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13uswntimagines · 4 years ago

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Your Ass Is Out of This World (Kelley x Reader)

Request: alex or kelley or sonnett x reader where they've been dating for a few years R is an astronaut for NASA and she gets to go to space

Author’s Note: Special thanks to @literaryhedgehog cause without her, none of this would have happened.

Kelley wasn’t quite sure how she had ended up standing next to a dive bar sipping a lukewarm beer on a Friday night. In her defense, Ali and Ashlyn had convinced her it would be fun and had promised to pay for the Uber rides both ways. It had been fun for a while, dancing with them to some old 70s songs on the light-up dance floor, but half an hour ago they had disappeared off into a hallway somewhere, and she had no intention of third-wheeling (she knew she should have convinced Alex to join them). But she also wasn’t going to leave without them, because she wasn’t convinced either of them were sober enough to take any kind of transportation safely (someone needed to be there to make sure they didn’t puke in someone’s car).

So here she was, standing by the bar waiting for her friends’ sexcapades to be over, nursing her drink. The clink of a glass settling in front of her caught her attention. She blinked at the bartender. “I didn’t order another one,”

The man’s lips ticked up and he shrugged. “Lady on the end paid for it. Said you looked sad,”

Kelley looked up, following the man’s eyes towards a woman standing a few seats down the bar from her. She was also standing alone but was dressed as though for a different event altogether. Kelley had embraced the 70s theme of the bar slightly, wearing a jumpsuit and a scarf around her head, but this woman had just thrown a white NASA shirt--like the one Kelley got for her little cousin at Target-- over a pair of black jeans. As she bobbed her head to the music she met Kelley’s eyes and smiled.

Kelley took that as her invitation to approach. Kelley’s eyes traced her form, lingering on the white material. She didn’t know those came in adult sizes...

“You must be a star, I can't stop orbiting around you” Kelley smiled charmingly as she approached you, setting her beer on the bar beside you and settling in the seat to the left of yours.

“I do believe I was the one to buy you the drink…” you said, your lips twitching as you tried to keep a serious expression. “Shouldn’t I be the one throwing pickup lines here?”

“You bought me the drink, so I get to be the one to woo you. I’m Kelley, are you from Mars? 'cuz I wanna explore you with curiosity.” Kelley said, wiggling her eyebrows at you, enjoying the light blush coloring your cheeks.

“Oh my god,” you groaned, “that was terrible. I mean really good but absolutely awful.”

“At least I got you to smile, but you still haven’t told me your name.” Kelley laughed, taking a sip of her beer. She was prepared to lay on the horrible pick up lines for your entertainment.

“I’m Y/n,” you said, putting down your drink and holding out your hand, “pleasure.”

“They call me the milky way...Pleasure You Can't Measure,” Kelley smiled, shaking your hand as you laughed and pulling you a little closer “Why look at the moon, if I can’t touch it? Why look at your lips, if I can't kiss them,” she said, winking so you knew she was completely joking.

“How do you know so many of these?” You said, shaking your head in awe. “ All I know off the top of my head is ‘do you work for NASA? Because you’re out of this world!’”

“Ah, a magician never reveals her secrets,” Kelley whispered conspiratoryly, bringing her hand up to cover her lips. “but my team and I have definitely had flirt offs for bonding nights,”

“Your team?”

“Yeah, I play soccer for the US and Washington,” She shrugged as if it wasn’t a huge accomplishment.

Your eyes widened and you nearly spat out your drink. “Didn’t they, like, just win a World Cup?”

“Yeah, No biggie,” Kelley said, side-eyeing you as she took another sip.

“No biggie? I’m surprised you don’t have a swarm of paparazzi shadowing you, that’s incredible! Weren’t the USWNT like the most successful US team in soccer?’

“Hm, there’s not enough drama for them, but we don’t mind. How about you? What do you do beautiful?” Kelley hummed.

“Oh. I work for NASA,” you said, gesturing at the shirt. “I can’t wait to bring some of those lines back to work.”

“What??”

****

“So do they at least give you a good choice of flavors? So you don’t get bored and stuff?” Emily asked from across the table, licking her dripping I cream cone.

When your girlfriend decided to introduce you to the team after their match against Colombia, you were quite surprised she had chosen an ice cream shop as a venue. But with how food motivated the youngins seemed, you realized how appropriate it was.

“I mean,” you said, your spoon suspended in the air as you blinked at Emily, “ice cream isn’t the only thing we will eat. I’m going to be on the station for like 8 months. Ice cream is not a balanced diet.”

“But it’s the only one they sell in the stores. You don’t have to lie cause the veggie lovers are here,” The defender said, leaning across the table, as though it would prevent the rest of the table from hearing her.

“Babe, you literally love most veggies too,” Lindsey rolled her eyes, using her thumb to wipe a spot of chocolate ice cream from Emily’s nose.

“Actually, I heard they’re a pretty good selection of dehydrated fruits and veggies and MRE’s and Tortillas and stuff. Plus I get to take a few things from home…” You mumbled, leaning back.

She couldn’t be serious right? There was no way she thought you were supposed to sustain yourself on horrible freeze-dried dairy products for that long. Not to mention, freeze-dried ‘astronaut’ products for the most part weren’t actually possible to bring to space, with how crumbly they are. You were more likely to eat actual ice cream on the space station (less chance for an errant crumb being inhaled or destroying an important piece of equipment) than that gift shop garbage.

“Oh yeah, MRE sounds way more likely than just eating the stuff they literally label as being for astronauts…” Emily said, rolling her eyes. “What does that even stand for? ‘Must reject Emily?”

You opened your mouth to answer, eyebrows furrowed, only for Kelley to nudge you softly.

“It’s not worth the fight babe, trust me. Not the brightest lighthouse if you know what I mean,” Your girlfriend made a swirling motion with her finger next to her temple.

You leaned in closer so your lips were nearly touching her ear. “She’s not serious right?”

“I never joke about ice cream,” Emily answered seriously.

You blinked at her, looking to your girlfriend who just shrugged and raised her eyebrows.

“I’m, I’m not sure if they have a flavor rotation system for ice cream flavors. We haven’t been… briefed on that yet,” you nodded seriously.

…...

“Can you hear me?” Kelley said, tapping her fingers impatiently as your face appeared in the video call.

“He- -utiful,” You smiled through the glitchy computer screen. Your waving was broken up like a bad claymation. You leaned in to make out the fuzzy figures standing behind your girlfriend, assuming she was at camp or something.

Normal long distance sucked, but literally being off-planet really made things difficult. It wasn’t like Kelley could just text you when she missed you, or randomly call you when she missed you at 3 am. Sure, she could email and you made a tremendous effort to schedule calls once a month, but it was still incredibly difficult (and slightly weird that a NASA tech dude had to monitor each call to make sure the connection stayed up). And sometimes even the best video-calling technology had issues. Like today (when a giant satellite or piece of space trash would block the signal).

“Are you hav- -un at -amp?” You asked, grabbing your floating water pouch pushing out a sip sized water drop.

“Yeah, it’s great,” Kelley said, watching you munch on your water. When you first got on the station you sent her pictures of artwork you made out of different drops of colored water- specifically making a giant water ‘soccer ball’ for her. Then you tried to boop it around and ended up losing control, amusing all your crewmates who watched you trying not to run into too many walls. “We’re looking forward to playing against Brazil on Friday, should be brutal.”

“We’re set to be ov- Florida on -day, so I’ll try and tune into the ga-. Catch a nice - view,” You nodded, wiggling your eyebrows (which looked more like you having a seizure due to how badly you were pixelated).

While Kelley wasn’t entirely sure what you were saying, she went ahead and nodded. “Let me know what you think!”

“Wh- color -it are you w-ing? Y- look -uper s-xy in the -ue,” you said, floating up in a ‘draw me like one of your french girls’ pose.

“You’re favorite one,” Kelley said, winking at you.

“-es!!” You cheered “-ake p-ture -or -“ the screen flickered dangerously for a second. Before a wobbly picture returned.

“Babe you’re breaking up, I can’t tell what you’re saying. Y/n. Are you there? UGh. I love you! We’ll talk soon.”

“-ove y- -oo”

Kelley blew a slow kiss to her camera before she heard a deep voice saying “Sorry ma’am. The connection was lost. Y’all still have five minutes on your scheduled call- Want me to try calling again? See if the signal improves?”

“Yeah,” Kelley shifted, rubbing the bridge of her nose as typing sounds echoed through the speaker. How she was going to make it through four more months of this she had no idea.

“What if like the ship was attacked by aliens or something,” Sonnett whispered from her left, staring at the blank screen with real trepidation.

“Not possible ma’am,” she heard him laugh. “But I doubt I would have the right level of security clearance to know.”

“great.”

Kelley grabbed a pen and marked a day off the calendar hanging on her wall. So much for ‘phone call with Y/n.’ She sighed. Just a few months to go.

****

Gravity fucking sucked. It was disorienting and heavy and made you sick to your stomach. Space station alums always talked about re-entry and how bad that was, but you thought sitting in a NASA hospital bed while your equilibrium readjusted was way worse than your fireball craft plummeting into the ocean.

“This fucking sucks,” You groaned, again throwing your hand over to pull out the IV. You hated how hard it was to move (and how you actually had to hold up a cup of water to get a drink but that was beside the point).

“Whoa babe, I know you’re a little out of it right now, but that has to stay in. Just try and relax for a little while,” Kelley said, grabbing your hand and kissing the back of your knuckles.

You frowned at her through heavy-lidded eyes. “Don’t wanna be here. Wanna be home with you.”

“I know, but you gotta stay here until the re-entry symptoms have worn off a little more,” She said again. She knew that you weren’t going to be 100% when you stepped out of the spacecraft, but she hadn’t expected you to be so out of it. You were sick to your stomach and entirely unable to walk without assistance.

The doctors assured her that you would be fine (residual effects from not being in gravity for so long and the impact of the landing or whatever), but it was still difficult to watch. It didn’t help that you were a horrendous patient.

“Just watch the game. The US is even in Blue,” Kelley tried to coax. Even she was beginning to grow restless. But you couldn’t leave until you could keep down solid foods.

“I don’t want to watch. You’re not in it,” You said, grabbing the remote from her and turning the television off. Then you tried to set the remote in the air, but instead of hovering like it should have done, it dropped to the ground.

“Alright, commander Y/l/n. It’s dinner time,” one of the NASA hospital nurses said, bringing in a tray for you. Kelley thanked them as they left since you were too dazed to think of it.

“God this food sucks, I hate jello ” you grumbled, lifting the spoon in front of your face (fully expecting it to float so you could take your bite) and dropping it as you want to open the pudding packet instead. “I just want a big juicy cheeseburger. With bacon and onions and-“ You trailed off, your mouth watering at the thought. You hadn’t had proper food in 8 months, and it had been your major cravings food.

“A side of diabetes” she scoffed, picking up the discarded remote and spoon, “And are you going to keep dropping things everywhere?” She asked, carefully filling a spoon with chocolate pudding and guiding it to your mouth.

“Fuck Newton. Things are supposed to float,”

****

You loved the soft skin behind Kelley’s ear. It was so smooth, and it always smelt like a mix of her perfume, shampoo, and something inherently Kelley. It was a bonus that your exploration of the area always sent a shiver down her spine. You ran your nose along the skin there, nibbling on her ear before moving down her neck. Leaving little kisses along your path. Kelley sighed, sleepily scratching your scalp and tilting her head to the side to encourage you to continue.

“You,” Kelley said. “ I like you.”

“Hm, I’m glad. It would be kinda scary if you were doing this with someone you didn’t like,” you mumbled against her skin, unwilling to part with it for even a moment. Kelley giggled at the tickling sensation. How you still had so much energy after you had thoroughly worn her out getting… reacquainted she would never know.

“But what do you like most. Tell me, babe,” You said, moving your lips a little lower, towards where her shoulder and neck met.

“I love… your ass. It’s out of this world.” She said sleepily, reaching around to grab her favorite asset of yours.

“Well, it has been,” You laughed, pulling away reluctantly so you could look her in the eyes.

“Shut up you goof,” She rolled her eyes, grabbing a pillow and whacking you lightly. You fell over dramatically, pulling her so she was on top of you.

“Hm, I’m your goof,”

“Yeah. You are. And babe?” She smiled down at you, leaning down to press a kiss to your lips.

“Hmm?” You hummed against her lips. She leaned back to look you in the eyes, one forearm across your chest and her other hand beside your head supporting her.

“No more space travel for a while?”

“Pinky promise,” You said, wiggling your hand so your littlest finger connected with hers.

“Good. I can’t believe I was dating someone from TEXAS for a while.” Kelley pretended to shudder. “Jus think, one of your coworkers might have been a Houston dash supporter!”

#uswnt x reader #uswnt imagine #uswnt imagines #literalhedgehog #kelley o'hara x reader #kelley o'hara imagine

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twiixr4kidz · 3 years ago

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sally face headcanons cuz i can >:)

OKAY SO IM GOING THROUGH MY DRAFTS AND THIS HAS BEEN IN HERE SINCE JANUARY- ANYWAYS THIS POST IS DEDICATED TO @toysrguts CUZ THEY’RE THE ONE WHO GOT ME INTO SALLY FACE IN THE FIRST PLACE!! (THESE ARENT AS LONG AS MY HEADCANON POSTS USUALLY ARE BUT ILL PROBABLY MAKE MORE IN THE FUTURE)

Sal

10/10 hairdresser, he literally knows exactly what he’s doing whenever he does someones hair

He is literally such a sweetheart oh my gosh

CEO of working too hard

Watches a lot of MCYTs and commentary channels to help him relax

Gives the BEST hugs you have ever experienced

He’s really good at eyeliner and practices on Larry a lot

Prefers baths over showers

He got into making bracelets of all kinds as a way to take his mind off of things, so now he has kandi and friendship bracelets and those rubber band loom bracelets in a giant coffee canister underneath his bed

He can fall asleep in the weirdest places, but whenever he actively tries to go to sleep, he can’t

“IT SAYS SUS, LIKE THE VIDEO GAME SUS. AMONG US? SUS? IT CONNECTS-”

Larry

He speaks fluent Spanish, ofc

His hair is full of knots because he headbangs so much,,, like he can’t even get them out himself,,, he needs Lisa’s help ADSHFKHAGSDJHF

Paints his nails all the time

It started out as a joke but then he realized that pink looks great on him so he stuck with it

Teases everybody for being short

He’s pretty smart, but never puts in the effort for good grades

Flirts with his friends and uses horrible pickup lines completely unironically

Rarely ties his hair up but looks phenomenal when he does

His sleep schedule is horrible and he ends up taking lots of naps

Belts the lyrics to Taylor Swift songs he heard on the radio

CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, HE DOES SHOWER- but he smells like shitty dollar store cologne (LIKE SPECIFICALLY THIS COLOGNE I FOUND AT WALMART THAT WAS CALLED “REALLY RIPPED ABS”)

He loses EVERYTHING he touches

Todd

He has an entire drawer in his desk that’s filled with Goldfish crackers and store brand crunchy chocolate chip cookies

He has a collection of fuzzy socks that he definitely wears with sandals

I mean, it’s canon that he wears socks with sandals so-

He dresses like a dad okay HDSAHUFIHALSUDFHUA

He always keeps a hair tie on his wrist just in case Sal or Ash or Larry need one

He’s probably the most responsible friend AND the most chaotic at the same time

He makes a bunch of useless inventions for his gain and loves them like they’re his children

Ashley

This isn’t a headcanon, I just wanna say I’m head over heels in love with her

She’s the kind of friend who always makes sure you’re doing okay

She always has bandaids on her, but they’re the really pretty, aesthetic ones with designs on them

She’s too scared to ask for ketchup in restaurants

She knows how to play the piano and absolutely flexes it

Only orders french fries and chicken tenders

Gecs in her free time

She’s the one painting Larry’s nails for him

She’s has the underneath portion of her hair dyed but most people don’t know because she hardly ever pulls her hair up

She’s the person who finds everything Larry loses

#sally face #sally face headcanons #sal fisher #larry johnson #todd morrison #ashley campbell #writing!!

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i-am-the-ass-admiral · 3 years ago

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For A Laugh (Benny Miller x gn!reader)

Summary: It’s Benny’s first time at a gay bar and you ask him out the worst way possible; ~1.4k

Tags: humor, colloquial writing style, lust, teasing, flirting, implied bi!benny and reader, bad jokes (like terrible impeccable taste), alcohol consumption, excessive use of the word ‘baby’, soft benny, first date (sort of), au, meet-cute

Rating: Teen

Note: look i’ve never done this before, i just really really got stuck on this idea and i really liked benny. might not be your idea of him but god i think he’s a huge dork and a giant softie so here we are. wanted to throw a queer reader out there since you just don’t see them all that much and do something maybe a little off the wall? idk have fun, i think i’m hilarious XD

By some stroke of fate, you pick Benny up at a bar the first time you meet.

He’s not hard to spot in a crowd as tall as he is and you’re just buzzed enough that your eye keeps coming back to him as the night goes on. He slides from corner to corner with his shoulders slightly hunched and the proverbial tail between his legs, following two shorter men who obviously know what kind of bar they’ve walked in to. Benny though—you didn’t know his name at the time so you called him Baby in your head—darts around with a kind of deer-in-headlights expression. It’s cute.

And annoying.

At first, you roll your eyes at him. Great, another straight dude to hit on your friends and get mad when they say no.

Then you watch him a little longer.

You can’t help it, he’s pretty and looks more than a little lost and even from the end of the bar you can see how wide his tentative smile gets as he looks around. He likes what he sees; you’re just trying to figure out exactly what it is he’s liking. For a while Baby sits at a table with his friends. Holds a fruity cocktail between his knees almost as if he’s scared to be seen with it. Then after a couple drinks his smile gets wider and his voice gets loud. Boy’s boisterous—you can tell by the way he talks with his hands and throws his head back to laugh. He’s actually really fun to watch and it makes you smile. His buddies look almost out of place too until they get up to dance and—wow, talk about snake hips and floor sex, you haven’t seen anyone dance that good off the drag stage in ages. Baby stares at his empty drink for a bit, lost again, then heads to the bar. Not far from where you are, actually. Watching him walk with a couple drinks in him is a world of difference to how he first came in. There’s a swing in his broad shoulders, a confident cocky tilt to his head and you’re not sure if you want to punch him or if it’s the sexiest thing you’ve ever seen.

Despite your better judgment, you’re leaning to the latter.

You make a bet with yourself as he pulls up at the bar—he got the fun drink to please his friends, he’ll order something boring now—and you’re pleasantly surprised to lose your own bet. Baby orders a whole-ass mai tai and looks overjoyed at the gigantic slice of pineapple and cherries garnishing the top. He turns to the stage. Avidly watches a few performers and even starts cheering. That’s when others folks start to take notice. A couple men make a pass and, wouldn’t you know it, Baby plays nice. Smiles and nods politely even though you can tell he’s not really into it. Not totally but it makes you think…

Maybe Baby’s a little bendy and not as straight as you thought.

At that point in the night, your friends are on their fifth dance, you’re on your third drink, and it’s getting way too loud in here for you. You were going to step out for a bit anyway—or so you tell yourself—so why not have some company? Who knows, you might get lucky. And if not, you’ll have an even better excuse to get some air and at least you can say you did it for laughs. Not that this is a casino but you’re feeling feisty. Might as well roll the dice. Baby looks like the kinda Midwest-flavored bite of beefcake that will either have great taste and love your stupid pickups or get scared and leave. Hopefully he’s not the kind to throw a punch.

You sidle up to the bar next to him. No doubt your outfit gets his attention first. It’s not risqué exactly but it’s got flavor, specifically your queer kind of flavor, and it draws the eye the way you wear it. You smile as you look him up and down, enjoying the red flush on his cheeks that trickles down under the collar of his fitted shirt. Wow, Baby is built. You ask the bartender for a couple drinks while part of your buzzing brain throws up red flags. Maybe you should try to land your mouth before it totally takes off but unfortunately for ground control your tongue is flying solo tonight. You get your drink. Pluck off the fruit, take a bite and shout over the music,

“Can I get your name or should I just get you a drink?”

As expected, Baby looks confused as hell but he pastes on a polite, if guarded, smile. “I wouldn’t mind a drink.”

Without missing a beat, you give him the second glass in your hand. There’s something about the way that guarded smile doesn’t quite meet his eyes that makes you want to do something stupid. You want to see him smile and laugh and even though you don’t have the slightest inkling about him, you want to know why such a handsome face would ever look so afraid.

So of course you ask, “How ‘bout a bet then? I make you laugh, you tell me your name?”

He makes a considering face and takes a long sip. “Bet.”

“What do you call the sexuality where you’re attracted to people by no one is attracted to you?”

“What?”

Very off key and with all the drama you can muster, you sing, “Allll Biiiii Myseeeelf.”

Baby snorts a laugh in his drink, which you didn’t expect, and a little warmth grows in your stomach. His faux smile is turning to a real grin. Albeit still a confused one but delighted all the same and he shoots back, “So that’s you, huh? By yourself?”

You wince theatrically and shake your head.

“Ouch, Baby’s got teeth! You got me.”

“Nah, what you get’s a name.” He holds out his hand and you groan internally at the length and breadth of it as you shake. “Benny.”

Just like that Baby becomes Benny and you’re absolutely smitten. You give him your name. Maybe your fingers linger. You want to get him another drink. You want to tell him another joke. Hell, you want to take him home and stuff him full of food in the morning. He giggles a bit and it’s endearing enough you decide to press your luck.

“How ‘bout this one? What’s the best N’Sync song?”

It’s not a fair question, dude might not have ever even heard a boy band in his life, so it takes you by surprise when he immediately pops back with a drawling version of, “It’s tearin’ up my heart when I’m with you?”

“Ooo, a little romantic! I see you!” you tease, pinching his thick bicep for just an instant. Because really, any longer than that and you’d melt.

Benny doesn’t pull away like you were waiting for him to do. Instead he ducks his head, more than booze burning his cheeks, and—ah, hell.

“That one is killer,” you admit, “but I was thinking of the one where they sing ‘Bye Bye Bye’ while we blow outta here for dinner?”

It’s a stupid line—one of the worst you’ve ever come up with—and it comes out more like a question than a joke. You throw back the rest of your drink to hide the look on Benny’s face but to your delight, he says,

“Wait, really?”

“Well yeah.” You lean against the bar next to him, trying and failing to be nonchalant and you shrug. “I’m hungry and even though you’re a Grade A snack I don’t think you’d appreciate me taking a bite. So how ‘bout dinner?”

Benny finishes his drink all at once. Wipes his mouth with the back of his hand as he stands. You sigh to yourself—this is the part where he walks off and you go get dinner alone, you suppose. But then he grins, like really grins, and offers you his arm to hold and suddenly your knees are jello shots.

“I could go for a bite.”

So you go for dinner. Text your friends, of course. But mosey down the street for 12AM tacos and end up laughing with Benny, shoulder to shoulder on the curb until your friends call for a ride.

And even though you didn’t get to take him home and feed him in the morning, your phone still dings through your snooze with a message under Benny’s name that reads:

What did the barista say to his crush?

I like you a latte. :)

Coffee later?

The warmth in your stomach from the night before blooms again and you laugh into your pillow before you text back:

Love to!

#benny miller x reader #benny miller x gn!reader #benny miller x you #triple frontier #well here we are again

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la-lunaluna · 3 years ago

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Future Nostalgia

Comandante Veracruz x Militar F!Reader

Words: 1k

Warning: sexism (nothing too heavy)

Author comments: hello! Look who appeared from the shadows! I’m having a little struggle to write lately because I’m not accessing the computer I normally use to write, so things are a little slow lately. This is the third fic of my Future Nostalgia collection, inspired by Dua Lipa’s songs. I’m a little bit insecure about this, but I hope you like it anyway :)

You were in that position again. In the beginning, it was hard, but as time went by you got used to it and learned to get along. The looks were always the same, the mocking tone too, not to mention the sexist jokes and the disgusting pickup lines. Men were like that, they wanted to keep everything on “normality” and their comfort, without anyone interfering, playing that timeless song. You wanted to change the game. It wasn’t easy being a woman, it wasn’t easy being a military. A military woman? Don’t even talk about it. Your eyes looked at the reflection on the mirror; the serious and determinate face just showed how ready you were for that new challenge. You moved your lips, checking your dark lipstick, and figured out that your face and the braid you made on your hair made you look exactly the way you wanted.

The sun wasn’t set yet, but you already were in the outside area of the headquarter, knowing that from any time on the others should appear. The first one was a serious tall man, and you didn’t need to analyze too much to know he was tough and grumpy. He wore combat boots, a bulletproof vest, and his uniform was gray, which showed he wasn’t just a recruit. He had an unshaven beard and mustache and his hair was neatly gelled; the sharp nose and the deep brown eyes, glowing even in the dim light, made him look like a bird of prey.

He saw you and walked in your direction, analyzing you up and down. You knew he was dying to understand you, but of course, you wouldn’t give him that taste of feeling superior, as he probably used to do with his underlings. Now, close to each other, you looked him in the eye and then picked up his ID tag.

“Comandante Veracruz” you read, seeing him creating a snobbish, narcissistic smile on his lips at the sound of his own name; he probably thought you were just a new recruit among the nurses and that you were being completely nosy by tampering with his ID like that.

He studied your face with his piercing eyes and touched your chin with his fingertips, making you look up. Your temple throbbed. You already knew your feelings for him would be strong, you just couldn’t know yet what kind they were.

“What about you?” He finally opened his mouth, revealing not only a deep baritone and an accent but also his disdainful tone. He was definitely hard-core, but you also were.

“Me?” Veracruz couldn't help getting pissed off with your boldness by answering him in that way.

“Do you see anyone else here?” Damn, how annoying he was!

When he told you that you remembered you were alone. In dim lighting, in a giant place, just the two of you. But… Why did he insist on getting so close to you? You felt an immense need to get off from him and decrease once and for all this friction between the two of you, but you didn’t want to lower yourself.

“For you, Comandante Veracruz, is just General” you answered bluntly.

He let out a muffled, sloppy giggle that made you smell the toothpaste out of his mouth, making you shiver to understand how close he was to you.

"You've got some sense of humor... General Martinez won't be happy to hear that his position is being used for jokes." He once again gave that damn annoying smile.

“There is no more General Martinez, from today on, Comandante, I am your superior.” You smiled and went back into the barracks.

(...)

“Gonna give up now, Comandante?” You yelled out against his face, while he was doing his training, whose difficulty level was as high as his patent.

“No, ma’am!” answered Veracruz with the voice tight with effort.

“Are you feeling like a recruit again, aren’t you, Comandante? I bet you never had to say no ma’am to anyone… That’s what I call future nostalgia” you laughed making quotation marks with your fingers, just watching the sweat trickle down Veracruz’s tired forehead.

It had been two weeks since you were the General in charge. Your name was on the tip of everyone’s tongue and, sincerely? You liked… It could keep running their mouths. Some of them tried to impose themselves upon you, but they soon understood that if they kept on talking that talk, one they would blast out. Each day you were more feared and hated by men and more admired by the few women. With you there, people started to understand that you can’t handle this if you ain’t good for this, that you can’t be a rolling stone if you live in a glasshouse.

In those two weeks, things had changed a lot between you and the people around you. You knew them and understood who you could count on, who were your best soldiers, and who respected you.

Veracruz, however, was a particular case. He saw you as a real unknown, and of course, you didn’t let yourself be read that easily either. Even though you were constantly in a sexist tension with him, you could confess this was kind of funny, you knew he wasn’t used to a female alpha and it left him without knowing what to do several times. You knew he wanted the recipe but he wouldn’t handle your sound.

You looked at him while he was training and he stared back at you. In those two weeks you simply couldn’t help to figure out how he was: committed, focused, professional. And that hit you in a certain strange way, different from normal… You knew he was focused because you were used to repairing his deep chocolate eyes on his fire gun training, you knew he was committed because the scent of his perfume, the one you already knew by heart, was the first to arrive at the headquarter every single morning, you knew he was professional because it wasn’t just the recruits who trembled by hearing his voice.

But you, on the contrary of the recruits, hadn’t fear of him. You knew really well what you were feeling about Veracruz.

Masterlist / Join my Taglist / Ko-Fi or Pix if you’re from Brazil

Taglist: @catsandra-chan @lorns-stuff @maryfromanotherwrld @pedritoispunk @ellecastaneda @sunflower-pascalpunk @lokimischixf @penelopeimp @hb8301 @mishasminion360 @marydjarin @mischievousqueev @folklord @miranhas-art @mrpascals @storiesofthefandomlovers @itjustneverends @cixrxb @beskarboobs @northernpunk @ppascalnation @kirsteng42

#veracruz x reader #veracruz x you #veracruz fic #veracruz fanfic #pedro pascal fic #pedro pascal fanfic

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rynhaswritersblock · 4 years ago

Text

masterlist 🕊

hi!! welcome to my masterlist!

i try to make all of my imagines as inclusive as possible. PLEASE let me know if i discriminate against any group in any way; this is a safe space for everyone!

fluff 🧸 | angst 🕯| steamy ⚡️| personal favorite 🦦 | from an event ✨ ↬ i write predominantly fluff!

PETER PARKER imagines - anywhere from 1k to 10k words

desperate times and desperate measures 🧸 ↬ you're an avenger on a fake date with peter to get information from a group of villains, and peter has to think quick in order not to blow your cover... wink wink

far from home (part one, part two, part three, part four, part five) 🧸🕯 ↬ you and peter sit next to each other on the plane to europe and what begins as a friendship turns into so much more

can’t help it 🧸⚡️ ↬ you and peter have been dating for a few months now, and being the kind boy he is, he always asks for a kiss when he wants one. when kissing he always lets you set the pace because he's afraid to hurt you (because of his powers), but this time, his feelings are too much…

sista-sista 🧸🕯 ↬ you (peter's sister) were recruited by nick fury multiple years ago. ever since he discovered you, he took you in and trained you to work behind the scenes at S.H.I.E.L.D., and was the one to help you recover after being kidnapped by a terrorist group and experimented on (which resulted in you getting your powers). nick convinces you to work on a mission with peter, resulting in your coming clean to him about your past and the biological relationship between the two of you

study date 🧸 ↬ you and peter have been friends for most of your life but have slightly grown apart this last year due to peter's spider-man duties. finally, the two of you get together to work on a project and things... happen?

fancy-schmancy 🧸 ↬ you and peter sneak out of a fancy charity event because adults are boring and there’s better things to do

competitive 🧸 ↬ you and peter have had an interesting relationship due to the fact that you're both competing for being number one in your class. but, over time, a small, unexpected romance grows out of the rivalry

laser tag 🧸⚡️ ↬ tony organizes a game of avengers laser tag. you and peter are on opposite sides and have made it clear to each other that you will fight to the death- whatever it takes

NINE-NINE! 🧸 ↬ you and peter spend most nights watching brooklyn nine-nine together and have found just how similar the two of you were to the show's lead couple, jake and amy

how about a kiss, saumensch? (part one, part two) 🧸🕯 ↬ when peter sees you reading the book thief and talking about it afterwards, your love for it makes him want to read it. so, he does, and he decides to follow in the steps of rudy steiner, asking for a kiss at every chance he gets

take your things and go (part one, part two) 🧸🕯 ↬ you and peter have a love-hate relationship that makes some advances when the two of you land in a close situation

holy water! 🧸⚡️ ↬ after catching you and peter getting a little heated, natasha decides to take things into her own hands... in the messiest of ways

letters 🧸 ↬ after too long a wait for you and peter to just get together, the team decides to get you together their way

curiosity killed the cat 🧸🦦 ↬ peter parker is a photographer. the boy is absolutely obsessed with taking pictures of anything that attracts him, anything that catches his eye... anything, particularly you

under the mistletoe 🧸🕯 ↬ high school holiday parties can lead to unfortunate circumstances... especially when it involves your lifelong enemy and one godforsaken garnish

spider-man chapstick 🧸 ↬ nostalgic finds at new york bodegas can lead to flirtatious and awkward encounters with the boy you call your best friend

the benefits of fake dating 🧸 ↬ although incredibly annoying, flash thompson’s arrogance was just what you and peter needed

valentine’s and pickup lines 🧸🦦 ↬ sometimes, having to do mj's job for her can work out in the best ways. especially when it's valentine's day and a certain local hero has an errand to make

midtown morning announcements 🧸🕯 ↬ as a reporter for midtown tech's daily announcements, it's easy to get carried away with ideas. especially ones involving the newest superhero from queens

brace-face 🧸🦦 ↬ in which you get braces, peter is persistent, and mr. delmar gives you free slushees

take a bullet 🧸🕯 ↬ you and peter go on your first mission without the team, flirting can be a powerful tool, and cliches like "taking a bullet" for someone don't seem so unrealistic anymore

bad date 🧸 ↬ maybe trying to get over a crush on your best friend wasn't such a good idea after all

trust issues 🧸🕯 ↬ it wasn't peter's fault that he had trust issues after his mentor's death and his most recent superhero friend's manipulation, but it also wasn't your fault that you just wanted to be his friend

locked out 🧸 ↬ y/n can't remember to grab her keys, peter misses the old days with you, and may baked extra cookies

peter! from physics! 🧸 ↬ y/n can't be controlled by wallets, peter parker gets crushes too easily, and crime in new york is abnormally low

to the man who let her go 🧸🕯 ↬ fuck brad davis. yeah

odd one out 🧸🕯 ↬ thanos' plan was to wipe out half of the universe, but what happens when the universe isn't evenly numbered?

swing and a kiss 🧸 ↬ crushes from english class and a *touch* of ptsd turn into a new form of transportation, messy rooftop shenanigans, and a lecture from one (1) tony stark

i want it, i got it 🧸 ↬ newfound confidence during karaoke night certainly can end up in peter parker making bold moves

stolen kisses 🧸 ↬ secret dating always ends in getting caught, especially by a suspicious best friend and a group of superheroes that’s been rooting for you and peter for years.

wish i were heather 🕯 ↬ a relationship that never happened and the wrong one that did.

blurbs - under 1k words

party confessions 🧸⚡️ ↬ you and peter get paired up for seven minutes in heaven

go fix my car, assbag 🧸 ↬ you catch flash bullying peter in the hallway and you decide you've had enough of his crap (haven't we all?)

over-protective peter 🧸 ↬ when flash harasses you in the hallway, peter steps in and gets maybe a bit too angry…

movies and cuddles 🧸 ↬ the avengers have a movie night and you and peter end up in a slightly embarrassing situation

let me show you 🧸 ↬ peter helps you frost a cake in the avengers' kitchen at midnight and it turns into a food fight in which your father, tony stark, catches the two of you mid-fight

scaredy-cat 🧸 ↬ you and peter are dorm neighbors (at MIT, of course), and he helps you out of a sticky-spider-situation

condensation 🧸🦦 ↬ cute neighbors drawing on condensated windows sure have the key to your heart

may? 🧸 ↬ sometimes, peter parker is a bit too caught up in the moment to realize the words that come out of his mouth... but, all for the lolz, right?

care package 🧸🕯 ↬ life is tough, but when a boy donned in red and blue shows up to make you feel better, it isn't so bad

eau de cologne 🧸⚡️🦦 ↬ avengers galas normally annoy you, but the scent of a certain hero can most certainly distract you

massage for massage? 🕯 ↬ unrequited feelings hurt, especially when your hands are the one massaging away his pain

a drive to montauk 🧸 ↬ a peaceful roadtrip with peter

moonlight tears (part one, part two) 🕯 ↬ depression took you away from yourself, but peter didn't let it take you away from him

the penis game 🧸🦦 ↬ a group of boys at the library plays the penis game and none of them manage to get above a quiet yell, so you take matters into your own hands

peter parker for pepper spray! 🧸 ↬ y/n lost her pepper spray, old men in new york are creepy, and peter parker just walked out of delmar's with a sandwich in hand and a kind enough heart to help out an enemy

english lit meet-cute 🧸 ↬ all it takes is an awkward mishap and some confidence to finally get you and the boy you keep seeing around campus together.

overnight beach trip 🧸✨ ↬ in which you and peter take a trip to the beach for a night.

headcanons - stories in the form of chaotic bullet-points

internship 🧸 ↬ tony stark not only helped in bringing together a group of people to protect earth, but also in sparking young love

dirty talk (part one, part two) ⚡️🦦 ↬ to the public, peter parker is the epitome of innocent, but after a conversation at lunch, he is determined to prove the opposite

hallway bookworm 🧸 ↬ girls reading and crying while walking in the hallway sure do seem to have an effect on peter parker

tiktok famous (part one, part two, part three, part four) 🧸⚡️ ↬ the wonderful chaotic adventures of y/n and peter making tiktoks

midnight at delmar’s 🧸 ↬ working alone late at night can be dangerous. 'nuff said

i go hard like thanos 🧸 ↬ popping off to an absolute banger during an avengers meeting is the best way to set yourselves up for failure

quaranteens 🧸 ↬ how you and petey boi spend your quarantine <3

gross 🧸🦦 ↬ chaotic mess in which you pull a Dumb Bitch Move and write a song for peter while relying on the hope that he never sees it

new york boy 🧸 ↬ life is hard when you visit your uncle in new york and all of a sudden there's a cute boy named peter parker in your life

giant teddy bears 🧸 ↬ first dates are awkward, peter sucks at dance dance revolution, and the night ends with a giant teddy bear and something sweet

actual books!

flicks (currently on wattpad; i will not be uploading this to tumblr as of now) ↬ in which a girl named indigo and a boy named peter bond over the love of movies, the loss of parents, and the power of saving the world | bonus imagine!

lmk if any of the links are faulty or if there are any other problems with the imagines! i have been on this site working on transferring my work for hours i have the brain of a strapless croc rn pls forgive me!

#masterlist #imagines #blurbs #headcanons #book #series #peter parker

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cheeseburgersstuff · 4 years ago

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The Star-Spangled Man

Steve Rogers x Reader

Warnings: drunk Steve, language? mistakes (shitty writing...)

A/N: this one was requested by lovely @sultry-rachael (i hope you like it 💗)

Master-list

Tony’s extravagant parties were never fun for anyone from the team. They had to meet the people they didn’t even know with a giant smile. Everyone talked to them as heroes, so there was no way they could act normal in front of strangers.

But at the after-party, when there was just them, that was the time where they could act like a normal person, like themselves.

So right now y/n and Nat were sitting at the bar waiting for the party to over, so they could get drunk and have some fun.

“Why does he invite so many people?” y/n said in annoyance. Nat chuckled at her expressions. “Are you annoyed because of the people you save?” Nat said with a dramatic gasp making her roll her eyes. Before she could reply, Thor's booming voice made her turn towards them.

Steve and Thor were standing from a distance with a little bottle in his hands. She looked at Steve. He was looking hot in that blue shirt with the sleeves rolled. But she could never tell him that, not after she had seen him with agent 13, Sharon carter.

“This was aged for a thousand years in barrels built from the wreck of Brynhid’s fleet. Not meant for mortal men '' Thor said, pouring the Asgardian mead in Steve’s drink.

“Neither was Omaha Beach, blondie! Stop trying to scare us, come on!” an old man scoffed, listening to thor’s bragging.

“Alright” Thor shrugged before putting the mead in his drink.

They were shocked seeing that man, getting wasted with just a sip. The guards carried him out of there.

y/n chucked looking at nat, she had an amusing expression on her face.

“You miss getting drunk huh?” Thor asked Steve who was just sniffling his drink. Steve shrugged, “couldn’t afford to get drunk back then because I wasn’t healthy, can’t get drunk now because I’m too healthy”

Thor laughed loudly and put his arm on his shoulder, “well my friend tonight you can enjoy all you want.” thor said before gulping his shot with steve.

y/n watched them thinking to try that thing as well but she didn’t want to get hammered and especially after watching that man…

“Hellooo y/n” a loud voice in her ear startled her. She looked around to a smiling steve. He started to get tipsy after drinking too many shots with thor. They both were having a drinking competition for an hour.

“Hi steve.” y/n said with an amused smile watching the captain acting goofy. “Hey Steve, you ready for another round huh?” Steve turned to Thor who was showing two mugs of beer with a grin.

“Hell yeah,” Steve screamed back and walked towards him like a cowboy, forgetting about what he was talking to her.

y/n tried to stop him and sighed when he completely ignored her. He really was going to get drunk.

They both were laughing too loudly while deciding who was the winner. Sure, they were being annoyed with those voices but still, y/n smiled seeing her friends enjoying their time, especially steve.

“Oh, C’mon let’s have some fun now everyone is out,” Tony said coming towards the group. Everyone was sitting on the couch with bored expressions except for the blondies.

“What do you wanna do tony?” Clint said without any excitement in his voice. “Maybe...truth or dare?”

“Seriously stark?” Nat spat looking at him. Tony shrugged off with a smile “what about karaoke?”

And before anyone could answer him, Steve raised his hand and screamed, “oooooh yess, I’ll do that” Steve stood up and walked towards tony.

Tony tried to suppress his smile, “look our captain is so excited tonight, why are you all being so grumpy.”

Steve walked near the karaoke machine and turned to face everyone, “soo, today…. I‘m gonna sing my favorite song for you all.” he announced as if they were at his concert and waited for their cheering.

“C’mon my friend” only thor tried to cheer him. y/n knew this was going well when she saw the sinister smile on tony’s face.

A Parade drum beat started to play, making everyone groan.

“Oh god!! Are you shitting me” Everyone was annoyed knowing except for Thor and tony. Tony was on the floor laughing loudly and Thor was marching and saluting steve on the music.

Steve stood there proudly and started to sing the song.

Who's strong and brave, here to save the American Way?

Who vows to fight like a man for what's right night and day?

He also marched on the song along with thor. Nat chuckled seeing the big bulky men acting crazy

.Who will campaign door-to-door for America?

Carry the flag shore to shore for America

From Hoboken to Spokane

Tony and Thor also started humming with him. Nat took a gulp of her drink before she could join them as well.

The Star-Spangled Man with a Plan!

y/n looked at Nat who just shrugged in response. Suddenly Tony brought Steve's shield and gave it to him. Steve beamed accepting it and started to act to fight the nazi.

Everyone smiled watching their captain acting all fun. No matter how much they were annoyed before they also started to enjoy Steve's song.

Who waked the giant that napped in America?

We know it's no one but Captain America

Everyone joined him by shouting Captain America with him.

Who'll finish what they began?

Who'll kick the Krauts to Japan?

He sang, gesturing everyone to tell who did everything he mentioned in his favorite song. And everyone did tell him by singing with him.

The Star-Spangled Man

with a Plan!

Steve sang the last line with open arms gesturing to himself as the star-spangled man.

Everyone cheered and clapped, making him thank everyone. “Thank you, guys. Thank you so much, I love you all….”

He walked towards the couch with pride when he saw her smiling. He sat beside her, “did you like it y/n” he whispered to her.

“I love it,” she chuckled.

“Oh god that was such a fun, Jarvis you recorded that right?” of course he recorded everything to annoy steve later.

But at that moment Steve was too drunk and busy to care about anything else but y/n. All night he wanted to tell her, how beautiful she was looking in that dress and suddenly he found that courage.

Nat noticed him staring at y/n and smirked. “You wanted to tell her something steve,” Nat said, causing everyone to look at them. But that didn’t make him nervous, what was there to be nervous about.

“I just wanted to tell you, you look beautiful tonight, n...not that you don't look always but tonight the dress you are wearing..” he thought he was going well so he tried the pickup line he heard somewhere…

“I...it looks, girlfriend material?” he was too drunk to cringe at his words. Everyone chuckled at his poor attempts to tell her, his feelings.

y/n looked at everyone who was wearing a smirk and turned towards steve. He was still waiting for her response so she gave him a smile,

“I think you should go to bed now steve.” y/n said gently. They didn’t need more things to tease him, she needed to get him out of there.

“Yeah steve, to bed now. Maybe you’ll get your cherry popped tonight.” y/n glared at tony while taking him towards the elevator.

Taking Steve to his room wasn’t as easy as it sounds. That man was huge and heavy. And was being clingy.

She helped him lay on the bed and took off his shoes. “You gonna do that?” suddenly steve mumbled, trying to keep his eyes open.

“What?” she asked with confused expressions.

“Pop the cherry.” she facepalmed and cursed tony but before she could say anything steve whined.

“But I don’t even like cherries.”

He had no idea what he is talking about, y/n chuckled, and looked at him softly. Her hands went to his hair.

“Good night steve, we’ll talk about this in the morning.” she kissed his head and walked out his room to deal with tony….

Pain, that was the feeling when he woke up. At first, he didn’t remember anything but then the memories from the night hit him, making him groan.

Never in his life, he dealt with the embarrassment of drunk deeds and now he wasn’t ready to face everyone, especially tony.

But eventually, he went to the kitchen, everyone was sitting there and smiled on seeing him. Steve kept acting normal as if he doesn't know anything about last night.

“Good morning Rogers” Thor greeted him loudly making him hiss. His head was already pounding, he replied to him back in a low voice.

“Not so loud today cap?” here comes the teasing voice he didn’t want to hear. He looked up to tony smirking at him. “Not now stark.”

“Oh C’mon you were such fun last night. I think I need to recall the event.” and before steve could argue tony started the footage of him singing the song he declared to be his favorite, in a horrible voice.

He sighed and took his face in his hands. “Stop it tony.” another person he planned to ignore was there.

y/n stop the video and narrowed her eyes at tony. He rolled his eyes and left them.

y/n smiled at steve “how are you?”

“Better now” he sighed. “I'm sorry..”

Before he could start with the apologizing she stopped him, “oh stop it steve. You don’t have to say sorry for anything and besides, it was quite fun seeing you act that way.” she said, making him chuckle.

She took a step towards him and placed her hands on his chest, “so..you don’t like cherries huh?” she said teasing him.

Steve got flushed in embarrassment, making her laugh. “Wo..would you like to…” and before he could ask her out, she cut him off by screaming a yes.

“If you two are done, come eat something. You'll need some energy for the activities.” they both groaned and screamed at Tony for ruining their moment...

#chris evans #captain america #chris evans x reader #steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #marvel #ransom drysdale #steve rogers imagine #captain america x reader #hugh ransom drysdale #ransom drysdale x reader

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hypnoticwinter · 4 years ago

Text

Down the Rabbit Hole part 1

It's five in the afternoon just outside of Corpus Christi and I and my poor old Elantra with the broken AC are stuck in a traffic jam because some dickhead decided he wanted to cut across five lanes of traffic and got mangled by a semi truck. And then the jam’s compounded by all of the damn lookie-looes slowing down to a crawl as they squirm through the two lanes still open, the metaphorical arteries of the gigantic beast that is the United States highway system, trying to get a good look at something gory on the way home.

I'm slowly melting into my seat, barely able to keep my eyes open. I keep glancing over at the water bottle I'd set snugly into the passenger seat, my cupholders being full with spare change and old receipts and little mini bottles of hand sanitizer, but just the way the sun's reflecting off of it makes me sick thinking about how warm the water would be by now.

I'm a few cars back from the wreck now. A police officer, looking sweaty and tired, steps out into the road, stopping traffic to let a couple of paramedics cross. A loud radio ad is playing in the car next to me and I look over. The guy in it looks about as done with this as I feel. I smile to myself, go back to watching the wreck.

The paramedics have stopped now and are talking to the policeman in the middle of the road. He looks annoyed, gestures at the cars ahead of him. One of the paramedics shakes his head and points back towards one of the cars.

The radio ad ends and the throbbing beat of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" comes on and I find myself singing along under my breath without even thinking about it.

Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray

South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio...

Another paramedic joins the group in the middle of the highway and then they hustle over to the wreck. The police officer gestures and we move fractionally forwards, then stop again. The asshole in the giant pickup truck ahead of me has decided to stop and watch them peel the door off the crushed sedan like the scab off a fresh cut. I can see something pink and fleshy and hurt-looking inside, where the driver's seat ought to have been, and I look away quickly.

We didn't start the fire

It was always burning since the world's been turning...

I end up meeting the eyes of the guy in the car next to me. He's bobbing his head along to Billy Joel and gives me a somewhat sheepish, embarrassed look. He's balding, looks about forty. A tired, haggard, sweaty face. I roll my eyes and smile at him and he smiles back. Someone behind me honks and I twist backwards and give him the finger, really slam it at him against the dirty rear window. We're rolling forwards so slowly that it's absurd to even honk, just people blowing off steam. I suppose on some level it's equally absurd to give him the finger for it, but whatever.

Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball

ARPANET, Free Tibet, what's in Mystery Flesh Pit?

Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, space monkey, Mafia

Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go...

Wait. What?

Now that we're past the wreck the highway widens out. More lanes open and the guy next to me merges over to the left. Billy Joel's voice disappears into engine noises and honks and the sound of the wind whipping past my open windows, but I still keep thinking about the lyrics I had just mouthed along to.

What the hell is a Mystery Flesh Pit?

I glance over at the phone sitting in its holster on the dash but something about the way the car I’d just past had crunched in on itself like a discarded candy wrapper makes me think better of it. I shift a lane or two to the right, get in line for my exit, and then I'm off the freeway. I make every light on the way to my apartment, all four of them, and it's just enough time that I forget about the line in the song. I jump into the shower and let the cold water run over me for fifteen minutes, which turns into thirty, which turns into forty-five, which turns into an hour.

When I get out I'm shivering but the warm Texas air blowing through my open window wraps me up like a warm hug, and I shrug into a flannel shirt, leave it unbuttoned. I put my cigarette out, leave it crumpled in the ashtray, stifle my coughs. I’m still not used to smoking this much. I eye the half-empty pack laying on the table but I let it alone.

The letter I received yesterday is on the kitchen table where I'd dropped it. The envelope is still on the floor somewhere. I think about going back and reading it again, or going and finding the envelope and throwing it away, but I don't want to. There wouldn’t be a point.

My phone buzzes; I see the name of the contact and let it ring. I don’t want to talk to him.

Outside, down in the courtyard, an old man is taking his dog for a walk. There is a vast darkened array of clouds closing in from the east and it already smells like rain, the wind is carrying it. I might take a walk too, later tonight.

I go back to the dresser and take my shirt off, slip a bra on, and then put the shirt back on. I almost light another cigarette, then I stop myself.

What the hell is Mystery Flesh Pit?

I had almost forgotten. Almost, but not quite. Billy Joel got stuck in my head and while I'd been puttering I'd hummed along until I got to that verse.

I shake my head and go get my laptop, type it into google half-expecting to find a porn site. A few travelogue type posts, a Wikipedia page...I click on that one and get hit with a redirect. Permian Basin Superorganism Containment Area? ("Mystery Flesh Pit" redirects here. For the defunct U.S. National Park, see...)

I read the page, and then I stop. The growing sense of unease I felt while I devoured the Wikipedia article is now almost too much for me to handle.

This can't possibly be real. This has to be a prank or something, some kind of internet joke gone out of control. I click on the link to the National Park and see pictures, too many and too high quality to be faked. It's like something out of a Michael Crichton novel but it's real. It has to be.

The Permian Basin Superorganism (Immanis Collosseus), I read, is a subterranean organism unique to modern biology, being the sole occupant of the Phylum Immanemqa. The organism was discovered by a pilot well drilling crew in 1973; later efforts were made to expose more of the organism through drilling and surface mining explosives. The Permian Basin Superorganism is notable for its immense size, being the largest living animal on the planet, its equally immense age, and for the degree and sophistication of human exploitation concerning the animal, culminating in the opening of a National Park largely within the creature’s body, allowing visitors to descend within the Permian Basin Superorganism and…

I read about gullets and bones and digestion, about an ancient animal of some kind living baked into the stone and earth outside of Gumption, Texas. I read about the sheer enormity of it, I read about how a mining company turned it into a tourist attraction, splitting its throat wide open with metal retaining walls and letting people ride an elevator a thousand feet down into its insides. I read about ballast, some kind of secretion exuded by the creature that acts as a kind of panacea, healing afflictions untouchable by conventional medicine. They made great baths out of the glands that produced it, let people bathe in its diluted aphrodisiac waters. I read, finally, about the 2007 disaster that closed the park, when a pump failed to activate and drowned the thing, making it wake up – god, wake up? – and swallow almost seven hundred people, making it spew caustic vomit so high into the air that there are still pockets of it being found here and there nearly a hundred miles away, burning into the ground and poisoning water tables. And the way they managed to get it to go back to sleep is classified by the US Government. Did they nuke it? Christ, Gumption is only...okay, well, it's about five hundred miles away, so I guess I'm a little less concerned, but, god, this happened in the same state as me and this is only the first time I'm hearing about it. July Fourth, 2007...

I realize after a moment, with a strange little knot in my stomach, that actually, I did hear about it. I wasn't in the state in 2007. It was four years ago, I'd just gotten out of school and I was still in Oklahoma, but I remember my parents telling me about an earthquake at midnight that they'd felt, that woke them up, knocked a couple of things over. I had never known...

I feel a little like I've just woken up and gone to the bathroom and looked outside and all of a sudden the sky is a bright green, and everybody I ask about it just looks at me really strangely and says that it's always been green.

I google my way all over the internet, looking at photos people have taken decades ago on their family trips, hosted on filesharing sites or on ancient GeoCities-era pages. I see smiling families, people in hiking gear, people swimming inside biological hot springs, people digging pitons into great sheer walls of flesh, not minding the blood that gushes out. I see a shaky video someone's taken of their television, of CNN back on the Fourth of July, 2007, I see a vast bloody pit, carved into the great flat nothing of central Texas.

I feel like my head is spinning. I get up, get away from the computer, grab another cigarette and smoke it slowly, standing on the balcony, looking out over the sprawling cityscape in the general direction of Gumption, Texas, or at least where I think it should be. If north is that way, then…

Alright. It's real. There's enough evidence, photographs, videos, spread across so many different web sites that it would be impossible to fake. I look up an old rating list of National Parks, making sure that it's from around 2004 or so, and find Mystery Flesh Pit near the bottom. The tiny two-sentence blurb describes it as "strange," "horrifying," and "easily skippable," so I guess that could also explain why I had never heard of it.

And, of course, the ballast. Some kind of miracle liquid. I read on Wikipedia that they’d tried to synthesize it after July 4th, after the supplies had been cut off, but no matter how molecularly perfect they could make the compound it was so much drossy bathwater, without the power to cure even a hangnail. It has to come straight from the source for it to be any good - who knows why.

There is a slow, anxious curl unwinding in my stomach, and for a moment, I fear the results it may lead me to.

I look at the map I'd opened in another tab again; Gumption, Texas; a tiny little county named after a tiny little town, or so I've heard. Now that I’m thinking about it, I vaguely remember passing through Gumption once, very briefly, during a family road trip back when I was six, but I don't remember much more than that. The only reason I even recognize the name of the town is because at the time I thought it was a funny name and I kept saying it to myself after I'd asked my mom what the word on the sign meant when we drove into town. Welcome to Gumption. Did it have more, perhaps? “Home of the Mystery Flesh Pit?” I don't remember visiting the Mystery Flesh Pit National Park, that's for sure. I think that would have stuck with little six-year-old me.

I eye the scale on the map, use my fingers to estimate the distance from Corpus Christi to Gumption.

It'd be a solid day of driving, seven or eight hours on the road, not counting breaks for food, sleep, restroom. I grimace at the computer screen, then zoom the map out. Lubbock, though...I could take a plane to Lubbock. That'd be, what, like two hours? Maybe? And then rent a car, drive down to Gumption...

I swallow, then laugh at myself. Why bother? I think. Why bother driving down to look at some fences and security guards? It's closed off, the Wikipedia page said, nobody in or out, just some scientists and a sedative plant. The fun stopped when it woke up, back in ‘07.

Flights are cheap. Ninety-nine dollars, ninety-five dollars. I start to type in the address to check my bank balance, then stop, fold the computer closed. I want a cigarette.

On my way out to the window my foot brushes against the envelope I'd left discarded on the floor and again I think of picking it up and putting it away, and again I leave it there. It doesn't really matter.

It'd be a horrible waste of money, probably. And I doubt I'd find anything really meaningful. Even if, you know, I use the excuse of going and looking around so I could write a story on it or something, I don't know if Jim, my editor, would really care that much. From what it seems, Mystery Flesh Pit is ancient history.

I take another look at the sheet of paper sitting on the table, curled over on itself like a dead spider. Fuck it, I think, then repeat myself out loud. I stub out the cigarette and go retrieve my cell phone, look up the phone number for American Airlines out of Corpus Christi airport. Fifteen minutes on hold later I am the proud owner of one business class ticket to Lubbock, Texas, leaving in four hours out of gate nine. I hang up the call and say "fuck it" aloud again because it makes me feel a little better, and then I go pack.

The plane ride is okay. Security was a bear and a half but it always is. I realized from the pleasant-unnerving swooping sensation in my stomach when we took off that it had been long enough since the last time I'd been on a plane that I had forgotten what it feels like. I was lucky to grab a window seat next to a little kid and his father; they didn't bother me as much as I'd expected. Once he turned to me to show me something on the handheld video game he was playing but his father quickly intercepted him and apologized to me; I was a little put out, honestly, I would have wanted to look at it. I'd forgotten to stick a book in my carry-on so I had been stuck staring out the window, and about a half hour in the plane had angled in such a way that the setting sun was glaring me right in the face and daring me to enjoy the scenery, so I did the most sensible thing I could and closed the shutter and tried to fall asleep. I think I managed to do so about fifteen minutes before we landed, which lead to me letting out a rather embarrassing yelp when the landing jolted me awake. The kid and his dad looked at me and I blushed, mentally kicking myself for blushing, but I smiled at them and shrugged and said that I'd fallen asleep and we had a laugh about it.

Lubbock is alright, I guess, if you don’t look at it too closely or stay too long. I rent a car at the airport and drive into town, and consider driving to Gumption that night, but I decide after some deliberation that it'll be better to do a little reconnaissance here first, if I really am going to make a story out of this. Am I? I've been treating that as my excuse so far and yeah, I brought my voice recorder and my camcorder and my DSLR and plenty of memory cards and extra batteries...but I guess I hadn't really taken it seriously.

The city's very alive at night, more so, it seems to me, than Corpus Christi, but I also don't get out very much back home, so maybe my perception is skewed. Everywhere I look there are clubs and shows and bars and things, and then, as I pass into the seedier areas, huddled groups of people spotted here and there. I imagine they’re eying me as I drive past and I tamp down the little curl of fear rising in my stomach.

I find a Motel 6 and then I try to find a Waffle House, but seemingly there aren’t any in Lubbock. I settle for someplace called The Pancake House, and then in a couple of hours I feel better, and then a couple of hours after that I finally manage to fall asleep.

I wake up having slept like the dead. I think about going someplace for breakfast but think better of it after I sit up too quickly and my stomach gives an uneasy lurch in protest. I get dressed leisurely – it is my weekend, after all. For a moment I even manage to fantasize that I'll be able to catch a flight home in time to make it to work on Monday but then I laugh at myself, which I seem to be doing quite a lot of lately.

Barely a hundred miles away, Mystery Flesh Pit is waiting for me. I don't know what I'll find there – personally, I feel rather certain it'll be a hell of a let-down – but it feels nice to have a purpose for once, to feel as though my life is being put to some kind of use other than to see how many cigarettes I can smoke in a single day and still retain some dignity.

It's nice to not have to think.

I take a breath and throw some clothes on and get started on the hard part.

* * *

The guy mopping the floor at the bus stop:

"Excuse me, sir? Do you know anything about the Mystery Flesh Pit Disaster of 2007?"

"The what?"

Businessman on the street, approached while tying his shoes:

"Excuse me, sir? I'm doing some research on the Mystery Flesh Pit disast –"

"I'm sorry, lady, I don't have any money."

Lady at the counter of the pharmacy:

"Excuse me, ma'am? I'm trying to find out some information on the Mystery Flesh Pit, do you have a moment to talk about it?"

"Sure, honey, but I'm afraid I don't know that much about it. That was back in, what, 2003? 2004?"

"2007, actually. Did you ever happen to visit while the park was still operating?"

"It was a park? I just remember something about some sort of tunnel collapse."

"Right. Thanks for your time."

Guy at the 7-11, asked while filling up the tank on my car next to him:

"Hey, dude, you know anything about the Mystery Flesh Pit?"

"Went there once when I was a kid. Pretty cool. Why?"

"I'm a reporter, doing a story on it. You remember the disaster that closed it down?"

"It's closed now? That's lame. What happened?"

"Thing woke up and ate everybody."

"For real?"

"Yeah. I've been asking around, like nobody's heard about it. Kind of surprising."

He taps his finger to his chin. "You know," he says thoughtfully, "it has been like five years since then."

"Four years."

"Even so. People don't have any kind of attention span any more."

His pump clicks off and so does our conversation.

Yeah, alright, maybe it isn't a very representative group, but it seems like nobody cares. Is that reasonable? Well...seven hundred plus people died, most in pretty gruesome ways, according to Wikipedia. Then there were the, god, the thousand or ten-thousand-plus people affected by the vomit and ejecta scattered hundreds of miles away. I’m not sure. You'd expect that apathy from the rest of the nation, maybe, I don't know why somebody in Arkansas or Kentucky or Illinois or wherever would give a fuck if they didn't personally know somebody who was affected, but here? Just a hundred miles from the place or so?

Maybe they did a really good job of cleaning up the cities, maybe it's only the little towns and places where the legacy of it has really clung on. I know there has to be a story, somebody who was there, somebody who saw it. That jerky camcorder video of CNN is a start, but something real, something visceral, in the words of a survivor...

That was the one thing I didn’t find much of. No memoirs, no autobiographies, just a few mentions here and there but nothing like a back-to-front story of what that night was like. That is what I’m really after.

I put my cigarette out in one of those trashcan-cum-ashtrays that dot the corners of every city I've ever been to, Lubbock no exception. I get in the rental car and again forget that it has crank windows instead of buttons. "To the library, and step on it," I giggle to myself as I pull out into traffic. I feel a little lightheaded and I remember that I never bothered to eat anything.

Perusal of the newspaper archives at the Mahon Public Library downtown confirmed what I'd already assumed – that there was no big government coverup, there was no conspiracy of that sort. The disaster at the Mystery Flesh Pit was capital-letter Very Big News for about a month, back in 2007, at least in the area. The stories towards the end of the month cast a little light on why it didn't last, though – it wasn't ongoing, it was just sort of a one-and-done thing. Yeah, finding the caustic vomit everywhere kicked up another stink a week or so later but the Powers That Be seemed to get that under control fairly quickly, at least in more populated areas. After that there were grumblings about disclosure and fault and blame and all that, and quite a few articles about Anodyne Mining or whoever going bankrupt but by the end of the month, aside from a few overly sentimental memorial pieces dedicated to delicately sidestepping the exact causes of death of the people they were memorializing, the news had moved on.

A librarian pokes around the corner with a cart and smiles at me; I smile back at her. She's young, pretty, long skirt, dark eyes. I scoot forward so she can pass behind me. I read on for a while, the faint swish of her skirt and the slim sliding sound of books going back into shelves registering dimly and pleasantly in the back of my mind. I put the paper down and stretch a little, and then I notice she's glancing over at me. I smile at her again.

"Doing some research?" she asks, and I nod.

"Yes," I say. "I'm a reporter for a paper in Corpus Christi and I'm doing a story on the Mystery Flesh Pit. Have you heard of it?"

As soon as the words pass my lips there's something dark and guarded lurking in her eyes that makes me perk my ears up. She waits a couple of seconds before she answers, clearly thinking of what to say, of how much to tell me. I mention, after a moment, that I'm surprised that so few people here in Lubbock seem to really remember it or care about it, and she nods, leans up against her cart.

"It was a big deal for a while," she says, gesturing to the stack of papers next to me, "but after that I guess it just wasn't exciting any more. The only people who really remember it are out in all the small towns where it really affected them. Here, in Lubbock, they just had vans working overtime to clean everything up and then it was easy to forget about. Every now and then I hear about them finding another pile of that vomit somewhere just...festering away out there in the desert."

"Were you there?"

"No," she says, "but my brother was."

"I'm sorry," I tell her. I want to reach out and touch her or something but I don't know if she'd appreciate it, so instead I keep my sympathy subdued. "Is he - ?"

"No, no," she says quickly, "he's alright. He was a park ranger there, he just…happened to be working that night. He, ah...it really fucked him up for a while," she says finally, giving me a grimace. "We haven't talked in a long time."

"I'm sorry," I say again. "That must have been hard, for both of you."

"Yeah," she says, cutting her glance downwards. "He always said some strange things about the disaster, real Alex Jones type stuff. But he just couldn't, you know, move on at all. We got in a big fight about it and, well, that was that."

I wonder what to say for a moment before I cross my legs, set the newspapers aside. "You must have gone there, then, while it was still operating."

"Yes, plenty of times."

"What was it like?"

She laughs softly. "God, that's such a...like, where do I even begin, you know? Have you been to many other National Parks?"

"A few," I tell her. "Not as many as I'd have liked. Crater Lake, Devil's Tower, Badlands, Petrified Forest..."

She laughs. "Real Midwest girl, aren't you?"

"Hey, Crater Lake is in Oregon, that's not the Midwest."

"I wasn't knocking it. Um. Well, it wasn't like any other park you've ever been to, I can guarantee that. It was like, you drive up to it and you park and you walk up these stairs to get to the main observatory building, and you get in there and you look down and there's just...skin. In a hole in the ground. It was extremely disconcerting. From that distance it didn't look real, it looked like it was plasticine or something, like it was a model. And there was something...I don't know, kind of lewd about it?"

"Lewd?"

"Yeah. The way they were spreading it open with these giant metal, like, flanges or whatever, and how it was all raw and pink around the opening...Freud would have had a field day with it. Made you feel like you were watching a gynecological exam."

"I still kind of can't believe they found this thing and thought opening a theme park was the best thing to do with it."

"It was the 70s, I guess." she shrugs. "Place is old, you know. Anyway, once you actually got down into it, it was...it was an experience. You rode this giant elevator down and they had a massive visitor center something like 1200 feet down inside the thing's throat, and you could look out the windows and see all this flesh outside. It was honestly like something out of a movie, it was so surreal. I went there a bunch of times with my brother cause he got an employee discount and I could get in for five dollars and I saw at least ten people have panic attacks and hyperventilate."

I think about my next question for a moment. "Would you say overall that it was, you know, a negative thing? Like, the park on the whole."

"No, absolutely not."

"Why's that?"

She licks her lips. "I think that it's really easy to forget how small we are. We've done all these great things, we've built civilizations, we've put people on the moon, we're exploring the bottom of the ocean, I think humanity in general likes to think that we have everything figured out." She shrugs. "The Mystery Flesh Pit is a really good reminder that we know basically nothing. I mean, they were studying it but they knew practically nothing about it, not how big it was, not whether there were more creatures like it elsewhere in the world, not where it came from, not even if it was awake or if it could move or what the thing looked like as a whole. I think what they ended up doing with it was stupid as hell, but as far as the experience of actually going down inside of it and walking around on a trail and, I don't know, watching macrobacteria roll past outside the fence or seeing something really weird moving around down there and seeing the park ranger guiding you not know what it is either, that's an experience I genuinely wish everybody got to have. It'll change your life."

"How did it change yours?"

She laughs. "Besides, you know, everything with the disaster and my brother and all that shit? Just going down there really made me realize who I was."

"How, exactly?"

She shakes her head. "Like I said, I figured out just how small I was and how – I don't know, how insignificant we really are. These days whenever I get worried or bothered or I stress out over something I think about standing there in the elevator looking up through the glass ceiling and watching the light get smaller and dimmer, like I was falling into a bottomless pit, and I find peace."

"Seems like an odd way to find peace."

"Different strokes, right? Anyway. I really ought to put these books away. Was there anything else you wanted to know?"

I think about it for a moment, then shrug. "I'm planning on heading down to Gumption tomorrow, aside from the pit itself is there anything else I ought to check out?"

She lets out a low whistle. "I think you're going to be very disappointed. They don't let anybody go to the Pit any more, it's all sealed off, has been for years. And Gumption, well...that town has seen better days. I'll give you a tip, though, even though maybe I shouldn't. Look for my brother there, I know he still lives in town. I can't give you his number or his address, unfortunately, because I don't have them any more, but I know for a fact that he works at the only gas station in town, a 7/11, so ask around there and you'll be able to find him. His name's Peter; I'd tell you to tell him I sent you but I kind of get the feeling that might not get you very far."

I thank her for the tip and set the newspapers aside. If I head out tonight I might be able to get some good shots of the fence around Mystery Flesh Pit. I think of it, of the sunset, then discard the thought. Forget it. I'll need a whole day to really dig into it, I think. And more's the better. I have plenty of batteries, I have plenty of storage. Easy girl, there's no rush. Assuming they let me just walk up and start filming, but if I really hype myself up I can half-believe I could talk my way into at least getting some shots of the fence, at the very least.

"Oh, and one last thing."

I blink, look back up at her. She has a faint smile on her face, probably from watching me zone out, that fades quickly. "Don't stay in Gumption too long."

* * *

The drive down to Gumption is dusty and hot and boring. I get about halfway before I realize I'm not driving my poor old Hyundai, I'm driving a rental car, and that it has a functional air conditioner, and then I feel very silly, for though the wind certainly felt nice on the whole I would have much rather just rolled the windows up and sat in the cool air. I see a grand total of four other cars, all coming from Gumption, on the two-hour drive. It's mostly a straight shot but my phone tells me to take a county road that turns into just a dirt track towards the end that, after a little meandering, plops me out onto a back street of Gumption, Texas.

The research I'd done suggests that at one point Gumption had been a bustling little town, fuelled by the Pit’s tourist draw, and initially its size would indicate that it still is. But as I drove slowly through the empty streets, the general air of disrepair and decay became more and more apparent. I see a couple abandoned houses, and not the foreclosed sort with realtor's signs out front, but straight-up shattered-glass, boarded-windows, holes-in-the-roofs abandoned. The ones that weren't just looked sad, like no one was taking care of them properly. The cars parked on the street are all at least five or six years old, as best as I can tell. I see only two people out and about while I'm driving around at 15 miles an hour, getting some video footage, cruising down the middle of the road, eyes flicking between the empty street ahead and the screen on my camera. One, a youngish-looking black guy, keeps his head down and doesn't look at me, and the other, an old man in a wifebeater mowing his lawn, stares at me all the way down the street, until I turn the corner and pull onto the main road.

There's the 7/11. I'm tempted to head to it right away but I refrain, look for a diner or something, but the ones around look about as welcoming as the rest of the place. There's a McDonald's but it's so small it doesn't even have a drive-through, which is something I'd never seen before. There's a drug store and a liquor store and one of those tiny little storefront churches, something something Starry Wisdom. I think about going to McDonald's but instead I pull a u-turn and head back to the gas station. The clerk, a haggard-looking woman, doesn't look up from her magazine when I walk in. I wander to the back and grab a Coke out of the fridge unit. The credit-card reader is broken so I have to dig around in my wallet and find some bills. The entire exchange continues without any speech at all until I work up my nerve and lick my lips and ask her if there's a hotel around here somewhere.

She looks at me for a few moments and then jerks her head towards the road. Her voice sounds like a frog croaking. "There's a motel down the road a ways. When you pull out take a left and turn at Third street."

"Thanks."

"No problem."

"By the way."

"Yeah?"

"Can you tell me when Peter works?"

I had to think for a moment to remember his name. I have it written down in a notebook but it's out in the car. Her eyes flash a little more lively. "Who's asking?"

I think of what to say for a moment before I shrug. "A friend."

For a moment I think she's going to tell me to fuck off, but something in my face must have convinced her. "He's off today. Come in tomorrow at eight or nine at night, he'll be here. He works graveyard most days."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

I walk out the door and the heat hits me like a thrown punch. I blow a breath out and lean up against the rough cinderblock edge of the gas station building and drink my Coke.

It's four in the afternoon and it'll take me maybe half an hour to drive down to the Mystery Flesh Pit. It'll be cooler, too, in the evening, and if this town is any indication I doubt there'll be much of a line. I wonder where the people who work there live; maybe they have a dormitory there or something. Clearly they don't live here. Maybe there's some little patch of suburbs somewhere, behind those hills over there, perhaps, where all the people are, but it's four in the afternoon and I've seen a grand total of three other cars driving around, so maybe not.

The guy at the motel gives me a nicer greeting than the lady at the 7-11 did, although not by much; at least I get a few dirty molars of a smile out of him as he hands me the key to my room. I had to wake him up from his nap at the front desk in order to get the room to begin with, and though I tried to do so as gently as I could he still started and almost fell out of his chair.

"Here for the Pit?" he asks as I'm about to leave, and I turn back, glance at him.

"Yeah," I say after a moment. "Just going to see what's there now."

"You're heading over now?"

"Yes."

"Huh," he grunts after a moment. "Most of you folks don't do that 'till dark."

I frown. "Us folks?"

"You know, you..." his eyes roam over my face and his mouth drops open very slightly. "Oh," he says heavily. "Never mind."

"What?"

"Nothing, ma'am. Now if you'll excuse me –"

"Wait, hang on –"

"You have a good day now, ma'am."

He disappears into the back room and I stand there, glaring at the door as it swings shut, key still looped around my finger. I have half a mind to vault the desk and head back there and demand to know what the hell he was talking about, but I take a deep breath and let it out. What could he have meant? Maybe he thinks I work over at the Flesh Pit or something, although that wouldn't explain why they only head over after dark...that doesn't make sense. Tourists, maybe? But that doesn't make sense either.

I chew on my lip for a little while and then shake my head, push the door open and let the heat swallow me up again. There's no sense brooding on it; the only thing to do is to move forward.

* * *

The drive down to Mystery Flesh Pit is, if it were possible, even hotter and more boring than the drive down to Gumption. The heat is pounding on the window and begging me to let it in so I turn up the AC, trying to drown it out, but it's no use. No matter where I put my arm the sun is pouring down on me, and if I leave it still for more than a moment I get that unpleasant prickling sensation that tells me I'm starting to burn already. I've already got a pretty terrible driver's tan from the ride down but this is just overkill.

No cars pass me on the long road that my phone assures me is the way to the Permian Basin Superorganism Containment Corporation. It's only wide enough for one so if someone did come by someone's going off the road. Hopefully not me, as this rental Toyota is not built for that sort of thing. It's already been complaining at me creakily and jostling me around. I'll have to get it a car wash or something when I get back to Lubbock, whenever that ends up being. I didn't read over the rental contract very closely but I'm pretty sure if I bring it back this dusty there's some kind of fee.

You can see the outline of the plant, growing larger up ahead. It looks unassuming, exactly like any other indecipherable cluster of industrial buildings you'd see along the side of the highway, all greyish-white, tubes and pipes and tanks and corrugation, warning signs and fences and barbed wire, power lines and scaffolding and light poles, all clustering out of the ground like mushrooms after a cold rain. The guard in the gatehouse is watching me as I pull up, but I turn off the road, turning the car around so I'll be ready to go whenever I need to, well away from the road so anyone trying to get in or out can get by without any trouble.

The sign on the fence broadly proclaims that this is the site of the Permian Basin Recovery and Superorganism Containment Corporation, and says that the administration building is to the right, along with the barracks, infirmary, commissary, and so on.

I get out, shut the car door, take my camcorder with me. I keep it on but held low, taking a shot of my feet. I wander up to the gatehouse and the guard steps out, hand on the butt of his pistol, resting loose but confident. He has an MP helmet on and I wonder whether the National Guard is in charge of security or something, and then I wonder if I'm about to get got for trespassing. Surely there'd be more of a commotion if I was, right?

The guard has a sharp face but disconcertingly watery eyes. "Hi," I tell him.

"This area's off-limits to civilians, ma'am," he tells me.

"I'm not trying to get in," I assure him. "I'm a journalist, I just want to take some photos. Is that okay?"

He relaxes a little, points up and down the fence. "Right now," he says, "you're on public land. You go over that fence, you're trespassing on Federal land. Understand?"

"Yessir," I grunt, reflexively. Some old habits never die.

"You can take photos of whatever you like except for people inside the fence, understand? Before you leave I will check your camera."

"Yessir."

"Any questions?"

"Can I take a photo of you?"

"Am I inside the fence?"

"No."

"Then yes, you can."

I bring my DSLR up, snap a picture of him. He gives me a cheesy grin. I look at the display and then back up at him. "You blinked."

"Better take another."

I do so. "You know," I say to him, "this is a much more civil interaction than I expected it to be."

He pauses, halfway back to the guardhouse, to shrug at me. "You're just lucky that the government doesn't also own the land around the park. On most military bases it's like that, you know, they own a hundred-foot radius out from the fence, but here it's different."

"Cause it used to be a National Park?"

"I believe so."

"Do I have to stay in your sight or anything?"

He shakes his head. "No, there are cameras. Just make sure you don't touch the fence, it's electric."

I look at the sign on the fence again; I'd sort of skimmed over it before but a few more things catch my eye this time, especially the bright red one proclaiming that it's charged to 10,000 volts. I whistle. "Y'all really don't want people getting in, huh?"

"It's dangerous."

"So I've heard. Want to do an interview?"

"Can't do that, ma'am. What paper are you with?"

"Corpus Christi Star-Tribune."

He raises his eyebrows. "You're a long way from home. What brings you down to Gumption County?"

I briefly explain what got me interested in the Mystery Flesh Pit and he nods. "Lot of people seem to have forgotten about this place. It's for the best, I'd say."

"Care to elaborate?"

"No, ma'am," he says, but not unkindly. "I can't talk to reporters."

"Come on," I wheedle. "Who'd know?"

"We're on camera," he repeats.

"Fair enough," I shrug.

He gets back in the guardhouse and I run a hand through my hair and turn my attention to the fence. I take a shot of the gates, of the fence, of the signs on the fence, of the great bulging buildings visible through the fence. I get a nice one of the fence extending along into the horizon, a great metal wall bisecting the flat, hot plain of West Texas earth, extending into infinity, it seems, a shimmer of heat distortion bubbling off of it down in the distance. I get another good one of the sun dipping downwards behind the plant, swallowed by it, casting shadows across my face, long spidery ones that scrape the ground. Then, once I'm at about fifty-percent capacity on my memory card, I put the camera away and sit there on the trunk of the car, kicking my heels idly against the gravelly ground, taking it all in. I read the sign again and I call out to the guard. After a moment he comes out of the gatehouse again.

"What is it?" he asks.

"What's that sign mean?" I ask him, pointing to it. He turns, looks at it.

"I don't think it's very ambiguous," he tells me, and I roll my eyes.

"No, I'm serious. What the hell does it mean? 'Over 500 people die each year attempting to commune with the Organism?' What does that - ?"

"Ma'am, I really can't talk about it."

I look at him carefully but he seems serious, and the sign, well...it's a sign on an electric fence on federal property, so surely it's serious as well. I turn my camera back on and snap a photo of it, then I realize that there's a bit of background noise, coming slowly closer. It's the rumbling of an engine.

There, down the road, is an unmarked white Econoline van. It flashes its brights at me and I step out of the road, let it pass by, while the guard at the gate straightens his uniform. It pulls up to the gate and the guard leans in. He and the driver have a brief conversation before the guard steps back and reaches into the booth to open the gate. The gate opens but the driver of the van sticks his head out, looks back at me. He has a jowly, bristly face, about two five-o'clock shadows away from a beard, and a large bald spot.

"And you, what are you doing here?" he calls, and I get up, a little surprised to be addressed so abruptly. The guard comes out in a hurry, shaking his head.

"Sir," he starts, but the guy in the van isn't having any of it.

"Shut up for a second," he says. "Lady, what're you doing out here?"

"I'm –"

"Sir, you really shouldn't –"

"Look, lady," he says, gesturing me closer. "Things don't have to go this way. There've been a lot of advances with medical technology that can really help you out with those urges. There's –"

"Urges?" I ask. I get a prickly feeling all up and down my spine, like I'm hearing something I ought not to.

"Sir," the guard says, urgently now, "she's a reporter."

The man's mouth snaps shut so quickly he might as well have been a cartoon character. He flushes an angry red and glares at the guard as though he wants to say something but he just ducks his head back through the window of the car and drives through the gate, which closes after him. I shake my head.

"I suppose," I say after a moment, "that you aren't going to tell me what he meant?"

"Not a chance."

"Well," I say, getting up and stretching, "it's been fun."

"You have a good night now."

"Am I going to get a visit from the Men in Black at my hotel room later?"

"I wouldn't worry about that."

"Riiiight." I waggle my eyebrows at him. "That's exactly what they'd want me to think."

He laughs. "Good luck," he tells me.

"I get the feeling I'll need it."

"You’ll be fine," he says after a moment, but I do not feel reassured.

* * *

I drive back to Gumption with the setting sun blazing in my rearview mirror. It slips out of view entirely and coats the sky in dusky purples that quickly fade to black, and then it's the figurative middle of the night. One-handed I manage to wriggle a cigarette out of the pack on the seat next to me and transfer it to my mouth and then feel around for my lighter, and then I groan and pull over. The guy at the rental desk at the airport had seen the pack of cigarettes in my hand while I was filling out the paperwork and told me very strictly that I had better not smoke in the car and I, of course, had managed to forget completely. It's a good thing I remembered before I lit up.

The night is cold but not unbearably so. I spend a long time there, leaning against the trunk of my car, cigarette in my hand but forgotten momentarily, staring up at the sky. There's so little light pollution out here that I can see what feels like all of the stars, practically, great scattered dustings of them sweeping across the whole of the night sky like someone had tossed them there. There's the Big Dipper, there's Orion, there's the Little Dipper... I think that bright one is Mars, maybe, it looks a little reddish. And that cluster there must be the Pleiades.

I take a breath and blow it out and realize exactly how tired I am. It's somewhere lurking in the back of my skull, right behind my eyes, coiled around my neck. If I closed my eyes I'd probably be able to fall asleep out here, right on the hood of the car.

I crack my neck and wince. The moon's bright and full tonight, at least, so I can still see the barren terrain all around me.

I consider the cigarette for a moment before I throw it to the ground and crush it out. I don't normally litter, really, I swear, but the exhaustion creeping over me is making me not care.

There's a long drainage ditch along the side of the road here, terminating in one of those white-concrete tunnels disappearing into the dirt, its mouth wide enough to swallow me whole if I felt like going down there. I stifle a yawn, kick a rock down into the ditch, and traipse around the side of the car, get in and start it up. From where I parked it, the headlights angle downward enough to reveal a sliced-pie cut of the inside of the tunnel and there, inside it, I see for only the briefest second a pale, wide-eyed face staring at me, along with a dark-jacketed body and a hand, curled there on the floor of the tunnel like a spider before, in a flash, the man retreats into the darkness deeper in the tunnel and is gone.

I can feel my heart beating out of my chest and I realize my mouth has dropped open. Real animal fear has seized me and my rational mind cannot jerk back the reins. I put the car into gear, fumbling first and sticking it in neutral, and then push the pedal all the way to the floor and roar off into the dark.

I was very lucky that there was no one trying to get to Mystery Flesh Pit that night, for I probably would have flipped the car trying to go around them. The closer I get to Gumption, the slower I drive, until finally I manage to get myself to stop the car just outside of town. I pull over again and get out, curling my lip at my shaking hands, and light up another cigarette.

It was just a homeless guy, hiding in a drainage ditch. I probably spooked the fuck out of him, pulling up right there on top of him and hanging out. He must be wondering what the fuck I was doing out there. Probably scared him more than he scared me.

Why did I wig out so bad anyway? I like to think I've got a pretty good nerve. Well, stress is a good excuse, I guess. Or perhaps it's because he was simply hiding down there, unknown, unnoticed, the whole time I was sitting there on the hood of the car, completely oblivious. He could have rushed out and attacked me, if he'd had the guts to, and I wouldn't have been able to do anything about it.

I take another drag at the cigarette and glare up at the stars again. Ursa Major, Orion, Pleiades. Sometimes, when it's quiet like this, I allow myself to think about what the coming year, or possibly years, if I'm lucky, will be like.

Whatever.

I crush the cigarette out and drive back into town, head back to my motel room. I feel better once I've showered and put on some shorts. I get into bed and pull the covers up, and even though they're the scratchy, weird-feeling covers used in seemingly every cheap motel in America, regardless of location, I drift off to sleep easily enough.

Continue with Part 2

Back to Table of Contents

#writing #mystery flesh pit #writeblr #Michael Crichton #thriller #novel #alt lit

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artificialqueens · 4 years ago

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Girl I Met On The Internet, 6/6 (Crystal x Gigi) - Strawberry

a/n: and it’s a wrap! for now anyway bc i totally dont have a fic coming based on the good news nicky had for jaida! i just want to say thank you to every single person who read, liked and reblogged this story. it means so much to me, i’m so glad people enjoyed the strange idea that came into my brain. <3 (also! i wanted to let you guys know that i’m planning on posting this fic on ao3 as well, probably after this chapter is posted on here. my username on there is drivingmecrazy !!)

crystal: does everyone’s spring break start this weekend too?? anyone doing anything??

jan!: mine does! i’m staying home all week, jackie is leaving me :(

nicky: my spring break isn’t until late april!! wtf :(

heidi: ha loser

heidi: i’m going to play animal crossing all weekend i can’t wait

Jackie: I’m going to Canada to visit family on Sunday. Jan, if you want we can hang out on Saturday if you’re going to miss me that much. :P

nicky: i’ll hang out with you jackie

jan: i hate you nicky

jaida: i have a pageant next week!!

jan!: yaas gorg

nicky: bring home the crown!

crystal: GO JAIDA!

nicky: also jaida call me. i have good news for you :)

gigi: crystal you already know what’s going down

crystal: do i now?

gigi: GOOD LUCK JAIDA!!! NO MATTER WHAT YOU ARE OUR WINNER

Crystal had somewhat of an idea of what was going down. She had been granted permission to sleep over at Gigi’s house, and they would be going on their date the following day. Gigi would not tell Crystal anything about where they were going, and refused to give her any hints no matter how much Crystal begged.

The next morning, on their walk to school, Crystal finally got a hint.

“You tweeted about it. That’s all I’ll tell you.”

“That’s not helpful at all!” Crystal had almost 30 thousand tweets, her Twitter was her space to say weird things without being judged too harshly, and she had a lot of things to say! She thought about things she might’ve tweeted about wanting to do, or places she wanted to go, but came up empty handed.

“Well, you have the whole day to think about it. I’ll meet you after school, yeah?”

Gigi’s mom offered to pick them up after school, even though the walk from their school to Gigi’s house wasn’t far. Crystal finally met Nancy, Gigi’s beloved dog. Crystal didn’t want to do anything besides hold the dachshund to her chest all night, but Gigi wouldn’t let her, saying it wasn’t fair for Nancy to get all of the attention even though Gigi does the exact same thing with Tic Tac.

They made homemade pizza for dinner, and played monopoly with Gigi’s parents and her brother. Gigi’s brother thought Crystal was cute, and hit on Crystal; trying out a ridiculous pickup line on the green haired girl every chance he got. After they called off the game, Gigi excused her and Crystal to her room.

“So quick to leave, Georgina,” Crystal teased, sitting down next to Nancy who was using Gigi’s strawberry cow pillow pet as a headrest.

“Wanna spend time with you. Can we cuddle?”

“Yeah, of course.”

They sat in silence for a while, enjoying each other’s company until Gigi spoke up.

“I couldn’t do it.”

“Couldn’t do what?” Crystal asked, lost.

“Come out to my friends. I thought I was ready but obviously I’m not.”

“It’s okay, Gigi. You’ll know when it’s time, don’t rush it.”

“I just want to be more open, I guess.”

“That’s good, but it’s not going to happen overnight. You have to take baby steps, G.”

“Was it hard? To come out?”

“To who?” Crystal snorted, “You know I don’t have any friends. I’m pretty sure everyone at school already knows, though.”

“Does your mom know?”

“Probably. She got a little too suspicious when I started liking Poppy.”

This turned into revealing who their first gay crush was, and how and when they figured out they liked girls like the rest of their friends liked boys. Crystal told Gigi about how she originally tried to fake like One Direction so no one would suspect anything, and Gigi told Crystal about how she refused to listen to any music sung by female artists for half a year before they decided to go to sleep.

Crystal had woken up first. She didn’t bother waking up Gigi, going to scroll through Twitter instead. It was still early, but the group chat was on some bullshit, Jan changed her display name to Nicky and changed her profile picture to Nicky’s to mock her. Nicky did not find this funny in the slightest, but Jaida did.

nicky: i’m nicky i’m french i love stealing my friends gfs

jaida: omg period!

THE REAL nicky: JAIDA THAT’S NOT ME!!!

jaida: proof?

THE REAL nicky: I HATE IT HERE!!

nicky: croissant

crystal: HELPDGNJKFNJ

THE REAL nicky: i cannot stand jan. this is why jackie should date me instead

Crystal couldn’t stop laughing, which ended up waking Gigi up. Gigi was grumpy at first, but that changed when she realized they needed to get ready to go on the date she had planned.

After they had gotten up and dressed, they sat next to each other in front of the giant, floor length mirror next to Gigi’s closet to do their makeup. Gigi stopped doing her makeup after putting on her foundation, deciding that watching Crystal do her eye shadow was more entertaining than finishing the look she had in mind.

“Stop looking at me, you’re making me nervous!” Crystal giggled when she noticed Gigi’s stares, not actually wanting Gigi to stop.

“I’ll think about it,” Gigi paused, pretending to think, “I will not. You look beautiful.”

Crystal squawked, “I barely have anything on my face!”

“So?”

“What are you, gay or something?” Crystal teased, making Gigi poke at her sides, “Stop being a dork and finish your makeup!”

“Fine. Only because we need to get going soon.”

“Wait, you know how to drive?” Crystal asked, getting in the passenger seat.

“Yeah! I don’t have my own car yet, but I got my license on my 16th birthday. I am not enforcing the stereotype at all!” Gigi grinned, opening the garage door and starting her mom’s car.

“I’ll be the judge of that. Can I play music?”

“Yeah, sure.” Gigi handed her the aux cord and started backing out of the driveway.

“Okay. This is the ultimate test,” Crystal stated, starting to play a song. “Which One Direction song is this?”

The song in question was good, but Gigi didn’t recognize it. She had only listened to ‘Midnight Memories’ because it was Crystal’s favorite album, and she knew for sure Crystal wasn’t playing a song from that album. “Is it from ‘Made in the A.M’?”

“Trick question! It’s one of Niall’s solo songs. It’s called ‘Dear Patience’!” Crystal laughed, thinking she had pulled off the biggest prank in the world.

“Oh, fuck. I should’ve known there was only one person singing.”

After fifteen minutes of driving, and Gigi almost running a stop sign, they finally pulled up at a cute little thrift shop on the outskirts of town, and Crystal was just about shaking with excitement. “I love thrifting! I’ve only been once, but it was so fun! I found that jumpsuit I wore that one day while thrifting!” She rambles, rushing to get out of the car and inside.

“Wait, when I did tweet about this?”

Around the time they had first started talking, Crystal had tweeted about how her dream date was going thrifting. Gigi naturally stored this information in the back of her mind, even though at the time she never thought she would need it.

On their walk from the parking lot to the store, Crystal held her hand out, which Gigi hesitantly accepted.

“We should play a game! We should split up and pick out an outfit for the other person without them knowing and then meet up and try them on!”

Gigi’s heart swelled, Crystal was so cute. “That sounds fun, but how do I know this isn’t just a trick to dress me up in something hideous?” Gigi teased, making Crystal blush.

“I would never, don’t be ridiculous,” Crystal scoffed, “I’ll save that for the next time we go thrifting!”

Crystal let go of Gigi’s hand to open the door for her, splitting up as soon as they walked into the shop.

It didn’t take them very long to pick out their pieces. Crystal stayed true to her word, picking out a light green, halter top dress for Gigi. Gigi, on the other hand, had picked out a hideous pair of neon pink, zebra print leggings and a red flannel shirt.

“Gigi, what is that?” Crystal scrunched up her nose in disgust.

“You like patterns, why not clash them?” Gigi tried to defend herself, but could barely finish her sentence before bursting out laughing.

“No! I’m not getting that! I’m not even going to try on that outfit. It’s yucky.”

“That’s fine, give me the dress you picked out for me. I need that.” Gigi snatched it from Crystal’s hands, walking quickly to the dressing room.

The dress looked gorgeous on Gigi. Crystal was so glad she took their game seriously.

They looked around together for a little bit before wandering from each other yet again. Gigi somehow ended up with a pile of clothes that you would only see in a very successful thrifting haul video on YouTube. Crystal had stuck to the men’s section, immediately claiming some loud button ups and with a little digging, she found a very specific, out of place t-shirt that said something about how ‘real grandmas drink Dr. Pepper’ that she found hilarious and needed to own.

“What does that say? Some grandmas play bingo, real grandmas drink Dr. Pepper?” Gigi questioned when they finally met back up, “What does that even mean?”

“I don’t know, but it’s sending me. I need it!”

“So you hated my outfit I got for you, but you’re buying that?” Gigi teased.

“You do not understand the art of highly specific shirts, like these, babe. I’ll have to teach you all about them later.”

Gigi thought Crystal was an idiot, but she couldn’t stop smiling.

After paying for their clothes, they got back into the car. Gigi started driving, not telling Crystal where their next stop was. The stop happened to be the Taco Bell drive thru, which Crystal was excited about. “Okay, I do remember tweeting about wanting to go to Taco Bell.”

When they got their food, Gigi placed the bag in the back seat, making Crystal raise an eyebrow.

“You’re a messy eater, so we aren’t eating in the car. My mom would kill me if we made a mess.”

While Crystal tried to convince Gigi she was not a messy eater and her mom’s car would be fine, Gigi pulled up to a park.

“Can you find a spot to sit down at so we can eat it there?” Gigi requested. It took Crystal about two seconds to travel from the car to the grass, settling down in a shady spot underneath some trees. Gigi joined Crystal, holding a blue blanket as well as the brown paper bag.

“It’s not a picnic blanket, I couldn’t find one but I hope it works.”

“It does! I love picnics!” Crystal hops up so Gigi can lay down the blanket, going to retrieve the drinks that they forgot in the car.

Their lunch was filled with flirting, stupid inside jokes and Crystal loved every second of it. She knew for sure by the end of the day she would not be single anymore, but the lack of confirmation was making her antsy.

Once they were done eating, Gigi collected all of the wrappers and cups, walking across the grass to the nearest trash can to dispose of them. When Gigi came back, she had a huge grin on her face, “Well, Crystal Elizabeth. I would like to think that I successfully wooed you, if only you could do something for me in return…”

“What do you have in mind, Georgina?” Crystal giggles, hoping Gigi couldn’t tell how nervous that statement made her.

“Crystal Elizabeth, I was wondering if you would be my girlfriend?”

“God, yes. I’ve been waiting for this for months.” Crystal exclaimed, immediately being pulled into a kiss.

They stayed at the park after that. Crystal’s inner child had jumped out after the kiss was broken and she wanted to play on the playground.

“Wait, Crystal! Come here, the light looks good right now and we need to take our reveal selfie!”

Their date came to an end when Crystal’s mom texted her asking to come home. Crystal’s mom had no idea what she was interrupting, as Crystal did not tell her mom what they were actually doing.

“I hate it here, I would let this date go on all week if I could.” Crystal pouted, buckling her seatbelt.

“If there’s any other place you want to go this week, we could go on our second date.” Gigi smiled, reaching out to hold Crystal’s hand.

“Be careful, I know steering with one hand is peak lesbianism, but I don’t know if you’re a good enough driver to do that yet.” Crystal joked, even though she gladly accepted Gigi’s hand.

“Oh, shut up. Like you could go ten minutes without holding my hand.”

Crystal kissed Gigi again when they got on her street, Gigi parking a few houses down for privacy.

“This was fun. I really am happy with everything. You completely wooed me, Georgina.”

“I’m glad. Does this mean I can call you my clown girlfriend now?” Gigi jokingly asked, making Crystal let out a tiny scream.

“As dumb as that sounds, yes. You can.”

Gigi did not let Crystal get out of the car without getting another kiss.

Crystal entered her house, her grin slowly fading when she saw her mom waiting for her.

“You took a while to come home.” Crystal’s mom started, under the impression she was at Gigi’s house. “What took you so long?”

“Yeah, sorry. I couldn’t find my charger.” Crystal felt bad for lying to her mom, but she didn’t want to tell her what happened yet.

“Oh, your generation and your phones. I was starting to get worried.”

“Mama, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I’m going to my room now, is that okay?”

“Yeah, I’m about to start dinner. We’re having your favorite!”

The second Crystal got into her room, she locked her door and jumped on her bed, logging onto Twitter.

crystal: good evening l a d i e s

jan!: HEY!

jaida: crystal!

Jackie: You haven’t been active today, what were you up to?

heidi: not jackie demanding answers

nicky: ooooh

gigi: well, since you asked…

crystal: :D

gigi: my girlfriend crystal and i went on our first date today. isn’t she beautiful??

The group erupted into chaos the second they saw their selfie, congratulating the new couple for finally getting together. Crystal wouldn’t have it any other way. She would be forever grateful for being added into Elites Only, and even more for the special girl she had met there.

gigi: so, any ideas for our second date?

crystal: tons, babe. i’m gonna blow your mind.

#rpdr fanfiction #gigi goode #crystal methyd #jackie cox #jan sport #jaida essence hall #heidi n closet #crygi #lesbian au #high school au #social media au #girl i met on the internet #strawberry #submission #s12

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