#the implications of a motel stop for one night to rest are high…

[chirpsythismorning]

For the last 24 hrs I’ve been trying to find the real motel from that production assistant’s s4 bts pic…

[justplainwhump]

Spotted

Co-written with @hackles-up. Part of the Ridley-Dies-Arc, can be read on it's own. B and Tom (aka second bad guy) are her characters.

Dany and B's escape takes a bad turn.

[Masterlist]

Content / Warnings: BBU elements, recapture, feverish whumpee, restraints, multiple whumpees, multiple whumpers, abduction, threats of noncon.

Being the daughter of a man like my father, I've been taught quite a lot about being on the run, even though I've rarely been myself. The importance of high quality fake papers, for example, and how much further you can get if you just behave like a rich person; how with the right tip a concierge at the Ritz will surely keep you out of the books, while a dingy motel owner might sell you out for the price of a Big Mac.

It's ironic, that we have both of that - good documents and good money -, and still need to rely on the very dingy sort of accommodations. Because all I learned didn't take into account being the subjects of a nationwide manhunt for the murder of a mafia-affiliated just-not-billionaire. Or hiding a huge, broad-shouldered traumatized man with sharp titanium teeth who refuses to take off his collar.

We've slept in the car, twice, but B's fever had only become worse, and none of us had been able to close an eye.

We're at a rest stop on a highway, a small shady restaurant with a bunch of guest rooms above it. A significant share of these is most likely occupied by the prostitutes sitting at the bar right now, slightly bored because it's not yet their time of the night. It makes me feel better, in a way. Means the police aren't quite welcome here. That can only be good for us.

B has stepped away for the washroom, and I'm just studying the road map once more, when a thin man in a leather jacket slips into my booth and sits down in B's spot.

Under the table, my hand wraps around my gun. I can help myself, but it would create attention, and attention is the very last thing we need.

"Hey, sweetheart," he says, while he looks me down. Black jeans, oversized black Tee, short gloves, dark baseball cap over a short bob. I look nothing like the pictures from the wanted posters. I also look nothing like a sweetheart.

"Fuck off," I tell him. "That seat is taken."

He chuckles. "You don't even want to hear my offer?"

"Pretty sure I do not, no."

"I can get you out." He gestures roughly towards the border. "Out of the country. Friend's got an airplane, used to... unregistered cargo."

"What makes you think I want to leave?"

He laughs, points at my cap, my baggy clothes, the duffle bag between my feet. "I know the looks of people like you. And I know this place isn't exactly a spa retreat. People come here for reasons."

"Oh yeah?" With the hand above the table, I take a sip of my coke. "And say I were interested. How much would that flight be?"

The stranger tilts his head towards the restrooms. "Your... buddy back there. Built like a brick, isn't he? Seems like he can handle himself quite well."

I lift my chin in alarm, while he just leans in conspiratorially, and asks, "WRU material?"

I clench my jaw and shake my head.

"If he came back, and I said the magic word, what would he do, huh, princess?"

I can't help but tense at the pet name. At the implication.

"What would you do, huh?" He gives me a slow smile. "Wanna give it a try? Respect!"

"Fuck off." I slam my gun onto the table, trained at him, keeping my voice low. "I'm not a runaway pet, nor is my friend. I've just had some trouble with some assholes, and it didn't end well for them. If you don't want to test your luck, I think you should just walk away and forget we've ever met."

He stares at the gun and lifts his hand in a mock gesture of defeat. "Gosh, you're a flimsy one, aren't you? Alright, I'm leavin', I'm leavin'."

My heart is racing, as I watch him retreat through the front doors, looking back to me with a final mock salute.

It still does, when B returns to the table. He still looks exhausted, his eyes dull, with deep rings underneath, feverish sweat glinting on his forehead. 'Seems like he can handle himself well', the man has said. Fucking ironic, a threat within a threat.

B needs a break. And I’m not giving him one. I toss two bills onto the counter and grab the uneaten burger from the plate, before I nod at him. "We gotta go."

“Trouble?” He asks, moving in step with me as I move. All professional, all alert Guard Dog. Both of us know how much it costs him to keep it up.

"Yeah." I cast a glance around. Nobody seems to spare us any attention, but I've been fooled before. I hadn't seen the guy coming. And he must've been watching us for a while. Fuck. I'm pretty sure that I haven't convinced him. Just need to hope that he'll find easier prey. Or that we'll be gone before he returns. "Some gangster spotted us. Can't tell you what he wants exactly, he doesn't know about the bounty, but way too interested in you to be safe."

I lift the heavy bag and throw it over my shoulder. It's better if I carry it than him. He's sick; and he needs his hands free. "He left through the front door. Don't think we've seen the last of him though." I bite my lip. "Any other way out?"

B nods, indicating to his right hand side. "This way."

He makes steady determined steps past the bathrooms and towards the back entrance, almost betraying the exhaustion he must be feeling. Just as I try to let myself be fooled, too, though, he wavers for a moment, stumbling and reaching to hold himself on the wall.

I'm by his side right away, holding out my arm to steady him from the other side. He's burning, even through his clothes. His fever has become worse. A plane ride would've been just what we needed. Fucking asshole.

I rest a hand on B's hot cheek. "It's not far," I promise. "Two more days, and we can find Frankie's friends, and rest there."

I had thought about just leaving our car behind, making a run through the fields behind the rest stop, and just find someone who sells us their car for enough cash.

But B isn't even well enough to make it to the parking lot in one run. I grimace, making sure the gun is where I can reach it. I can't use any police attention. But if that's the price to pay to get B out of here safely, so be it.

Whatever that guy is up to, he's bad news; he's a threat, and he won't be any more with a bullet in his chest. I wonder for a second, if Dad would like that reasoning. He never wanted me to think that way. But there's many things about my life that he's never wanted.

"Come on, Ben," I say quietly. "We need to keep moving. You can hold on to me, alright? You can sleep in the car."

B bunches his hand into a fist against the wall, exhaling with a groan.

"Nh... No... 'M fine, Dany... I can do this." He mutters, and pushes himself off of the wall and stumbles forward, shrugging off my hand. "We can't stay here."

He pushes himself against the back door, holding it open with his body so I may slip out.

Something moves behind me. There’s a hand on my side, and cold metal pressed to the back of my head. They came from behind. Of course they did. Fuck. Fuck.

"Stay nice and still, pretty thing." someone murmurs.

I will not.

"B!" I shout, when I feel the barrel shift as he reaches around me, fumbling for my gun. I spin the other way, let the heavy duffel bag slam into his side and shoulder, while I grab my gun myself. The attacker stumbles, but catches himself too quickly, his gun in front of my face just as I bring my own up.

Fury is burning in his eyes. "You fucking... Don't fucking move or I'll put one in your knee. Sluts don't need to walk."

In front of us, B lets out a low growl. He bares his titanium teeth, taking a shaky step forward. The backdoor is still open, the night air wafting in.

"Oh no you don’t," the stranger hisses, pulling back the safety on his gun and pointing it at my leg. "I saw his collar. Tell your pet to back down or I'll shoot."

My mind is racing.

My gun is still in my hands, half way up. I could get a bullet in his chest, but he'll be faster, shooting my leg. I could kill him, but we'd never get away.

They want us alive. They want us alive, and they don't know who we are, so chances are they want us alive and not torture us to death.

Sickening as it is to admit, we'll stand better chances later. It feels like a betrayal, when I say, "Stand down, B."

B’s glare stays on the man, burning and deadly. He dropped his defensive stance immediately, though.

I don't lower my own gun.

"What do you want?"

He doesn’t reply, keeps his own gun level, while he remarks, “Impressive. It’s very responsive to you. How did you get your hands on a Guard Dog, huh? Must’ve cost a fortune. Daddy bought him for you?” He sneers.

Daddy. My hand trembles and I need my other hand to steady it and the gun. "Daddy is not in the picture any longer. And he answers to me," I reply. "What do you want? There isn't a lot to get out of us. The Guard Dog is old and sick, he isn't worth much any longer, but we can talk money." Ridley's words taste sour in my mouth. I hope B gets why I have to talk like this. They need to let us go.

The man just laughs. “Oh I wouldn’t discount you two so quickly.” He takes a step forward. “Now I need you to lower that gun and come with me. I’ll tell you all you wanna know then.”

“Don’t move…” B grits out. “We won’t go… anywhere with you.”

“Oh it talks too. Clever doggy.”

"Don't come closer," I hiss. "And don't talk to him like that. Or I'll shoot, and I won't bother aiming for the leg."

When I notice the shadowy movements behind B, it's too late. Something lowers around his neck and yanks him back.

I lose all control.

"No," I yell and stumble over towards him. "No! B!"

He’s falling, catching himself just before he hits the ground and lunges with teeth bared at his assailants, fighting the noose around his throat.

“Oh no you fucking don’t.” The man behind me is on me, grabs me in a vicious choke hold, arm pressing into my throat and kicking my legs out from underneath me to send me crashing to the ground. The gun falls from my hand, clattering across the floor behind me.

I have eyes only for the scene in front of me, the long catch pole, the noose lanyard choking B’s neck, his desperate, feverish thrashes. He’s panting for breath already.

"Stop," I shout, half sobbing. "B. Don't. Don't."

At the sound of my voice, B freezes in place.

It’s enough. The men yank back on the pole, sending him crashing into the ground.

The man behind me presses me down, pinned under his weight.

“Shhh, there’s a good girl", the stranger breathes in my ear, wrenching my arms back and fixating them with zip ties, while hissing obscenities into my hair.

Good girl.

I have betrayed B. I have betrayed myself, giving up this fight.

The man's hands are wandering over my ass. I don't care. All I care about is the man folded over on the other side of the back door, the man whom I promised to get him to safety.

My eyes are burning with tears.

I swallow back a sob.

"Don't hurt him," I whisper. "Please. Fuck me however you want to, I'll let you, but please, don't hurt him."

“Oh I think we’ll do whatever we please, sweetheart.” He murmurs, hand still firm on my ass. “We’ll take good care of your dog. Better than you have. Get it back on its feet and it’s gonna earn us a fortune in the dog fights.”

Better than you have. I can't breathe. He's right. I've almost let him die of this fever, keeping him on the run, always on his ties, never allowing us to rest.

The man who’s sat in the booth with me has stepped in outside, kneeling on B’s back.

I watch with tears in my eyes, as he pulls out a collar.

I didn't have a choice, I tell myself. I had to.

I’ve failed him, nonetheless.

I’ve failed us both.

---------

-

Tag list (this is a very old one; lmk if you want to be added or removed!): @distinctlywhumpthing @whumping-on-the-ridge @queenofthenoobs @ocean-blue-whump

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Misread Details, Part Two

CW: Described death of whumper, BBU, implications of pet whump, references to noncon, dehumanization, sadistic whumper

Part One: Nanda | Part Two: Brute | Part Three: Robert

The Unsolved Murder of Henry “Brute” Hanlon and the Box Boy Killer

r/LetsTalkTrueCrime

•Posted by u/oshaycanyousee

2 weeks ago

I’m back, r/LetsTalkTrueCrime! I really appreciated the questions and discussion under my last write-up, and a few of you really encouraged me to keep working to provide a part two to my Serial Killer Box Boy series, so here it is!

In Part One, we looked at the mysterious death of Nathaniel “Nanda” Benson, who died of cardiac arrest due to an undiagnosed heart defect (and likely head trauma played a part) and was found at the bottom of the stairs inside his California home. The only valuable possession missing from his property was his legally-purchased Box Boy, who fled the city wearing Nathaniel Benson’s shoes and using his money to buy a bus and then train ticket. 

The last confirmed sighting of the runaway Box Boy (and Benson’s possible killer?) was in Red Hills, California, a large-ish city a couple hours south of Benson’s house by train. 

Questions remain around Benson’s death: did he suffer cardiac arrest and fall down the stairs? Did the Box Boy push him, with the shock of the trauma and injury leading to the heart attack that killed him?

Is the Box Boy merely a witness to a tragic but natural death, or the prime murder suspect?

And most importantly: If he wasn’t guilty, why did he run?

Less than a full calendar year after Benson’s death, the question of where the Boxie went after Benson died was answered… but even that answer only opened up more questions, and the sudden death of a second man places even more uncertainty into the story of a Boxie who might simply be an innocent victim - or who could be a serial killer whose makes a victim out of those who give him shelter.

Which leads us to the story of Henry James Hanlon, known to nearly everyone - including his wife - as “Brute”.

Henry Hanlon was born in a small town in Texas, but moved to Red Hills, California after finishing a stint in the Air Force. 

His parents, James Hanlon and Estella Hanlon, maiden name Brickers, had had their first child, Henry’s older brother William “Bill”, right out of high school, born six months after their wedding day. Henry came three years later, and his sister Roberta “Bobbie” one year after that.

Henry was a perfectly normal, cheerful little boy, always toddling after his older brother and trying to join in the games of the older kids in town. His parents recalled him as the quintessential “middle child”, always resolving disputes and quietly getting things done. He received his nickname of “Brute” in fifth grade, when a classroom bully was harassing a female friend of Henry’s and Henry decided to take action. The only information I could really hunt down on this was some old school records that I found on a message board, and I can’t really verify if they’re real, but they suggest that the bully was sent home injured and Henry received a three-day suspension.

After that, it seems, anyone and everyone - even teachers - called Henry Hanlon “Brute”, and he never seemed to mind.

He received perfectly average grades, enlisted in the Air Force, served without distinction but without any significant incidents, and afterwards he moved out to California, where he settled into Red Hills (then a city with a thriving industrial district that was slowly beginning its slide into something rougher) and took a job with a manufacturing company, working in their warehouse.

“Brute” dated around a bit, but it wasn’t until three years after his move that he met the woman he would marry, Ellen Patricia Barry. She was a few years younger than him, and they met at a local bar that both were known to frequent. One of Brute’s former coworkers told police that Brute was big into pool and poker, both of which he would engage in when he went to the bar, and that he met Ellen during one of the poker nights, and that Brute stated that how easily she beat him was one of the reasons he was interested in her romantically.

Ellen claims they first spoke while playing pool, not poker, and also claims she’s never played poker in her life. Why Brute would have told his coworkers a different story is unclear. 

They dated for about a year before they wed at Grace Baptist Church on a sunny summer day in 20XX. Ellen’s father gave her away while Brute’s little sister was the maid of honor. A year later, Brute’s daughter Elizabeth was born, and a couple years after that, their son Daniel.

The Hanlons lived a charmed life - they owned a cute three-bedroom cottage home (bought and given to them by Ellen’s parents as a wedding gift) in a good part of town with a little white fence around the property and a yard big enough for the children and dog to play in. Ellen was part of the local PTA and active in her church, and Brute himself had the appearance of a man totally content with everything he had.

But Brute Hanlon had a secret.

Ellen continued to believe he was employed by the manufacturing company, but he actually left his employment there years before his death. Instead, he seems to have transitioned into making his money “under the table”. Ellen wouldn’t discover any of this until after his body was located… in a secret house he’d never told her about, in one of the roughest parts of Red Hills.

Without her knowledge, Brute purchased a two-bedroom home with cash directly from its previous owner that was badly in need of repair in the Pauls Mill neighborhood. Once a “company town” from the 1930’s - 1950’s that was absorbed into Red Hills as it grew in the 60’s, Pauls Mill today is the kind of neighborhood where everyone knows if you belong there, or don’t, and it’s best if you belong.

Brute performed a few very cursory repairs to keep it livable, laid down some new carpet, and then used it as a kind of secret base for the unsavory activities he didn’t want Ellen or the children to know about.

While his family believed he was at work at the factory, Hanlon was in fact hosting poker games, selling illicit narcotics and unlicensed firearms, and generally making quite a bit more money than he had with legal employment entirely under-the-table. He would spend his day making connections (and money) through these activities, then go home right at 5 pm sharp to his loving family, eat dinner at 6 pm, help his kids with their homework and hear about their day, and settle in for an evening playing the loving husband and doting dad.

Somewhere during this time period, Brute told Ellen he was setting up a “poker night” with his friends again, now that the kids were school-aged. 

What he did instead was drive down to the corner of Holt and McCormick streets, known to all locals as the Red Hills “red light district”, and pick up prostitutes, usually simply meeting with them in his car, but occasionally taking them to a nearby motel.

After his body was found, police showed his picture around to a variety of the individuals who make their living at Holt and McCormick, and more than a dozen locals immediately recognized him. 

Some described him as a regular customer who wasn’t particularly special or notable beyond the simple fact that he never tried to renege on payment and could be relied on to always be looking for someone on a particular night of the week… but others, almost entirely male, said he could be violent. A few described being injured enough that they had to seek medical treatment after meeting him. The same individuals stated that he insisted on using dehumanizing and insulting language to speak to them during these encounters, and that he was often unable to perform unless he did so.

One individual, who gave his name as “Mix”, mentioned that the last few times Brute had engaged his services, he had brought along a collar and insisted Mix pretend to be a Box Boy. 

During this time period, Brute continued to be an active, involved, and loving parent. 

He was home right on time every night except “poker night”, attended his chlidrens’ recitals and baseball games on the weekends. He often took them to the Red Hills Zoo, local parks, and even did a weekend trip to Berras to see the Berras Aquarium, stay overnight in a hotel as a family, and then visit a redwoods park before returning home.

Six months before his death, Brute’s visits to the red light district abruptly stopped. Instead, he apparently met with a local prostitute, engaged his services, and took him home… for good. 

The best record we have is that one woman, Needie Brandt, remembered seeing Brute leading a shorter, angular young man to his car one night, and described the young man as “one of those runaway Boxies, collar and all. Poor thing was half-starved”. 

Runaways, especially Romantics, are picked up by police from time to time in Red Hills. Most Romantics don’t really know any other way to survive, so prostitution is a common way to make ends meet. Needie said the young man had been seen around the area for a couple of weeks, right alongside the rest of the working people in the red light district, and that after this one night she saw Brute Hanlon lead him into the car, she didn’t see him again.

Asked if she remembered a name, Needie only shrugged and said that even if she did, it wouldn’t be a real one. Which is probably a good point. 

Somewhere in here, Brute began to date outside of his marriage while his family believed he was out with friends playing poker. He took dancing lessons with one Susan Krieger, had a serious relationship with a Lucy Graham, and was apparently occasionally taking a Natalie Dorn out for dinner.

Ellen was never informed about these out-of-wedlock interests. 

Brute’s family knew nothing. When his eldest son went to state with marching band his freshman year of high school, Brute Hanlon was right there cheering him on.

Then, just two days later, he presumably went right back to brutalizing the Box Boy he was keeping in his secret second home.

We don’t have a record of what exactly transpired within the house after Brute took the runaway Box Boy in. What we do know is what the police found later on.

On October 18th, 20XX, around midnight, Ellen Hanlon called police to report her husband missing after he did not return from his regular poker night. His car was located in the parking lot of an abandoned FoodMart, but a friend of Brute’s came forward to say he often parked there and carpooled with friends when going out.

None of Brute’s possessions were inside, and it didn’t appear the car had been touched by anyone but Brute himself when it was dusted for fingerprints or signs of DNA. Brute’s friends who knew about his secret activities weren’t telling, and Ellen and the children didn’t know anything about their seemingly loving husband and father’s double-life. 

At first, the trail seemed like it would go cold, and investigators were frustrated that they had so little to go on.

Then, on October 29th, 20XX, Brute’s neighbor (who apparently asked that his name not be given) called the police department complaining about how the small two-bedroom house next door had begun to smell “like something died in there”, and that he hadn’t seen his neighbor leave or return in days, which was very unusual.

When police arrived, the front door was unlocked. Officer William Keys, the first one inside, later described the smell as “unmistakable. I knew exactly what we’d find the second we walked in that door.”

He was right.

What they found was the bloodied and decomposing body of Henry “Brute” Hanlon, lying on his back in the middle of a small unremarkable living room, on a dirty and stained carpet. He had been viciously stabbed more than fifty times. One even went so far into Brute that there was an exit wound through his back. Medical examiners would later state that at least seven of his wounds would have been directly fatal, but that he had died within the first few and most of the wounds were technically post-mortem.

The murder had been committed by someone who had a very personal reason for the killing. Investigators believe this individual was “absolutely enraged”.  

Next to his body was the murder weapon, along with a set of buckles and strips of leather that mystified the officers. These were eventually identified as modified leg braces, but rather than straightening bent or injured legs, they forced the wearer to keep their legs at nearly right angles, which would ensure they had to crawl rather than walk. They appeared to be homemade.

Bloodied smears and footprints led the officers down a hallway and to the bathroom, where there was evidence someone had showered, changed clothes, and then left.

The same neighbor who informed police about the smell also remembered seeing, on October 16th or 17th (later determined that it was likely the 17th, the day that Brute did not return home from “work”), a young man wearing an oversized coat, sweatpants, and a too-large t-shirt walk out of Hanlon’s house and down the street. The young man was on the short side, the neighbor said, had an angular face, and a visible scar at the corner of his mouth and another along the side of his face. He had the collar of the coat flipped up, and the neighbor doesn’t recall if he wore a collar or not.

He had dark eyes, and short but shaggy dark hair that seemed to have been cut hurriedly and unevenly, and he waved at Hanlon’s neighbor without pausing or speaking as he walked past.

Tests on fingerprints and DNA located within Brute Hanlon’s secret second home would reveal that the Box Boy who once ran from Nathaniel Benson after his death was the exact same one who ran from Brute Hanlon after murdering him. The Boxie’s fingerprints were all over the murder weapon… and everywhere else, too.

Within Brute’s home, more knives were found, along with what looked like a badly-crafted homemade whip and some other supplies. A few of the things investigators found appeared to be essentially identical to what was found in Nathaniel Benson’s home. Other things were different (“animalization” was mentioned in some of the reports, but what I’ve been able to find is seriously vague for some reason). 

Possibly related, a series of dog leashes purchased from a local pet-supply store were found throughout the home, but there was no evidence of an actual dog. In the home’s main bedroom was a perfectly normal queen-sized bed that was clearly Brute’s, with a small side table, a large dresser, and an attached bathroom. 

There was absolutely nothing outwardly out of the ordinary, besides the room being very plain and impersonal. Makes sense, since Brute almost never slept there. 

In the second bedroom, however, there was army-style cot with a thin blanket and sheet, three folded shirts on the floor, two sets of bloody metal handcuffs hanging off the cot’s frame at the top and bottom, and a bucket next to the bed. Two metal bowls, clearly of a style meant to be a dog’s food and water bowls, were next to the door. One still had water in it. The window was painted and nailed shut, and bars had been installed over the windows.

Investigators determined the bars were on the house when Brute Hanlon purchased it and had been installed by the previous owner. No reason for that installation was ever given.

Investigation revealed trace amounts of evidence of blood, but nothing much. However, the living room and dining area both showed poorly-cleaned bloodstains that were much older than Hanlon’s murder, including discolored patches on the walls.

A contract for a 24/7 “master/slave” style relationship was found in the top drawer of the dresser, signed ‘Pet’ at the bottom, and with Brute’s name alongside it. However, both signatures match Hanlon’s handwriting, and the Boxie is not believed to have actively signed it, as he would be illiterate at best. Plus, Box Boys are not legally allowed to enter into any contract, anyway, since they can’t understand obligations at that level, so even if he had signed it, it wouldn’t have been considered remotely valid.

I mean, not that those contracts are legal, but... you get my point.

Also located in that drawer were more than one hundred photographs showing the Boxie in a variety of compromising situations and positions. Several of these photos had Brute himself clearly visible in them, and a few had other individuals who have since been identified as Brute’s associates in his more illicit activities.

Interrogations of those associates led to more than seven further arrests for illegal gambling, the production and sale of illicit drugs, and illegal weapons sales. Those interrogations are also how we know about what Brute Hanlon was up to in-between Little League games and Girl Scout meetings.

Those associates claim that Brute kept a “secondhand Box Boy”, muzzled him so he couldn’t speak whenever guests were over, and that often ‘poker night’ simply turned into a game where the assorted guests and Brute himself repeatedly assaulted the Boxie. The associates claimed they thought the entire thing was consensual, but frankly… given the overwhelming evidence that the Boxie had to be kept restrained and was often seriously injured by these assaults... that’s doubtful.

Ellen and her children, who had previously been very visible and spoke often to local news stations about Henry’s disappearance, withdrew after his body was found and his second, secret life revealed - and have never given a single public statement or made a public appearance since. 

Ellen moved her children out of Red Hills, moving back in with her own parents, briefly, in northern California. Where they went after that is unknown, but they appear to have left the state and Ellen may have changed her surname. Investigators are firm in their belief that Ellen knew nothing about her husband’s secret life.

I would give my right arm to know what his son and daughter think about it, and if they ever suspected what their devoted dad was up to when he wasn’t at home.

So, what happened to the Boxie after he left the house and disappeared down the block from the witness who saw him?

In short… no one knows for sure.

After murdering Brute Hanlon and cleaning off the evidence that must have been all over him, the Boxie simply fades away. He could have been anywhere, doing anything at all. There is a brief sighting of him on CCTV footage at the local bus station, where he is in line to buy a ticket… and then abruptly looks up, apparently noticing the camera and looking directly into it, then turns and walks quickly away.

The footage is grainy, but the Boxie does appear to be wearing his collar.

He isn’t seen in Red Hills again.

Instead, he reappears one more time before his final murder and disappearance… more than a year later, in a little town right along the border with Nevada.

Part 3 will go into how the investigation into the death of a quiet little oddball named Robert Weber reveals a basement full of skeletal bodies. But our Boxie isn’t the cause.

Instead, Robert Weber’s murder solves a series of related murders police had been stymied by for more than a decade, and a Box Boy who may have been meant to be Weber’s next victim instead turned accidental vigilante with a final killing of his own.

Or maybe I should say, his final killing so far.

-

@astrobly @finder-of-rings @burtlederp @whump-tr0pes @raigash @eatyourdamnpears @orchidscript @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @boxboysandotherwhump @outofangband @whumptywhumpdump @whumpfigure @thehopelessopus @downriver914 @justabitofwhump @butwhatifyouwrite @newandfiguringitout @yet-another-heathen @nonsensical-whump @oops-its-whump @endless-whump @cubeswhump @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @whumpiary 

[cursed-or-not]

Suptober Day 31: Carry On

It comes with a whimper instead of a bang.

It’s not so much in how they save the world as it is in how they save themselves. If Dean’s honest, he barely remembers how the final battle went down. It was all a blur of lights, of sounds, of colors, and then they were free.

Looking back, Dean thinks maybe that was the easy part. Now that freedom’s in the cards, it’s figuring out what to do with it that’s the hard part.

Nothing changes right away. Dean always thought that after that final battle, one day he’d just wake up different, but he’s beginning to learn that the world doesn’t work like that, and he sure as hell doesn’t either. Some things, he’ll always carry with him.

They’ve spent three months free when Jack finally asks him about it.

“Why do you still want to hunt?”

The question is abrupt and well-meaning and the last thing that Dean wants to answer. He doesn’t know: doesn’t know why he was born into this, why it’s coursing through his blood. Why he can’t leave it behind.

“What are you talking about?” Dean asks instead of answering. He wishes Sam would walk in.

Jack tilts his head.

“I’m not sure what you want me to specify,” Jack responds earnestly.

In spite of it, Dean catches himself smiling. Jack is kind and curious, and he’s his kid.

“Yeah, me neither. I just don’t have a good answer for you.”

“Oh,” Jack nods. “That’s okay.”

Dean takes a moment to respond. He doesn’t know why it feels like his throat is filling with cotton or why his eyes are stinging, but his hand moves to rest on Jack’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Dean nods back. “Yeah. Thanks, kid.”

…

It takes another two months before Sam asks.

“You ever think about quitting? Like, for real?”

He says it around a smoothie full of something green that Dean will never be able to make himself drink, and Dean wonders how he can sound so casual.

“Do I think about it? Sure,” Dean responds evenly. Dismissively.

“Okay.” Sam blinks. “So do you… think you’d ever do it?”

Dean responds automatically, “Nope.”

Sam looks taken aback, but Dean thinks that he shouldn’t. Out of anyone, Dean thinks Sam should understand.

“No?” Sam presses.

Dean shrugs, but he knows Sam sees through it.

“I mean, guys like me aren’t really meant to leave the life, you know?” Dean responds.

“Guys like us,” Sam corrects, not looking at Dean. “You mean guys like us.”

Dean shakes his head. “It’s not like that, Sam. If you want out, you know I support that— hell, I’ll be the first one to tell you to do it!”

“Dean, stop!” Sam holds up a hand. “I know. I’m not accusing you of—dragging me down, or whatever you think this is. I just… I think that you’re not even giving yourself a chance.”

Dean moves his head in a messy and slight impression of a nod. He can’t do this.

“I don’t think I get any more chances,”  Dean says quietly.

He knows Sam’s going to argue, knows that it’s probably not even true, but all he can think about is this blood on his hands and the way that his shoulders still ache from things he no longer has to carry.

“Dean, that’s—I’m not even gonna try to address all of the implications of that. Just,” Sam takes a deep breath, “I think there are things you haven’t even considered that might be worth thinking about.”

Dean huffs a laugh.

“Yeah? Like what?”

Sam doesn’t answer, just sighs in defeat, but Dean doesn’t miss the way that his own eyes drift towards the room he knows Cas is sleeping in.

…

He hasn’t hunted in weeks, and Dean is spiralling.

He’s trying to live without this, trying to make decisions as a human choosing rather than hamster running, but he thinks maybe he wasn’t cut out for this, for freedom.

Maybe humans aren’t as different from angels as he thought.

There have always been orders to follow, whether divine or from his father, and Dean doesn’t know what to do without them.

He needs a hunt, needs the high of it, needs to save someone. He needs to be a hunter.

Dean has his phone in his hand, ready to look for the next case when the text comes through.

Have you seen the movie The Road to El Dorado?

Dean almost laughs out loud. His best guess is that Cas is only asking for Jack’s sake, but Dean can’t say it didn’t catch him off guard.

kids movie, right? Never seen it

Dean has barely hit send when Cas’s caller ID flashes on his phone screen.

He shakes his head, but he can’t help but smile.

“What do you want?” Dean asks into the phone. His voice is good-natured.

“I think it’s a good movie,” Cas responds, and Dean almost forgets what movie they’re talking about in the first place.

“Okay?” Dean answers, waiting for the point. “Is this you asking me to watch a movie with you?

“No,” Cas says, and Dean can hear the excitement in his voice even over the phone. “This is me asking you to go on an adventure with me.”

…

Dean has been on so many roadtrips in his life that he’s shocked they don’t all blend together.

None of the past ones, though, can even compete with this one.

Dean didn’t really believe in it in the beginning; Cas and Jack wanted the kind of adventure that you only saw in animated movies instead of the kind that ends in tragedy. Dean knew even as he said yes that it wasn’t real, this idea of chasing a horizon that glows instead of bleeds, but he almost dared to hope that they’d be right.

Now, they’re in the car, and it feels like they’ve been here a million times, only they haven’t because this time they’re headed towards the coastline instead of a monster. Dean’s driving, so Sam is sitting shotgun while Jack and Cas sit together in the back. Dean can’t explain exactly what he’s feeling as they drive into the setting skyline, but he thinks he likes it.

He thinks maybe bloodlust can be filled by wanderlust instead, maybe the ache in his chest is just the part of him that’s meant for softer, better things.

Maybe El Dorado isn’t real, but the journey there is.

…

The journey is almost over, now.

Soon, they will pack up and turn back, and Dean will try to piece himself together and figure out who he is without this story that has filled him for so long.

He thinks maybe it’s not just the roadtrip that he can feel coming to a close.

His fingers still ache to pull a trigger some days. He has scars that still smart, phantom aches from wounds healed long ago. He has a lifetime behind him and within him, and he still isn’t sure what to do with that.

For now, though, the sun is streaming into his room through the crack between curtains in the motel, and Dean wants to feel it before it sets.

Cas is already outside when Dean walks out.

Dean shakes his head, face breaking into a smile.

Cas is sitting crosslegged in the middle of the motel parking lot, and his face is turned to the sky.

It’s so achingly innocent, so Cas, that Dean almost has to turn around and walk back inside at the pang in his chest.

He thinks a lifetime ago, he would have. Back then, he would’ve seen Cas there, sitting alone, and he wouldn’t have known what to do. He would have run away.

Now, though, he thinks he’s too tired. Maybe it’s because he’s grown in courage or maybe just in years, but he keeps walking.

He doesn’t stop until he lowers himself down next to Cas, and Dean thinks the decision was worth it just to see the brilliant smile that splits his face.

“Hello, Dean,” Cas greets.

“Hey, Cas.”

Cas gestures (rather unnecessarily) at the sky, which has just begun to turn.

“The sunset tonight is one of the best I’ve seen,” Cas says softly.

“Yeah,” Dean nods. “It’s not bad.”

Cas breathes in the air around him like he might be able to pull the colors inside him.

“How are you, Dean?” he asks suddenly.

Dean tries not to balk at the question.

“You know me,” Dean dismisses. “I’m always good.”

“I do know you,” Cas agrees. “That’s exactly how I know that you are not ‘always good.’”

Dean shrugs. “Maybe not always. But now? Yeah. I’m good.”

Cas hums a contented noise, but he doesn’t stop.

“And later?”

Dean looks at him in confusion.

“How d’you expect me to know how I’m gonna feel later?”

Cas shakes his head.

“That’s not what I meant,” Cas says. “I meant in general. The future.”

“That’s a pretty heavy question for a Saturday night, Cas,” Dean responds.

“Well?” Cas shoots back, still waiting on the response.

Dean doesn’t know.

He’s not actually trying to be difficult, but the future isn’t something he’s ever had to think about before.

“I’m… better,” Dean answers carefully. That’s the only answer he really has. At least it’s honest.

“But still not good,” Cas finishes.

Dean objects, “Hey, I didn’t say that. I’m not suffering or anything.”

“Good,” Cas agrees. “That’s good.”

Without meaning to, Dean’s hand bumps Cas’s, and for a fraction of a second, Dean almost panics.

Dean is tired of pretending.

He gave up months ago trying to pretend that there wasn’t anything he wanted from Cas, but he can’t imagine what Cas’s thoughts on the matter are.

Cas must have thought it was on purpose, and Dean doesn’t think he can ask this of Cas, but Cas barely gives Dean the chance to doubt himself before he takes Dean’s hand in his.

He doesn’t even look at Dean as he does it, just entertwines their fingers like they belong like this.

Dean thinks that maybe they do.

“Hey, Cas?” Dean asks, breaking the silence between them.

“Hmmm?”

Dean sighs.

“Do you think I should stop hunting?”

At that, Cas turns to look Dean in the eyes.

“I think…” Dean can see the care that Cas is taking in choosing his words, “I think that you have a lot to consider.”

It’s a non-answer, but Dean nods anyways. He thinks it’s probably for the best that no one will tell him what to do. He thinks he might have to figure this out himself, but that doesn’t mean it will be alone.

The sunset spreads out before them.

Dean shifts his position, taking care not to displace Cas’s hand.

“I guess the part that’s messing me up is just—what now?” Dean asks, and uncertainty colors his voice. Dean wishes Cas couldn’t hear how afraid he is.

Cas smiles a gentle reassurance, hand still in Dean’s and eyes still on the horizon.

“Now,” Cas says softly, “we carry on.”

Dean brings their hands to eye level, brushing his lips to Cas’s fingers. He nods.

Carry on.

Thank you to everyone who has shared or supported during Suptober! This has been a wild ride, and I may not have posted every day (you know, life), but I sure wrote more than I would have otherwise, so thanks to everyone involved <33 Obviously, huge shoutout to @winchester-reload for sparking so much creativity and fandom solidarity 

If anyone is interested, here’s my masterpost of my suptober fics

[collecting-stories]

The House Party - ep.03 - JJ Maybank

Summary: Things start to heat up as the week reaches its midway point and you make a decision that changes everything.

A/N: Mild smut at the very end of the chapter. 

The S’week Masterlist | Outer Banks Masterlist

///

You weren’t sure how many times you would have to brush your teeth to get the taste of last night out of your mouth but the three times you already had clearly weren’t enough. It wasn’t alcohol, in fact you’d woken up more sober than you expected to be, almost leaning off the edge of your bed, tucked into your blanket, with JJ laying on top of the bedding beside you. It was all very ‘one motel bed’ trope-ish but you’d both been so exhausted last night that you couldn’t even enjoy the implications of it. An ice cube tray of melted aloe vera sat on the night stand and you brought it down with you to the kitchen to refreeze when you decided coffee might help the taste that wouldn’t leave your mouth. 

To put it the only way you knew how, a way JJ would have definitely put it, you tasted kook trash every time you swallowed and it wasn’t going to go away anytime soon, at least not while Rafe was two houses down from you. 

“Morning,” Pope voice half startled you as you entered the kitchen to find him sitting at the island eating cereal. 

“How is it possible that you look so normal?” You asked, grabbing a bowl for some cereal yourself. Breakfast was a good distraction from your phone and the taste in your mouth. 

“You mean as opposed to John B and Sarah who decided to parent trap it on a floatie in the pool?” He asked, turning for emphasis to look outside where your best friend and her boyfriend were indeed asleep on a floatie in the pool. 

“Exactly.” 

“I’m not a big drinker.” He shrugged. “What about you?”

“Am I a big drinker?” You asked. 

“No, how did you end the night?” 

You nodded your head slowly, realising what he was getting at with his question. “JJ was sick, I figured it was better to come back here than make him stay at the party.” 

“Sure.” He agreed though it sounded empty, “did you hook up?” 

“What?” 

“Look, I know how JJ parties, he’s my best friend. And I know what his ‘senior week plans’ were before Sarah hijacked them to come down here. I wouldn’t put it past him to alter them. You know, have sex with as many girls as he can in the keys. Host included.”

“We didn’t have sex.” You replied. 

He stared at you for a full minute, not saying anything, as if the look on his face alone would crack you into admitting some misdeed. And it probably would have if any had occurred. 

“We didn’t have sex, I swear to god.” You reiterated. “It is what I said it is. JJ was throwing up in the bathroom and I brought him back here so he could rest. That’s all that happened.” 

“With JJ.” Pope scoffed. 

“Whoa, where’s the displaced animosity coming from...pretty sure you’re in my house.” 

“Yeah and JJ is my best friend. I don’t want you stringing him along for the week cause you’re bored and you wanna make your ex jealous or something.” Pope replied.

“You literally just got done telling me that JJ wanted to sleep his way around s’week but I’m the bad guy in your head because of some proposed plan I have to ‘make my ex jealous’?” You questioned. “That’s un-fucking-believable.”

“It would be if I hadn’t seen you in the hallway with your ex right before you left with JJ.” 

“You’re delusional. My ex who? Just cause I was talking to some guy-“

“You weren’t talking and it was Rafe.” 

You shut your mouth, lips pressed together in a line as you tried to think of something to say. Sure, it was common knowledge amongst your friend group that you and Rafe had been hooking up for the better part of two years but that was over and you really didn’t think it was the kind of thing that pogues talked about. And you trusted Sarah not to have blabbed about it to anyone else. 

“How’d you know-“ 

“How’d I know you and Rafe were a thing? Sarah’s not the only one here that knows you. I’ve seen him at your house before when I delivered groceries, not so hard to put two and two together.” 

“Well me and Rafe are over.” 

“You didn’t look over.” Pope challenged. 

“Oh well, thank you for interpreting two fucking minutes of my life and deciding how I feel about something.” You snapped, “I didn’t want him to kiss me okay, I told him to leave me alone. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that the word no isn’t exactly a part of his vocab.”

Before Pope could say anything back the sound of footsteps on the stairs caught your attention. Both of you looked toward the staircase in time to see JJ appear, shirtless with just a pair of swim shorts on. His shoulders and chest were red but not as burnt as his back, which you caught a glimpse of as he trudged passed you, not in the high spirits he had been yesterday morning. 

“Dude, your back looks painful.” Pope commented, staring at the expanse of angry red skin that looked more ready to blister than anything. 

“It feels painful too.” JJ grumbled. So far he was 0-3 with vacation. He was stuck in this kook house (which really wasn’t so bad but he enjoyed bitching about it), he was sunburnt to hell, and he’d wasted an entire night of partying throwing up from sun-poisoning (though that worked out in his favour too because he definitely enjoyed the part where he sat on your bed and you rubbed aloe ice cubes on his back and basically took care of him). 

“Guess the beach is out of the question?” Pope asked, getting up to put his bowl in the sink. 

“I can go to the beach.” 

“You definitely can’t.” You replied, coming around to look at JJ’s back. He was sitting on one of the stools, slumped over. “You shouldn’t get anymore direct sun on your back.” 

“Oh cool, I’m so glad I came all the way down to fucking Florida to sit in a house all day and do shit.” 

“Sorry man,” Pope said, though he made no offer to stay at the house. Yesterday had been great and he was looking forward to going to the beach again today with Kiara. John B and Sarah had mentioned tagging along but he knew they’d eventually go off to do their own thing. 

“We could go to the boardwalk?” You offered, ignoring the look that Pope sent your way. You knew he was just being a good friend, looking out for someone he cared about, and it made you wish that Sarah knew enough to do the same for you. 

“What will we do on the boardwalk?” JJ asked, curious enough that he wasn’t immediately rejecting the idea. 

“There’s a water park there and an arcade, plus you know, tons of food.” You shrugged, “I know you wanna go to the beach-“

“I can be persuaded.”

“I think you already have been.” Pope commented. 

The three of you turned your attention to the stairs as Kiara came down, already dressed for the beach. When she saw the three of you in various states of sleepwear she rolled her eyes, “hey Kie be ready early so we can all go to the beach together.” 

“Technically, Sarah said that and she’s passed out in the pool still.” Pope replied, pointing out the glass doors to where the floatie was still carrying John B and Sarah on the water. 

“Let’s wake ‘em up then.” JJ slipped passed you, winking, before he ran outside, jumping into the pool and landing directly on top of John B and Sarah. 

You, Pope, and Kiara rushed to the doors in time to see the floatie flip over, all three teens going under as Sarah shrieked and John B tried to grab any part of the inflatable raft. Sarah surfaced immediately after JJ, throwing her body on him and wrapping her arms around his neck as she tried to push him under. 

“You asshole!” She screamed when JJ ducked under the water, twisting in her arms and grabbing her waist so that he could throw her off him. 

You watched them for a minute longer, as John B finally got involved, before heading back into the house and going upstairs to change. You’d left your phone plugged in the bathroom outlet while you were sitting with JJ and you picked it up now to check your messages. Two from Rafe and one, unsurprisingly, from Topper. It’d been him at the end of the hall that called Rafe away from you. 

-You okay?- was all the text said and you quickly responded. 

-Nothing happened. Thx-

You deleted the messages from Rafe without looking at them. You could hear everyone come in the kitchen, footsteps on the stairs as John B, Sarah, and JJ came up to change. You pulled on a crop top and some shorts, pocketing your phone before hurrying downstairs. 

Kiara and Pope were back to hanging around the island, talking to each other about their plans as you entered. 

“Hey, do you guys wanna meet up later on the boardwalk?” Kiara asked, “we could do dinner or something?”

“Sounds good to me.” You replied, grabbing your backpack from the chair and making sure that you had everything you needed. “There’s a pizza place near the South street entrance that has incredible food, plus it’s super cheap.” 

“I do love cheap food.” 

-

You had locked your shorts and your backpack in the rented locker of the water park along with JJ’s backpack before the two of you headed for any of the rides. Both your phones locked away in your backpack, cutting you both off from the rest of the world for however long JJ felt like staying at the water park. 

“So? Where to first?” You asked as JJ stopped in front of a mounted map of the park. It wasn’t as big as Dorney or Six Flags but it was pretty expansive for being an extension of the boardwalk. 

“Shush, I’m consulting the map.” 

“Consult the bones,” you said and JJ laughed, casting you a glance before going back to the map. 

“Come on,” he grabbed your hand suddenly, having zeroed in on a ride titled the constrictor, 450 feet of enclosed water slide and the two of you were going down it. 

He weaved his way through the crowd of people, leading you closer and closer to the line for the slide. Most people were at the beach on the weekdays which meant a shorter wait line, something JJ was happy about. It was bad enough he was spending his day at some dumb water park with you, he didn’t want to have to wait in line too. Although, he hadn’t let your hand go yet. 

“Should I mention before or after we ascend these stairs that I have a mild fear of heights?” You asked, taking the raft that was offered to you by the water park employee. 

“It’s fine,” JJ assured you, “here go ahead of me.” 

“How does this help?” You asked as you stepped in front of him onto the first stair. 

JJ shifted his raft under his arm, pressing it against his body and holding onto the railing while he used his other hand to hold you, fingers brushing the skin above your bikini bottoms as he held your waist. “See.”

You bit your lip and took a deep breath, “yeah I see.” 

The rest of the way up the stairs JJ kept his hand on either your waist or your back. He wasn’t too thrilled with heights either though focusing on the peach bikinis bottoms you wore, little pineapples polkadotting them. He could imagine you totally smacking him in the face of you knew but he’d take his chances. 

As sly as he might’ve thought he was being you knew he was looking. When you turned around at the first platform before the stairs twisted you caught him looking down, eyes darting up quickly when he realized you were looking at him. You didn’t say anything, just turned back around so he wouldn’t see the satisfied smile on your face.  

“You ready for this?” JJ asked as you stepped onto the final platform, JJ stepping up behind you.

“I’ll see you at the bottom Maybank.” You replied, stepping over to your slide while JJ got set up at his.  

You liked waterparks for the lazy rivers and the wave pools and those crazy contraptions for kids that looked like towering pipes and dumped water on you. Even the log flume was fun. But giant enclosed slides that shot you through winding loops for endless feet until finally dumping you in a pool? Not your favorite. But as you looked over at JJ, who flashed you a thumbs up, you were having trouble thinking about the things you didn’t like.  

The slide was over before you knew it and you were climbing out of the pool, JJ standing on the side waiting for you. “How did you beat me?”  

“I’m like speed racer,” he said, making a wooshing sound as he glided one hand under the other like a wave.  

“Well, speedracer, what next?” You asked, taking off your soaked shirt and wringing it out as you followed JJ back to the map. “Are we consulting the map again?”

“What you think I memorized it?” He asked, looking back over his shoulder at you and grabbing your hand when a woman with a stroller tried to squeeze between the two of you.  

-

By the time you and JJ met up with Kiara and Pope and made it back to the house Sarah was already setting up for a party. John B had obviously been enlisted to help as he was trying to adhere light stripes at the top of the wall in the living room.  

“What’d you do rob a liqour store?” You asked, grabbing the leg of the ladder he was on when he leaned to far to the left.

“Feels like it.” John B replied, “Sarah filled a cart. We’re either having a party or she’s turning into everyone’s alcoholic grandmother.”  

“We’re having a party!” Sarah called, coming in from the pool area, “it’s exactly what we need.”

“Why do we need to host a party?” Kiara asked, looking back at JJ and Pope but they just shrugged, obviously not willing to get involved.

“Because morale is low here people.” Sarah replied, “and it’s senior week, duh.”

“Duh.” You repeated, raising your eyebrows and grinning at JJ who laughed. Sarah watched the interaction skeptically, as far as she knew John B’s best friend had complained of nothing but a bad time. Now he was joking with you like the two of you were friends.

“Can I talk to you,” she grabbed your arm to pull you out of the room, “Pope hold the ladder!”

“Oh cool the bathroom.” You muttered as she dragged you into the hall powder room, shutting the door behind her and trapping the two of you in the crammed space. “What’s up?”

“What’s up? What’s going on with you and JJ?”  

“Didn’t we do this literally yesterday?” You questioned, “I said then and I'll say now, JJ and I are barely friends.”

“Except when I texted Kie earlier cause I couldn’t get a hold of you she said you and JJ were on the boardwalk together.”

“Oh, oh my god Sarah, you’re right, something is clearly ‘going on’ because I went on the boardwalk with someone instead of just ignoring the people living in my house.” You rolled your eyes at her accusation that something was going on though you sincerely hoped something was.  

When she finally released you from the bathroom the two of you resumed getting ready before you changed into something more appropriate for the party. NC parties were slow going in the early hours until they finally picked up, mostly just crowds of people crammed in an empty rental or spread out on the beach. House parties in the Keys happened a little more erratically. People showed up while it was still light out, hanging around the pool drinking and shit talking until it got dark and they all migrated inside, drunk off their asses and louder than necessary.  

You had moved the table and chairs in the dining room and pushed all the furniture back in the living room for good reason because the minute the sun went down it felt like everyone was spilling back into the house for part 2. You were in the kitchen, ignoring most everyone there, watching JJ set up a shot for Kiara.  

“Is it lime and then salt or salt and then lime?” He asked, glancing at you.  

You were leaned against the counter beside him and Kiara was on the other side with Pope, who already said twice he wanted no part in this. “Lime first, how else does the salt stick right? I don’t remember...I know how to do a body shot.”

“Are you offering?” The grin on JJ’s face as he asked had you practically melting in your spot.

“Guys!” Kiara leaned across the island, snapping her fingers, “can we please just do the shot!”

“Right, sorry.” You apologized, grabbing the bottle of tequila to pour for them.  

While the three of you were talking Pope spun in his chair, observing the louder parts of the party that was raging on the first floor. There were a few people lingering in the kitchen with you, mostly to be closest to the alcohol, but otherwise everyone was contained to the living room, dining room, and pool. When he looked out the glass doors to the pool area he frowned, “hey guys, look who showed up.”

You looked out the door to see Topper on the patio chatting with some local. “I’ll be right back.”

“Can we just enjoy the party?” Pope called though you were already slipping out the door.

“Top,” you called not caring that you were interrupting him, “can I talk to you?”

He apologized to the girl before placing his hand on your back and leading you further away from the party, stopping once the two of you had stepped onto the sand path down to the beach. “Look, someone texted Rafe about the party alright.”

“Well I don’t want you guys here.” You replied, “you weren’t invited by me and it’s my house.”

“Hey come on, you know me alright, I’m not trying to start anything-”

“Doesn’t sound like the Topper I know.”  

“That wasn’t me alright, Sarah made me a little crazy, I'll admit. But I’m over that.” Topper replied. “I don’t understand why you and Rafe broke up and suddenly you can’t hang with any of us.”

“Are you still friends with Rafe?”  

“That’s not fair, we’ve been-”

“I don’t care. You know what happened. You want me to be friends with you Top? After what you and Kelce did. Look, thanks for last night but I don’t need your guilty conscience looking out for me. I need you to get your boys and get the fuck out my house.”

“Putting on the tough act for Topper?” Rafe’s voice came from behind you and you closed your eyes, jaw tensing at the sound.  

“It’s fine man, we’re just talking.” Topper replied, stepping closer to you.  

You opened your eyes and turned around to see Rafe and Kelce standing there, “actually I will tell you the same thing I told Top, get the fuck off my property.”  

“Damn,” Rafe whistled, “you start hanging with the pogues and suddenly you think you’re tough shit.”

“Hey man, let’s just forget it.” Topper said, getting between you and Rafe.

Rafe put his hand on Topper’s shoulder, guiding him out of the way, “you go ahead, I need to talk to my girlfriend.”

“Ex-girlfriend.” You replied, “I said we were done and I meant it.”  

Pope had been watching you talk to Topper from the kitchen door and when he saw Rafe and Kelce join the two of you on the catwalk he’d broken up JJ and Kiara’s shot game to tell them something was going down and you were out there alone.

“Maybe she’s just talking to them.” Kiara shrugged, “I mean, she is a kook. Her and Rafe used to date too so...”

“She dated Rafe?” JJ asked, eyes wide at the implication.

“Oh yeah, she broke it off a couple times but they always got back together.  Sarah told me she thinks they might get back together again.”

Pope frowned, thinking of the way you had looked this morning when he accused you of doing just that, “I don’t think so. We should make sure she’s okay.”

“I’ll get John B.” Kiara replied, making her way to the living room to find John B and Sarah.  

JJ and Pope meanwhile, headed outside, coming up behind Kelce just as you told Rafe that you were never getting back together with him. You saw the two of them passed Kelce’s shoulder and your best at a subtle shake of the head, a silent ‘please go back inside’. But Topper saw them too and alerted Rafe to their presence.  

“Kelce wasn’t lying Maybank, you really have turned into a guard dog haven’t you.” Rafe said, turning his full attention on JJ. Topper pulled you to the other side of the path and pushed you behind him as Kiara, Sarah, and John B walked up.  

“Fuck off Rafe, you aren’t welcome here.” Kiara cut in before JJ could reply.  

“I didn’t know you owned the place.” Kelce challenged.

“I already fucking told you to go!” You said, “so go!”

Rafe only smiled, looking at JJ still, “what pair you guys make man. A bitch and her dog.”

Without warning JJ lunged forward, shoving Rafe back and swinging, trying to punch him. When Kelce tried to grab him John B intervened, getting Kelce in a choke hold. It took a second for all six of the boys to become involved in the fight as Kiara urged Sarah to call the cops. Rafe punched JJ, sending him back into the sand and getting on top of him, hitting him repeatedly while Topper held off Pope and John B and Kelce fought with each other.

“Stop it,” Kiara grabbed at Topper, trying to pull him off Pope and Sarah just stood there frozen.  

You went for Rafe, trying to push him off JJ. When you grabbed his arm he pulled away only to throw his elbow back, colliding with your stomach and sending you to the ground. It was all the momentum that JJ seemed to need to shove Rafe off him and get the upper hand, kicking him in the stomach a couple times.  

“Get the fuck out!” He shouted, spitting on your ex-boyfriend.  

Topper let go of Pope and grabbed Rafe’s arm, helping him up and pulling him away, Kelce breaking away from John B and following them back to theirs, away from the party. The six of you stood there in silence, trying to process what had just happened.

“Some party.” Pope finally said and Kiara glared at him.  

“Didn’t I say this week would be shit.” JJ said, looking over at you before turning and heading out toward the beach.  

“Let’s just go back inside.” Sarah pleaded.  

“Why were they even here?” Pope asked, casting a glance your way.

“Topper said someone texted Rafe about the party.” You said, “could have been anyone...he’s been down here with me before, he knows some of my Keys friends.”

“Whatever,” Kiara cut in, “we have three days left and I would love if we could just, not see them again for 72 hours. Is that possible?”

“I hope so.”

-

“I had a feeling you’d still be out here.” You said, walking up behind JJ on the beach. The light from the houses behind you did little to illuminate the night. The waves were lapping up the sand at JJ’s feet and he made no sign that he even knew you were there. You dropped the blanket you had around your shoulders and sat down, not bothering to straighten out the corners. “I know you’re pissed-“

“I’m not pissed.” He said, digging his heels in further. “I just...you and Rafe, seriously?” 

“It was different, at the beginning.”

“That’s just an excuse.”

“Maybe but...I was 14 when we first started dating and I really thought he liked me. But, he just liked that I was insecure and he tries to remind me of that every time he sees me.” You explained. “Rafe being down here doesn’t change what happened at the water park, I didn’t just kiss you because of him.” 

It’d happened during the lazy river ride that you had forced JJ to go on. He had spent most of the ride pushing your innertube with his foot and trying to tip you until it finally happened and you went over, sputtering to the surface and trying to grab at your inflatable tube as passersby tried to avoid the two of you. You’d pushed his innertube over in retaliation and he’d abandoned it to grab you and try to dunk you underwater.

Serendipitous maybe, as you twisted in his arms, turning to face him, he’d leaned down and kissed you.  

“He keeps showing up.”

“I didn’t invite him.” 

JJ looked back at you before rubbing the heel of his hand across his cheeks and sniffing to get rid of the literal waterworks he’d been two seconds away from. This wasn’t the vacation he had signed up for. And maybe there had been some good parts so far but the complicated bits were starting to outweigh everything else. Still, he shifted back so he could sit on the blanket with you; a step in the right direction you hoped. 

“What’s in the bag?” He asked, looking over at the backpack you’d carried all the way out here with you. 

“I didn’t think you would want to go back to the party so I brought the party with me.” You replied, unzipping the main compartment to reveal the alcohol you had swiped from the house. “I don’t know if you wanna party with me-“

“Shut up and pass me a beer.” 

You smiled, grabbing a beer from the bag and handing it to JJ. Without warning he grabbed your wrist and pulled you toward him, leaning back on his other elbow as he did. You caught yourself, pressing your hand into the blanket to hold yourself up and realizing you were hovering over him. 

“I, uh-“ you stammered, licking your lips briefly before JJ let go of your wrist and put his hand on the back of your neck, leading you into a kiss. You kissed back, ignoring the feeling of the beer bottle cap scratching your hand as you shifted to be closer to JJ, moving your knee between his legs so you were almost straddling him. 

“Are you sure?” You asked when you pulled away to move your hand from the beer bottle. You frowned when you glanced at it, holding it up so JJ could see the cut. He took your wrist, kissing over the small cut on your palm. “I’m not really good at casual things,” you admitted.  

“Is that what this is?”

You shook your head before leaning in to kiss him again. While you held yourself up with the hand that had been cut by the beer bottle your other hand moved to JJ’s stomach, fingers slipping beneath his shirt and dancing along the soft skin of his abdomen, just above his shorts. His grip on the back of your neck tightened ever so slightly as he held your face to his, pulling out of the kiss for the briefest of moments to look at you, “Are you sure?” He repeated your question though it had a different meaning.

“Yeah.” You nodded. It was dead on the beach this time of night and you were far enough down toward the water that no one could really see you from the houses though that didn’t stop this from being the most daring thing you’d ever done.  

JJ shifted so that he was laying back on the blanket, pushing the backpack away from his body as you straddled his waist. His hands went to your hips, running over your ass and settling on the backs of your thighs when you leaned all the way forward to kiss him, bodies practically pressed together. You kissed along his jaw and down his neck, sucking a bruise into his skin. JJ’s breathing picked up as your right hand moved between your bodies, fingers unbuttoning and unzipping his shorts before you slipped your hand beneath them, grasping him. JJ bit down on his lip as he moaned, the sound coming up from his chest.

You pulled away from him, cool air rushing between your bodies as you sat back on your heels. He watched you, heart pounding in his chest, as you put your hands on the waistband of his shorts, ready to pull them down, “God, why are you not in a swimsuit.”

“Excuse me for not knowing I was gonna get lucky on the beach.”

“I’m gonna leave you on the beach for saying that,” you teased.  

JJ’s hands held you in a vice grip, squeezing your hips, “not a chance.” He replied. He ran his hands up your sides to the hem of your bralette, fingers nudging the fabric up and you caught on to what he wanted, obliging him by lifting the top up over your head and tossing it to the side.  

Your original plan of action went to hell though you could be upset when JJ wrapped his arms around your back and sat himself up, knocking you back and laying you down so he could hover over you. You wrapped your arms around his shoulders as he kissed you.  

“That was a neat trick.” You managed as he mirrored the hickey you’d left on him on your own neck. He smiled against your skin as his right hand moved across your stomach, fingers brushing against the underside of your breast. His mouth travelled down from your neck, kissing between your breasts before moving to the left, tongue darting out to flick over your nipple. His fingers twisted your other nipple at the same time and you tensed, hips shooting up to try and create some friction with his own. He sucks another bruise into your skin, just below your left breast before moving back up to kiss you.  

The new position made it easier to get his shorts and briefs down and you manage to push them down to his thighs after you rid yourself of your own shorts. JJ leans his forehead against your collar, looking down at you with a sly smile. “No underwear?”

“I was in a hurry to get dressed.” You insisted, “now shut up.”

“I’m not the chatty one.”  

“I’m not - holy shit!” You cursed as he slipped his hand between your thighs, coating his fingers before rubbing your clit. His middle finger circled the bundle of nerves before slipping down inside of you, just barely offering anything before repeating the cycle. When he kissed you he slipped his tongue in your mouth and you bit down gently, not enough to hurt him but enough to getting him going.  

You tried to press yourself up into his hand but he pushed you down, slick fingers digging into your skin as he pressed you against the blanket. You whimpered when he pushed his hips into yours, his dick rubbing over your clit and you grip his hair as he tilts his head down to kiss and nip at your breasts again.  

“Please, Jay,” you begged, unashamed and completely oblivious to your surroundings as he lined himself up and thrust in to you. He stilled for a moment once he was completely in, savoring the feeling of you until you tugged his hair. “Move.”

“God, you’re so desperate for me.” He teased, kissing beneath your chin and along your neck.  

Finally he moves, thrusting into you. His pace quickens and you wrap your arms around him, digging your fingers into his back. He groans from the almost pain of the feeling, his hips hitting yours harder to give back as much as you’re giving him. You pulled him closer so that you could kiss him again. You’d be lying if you said that you had been on edge with JJ all day. That every touch and smile, the kiss in the lazy river, it all felt like foreplay as he thrust into you now, slipping his hand between your legs to rub your clit as he did, pushing you closer to the edge.  

“JJ,” you whimpered, muscles in your stomach clenching as you felt yourself approaching your high.  

JJ pressed his face into your neck, biting again at your collar, “I know,” was all he said, repeating it again when the rhythm he’d built up wavered slightly as he felt his own release approaching, “I know.”

One hand fisted the blanket beneath you as your release hit. You came, his name the only thing you could think of, and he came right after, the feeling of you tightening around him enough to pull an orgasm out of him. JJ held himself up on one arm, trembling above you, still connected as his hips still, his eyes on yours.  

You sucked in a breath as he kissed the tender skin of your collar, red from his teeth, “have you ever gone skinny dipping?” You asked.

“Not in the Keys.” He replied, letting his upper body fall against you as well, all of him pressing into you.  

“When I can move again...want to?”

-

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[scullydubois]

Only the Light: Ch. 9

9/? | AU where Melissa moves in with Scully after Scully’s abduction | angst, msr slow-burn, occasional fluff | currently: s2, ep 12, Aubrey | T (for now?) | 4.3k | previous chapters | read on ao3 | tagging: @today-in-fic

Back in DC, Missy helps Scully get to the bottom of what's plaguing her. As Scully's journey gets a bit clearer, Missy drops a bombshell about her own life.

---------------------------

Scully’s stomach clenches as the plane touches down on the runway, jostling she and the rest of the passengers around like pawns in its game. Only forty-eight hours ago, she and Mulder had lifted off toward another mystery, another puzzle daring them to solve it. Now she is back, knowing scarcely more than she did then, with a mystery of her own to solve. She is forever chasing ghosts, and trying not to become one. 

As the winged giant rolls into its gate, Scully glances out the window. Thick clouds blanket the sky, an unending greyness rolling out over the city as far as the eye can see. So much for there’s no place like home. She’s been realizing lately that home is a feeling, not a location. Sometimes she feels like she needs a map to navigate her own apartment, or like everyone in DC knows some language she never learned. Well, almost everyone. There are a couple people who speak the same language as her.

And she’s about to see one of them now. The crowd of passengers--mostly suits who had sleepless nights-- stand up in their rows, ready to file out into the bureaucratic machine. The man on the outside of Scully’s row opens the overhead compartment and pulls down his bag and the carry-ons of Scully and the woman next to her. Scully thanks him demurely. She can’t remember the last time someone other than Mulder did that for her.

As they fall into line and shuffle off the plane, Scully wonders what her life will look like next time she boards a plane. With any luck, this will all be a fluke and she’ll be heading back to Aubrey tomorrow. Then again, even if it isn’t a fluke, she’ll still probably join Mulder back in Aubrey. She knows herself.

What would she say to him, then? Having to admit she lied about her reason for leaving, coming back with the type of news that turns worlds upside down...it doesn’t seem fair to him. It hasn’t been fair to her either, but that’s out of her hands.

She had knocked on Mulder’s door before the sun was even up. She hadn’t expected him to be awake, and so was particularly surprised when he came to the door with a towel around his waist. Evidently, he hadn’t expected her either (though who else is coming to his motel door at 6am?) because the longer she stood there in front of his barely dressed body, the more his color drained away. 

Needing a lie lame enough to be true, Scully told him that Melissa had sprained her ankle and would need some help getting around for a couple days.That she asked Scully to come home rather than go stay with their mother, because who better to be nursed by than a doctor? Mulder had nodded, told Scully to go, assured her he could handle BJ and the case. Scully is sure that Mulder knows what she told him is a lie. But he didn’t object, and that’s the permission she needed to feel settled with him and herself. 

She follows everyone off the plane, through the tunnel, and into the terminal. Moments like this remind her of her obsolescence in the universe, and she is somehow comforted by that. She is no chosen one, no messiah nor martyr, no mother of a holy child. She would like to stay that way.

She surveys the crowd waiting to pick up their beloved passengers. All of her fellow fliers, mere faces in her vicinity for an hour or two, are someone to somebody else. She is, too. They are all emerging from obscurity into a realm where they are known, for better or for worse. 

At the edge of the crowd, Scully catches her sister’s unmistakable smile and glowing red locks. She saw her sister only two mornings before, but Missy reacts as if they’ve been separated a lifetime. She engulfs Scully in a hug that just about sends the butterflies in her stomach into hibernation. 

“How are you feeling?” Missy asks, pulling away to scan her sister’s face for the honest answer she won’t give. 

Aware of this, Scully turns the corners of her mouth up. “I’m okay, really. My migraine went away at about four in the morning.”

“So you barely slept,” Missy interjects. 

Scully frowns. “Well, I laid in bed from roughly eight to six. There was sleeping involved at some point, I think.”

“How about on the plane? Did you sleep there?”

“No, you know I can never sleep with strangers around.”

“Oh, right. Did they teach you that at the Academy or something?”

“The things I saw at the Academy taught me that.”

“Oh.” Missy regrets bringing it up. As they head toward the luggage area, she holds out her hand, lets her sister place the handle of her carry-on in it. A silent apology, an acknowledged acceptance.

“So what did you end up telling Mulder?”

Scully is endeared that she has successfully chipped away at her sister’s tendency to call him by his first name.

“Oh god, you’re gonna think it’s so stupid.”

Missy laughs. “What did you say?”

Scully’s voice is rife with amusement. “I told him that you sprained your ankle and needed a doctor around to take care of you.”

Melissa bursts into laughter. “Good girl.” Scully would kick a man in the groin if he ever said that to her, but coming from her sister, it’s high praise.

----------------

They ignore the elephant in the room until they make it to Missy’s car. The plastic of a CVS bag rustles at Scully’s feet as she settles into the passenger seat. 

“Three pregnancy tests,” Melissa explains. “I stopped on the way.”

“You didn’t have to--”

“But I did.” That had been their father’s comeback whenever someone tried to, as he called it, ‘pity the helper.’ They both smile just a bit, their memory of him alive and well. 

“Can I pay you back?”

“No!” Missy insists. “I’m living with you rent free.”

Scully decides this is a good enough reason to let it go. She crosses her legs, watches her sister pull out of the space. She lets a question float around her head until they make it out of the labyrinth of airport side roads.

“Do you think I would be a good mother?”

Missy flicks her gaze toward her sister. Dana is peculiar in her way. Instead of fishing for sympathy like most people when they ask questions of this nature, she expects punishment. She’s practically asking to have a nail hammered into her cross. 

“You’d be a wonderful mother, Dana,” Missy soothes. “You’ve never had a bad intention in your life.”

“Haven’t I?...I killed a snake with Bill and Charlie once.”

“And you cried afterward. I remember seeing the tear stains on your face when you got home. Not to mention that you were what, five or six?”

“Well, what about Daniel? Surely my judgement was wrong there.”

Melissa sighs. “Okay, I’ll rephrase it. Any bad intention you’ve ever had was paid for with regret, and that’s not true about most people.” She frowns. “It’s always the purest souls who are the hardest on themselves.”

Scully stares through the windshield. She will expend no brainpower on her sister’s implication. She doesn’t believe it to be true. 

After a moment--“Do you remember those Raggedy Ann dolls we had, Betsy and Betty?”

Melissa smiles, nods. “Of course. Betsy was yours, and Betty was mine. We had those little wooden bassinets for them.”

“Right.”

Missy lets the memories flow back to her. “We used to sing lullabies and rock them to sleep. Actually, I’d sing, you’d pray with them. Mom and dad thought it was the sweetest thing ever, and I would get so mad at you. I thought you were sucking up to them.”

Scully laughs. This is the first time she’s heard of her sister’s woes. “Missy, I was three. There was no conspiring going on.”

“Say what you will, but your stocking was always a little bit fuller than mine.” She smirks at her sister, who blushes and looks at her lap. 

Dana has the unfortunate distinction, at least in Melissa’s mind, of being the favorite daughter. Bill Jr. always was and will be the favorite child. He molded to all their parent’s expectations of him, never deviating from the upstanding family man they imagined when holding him for the first time. Dana had done well up until she decided on the Academy. As Missy reminded her countless times, it wasn’t that they hated her going into the FBI. It just wasn’t in their vision for her, that’s all. 

Missy doesn’t fret about her place, even finds it somewhat funny. She isn’t the least favorite child per say (thanks Charlie!) but she is the least favorite child her mother is still in contact with, and that’s a title that takes some maneuvering. 

Scully laces her fingers together, rests them in her lap. “Do you remember telling me that I wasn’t a good mommy one night when we were putting Betsy and Betty to sleep?”

Melissa looks to her sister so quickly she practically forgets she needs to be watching the road. “No, of course not.”

Scully can’t meet her gaze. “Well, I know it’s a silly thing, and we were just children, but it’s stayed stuck in my brain for all these years.”

“Dana, you had probably just finished a ‘now I lay me down to sleep’ prayer, and I felt like I needed to knock you down a notch.” She pats her sister’s shoulder. “There was no truth in it, and I’m sorry it’s bugged you for so long.”

Scully shifts in her seat. The CVS bag crackles as her heels bear down on it. “I’m afraid it’s turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point.”

Melissa won’t give weight to her sister’s worries, but won’t discount them either. “The good news about a self-fulfilling prophecy is that you can always change your thinking...You don’t believe in psychics, so don’t try to be one.”

Scully looks at the dashboard, then her sister. “I would hug you right now if we weren’t doing 75,” she coos.  

Something has clicked in her head, some comfort she has long been depriving herself of. Sometimes words fill in the cracks left by those that preceded them. The right words go even further, it turns out. The right words give you permission to heal. 

-----------------

A dreadful anticipation plagues her as she and Missy walk up to the apartment. She wants to get it over with, even if it goes badly (and she knows it very well might). She craves the relief of surviving such an ordeal. Scully imagines that this is what the French must have felt on their walk to the guillotine. Except instead of the relief of surviving, they got the release of death. Scully is not ready for this yet.

Missy unlocks the door, ushers her sister in. Dana is not used to coming home and finding things in different places than before, Missy can tell from the inquisitive look on her face. She is surveying her territory, updating her memory bank. Looking for the exit signs, maybe.

Melissa closes and locks the door. Letting her sister set the pace, she leaves the CVS bag on the side table. Dana has already taken the carry-on and suitcase to her room.

Her room, Scully finds, is a shrine to sameness, everything looking exactly as she left it two days before. Untouched and completely under her control...these are the reassurances she requires now. She lifts the suitcase onto her bed but leaves it zipped. Its fate is no clearer than hers at the moment. Then she places the carry-on on her dresser, makes a mental note to let Mulder know she made it home safely, and returns to her sister in the living room.

“Have you eaten?’ Missy asks, edging toward the kitchen.

“I won’t be able to until we get this over with,” Scully replies, making her priorities clear.

“Okay.” Missy won’t fight her on this one. She retrieves the bag off the side table, perches at her sister’s side. “Are you ready now?”

Scully screws up her face. “No, but yes. I just need to know at this point.”

Missy takes her sister’s hand with a specific kind of gentleness, like a fairy godmother about to cast a spell upon her princess. Scully is willing to be led. She follows her sister into the bathroom and sits on the closed toilet while Missy pulls the pregnancy tests from the bag. Scully tries not to think about any moment beyond the current one as her sister opens each test, lines them up along the counter. 

“Do you want me in here or outside?” Missy’s tone matches the sympathy that Scully needs.

“Outside, please,” Scully says sheepishly, wishing she could have some guts for once. If no one else witnesses this moment, then maybe it’s not happening. Flawed reasoning that even Mulder wouldn’t agree with, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

“Okay. I’ll be right on the other side of the door.”

Scully nods her thanks as Missy slips out of the bathroom and shuts the door quietly. Left alone, she feels the crushing gravity that has been trailing her all along. She’s almost certain that her heartbeat would be visible through her skin if she looked. 

She stands, picks up the first test, opens the toilet. Her hands shake so violently that she thinks she might drop the stick in the toilet, which would be a pretty terrible way to return her sister’s kindness. She pulls it away and takes a deep breath to steady herself, holding her arms out in front of her like a sleepwalker. All the things she’s seen, and she’s never been as scared as this moment. Never felt the life she knows and has grown to love so acutely threatened. Never balked at the future in such a fervent way.

It occurs to her that she might seriously need her sister to come in and help her. The thought of that is just pathetic enough to kick her into action. Her hands are barely any more steady than before, but her resolve is ironclad. 

On the other side of the door, Melissa listens as a long period of silence is broken. She’s sitting down, her head resting against the wood, a hand laid against the door like it’s the chest of a lover. 

Silence again, ruptured by Scully’s quiet murmur. “Will you hold on to the test, please? And read the result when it’s ready?” She didn’t know she would need this, but she does. 

“Of course.” 

Scully cracks open the door, passes the stick to her sister. “I wiped it off.” 

Missy suppresses a laugh. “I wouldn’t care if you didn’t, but thank you.”

Scully closes the door quickly, not wanting to hold eye contact with her sister, not wanting to accidentally see the result herself. “Two minutes, right?” Her voice is on the verge of breaking.

“Yes, Dana. Two minutes.”

“Should I wait to do the next one?”

Missy eyes the test, waiting for it to make up its mind. “You can go ahead. It’ll take two minutes too.”

“Okay.” Scully’s voice is barely audible.

“Or you can wait,” Missy offers. “I just suspect that you’d want to check the accuracy as soon as possible.”

“Uh-huh.” She grabs the second test, wearily sits back down. 

Missy’s voice reverberates through the door. “I’ve done this before you know. For myself and for a friend.”

“Really?” Scully’s brain had tricked herself into thinking she was all alone.

“Mm-hm,” Missy confirms. “Mine were never positive, but hers were. I went to Planned Parenthood with her.”

“Oh.” There are things, Scully realizes, that she has neglected to think about. Or maybe she’s putting that off until she knows for sure. It wasn’t a conscious decision, more of an act of self-preservation. Her gut feeling is that she wouldn’t, but she never envisioned herself in a situation like this. If there’s any situation where it’s justified, it’s this, right? Not that she has a problem with it; women should be able to choose for themselves. She just always thought she knew what her choice would be. 

Melissa lifts her eyes from her watch, looks at the door as if she can see her sister through it. “It’s ready.”

“It’s been two minutes?” Scully’s voice rises.

“Uh-huh. Do you want me to come in or…?”

Scully scrambles up, lays the second test on a fresh piece of toilet paper. “I’ll come to you.”

She opens the door, kneels to be eye level with her sister. Prayer position is in close proximity. She bites her lip, her dilated pupils begging her sister to either curse her or free her.

A thin smile appears on Missy’s face as she flips the test so that Scully can read it. “Negative.”

One line. One very defined red line set against the white space. Has anyone, Scully wonders, ever gotten a tattoo of that?

“I--” Tears burst out of her instead of words. She lands in her sister’s arms, utterly unsure of what she’s feeling. Relief, yes. Happiness? Not quite. Sadness? Something like that. 

Missy smooths her sister’s hair down, holds her in the tightest hug she’s probably had in decades. “How do you feel?”

Scully is tempted to ask how her sister does that, always there with the tough questions. Instead, she gulps air until she’s calmed down enough to talk.��

“I don’t know,” she laments, tears streaked down her reddened face. “I thought I would be glad but...I just feel numb. Like I went down the wrong fork in the road and missed something important, but I don’t even know what it is since it didn’t happen.” She sniffles. It sounds like a heart breaking. “I just know it’s supposed to be there.”

“I thought you didn’t want--”

“Not under these circumstances, no. But then...when else is it gonna happen?” Her voice is a sheet of glass. “Because it doesn’t look like any time soon.”

Missy hugs her once again, rocking her back and forth. She overflows with warmth, sympathy, and love. “Honey, you have plenty of time to make your life what you want it to be.”

Scully sobs into her sister’s neck. She feels like an emotional hemophiliac, constantly hemorrhaging pain. Every time she thinks she’s bottomed out, there’s farther to fall. “I’m sorry I’m such a mess,” she says, wiping her face. “I didn’t know I would be.”

Missy pulls her in a third time. “Don’t ever apologize to me for anything, even the things you’re actually wrong about.”

Scully laughs half-heartedly. “Oh!” She realizes then. “We still have two more tests, don’t we?”

Missy nods, smiles empathetically. “The second one should be ready by now.”

Scully is about to get up, but Missy lays a hand on her back, beats her to it. “I’ll grab it.” She strides into the bathroom, picks the stick up off the counter, and takes a look. Again, she flips it so her sister can see. “Negative.”

Scully presses her lips together, a stopgap to any further emotional reaction. “We should do the third one then, just to be sure?”

Missy detects a lift in her sister’s voice, a space she’s made for hope. “Whatever you’d like, Dana.” It seems that her sister will always end up disappointed through no fault of her own, no matter what she wishes for. This chills Missy to the bone.

---------------

The sisters share dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets for lunch because this is the kind of food Melissa buys when left to her own devices. Missy dunks hers in honey mustard, Scully takes hers plain. Remnants of anxiety hang in the air; Scully’s plight remains unresolved, and they are well aware of that. Whatever path they are walking, this is just the beginning. 

The phone interrupts their silent reverie, and Scully hops up to disguise the fact that its ringing made her jump. “It’s probably Mulder,” she tells her sister. “I meant to call him when we got home.” Missy nods, continues with her nuggets. 

Scully grabs the phone off the wall. “Hello?”

“Hey, is Mel there?” It’s a sweet, flowery voice, very different from the one Scully expected. She furrows her brow. Could Mel refer to her sister? She’s never heard anyone call Melissa that. “Who is this?” Missy looks up, watches her sister curiously. It’s not Mulder, evidently. 

The woman on the other line clears her throat. “It’s Trinity. Am I speaking to Dana?”

“Yes, this is Dana,” Scully says slowly, unnerved by the caller knowing her name. “Are you calling for Melissa?” Scully offers, hoping she might get out of this scot-free. 

Hearing this, Missy wipes her hands on a napkin, gets up, and rushes toward Scully, holding her hand out for the phone.

Scully ignores her, keeps the phone to her own ear as the caller speaks to her. “I am, but I was actually wondering about you. Mel told me your worries. How are you doing, Dana?”

Scully is now particularly spooked. Who is this woman, and why does she know all of her business? Missy pokes Scully in the bicep, then gestures for the phone. Scully hasn’t seen her sister this greedily desperate since she snuck out the window when she was seventeen and needed Scully to unlock the front door so she could get back in before their parents woke up.

“Um, Trinity is it, Missy--Mel wants to talk to you.”

“Oh, okay! It was nice to finally meet you!” the cheery voice practically sings. Scully just nods and makes her usual ‘Mulder you’re crazy face’ as she hands the phone off to her sister.

“Hi, Trin.” Missy speaks in a rush. “I can’t really talk right now, but Dana is home and all the tests were negative so she’s doing okay. I’ll call you tonight, alright?”

Scully can hear the voice on the other line, but she can’t make it out. Her sister says “I love you, bye” into the phone, then hangs up.

Scully raises an eyebrow, feeling it her duty as the little sister to pry. “Who was that…?” 

Missy puts the phone back on the wall, circles around to her plate, sits down. She answers calmly, casually. “That’s Trinity. She lives in Portland, we used to waitress together.”

Scully slides back into the seat across from her sister. “How come you’ve never mentioned her? She seems to know a lot about me.”

“Well, you’re the reason I moved to DC and all.”

“I didn’t know you were still in contact with anyone from the West Coast.” Scully picks a stray crumb off one of her nuggets, thankful that her sister is in the line of questioning for a change. 

“I bounced around the area for three years, of course I have friends from there.” She grabs her own empty paper plate, points to her sister’s. “Are you done?”

Scully pushes the plate--with two uneaten chicken nuggets--toward Missy. “With the food, yes. Not with the questions.”

Melissa takes both of the plates to the trash, then rinses her hands in the sink. “Yes. Does that answer your question?”

“Depends. What do you think my question is?”

Missy dries her hands on the dish towel, swivels to face her sister. “Is Trinity my girlfriend? Because yes, she is.”

Scully’s mouth drops open the slightest bit. She had known Missy was bi, but she had never met any of her girlfriends, not even in passing. Missy tended to keep them to herself, fearing that the Scully family might encroach on the holy ground she created. “Really?” she asks excitedly. 

“Uh-huh.” Missy sits back down at the table. “For nine months now.”

“Are you serious? That’s incredible, Missy! Why didn’t you tell me?”

Missy just raises her eyebrow. Scully feels like she’s looking in a mirror. “What? You know it doesn’t bother me.”

“Sure, but mom, and Bill…”

“I don’t think that mom would be upset by it,” Scully answers level-headedly. “Surprised maybe, but not mad.”

Missy balls up a napkin, tosses it back and forth between her own hands. “I don’t know that she would be, I just...don’t trust that she wouldn’t. And besides, nothing mom says or does will change how I feel about Trinity. So it’s not really a pressing issue. No need to cause a scene.”

“I can’t believe you moved here without mentioning her. I wouldn’t have let you leave her, you know.”

Missy laughs. “Oh, I do. That’s why I didn’t say a word.” Scully’s laugh is her first genuine one all day.

“She seems very nice,” Scully says, flicking a crumb off the table.

“Oh no, she’s a total bitch,” Missy replies. There’s a moment of silence while Scully figures out that was a joke, then they both laugh.

“Just kidding. I love her very much.” Missy’s smile could melt ice. “I’m glad you got to talk to her. Now my two favorite ladies have technically met!”

“I’m afraid to ask whether I’m in first or second place.”

Missy reaches out across the table. “I moved across the country for you, honey.” Then, with a smirk--”But I could move back any day now, so watch out!”

Scully smiles, nods. She can’t imagine what these past few weeks would have been like without her sister near. She hopes Missy never goes away again, as unrealistic a thought as it is. If there are angels on Earth, her sister is one. But Mulder too has emerged as a force in her life; no one destabilized her life quite like him, but he would be her rock if she let him, she knows this. She owes him a call. She knows that too.

[rhub4rb]

Home is Where the Heart is

AO3

First Chapter Next Chapter

Here it is! Be prepared for angst and fluff for the next many chapters to come! Without further ado~

-_-_-_-

Running around Gotham and living in abandoned buildings had never really been part of Marinette’s plan. Not that Marinette had much of a plan in the first place, but pretending like she did made her feel slightly better about her situation.

It was her third night in Gotham, trying to find one Alfred Pennyworth.

Master Fu hadn’t known where the former Miraculous holder was, and it had only been because Duusu could sense Alfred slightly that Marinette was even in Gotham in the first place.

She didn’t get to Gotham with a plane like a normal person though, she got there with the help of Kaalki.

It was kind of hard to take a plane somewhere without any type of legal papers.

She had no ID, no passport, no birth certificate.

Marinette had tried different ways to find Alfred, she had even checked to see if he was dead, despite Duusu being able to sense him, just to be safe. It had all been a bust so far, but Marinette wasn’t planning on giving up.

She wasn’t quite sure what she would be doing if she did.

At least she didn’t have any issues with money. Master Fu had left all of his money, which was a surprisingly high amount, for her when he passed away. Marinette didn’t try and bother with sleeping at a hotel though. Most places in Gotham wanted some form of legitimization, and when all she had was money upfront, not many people would be willing to rent her a room.

Her first night in Gotham, Marinette had rented a room in a Motel, and after that, she swiftly made the decision to never do that again. She still got shudders when thinking about it.

It was after a long day of a lot of searching, and a lot of nothing, that Marinette found herself sitting on the roof of a random building at night, looking over the city.

It reminded her of late-night patrols with Chat Noir, resting at the Eiffel tower, teasing and talking to one another.

Marinette hadn’t even registered that she was going to cry until the tears fell down her cheeks. She quickly wiped them away, despite no one being around to see her cry. It was in the small things, and it made it hard for her to concentrate on her new mission, but Marinette wouldn’t break. Breaking meant to her that she regretted her decision, and Marinette couldn’t regret her decision. She just couldn’t.

Marinette was brought out of her thoughts by the sound of footsteps, and she was quick to get on her feet and look for the source of the sound.

There, on the building next to the one Marinette had been sitting on, was one Nightwing, a Gotham vigilante, if Marinette remembered correctly.

He took a step forward, opening his mouth to say something probably, but Marinette never gave him the chance.

She ran.

Nightwing shouted at her to stop, but Marinette didn’t listen. If he caught her, Marinette didn’t know what she would do or say. The risk was too big.

She reached the edge of the roof, and rather than stopping like Nightwing probably expected her to, Marinette jumped.

For one heart-stopping moment, she didn’t touch the ground, until she landed on the other building in a roll. Marinette didn’t look behind her to see if he followed, focusing instead on just getting away.

-

It was a regular patrol, the bat family splitting up to cover as much of Gotham as possible, when Dick spotted a girl sitting at the edge of a roof on a tall building. Her shoulders were shaking, as if she was crying, and his mind immediately went to the thought of the girl jumping off.

Dick took a step forward to stop her. She must have heard him when he started approaching her, because her head snapped up to look at him. Her eyes were red and puffy, but Dick couldn’t see much more than that. The lower half of her face was covered by a black surgical mask.

Dick was going to talk to her, but before he even got the chance to, she bolted. He yelled at her to stop, only for her to jump off the building. Dick thought for a moment that it was it, that she was going to fall and he wouldn’t be fast enough to save her.

But then she landed on the other side in a roll and just kept running.

Dick stopped at the edge where she had jumped, just watching as her form became smaller and smaller the farther she went.

He touched the comm in his ear, his brothers’ voices going off, asking him what happened.

“I think I just ran into another street kid.”

He couldn’t see her anymore.

“I thought she was going to jump off the roof, but…” Dick shook his head. “I’ll explain more at home.”

Still, the image of her red puffy eyes stuck with him through the rest of the patrol. Her distant look was familiar to him. Grief. Mourning. Dick didn’t like thinking of the implications of what it could mean.

She didn’t look very old either, probably around Damian’s age if Dick had to make a guess.

His mind ran through the possibilities of who she could possibly be, but he knew that this wasn’t his place of expertise. Tim could probably come up with more answers than he could.

The girl must have been trained in some way though. She shouldn’t have been able to make that jump, couldn’t without some form of training. It was too fluid, clearly something she had done before. She had been fast too.

Maybe he should have chased after her…

-

Marinette let out a tired sigh as she slipped inside the abandoned apartment she had been sleeping in.

All the windows were covered and blocked with planks, as were the doors, but Marinette had found a loose plank that she could pull off to get in.

She sat on the cold floor, resting her head against the wall and closing her eyes for a few seconds, trying to calm her hammering heart. She took off her backpack, where the Miraculous box was in, and placed it in her lap.

“That was close.”

Tikki.

Marinette cracked an eye open, looking at her kwami and giving a tired nod.

“We’re still no closer to finding Alfred,” Tikki added, making Marinette sigh tiredly.

“I know Tikki, I… I’ll figure something out, I promise.”

It was quiet for a moment, as Tikki just looked over her chosen.

Bags way too big for a seventeen-year-old were under her eyes, and her hair was a mess from the wind after she had run away. Marinette looked exhausted.

“Don’t worry, Marinette, it’s going to be okay,” Tikki nuzzled her cheek, and Marinette fought hard not to cry again.

“It’s just- it’s so hard.”

Tikki had been Marinette’s rock since the final battle against Hawkmoth. She had been against Marinette’s plan, but she also knew there was nothing she could do to dissuade her chosen from the plan that Marinette had made.

So instead, Tikki supported her chosen through her grieving, not letting her be alone when she was hurting.

Marinette had always put others before herself, and it was painful to see her force herself through this mission. It made Tikki worry.

Would Marinette dedicate her life to the Miraculous and the order? Tikki hoped not.

Marinette didn’t even have a sketchbook with her. She kept saying that it was because she simply didn’t have the time, but Tikki knew better.

Perhaps she could talk Marinette into taking a break tomorrow. Alfred Pennyworth was probably not going anywhere, and if he did, then Duusu would be able to tell.

Tikki just didn’t want to watch her chosen wither away.

“There’s no threat right now, it’s okay.”

Marinette took a few shaky breaths before giving Tikki a watery smile.

“Thank you, Tikki. I wouldn’t be able to do this without you.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for Marinette, you deserve so much more than all of this. After we find Alfred, we’re going to look for a new home.”

The look Tikki gave Marinette left no room for argument, and Marinette found herself agreeing with her Kwami.

She couldn’t continue living the way she was now, staying in abandoned places. It was cold, and Marinette was worried about what she would do once it was winter. She would be going into hibernation mode, and without a proper place to stay, Marinette feared she would freeze to death before she managed to rebuild the order. It just wasn’t that easy when there was no documentation of Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

But, she could think about that later. For now, her first priority would be to find Alfred.

-

“What happened out there?” Asked Bruce, looking at his oldest son.

“I don’t really know, if I’m honest,” Dick said, looking at the rest of his family with furrowed brows. “She was crying, I’m sure about that, but…” Dick trailed off, shaking his head.

“You thought she was going to jump?” Bruce asked. He had heard what his son had been saying over the comm when it happened, but he wanted to be sure.

“She did jump, over to the other building,” Dick said, eyes trying to convey what he was saying. “She took a leap of faith with a three-meter distance.”

It was quiet in the Batcave as they all stared at the oldest Robin in disbelief.

“She jumped between the buildings?” Jason asked, just to be sure.

“And all the other buildings after that. She has experience of some kind, but why?”

Dick was mostly confused about the whole thing. He knew that look in her eyes though, for that split second he saw them. She was grieving.

“I think she might be a new street kid,” Dick said, and the others looked at him in confusion.

“Why do you think that?” Tim asked from his seat by the computer, trying to find the girl via security cameras around the city.

“She was crying when I spotted her, it was part of the reason that I thought she was going to jump off in the first place. She must be new to the streets,” Dick said, shrugging. “Doesn’t explain her experience with free-running though.”

Tim let out an annoyed sigh by the computer, before turning around to face the others.

“Either way, I can’t find her on any cameras. Don’t know how that is but…”

It was concerning, and a tense quiet took over the family, as they thought of the possibilities.

“We’ll keep a lookout for her. If you spot her running rooftops, you’ll report and try to approach her cautiously. She’s too much of a mystery for us to not be careful,” Bruce ordered.

It wasn’t rare for the members of the bat family to spot street kids. Honestly, they saw them on a daily basis. But one running across the rooftops with expertise was more concerning, and when they didn’t know if she could actually pose a threat, they needed to be careful.

Dick just felt bad about it. And he was worried.

He was convinced that she was going to jump off. He didn’t know what he would do if he was unable to stop it before it happened.

-_-_-_-

@serenacross200 @valeks-princess @skyel0ve

[arwenlalaith]

Fic: Don’t Pretend (There’s Anything More)

Title: Don’t Pretend (There’s Anything More) Fandoms: Criminal Minds, Wayward Pines Rating: M Ship: Emily Prentiss/Kate Hewson Word Count: 1584 Summary:  While on a case in Seattle, Emily crosses paths with Secret Service Agent Kate Hewson and, well...she's always had a thing for redheads... PWP.

________

Emily sat at the bar of the local cop joint, nursing a glass of bourbon...mostly because she didn't want to go back to the dingy motel and go to sleep, knowing that Morgan's chainsaw snoring would keep her awake, even through the wall separating their rooms.

As she downed the last of her bourbon, flagging down the bartender for another, she locked eyes with with a woman across the bar. The woman made an obvious show of raking her eyes along Emily's body, tongue grazing across her lip in a gesture of unmistakably lascivious intent, Emily nearly groaned aloud, heat rushing to her core.

(Apparently, it had been too long since she'd been well and truly fucked...judging by the way she was almost dripping merely from a wanton glance.)

In Paris, during the long sleepless nights spent missing those back home, she'd taken to trolling bars late into the night in search of willing strangers who could help her forget for a short while. Back home, she'd told herself she would stop...but it was entirely too easy to give in when that woman was staring at her with want in her eyes and a smirk that promised mischief...

____________

Emily let out a sharp gasp as Kate slammed her back against the wall of the bar's bathroom, knocking the air out of her lungs. Kate swallowed her gasp, lips demanding and needy against hers. Her tongue swept across Emily's bottom lip and she gave the permission Kate sought, caution going out the window, mind going blank.

Kate's fingers dug into her hips, sure to leave bruises, and the pressure only made Emily more eager, more desperate. She tangled one hand in her hair, short nails scraping along her scalp, sending a shiver of want racing down her spine. Her other hand, trailed down Kate's spine, along the ridge of her hip, then began work on the zipper of her jeans.

"Shit, Em," she gasped as Emily slipped one hand past the waistband of her panties, her fingers instantly finding her clit, working it frantically. She allowed herself a moment or two of pleasure before wrapping her fingers around Emily's wrist, stalling her movement.

Tilting her head back to rest against the wall as Kate's lips travelling down to latch on her clavicle, Emily panted rapidly, chest heaving as desire pooled in her core. Teeth scraping the tender skin of Emily's throat, Kate tore open her blouse so she could palm her breast, teasing her nipple through the delicate lace of her exposed bra.

"Kate," she gasped as her hands wandered under her skirt, her fingers between her legs teasingly. She'd barely been touched and she was practically on the edge of orgasm already; she wasn't sure if it was because of pent up sexual frustration (it had been a while) or if it was just the effect Kate had on her...

She cried out as Kate slipped her panties aside to press two fingers inside her soaked pussy. She pumped her fingers in and out sloppily, collecting her juices in her palm, then smearing them across her slit. She removed her fingers to rub at her clit again, bringing her ever closer to the edge of coming undone.

Emily bucked her hips against Kate's hand, needing more friction. Seeming to understand, Kate once again slid her fingers inside her, the heel of her hand pressing against her clit. "Fuck, Kate...right there," Emily moaned, moving her hips in time with each thrust of Kate's hand.

She clapped a hand over her mouth just in time to muffle a scream, her body trembling with the force of her climax. There was something almost freeing about cumming with a scream, even a smothered one, rather than trying to stifle herself...and she couldn't help but grin to herself behind her hand.

Kate didn't stop her ministrations, though, working her harder, faster, as Emily's pussy clenched around her fingers, squelching audibly. She continued moving inside her cunt until Emily was nearly sobbing from the overstimulation.

"Please..." Emily begged, whimpered. "I... I can't... Kate!"

Her hand retreated, though her fingers still slipped around in her wetness and she smirked as she kissed the edge of Emily's jaw, murmuring against her skin, "That was so fucking sexy..."

She gasped from the exertion and her nails scrabbled for purchase on the wall lest her legs give out from under her. "I – ah – I don't usually do this..." Emily panted as the haze of orgasm started to clear from her mind and she was able to articulate thought again. She wasn't sure why she felt the need to justify anything, even if only to herself...but the words seemed almost to have a life of their own, a mind of their own.

She could feel Kate's smile against the skin of her throat as if there were something amusing in her words. "Do what?" she taunted, fishing for the full justification, the actual words she seemed to reticent to say aloud. "Use your words, Emily..."

"This... Pick up strangers at a bar, fuck them in the bathroom with the knowledge that I'll probably never seem them again," she said, even as she dropped to her knees, trailing kisses over heated skin, fingers nimble on the zipper of Kate's jeans, tugging her panties down over her hips.

Kate gave a throaty laugh that turned into a little mewl as Emily's lips ghosted up her thigh. Her teeth grazed the flesh before sinking in hard enough to leave a bruise. She followed the pain with the gentle tenderness of her tongue laving over the marks.

"Not that I never do this," Emily admitted. "I mean, I have before and..."

Kate found it was difficult to focus on the words, on anything, with desire pooling sticky between her thighs and Emily's warm breath right there. Emily smirked up at her as if reading her thoughts, entirely too cocky, and damn if those arousal-darkened eyes staring up at her from between her legs wasn't one of the most erotic things she'd ever seen.

Words caught in her throat as Emily's tongue hit her clit and she bucked her hips sharply at the suddenness of the contact. She almost cried out, but caught the sound caught in her throat, coming out as more of a strangled whimper. She huffed in frustration at her sudden lack of articulateness, but it was a little difficult to care in that moment...

Emily pulled away all too soon, making Kate whimper in disappointment. She clicked her tongue scoldingly. "I want to hear you," she husked the demand (she'd always had a bit of an exhibitionist streak in her...).

Kate's eyes fluttered shut for a moment as she tried to calm her rapid pulse sending need racing through her body – Emily's gaze was too intense, words too laden with implication, and she was coming undone entirely too quickly. She wanted this to last and, at this rate, it would be over all too soon.

This time, she didn't bite down on her cry as Emily's mouth returned to between her thighs, trailing her tongue through her slit, pausing to scrape her teeth along her clit. "Fuck," Kate kissed, Emily's ministrations almost more than she could handle. "I need..." she trailed off, teeth scraping along her bottom lip, words lost on a throaty moan.

"What do you need, Kate?" Emily teased, pulling back to memorize the look on her face so she could remember the moment when she was back in her hotel bed, touching herself to the memory. "Use your words," she shot back the earlier command.

"I need more," she whined. Emily obliged without further taunting, dipping her tongue into her needy cunt. Kate cried out desperately. "Ah – Em-Emily!" Enjoying the reaction, Emily worked her tongue through her pussy until she was a writhing, trembling mess.

"Emily, I'm... I'm gonna cum..." she keened, moments before a powerful climax raced through her, leaving her gasping for air.

As she came down from her high, Emily lapped at her juices, cleaning the stickiness off her thighs with a smug grin, like the proverbial cat that got the cream. Satisfied with her work, she pulled back, wiping her chin with the back of her hand in a way that made Kate almost cum a second time.

She struggled for words for a moment, then Emily was kissing her, the taste of her own arousal on the other woman's tongue, making her forget how to breathe.

"Cat got your tongue?" Emily asked with a smirk when the stunned silence continued long after she'd retreated from the kiss.

Kate flicked her tongue out across her bottom lip, eyes raking along Emily's form as she rebuttoned her blouse and adjusted her skirt to try and conceal what they'd just done. With an almost tender touch, she reached over to comb Emily's mussed raven locks into some semblance of neatness.

"So," she said slowly, "I suppose the BAU doesn't come out to Seattle too often..."

Emily's brows arched up her forehead. "I don't... I mean... How do you... H-how do you know I'm...?"

Kate smirked mysteriously for a few moments before shrugging and revealing her secret. "Secret Service," she admitted. "Which, I suppose, makes this a doubly bad idea."

"Bad idea?" Emily repeated.

"You might try to steal my state secrets," she said with a little laugh.

Emily leaned in for a kiss. "Maybe next time," she promised, slipping her business card into Kate's pocket.

[nocturna-starr]

Losing Hope

Prompter: @idiot-cheesehead-archenemy

Prompt: Tucker is turned into a vampire

Length: 1718

Warnings: Implications

The motel room was cold and smelled like something had recently died in it. Yet this place was one of the few he could afford with his meagre savings and lack of ID. Here he could hang out until he could fix what was wrong with him.

It would be a while before anyone would even look for him. His parents believed he was sleeping over at Sam's while his friends believed he was at home sick. School had let out two weeks ago so there were going to be no nosy teachers questioning his whereabouts. He was home free.

Tucker Foley threw himself onto his bed. It creaked from all of his weight. He threw his bag against the wall, accidentally ripping part of the old floral wallpaper. The comforter smelled of mould. He was almost afraid to see the sheets beneath. At least it meant that maids don't come up here often. He wouldn't be noticed if he snuck back in...

He picked up the old remote on his bedside table. Half of the buttons were stuck, but it would have to do for now. He turned on the television.

The news was airing another ghost attack. Lance Thunder looked just as uncomfortable as ever.

“Well Amanda, the creep crate is attempting to rob the antique store once again. The Fentons are trying to subdue him. There is still no sign of Phantom.”

Behind the reporter, the Box Ghost was running as fast as he could. A box full of old clocks floated behind him while Jack Fenton chased him with a Fenton bazooka. Every time he shot at the blue ghost, he missed. It was laughable. Danny leaves them the weakest ghost and they still couldn't catch it!

Danny...

It wasn't fair! How come Danny managed to get the cool powers and keep his humanity? Danny got to be the world-famous hero, but Tucker would have to spend each and every day trying not to murder anyone. Why couldn't Sam had been bitten by her creepy friend instead of him? At least the style would have suited her! Why did Tucker always get the short end of the stick? Was this punishment for some awful crime he couldn't remember?

Tucker felt the bitterness creeping through his soul. That wasn't good! He needed to focus on something else before his powers went out of control. Who knew what horrible ability would make itself known? Besides, Jazz always told Danny that good things come to those with a positive attitude.

He changed the channel. A cartoon about a giant mouse and a cat was playing. They were going on some sort of adventure. It was the type of show his grandma used to put on when he was little. It was stupid and mindless, the perfect escape from his panicked mind.

He kicked his shoes off, leaving them to unceremoniously fall onto the floor. He thought about switching into his pyjamas, but what would be the point? He probably wasn't going to get much sleep at night anymore. His body needed to get used to his new needs.

Suddenly, there was a loud banging on the door. Tucker jolted upright, fear coursing through his body. Was it the police? How did they manage to find him?

“Room service!” The voice sounded like the high pitch Danny used to imitate Jazz.

“It's three in the morning lady!” Tucker yelled back, “Go away!”

The person who was most likely Danny, could not be deterred. Instead, the banging became louder and more frequent.

“Go away, Danny!” Tucker yelled. It was still dark out. He still may have those urges. The thought of accidentally killing his best friend only added to the rising panic attack.

And annoyed Danny Phantom phased through the wooden door. In his left hand was two paper bags with the Nasty Burger logo on them. In his right hand, he was balancing a tray of drinks.

“Really Tucker?” Danny rolled his eyes. The ghost boy summoned his transformation rings, “Why did you ru-“

“Stay in your ghost form!” Tucker yelled. The runaway wondered if he had woken up anyone. He hoped they would take him as a normal dude and not come down to investigate.

“Okay.” Danny placed the tray on the side table. He threw one of the greasy bags at Tucker before sitting down on the bed.

The runaway peeked inside the bag. Danny had bought him three burgers and filled the remaining bag full of fries. There was enough food to last him a day or two if he was careful. At Tucker's surprise, Danny smiled.

“Valerie was closing. When I told her I was ordering for you, she filled the bag. I think she may have developed a crush on you Tucker.”

Pain seared Tucker's heart. Why did he have to go on that stupid date?

Danny gracefully sat down on Tucker's bed. The two ate in silence, pretending to watch the inconsequential adventures of the cartoon rat and cat.

Inside his mind, Tucker was falling apart. He knew his best friend would try to convince him to go home, but Tucker could never go back again. Danny would try to find the positives, perhaps even suggest Tucker become his own superhero. Yet the ghost boy didn't understand the intense longing Tucker had every time he looked at a human.

Danny seemed to be deep in thought as well. He was frowning, and every so often he would narrow his eyes or cringe. It was like he was having a war within. Finally, Danny decided to speak.

“As much as I am enjoying watching whatever this is... We need to talk.”

We need to talk...

It sounded like something Sam would say. Her influence was rubbing off of Danny too much. Briefly, Tucker wondered if Danny would be embarrassed if he mentioned it.

“Why did you run away? Did one of the ghosts threaten you?”

“NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT GHOSTS!” Tucker shouted, “SOMETIMES YOU REALLY ARE A FENTON!”

His best friend took a deep breath. Tucker could almost hear Danny counting down from 10.

“Tucker,” Phantom said, barely keeping the hurt out of his voice, “What happened?”

Unearthly green eyes met emerald. Neither of them found themselves backing down. Minutes past before Danny finally seemed to yield. Tucker should have known better. Danny always had been the most determined of the trio.

“If you don't tell me, I'll just bring you back home,” The ghost boy stood up and crossed his arms. Tucker knew he would stick to the threat.

“I am a vampire.” Tucker was careful to keep emotion out of his voice. Admitting his problem had a calming effect. It was like accepting a punishment one didn't deserve. With the calm came a feeling of hopelessness.

“So, Sam was right…” Danny's stubbornness deflated. Now he looked lost and unsure. It was bizarre to see such emotions on the usually cocky ghost boys face.

“My life is over. No cheerleaders, no movie theatres, no graduation, and no future career in technology. Now, do you see why I can't go home?” Tucker brought his knees to his chest. Part of him wanted to feel something. He just felt so... Empty.

“We'll think of something. Maybe there's a way we can refocus those powers or-”

“No Danny, Tucker interrupted, “I'm not half-vampire! I bear  the full curse! If you were in human form, I would have killed you! I barely stopped myself from killing the clerk. I’m a monster…”

“We will figure something out.”  Danny had always been the optimist, almost to a fault. Tucker knew it was only a matter of time before the vampire overtook the human. Then Phantom would have to subdue him.

“You can't be the only vampire... Maybe Vlad can help! He kind of looks like one...” Danny had started to pace back and forth.

“Or Vlad will use me as a weapon against you?” Tucker suggested.

Danny paused and gave an unimpressed glare. Then he noticed the clock on the wall.

“I have to go. I'm sorry”

“Patrol?” Tucker felt anguish streak through his heart. He needed his best friend! Couldn’t Danny miss one stupid patrol? Memories of a grieving and guilty Phantom flickered in the back of his mind. Tucker was being selfish again. Bad things always happened when Danny missed his nightly rounds. There was a reason Amity Park was one of the safest places on earth.

“Trust me, Tuck. Sam and I will think of something. Remember to shut your blinds. (Sam said sunlight hurts you.) Sam has a book that you might find useful.  See you tomorrow night!”

Within the next minute, Danny was gone. The vampire chuckled to himself as he cleaned the wrappers. If Danny thought he was going to stay put... Then he was way too trusting. Tucker would switch apartments for the rest of the night. Once the sunset, he would travel further away.

He couldn't burden his best friend with his mistakes. Danny already had the whole world on his shoulders with the ghosts. He didn't need any more difficulties. The hero couldn’t constantly watch him. If Tucker did massively screw up, which he undoubtedly would, the ghost boy would forever blame himself. The best thing to do would be for Tucker to leave.

After throwing away his and Danny’s wrappers, the teen grabbed his bag. He pulled out his cell phone and PDA. Tucker knew he should have left them at home, but he couldn't bear the part with his babies.

Here, Tucker needed to become a man. No one was going to solve his problems for him. Danny or the police will track him down (he cursed his stupidity for not getting rid of the find friends app). He turned the TV off and left.

He had to do this on his own. He would find a cure or learn to control his urges. He would go back to Amity Park. He would hug his parents, apologize to Danny and ask Valerie on a date. He would scream at Sam for setting him up with a vampire, and the two would be friends again. The trio would hunt ghosts like they used to. Everything would go back to normal.

He couldn’t lose hope.

[elizabethrobertajones]

14x07 watching notes

In Which It Is Now Completely Apparent Which Of Buck And Leming Are Writing A Scene At Any Given Time

or

A Tale Of Lizbob Being Tormented By Toddlers

Hello it is 3:32am and I am awake from a dream of what the episode might have been (plus side: overt Destiel motel room sharing, downside: Jack accidentally killed Dean) because my tantruming toddler neighbour who just moved into the haunted house next door was screaming, and threw something at our adjoining wall. At 3am. So I'm not exactly well-rested and I'm kinda pissed, which isn't the best combo for a Buckleming episode, but when you wake up with a scream and a thump, you aren't going back to sleep for a lil while :P

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Kudos to the rest of the writing team, we're 7 episodes in and I've thoroughly forgotten Nick exists. I've just been assuming he was caught, featured on a true crime program, and is already gone and locked up for the new murder and likely solving of a cold case.

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Ahahahaaaa the opening of the recap is "when it comes to killing you, I'll be the one to do it" so that's ominous. As you might tell, my psyche is utterly wrapped around this whole Shakespearean tragedy of Jack vs Dean, and perhaps they're not gonna murder each other today but the constant reminders they're living in a murder or get murdered delicate thematic plot balance is exactly the sort of thing that we need to have hanging over their dynamic, as well of course as being the start point of their relationship to show how far they've come and how much they've changed and now love each other and how just last episode Dean got in his "fine i have a son now" episode a season or two later than everyone else and just in time for it to be "so now you bonded with him of course he's caught Doom because you can't have nice things for literally a single episode and this is your fault for bonding with him, Dean"

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This recap is designed to wound me, a Jack fan and lover of how TFW loves their son

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Ew, it's Nick. The first time in my life I've been tempted to skip at least a lil of the recap.

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Imagine how tight it would have been to just do a 10 second "here's Jack" recap and cut to the action

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and the action includes an episode without Nick stealing time from the boy

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You know i spend exactly 0 time speculating on how Eugenie might write her personal fave bits of the episodes but if you had to throw together "nick is now a serial killer ritually murdering priests on a satanic bender" then that would have been a pretty close thing to what I could have come up with as distilled Buckleming essence. (gross)

There's a vague continued overlap of the human!Cas arc with the parallel to the open of 9x03 and the general aesthetic of season 11's Lucifer's satanic rampage bender thrown together but you know what that's more meta than this arc deserves and my boy is sick

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OH NO CAS IS THE ONE WATCHING OVER HIM ABORT ABORT

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His grace looks pathetic. Maybe he's trying not to wake Jack up. Maybe he doesn't have a whole lot left.

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That's not helping, Cas

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ANXIOUS PARENTS OUTSIDE HIS ROOM

I bet Cas sent them away because they were hovering

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Dean this is not what happens to kids, stop trying to kid yourself that this is like having a regular demonic toddler

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Man am I glad I do not have kids right now both because I don't have to worry about them and also because they scream and throw stuff at the walls at 3am

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Dean angry at Cas cuz he's worried about Jack oh no oh no oh no look at these stressed parents. Cas is forced into the doctor role because he magic but he is just as stressed as they are and tensions are high, and then the boy starts convulsing

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Oh my god they snapped, they are actually bringing Jack to an emergency room. This is horrifying and kind of a trip to imagine what they're going to tell any authority figures about who this guy is and what their relationship is to him.

Do they remember that he has barcode fingerprints and probably is gonna be Medically Weird just as default?

(Alex is 29 like me and Misha is early 40s and Jimmy is canonically a year older than Misha for some reason, so at a push Cas could be his dad and have made some very early mistakes but the boy is biologically only like 10 years younger than them on average... JACK looks another half that at times but this is a hospital so idk if "smiles like a toddler" "early teenage adorableness" is a good measure of age)

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(I'm stress-typing)

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"His full name, please"

All 3 dads look at each other baffled.

Sam goes with Jack Kline, which, a season and a bit later, is the first canonical use of it as Jack's surname

They're cautious about using Winchester, understandably, but it's a nice reminder that Kelly is family too and as the dead parent, naming Jack in tribute to her should have been something they were doing all along (like, season 13 all along), especially as he even visited the Klines earlier this season. Sam being the one who thinks to do this is nice because he's the most dad-aligned to Jack in a traditional sense when it's come to raising him (Cas got the pre-birth role as the traditional father role) and Cas obviously had the strongest connection to Kelly before that but this isn't a moment about her so much as these 3 stressed dads.

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LOL Date of birth. Sam wins another point for knowing it, while Dean makes back and forth guesses on '99/2000, making Jack 19 or 20, which would at least mean any one of them could have fathered him and chopping 10 years off Alex's age to compromise between look and feel.

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Given Jack's symptoms the nurse should have been a lil more concerned asking about trips to West Africa or other likely Ebola places lately. (This may be poor timing on the show's part but isn't there a fresh outbreak right now?)

(Oof I googled it and there's "Congo Ebola outbreak 2nd worst in history" articles dated 6 hours ago... Maybe a bad year to write haemorraghic diseases for fun and also how comes no one is talking about this in the news and it's all blah blah brexit... Have we just stopped fearing it now a few outbreaks have shown it mostly stays contained in African countries so now they can just suffer it on their own? I'm making a 4am donation to relief efforts)

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*returns from the doctors without borders website* anyway back to the fictional sick white boy

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And his very stressed dads

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I have no idea how much of this is medically accurate but I feel like this is particularly dramatised to match hospital visits people have experienced which did not involve bringing in a stumbling, feverish, person who is having seizures and coughing blood

it's still objectively sad to see TFW lined up all stressed out and Cas and Dean holding hands while they stare through the giant window

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The doctors aren't wearing masks even though he has been COUGHING BLOOD

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sheesh this entire hospital is in quarantine now

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Nick saying he was "getting hammered" the night of the murder isn't super subtle

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Cas aggressively still trying to watch over Jack even though they won't let him in the room. Dean paces and talks about ghouls in the middle of the hospital to let off stress.

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Cas goes to watch over him in person while Sam and Dean have a personal chat. This is awful D:

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I appreciate the sentiment of busting Jack out before they pay the hospital bills because they're running out of medical options and need to turn to magic ones, a la every dramatic event ever in their lives except that one time Dean broke his leg and Sam was too out of it with the Hallucifers to sell his soul to make it better, but if Jack's in system shutdown wouldn't at least keeping him with state of the art equipment mean things like transfusion and machines that keep him propped up?

Mind you his bloodtype is probably, like, X evil negative or something Bucklemingy

It's in his DNA... He might be cute but he's still  born of their episodes and wacky non con ideas... It was gonna catch up to him eventually D: You can't outrun it forever!!

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I accidentally hit a button and 8x02 started playing on VLC

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"DEEEAN" Cas shoves him through the portal out of purgatory, credits roll, this was officially the weirdest episode ever.

(No I didn't watch the whole thing, I was literally paused on the last shot from where I was about to gif it last night when I fell asleep)

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Sam already called Rowena... Smart cookie

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obligatory yell at Cas shedding the coat to put on Jack so they don't walk him out in a hospital gown

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Oh my god Jack's so sick he's white as a sheet and being carried out by 2 of his dads and he still has a lil well of snark to be like "fine we're leaving" to the doctor.

"There's just no talking to him when he gets like this"

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We're at the promo scene and I'm still not 100% sure after sleeping on it that Rowena definitely did not have the Book of the Damned, and that she hadn't been able to make off with it at the end of season 11, never for it to be seen again, because she was very much in the process of stealing the Black Grimoire in 13x22, but this does, I guess, make sense in regards to which book would serve Jack better, and Mittens tried her best to convince me that Rowena plausibly did not have it because the Winchesters did... I'm still suspicious because I really did just assume that she took it and the implication was we didn't see it because SHE had hidden it, and from a line in a Buckleming episode as well. And either way around her showing up with it makes sense that she had it but I'd have occam's razor'd it that she stole the obvious books at the obvious times and not that 13x22 became a BotD heist on top of everything else :P

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Jack is up and about!!

He's using a more gravelly voice and it's actually a really hot voice and for literally the first time the Alex/Jack divide (gulf) in my head that one is my age and hot and the other is a 12 year old is a bit shaken. I mean Jack's canonically now supposed to be around 19-20? Which explains why he has a "wooo spring break" attitude when we see in the promo he snaps and wants to go to Vegas.

They grow up so fast.

Anyway considering he was in total organ shutdown a lil while ago it seems a night's rest has done him well if he's wandering around the bunker

Can't tell if we swapped writers or what... well, it seems like it's possible given Jack's fluctuating sickness, which of course could just be a plot thing but also a mark of the inconsistencies in Buckleming episodes. It's still odd to me that in the filming process it didn't occur to them that Jack might not at least sway on the spot at little, but he's really standing there like a little trooper, upright and talking confidently.

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And betraying to Rowena that his dads like her and say nice things about her behind her back, which is catastrophic for them. How dare. You're damaging the foundations of their relationship.

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*cough cough*

"Bollocks"

Yep, her heart has softened, Jack won her over in record time, and she's just thinking about that time she adopted a wee Polish lad and loved him as her own because Jack is genetically engineered to be a blank slate son version of a Mary Sue. You take one look at him and he is Your Son in whatever way will most harm you.

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Good grief I wish Crowley was still around to see what HILARIOUS overlap with Gavin we'd have wrung out of Jack's main superpower.

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Cas offering his grace to stabilise Jack on the spot. Halp. It's more important to him that his son lives by miles, that this isn't even an internal debate for him. In a way, obvious that Cas would be like this as a parent, in another, Cas just offered to give up his grace live on TV

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Rowena shoots down the obvious solution (oh and thank god that for once the show actually even references obvious solutions) and starts talking about how we need archangel grace and as soon as she says that I think "oh, Michael" and Dean starts to come over weird with a wooziness that makes me wonder if that was timed for the audience "oh there's one out there right now" and why would DEAN be personally affected right thiiiiiis second..............................

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When they go on spring break together we're getting right to the murderin

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I mean SOMETHING is up and Dean's right now having his own weird moment as Rowena talks about how Jack will now have a fluctuating set of symptoms for the sake of the plot so

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It's possible this is just his internal POV emotional reaction to bad news because this is what happens to me when I hear it but I suspect Dean is a lil more healthy than me in the first place so doesn't verge on passing out whenever a catastrophe happens regularly. And also Sam and Cas aren't similarly struck with physical symptoms at the news their son is dying.

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Ya know, Buckleming, or probably Eugenie specifically which makes it all the worse, writing this woman taking a call in a dark alleyway, then not being terrified to be approached by a weird man and on top of that stopping and turning to invite him to join her in the club... this is the kind of thing where they're writing someone going against all natural instinct that it's bad characterisation for someone we've literally never met before just to put her in danger.

I mean at least they didn't make Nick stab a random woman (and a black woman at that to add to their overall awful stats)

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I like how Jack's just decided Vegas or Tahiti are places you just kinda go to die... I mean I don't know what he's learned about them but it all has to be absorbed through the media in his most innocent way. I feel like there's something very sweet about whatever he thinks you do in these places of reputed sin and blaze of glory live fast die young lifestyles, but also utterly tragic. Consumptive tragic hero but with a twist of the reckless and dangerous later tropes of... It's 5am and I can't think but like. Vegas. Drugs and gambling high life style tropey films and books from the American tradition.

And of course it's Dean (who utterly fits into this trope and even has yearly Vegas trips with Sam since discovering his psychic powers back in season 1 and also lives a blaze of glory mindset) who brings him the deadly glass of milk (film trope about innocence but also like, people dying) and a sandwich loaded with salami. Dean went all out to make that for Jack - a couple of episodes after sending a woman off to "make him a sandwich" and regretting it as he spoke, we see the yank the cloth away reveal of Dean's nurturing side where he is the caregiver who shows affection through food and will go to the trouble of making his boy a delicious sandwich.

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"Nice." See? He's Dean's son and Dean approves his choice of places to die. "You sure this is the best time?"

"Pretty sure it is," Jack says, backpack on, already almost out the door. He's found a brown corduroy jacket which is both unlike his beige jackets and suits from the rest of his life aside from the blue apocalypse world one, and also very very much like Sam's iconic season 1-2 brown corduroy jacket that he mostly stopped wearing although I think was the one Dean wore in 4x01 as one of its sporadic dwindling appearances, if I'm not wrong.

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I probably am but either way, it's a change to darker colours, something Sam-associated to fit the gap of this smol dangerous dying kid Dean has to deal with, and puts Jack in thick earthier tones, thicker clothes to ward against the cold of death, and dressed more like TFW than normal as he usually has quite a distinct child-like version of their clothes.

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Jack's concept of life and mortality is fucked, possibly because he was a functioning being after a day or two of gathering his thoughts and starting to come to terms with asking deep philosophical questions about himself, so in a way discovering he only has a couple more weeks to live is hardly anything. He's a fucking mayfly.

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Ugh it's now solidly 5am and I am clearly not going back to sleep so I give up, I'm finally getting coffee. The rest of the notes will be maybe a wee bit more coherent :P

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Anyway kettle thought: due to Jack and Dean's murder or be murdered relationship (lordy how is this the only way you relate to fatherhood, my guy?) I kinda suspect that Dean's about to abscond with Jack without even telling dad 1 or dad 2, because he is dad 3 and that's totally cool and he's a responsible adult, but,  you know, woozy and doomed while Jack is also consumptive and doomed. BAD COMBO.

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I charge you with grounds of diminished responsibility due to mutual murder narrative doom

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"I'm done being special. Before my life is over, I want to live it"

Okay remember in season 1 episode 14 where Dean was like "LOL WE SHOULD GO TO VEGAS BECAUSE YOU ARE PSYCHIC"? and I referenced that like 5 minutes ago so you should, obviously I've only ever been able to headcanon the reveal of Vegas Week in season 7 (Dabb episode, take a shot) dates back to that and is one of their between episode activities which makes sense that since they only started travelling as adults together in the canon of the show (and Sam 1 year older than drinking age) that it might as well have been when they started the tradition?

Well Jack here is reacting like Dean would have if HE were the one in Sam's shoes in 1x14, and being the fun lil brother who actually would be like fuck it let's go to Vegas and see how psychic I am in the casinos! In the context of season 1 Sam is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too angsty and tragic to do anything other than come across as a stick in the mud who thinks Dean is joking and they're gonna carry on being tragic and hunting monsters instead. Dean in season 2, episode 9, also wanted to fuck off and go have fun when Sam's scary destiny got too much for him to carry, and that was when he was locked in the murder or save him vow from John's last words, which is a similar burden to the narrative bind he's in with Jack.

Jack, all of his fathers' son, finally shows up as the god damn first person to take his doom sensibly and actually want to fuck off to Vegas, and that's demon!Dean levels of fuck it.

Incidentally I half-suspect that Crowley, who has billions of dollars and once bid the moon in an auction (hi I watched 99% of 8x02 yesterday and 1% of it just now) probably was steering demon!Dean waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay carefully around the thought of wait a minute I have an extremely rich and powerful sugar daddy and no responsibilities... VEGAAAAAAAS.

Like, any time Dean started to form the thought, bam, naked triplets show up in their room.

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Anyway Jack's busy being tragic, talking about wanting to get a tan (Beach now linked to something to do before death) or see a hockey game (oh shit we forgot Adam) or get a parking ticket (oh so that's why Dean  murders him)

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"And when it's all over... die."

Dean looks over his shoulder, mind made up to abduct the boy and take him joyriding

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"So that's your plan, huh?"

"I don't want to waste time arguing"

"Did I say I disagree"

jack, this is Fun Dad

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I know, the concept is completely radical and you've never seen Dean be fun but trust me.

Even with your very, very limited options, Sam has literally had 3 episodes about how he's Scrooge, and Cas is... Cas. But Dean is legitimately fun dad when you get him on a good day. Trust me.

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No one's speaking to Rowena??? How wild.

Poor thing is never going to get her mega coven

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Dean (who has rocked up already wearing his jacket) spaces out as Sam starts blahing on about the culturally appropriative shaman Ketch has located.

Same, buddy

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At least Dean isn't lying to them about stealing Jack. Somewhat. Not the whole Vegas plan.

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Jack smiles at Sam and Cas in a kind of way that somehow conveys in its entirety "this may be the last time you see me but I'm cool with you NOT seeing me die of coughing my lungs up and fun dad has this covered and we've always had a weird death cult about our relationship anyway so I'm okay with it and you guys were the best dads but now fun dad is going to take me out back and shoot me where you can't see and I love you bye"

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"Why don't you drive?"

Jack is like ?!?!?!?!? D:

EVEN ON HIS DEATHBED he hadn't figured this would ever happen

It's the make a wish foundation :')

This is, of course, the ultimate sign of Dean loving you and caring for you in Dean's own special way of not telling you he does but showing it with a gesture of absolute confidence and letting you in, and in the vast annuls of the show dates back to the second ever episode where Dean let Sam drive at the end for all of 1 shot (seriously, they've swapped back by the long shot at the end of 1x02 where you can't see them in the car but the prop drivers are definitely doing a generic Sam in the passenger seat Dean driving routine for stock footage :P)

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Anyway Dean loves Jack enough that he's letting a kid who does not know how to drive learn to drive in the Impala, like he and Sam did.

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I can see Alex sweating bullets about being seated next to Jensen in the beloved Impala and having to mess up turning it on... never mind the fact that both Jensen AND Dean will murder him if he harms the car, and being murdered on both levels at once is spiritually unsettling and he will probably end up an unquiet ghost.

And yet, the glee at being behind the wheel of this legendary gal

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TRAGIC NYOOOOOM

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"It's like I'm you! :D"

"No, it's not! :D (but with implied murder)"

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"THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER"

Look if he survives this, you're creating a speed demon who will want his own classic car

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And then you'll have to teach him how to maintain it

oh god

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But yeah, non-toxic parenting in the John Winchester As He Could Have Been style.

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At least as long as Dean is in the Make A Wish mode and not back to tragic murder mode

And that wooziness that he may or may not be associating with no sleep and too much stress suggests this isn't going to last as a Fun Day Trip For The Boy

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"Cas are you sure you want to handle this alone?"

NO HE NEEDS A HUG HIS SON IS DYING

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Sam, go hug him, you need a hug and your son is dying.

Also, of course, you mutually need each other in this instance and Sam is reaching out to Cas with presumably the intent that he wants to be in on it but is asking as if just concerned about Cas

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Cas, being Cas, has somehow deduced that Dean is "taking this particularly hard" despite the fact all three of them are Concerned Dads and CAS WHAT THE FUCK are you doing being selflessly concerned about DEAN and sizing up his emotional state when all three of you are wrecked and your son is dying?

You literally have 3x the sitting at his bedside holding his hand moments of any of them and montaged the heck out of the concern at the start of the episode

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I remember way back someone wankily made a chart of how often people talked to Dean about stuff and other people talked to each other about Dean, and Sam is now crying about Dean beating himself up over being mean to Jack at the start of season 13 and regretting it, so this entire conversation is Sam and Cas man paining at each other about how much man pain Dean is in.

I say with no wank in my heart, just sheer horrified amusement at this data point if they still are hate-watching the show and being horrified about how Sam never gets stuff for himself etc (I mean. He and Cas both have had extended chunks of seasons about them parenting Jack and this is Dean's time to come belatedly to what the two of them already had)

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Cas finally says "son" a season and change after Jack was wandering around calling him "father" and Sam doesn't seem inclined to disagree that this is how it feels for all 3 of them.

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Obviously he's crying about Jack and it was just the context above that made it look like he was crying about Dean and I always knew that, I'm not a monster, I'm just deflecting because owwwwwwwww this hurts

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HUG EACH OTHER YOU DUMB FUCKS SO I FEEL BETTER

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Cas walks off instead and Sam finally after 1000 years discovers how Dean feels when Cas does that when he was angling to come along and they miscommunicated and didn't say what they meant. Except Sam wanted to come out of mutual Dad Angst comfort while Dean normally wants to go with Cas places so he can hold his hand.

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Jack's so proud of himself for being able to drive.

"Born with a wheel in your hand"

He literally stole the Impala from you when he was 7 months in the womb

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Dean is like, we could get you laid? And Jack is like. Nah. I have a better idea.

No idea what right now but he still doesn't wanna bang anyone

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Ugh a Nick scene. Tag yourself I'm the old tyre in the foreground

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Is this the house from Family Remains aka the self-admitted worst episode of the show by Kripke and Carver's explicit design

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I am going to puke Jack wanted to go on a fishing trip with his dad

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There were spoilers about them doing this but I repressed it the fuck down and lied to myself that Jensen was randomly teaching Alex to fish on set because I didn't want to think about Dean doing this with Jack because oh my god someone has taken my heart and gouged it out with a rusty spoon.

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Also: someone design Jack a t-shirt with a witty slogan about fishing rather than hook ups. Like, dude bro fishing culture but in a world where you're as likely to get dumb slogans about not wanting sex as you are for it making you a babe magnet

"I'd rather be fishin" is a thing people get on mugs for the workplace but we could start with this sentiment and play

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ALSO AS I MENTIONED I WATCHED 8x02 IN THE LAST 24 HOURS AND DEAN NEAR RIVERS SUCKS. We also have 10x01 and Daniel the fishing angel (who was the pizza man from Monster Movie, see above: slogans about fishing, pizza man innuendo, we got a thing going here) who was happy on Earth just fishing and enjoying the planet and not wanting to go back to Heaven, in a very heavy metaphor for Cas to deal with, as the angel who once compared free will to teaching poetry to fish. Lots and lots to unpack here, when we turn this into a Dean and Jack father son bonding moment and throw in Dean's peaceful dream of fishing in 4x20 that Cas interrupted. Fishing is about peace and idyll and comes as a temporary respite in this show. Traditionally, also, of course it's a sport of patience, and a classic father son bonding activity as the long stillness allows for both manly silence and sharing beers in peace, but also talk if they want to open up a conversation.

For Jack, it's an overlap of both Cas and Dean parental stuff, Cas's issues with angelic nature, where he wants to be, WHO he wants to be (just OFFERING to give up his grace to save Jack) and then with Dean we have more classic human cultural tropes but none less painful for Jack's nature and relationships. Especially throwing in that this was his choice and Dean is indulging him completely here.

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John may or may not have taught them to fish but I feel like it may have had a "so you are dying in the woods" aspect to it rather than for peace and bonding. BOBBY taught Sam and Dean some basic woodsmanship so he was more likely to be the father figure teaching them to fish if anyone did.

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Okay so obviously I typed that just after clutching my heart at the reveal and hitting pause, as Jack immediately goes on to say that John DID teach Dean how to fish and that it was his happiest memory of him - and it comes as a surprise for the expectations (like, that the above paragraph now stands as what I would expect of canon if I was only taking from it and not as an actual writer of the show being allowed to insert new details in which challenge us about the characters, which is where I find the line between fan fic and original fiction really is when it comes to characterisation... Anything out of left-field and you have to tag it as an AU version or explain why instead of just writing it as taken for granted).

And it's unexpected in the sense that it is such a peaceful thing and above all I think the message is that Jack intuited from whatever Dean said about it that it WAS a happy peaceful memory of John which stood so much at odds with the rest of his life. Filed under as well the thing where Mary started talking about how nice John was to Sam and Sam recoiled in confusion until Mary clarfied it was her John, not theirs. Good memories of a gentle soft John are alarming, and yet perhaps this is a way to really confront and exorcise his ghost more than anything - the sort of funeral servive memorialising of the good with the bad and working through it to come to peace in a different sort of way that lets the wounds heal and the anger leave those scars.

"It was how you said it. I could tell." He's such a smart cookie and I think that often takes Dean by surprise in the sense that Jack has been very shrewdly watching him and learning from him and absorbing anything and everything he does, which unfortunately gives him the ability to cold read Dean like very few people do, seeing past the layers and bluffs and into Dean's core.

-

Jack just murdered Dean by saying if he doesn't make it he wouldn't miss Tahiti or the Taj Mahal or implied going to seedy bars and hooking up, he'd miss more time with Dean.

I mean that's not a literal way to kill someone but you should see Dean's face. He's been shot.

And again, it's a metaphor for what you want from life for DEAN to absorb, the prompt that his family is right here and he doesn't need to chase pleasure outside of them, that hook up bar nearby their home base where he never strikes out, that's irrelevant to the family he has built and it's been put in the subtext of what Dean goes after that's empty pleasure when he has this core family unit around him, by the way Jack has also rejected it and is explaining to Dean the real meaning of Christmas.

Of course, this all gets a bit weird unless you account for the fact he has an angel wearing a trenchcoat made of husband material waiting back at the Bunker because the chronic singleton life otherwise probably ought to account for an outlet for Dean like a hook up bar if his happy ending is a platonic family bond so, you know, end the show 10 minutes from now with everyone happy and alive and not dying, and all Dean's learned is they're 3 dads, one son, a mom and her AUBobby, but he still has unused romantic potential and for seasons and seasons they've been trying to close the door on him seeking out random hook ups in the subtext of what Dean WANTS vs what he thinks he can have. This frank conversation about what Jack wants from life before it's all over is once again ignoring fleeting human connection for the family bonds he values above everything.

-

"I've had a good life, Dean" the other reason they're having this sentimental conversation by a river is because Jack is a fucking mayfly and I hate this

-

@ Dabb please never make me see Cas driving this car ever again

-

Why are you irritating Cas like this. First boring holy fire oh it must be thursday followed by the indignity of making him sit on a pouffe? Listen, when Cas gets irritated he gets snarky and then people die because he snarked them to death. I saw it he did it to the Empty. And Lucifer in 13x12. And Kip.

I just feel sorry for Cas. Why can't he go on fishing trips with the boy. Oh no he has to sit on a squishy pouffe that won't let him be intimidating so that he can cure the boy even though Jack's already decided he's gonna die and will probably Ophelia himself into the river at the end of the fishing trip.

-

Sergei is basically like "Have you tried turning it off and on again"

Nephilim have a reboot button on the back of their neck, if you get a paperclip and poke it in there.

-

At least Sergei is so... whatever he is... I can't even tell who he is supposed to be offensive towards :P I guess with the name, I lean Russian, and then he has world esoterica and occult nonsense in his caravan...

-

The real question is how does he know anything about Nephilim and why hasn't Cas asked that already.

-

LOL he has a vial of Gabriel grace just lying around. Of course, because Gabriel was just offering it up to everyone.

Considering how he was exploited for it by Asmodeus there's a weird tinge of retconning his own abuse by saying he was going around giving it to everyone before Asmodeus ever bought him and started stealing it on the regular.

Still, it IS awfully tempting a fix to have Uncle Gabriel help Jack out from beyond.

-

/distantly: "I'm not dead!"

sometimes I can still hear his voice.

-

It's way more likely Shit Goes Down and this is lost but then Cas has learned what to do with archangel grace to fix Jack just so long as they can pin down Michael and grab his instead.

-

But I guess in that circumstance at least once again Gabriel gave them part of the answer from beyond the grave as he did in season 5.

("Still not dead!!")

shush Gabriel. The show wants us to think you're dead and my complete disbelief in that doesn't change anything for now.

-

Except that maybe Gabriel came back, is fine, but has been removing his grace and selling it in the here and now while claiming not to be Gabriel and that he just haaaappens to have it and because he has no grace he could just be any old guy who happens to have an endless renewable resource of archangel grace secretly on tap to sell to fund his life of laying low. Sergei even says HE got it as part of keeping Gabriel hidden.

-

I'm kind of assuming Sergei isn't Gabriel unless he offers Cas kielbasa

-

I mean unless later I get a bonus cookie for immediately assuming Sergei is Gabriel based on the holy fire he just happened to have prepared and how similar it looked to Gabriel being trapped in 5x08.

-

On the other hand this may be the first time this season but pointing at literally everyone and going, that's probably Gabriel, will get old and also dock me cookie points the more wrong guesses I throw out there. Still, this one has pretty strong evidence, from messing with Cas to making him say "Porn stars"

-

To, um, having Gabriel's grace

-

Okay so Sergei gives Cas all of this out of the goodness of his heart and a "you owe me" and I AM wondering if that's a Buckleming special because remember in 8x19 where they were like hi we need to go to Hell immediately, and Ajay was like sure, I will take you to Hell and this episode is even titled after me so clearly I am an important character who *stab stab reaper dying noises* wow look I guess we don't have a bargain after all despite me saying you owe me but then Crowley just maaaaagically made it so you never had to find out what a reaper would want in exchange for taking you to Hell off the books.

-

Also fuck you I never got to finish my pizza

-

While I've been typing some random ass justice for Ajay screed, Nick has revealed a flashback to 14x02 where it turns out his neighbour said it was a cop who he saw coming out of the house. I literally went back and checked the episode and that wasn't in it, so perhaps it's a new flashback for here, fleshing out that conversation and revealing more for us, and changing the narrative of what Nick's up to, but honestly who cares enough about all this... I was double zoned out for flashbacks I'd already seen for a side story i don't care about

-

Wow, Nick, demons killed ya family. Could have told you that.

-

Aw, Dean brought Jack home. No dying out in the wilderness for you, clearly Cas phoned up before Jack could work out his plan to fling himself into the river.

Also Nick has taken up too much of this episode so there's no room for complicated twists and turns, if Buckleming are banned from introducing too many of them.

It's incredible how subdividing them so Eugenie writes all the Nick stuff and Brad writes the rest has elevated the parts of the story we care about to pretty much passable, give or take whatever Sergei was and who he was offensive to aside from the whole concept of calling yourself a shaman because you travelled the world collecting occult stuff in a sort of Aleister Crowley way.

-

'cept you can't namedrop Aleister on this show because both Alastair and Crowley have stolen too much from him.

-

So you get a knock off Sergei instead.

-

Jack hasn't been having as many of the supposed fainting fits that had everyone dogpiling him as I thought - maybe that's next episode too. Could have had one at the start but that doesn't seem enough to be a repeated annoyance of Alex's life :P

Anyway I was just going to comment on his sweater but that thought hopped in there first wondering if the spell was about to knock him flat, as he's sitting on a chair instead of safely in bed.

All the more dramatic for flinging yourself around if the spell messes you up

(honestly if the spells don't work, and they took him out of the hospital, how much of a bizarre commentary is this on trusting modern medicine and vaccinating your nephilims?)

-

It's 7:20 and my neighbours are yelling again

At least being awake since 3 meant I got a bit more peace and quiet than normal. I feel gross but I may go to yoga just to not be stuck in this room with such awful screeching on both sides of me >.>

-

Oh I can tell Sergei is Gabriel, he put the grace in a gold container instead of the silver ones

-

I'm sorry for the expenses, Zerbe

-

I wonder if they use her products on the show and I'm gonna go on my dash and find her beaming about a specially commissioned shiny gold grace that she made for them :P

-

"Here, hold this bottle of your uncle's essence"

".... okay I understand how weird that sounded on hindsight"

-

I love the idea of Jack's grace now being fuelled by Nice Uncle Gabriel who felt kindly towards him, even if this can't be a permanent fix, it changes his internal make up just a bit so that he symbolically has his grace stolen by his shitty bio father but the power only came from him in the first place and there was all the hoo ha about if Lucifer as his father made him inherently evil. Now whatever happens to Jack, he's had a grace transplant from a suitable donor, very much like a parallel of say he needed a kidney transplant and his 2 viable donors were his shitty deadbeat dad who gave him the kidney condition in the first place and his nice dead uncle who happened to have been an organ donor and was the only other one with the same type (if Lucifer's was X evil negative, then I guess Gabriel's is like X tricksy negative which has enough receptors to be a compatible transfusion, while Cas has like, Z dumbass positive grace and no compatibility)

And Gabriel is a beloved character who proved his kind feeling towards Jack even if they had very little bonding overall, he clearly cared and there was an immediate sort of uncle-y kindness about him in relation to Jack (just the comment alone about identifying that Jack liked shiny things and magic tricks is very much how uncles view small children who they may watch and entertain but not in the end have parental responsibility for), which is hilarious to me because Gabriel deeply reminds me of all 3 of my uncles on my mum's side, who are all 3 different shades of trickster god in their own right, and he always has reminded me of them, and now the show has sort of made Uncle Gabriel his new legacy.

I mean. I love it to bits.

It's not a sacrifice FOR Jack like Cas would have given up his grace, but it's still a part of him passed on to Jack.

-

I am very very aware that like me running my mouth about John (ironically the name of one of my uncles) while hitting pause, I've stopped while Jack is looking up with glowing eyes and he's almost certainly about to spew a fountain of blood across the room and fall on the floor. But I like that the grace even interacted with him and lit up his eyes and unless he physically barfs out the grace to I'm sticking by that ramble.

-

Cas smiled!! That's the once per season and we already hit it at episode 7, woe betide us

This does look, however, like the scene where they were all looking on from the door so... blood spew in 5 4 3 2 1...

-

DOGPILE THE BOY

-

Er, I mean, help him

-

God I would not want Jared to dogpile me, the man weighs literally as much as an actual moose

-

Uhoh Sergei made Cas mad

I mean

he made him sit on a pouffe, this was always coming

-

What do you mean Eugenie can't let Lucifer go wow what a shock

-

*kicks a pebble*

-

Ah, here's the concerned dads scene. I'm just going to let that be a balm to my soul while Dean laments ever taking Jack out to have fun.

-

"You made him happy. You did more for him than any of us"

1 dude you tried, 2 you took him on hunting trips and had fun already this season so he got his Cas Time before he died like he wanted 3 just fucking abduct him wrapped in a duvet and go fishing in the dead of night if you have to, trust me, he'd love it and your family is such a mess he wouldn't even think it's weird.

I mean you've literally absconded illegally with him before, what's a trip up to that beach where he was born and some fishing gear really going to cost you with annoyance from Dean

-

"What can we do?" "Watch over him," Rowena says with Cas in the background, and continues to carve me out with a rusty spoon

-

"As he dies"

Nah he'll be fine shut up Rowena D:

-

*whimper*

-

Well that was a very good episode if you act like me and pretend that none of the Nick stuff happened at all.

[meditativeyoga]

Apply Yoga + Meditation to Relationships

Meditation as well as yoga exercise allow you to weather the unexpected storms in your relationships.

At his wedding, Chuck's godmother provided the new couple one little suggestions. 'Never go to sleep angry,' she cautioned them. 'Make up before the day is done.' Chuck thought this was really reasonable, it went right together with his research of Eastern ideology. Greed, hatred, and deception were the sources of suffering. Why would certainly he and also his better half want to feed the fires of such devastating forces?

Yet things had actually not exercised as he had actually pictured. Some years right into the marriage, Chuck and Rachel had battles that never seemed to get fixed, a minimum of not in the way he thought they should. Chuck still believed that they must not go to sleep mad, but consequently he would keeping up all night refining his rage while his wife slept.

In a session with me a number of days after the most up to date argument, Chuck told me just what he had been with. He and Rachel had been owning to a good friend's celebration, however the published directions were incorrect. Chuck left at the indicated exit, goinged west as he was instructed, yet could not discover the next landmark. Why wasn't it there, he asked yourself? He snapped at his other half, thinking that she wasn't reading the directions properly. Irritated with his tone, she guaranteed him that she read them simply fine, but she asked him to quit for directions.

He guaranteed her he would certainly yet then sped up past the gas terminal. They were late currently, and also he was persuaded he might find the location: It was someplace on this road. He had actually passed it the day before, he bore in mind. Careening about trying to find the sites showed in the invitation, he ultimately stopped at a neon-lit rapid food joint directly from a David Lynch flick. A group of four young people in gold chains eyed his vehicle. He headed back in the other instructions as his spouse expanded an increasing number of irate.

He asked her very steadly to please quit chewing out him, yet inside he was seething and also mad. Rachel did not find his forced calm enticing and continuouslied be irate with him. He became taken out while dreams of crashing their vehicle started to blossom in his mind. There is absolutely nothing that Chuck disliked as high as being chewed out in a car. He did not like requesting directions as well as took satisfaction in his ability to find his way, also when lost.

He really felt that Rachel did not trust him when she shed her temper like this and also routinely took it as an impact to their love.

He ultimately stopped for directions at a neighborhood motel, owned to the event, as well as spent the night waiting for her to ask forgiveness, after they found that their host's published directions had, as a matter of fact, been faulty. Chuck and also Rachel danced when, to Aretha Franklin's 'Respect.' The paradox of the lyrics was not lost on him.

My good friend Michael Eigen, a New York psychoanalyst who, unlike the majority of Freud's offspring, is not put off by the quest of the sacred, informs a story in his book Psychic Deadness (Jason Aronson, 1996) regarding a meditator called Ken that came to him for assist with his violent temper. Throughout my talk with Chuck, flashes of Ken kept breaking via. Ken's case research study is qualified 'StillnessStorminess,' with the arrowheads showing a vibrant relationship in between both states, one that both Ken and also Chuck were reluctant to accept.

The heart of the story is Ken's anger, as well as his efforts to utilize Buddhist reflection to calm it. Rage faded and peacefulness opened up within him in meditation. It was not a peace that can last. Ken still obtained mad in the midst of household life, much to his discouragement. His expectations, for himself and for his family, were as well fantastic. He required that reflection tranquil residential life, and also, disappointed whenever conflict broke up his reflective stability, he condemned himself or his household. He desired his family members to live by his values, to driven themselves around peace and also tranquility, making meditation the center of their lives, too. He was outraged by the turmoil of household life and also attracted a growing number of to the simplicity of silent sitting.

' Part of Ken's problem,' states Eigen, 'was his covert dream to regulate his household (maybe life itself) with one mood. He was not content to appreciate tranquil, after that enter the tumult of actual living. He wished to rule the last by the former. An unconscious seriousness structured his harmony. Reflection centered him, yet it concealed a dictatorial need that life not be life, his wife not be his partner, his youngster not be his child.'

The totalitarian demand that his partner not be his wife ... I spoke with Chuck regarding that. He desired an apology from Rachel, and also he can not think that she would certainly keep it. A subconscious seriousness structured his serenity. What regarding exactly what his godmother had stated? Why could Rachel never ever say she was sorry? 'Why can you not just release?' she maintained firmly insisting, in a recognizing recommendation to his years of meditation practice.

Chuck felt that he had to defend himself, however he was missing the opportunity to absolutely no in on the feeling of self that was at the origin of his suffering. Tibetan Buddhists call such times 'damaged virtue,' when you are wrongly implicated as well as you believe to on your own, 'I didn't do that!' The self that we take to be real is most visible at these times of indignation, as well as in order to have the liberating insight of egolessness, we have to first find the self as it really appears to us. Those minutes of damaged innocence are prime celebrations for this most emotional of spiritual work.

In his publication, Dr. Eigen probes Ken's relationship to temper and also his devotion to serenity. Ken was not simply attempting to quiet his own mind, he was striving to silence a disorderly early environment. 'In time he realized that he attempted to get from meditation the calm he never ever received from his moms and dads. Partially, he made use of reflection to calm his moms and dads (in subconscious fantasy), in addition to himself.'

But meditation frustrated Ken in its failing to change his life. He desired too much from it, and also he started to hate what could not be changed. Rather than utilizing meditation technique to relocate in between states of storminess as well as serenity, to let go of one as the other held, he tried to make use of reflection to dominate life. He required treatment to instruct him exactly what he may have likewise gained from yoga: the best ways to removal in between placements with recognition and versatility. Chuck was really like Ken in his relationship to rage. He had a formula for how points were intended to go. If he and also Rachel had a fight, they ought to have the ability to refine it. He would aim to confess his faults, but his spouse must have the ability to, too. If she was going to get so angry with him, she ought to a minimum of be able to say sorry. But Rachel did not such as to chat about such points. She got mad, but when it mored than it was over. She did not like all Chuck's rules.

Chuck had trouble enabling the fight to disappear on its own. He kept wanting that apology. Several evenings after their battle when going to sleep, Chuck had actually transformed his back to Rachel yet was stunned as she nestled versus him. Nearly against his will, he relocated into her soft qualities and heat. She felt good to him, and he for a moment valued her motion. A few of his anger thawed. 'As in yoga exercise, so in the emotional life,' I said. The activity between kinds is as crucial as the asanas themselves. If you are obsessing on what an asana ought to appear like, you are not really doing the asana. Understanding is more vital compared to the exterior form, and also awareness could pass via several states: anger, frustration, or happiness. Yoga exercise is accepting all the states without hanging on as well as without pushing away.

I informed Chuck a story from Jack Kornfield's brand-new publication, After the Ecstasy, the Laundry (Bantam Books) about Zen master Suzuki Roshi of the San Francisco Zen Facility. Trainees were constantly asking him how you can deal with difficult feelings like temper, although they currently knew just what he would state. 'You inform us to simply rest when we rest as well as eat when we consume, however can a Zen master simply be mad in the same method?' somebody when asked him. 'Like a thunderstorm when it passes?' Suzuki Roshi responded. 'Ahh, I want I might do that.'

Mark Epstein, M.D., is a psychiatrist in New York as well as author of Going on Being (Broadway Books, 2001). He's been a student of Buddhist meditation for 25 years.

[curtisandlewis]

I Like to Watch? Chapter Two

Spotify playlist

My Pacemaker

Dean and Jerry

Implications of Tony and Jerry

Not safe for work

Summary:  (1,768 words) After five years of Jerry refusing to give Dean a show he finally gets a show of his own. But the possibility of breaking the rules or Dean finding out he wasn’t such an innocent teenage boy has Jerry feeling nervous.

I Like to Watch? Chapter Two

Dean and Jerry

Implications of Tony and Jerry

Not safe for work

Summary: (1,768 words) After five years of Jerry refusing to give Dean a show he finally gets a show of his own. But the possibility of breaking the rules or Dean finding out he wasn’t such an innocent teenage boy has Jerry feeling nervous.

(Please see Glossary if you aren’t familiar with my labeling system) Some Things to Look Forward To: Implication of Masturbation: Penis, Implication of Watching, Masturbation: Penis, Watching, Implication of Oral Sex: Penis, Pre Come, Climax, and it goes without saying the word “cock” will be used a number of times.  

Notes: I have OCD and get anxiety from writing certain intimate and sexual acts. The OCD thoughts tell me if I write these acts then something bad will happen. By writing this fic I am performing what is called a exposure. Writing these words are my therapy and for you I hope they are entertaining and make you happy.

Also Bernie Schwartz is Tony Curtis’ real name. 

In the late hours, Dean and Jerry entered their motel room. Dean loosened his tie and made chit chat about that night’s show. Jerry wasn’t listening. He grabbed Dean by the shoulders with care and kissed him mid-sentence. This wasn’t a stage kiss. This was a real kiss.  A kiss communicating something more than friendship. Jerry didn’t have to hold Dean in place while he pretended to struggle. Within seconds, Jerry’s hands moved to hold Dean’s face as he would his wife’s. The kind of kiss Dean didn’t like to do too often with anyone. It surprised Jerry that Dean didn’t even attempt to stop the kiss. In fact, he kissed him back and Jerry felt his hands slide down his body to rest at his sides above his hips. He even felt brave enough to ever so gently finger Dean’s hair. Jerry realized this kiss that could turn into necking at any second had to end. He stepped back and Dean’s tongue searched for his mouth.

Dean opened his eyes, licking at the corner of his mouth. “That was a lot more tongue than usual.”

Jerry smiled and averted his eyes from Dean’s. “When you look back on tonight I didn’t want you to confuse me with all the other guys you do this with.”

Dean chuckled. “Jer, I could never confuse you with anyone, let alone the boys from Stubenville.” He looked down and let go of Jerry’s waist before smoothly walking away. “You want a drink, babe?” Dean said as he finished taking off his bow tie.

“No thanks.”

Dean looked back at Jerry. “Can’t you just this once accept a drink I offer you? It will relax ya.”

“Alcohol relaxes me too much.”

“If you think I’m goin’ out in the middle of the night and getting you a milkshake you can forget it.” Dean said while making his way to the kitchen.

“Who asked ya?”

“How about this, after we’re done, I’ll go out and buy you a candy bar?”

“Well,” said Jerry acting coy. “That’s an offer I wouldn’t refuse.”

“Only if you’re a good boy,” said Dean opening a bottle of beer. He plopped down on his bed and took a drink.

“Why are you on the bed?”

“You want to be on the bed and I stand in front of you?”

“No! I mean I don’t want to just stand here. It’s awkward.”

“What are you gonna do about it?”

Jerry wrapped his arms around his body and looked around in no particular direction. Over in the kitchen he spotted the folding chair. Just a few steps away in their room that was an upgrade from a nail. Success had its perks but not with Dean’s expenses. Jerry got the chair and placed it in front of their bed.

“Is that going to be comfortable enough?”

“It’s fine,” Jerry said as he could feel it digging into his back.

“Alright.” Dean set his beer on the night stand. “You want to see my cock?”

It took Jerry a second to answer. “Do I have to show you mine?”

“This isn’t the playground, Jer. I can put my hand down my pants and you won’t see anything or I can do it like I always do it.”

“Oh! Isn’t it easier doing what you know?”

“Yeah. I figured since you’re so nervous…”

“I’m not nervous.” Jerry tried to sound confident and failed.

Dean raised an eyebrow.

“I mean it.” Jerry’s voice was steadier that time. “I’m not. Let’s see that cock, boy. Take out that big Italian sausage and start beating that non-kosher meat!”

There was a second of silent staring before Dean said, “Jerry, take a breath. Now.”

Jerry took a deep breath, though it made him feel silly. “I told you. I’m fine.”

“You’re getting weird and you’re about five seconds away from your voice getting all high.”

“I’m excited?” Jerry’s voice shot up about an octave. He shook his head and forced his voice down. “I mean I’m excited. Really. Let’s do this, Dino.”

“Sit back and relax.”

Jerry brought his knees to his chest.

Dean chuckled. “Good enough.” He started unbuttoning his dress shirt. “I don’t want to mess up this shirt.”

Jerry saw Dean undress more times than he could possibly keep track. This time was different. His fingers seemed to move in slow motion as more and more of his perfect, smooth chest came into view. He saw Dean without a shirt on the beaches of Atlantic City where everyone could see his golden skin. Jerry knew exactly how smooth that skin was because his tongue had felt it. What was it about this moment that made it feel like the first time—the first peek? Next, he undid the buckle on his belt and pulled down his zipper revealing the stark white of his cotton boxers.

Jerry’s heart rate sped up as he watched Dean reach inside and pull out little Dino. “That’s nothing to be nervous about is it? You’ve seen him, what, a thousand times?”

“Probably more than that.” Jerry studied little Dino with great interest. He wished they could both take off their clothes and learn each other’s differences.

“That seems about right. You ready?”

Jerry nodded his head while his fingernail was in his mouth.

Dean spit in the palm of his hand.

Jerry held back from saying yeck! “Paul, you know we keep the lotion in the nightstand.”

“I’m giving you the authentic Stubenville experience. Do you think we walked around with lotion in our back pockets?”

“I could have licked it for you.” As a teenager Jerry only knew one other boy, Bernie Schwartz. He spit in his hand just like Dean. Jerry thought it was just as disgusting back then. One day, he took Bernie’s hand and licked his palm. Whenever lotion wasn’t available, this was the technique Jerry used on himself.

Dean smirked. “I never asked but I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to use your own spit.”  

“Oh.” They hadn’t even started and already Jerry was fucking up the rules.  

Dean slowly rubbed his thumb over the head. He bit his lip the tiniest bit in reaction, then his whole hand stroked his shaft at the same pace. “Wake up, little Dino.”

Jerry felt mild irritation at Dean’s joke. He soon forgot though as Dean started pleasuring himself in earnest. Now, it was Jerry’s turn to bite his lip.

It didn’t take long for little Dino to “wake up”. Dean was so casual in his movement, Jerry half expected him to be smoking a cigarette. Like the time Jerry was on his knees and saw Dean seductively blow out a puff of smoke. To Dean, that act was a part of guy stuff. He’d drop his pants in front of a willing guy without a second thought. Little did he know, he had that in common with Jerry. Usually, Jerry got lost in thought about the emotions such intimacies brought him. Instead, he caught a glimpse of Dean’s erect cock and had to swallow back the saliva pooling in his mouth. Down boy, he thought to himself as he let go of his knees and crossed one leg tightly over the other. Jerry was sure in the right circumstances he could say, “hey, Paul, I’ve got a better idea.” Yet, these weren’t the right circumstances. As casual as Dean made guy stuff sound there was a delicate complexity to the rules. A guy sucking you off was doing you a favor. Guys helping guys. He couldn’t WANT to do that. Or worse, enjoy every part of it. Why was it when Jerry said he loved the taste of a woman no one told him he was demeaning himself?    

Dean leaned back and supported his weight on one elbow as his hand moved in quicker and quicker strokes. Jerry could see the pre come glisten on his tip and the small spot where it accidentally touched Dean’s stomach. He couldn’t keep his eyes off Dean’s hand. Dean had such control. A firm grip but he didn’t choke it. His hand glided with purpose as he made that cock do exactly what he wanted.

Dean’s breath came in short gasps and Jerry knew from experience he was getting close. Watching Dean come was a beautiful experience even when Jerry wasn’t the source of his pleasure. He let out a masculine grunt followed by a satisfied moan.

Jerry sat there taking in the sight. Dean mentioned something about getting a towel. “I’ll get it,” Jerry said hopping up from his chair. This wasn’t the first time he did this for Dean but those other times he needed the towel too. This seemed so much more intimate. “You know, you shouldn’t concentrate on your cock so much.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “You have a problem with my technique?”

“No. It’s fine technique but you left out some important areas.”

“Like what?”

“Your balls. Not to mention you never touched your thighs or nipples. Paul, your other hand wasn’t doing anything at all.”

Dean stared at Jerry with a slight smirk. “Your first time watching and already you’re a critic?”

Jerry looked away, not comfortable with the first time remark. “Yeah, well, as you saw this morning I have some experience in the art of providing pleasure to one’s self. Not to mention I’ve also directed a few people on how to touch me. You made a mistake a lot of broads make. They think all they have to do is wax the pole and when we come they consider it a job well done. Friction is a fine thing. But there’s also caressing, teasing, and that most marvelous form of touch, massage. I treat little Jerry real good but the way I treat my body dictates how well little Jerry treats me. If I ignore my body then I won’t get as great of a reward. You see what I mean, Dino?”  

“Are you comparing me to a broad?”

Little Jerry must have liked hearing his name because it felt like he was going to pop up and say hello any minute. Holding back his arousal was not something Jerry was good at. Jerry bit his lip and looked down at the towel in his hand. He tossed it aside like his own inhibitions. “I’ll show you.” Jerry began unbuttoning his shirt. Each undone button was like shedding away the years of fear and uncertainty. Dean wasn’t the only boy who asked Jerry for a show but he was going to be the only one who saw it.

[bombshellsandbluebells]

Romancing the Flame (2/?)

Summary: When Emori’s brother is held hostage in exchange for a priceless, mythical jewel called the Flame, she teams up with sarcastic thief and treasure hunter, John Murphy.

But someone else is after the Flame too, and it’s a race to find the lost city of Polis and the jewel hidden inside.

To get there first, Emori and John will have to overcome booby traps, mercenaries, and their mutual mistrust of each other.

AKA my ode to the classic action/adventure films of the 80s/90s, packed full of as many references and tropes as I can manage. The title is a reference to the film “Romancing the Stone.” Official film poster here!

All my love to @infernalandmortal for editing and being just as excited about this fic as I am!

read on ao3

Chapter One

Chapter Two: The Deal

There was something about seedy bars that made Emori reckless. She’d like to blame it on the alcohol, but she’d only had one beer so far, and she knew she could drink half the men in this bar under the table. Maybe it was just the general sleaziness of the place – the atmosphere of crime and depravity hanging heavy over everything left the implication that you could get away with anything while inside.

Out in the real world, the law was a real threat, and one that Emori was cautious of. She’d long since learned the importance of staying inconspicuous and hidden, and normally she avoided unnecessary attention – but here she knew for a fact there was an illegal poker game unraveling in the back room, and that made her feel safe.

Normal grifts called for days of preparation and careful execution, but bar grifts were easy. They only required that she keep the mark drunk and horny enough not to notice what was happening – or just that she win the inevitable fight that broke out. No one was going to call the police in a place like this, after all, and she could handle a few bruises and cuts for the sake of some extra cash.

She does a lap around the place on her way back from the bathroom. By the time she reaches her table, she’s already zeroed in on at least three different opportunities.

Otan is exactly where she left him, staring morosely down into his own drink like the loser she often tells him he is. He looks up when she sits down.

“Hey.” She jerks her head towards the back corner. “Check out the dart game.”

Her brother follows her gaze to the two men in the midst of a game, then looks back at her with a deeper frown. Her excitement must be obvious, because he sighs heavily. “Hustling? Really?”

“It’ll be fun,” she says, her voice sing-song. She pokes at his shoulder, but Otan shrugs her off, grunting unenthusiastically in reply. “Come on, you know we’ll win.” Emori herself can probably hit the dartboard from where they sit right now. Otan, she knows, would hit the bullseye.

“I’m not worried about winning,” he argues. “I’m worried you’re going to start a fight, and we’ll get kicked out before I can finish my drink.”

Emori deftly grabs his drink from his hands and downs the entire thing. The whiskey is cheap and biting; it burns the back of her throat as it goes down. She slams the empty glass back on the table with a loud clink, and roughly wipes her mouth with the back of her gloved hand.

“There, drink finished.”

Otan glares at her. She smiles sweetly back at him.

They stare each other down, Otan looking for all the world like the human embodiment of a rain cloud and Emori bright and grinning, unwavering. Finally, with the kind of disappointed certainty that comes with having lost hundreds of similar arguments before, Otan sighs deeply in resignation and kneads at the rough, scarred skin of his forehead.

“Fine,” he says, and Emori laughs, delighted.

“It’ll be fun,” she promises as she tugs him out of his seat and towards the game. “Besides, it’s been a while since we’ve treated ourselves. We could use some extra cash.”

“You’re buying me another whiskey with it,” Otan tells her, then falls quiet as they reach the two men.

It’s easy to slip into the roles. They fit as comfortably as well-worn shoes.

“Come on, Em,” Otan says, gently tugging back the arm Emori has a hold of. She follows the movement, exaggerating her stumble a bit before she rights herself against her brother. “These guys are already playing.”

“Come on, O! I want to play!” she whines, slurring her words in a convincing charade of drunkenness.

The men pause their game and glance over at them.

Emori smiles at them and waves lazily. “Hey, you guys want to play with us?”

The two men look at each other in silent debate, and then eye Otan and her speculatively. They’re hesitant to accept Otan, she can tell, as people usually are – his sour expression and bulk might not be unusual in a place like this, but it certainly doesn’t do him any favors when making friends – but she’s laying the drunk, ditzy charm on well enough that they’re interested. One of them drags his eyes up and down her body.

“Ignore my dumb brother,” she slurs, emphasizing the last word. “I think you guys look fun! I want to have some fun!”

Otan tugs gently on her arm again. “They’re not interested, Em.”

“We didn’t say that,” the one eyeing her like a snack says quickly, and Emori hides a triumphant grin. Hook, line, and sinker.

He turns to at his opponent for confirmation, and the other man nods. “Yeah, we’d be up for a game.” His grin makes her skin crawl. “I’m Emerson. This is Dax.”

“I’m Emily,” she says, then slaps an uncoordinated hand against Otan’s chest. “This is Oscar.”

She steps closer to Emerson because the hungry way he eyes her makes him the better target. “I don’t know how to play,” she tells him, pitching her volume as if she’s trying to whisper but too drunk to manage it.

And he buys it. His grin stretches wider. “Don’t worry,” he assures her, placing an arm around her shoulders. “I’ll teach you.” He strokes down her arm, lower and lower, then switches to her back. It creeps dangerously close to her ass, and it's only years of practice that keep her smile in place. If they weren’t about to rob him blind, she’d have decked him the minute he touched her. Instead, she just giggles and leans in closer.

It’s all almost too easy.

Emori and Otan return to their motel room that night with their pockets heavier than they left. They hadn’t been able to raise the bet very high – Emori’s thinks the men had grown suspicious despite their flawless act – but Emori had treated herself to Mr. Grabby Hands’ wallet before they left.

“What’d I tell you?” she boasts as Otan unlocks the door. “It was fun, right?”

“Sure,” is all Otan says, but he’s grinning.

Emori is so high on their success that it takes her a moment to realize what happens when they enter the room. Something grabs her and shoves her face-first into the wall beside the door. Her nose throbs with the impact, and she has enough clarity to hope it isn’t broken, before she manages to take in the rest of the situation.

There are people in their room. One of them, clearly a man much stronger and larger than she is, has her pinned securely against the wall. She hears struggling behind her, but all she can see is the ugly paisley wallpaper of the room.

“Get off of me!” she shouts, straining against the arms holding her down. “Otan?! Otan!”

“Emori!” she hears him shout, before the distinct thud of someone getting socked in the face. She hopes Otan’s getting one up on their attackers, but she has a horrible feeling that it’s Otan who’s been hit. Her suspicious are confirmed when she hears her brother groan. Fear settles in her gut. She tries harder to fight back.

“You didn’t really think I wouldn’t find you, did you?”

The familiar voice coats her ears like tar, heavy, thick and vile. She freezes.

“Did you, Emori?” Baylis continues, and she chokes down a whimper. Even if she can’t see him, she can picture him perfectly in her mind – the cocky, feral grin, the hateful eyes. He probably still has the scar on his temple too. Baylis laughs, and she flinches. Her nose throbs sharply when she pushes it further into the wall. “Come on, we all know your brother’s an idiot, but you’re smarter than that.”

She wants to spit an insult. It sits on her tongue like ready ammunition, only the pistol’s jammed. She can’t get her mouth to say the words. They’d known it was a risk when they left, but they’d thought it was worth it. For months, she’d worried Baylis would find them again, and when it hadn’t happened, she’d grown passive in her sense of safety. She’d stopped worrying. She’d forgotten to be scared.

Now, the weight of that terror comes back all at once and locks her limbs tight and her jaw shut. She feels like a rabbit cowering in a trap, and she hates that almost more than the man behind her. Almost, but not quite.

“Turn her around,” Baylis orders, and the hands yank her from the wall and spin her around so roughly her rattled head spins. There’s definitely blood dripping from her nose.

Her imagination had been spot on. Sure enough, the scar is visible on his temple with his hair gelled back the way he always wears it, but she can’t even enjoy it – not when she sees the gun on his hip or the two large, heavily-armed men flanking him. Two others have Otan pinned, one with his arm tight around Otan’s neck. Her brother’s face is turning red with the strain.

He locks eyes with her and she reads her fear mirrored in them. Two men on Otan, one on her, two others waiting to act, and Baylis.

They’re fucked.

“Well?” Baylis barks. The man who has a hold of her tightens his grip. His nails dig into the skin of her arms. “You have anything to say?”

She tries to voice an apology, but her mouth fumbles around the shape of it. The words get lost somewhere in her throat. Baylis waits, his eyes locked on hers. Emori licks her lips and tries again. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Baylis mocks. “For what? For running away? For stealing my money? For this?” He gestures at the scar on his face.

“All of it,” she gasps. Anything to please him. She’d gotten in his good graces once before; maybe she can do it again. “I’m sorry for all of it. I’ll make up for it. I’ll – I’ll-“

Otan squeaks, and her eyes dart to him. It’s too small a sound for a man as large as her brother, but he looks small now. The man holding his neck is squeezing it tighter, and her brother flounders like a fish caught on the shoreline as he struggles for breath. She can see his fingers dancing and twitching in the air for something to grab onto, but he’s too well-pinned. He clutches uselessly at open air.

“I’ll pay you back!” she shouts, desperate.

“You will?” Baylis steps close to her. He’s at least a foot and a half taller than her; she has to crane her neck to look up at his face. But then he crouches, and she has a bewildered second to wonder what he’s doing before he digs a hand into her boots, searching. She tries to not to squirm at the feeling.

He finds the wad of cash stuffed in her right boot, and the knife stashed in her left, and then Mr. Grabby Hands’ wallet in her jacket pocket. He pockets the knife and thumbs through the wallet and the ball of cash. Then he does the same to Otan, pulling out the knives he keeps in each boot and his own wad of money.

“See, we already found the pathetic bit of cash you had stashed in your bags here. And with this,” he waves the money he’s holding, “and whatever you hid in the car you stole, I know you don’t have nearly enough to pay me back.”

“I’ll get you more money. You know I can.” It was, after all, why he’d brought her in in the first place.

“Oh, I know you will,” Baylis assures her, pocketing the cash. He pulls a folded-up piece of paper from his pocket and unfolds it, then holds it in front of her face.

The word “Polis” is written on it, which means nothing to her. Below it someone has drawn an infinity symbol.

She can’t help the incredulous laugh that bubbles out of her. “I can’t get you that,” she argues.

Baylis slaps her. Her nose protests loudly. She can see her blood on Baylis’s hand as he pulls it back. His grin is gone; now he just looks angry.

“It’s a symbol, you bitch,” he hisses. “For an ancient city called Polis. There’s a jewel there that’s worth more than the fucking queen of England. It’s called the Flame. That’s how you’re going to pay me back.”

It takes her a moment to connect the dots; she blames the distracting throbbing of her face. “You’re sending us on a goddamn treasure hunt?”

“Not both of you. I’m keeping your brother so you don’t run off on me again. You bring me the Flame, and I’ll give him back to you, safe and sound.”

He’s offering her a way to freedom, but it smells like bullshit.

“I need Otan’s help,” she tries. “You need to let him come with me.”

Baylis sneers at her. “You think I don’t know who the brains of the operation is? You don’t need him to find it.”

“There’s no way I can find this. Baylis, please,” she begs, “let me pay you back some other way.”

He moves towards her, and she thinks he’s going to slap her again. She braces herself for the hit, but instead, he grabs her face roughly in his hand and squeezes. His rough fingers dig into her cheeks. She can feel them pressing against the bone. “You either bring me back the Flame, or you find some other way to get me as much money as the queen of fucking England. Or you run off and let your brother die. Your choice.”

Emori locks eyes with Otan again. It’s easy to make her choice. “Fine! Fine, I’ll find it. But you have to give me a lead.”

Baylis lets go of her face, and she wishes she had an arm free to scrub the feel of him off her skin. She wants to throw up.

“I gave you a lead. Polis.”

“I need something more than that,” she pleads. “Look, if you want to get this jewel, then you need to give me something more.”

Baylis considers her as he folds the paper back up and tucks it in his pocket. Then he nods. “I got the information from a man named Murphy in The Dead Zone. Look for him.”

She thinks that’s it, but then he pulls out her knife. There’s no way in hell he’s handing it back to her, and that worries her.

“One more thing,” he says. Her stomach churns with fear, writhing like a pit of snakes. She tries to stop herself from trembling, but it’s hopeless. He’s already seen it anyways; there’s no use in playing brave. Baylis gestures with her knife at the scar she gave him. “I’m gonna repay you for this.”

[necrowriter]

totality

Mal wasn't hard to carry.

The phrase skin and bones came to mind, somewhat tastelessly. It was true enough, though. Skin and bones was about all there was to Mal, really; presumably there were still some internal organs in there, but if so they certainly weren't doing anything notable. Siobhan had never really asked. It didn't seem entirely polite.

She had seen him bleed, once, but it wasn't really blood, just something thin and dark that had rapid-fire dried into gray dust and blown away as soon as the sun rose. Maybe that was all there was in Mal, after all. Dust. How very Biblical.

Siobhan reached the middle of the field, or thereabouts, and stopped, taking a moment to settle the limp, thin frame in her arms. Golden late-summer grass stretched out all around them, rustling gently in a tepid breeze. With a squint, she could just about make out the car parked on the road a long way off, but there were no other signs of civilization, and no other people, which was exactly as she wanted it. This was too rare and valuable an opportunity to waste any of it having to deal with people nosing around, asking awkward questions like “why are you carrying a corpse through my field?”

She checked her watch.

“You better be right about this, Mal,” she muttered. “If it turns out I had to smuggle your dead ass all the way out here and back for nothing you're not gonna hear the end of it for a long time.”

Mal said nothing. Of course he didn't. He was dead.

Siobhan sighed.

In actuality, of course, she would do no such thing. In actuality, if this didn't work...

There was no guarantee it would. They'd pored over it together, pooled all their collective knowledge, argued back and forth. She'd been dubious.

“I mean, they're not that rare, really,” she'd said. “It's just rare for them to occur in any one specific place. I'm aware of the world-thinning implications but they're just not that strong. If there were we'd have some serious problems-”

“Exactly,” he'd said, hunched over the table and fiddling with a pencil. It had been two in the morning and Siobhan had been relying on increasingly strong cups of coffee to keep going. Mal, of course, required none. “It's all about location. It doesn't matter to me if an eclipse occurs in China or Wales or Antarctica.” He paused thoughtfully. “I mean...in this specific sense. I'm sure it's very nice for them. But this one is happening where I lived and died.”

“But it isn't!” Siobhan had exclaimed in abject frustration. “You died in, like, New York! Totality isn't anywhere near that! The closest you're going to get is...South Carolina, I think. Did you ever even set foot in South Carolina when you were alive?”

“Not that I can recall,” Mal said, with the irritating calmness of someone who didn't experience sleep deprivation. “But no, it certainly isn't very close, that's why I'm not sure...But it's closer than any other one has been for a while. At least some of it will be over the place where I died. Things like that matter, you know.”

And Siobhan had sighed, because he was right. Things like that did matter. That was the irritating thing about magic, sometimes. It was so...unquantifiable.

Anyway, what was she going to do? Not try it?

But it was a lot of pressure. There was very little room for experimentation. If they got this wrong, another chance wouldn't come around for a while.

Siobhan stood in the field and watched the sky slowly darken, and waited.

It was a simple enough idea, really. Mal was a vampire. He was dead during the day. At night he was...something else.

If you put the two together, you might get something like life.

She had no fear of being tempted to risk her eyes watching the moon cover the sun. She was watching Mal, his pale face in slack repose, waiting for the barest sign, the faintest twitch of life.

Probably this wasn't going to work.

“You've really never tried this before?” she'd asked him.

“The opportunity never really arose,” he'd said.

“There have been other eclipses touching America since you died.”

“Maybe,” he'd said. “But not any other witches I could ask to do this for me.”

The principle was simple, alright. She didn't really even have to do anything. To be a witch was to be a connection, a bridge between different worlds. Everything else was just prestidigitation, for the most part.

The air was cooling noticeably now.

“C'mon, Mal,” she whispered.

The moon blotted out the sun...and something moved under her fingers.

Mal opened his eyes.

Siobhan was so surprised to see this actually work that she almost ruined the moment entirely by dropping him then and there. But she didn't.

“Hey,” she said. “Look at you, awake in the middle of the afternoon.”

He blinked at her a few times, and a slow grin spread across his face. “It worked.”

“Appears so.”

She set him down, gently, and opened the camera bag. Mal looked up.

“You're not supposed to do that,” she said, turning the camera on and fiddling with the settings. “Hurts your eyes.”

“It doesn't hurt mine,” Mal said.

They took a lot of pictures, with several different cameras; no reason to put all their eggs in one basket. Mal kept staring up at the sun with a rapt expression on his face.

“Listen,” he said as she tucked the cameras away. “Even if the pictures don't work. This was worth it.”

Siobhan hefted the bag onto her shoulder and moved over to stand beside him, ready to catch him when he fell. The eclipse was already ending; Mal's cheated time among the living was short. “Well, I'm glad for that, but...it is just a dark field. It's not really anything you couldn't have seen anyway, I wouldn't think-”

“No, no,” Mal said, still looking up. “This is the first time I've seen the sun in two hundred and forty years.”

Mal didn't show up in photographs.

Not in mirrors, either, or in standing water or anything that cast a reflection. Even his shadow tended to be faint and distorted. The world objected to Mal's continued presence in it in defiance of the usual rules, and made its dissatisfaction known through a continual series of quiet, grumbling protests.

Siobhan drove to a motel, laid Mal out on one of the beds, and spent the rest of the afternoon looking through the results of their experiment. Most of the photos hadn't come out any better than any other effort to capture Mal on film; at best they showed a blurry shape that could maybe be interpreted as a human if you already had that in mind.

As the sun set, Mal rose from the dead with very little fanfare and padded over to the desk where Siobhan was sitting with her laptop. “Any luck?”

“Well, the instant film didn't work real well,” she said, showing him the photographs scattered across the desk. “I don't have high hopes for the rest of the film, to be honest.”

“That doesn't surprise me,” Mal said. “Film has too much silver in it. What about the digital?”

“Most of those didn't come back real well either.”

“Ah,” Mal said, then paused. “Most?”

Siobhan opened one of the tabs on the laptop.

It probably wouldn't have qualified as a very good photograph under any circumstances. It was dark, and a bit blurry, and definitely not framed in any kind of professional way. She'd held the camera in one hand and Mal's hand in the other. They'd thought that might be worth a try, an aid in bridging the distance, pulling Mal into the world of the living for just a moment.

The man in the photograph had a sharp, pale face, but not too sharp or too pale. There was a faint blush of color in his cheeks, a softening around the bony edges of his jaw. His hair was pale but not white-blond, and his eyes were a strong, clear blue. He was grinning from ear to ear.

Mal stared at the photograph for a long time.

“That's me,” he said at last.

“It's not just you,” Siobhan said. “It's you alive.”

Mal sat down on the edge of the bed, still looking at the computer. “Have you, uh...is that...the only copy?”

“I have this backed up to fifteen different places so far,” Siobhan said.

“Good. That's...that's good.” Mal shook his head slowly. “But I don't...I might have been up and moving, but I'm pretty sure I would've noticed if I was actually alive, as such, when you took that.”

Siobhan shrugged. “Well,” she said. “Cameras are weird.”

Mal snorted. “Complex thaumaturgical analysis, that.”

“You're right. I should've said, magic is weird.” Siobhan stood up and began repacking the camera bag. “You're driving us back, by the way. I'm beat.”

Mal shook himself and gently closed the laptop lid. “Yeah...yeah, of course.”

“And you're doing it carefully, because I am not dealing with you having to do a breathalyzer test. Not again.”

“That was not my fault,” Mal said haughtily. “That officer was out for blood. So to speak. Anyway, I couldn't help it that my eyes were red.”

They bickered amiably all the way to the car.

“You know,” Siobhan said as Mal fussed with the seat, “there's supposed to be another one in six years. We could study this, figure out what worked. Do it again.”

“Yeah. Yeah, could do,” Mal said. “Definitely worth a shot.”

He paused. “Siobhan?”

“Yeah?”

Mal looked at her, emotions struggling all over his face. “I...I can't really begin to express-”

“Oh, shut up and drive,” she told him.

Mal smiled and started the car.

[chrysanthmilk]

a guide to being death: chapter 6

by staccato

“Death is very, very tired of its Master’s strange wants and whims. This is the last time it does something he wants.”

aka: a apocalypse fix-it, featuring a master of death who has been reincarnated into a winchester. things can only go up from here.

chapter 6: pamela goes blind, but don‘t worry, harry is there to heal her. dean remains unconvinced of castiel’s powers, and challenges him to a gun (and knife!) fight

read it below, or on ao3

*

Harry woke up from his nap when the Impala came to a stop. He stretched, feeling the pop of his bones. “We arrived?”

“Yeah. Come on, imp. Let’s see what this psychic has got for us.”

Pamela Barnes was beautiful, witty, and she was going to die in a few months.

But first, she went blind.

*

The ambulance came quickly. Bobby rode with her to the hospital, while Harry followed along in Bobby’s truck. After he parked, he found Bobby in the waiting room, being questioned by a nurse. She was trying to figure out how Pamela’s injuries came to be, but Bobby avoided answering by speaking rapid Japanese and flailing his arms around. Harry stifled a laugh, and joined him.

The nurse gave up a few minutes later, and they were left to wait in peace.

“I didn’t know you could speak Japanese,” Bobby said, in Japanese.

Harry shrugged, and replied in the same tongue. “It was a boring four months.”

That was true, but that wasn’t when he learned the language. He learned it sometime in the 18th century, when he had been reborn as a peasant farmer. So even though he could speak the language, he couldn’t read or write it. That just hadn’t been a priority for his station in life.

But Bobby didn’t know that, and misunderstood his answer, as Harry had intended for him to do. He squeezed his shoulder, an act of brief comfort, then pulled away.

And, okay, as Harry Winchester, he would have found this acceptable, perhaps even a little too much; but as Harry, the immortal being who had been reincarnated into thousands of lives, it was not. He just insinuated, to his surrogate father no less, that he had learned Japanese to keep busy and avoid thinking about Dean’s death. Shouldn’t he at least get a hug?

But he doubted that this was the best time to open that can of worms, so he kept quiet, fiddling his ring and listening to the angel radio. Castiel seemed to be feeling some smidgen of guilt for burning out an innocent woman’s eyes, and some higher-ups named Zachary was comforting him.

By which he means, Zachary was telling Castiel that humans were nothing more than mud monkeys, who did not deserve an angel’s sympathy.

‘It’s not your fault she foolishly disregarded you warnings and continued with the séance. Really, it was like she was asking to be burnt. And she was being impertinent, anyways, demanding to see your true face.’

‘But…’

‘No buts, Castiel. You’re an angel, she’s a human; we’re superior, and they’re inferior. Do you understand?’

‘…yes, Zachariah. I do.’

Harry closed the connection, shaking his head in silent disgust. And they said angels were supposed to be compassionate.

Why did you leave, Chuck? He wondered. Are you really satisfied with the world, as it is right now? Is it everything you had envisioned?

*

A few hours later, a doctor stepped out, clipboard in hand. “Family of Pamela Barnes?”

He told them that they’ve stabilized her conditions, although it was certain that she’ll never be able to see again. She had been moved out of ICU, and can accept visitors, but only one is allowed in the room at a time.

Bobby went in first, while Harry called his brothers to tell them the good news. The two of them had stayed behind, cleaning away any evidence of the séance. Judging by the sound in the background, they had now relocated to a diner.

“I think we’ll leave pretty soon,” he said. “Save me a milkshake, won’t you?”

“You bet,” Sam said, with the tone of someone who had absolutely no intention of doing so, and hung up.

Well, he was the health nut of this family.

Soon, Bobby came out, and Harry slipped inside. Pamela was lying in the middle of a hospital bed, pale-skinned and weak, nothing like the feisty woman he’d just met, half a day prior. A roll of bandages had been wrapped around her skull, covering her eyes. She jolted when she heard the door open.

“Is that you again, Bobby?” She called.

“No, it’s me. Harry.”

“What do you want?” She asked, words tinted with bitterness. Harry doesn’t blame her. She wouldn’t have lost her eyesight if it weren’t for them.

“I just wanted to apologize,” he said, “and to see if I could fix things.”

Pamela scoffed. “You certainly can’t make things worse.”

Harry moved forward, stopping mere inches from her bed. He raised his hands, hovering them above her eyes, and murmured a spell. Somethings were capital-F fated, which means if he messed with it, he’ll draw attention to the divergence and thus, himself. But her blindness wasn’t—if she had just backed off when Castiel asked, she would have been fine—so Harry healed her.

(He’d even corrected her eyesight, because why not? The woman was going to die in a few months. For putting up with their shit, she deserved to live the rest of her life in 20/20 vision.)

Immediately, Pamela gasped, hands flying up to her face and unraveling the bandages. She blinked rapidly, trying to adjust to the harsh fluorescent lighting. “What…? How did you—what the hell are you, boy?”

Harry shrugged, tucking his hands into his jean pockets. “Well, I’m not a demon, if that was what you were worried about. But you would have known that already, right?”

She studied him, gaze roving from the soles of his shoes to the wispy strands of his hair. “You definitely don’t feel like a demon…and even a demon wouldn’t have been able to do that. It wouldn’t have wanted to, either. But then…”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, with an exaggerated wink. “For now, why don’t you just think of me as someone with a little extra juice, trying to protect my brothers and fix their mistakes?”

“Do they know?” She pressed. “Does Bobby know?”

“It’s just between you and me for now, love,” he paused, and cocked his head. “Of course, if it’s too big of a secret for you to handle, I can erase your memories.”

She shook her head, shifting away as much as she could, as if an extra feet of space could deter him. “No, no, no, that won’t be necessary. You don’t need to do that, I can keep quiet. I owe you one, right? For the eyes?”

“Sure,” Harry agreed, even as he discretely wiggled his fingers. Now, if she tried to speak of this to anyone, she’ll suddenly find herself mute, though that would only last a day. Still, it’s a neat little spell, just in case someone decided torture the information out of her. After all, this was bigger than things that go bump in the night. Angels and demons were involved, and he knew better than to underestimate either of them. “Well, I’m glad we could reach an agreement, love. Bobby and I will take our leave now. We’ll try not to bother you again.”

“Wait!” she cried out, just as his hands closed around the doorknob. “Do you know…that thing I summoned…do you know what Castiel is?”

“Of course I do,” Harry said, not turning around. “But the less you know, the better off you’ll be. Have a good day, Ms. Barnes.”

*

Harry had no idea what happened between the phone call and them arriving at the motel, but whatever it was, it couldn’t have been good. Because when Bobby pulled up in the parking lot, Castiel was yelling at Dean, trying to tell him that Sam had returned to the diner to kill the demons. Unfortunately, all Dean heard is static and high-pitched ringing, so Castiel was forced to stop, frustrated. Bobby and Harry burst into the room just as the last of the mirrors exploded.

(They were kicked out of the motel, obviously.)

This must have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, though, because Dean announced that he was going to try and summon Castiel. Or, as he knows him, a super powerful, supernatural creature capable of pulling someone out of hell, terrifying the demons, and burning out eyes. He has no guarantee that Castiel won’t harm him at first sight, nor does he have a way of defending himself from such attacks.

And he still wanted to summon him.

What. An. Idiot.

Bobby obviously agreed, peering at Ruby’s knife doubtfully. But like Harry, he also doesn’t want anyone else to be hurt, so he relented, directing his truck to an empty warehouse on the outskirt of town.

“We could really use Sam on this, Dean,” Harry suggested from the backseat.

“Nah, he’ll just try to stop us. He’s better off where he is.”

Well, Harry knew that wasn’t true, but he also didn’t want to explain how he knew, so he kept quiet, twisting his ring.

This time, Dean noticed, zeroing in on the action through the rear view mirror. “Didn’t know you were into jewelries, Henry. Where did you get that from?”

“An old friend gave it to me,” Harry said. “Supposedly, it can bring back the souls of the dead.”

“Oh,” Dean said, and Harry suddenly realized the implication behind his words. He thought about backtracking, about claiming that he never tried to summon Dean’s soul, but he wasn’t sure Dean would believe him.

“Well,” Bobby said, interjecting false cheer into his tone. “At least if this turns out to be a disaster, I can bring you back to kill you again.”

*

It was a disaster.

Harry had presumed that, since Castiel didn’t mean to do Dean any harm, the encounter would go smoothly. They’ll have a chit-chat, Castiel will explain and apologize for his mistakes, and then inform Dean of his role in the upcoming apocalypse. They will part ways, somewhat peacefully.

What a stupid presumption.

The problem began after Bobby completed the ritual, and all them stood back, hands on their respective weapons, waiting for him to appear.

And waited. And waited. And waited.

Harry glanced at the ritual circle, frowning. Bobby definitely did the ritual right, so why wasn’t Castiel responding? Wasn’t he the one who tried to reach out to Dean in the first place?

He tuned into the Radio, and immediately received his answers.

‘…leave a good impression on him.’

‘But I have already impressed my handprint on his arm. Is that not enough?’

‘No, no, it’s a different kind of impress. You want him to like you, right?’

‘It would be an honor to be favored by the Righteous Man.’

‘Exactly, which is why you got to make a cool entrance, okay?’

‘What is this “cool entrance” you speak of? How do I make it?’

Harry left the conversation, biting his cheeks to stop from bursting into laughter. It seemed like they were going to be waiting for a while. He abandoned his spot beside the ritual circle, and jumped up to sit on one of the tables. His gun was returned to its holster.

Dean and Bobby gave him disapproving looks, but eventually, both of them gave in, joining him on the tables. They swung their legs back and forth silently, chocked by the anticipation in the air.

Harry was the first to break. He hopped off the table and headed for the door, waving a pack of cigarette as an explanation. The other two moved to stop him, but he was gone because they could speak.

Leaning against the side of the warehouse, Harry lit up a stick, inhaling and exhaling the smoke gratefully. He had been trying to quit but, fuck, this day had been very, very stressful. Besides, he’s the Master of Death. What’s a cigarette going to do, kill him?

And, because he had been looking up at the bright sky, he saw a sight he was never going to forget.

One second, there had been nothing above the warehouse; in the next, a figure appeared, large wings extending from his back. Harry expected Castiel to land on the roof, perhaps survey the area before entering.

He didn’t.

Instead, he stumbled in mid-flight, rolling down the slanted roof until the concrete gave up, and fell straight down to the ground with a thump.  

Harry gaped.

A second later, Castiel stood up, cocking his head in the direction of the warehouse.

“Why couldn’t I get through?” he muttered to himself, but the night was quiet enough that Harry overheard the words.

He blinked.

Oh.

Castiel must have intended to fly through roof and land straight into the ritual circle, which, to be fair, would have been quite the ‘cool’ entrance. Unfortunately, Bobby had come across an angel-warding sigil in one of his books, though neither he nor the author knew its purpose. Still, he had painted it on the walls, which prevented Castiel from phasing through like he had intended. Instead, he had been tripped up by the ward, and fallen.

Once he and Castiel become friends, Harry was going to give him so much shit for this.

For now, though, he simply wiggled his fingers. The ward disappeared. Castiel frowned harder when he registered the change.

“Whatever,” he said at last, almost petulantly, and blasted the warehouse doors open. He sauntered forward, and the sound of shotguns firing filled the air.

Harry vanished his cigarette—he knew better than to litter, considering the state this planet was already in—and rushed in behind Castiel, who was now looking down at Ruby’s knife in a bemusement. Ruby’s knife, which had been jammed into his heart.

Oh, Dean.

Unconcerned, Castiel pulled it out, letting it drop to the ground with a clatter. The wound healed immediately, and Dean stared, shocked. Bobby, however, jumped into action, swinging a crowbar at Castiel’s head. But Castiel caught it without looking, using the momentum to swing himself around. He touched Bobby’s forehead with two fingers, and sent him to sleep.

Wow, Harry thinks, not even bothering to bring out his gun. That was very, very cool.

“We need to talk, Dean,” Castiel said. “Alone.”

Unwittingly, Dean’s gaze flickered to over his shoulders. Castiel followed his line of sight, to where Harry was standing by the doors. There was the sound of wings fluttering, and Castiel disappeared from view.

“What the hell?” Dean whispered.

Too late, Harry realized what Castiel was planning to do. But by then, Castiel had already landed in front of him, fingers extended to brush against his temple. Unprepared, Harry’s awareness shut down, and he crumpled to the ground, asleep.

*

[jackblankhsh]

Why I Quit:  Hotel Concierge

When I took the job at the hotel I expected something more glamorous.  The day I arrived for work, finding in the parking lot a naked man in Santa beard and cap beating a pimp with a sock full of batteries – I suspected the description related over the phone might not have been accurate.

 The pool did not resemble a glittering sapphire.  Rather, it seemed to be a kidney shaped mound of dirt dotted by several tombstones for pets.  The complex of hotel suites, a hive of rooms in a horseshoe, suggested a building could get addicted to meth, suffering all the adverse physical side effects associated with such; graffiti tattooed brick; an odd implicative assortment of vehicles in the lot, from high end luxury SUVs to rust bucket sedans; occasional whiffs of fresh mint stabbing through a miasma of weed, piss, and compost… part of me wondered if somewhere in Chicago a more regal establishment existed, its own nefarious history passed on to this place like some architectural Portrait of Dorian Grey.  

 A simpler, less mystical explanation would be the Breeze Inn used to be a fine place once upon a time, but that era existed decades ago.  Before superhighways, every city owned specific streets operating as the main thoroughfares into downtown.  Other businesses gravitated to these veins, feeding off the steady flow of tourists and traveling professionals; eventually falling into the slow decay that followed the arrival of quicker, more direct routes stabbing the heart of the city.  

 Plus, gone are the days of a traveling salesperson, retiring from the road to rest in a quiet motel.  Now they arrive, and dart straight from the airport to appointments.  Whether successful or not, the modern professionals then depart – here and gone the same day – red eye on to the next opportunity. There’s no need to slip back to ersatz comforts, raiding the mini-bar on the company dime, celebrating victory, or taking the edge off failure, either way numbing to the fact they’re miles from home.  Cloisters of lonely itinerant professionals – maybe such places were always meant to die. However, it’s a slow death that the manager seemed eager to pay someone to witness.  So I settled in for the moribund days of the Breeze Inn.  

 #

 I helped Butterscotch shovel ice from the bin into a large trash bag.  She held the bag open, while I scooped in bucket loads.  

 “I tell you man, I tell you I hate this fucking guy, but he pays good,” Butterscotch said.

 Making small talk, “I wouldn’t be too comfortable with him either.”

 “I mean like it’s easy and all.  Alls I gotta do is fill the bathtub with ice, soak there a few, and lie on the bed. Don’t gotta move, or do nothing, while he does his thing.  It’s easy.”

 “And it pays good,” I said.

 “Yes, it does.” A look flashed across her eyes like a deer missing its chance to escape headlights.  Butterscotch shrugged, “Beats what I used to do.”

 “What was that?” Seeing the bag mostly full I closed the ice bin.

 “Hotel clerk,” she laughed, “I’m just playin’.”

 Chuckling too, “I know.  Have you a good time Butter.”

 She hoisted the bag over her shoulder, “You too Connie.”

 I’d long since stopped trying to correct the permanent residents.  About a week in, attempting to jazz up my job, I began referring to myself as the hotel concierge.  This resulted in customers referring to me as Connie.  

 Back in the front office I found a group of bleary eyed teens.  College kids on their first road trip, they stopped at the Breeze Inn because they couldn’t afford anywhere else.  

 The boy who fancied himself in charge, upon seeing me, angrily rang the desk bell.  I walked around, and removed the bell from the counter.

 Smiling, “How may I help you?”

 “Last night… we got no sleep.  Someone tried to break into our room.  I braced the door with a chair, and spent the whole night holding a Bible to bash whoever burst in.”

 Shocked that a room still possessed a whole Bible – guests tended to use the pages as rolling papers – I remarked, “Well, if they really wanted to break in they’d’ve probably smashed the window.  That’s happened before.”

 Looking confused the boy said, “What?  Seriously, dude, we want our money back.”

 “Dude, did you spend the night in the room?”

 He glared, “Yeah. So what?”

 I replied, “So read the sign.”

 I pointed. The group collectively turned to find a bare wall.  By the time they turned back, I held a bat wrapped with barbed wire, “You spent the night. You don’t get shit.”

 Slowly the pack of children receded to their car.  On the way out a young lady dressed like a burnt out trucker shouted, “I’m giving this place the worst review.  Zero stars!”

 Mathematically speaking that might actually improve our standing.  However, I felt no need to tell her that.  Those kids didn’t yet understand that for the low, low price of fifty dollars they experienced a story they could tell the rest of their lives. Some pay more for less.  

 Yet, I didn’t have much time to reflect on such things.  Taking the bat in hand I hurried to room 207.  At three on the dot, every afternoon, a thin envelope peeked out from under the door.  It contained enough cash for one more night, paid daily since 1987.  The manager suspected vampires resided inside.  I saw no reason to doubt that.  All I knew, if I didn’t get to the money first some resident would snatch the cash.  Sure enough, stepping onto the landing I saw Willy the Goat idling towards 207.

 Pointing with the bat, “Get away from there Willy.”

 “Fuck you, Connie, I ain’t doin’ nothing.”  Tucking his hands into his pockets, their greasiness darkening the fabric from the inside out, Willy stomped away.

 Collecting the envelope I glanced inside, a blood stained twenty, and several crinkled, gutter plucked ones.  Slipping it in a back pocket, I decided to tour the rooms quickly.  At open doors I paused to knock politely, peer in, and inquire if anyone needed anything.  

 Room 213 needed her dick sucked.  Room 108 wanted a bowl of fingernails.  Room 201 required nothing, emphasizing the fact by pointing a gun; I backed away from the nine year old girl slowly.  For the most part guests needed fresh towels, needles, and bandages, the usual assortment of necessities at the Breeze Inn; what I could handle myself, I did, delegating other responsibilities to Isabella, the head maid.  

 Isabella maintained the Breeze Inn with a stoicism rivaled by stone.  She slips into a room, tap-tap-tapping her key softly, “Housekeeping,” upon seeing a junkie on the bed, she checks the pulse.  Finding none, she flags a few strays, runaway dusthead punk rock kids failing proudly.  For the promise of a free night’s rent they drag the body to a nearby dumpster, and pitch it – out of sight, out of mind.  Tap-tap-tapping, she finds a shit coiled like soft serve ice cream in the middle of the floor.  She cleans the mess without so much as a sigh; however, should the guest return she walks casually by.  Using a knitting needle she exacts a piquerist vengeance, stabbing deep into a butt cheek.  The other two maids, a pair of ladies I’m sure should be in high school – though the education here is better than a degree – take orders in brusque Spanish. At the end of the day I pay her cash, wondering why she always smells like coconut – obviously a cream, or perfume, but why that scent exactly – I never ask because she seems the kind of person who’ll tell you what you need to know when she feels you need the info.  Then the three maids depart together in a wood panel station wagon, leaving me alone for the evening.

 #

 Every hotel possesses at least one ghost.  And frankly, given the amount of suicides, deaths, and murders which occurred here, the Breeze Inn surprising only possessed one.  Interestingly enough, though, it’s one of the more famous Chicago specters.

 On weekends, several ghost tours rolled by the hotel.  Passengers pressed their faces to windows, ogling the location, though never daring to set foot off the bus.  Seated on a chair outside the lobby, smoking and sipping whiskey, I could hear the static cracked recitation of tour guides.  The blather all sounded the same:  “This (hiss) The Breeze Inn (crack-hiss) once a premiere Lincoln Avenue stop (hiss-hiss) ’s what you see now.  In December 1980, this is where…”

 The story is myth. For those few who don’t recall, whatever reasons why, the bare facts start in December 1980, a legendary musician stopped for the weekend.  His band used to stay at the Breeze Inn as part of superstition, having stayed there during the early days touring on pennies in a van more likely to breakdown than arrive on time.  So, whenever in Chicago, he insisted on staying there.  Coming back from a radio interview the musician saw a fan waiting by the room.  The musician reached for a pen.  The fan reached for a gun.  The musician went to sign an autograph, and the fan shot.  The musician died.  The fan claimed to be an angel sent to make the musician immortal.  Like I said the rest is myth, the “real” why debated always since the plain truth is too unpalatable – lunatics don’t need reason to do crazy shit.  

 Soon as the bus pulled away, cameras flashing, the ghost peers out of the office, “They gone?”

 “Yep,” I say, cracking two beers, “Whiskey slug?”

 (Whiskey slug: personal slang for whiskey double.)

 Taking a seat next to me he says, “No thanks Connie.  I don’t feel like getting too strange this evening.”

 #

 “Hello.”

 “How do you do ma’am?”

 “I have cancer.”

 I nodded, “Not well then.”

 She smiled like a kindergarten teacher comforting a kid with a skinned knee, “I’d like a room.”

 “Okay. Sorry to be blunt, but I find it’s easier, um; there’s a thirty dollar additional fee applied to any guest we suspect is planning to, well…”

 “Suicide?”

 “Yeah.”

 “Actually, it’s a little more complicated than that.”

 #

 Marissa Oak explained things clearly, leaving no doubt as to her state of mind, intentions, or willingness to be dissuaded.  She intended to rent a room for two months.  Her doctor prophesized she would not last longer than one, but on the off chance she lived more, and for any inconvenience, she felt obliged to pay two in advance.  During that time she planned to stay in her room, allowing anyone who wished to visit her to spend however long they wished.  

 I asked, “Is it a kind of performance art?”

 She shrugged, “In a way.  More than anything else I just want some company.”

 Filling out her forms – writing somewhat escaped her since the cancer got to her brain – I asked, “What about family and friends?”

 “They’ll be here. But I kind of want new strangers too. It’s like Wilde said, something like the beauty of new friends is they don’t know the old stories.”

 “Do you have dinner plans?”

 She patted my hand, “Don’t be a cliché.”

 “Well, on that note, do you have any drugs?”

 She looked at me sidewise, “Morphine.”

 “We got junkies here.  Be careful. They’ll steal it.” I furrowed my brow, “Shit.”

 “What?” Marissa asked.

 “If you attract a crowd that means worse than junkies, fucking tourists.”

 She chuckled. I didn’t.

 #

 I swung the barbed wire bat, “Back!  Back you savages!”  

 Everyday droves of tourists arrived.  None seemed familiar with the concept of a line.  Whenever they scattered into something nebulous, the horde pushing in to watch Marissa die, I herded them back into formation with the bat.  The manager and I worked in tandem, taking turns herding and performing typical Breeze Inn duties.  When she could, Isabella lent a hand, her glare pushing the crowd from chaos to order.  

 It took three days for things to truly get out of hand.  By then news crews began arriving, spreading the word, reports drawing more and more spectators.  Members of her family did the same, dispersing word online.  Marissa wanted the company of strangers, well, she got it.

 Folks came from as far as Orlando to sit with her.  Some chatted, conversations ranging from the mundane to grasping at the profound. Others arrived to tout holistic cures Marissa politely declined.  Some stood silently, and left as quietly.  She welcomed all with a smile.  Those who held out a hand to shake she hugged.  Some kept a respectful distance, I suspected to hide their discomfort touching a wax wrapped skeleton.  Still others came to defeat accusations of pretention by leeching off Marissa’s death to seem deeper; I remember a twig like woman lying on the bed with Marissa, cuddling while the twig’s friend recorded them.  I wanted to smash the camera, but somehow sensing the intention, Marissa suggested by a subtle expression I leave them alone.  So I did.  She didn’t see what I saw -- #Idiedwithher.  She saw something positive I can’t relate because I couldn’t perceive it well enough to describe.  

 When she slept many left.  Others set up a tent city in the parking lot.  The manager, seizing on the opportunity, charged ten bucks per tent occupant.  They paid. It felt obscene, yet I still collected the cash every evening.  Though, that said, I skimmed a few off the top to bribe the worst junkies.  

 Hand a ten, “Leave her drugs alone.”

 “Whatev’s Connie. Jeez.  Acting like I’m some fucking scumbag.  I don’t rob the dead.”

 But you would. Who wouldn’t?  It’s not like they can stop you.

 By the third week Marissa couldn’t get out of bed.  She could barely speak, often just able to force a kind of gargle-cluck.  Her eyes appeared to go in and out of focus.

 The tourists stopped flooding in.  Many who stayed aimed all manner of camera at her, streaming her decline in real time.

 “We’re with her now…”

 No, you’re not, I thought, but remembering her glances I respected what would’ve been Marissa’s wishes.  I let them be.  

 Off duty hookers brought her water.  I remember Butterscotch laying a cold cloth on Marissa’s forehead.  She said, “This is how my mama died.  She went in a better place than this shit hole.  You know what I mean, right Connie?”

 “Yeah, Butter, I hear ya.”

 Towards the end the news crews departed, though reporters called regularly to see if Marissa died.  They shot enough stock footage they just needed to know when to say the end occurred. The tourists mostly left.  Even the hashtag allstars fled as reality crept in. What few remained occupied the parking lot wondering what to do next.  

 Meanwhile, in room 105 Marissa lay dying.  Her family and friends surrounded the bed.  Her breathing came irregularly, inspiring the guilty desire she die now, for her own good as well as theirs.  I stood in the doorway watching.  

 The manager approached, “Hey, Connie, since shit’s calmed down a bit, the usual stuff needs to get done.”

 Crossing my arms, “And what?”

 “And you need to do it.”

 “You’re saying I need to do my job, not be here.”

 He nodded, “Yeah.”

 “Then I quit.”

 A few hours later Marissa breathed her last.  When I walked away I saw the hookers on the second floor holding junkie candles in a vigil. The tent town broke up quickly, washed away on a flood of tears.  I saw Marissa’s younger brother disappear into 216, a heroin black hole he’d been orbiting.    

 In the office I collected my last few day’s pay.  The phone rang.  I answered.

 “Hello?”

 “This is channel {redacted for legal reasons}.  Is she dead yet?”

 Looking out the front I saw Marissa taking a seat next to the Musician.  He handed her a beer.  She smiled at me, and waved.

 I said, “Nope. She’s gonna live forever.”