine the look on Conrad’s face, when he sees all he’s gotten.

He thinks he’ll be happy. 

He hopes so, anyway.

//

Conrad and his friends strip the sack in seconds, and Conrad puts his hand on Levi’s shoulder, tells him good job, smiles at him.

There’s nothin’ left, after, but that’s okay. 

Levi sits near Conrad and listens to him talk as he pops open a can ‘a beans, and nobody tells him to fuck off.

He ignores the way his stomach grumbles, tight with hunger.  He was used to that, anyway.

He goes to sleep on the floor, after, when everyone else has turned in for the night.

Conrad was his friend, he thinks, starin’ at the grain of the floorboards.

He traces his stubby fingers over the patterns, a low hum in his throat, some faded memory of a song.

He thinks maybe Mama sang it to him, once.  But he don’t really know.

He couldn’t remember her too well, no more.

//

The next time, Levi asks if he can have one ‘a the cans of food.  He ain’t eaten’ in a couple days.  He feels a little dizzy and weak.

They’d closed the mines down for the winter, so wasn’t gettin’ no pay no more.

“That’s bein’ greedy, Levi,” Conrad tells him, passin’ the cans and fruits out to the other boys, “You can get food anytime you like, with that strength ‘a yours.  The rest ‘a us ain’t so lucky.”

Levi opens his mouth to say it ain’t so easy for him, neither, but Conrad cuts him off.

“Besides, it’s a fair trade-off, don’t you think?  You get a roof over your head, and you pay with food ‘stead ‘a coin.”

Levi guesses so.

… He don’t wanna’ be selfish.

He could go back to where he was holed up before, he thinks.  But Conrad said he wanted him around, and the others boys didn’t seem to mind none, either.  Levi likes bein’ around ‘em all.  Likes bein’ around Conrad. 

That was more ‘an he’d ever had, and he figure he ain’t got no cause to complain.  Couldn’t ask for more.

So he don’t say nothin’, and ignores the pain in his stomach.

Maybe if he was lucky, he’d be able to find somethin’ to eat tomorrow.  Go searchin’ through the gutters.  Maybe find some old bread.  It’s how it got, in the winters.

Conrad falls asleep, and Levi wraps his arms around himself, that song in his throat again.

He hums it to himself, quiet, ‘till someone tosses a can at him.

It hits him in the temple, bounces off, clatterin’ across the floor.

“Shut the fuck up!” A voice snaps, and Levi swallows the rest down.

His birthday’s the day after tomorrow.  He’s been keepin’ count ‘a the days, religious-like, so he knows.

He’ll visit the place where Mama died, like he does every year. 

He’ll sit and talk to her, even though he knows, it’s just an empty room, now.

Just an empty space.

//

He spends the next, few weeks followin’ Conrad around.

Conrad knows how to talk to people.  He’s what people called charmin’.  Or a fast talker, is what Kenny’d say.

Levi wishes he could be like that.  Wishes he knew how to talk to people, ‘stead ‘a what he is, a half-wit mute.  That’s what people called him, and he guesses it’s true.

Conrad’s cuttin’ up with some boys Levi don’t know, and Levi stands at his back like a shadow.

He watches, and wishes he could talk, too.  He likes the way they all laugh and joke with each other. 

He don’t get most ‘a the humor, but he thinks their smiles are real. 

He’s been tryin’ to smile, lately.  Been practicin’ with his reflection in puddles and dirty glass.

He’d stand there, starin’ at himself, and lift the corners ‘a his mouth like he knows you’re supposed to.

It always looks wrong, though.  Crooked and lopsided and ugly.

Guesses there weren’t much he could do about that, on account ‘a his bein’ ugly in general.

Some people he knew, though, they’s could be ugly, but when they smiled, it was like their whole face changed.  Like it lit up into somethin’ beautiful. 

He don’t think he’s got that kinda’ face.

He stands here now, and tries smilin’ to himself.  Tries doin’ it with teeth, and then without.  It feels weird.  Almost hurts, the way it pulls and tugs at the muscles of his face.

He wonders, maybe, if he could smile like Conrad, maybe he’d be able to join in on he conversation, too.

He steps a little closer to the group, wedgin’ himself between Conrad and another boy.

Nobody seems to notice or care, so Levi inches up a little more.

He tries smilin’.  Tries laugin’, even though he don’t know what he’s laughin’ at.  All that comes out is a huff ‘a breath, but it’s enough to get Conrad to look down at him.

“Did you just laugh?” He asks.

Levi thinks he should smile and nod, so he tries it.  Looks up at Conrad and grins, and Conrad’s face twists.

“Shit, Levi, you shouldn’t smile, kid.  That shit looks scary on you,” he says.

Levi feels the smile drop off his face, his cheeks goin’ warm.

Nobody else seems to notice.  Nobody says nothin’ to him, just goin’ back to their conversation.

Levi shrinks away.

He guesses that was stupid.  He don’t belong.  Don’t fit.

Don’t know what he’d been thinkin’, tryin’ to fit.

Eventually, Levi wanders away from the group.  Conrad don’t say nothin’, so Levi figures he too busy to care.

Maybe he’ll catch him later. 

Maybe, then, it’ll just be the two of ‘em, and Conrad’ll smile at him, and tell him one ‘a his stories.

Levi’d like that, he thinks.

He’d like that.

//

Levi’s been thinkin’ ‘bout kissin’ on Conrad, lately.

Been thinkin’ ‘bout it a lot.

Well, on account especial ‘cause Conrad’s been so nice to him of late.  He’s been real nice.  Started… started lettin’ Levi have some ‘a the hauls he brings in and everything.  Lettin’ him have some ‘a the food and… and lettin’ him tag along with him and his other friends and even… even started tryin’ to include him and such in… in… in their conversation and all.  It got Levi to thinkin’ maybe Conrad saw him as a real friend, now, and… well, like part ‘a the group, all official and such.  And that got Levi to thinkin’ maybe… maybe Conrad saw him as somethin’ more… maybe… like… liken a… a boyfriend, even…

Well, Levi knows that’s presump… presumptu… well, that word he’d learned from Kenny.  Mean, like, assumin’ and such.  Can’t remember it now. 

It was just… when Conrad got to smilin’ at him sometimes, and Levi got all twisted up inside at the look, he thought sure it must mean somethin’.  Got to thinkin’, sometime, that maybe Conrad was sweet on him.

And, well, he’s been sittin’ here for the last while, him and Conrad sittin’ together, and Conrad was talkin’ up a blue-streak, and Levi was content just to listen.  But he kept noticin’ how Conrad was smilin’ and smilin’ at him, that big, broad grin ‘a his that got Levi’s insides all twisted up, and he’s thinkin’ sure, people only smile at you like that when they’s was sweet on you.  He thinks, sure. 

And Conrad’s been so nice, lately, and spendin’ more time with him and Levi’s thinks there’s sure gotta’ be a reason.

He gets to imaginin’ what it might be like to kiss another boy.  Gets to imaginin’ what Conrad’s lips taste like.  How they might feel against his own.

He keeps watchin’ Conrad’s lips now, as he talks and talks, and he thinks he’d like to find out.  Thinks there’s gotta’ be a reason Conrad smiled at him all the time.

And he don’t think about it particular then, just finds himself leanin’ closer to the older boy, liftin’ up on his knees to press his lips to Conrad’s own.

He gets right up close and for an instant, he feels the brush ‘a Conrad’s lips.  They’re dry and a little soft and they don’t really taste like nothin’, ‘cept maybe a hint ‘a rum.

That’s all Levi gets ‘for he feels Conrad’s hands on his shoulders, and he’s shovin’ Levi away, then.  Shovin’ him hard enough, Levi thinks, if’n he were weaker, he’d go right on over onto his back. 

“What the FUCK are you doin’!?” Conrad spits, and his face has gone all twisted up and beat red, eyes wide and vibratin’ in his skull.

Levi blinks up at him, his heart hammerin’ away against his ribs, hard enough all ‘a sudden, he’s sure it’s gonna’ bust outta’ his chest. 

He looks at Conrad’s twisted up face, all ragin’ and pissed, his mouth all curled in disgust, and knows he done fucked up. 

His mouth comes open’, thinkin’… thinkin’ he’s gotta’ explain.  Gotta’… somehow… gotta’ say somethin’…

But don’t no words come, and Conrad’s face goes even madder, and he’s standin’ now, towerin’ over Levi.

“You a queer!?” Conrad screams at him, “You a God damned fuckin’ QUEER?!”

And Levi don’t know what to say.  Don’t no words come.

He watches as Conrad wipes the back ‘a his wrist against his mouth, and then again.

“Fuckin’… fuckin’ disgustin’… fuckin’ nasty god damned fuckin’ queer!  God damned faggot!”

Levi shrinks away, his eyes goin’ hazy and burnin’, arms wrappin’ ‘round himself.

He done fucked up.  He fucked up so bad.

“… ‘m sorry,” he whispers, but he don’t think Conrad even hears him.

He spits at Levi.

“Fuckin’… I knew there was somethin’ wrong with you,” he says, “Fuckin’ knew it.  God damned… you little fuckin’ freak.  You nasty, disgustin’ freak, put your God damned nasty mouth on me like that…”

“… ‘m sorry, Conrad,” Levi says again, tries to make his voice louder, even as he feels the warmth of tears down his cheeks, “… ‘m sorry, I d-didn’t mean… I just th-thought…”

“The fuck did you think?!” Conrad cuts him off, and when he comes at Levi and picks him up by the collar ‘a his shirt, Levi lets it happen.  Let’s Conrad shake him hard. “You think I was some kinda’ faggot, too?  I ought’a slap your filthy mouth bloody for that, you fuckin’ faggot freak!”

And he does.  He lays his knuckles against Levi’s mouth, again and again, ‘till Levi tastes iron at the back ‘a his throat and the world goes spinnin’ ‘round him. 

Finally Conrad lets him go, and Levi crumples to the floor, blood and spit hangin’ off his lip, and he can’t look at Conrad no more.  He thinks, sure, he’s fucked it all up.  Thinks Conrad won’t want nothin’ to do with him now.  Won’t let him come ‘round no more.  Won’t wanna’ talk to him no more, or… or smile at him.  And it ain’t Conrad’s fault.  Wasn’t his fault.  He had a right, bein’ so mad, ‘cause… ‘cause Levi’d thought… and he should’a knowd better.  Should’a ‘cause… no real man would be like he was… whatever he was… a… a fuckin’ queer… a fuckin’ faggot…

Conrad deserved to be mad at him.  Levi deserved to lose his friend.

So’s he don’t do nothin’… just sits there when finally Conrad leaves, and he thinks for certain he won’t be seein’ Conrad no more.  Won’t probably never see him again.

And he knows he ain’t got no right feelin’ sorry for his self.  Ain’t got no right to his tears.  But he can’t help it, no how. 

He sits there and there’s some part ‘a him thinkin’ maybe… maybe Conrad’ll come back.  Maybe he’ll… and he’ll tell Levi it’s alright, and he forgives him, and tells him they can still be friends.

But Conrad don’t come back, ‘till the weak light bleedin’ from above starts to fade completely, the dark world goin’ darker still, and Levi picks himself up at last, and walks away.

Walks into the dark and shadows, where things like him belong.

//

Levi sees Conrad again, a few months later, when the mines open back up.

Levi keeps to himself.  Keeps his head down.  Does his work. 

He don’t expect Conrad to talk to him.

He don’t know what to say when, a few weeks after the season starts, Conrad comes over during a break and tells him he’s sorry ‘bout the way things ended between ‘em. 

“I shouldn’t ‘a been so harsh, man,” he says, and he grins at Levi, and Levi don’t understand, “I said some shitty things to you that I didn’t really mean none.  I just… overreacted ‘cause I didn’t know what you were doin’.  Ya understand?  I just freaked out a little.”

Levi stares up at him, and licks his lips, and thinks he should say sorry, too.  Thinks he should tell Conrad he’s got no cause for apologizin’, ‘cause he didn’t do nothin’ wrong.  It was Levi’s fault what happened.

But all he manages is to say “Okay,” and Conrad smiles at him again, and slings his arm ‘round his shoulders, and Levi feels his stomach go all funny.

“Friends, still?” Conrad asks, and Levi nods, and thinks he don’t know how he got so lucky. 

Don’t know how he found so much kindness.

//

“Ya know, Levi, I got a friend… well, you know him.  Tommy.  Ya remember Tommy, don’t ya?”

Levi looks up at Conrad from where he’s been countin’ his caps.  He’s got over a hundred of ‘em.  Levi can’t read or write, but he can count good, and he likes countin’ his caps.  Makes the hurt in his brain go away, sometimes… ‘Sepcially if he got ‘em stacked just right, all even and in a row.  That was the best.  Sometimes, though, if he couldn’t get ‘em just right, the hurt in his brain got to bein’ worse.  He’d… he’d get so it was all he could think about, and he knewd if he couldn’t get ‘em just so, somethin’ bad was gonna’ happen, sure. 

Conrad says it’s weird, the way he get’s to countin’ caps and collectin’ ‘em and all.  Kenny’d used to say the same.  But Levi thinks they bring him good luck.  He thinks… you see a lonely cap and you pick it up and give it a home in your pocket, and that’s good luck.  Kenny’d used to tell him he was bein’ crazy.  Said he were nuts.  Conrad thinks so, too, but ‘least Conrad didn’t slap him upside the head for it, like Kenny used to.

Conrad’s grinnin’ at him now, and Levi looks away, face warm.

He weren’t gonna’ make no mistake again with Conrad.  Conrad weren’t queer like him, and Levi knew it now.  He was just nice.  He let Levi stay with him at his place, and Levi’d got back to hittin’ merchants carts, and Conrad let him keep some ‘a the haul himself still, just like before he’d fucked up, and Levi’s grateful.  He’s real grateful and thinks Conrad’s nicer ‘an he deserves.

“Ya remember Tommy, right Levi?”

Levi nods.

He remembers Tommy.

He was a tall kid, maybe a little younger ‘an Conrad.  Maybe closer to Levi’s age.  Levi remembers he had sandy brown hair and green eyes and he smiled a lot, too, like Conrad. 

Tommy hadn’t never talked to him much, though.

None ‘a Conrad’s friends really did.

“Well,” Conrad goes on, “you know he’s a fa… I mean… he’s queer too, ya know.  Just like you.”

Levi feels himself go stiff at that, his hands startin’ to shake.

He knocks the caps over, and somethin’ awful shifts in his chest.

Couldn’t… couldn’t have that.  Gotta’ stack ‘em right.  Gotta’ get ‘em right, he thinks.

“Aww, don’t be scared, Levi,” Conrad must notice him shakin’ and all, “I didn’t mean none ‘a what I said before.  You know?  It’s just natural.  I was just mad on account you thought I was like that.  But I ain’t got nothin’ ‘against you sorts.”

Levi can’t get his hands to go still, and he keeps fuckin’ it up, stackin’ his caps.  Keeps knockin’ ‘em over, and that’s bad luck.  He’s sure.  That’s bad.

“So listen, Tommy, ya know, he told me he’s been crushin’ on you.  You know that?  He told me so.  He thinks you’re cute.”  Conrad laughs, and Levi looks up at him finally.  He thinks Conrad looks nice when he smiles.  Likes when he laughs.  He don’t know ‘bout Tommy.  Don’t know much about him.  “I told him you might be interested.  Hey, Levi, you a virgin?  It’s hard for you types, findin’ love, ain’t it?  I figured, if you were interested, I could set you and Tommy up.  What do ya say?  I know you wanted to kiss me, but you could be kissin’ on Tommy and he’d be down with it.  What you say?”

Levi looks away again, stares at his fingers.

They’re all dirty, he thinks.  His fingers.  All black with soot and filth from diggin’ in the mines all day.  Hard gettin’ that off.  Even with clean water, it was hard.  Didn’t have no soap down here, ‘cept what he could sometimes steal from the merchants. 

“What you say, Levi?  You wanna’ step out with Tommy?”

Levi bites the inside ‘a his cheek.

He don’t know. 

He don’t know Tommy.  Tommy didn’t never talk to him, so…

“Ya know, the only reason he never said nothin’ to you was ‘cause he was shy,” Conrad says, like readin’ his thoughts, “He was afraid you’d reject him.”

Levi blinks.

That don’t seem right.

Someone bein’ scared he’d reject ‘em… that don’t seem…

Didn’t nobody want him, he didn’t think. 

He looks up at Conrad again, and wonders if he’s bein’ honest. 

Levi can’t think why he’d lie ‘bout somethin’ like that, though.  Can’t think.  Wasn’t no point to it.

Did Tommy really like him?

The thought ‘a it gets that funny feelin’ in his guts again. 

He thinks about the other boy, and figures he’s a nice lookin’ kid.  He’s nice.  He hadn’t never said nothin’ to Levi.  Levi’d thought he didn’t take no notice of him at all, really, but Conrad was sayin’ it was on account ‘a him bein’ shy. 

He guesses maybe that made sense. 

He’s been shy ‘round Conrad.

And it weren’t like… weren’t like there were other boys linin’ up for him.  Levi didn’t… didn’t even know how to go ‘bout findin’ other boys like him.  He’d tried with Conrad and he’d… he’d almost lost him as a friend ‘cause of it.

Levi knows what he looks like.  Knows he’s ugly and ain’t… ain’t got no person… personality.  Knows he’d be stupid to turn anyone down.

And if Tommy was really interested, Levi didn’t wanna’ hurt his feelin’s none, either.  He didn’t wanna’ turn him down. 

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, steppin’ out.  Maybe… maybe this was his chance…

He didn’t think he knew how to get with no one like that, so maybe…

“… O-okay,” he finally says, face warm.

“Really?” Conrad asks, and he sounds surprised, but… but also happy.  He’s happy Levi agreed, and that makes Levi happy, he guesses.  He thinks maybe he done right, for once.

So he shrugs, and looks up at the older boy, and Conrad’s got the biggest grin on his face.

“Alright!” Conrad says, and he claps his hands together, “I’ll let Tommy know!  Hey, we’ll pick out the time and place and all’s you gotta’ do is show up, Levi.  Okay?  We’ll keep it quiet so don’t nobody harass you two.  Okay?”

And Levi thinks that’s kind ‘a Conrad, to… to wanna’ protect him and Tommy like that.  People didn’t… they didn’t take kindly to queers.  Not down here, they didn’t.  Maybe it was different up top, but Levi wouldn’t know ‘bout that.  Wouldn’t never know.  But down here, it was like to get you killed, people findin’ out you was queer. 

So he says okay again, and he tells Conrad thank you, and Conrad just grins big at him and Levi is happy Conrad still wanted to be his friend.

//

Conrad tells him where he’s supposed to meet up with Tommy and when, and Levi makes sure to show a little early, on account he don’t wanna’ be late and mess it all up.

He’s got that feelin’ in his guts, again, waitin’. 

He’d been practicin’ what he was gonna’ say to Tommy, for when he showed.  He… he don’t wanna’ come off like how he usually does.  He knows he comes off weird.  Knows he gets too quiet and people didn’t like that.  So he’s been… when he’s alone, he’s been practicin’ talkin’ and such.  Tryin’ to think what he should say.  Been talkin’ out loud to himself and goin’ over it all.

He’ll say hello, first, on account that’s what people expected, usual, when you was meetin’ ‘em and all.

And then maybe, he thought, maybe he’d ask how Tommy’s been.  He’ll ask him if he’s been gettin’ enough food and such.  He hadn’t seen him, after all, ‘round Conrad’s place.  Not since Conrad had let him start stayin’ over again.  Ain’t seen him at the mines, neither, so… he hopes Tommy’s been gettin’ enough to eat.

He’ll ask. 

And then he’s not too sure what else he’ll say, but maybe Tommy’ll be like Conrad and he’ll be happy to fill the space.

Levi don’t really know what to expect, since Tommy didn’t never talk to him before. 

He waits around a good few minutes, and counts in his head to keep track, ‘till maybe ten minutes past the time he was meant to show go by, and Levi is startin’ to get an ugly feelin’ in his chest.

He tells himself Conrad wouldn’t trick him like that.  Conrad was his friend, and he wouldn’t…

Tommy would show, and Levi’s got it all planned out in his head, what he’ll say.

He figures if he’s gonna’ wait, he might as well practice out loud, ‘for Tommy got here.  So he gets to recitin’ his words.

“… Hi, Tommy,” he says out loud, “h-how’re you?”

He waits, then, ‘cause you needed to wait to give people a chance to answer, he knows.  He thinks maybe thirty seconds is good.  And then he continues.

“H… have you been gettin’ food?  I got… got some food, if you wanna’ share.  I got some…”

He trails off.

Maybe that weren’t the right thing to say.  Some boys was prideful, he knows, and maybe Tommy’d take offense.

He tries to think ‘a somethin’ else, muttering different things to say, to ask.

There’s a sudden noise then, comin’ from ‘round the buildin’ to his right, and Levi feels himself stiffen.

Voices, he thinks.  More ‘an one.  A lot of ‘em. 

He steps back, knees loose.

If someone wanted a go, they could try…

He listens, and the voices get louder, and he realizes a moment later, they’re laughin’.  A bunch ‘a voices all mixin’ together, laughin’.

Somethin’ awful drops down through Levi’s guts, a kinda’ sick pressure in his chest, and he don’t even know why he ain’t surprised when he sees Conrad come stumblin’ out from around the buildin’, bent over at the waist and slappin’ his knee, laughin’.  When he sees all Conrad’s friends come followin’ behind.  Tommy’s with ‘em.  He recognizes him.  He ain’t surprised, but there’s somethin’ like hurt inside him, his throat tight and shoulders tense.

There’s ten of ‘em.  He counts.  And their voices get louder and louder, echoin’ off the walls ‘a the buildings around ‘em as they form a circle around him, and Conrad’s the first to say anything.

“L-look at you!” He howls, pointin’, and Levi sees he’s got somethin’ in his hand.  Sees they all do.  Looks like fruit, he thinks.  Rotten fruit and vegetables.  “Look at this f-fuckin’ freak!  Di-did ya hear him, boys?!  All practicin’ his lines!” 

He erupts into laughin’, his head thrown back, and they all do, then.  All of ‘em laughin’ and laughin’, and Levi’s face feels suddenly on fire, a hollow ache crushin’ down on his chest.

Why’d they all have to laugh like that, he thinks.  Why’d they have to…

“That how you imagine pickin’ up girls, Levi?!” Conrad asks, wheezin’ between his words, he’s laughin’ so hard, tears streaming from his eyes, “Oh, wait… I forgot, you like cock.  Ain’t that so?  Take a good look, boys!  This here’s a genuine faggot!  Well, it only makes sense!  With a mug like that, no girl’d ever want him!”

Levi’s eyes burn, and he turns, thinkin’ to go.  Thinkin’ he needs to go.  To get outta’ this place.  He don’t wanna’ be here no more.  Don’t wanna’ be…  It hurts.  It hurts and he wants to go someplace and hide.  Wants to be away so they don’t see how much they’d hurt him…

He should’a knowd, he thinks… should’a knowd…

All ‘a Conrad’s smiles and kindness and he’d just… just been foolin’ all along… been foolin’… been lyin’… and if Levi was bein’ honest with his self, he’d admit he’d knowd the whole time.  He’d knowd, it was just…

He’d wanted to believe.

Fuckin’… fuckin’ pathetic.  Fuckin’ useless, pathetic…

Kenny’d knock his teeth down his throat for bein’ so pathetic, and he’d deserve it, he knows.  ‘Cause he’d knowd, but he’d wanted a friend so bad, and so he hadn’t… he’d let…

Somethin’ hits him square in the face. 

It squashes to mush, a horrible smell fillin’ his nostrils, sticky and wet against his skin, and Levi reaches up with shakin’ hands, wipin’ whatever it is away.

He stares at it on his fingers and palms.

Rotten apple, he thinks. 

And then it’s comin’ at him from all sides. 

Fruit and vegetables peltin’ him from every direction, so’s all he can do is lift his arms and cover his head, the hard thwacks against his body startin’ to hurt, ‘till he’s soaked through with the sickly sweet juices and pulp, covered in the exploded meat ‘a the stuff.

And all the while, they keep laughin’ and laughin’, and he hears Conrad’s voice, ringin’ out above it, callin’ him a faggot and a God damned queer and sayin’ how ugly he is and how stupid and how he shoulda’ seen the look on his face when they all comes out and Levi feels that shift in his chest.  Feels it go from sick shame to somethin’ worser.  Somethin’ ugly and mean.  Recognizes that feelin’.  Recognizes the rage. 

It builds and builds, ‘till the hurt seems to disappear underneath it, the burnin’ in his eyes like red fire, and thinks ‘bout men who’d laughed at him before and thought they could have their way.  Thinks ‘bout men who’d laughed at Mama, and called her a whore and slapped her around and raped her and treated her like she weren’t worth the filth beneath their boots.

Somethin’ flashes in his brain, and then he’s movin’.

The first kid’s face breaks under his fist.  He feels the bones shatter, the crunch ‘a the kid’s his nose fillin’ his ears, the laugher dyin’ dead in his throat.

Levi’s onto the next before he even hits the ground.

He sweeps this ones feet out from under him and breaks his fuckin’ arm, and the laughter all around’s startin’ to dye, now.  Startin’ to be overtaken by shouting and fear.

Recognizes that, too.  Recognizes it all.

He hears Conrad somewhere, his voice strainin’ and screamin’.

“GET HIM!” He’s sayin’, “BEAT HIS ASS TO DEATH!  FUCK HIM UP!”

They try. 

All them fuckers come at him at once, and Levi shows ‘em their mistake. 

Bones crackin’ and blood everywhere, ‘till his hands are slick with it, his ears ringin’ now, not with their laughter, but their sobbin’ and cryin’.

He boxes Tommy’s ears, hard enough to make blood come out, and watches as he crumples to the pavement, holdin’ his head and screamin’ his voice raw.

He don’t kill ‘em.  But he beats ‘em and breaks ‘em and fucks ‘em all up, ‘till they’re all rollin’ around on the ground, moanin’ and cryin’ and sobbin’, and it’s just Conrad left, then.

The fuck’s pissed himself, a dark stain all across the front ‘a his pants. 

He’s starin’ at Levi, eyes thick with tears, shiftin’ like he means to run. 

And then he tries, and Levi don’t let him get away.

He runs him down and grabs him from behind, tosses him ‘cross the pavement.  Gets on his chest and backhands him hard enough to knock his fuckin’ teeth loose.  Hits him again, and watches his eyes swell shut.

Conrad’s got his hands up, like he means to block the blows, and Levi slaps ‘em away.

“NO!  P-PLEASE, DON’T!” Conrad sobs, mouth all bloody, and Levi frowns.  “D-don’t, Levi… I… i-it was just a j-joke!  A joke!”

Levi stares at him, fist raised, and thinks it’s Conrad who looks ugly, now.  Teeth all knocked loose and face covered in blood.  The smell ‘a his piss in the air.

He’s the pathetic one, Levi thinks.

Fuckin’ pathetic.

And just as sudden as it came, the rage goes, and Levi’s hand falls away.

“… You wasn’t never my friend,” he says to Conrad, “Was you?  You wasn’t never…”

Conrad don’t say nothin’, just starin’ up at him with wide, terrified eyes. 

Levi looks back at him only a moment more, and then he pushes himself up off him and turns away.

Moves past the bodies ‘a all the other boys, his arms ‘round himself.

Wants to get away, now.

Wants to go be someplace by himself.

Couldn’t be around all this, no more.  Didn’t wanna’ see Conrad ever again.

“Yo-YOU F-FUCKIN’ FREAK!” He hears Conrad scream at his back.  “F-FUCKIN’ SICK FREAK!  L-LOOK WHAT YOU DID!  LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO US!”

Levi’s eyes burn, and it’s just the juice from all the fruit and vegetables, he tells himself, wipin’ his wrist across ‘em.  That’s all it was.

Conrad wasn’t never his friend.

He’d always known…

Maybe he deserved this, for lettin’ himself believe anyone could ever wanna’ be his friend.

“I’LL KILL YOU FOR THIS, YOU FUCKIN’ FREAK FAGGOT!”  Conrad keeps screamin’, “YOU HEAR ME!?  I’LL FUCKIN’ KILL YOU!”

But Levi ain’t listenin’ no more. 

Wouldn’t listen to Conrad ever again.

He thinks he should be alone. 

Thinks that’s how it’s meant to be.

He wasn’t never made for bein’ with other people.

He wasn’t never made for friends.

[viewfromthelake]

Looking forward to Friday's concert and I'm happy I stumbled upon its existence when I could easily have never heard about it. One of the songs Mickey Dolenz sang with The Monkees, "Goin' Down," was on my mind occasionally during some hard times around 2020. It's such a groovy song about getting through a rough patch in life.

"I wish I looked before I leaped

I didn't know it was so deep

Been down so far I don't get wet

Haven't touched the bottom yet

This river scene is gettin' old

I'm hungry, sleepy, wet and cold

She told me to forget it. Nice

I should have taken her advice

I only want to go on home

I'd gladly leave that girl alone

What a way to spend the night

If I don't drown, I'll die of fright

...

Now the sky is gettin' light

An everything will be alright

Think I finally got the knack

Just floatin' here lazy on my back

I never really liked that town

I think I'll ride the river down

Just movin' slow and floatin' free

There's a river swingin' under me

Waving back to the folks on shore

I should have thought of this before

I'm floatin' on down to New Orleans

Goin' to pick up on some swingin' scenes

I know I'll know a better day

I'll go down groovin' all the way

Goin' down

Goin' down"

[savetheghost]

job ramble

yknow my job is like

tricking viewers into believing the things i make defy gravity

like

mounting stuff in picture frames

god i love my job its weird as fuck

maybe my coworkers suck somtimes and it doesnt pay as good as it really honestly should and if it did pay just a living wage id never ever ever think about getting a new job

but holy fuck its weird as shit

just like the absolute insanity of the range of stuff i handle on a daily basis

like legit

stuff i handle can be old as balls

like i am intimately acquainted with how paper ages man and im in charge of making sure it doesnt age as badly as it would unhandled

i get 100 year old newpapers and all those wnat to do is actually turn into dust in your hands

i know how different adhesives and tape will decay over the course of a century

my job is an existential crisis like twice a week and i LOVE it i fucming LOVE my JOB what the FUCK look how BEAUTIFUL THIS SHIT IS their HANDWRITING

every time theres a note left on the backing paper i cut it out and make sure it stays with the art and like with that one ill leave a note saying when and where it got reframed

my initials are all over the goddamn place and with this shit its REALLY likely that itll stick around for a long while

like sometimes i open a piece up and rhe framer befoee me went and left their little note too

god i love my job i love it i recommend it if you can go work in a frame shop just fucking do it

i got to frame a nekkid alucard in the most ostentatious gogantic gothic frame ever and thats how i pay for food

thats my fucking JOB

like legit go work in framing

were dying out

its so hard to find people to do this job cause people dont know its a job in the first place and you get to learn such weird shit about people and the stuff they think is important and i get to frame kids art and beautiful oil paintings and family photos and peoples college degrees and jesus fucking christ i love my stupid fucking job look at THIS

like what the FUCK am i LOOKING AT sometimes

WHAT THE FUCK WERE THE SWINGIN SCHOOLGIRLS DOING IN ‘57

[choco-pudding]

Space Channel 5 Part 2: Sugoku Sugoi  Guide Book p. 070-75 (Translation by @lavoszero and myself. Edits and typesetting by myself)

Second part of Report 3.

Imgur link to all of the Sugoku Sugoi Guide Book translations we’ve done thus far.

Plain text below

70 The Stratosphere · Space

Finale!

“Look out, Pine bazookas incoming!  Use the X button beam when you hear ‘Chu!"

Chu! Chu! Chu! Staaaay Tuned [9]

-

Straight Up Filthy Groove Guru 066

Honda Honda Toyota Toyota

71 Secrets of Big Sister Pine: Two or Three Things I Know About Pine's Character by Texas

On the Contrary Piney? Well, you'd think she'd be stricter than me, right? Completely untrue. She's more loyal than strict. Her bark is worse than her bite, tends to show her merciful side to even those disrupting the law. The whole thing has her torn. Mhm, that’s why she puts on a tough front, yet when push comes to shove, she's surprisingly soft, unlike me. Others say I have easy-going vibes, but don’t listen to them. I’ll make people follow the law without question. Piney is the type to convince people to follow the law.

Bum ba-da-bum-bum! Oh, the drums? Piney's far more skilled at them than me, don't you agree? I prefer being a bassist. Hmhm. Piney says she started playing the drums after she saw a 500-year old foreign drumming movie. I think it was around space elementary school, when the urge to drum was so powerful that we made a drum set with empty food cans and a splitter. Then she started listening to percussion groups like Space Samul Nori and Space Neubauten and kept improving from there.

Favorite Food Ah, cooking’s a challenge for her, but she isn't terrible at it. I'm not that great at it either, haha. On Space Thanksgiving, I ask her to come and help me with the hard stuff: cooking the turkey, hehe. Piney’s favorite food is… well, pretty much everything, but especially space kolo! It's kinda like space croquettes, I guess. She may not be a great cook but she sure is a picky; she gets upset if the potatoes are space kita akari ones. She's usually so sophisticated  and elegant, so concerned with upholding the law. But with space kolo, she gets to be selfish.

Sexiness "Has your sister been dealing with… ever since kindergarten…?" Is this a talk show now? You wanna know about that?" Hmm. Well, I wasn’t as friendly as I am now, back then I was a lil' ball of aggression, but Piney was pretty nice. She was real ladylike. All the little brats were heads over heels for her. But she's hopelessly awkward with men, so she still lives with me even at 27 years old. Piney, if you’re reading this, I’ll make you some space kolo today. Hurry up and come home.

[Translator’s note: Texas call Pine “Pine-chan” in Japanese. They mention the movie by name but I’d rather not say it. The word used here for “Thanksgiving” refers to the American holiday rather than Labor Thanksgiving Day .]

-

Straight Up Filthy Groove Guru 067

Toyota Honda Toyota Honda

72 Fuse's Broadcast Notes

Report 3 & Repeat 3 This seem be redundant at this point but anyway, these are the instructions prepared by Fuse, the director of  "Ulala's Swingin' Report Show," a special news program on Space Channel 5. Unlike Noize's Evaluation, they’re not exactly instructions but mainly explanations on the secret input locations and the modifications made for the reruns for"Ulala's Swingin' Report Show" (ex. commands for the Lap 2 that are different from that in the Lap 1). It should be noted that the timing and locations of the secret inputs are exactly the same between the main (Lap 1) and rerun broadcasts (Lap 2).

The Hidden Inputs

[1] When Pudding Appears Report 3 doesn’t kick off with the usual “Jan! Jan! Jaaan!” This time Pudding zooms by, centershot, shouting "the scoop is mine," the first secret input is right on the “mine!” Or you can time your button presses to the BGM’s four-beat pattern if that’s easier.

[Her voice is a lil' hard hear over the drums. If you can't rely on her, try relying on the beat and tapping to that four-beat rhythm!]

[2] When Pudding Leaves If you got the beat from for the first input down, you should be able to hit the second one going along with the same rhythm. If you don't trust in your ears, try pressing the button right when Pudding raises her microphone after the camera switch.

[The drums start with a "marching" rhythm, so you should be able to match the inputs by grooving to the "ton, ton, ton, ton."]

-

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Honda Toyota

73

[3~6] Sexy 1 & 2 Chorus Pine starts singing once she takes stage on her ship. You should get the secrets no prob if you press down around when the chorus is just about to begin to its actual start. But be careful, the short pauses after Pine’s verses can be pretty sneaky. You can also time them to the beat! Try using a slow four-beat rhythm starting from the "peo" in "people."

[7] Yeah~! When You Shout Yeah There is also a secret input right when you and Noise land on the Playgirl and shout a big "Yeah~!" It’s right when you two shout. The BGM is the same here, so keep pressing that button if you have a handle on the four-beat rhythm.

[This is the part  where the camera switches to them after they land on the Playgirl.  Look at 'em, so cute, like children at a festival~.]

[8] After You Beat Pine This secret isn’t as telegraphed as the others so getting the timing down is a lil' tricky. Your best bet is to time it to the "ton, ton, ton, ton" beat. Keep pressing the button to that rhythm the moment after you beat Pine and the BGM changes. If you can’t get a hang of that rhythm, Ulala, try timing it about 12 seconds after Pine says “we’ll be back,” right when you jump up to hit the drums for a final time!

[Right at this scene. See that little hop Ulala does? The secret input comes right after that, so eyes open!]

[9] After the Giant Pine Missile is Fired Sometimes I wonder why Pine's ship has such an "ah~ so naughty" shape to it.  Seeing a missile flying out from the tip like that, I got such a rush that I yelled "Yee-haah!" after. After the "Chu! Chu! Chu!" is the usual Stay Tuned "pikon" secret input, be sure to press that button on cue!

-

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Toyota Honda

74 Rebroadcast (2nd Lap) Choreography

Report 3 & Repeat 3 Listen up, Ulala. The cast may be different compared to the original broadcast, but don't let that trip you up, you still gotta do the same thing as before. Even so, enjoy meeting these new faces, the changed lyrics, and report with style!

Pudding → Padding, again, and Pine → Texas

Leaving as quickly as she appeared, looks like Padding is the one saying “the scoop is mine!” in the rerun. It’s a small cameo, it’s fine if you didn’t notice, but if you need to give this girly a shout-out, call her Padding.

Well, like I said, Padding dashes off pretty quickly. The real pain this rerun is Texas, Pine's sister. Did you know? Pine has a twin sister! Big sis Pine works for the Eastern Sector Space Police, while the lil' sis over here works for the Western Sector Space Police! They’re identical in appearance but not in personality, Texas is a formidable foe when she shoots those beams and missiles at you with the Gold n' Silver (a.k.a. the Not-Playgirl)…

-

Straight Up Filthy Groove Guru 070

Honda Toyota Honda Honda

75

Texas’s theme song starts like this:

People call me Texas (Texas!) Western Vixen Space Police. You hang in the hood (the hood) You're up to no good (no good) We'll be there to seal your fate! (Fate!)

[Lyrics by Texas, composition by Pine]

Lil’ sis Texas may have a smaller role, but you can feel her determination to crush her foes by any means. I think I like her more than her older sister~. I heard that one of our staff members left his bicycle in front of the station, and Texas confiscated it. I guess Texas is the bigger threat for normal folks. Though, they do seem to have equally sized… "bazookas." Makes sense, that’s twins for you right?

I can't forget about her back-up space drummers… well about them, mmm, uuh, I don't know what to say about them…

Command Changes and Where They Happen The Stratosphere · Blue Sky ~ Space

3.

15 o x

4.

(16 x x x~ x same as Lap 1) (17 o o x~ x same as Lap 1) 18 x x x x~ x 19 x o x x~ x (20 x~ x same as Lap 1) (21 o~ o same as Lap 1) (22 o~ o~ o~ o same as Lap 1) (23 x~ x same as Lap 1)

The Stratosphere · The Playgirl's Deck

5.

24 o ⬇ ⬇  25 o o ⬇ ⬇ 26 ⬇ o ⬇ o 27 ⬇ o o ⬇ o o

6.  

28 ⬇ ⬇ o o o 29 ⬇ ⬇ o o o 30 ⬇ ⬇ ⬇ o o o 31 ⬇ ⬇ ⬇ ⬇ o 32 ⬇ ⬇  o 33 ⬇ o

7.

34  ⬇ ⬇ ⬇ ⬇  x x x 35  ⬇ ⬇ ⬇ ⬇ ⬇ ⬇ x 36  ⬇ ⬇ x 37  ⬇ ⬇ o 38  ⬇ o o 39  ⬇ o x

8.  

40 (⬇ ⬇ ⬇ same as Lap 1) 41 (⬇ ⬇ ⬇ same as Lap 1) 42 ⬇ o o 43 o o o 44 o x o 45 x o ⬇ (46 ⬇ ⬇ same as Lap 1) (47 ⬇ ⬇ same as Lap 1) (48 ⬇ same as Lap 1) (49 ⬇ same as Lap 1) (50 ⬇ same as Lap 1) 51 x (52 ⬇ same as Lap 1) 53 o (54 ⬇ same as Lap 1) 55 o

-

Straight Up Filthy Groove Guru 071

Honda Honda

[Translator’s note: By “bazookas” (scare quotes) we mean boobs. He straight up says they look like they have the same sized boobs in Japanese.]

[noir-psi]

Ach, ye want tae hear what happened next, eh? Well, sit yerself doon, ‘cause it only gets wilder, ye ken!

So, a week after those wee, thievin’ squirrels ransacked me hoose, I thought I was done wi’ the lot of ‘em. But nae—turns out, they were plannin’ somethin’. Squirrels dinnae forget, and these furry fiends had unfinished business.

I’m in me kitchen, tryin’ to make meself a nice cuppa, when I hear a scritch-scritch-scratch at the door. Now, I know that sound well. I freeze, spoon mid-air, and think, Nae again. But sure as the heather on the hills, when I peek oot the window, there’s that same ringleader from before—big bushy tail twitchin’, eyes glintin’ like a madman wi’ a grudge.

Before I can blink, BAM! The door flies open! How they managed it, I dinnae ken. Must’ve learned tae jimmy locks. These squirrels were nae ordinary rodents—they were a coordinated force, aye, a furry militia.

They came in waves. First tae storm the kitchen, knockin’ over the sugar jar, scatterin’ it like snow. I screamed, “Ye’ll nae take me sugar, ye heathens!” but one of ‘em looks me dead in the eye and dunks his wee face right into the sugar like it was his birthright. The audacity!

Then they spread oot, laddie, like maraudin’ Vikings. One of the cheeky devils had the gall tae hop up on me counter and start rummagin’ through me bread bin. I shout, “Och! Ye better nae lay a paw on me rolls, ye wee menace!” But sure enough, he’s sittin’ there munchin’ away, crumbs flyin’ like confetti.

I grab me broom again, swearin’ vengeance, swingin’ like a man possessed. “Out wi’ ye! Out, ye scoundrels!” But these blighters were nae scared this time—they were organized, like they’d had a strategy meetin’ in the trees. One squirrel darts left while another distracts me by runnin' circles around me legs. It was pure pandemonium!

And then it happened—the real disaster. As I’m fightin’ tae defend me territory, I hear a strange, ominous clatter upstairs. I think, Nae, it cannae be. But sure enough, the sneakiest of the lot had made their way into me attic! There’s bangin’, crashin’—sounds like they’re settin’ up a full-on squirrel fortress up there. By this point, I’m red in the face, sweatin’ buckets, and shoutin’ so loud I’m sure the neighbors thought I’d gone mad.

I race up the stairs, two at a time, broom in hand like a knight wi’ a sword, ready to reclaim me attic. I burst through the door, and there they are—midway through buildin' some kind o’ cursed squirrel stronghold out o’ me Christmas decorations and old boxes. One’s sittin’ in a Santa hat, lookin’ smug as ye like!

I bellow, “This is war, ye wee fur-covered demons! OUT! OUTTA ME HOOSE!” But the squirrels, ach, they just scatter about, like they’re mockin’ me, leavin’ a mess o’ baubles and tinsel behind as they flee back tae their trees.

By the end, the hoose was a disaster zone—sugar everywhere, crumbs ground intae the carpet, Christmas garlands hangin’ from the ceilin’. I stood in the wreckage, broom in hand, and vowed, “Next time... next time, ye little monsters, I’ll be ready. I’ll have traps, I’ll have nets, I’ll have the lot!”

But tae this day, I still find squirrel fur stuck in me sofa, and I swear, every now and then, I catch a glimpse o’ their beady eyes watchin’ me from the trees... plottin’ their next move.

Mark me words—they’ll be back. But so will I.

....So they stole your Christmas decorations and used 'em before Halloween's even started?

Oh naaaah, those squirrels are menaces. You gotta get revenge just for that alone.

[thejuiceblog]

Parties

What makes a party? Amy Sedaris once wrote:

“When you see the word "party"...don't think of pony kegs and loud Southern rock or cigarillos and business women. Don't think of pools and diving for loose change. Don't think about cockfights - even though it's hard not to. Don't think tiki lights and fruity cocktails served in coconut shells on the patio, or a large group of drunken seamen clustered together shouting over each other. Think simplicity." 

Parties are as old as homo sapiens themselves. But for most people, the thing that makes a party a party and not just a meeting with snacks is usually the music; preferably upbeat, and preferably loud.

Buddy Bolden was somebody who knew about loud music and parties. It was said that when he played in New Orleans you could hear him from across the river. And his song Funky Butt was, as Danny Barker once put it, "a reference to the olfactory effect of an auditorium packed full of sweaty people "dancing close together and belly rubbing." That's definitely one way to party.

The Bolden band around 1905 (top: Jimmy Johnson, bass; Bolden, cornet; Willy Cornish, valve trombone; Willy Warner, clarinet; bottom: Brock Mumford, guitar; Frank Lewis, clarinet)

Even though he's considered the King of Jazz, there are no known recordings of Buddy Bolden, who improvised his music and never wrote it down. Really the only thing we have to go by is Jelly Roll Morton's rendition, which came to be known as Buddy Bolden Blues or I Thought I Heard Buddy Bolden Say. 

Jelly Roll Morton wasn't a man who shied away from a party. He made a name for himself playing ragtime in the brothels of New Orleans, and ragtime was, of course, known as the Devil's music. His rendition of Buddy Bolden Blues was considered so rude at the time that it was offensive even just to whistle it on the streets. Ruder still when you find out what Jelly Roll means. Or olfactory.

Some parties are planned and some are spontaneous. The difference between an average day at work and a spontaneous party could be as simple as the the presence of some unattended bongos, like in this scene from Hellzapoppin' -  a weird film from 1941 with one of the most iconic dance scenes ever created.

That was Frances "Mickey" Jones, WiIliam Downes, Norma Miller, Billy Ricker, Willamae Ricker, Al Minns, Ann Johnson and Frankie Manning, also known as Whiteys Lindy Hoppers - all dancing to music by the Slim Slam band.

When a dance floor is involved, parties become divisive: you're either on the dance floor or you're not. The dance floor is where life plays out, where you define yourself, where acquaintances become something more. In an American high school scenario, the dance floor is a status symbol. Being on the dance floor with the right person is everything.

Good parties share a collective, unspoken energy. Maybe all parties serve some sort of need to rebel against something oppressive, something that you need to escape. At the very least parties are a chance to act out in a way you otherwise can't.

One epic film party scene worth mentioning is from Olivier Assayas' Cold Water, if only because the scene goes on for about thirty minutes. The director admits that at some point he felt he was witnessing an experience that was "possibly stronger than whatever [ended] up on the screen."  It's a brilliant demonstration of that unspoken, rebellious energy that escalates into something unforgettable, something an onlooker would describe as a party even if party feels like too shallow of a word to describe it for those who are part of it.

It should also be said that parties can be shallow, and not everyone likes a party. Some people see them as just another feature of the hedonic treadmill. Tim Holmes of Rolling Stones wrote about this next song in 1985, saying, "In "Swinging Party," life is a lilting series of ultimately empty, but nonetheless compulsory, soirees."

What inspires you to party?