#then two days later ford shows up and is just like. what the ACTUAL F*CK IS HAPPENING???

[krysmcscience]

Don't mind me, just slacking on a big Billford comic by making other far more ridiculous Billford comics and also some AU art (please excuse my slapdash human!Bill thank you please, also before anyone asks the art style is messy and all over the place because idgaf LOL)

This started out as an excuse to design a Bill Cipher-inspired "wedding" dress, but then spiraled wildly out of control. Various rambles and a bunch more human!Bill arts under the cut, including another silly little comic at the end! (Feel free to skip the rambles, I won't be offended. I know I'm bad at shutting up. XD)

I may or may not write some comedy stuff for this AU, which I'm calling 'For Better Or Worse (But Mostly Worse)'. While Ford DOES remember getting sloshed enough for one thing to lead to making out with another after karaoke, neither he nor Bill remember this wedding, At All. The Love God did nothing to dissuade them from going hog wild on their marriage spending, either, so it got...uh. Exorbitantly Expensive. As in, the grand total could probably buy the entire fucking MOON sort of expensive. (It's fine, don't worry, Bill's good enough at crime to be able to afford it.) Also, because the logic of this AU is mostly dictated by Rule of Funny, the Love God's powers are close to unlimited when it comes to matters of romance, but ONLY when it comes to matters of romance. (Like weddings!)

Want an empty human vessel to smash the soul of a triangle into for date nights or when it's convenient, or perhaps even when it's NOT convenient? Easy peasy! Want the marriage to be recognized in every corner of the multiverse from now until the end of time, thus making any potential future divorce nigh-on impossible? Can do! Want to buy an entire beach for the ceremony and honeymoon and in general, and totally not at all because it would be Super Hilarious to prevent any specific movies from being made on that very same beach in the future? Fine, whatever, it's not his finances he's ruining!

Does the Love God also provide special rings that just so happen to turn incorporeal as long as the "happy couple" doesn't remember that they barged into his dreams to bully him into presiding over their marriage? ...No comment!

He spends the next thirty years trying and failing to get in touch with either of them for payment. This is why you should always demand half the money up front, my guy!

Also it's absolutely a traditional Jewish wedding, because I like the idea of Bill demanding all the keepsakes from the marriage that he paid for, and being completely confused when one of the things he's handed is a fancy container full of broken glass. He gets it later, but in the moment, he thinks the Love God is just fucking with him some more.

Ramble over! Here's the full dress that caused the comic to happen, along with what Ford wound up wearing at the wedding (and begrudgingly agreeing to put on again later for Reasons), aaaaand also a close-up of Bill's ring:

I may have forgotten to draw Bill's hair floofier when drawing the back of the dress, lmao

Since double ring ceremonies have been leaking over into Jewish wedding customs for a while now, Ford also has a ring, but his is the much more traditional plain gold band. There's definitely a message engraved on the inside - embarrassing, cringe, or incriminating somehow - but I haven't decided what it is yet, so use your imagination for now. XD Bill, on the other hand, saw the phrase 'traditional plain gold band' and said "No Thank You" before proceeding to embellish his ring to his liking. And because he's a secret sap who adores Ford's extra fingers, the triangle points add up to twelve, as do the engraved stars. Yes, they're stars, not dots, I just got lazy. There's also six lashes on the eye gem, and probably an eye engraving on the inside with another six lashes. (Bill's got it BAD, okay? We all know this.)

Here are the initial scribbles of Bill's custom vessel in more casual attire, please ignore the wonky anatomy and the fact that I flat out refuse to ever draw him with a proper top hat:

He does actually need a cane in this vessel; since Bill tends to possess men and especially Ford more often than not, he's used to having a higher center of gravity when in a human body, so his ability to balance is pretty garbage. (He may or may not topple over with concerning regularity.) As for his empty eye socket, his bangs don't do much to hide it since he's so high-energy (dude is constantly on the move), and he also refuses to wear a patch over it, because 1.) why bother, and 2.) it's more fun to freak people out.

To better align with Ford's attraction towards the strange, the vessel was designed with super minor shapeshifting ability - Bill can look like a perfectly normal human, but he can also make the teeth and fingers sharper whenever he likes (which is mostly just when he's angry or being more of a menace than usual), as well as slit down the pupils or outright ditch the irises altogether. He can also have whatever he wants in the downstairs department, just because I'm an indecisive bitch on that front, lmao. Maybe he can have boobs if he wants them, too, but I ain't drawin' tits on no triangle, nuh-uh, no sir. His powers are otherwise limited down to what humans can do, because for some reason, the Love God doesn't trust Bill to not snap into Immediate Apocalypse Mode if he's given a physical form that's actually all his and no one else's.

Due to the body being all his and no one else's, it's also not really a standard possession so much as it is just...Bill being temporarily human. He's a lot more aware of and in tune with his human body's senses than he ever was with his "puppets", which makes things like pain a lot more intense. (He is mostly fine with this, because he's a fukken masochist.)

A bit more fashion stuff, including beach and party attire~

The beach outfit was mostly me trying and failing to nail down his body shape, which is still not bottom-heavy enough. I then decided to slap a bikini on it, before making it supremely unsexy with a pair of fugly shorts, because Bill's fashion choices are not allowed to be conventionally attractive. Meanwhile, the party outfit was mostly me looking at the casual attire I designed, asking 'how would Bill make this Worse', and then drawing the result. The mismatched thigh-highs are killing me inside! :D

No, his vessel can't actually summon fire, I just drew it for funzies before I decided on said vessel's limitations. Yes, the gold brick tattoos are absolutely a reference to the fic 'Knowing Me, Knowing You' - I simply could not resist.

I also HAD to draw Bill in one of his canonical(?) shirts, just made tank-top'd:

He is absolutely about to over-correct and fall backwards after this. USE YOUR CANE, GOOFBALL!!! (I meant to draw Bill closer to this degree of bottom-heavy in the other images, but. Alas. I am bad at anatomy, LOL)

And, last but not least before More Comic Time, I attempted to draw him closer to Gravity Falls style:

Jury's out on whether or not I succeeded, but - hey. I tried. Now have some Handyman Bill AU, but with my goofy human design, instead:

Hey, it's a 'mystery snack', and the guy wanted A BITE to eat - the joke was right there, guys!!! (Based on this post, because it just screamed BILL CIPHER to me.)

whoops i forgor bills ring and cracks ahaha too late now

I WILL SHUT UP AND STOP RAMBLING NOW K THX BYYYYYE

[ficsilike-reblogged]

Invisible Smoke - Four

Summary: There is something going on with Jake’s favorite mechanic. And he doesn’t run.

Pairing: Jake “Hangman” Seresin/F!Reader (No Y/N)

Word Count: 10.9k

ABSOLUTELY NO MINORS ALLOWED

A/N: I do not keep a tag list!! Life is still weird but thank you all for sticking with this little story of mine. I really appreciate all the kind words you sent on the last chapter. Only one more chapter to go!

Warnings: Naval inaccuracies, stalking, bodily injury, domestic abuse, and unhealthy coping mechanisms. Also, Jake is a (stubborn) simp.

Someone had slashed your tires.

Well, you shouldn’t say someone. You knew who had done it. It didn’t exactly take a doctorate to read the context clues—but you were pretty sure your insurance would drop you if you put in another claim, so you begrudgingly prepared to pay the hefty towing fee to the nearest tire shop and fork over even more cash for four new tires. This was one of the few times you wished your little bungalow actually had a garage. And god, you were so tired of this. So tired of the mind games he thought he was playing with you. He thought he was clever. But it was all just so repetitive. You had half a mind to just wait, out in the open, to let him do what he wanted just so it would be over.

It had only been two days since the dog fight football game and the following get together at the Hard Deck. Two days since you caught Jake’s eye at the water’s edge and felt your entire chest twist. He knew now. He knew what you were hiding.

You hadn’t been able to read the look in his eyes but Bradley had taken you aside before you slipped away for the night and basically told you that Jake, for better or for worse, was wanting and willing to help. “Give him a chance, Punch. Don’t you think he deserves that, at least? And you deserve to be happy.”

“When did you become a fortune cookie, Bradley?”

But you wanted to believe him. You did.

But Luke had made you glaringly aware that you weren’t really capable of having a relationship aside from a handful of hours with someone who’d forget your name by morning. You had expected to feel some sort of relief in knowing that Jake hadn’t wanted to wash his hands of you after learning about Luke, but all it did was make you feel like you were painting an even larger target on Jake’s back. He really did want to play hero, didn’t he?

You pushed the thought away as you texted Natasha, telling her you’d be late for brunch and she was quick to tell you not to worry about the tow, she’d send one of the boys to get you to the tire shop. You were expecting Bob and his reliable GMC; he’d been invited to brunch as well anyway.

But a familiar Ford F-250 pulled up instead and Jake stepped out of the cab, looking like a GQ model in a tight Henley and jeans that hugged his thighs a little too well to be fair. He looked at your car and your destroyed tires for just a moment before turning his gaze to you. Your heart gave an answering leap but you tried to not let it show and rolled your shoulders back as he took wide strides toward you.

“Did he do anything else? Did you check your windows-”

“You shouldn’t be here.” The words tumbled out of your mouth before you could even pretend to think of a more polite greeting.

Jake arched an eyebrow before setting his hands on his hips. “Well, that’s just too damn bad, Punch. I am here and I’m not leaving until you tell me what's going on. Now, did anything else happen?”

You wanted to send him away. Wanted to keep him safe. But he was here. He was here and looking at you with those stupidly beautiful green eyes. “It’s just the tires,” you muttered, giving in. At least in this regard. You could handle everything else later.

Jake’s mouth set in a thin line before he moved to look at your tires again. He dug at one of the tears, the edge of his finger easily passing through the ruined rubber. “Jesus.”

Perhaps you should have been surprised when he turned back to the bed of his truck and pulled out a tire and then another and another until four new tires were stacked neatly beside your car. But you had a feeling Jake would always be three steps ahead of you. Infuriating.

“Please tell me you didn’t buy me new tires.”

“All right. I won’t tell you that.”

“Seresin, you can’t be serious. Tell me how much I owe you.”

Jake leaned forward just enough to steal the keys from your hands and popped open your trunk before handing them back. “I don’t want your money.”

“Well, that’s too fucking bad,” you retorted as you followed him to the back of your car. “Tires are expensive! I can afford it. Just let me pay you! You’re already saving me money by not making me take a tow truck. And I might actually make it to brunch on time because of you, too. If you don’t give me an amount, I’ll have to guess.”

Jake moved the mat in your trunk and found your jack and tire iron and then gently grasped your hand that you’d set on the lip of your trunk and moved it before closing it. He then tugged you closer with that damn dimpled smirk and stared down at you with his stupid green eyes. “I’m not taking your money.”

“I will shove money into your pockets at the most inopportune moments and ruin every conquest you set your eyes on.”

But the threat fell flat as Jake’s smirk widened. “So, you’re planning on sticking your hands down my pants…repeatedly?”

Heat washed over you in an angry wave and you pulled your hands out from under his with a grimace instead of a snarl. “Only you would say something like that.”

His smirk continued as he stepped back and set the jack beneath your car and started to twist. “I’m not taking your money.”

“I’m paying for your drinks at the Hard Deck forever.”

“No.”

As he twisted the jack, your eyes were drawn (inevitably) to how his sleeves strained with his moving muscles. That shirt was fighting for its life and you were ogling him like a piece of meat (again). This whole situation was ridiculous! The man who’d tried to kill you twice had slashed your tires and you were flirting (possibly, maybe) with Jake like you didn’t have a care in the world. All of this was wrong. And incredibly stupid.

“Whatever. I’ll do what I want,” you lamely replied, hoping it sounded stronger than it felt.

“I’m sure you will, Punch.” Each word was dripping with something you couldn’t and wouldn’t name and you hated that Jake was able to easily have you smiling when he was there to fix a problem you created.

The tires were changed out within an hour and you invited Jake inside for a glass of water and asked if he wanted to tag along to brunch, it was the last you could do, right?

“I wouldn’t want to intrude-”

“You’re not intruding. Bob’ll be there, too.” The brunch had been an impromptu plan anyway, cobbled together while you’d worked on Natasha and Bob’s jet and listened to Maverick and Cyclone berate the Top Gun students who had started another fight on the tarmac (apparently having learned nothing from the dog fight football games). You’d just been happy your pilots hadn’t been caught in the crossfire this time.

Jake looked at you over his half-finished glass of water and you had to keep yourself from shrinking away from his gaze. His glass clinked against the linoleum as he finished and you tried not to notice how he licked his lips free of the last few droplets of water. “So?” You pushed out, trying to keep your voice level. “Wanna come along?”

Jake’s silence turned at something in your stomach and Bradley’s not-at-all true observation was echoing at the back of your mind before Jake’s smirk returned. “You’re going to try to pay for brunch, aren’t you?”

You hadn’t even thought about it but… “Well, I invited you, so-”

“No.”

You groaned, snatching the glass from him and setting it in your dishwasher as Jake chuckled behind you. “You’re being a child.”

Jake rounded the corner, pushing further into the kitchen behind you, and crossed his arms over his chest (and no you weren’t looking at his arms again). “Why won’t you let me do anything nice for you?”

You frowned and matched his stance and crossed your arms, too. “I let you do nice things. You came with me to Junior’s party with me.”

“After you drove me there and tried to have me take credit for your gift and you introduced me to that group of brass to help me with my career.”

“That was a coincidence.”

“But you still did it.” He stepped closer and you hated that it was instinctual to take a step back, too. “Want to tell me why everything I do for you has to be reciprocal?”

That wasn’t the question you were expecting and your fingernails dug into the meat of your arm as you tried to keep your face neutral. “There’s give and take to everything. And I… You should just let me pay you.”

“I’m not gonna let you pay me, Punch. And you’re going to learn that not everything is a give and take. Who taught you that, anyway?”

God. You hated this. You hated these questions and the soft look in his eyes. “Does it matter?”

“Of course it matters,” Jake scoffed.

“Why?”

You could see Jake’s jaw clench, tendons working and tightening. But as quickly as it started, it stopped. He just shook his head and the tense silence in the kitchen continued to stretch until it was finally broken by Jake’s next question. “Are we ever going to talk about it?”

And you knew what he was asking. And you wanted to hate that he was connecting dots that you had tried to erase. “What is there to say? You know everything now.”

“I heard it from Rooster, not you. It is your story, Punch.”

“Rooster knows it just as well as I do, I think,” you muttered with a shrug, trying not to shrink away from him. “What else is there for you to know?”

Jake stepped forward, enveloping you in the scent of his expensive cologne and tinge of jet fuel that seemed to cling to him as he closed the distance to stand at your side and brush his arm against yours. “I want to know everything. Haven’t I told you that?”

You gnawed at your lip for a moment before stepping away from the counter. “I don’t know what you want me to say. Luke was an asshole then and he’s an asshole now. I should’ve seen the signs, I get that. I do. But he was so good when he wanted to be. And after being an afterthought for most of my life, it was nice to pretend that someone was choosing me.” This was just pathetic. Stop talking. Stop talking. If he hadn’t thought of washing his hands of you before, he was surely doing it now.

“What do you mean you were an afterthought?”

You rolled your shoulders and turned just enough to look at him before glancing at the little clock above your oven. “Doesn’t matter now. But, if we leave in the next five minutes, we’ll probably beat Natasha and Bob to brunch. So, are you coming?”

**

The ride was mostly quiet on the way to the restaurant Phoenix had picked overlooking the water. But Jake knew you were thinking about telling him something else as you sat in his passenger seat, watching the road pass your window. So, he just told himself to be patient. Again. It was a bright spot to finally know what you looked like in his truck. God knows he’s imagined it more than he’d like to admit, like some lovesick teenager.

You were picking at your cuticles without taking your eyes off the passing scenery. Jake had never seen you nervous, not like this. Even when the Daggers had to ship out for a short deployment and you had to watch them all take off from the carrier, you didn’t act like this. He watched you lean forward just a bit and your eyes narrowed and then it clicked. You weren’t watching the world go by—you were keeping an eye on the cars following the truck in the side view mirror. You were making sure Luke wouldn’t try to run you off the road again.

Jake looked in the rear view mirror and saw sedans, coupes, and a handful of SUVs, and a smaller number of trucks. But not a single black charger. It was clear for now. But you still picked at your cuticles and didn’t peel your eyes from the window.

Jake reached out and set a hand over yours, stilling your picking. You jumped under the touch and Jake curled his fingers over yours a little tighter, trying to anchor you to something else a little less destructive. “We’re okay, Punch, all right?”

You looked at him and Jake hated that he had to look at the road for safety purposes when you searched his face for something. “For now,” you said in return, once again turning to look out at the cars.

Jake squeezed your hand again and didn’t let go even as you muttered the next handful of directions to the restaurant. He awkwardly shifted into park and took the keys out of the ignition after finding a spot in the steadily filling lot. Your shoulders were slumped as you turned back to him, face unreadable except for the pinch between your brows that he wanted to smooth with a brush of his thumb.

(Maybe one day.)

“All right. We’re gonna go in there, eat our weight in overpriced waffles and then I’m going to take you home and double check your windows and locks. Okay?”

Your eyes swept up to look up at him and Jake felt that familiar warmth starting to unfurl in his chest. Your thumb swept over his knuckles but he wasn’t sure if you were aware you were even doing it. “I can’t afford to buy you your weight in waffles.”

Jake barked out a laugh and shook his head. “You’re not going to buy me brunch. Stop trying.” He had to bite back the pleased smile he felt growing when he heard your gasp after he raised your joined hands and pressed a kiss to your fingers.

“You are ridiculous.” Your voice was tight as it wheedled out from between your lips before you (slowly) pulled your hand from his and reached for the door handle. “C’mon. We need to get on the list.”

The air was tinged with the scent of sea salt and syrup as he followed you into the glass and metal building, already teeming with people. You were quick to give your name and group size to the hostess who said it would probably be a fifteen minute wait. Just as you turned to grab one of the oddly shaped bar stools near the door to it for your name to be called, Phoenix was striding in, too. She pushed her sunglasses up her hair before sweeping you into a hug with a loud kiss to your cheek. “I knew you’d beat me here.” Then her dark eyes dragged to Jake as he stood behind you. “Hangman. What’re you doing here?”

“He drove me,” you said. “I figured it would be fine.”

“Of course it is,” Phoenix said, waving it away but Jake knew the gleam in her eyes. She wasn’t quite finished. “You two arrived together?” She asked, eyes bouncing between you and Jake.

“Ken fixed my tires. Figured I could treat him to brunch as a thank you.”

Jake had to groan at that, knocking his hand into your hip and earring a halfhearted swat at his arm in retaliation. “I told you, you’re not paying for me.”

Phoenix hummed and anchored her gaze on Jake and he fought the urge to stand a little straighter. “Yeah. That was awful nice of him. When you told me that the neighbor kid slashed your tires, I thought Hangman would be a gentleman and drive you to the tire shop. Not fix them himself.”

Neighbor kid. You had lied to Phoenix? Granted, her text had just said that your tires had been slashed and that you’d needed help—it wasn’t exactly filled with details. Jake had assumed that she had known. But that didn’t matter now and he plastered his well-used smirk on his face. “Well, I’m a-”

“Don’t stroke your own ego, Bagman.” She then glanced at something over his shoulder and smiled. “Bob just got here. Bob!” She threw up a hand to grab the WSO’s attention and he jogged toward the group when he spotted her. He nearly collided with a waitress and they both apologized—profusely—before going their separate ways. By the time Bob reached their little group, his face was a vibrant and familiar shade of red.

“Nearly swept that pretty girl off her feet, Baby on Board.” Jake braced for the hit he knew was coming and winced when Phoenix’s fist collided with his arm.

The group was seated soon after and Jake had to bite back a grumble when Bob was the one to pull out your chair for you when you reached the table. When Jake went to do the same to Phoenix, she hit him again.

Bob was nearly the shade of a strawberry when he realized the woman he’d nearly bowled over would be your waitress and nearly dropped his silverware roll when he noticed her striding over to the table. Food was ordered—both you and Jake ordered waffles while Phoenix wanted to try the brioche French toast and Bob wanted eggs Benedict with steak—and mimosas (and pineapple juice for Bob) were poured as Phoenix regaled the table with her run-in with a guy at the gym on base. The Ensign hadn’t realized Phoenix a) outranked him and b) wasn’t interested in bulging muscles and whatever the younger man could(n’t) provide. The interaction ended when Phoenix “politely” challenged him to a friendly competition to see who could handle more weight while doing hip thrusters. Phoenix started out with thirty pounds more than him and he called her a dyke so she had him barred from the gym and probably had a meeting with his commanding officers on Monday, too.

You giggled and tipped your mimosa flute into Phoenix’s before you both took a sip. It was good to see you smile like that.

The waitress came by a few minutes later with the food and she was quick to divvy up the plates but Jake watched her make sure Bob’s was the last plate and she stood at his side and carefully set it down, making sure to bend down just enough to brush against his arm. “Careful, the plate is hot,” she practically purred.

(Phoenix quickly had Jake’s laugh turning into a poorly disguised cough when she sent him a look across the table.)

“I’ll be careful. I can handle it.”

Then the waitress actually giggled and stood straight, setting her hand on Bob’s shoulder for just a moment. “I’m sure you can. Let me know if you need anything else, okay?” She then turned and walked away with an exaggerated sway in her hips which Bob completely missed because he was busy unrolling his silverware.

The group watched him as he carefully cut into his meal and shoved a bite between his lips. He went to take another when he noticed the stares. “What?”

“Robert,” you started, voice strained to avoid a giggle. “She was flirting with you.”

His fork froze before it reached his mouth.”No, she wasn’t. She told me the plate was hot.”

Phoenix reached over and patted her back seater’s shoulder. “Oh, Bob.”

The other man’s blush returned and he shoved the bite between his lips. “How is telling me that the plate is hot flirting?”

Jake shook his head and fought a smile of his own. “Listen, do you like her?”

Bob chanced a glance at the waitress at the hostess booth and immediately ducked his head when she caught him and wagged her fingers at him with a wink. “She’s beautiful.”

“But?” Jake prodded, hearing a slight hesitation. He had always been good at reading people (you were an exception), and Jake had played therapist to a handful of the Daggers since he proved he could be someone other than Hangman. He wanted Bob to be happy.

“But I don’t know. She looks like she’d eat me alive.” He fiddled with his fork. “Can we talk about something else?”

Jake was the one who shifted the conversation to the insufferable group of Top Gun pilots that would thankfully be leaving soon enough. A friendly bet was placed on who everyone thought would actually get the trophy and Jake tried not to smile too much when Bob knocked his foot into his as a quiet thank you and you, seemingly unaware of Bob’s quiet gratitude, set your hand over Jake’s arm for a moment in your own show of appreciation. As soon as it happened, it was gone again.

That was okay. Jake was determined to have it happen again.

Brunch continued on and finished after another round of drinks and splitting a funnel cake that the waitress insisted they try. Jake was sure the woman pouted after not receiving Bob’s phone number when he signed his check but he wouldn’t mention it. Jake liked this strange bit of normalcy. With you. He even if both Bob and Phoenix made vague threats against his life if he hurt you. Jake was determined to have more of these moments with you. Even if you grumbled about Jake hustling to get to the truck before you so he could open your door.

The tension in the cab on the way to brunch was absent now and Jake didn’t even care when you teased him about his choice in radio stations—calling him a cliche for listening to early Tim McGraw. But you said it with a laugh and Jake had to laugh, too. He liked that it was you who brought up Bob and his interactions with the waitress.

“I want Bob to be happy. And he’s mentioned once or twice that he’d like to have a family.”

Jake thought for a moment before the perfect person popped into his thoughts. “I know a girl.”

“No, you don’t. I don’t trust your taste in women.”

And Jake had to laugh at that. Had to. You were his taste in women. But the person he had in mind for Bob would be perfect. “She’s a CPA. Wears glasses. And she only drinks ginger ale despite helping Penny with the Hard Deck’s taxes. And she’s the only person outside of Texas that I trust with my tax return.”

Your face scrunched and Jake knew you were thinking it over. “Just because they both wear glasses and have an affinity for Seagram’s doesn’t mean they’d be a good match.”

“Just trust me. It might take a minute to get her to look him in the eye-”

“She’s shy?”

“So shy. It’s adorable. And just what Baby on Board needs.”

You scowled at him but he knew you didn’t really mean it when you knocked your shoulder into his over the center console a moment later. He eventually pulled into your driveway and threw the truck into park before turning to you but you were scrambling out of your seat and up to your front door before he could even get a word in edgewise.

Oh.

Jake wasn’t sure if he’d ever been rejected as soundly as that before. But then he saw you waving him forward from your front stoop and Jake nearly clocked himself in the face with the seatbelt buckle as he hurried to follow you inside. He shut your door behind him, engaging just two out of the five locks as you hurried toward something just down the hall.

“Punch?”

“Just a moment!” You yelled in return.

Jake resisted the urge to settle on the couch again, like he’d done weeks ago. Everything seemed different now. You weren’t trying to push him away and he could hear you shuffling something in the other room and he was suddenly struck with a daydream of coming home to you, waiting for you to notice his presence and smiling when you saw him. “You’re home!” As soon as the vision came, it was gone, and Jake shook himself a little as if that would help him forget what he’d conjured up. What he’d wanted since the moment you first called him Ken, even if he never admitted it out loud.

You walked back into the living room and slapped something down onto the small table you had lining the back of your couch.

“Whatcha got there, Punch?”

Your answering smile was all teeth, like a cat who got the cream and Jake saw that it was a fifty dollar bill as it peeked from between your fingers. “Well, I added up how many miles it is from base, to my house, to the restaurant, then back to my house and then guessed on how many miles you get per gallon. And, you use premium gas, right? Either way, this should be enough for gas, but if you use diesel, this should cover it.” You slapped another fifty atop the first after pulling it from your back pocket.

Jake looked at the stack of cash and then back at you before he sighed, a long put-upon sigh that he knew was obnoxious but it was worth it when he heard you try to stifle a laugh. God. You were relentless.

“First, I don’t know how to break this to you, but you’re awful at math. Like, so bad.”

“Hey!”

“And second, I’m still not taking your money.”

“You’re being stubborn.”

“I’m being a friend, Punch. Friends drive each other around and help them when they need it. And I’m willing to bet-“

“I’ll take that bet.”

Jake continued on, ignoring you, “-that you wouldn’t expect to be paid back if our places were switched.”

You pulled your lips into your mouth for a moment and drummed your fingers against the money. “I lost that bet. Guess you’ll have to take the money.”

Jake groaned but he could feel a laugh starting to bubble in his chest. “You’re impossible.”

**

It was too soon to call this a victory, but you were sure you were closing in on one. He would take the money and then you could pretend to feel fine about everything he’d done for you. Sure.

“Actually, I have something you could do if you’re so hellbent on paying me back.” Before you could ask what he meant, he was unlocking your door and jogging out to his truck and pulling something out, tucking it behind his back as he returned. “Can you sign this for me?”

Then he dropped a purple book in your hand and your stomach dropped to your feet as you looked at the gold lettering across the cover. “You snooped!” You said, too embarrassed to be angry. You held the book up to your chest as if that would guard you from his knowing look or the embarrassment starting to churn your stomach.

“You knew I would! Why’re you surprised?” His smile was back and he took a step toward you. You took a responding step back until he was crowding you against your bookshelf, hands landing on the shelves on either side of your shoulders. And it could have been a threatening stance, an unnerving cage, but all you felt was safe. Safe as he blotted out the rest of the world and it was just you and him and your books in the quiet of your home.

You should not feel like this, you knew that. It was stupid and dangerous and you couldn’t stop it. What had happened to your resolve that you had just yesterday for keeping him at arm's length?

Your fingers drummed against the paperback and you hurriedly flipped it open when your eyes tracked down to his mouth. Oh. “Should I sign it ‘To Ken?’ Or-”

“Could you actually sign it for my sister Mia? She reads your books in her book club.”

“Oh.” Was all you could say. That was…that was actually really nice to know. You knew people read your books; Danny had framed a newspaper clipping showing your second book reaching a top ten spot one of the Best Sellers lists and had gifted it to you for your last birthday. They were mildly popular, you knew that. But to actually be confronted with the fact that someone you vaguely knew was reading your books was something else. You reached back and grabbed one of the pens you kept in a cup on the shelf. “Mia? She’s your oldest sister, right?” A quick glance up at Jake had your heart twisting. His look was too soft. Too happy.

“Yeah, Punch. That’s her.”

You took the time to write your pseudonym with extra flair and then added a heart next to Mia’s name, too. “Is this for her birthday or anything?”

“She’s…” Jake paused for a moment. “She’s just going through a rough patch right now. Your books make her smile.”

The pen stalled on the page for just a moment before you shoved at his chest to get him to back up just enough to grab at your ARC for your newest book and quickly scrawled, Wishing you expensive champagne and good memories! Happy reading! You then signed your name again and added a half dozen hearts next to Mia’s name at the top of the page. You slapped both books against Jake’s chest with a frown. “That book hasn’t been released yet, so I may get in a bit of trouble with my publisher if she tells anyone.”

Jake’s hands covered yours on the books and the toe of his shoe knocked into your socked feet as he moved closer, dragging your attention back to his stupidly handsome face again. “She won’t tell anyone but I know I’ll probably get an earful about how I got them.” His thumbs brushed against your knuckles and you would swear that you could feel it behind your ribs. “Where’d you get that name anyway?”

You almost snorted at the way he phrased that question, like you found it on the side of a cereal box. “My parents were obsessed with Stephen King—they actually met at a book club specifically for King’s books. My sister, Georgie, was named after the kid who got their arm ripped off at the beginning of It. And my brother, Danny, is named after the kid in The Shining, Danny Torrance.”

“And you? I don’t think I’ve read your name in his books.”

It was a fair enough question. King had dozens of books and Jake didn’t seem like the type to clamor for the newest release. “I was named by my grandparents after they discovered the reasoning behind my sister’s name. If my parents wanted to stay in the will, I had to have a name they picked. Of course, when my brother was born, my parents picked something a little more innocuous so they wouldn’t rock the boat again. But, anyway, to actually answer your question; I took my siblings’ names as a sort of thank you to them. Georgie became Georgia and I took Danny’s literary counterpart’s last name. And Georgia Torrance was born. I wrote most of my books when I had downtime on deployments. I took a chance and sent it off to an agent and I got a nice contract with a moderately respectable publishing house. It isn’t Stephen King money by any means, but I can upgrade my plane ticket to Business Class if I wanted to once or twice a year.”

“Your parents must’ve gotten a kick out of that.”

You tried to fight the sigh you felt growing in your throat but lost. You also lost the wherewithal to keep a single secret from him. “I don’t know. I don’t really talk to them.”

“What?”

“After Danny got sick, all of their attention was on him, which I understand. I do. But I was still just a kid who needed her parents every once in a while. But it was like I ceased to exist to them until they remembered I could help with the hospital bills. Georgie was already out of the house and getting her degree and would call but it wasn’t the same. I kinda gave up on having a relationship with my parents after they forgot about my rowing meet and I waited to be picked up for three hours before eventually just walking home.”

“Punch-”

And once you started, you couldn’t stop, like a can of pop shaken and bursting. “Danny was hooked up to like six different machines and was high off his ass and he apologized for all the…all the bullshit. I told him it was unnecessary. He was sick. I’m just happy he’s healthy again.”

God. You really knew how to ruin every moment, didn’t you?

Jake set the books on the shelf just beside your shoulder but was quick to lean over you again and you hated how Jake really was a certifiable blueprint for a romantic literary hero. You could write a single description of him in your next book and you’d know it would skyrocket to the top of the Best Sellers lists but you had been actively avoiding trying to piece together a story from your life. And, as if he knew you were debating something, the bastard actually propped his other arm up on the bookcase and leaned over you. Oh god. He was doing the lean and was going to ask you something about your fucked up childhood.

Shit.

Alarm bells were ringing in your head, letting you know that this moment could be disastrous. So, you decided to not let it go on any longer. “Jesus. Sorry. I really know how to kill a good time, huh? I think I’ve taken up quite enough of your time for the day. Let me know what Mia thinks of the books, okay?”

You ducked beneath his arm, intent on leading him to the door, but Jake grasped your hand and pulled you to a stop. “No, c’mon, Punch. Don’t do that again. Don’t shut me out. I’m happy you feel like you can tell me stuff like that, that you’re comfortable enough to trust me with that. Don’t pull away again. Not from me.”

You knew that if you looked at him right now, his green eyes would be wide and pleading. So, you just didn’t look. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do right now. I don’t know why you’re doing this, Jake.”

“Doing what?” He asked softly, as softly as his hand on yours.

“Buying me tires? Driving me around? Being…being this fucking nice to me all the time when I’ve only been a dick to you?” You asked as you felt your chin wobble. “Why?”

Jake was quiet for a moment. Just a moment. “You know why.”

“No! No, I don’t because…” You couldn’t finish the sentence because then it was real, it would be real and you didn’t know how to deal with that again. You looked up at him and tried to remember what you were protecting him from. Pulling your hand out of his, you set your hands on your hips. “Because you can’t.”

Jake’s shoulders rolled before his lips set in a thin line. “I do. And I know you feel the same.”

You scoffed and tried to ignore the warmth in your chest that he was right. He felt the same. Wouldn’t that just be the worst? “You really think that highly of yourself? You’re so sure that I-”

Jake leaned closer and the rest of your argument stalled. You could smell the mint on his breath from the stupid toothpick he was chewing on in the truck just beneath the warmth of his cologne. God. He was intoxicating. You almost hated him for a moment because every ounce of fight you had drained out of you. “Ken.”

“Tell me to stop and I will.” He moved closer. Closer. Closer.

His warm hand skirted up your arm until it settled against the gentle arc of muscle between your neck and shoulder and the other settled on your hip. You could feel each of his fingers pressing into your skin like a brand. Every breath he took brushed against your mouth and you licked your lips without a thought as he leaned even closer.

“Last chance.” You could feel his smile against your mouth, growing with each syllable.

And you had to smile. Had to because he was your Ken and this felt inevitable. Jake was inevitable. “Do your worst.”

He kissed you and it was instantly all consuming. Surely, he could feel your smile, too. You actually laughed against his mouth as your hands pressed against his chest. Jake pulled back just enough for you to see his smile before he kissed you again, catching your bottom lip between his and tugging to have you gasping. His stupid, perfect teeth nipped at the skin and he was quick to soothe the sting with a flick of his tongue.

Then you were moving backward, guided by his gentle movements, until your spine went flat against the wall beside your bookshelves. The kiss was all smiling lips and searching tongues as Jake held you tight. Everything was warm and tinged with the mint on his tongue and Jake Jake Jake.

His thumb pressed into the hinge of your jaw and he sighed against your panting mouth. “So fucking good.” His voice was hoarse and you could feel it curling in your stomach.

But your entire body seized when you felt his hand move to wrap around your throat as his mouth continued to work against yours. You couldn’t help it; you flinched. The kiss ended abruptly as you pulled back despite you not wanting it to end. But it couldn’t be helped. Not yet. You watched an array of emotions flash across Jake’s face before it settled on despair.

“Fuck.” The single syllable was wrenched from his throat as he took a step back and his hands fell back to his sides and left you cold. “Fuck, Punch, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking, I-”

“W-wait…I just…” How could you even phrase this without sounding unhinged? “I just need a moment.” Your next breath rattled in your lungs but you still reached for his hand and raised it again, moving it just enough for his fingers to encircle your throat once more. The roughened planes and angles of his hand had you shivering but you managed to drag your eyes up to his and tried to not show how nervous you actually felt. “It… you can, if you want. I’d actually prefer to have some good memories of something like this instead of-”

The rest of your rambling was cut off as his lips pressed against yours. The grip on your throat grew a little more insistent, a little heavier, but nothing stronger than just a simple weight, an anchor at your pulse. His other hand smoothed up your arm to curl over your cheek just as he pried your lips apart, delving into your mouth to steal the building whine from your throat.

Your heart hammered behind your ribs as you felt the warmth of Jake’s hand bleed through your shirt as his palm brushed the side of your chest. He moved forward and your legs instinctively parted to accommodate the thigh he was shoving between yours and your next breath caught in your throat when the denim brushed against the crux of your thighs.

“Fuck,” you hissed when Jake’s lips seared a path across your cheek and down your throat to bite at your thrumming pulse. You hadn’t even remembered when your hands had dropped to wrinkle his shirt again but you still pulled him closer as every nerve ending sparked. And then-

“Dancing Queen, young and sweet, only seventeen!”

Immediately, you pulled away from Jake with a grimace as ABBA’s song continued to fill the air. “Oh Jesus, that’s Natasha’s ringtone. She never calls.” You ducked beneath his arm for the second time tonight and pulled your phone off its perch on the kitchen counter and answered it as you heard Jake sigh. Turning to look at him, you saw his head drop to his chest for a moment before standing straight again and following in your footsteps toward the kitchen.

“I asked Rooster out and I think he thinks it is just as a friends thing and I want to bash my head against the wall.” Tasha screeched, words running together in a rush. She continued on, explaining that somehow she and Bradley had been roped into helping Penny restock the Hard Deck before opening today and Natasha had (finally) acted on her (reciprocated) feelings after Rooster had been his usually flirty self the entire time and then dragged Natasha to the piano and made her sing along to Elton John’s Your Song. Jesus.

You looked over at Jake to see him looking at you with another soft look on his face and a bit of pink in his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” you mouthed to him.

He waved it away before stealing a quick kiss, too, that had your heart rate picking up again.

“Punch? You there?”

You pushed out a breath and shook your head as you pressed a hand to Jake’s chin, keeping him from doing it again. You could feel his self satisfied smirk against your fingers. “Yeah. I’m here. And, um, I don’t know. I think you’d be surprised with Bradley. He’s probably picking out his nicest Hawaiian shirt in preparation.”

Tasha groaned but you had to smile because Jake nipped at your fingers. “You think?”

“I do. It is gonna be great. I know it.”

She sighed, crackling the line, but eventually agreed. “He can’t be that oblivious right?” She asked, making you both laugh. “Also, don’t think I’m forgetting about you and Hangman coming to brunch together. We’re gonna talk on Monday.”

“You don’t forget anything, Tasha. I’m well aware.”

You eventually said your goodbyes after promising her you would talk to her on Monday and then dropped your phone on the counter again and your hand from Jake’s mouth.

“I never thought you’d be a tease.” His tone let you know he was joking but you also could have guessed with the smirk pushing at his mouth, too.

Your jaw dropped for a moment before an embarrassed giggle rippled out of you. “I said I was sorry! I was worried!” Biting your lip as you looked at him, you shook your head. “I didn’t mean to ruin the moment.”

“It was quite the moment, huh?” His smirk had fallen to a soft smile despite his self assured words.

“Yeah, it was.” You didn���t even want to tease him now but then a small voice whispered at the back of your mind that it wasn’t a moment to him. After all, who would want-

“Steak or seafood?” He asked, knocking the rest of your thoughts right out of your head.

“What?”

“I have a list of restaurants that I want to take you to, if you’re willing to let me pay and bring you flowers.” The usual bravado that bled through all of his words wavered now. Was he nervous?

“Sounds like you’re asking me out on a date, Ken.”

“I’m trying here, Punch. So? Steak or seafood.”

Hope and happiness were blooming and twisting and growing within the confines of your ribs now. He wanted to take you out on a date. “I’m allergic to shellfish,” was all you could say through your smile.

“Steak it is. I’ll update my list when I get home.” He reached out and swept his thumb across the slope of your cheek and you found yourself leaning into the touch a little more. Jake seemed content to just hold your face in his hand for a moment before he leaned forward to press a kiss to your temple. “I should go. I want to do this right with you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I want to wine and dine you, darlin’. Want to earn those lips of yours again,” he said as his thumb moved to press at the heated skin of your bottom lip. “You deserve it. And I want to be the one to give it to you.”

For just a moment, you worried that Jake would hear how hard your heart was beating. No one had ever said anything like that to you before. “Oh.”

This was different. Jake was different. You just had to give him permission to show you.

“I’d like that.”

He smiled and stepped back, hand dropping back to his side. “You’re a good friend to Phoenix, by the way. Bradshaw, too.”

You smiled again. “They’re good to me. All of you have been.” Slowly, you herded him toward the door, knowing he had a plan.

He stopped at the door, just after you undid the locks. “Does Phoenix know?”

You shook your head, knowing exactly what he was asking. “It’s hard enough to be taken seriously in the Navy as a woman. She had her own battles, Luke was mine. I always thought she was so strong and, for a while, I thought she’d just see me as weak if she knew what I’d put up with. But I know now that is an unfair thought. Tasha is and always has been one of my best friends and staunchest supporters. I should tell her, right? And maybe I will, after all of this is over. I don’t…I don’t want anyone else I care about to be wrapped up in this. I don’t want anyone to get hurt because of me.” And you tried to ignore the sinking feeling that you had once again put Jake in Luke’s crosshairs.

But this time had to be different. It had to be.

Jake shook his head and cupped his hands at the back of your head before touching his forehead to yours. “We’re going to finish this, okay? We will.”

You nodded and smiled despite it all when he pressed another quick kiss to your forehead—it was like he couldn’t stop kissing you. And you weren’t about to complain. “Get home safe, Ken.”

You watched him get into his truck and waved as he pulled out and you knew he was telling you to lock your doors through the windshield. Your phone rang again just as he disappeared down the road and you knew by the way Jerry Lewis blared that it was now Bradley calling.

**

It had only been two days since Jake kissed you and had promised you a date. Two days and it was like the entirety of Top Gun was trying to keep you apart. You barely saw each other after he got roped into helping Captain Mitchell and Admiral Simpson into looking over the files of the next hopeful batch of aviators who could be called to San Diego. But it was fine. Sure. It wasn’t as if you could walk in holding his hand; you were still in the Navy and there were still protocols and rules you needed to follow. You had a feeling you and Jake would be breaking a lot of them.

You were kept busy with repairing Harvard’s jet after he managed to land safely after a bird strike. Your lunch breaks and evenings were spent talking to either Natasha or Bradley about their upcoming date-not-date while not revealing that you knew what the other was thinking. You did, however, mention to Bradley that Rueben and Mickey had started a betting pool about how long it would take Bradley to admit who he was in love with after Mickey spotted him with a pad of paper during lunch which was apparently filled with a speech about loving someone for years. You then spent the next hour workshopping the speech he was going to say to Natasha. It was beautiful and heartfelt and filled with analogies you tried to trim down (gently). He was still, annoyingly, assuming that their dinner on Wednesday was not a date in Natasha’s eyes but he was still going to try to confess his feelings and hope for the best.

You knew he’d be over the moon with how Natasha would react.

As Wednesday bled into Thursday, you were nearly dead on your feet but you’d been watching Natasha and Bradley all day, trying to decipher how their date had gone by their body language. You drove home that night without many answers but your phone rang just before you pulled down your street and quickly answered when Natsha’s name flashed on the screen.

“Hello?”

“He said he’s in love with me!”

“Hello, Tasha. How are you? I’ve had a great day. How was yours?”

“Oh, shut up!” She laughed. “I’m freaking out! He said he was in love with me—has been for years, apparently—and all I did was kiss him afterward. That’s not fair, right? I also need to have a speech. I can’t let him win this. I want to do a PowerPoint.” You had to mute your phone at that so she wouldn’t hear you snort. Everything was a competition. “Do you have that picture of me and him from Mav’s birthday last year?”

“I do,” you said, knowing exactly which one she was referencing. It was of Bradley and Natasha at the piano. Bradley had just led everyone through a rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ for Mav and there was still a flush on his cheeks. Natasha was right next to him in a stunning blue dress and smiling at him. It was the picture you promised to yourself that you would show at their wedding. You rushed inside, pinning the phone between your ear and shoulder and hurriedly shut the door behind you before darting toward your bedroom without bothering to turn on any of the lights—you said you’d drop it off at her apartment as soon as you’d found it. You were going to be in and out. You flopped onto your stomach, overturning the small mountain of pillows you had at the headboard, before grabbing at the storage container beneath the bed frame. You hauled it up and onto the bed and flipped the lid. To your chagrin, your “filing” system was essentially nonexistent when it came to photos and you started to sift through them as Natasha continued to talk, telling you about the date she’d planned and laughing about how much Bradley had stumbled over his speech.

God, it was so nice just to hear her laugh. They were going to be happy together. You knew it.

A door opened and closed slowly in the distance—your neighbor must’ve finally sprayed his door with WD-40 because it didn’t creak. Good. It only took him three years. But your heart nearly stopped when you heard your neighbor’s door open a few seconds later and its distinctive creak filled the night air. Something thumped down the hall and your spine went rigidly straight, still holding the phone to your ear as blood roared in your ears. You hadn’t locked the door. You had been inside for less than five minutes and you hadn’t thought it was necessary–you would have been leaving again soon anyway.

But you should have taken the time. A careless, stupid mistake.

The noise came again and sat up on bed, spilling the pictures in your hold onto your blankets. “Punch?” Natasha asked, pulling your focus. “You still there?”

“I…I think there’s someone in my house,” you whispered. Every part of your body was telling you to run. Right now. But where could you? Your house had one door and the person was in your living room.

Natasha was quiet for just a moment before whispering, “I’m gonna call the cops, okay? You hide.”

“N-no,” you hissed. “Don’t hang up. Stay with me.”

“Okay. Okay. I’ll stay on the line with you, but-”

The line went dead with three terrible beeps and you wrenched the phone away from your ear to see ‘Call Lost - Try Again?’ written across the screen. No matter how many times you tried to call or text, nothing went through. The little icon at the top where you usually saw the lines denoting your network was now just a terrible X. The network was either down or whoever had come into your house had turned on a jammer. And you knew which was more plausible—but god, you had never wished for a network outage more.

Slowly, you slid off the bed and into the hall just as you heard the distinctive sound of a boot hitting the corner of your coffee table. Someone was in your house.

**

Mia had loved the books. Apparently her book club had ooh’d and ahh’d over the signed book but she had, as Jake knew she would, kept the copy of your newest book a secret but had rattled off her opinions to Jake. “And I can’t believe you know her!” She squawked on the other end of the line. It had been so good to hear the smile in his sister’s voice again. It was priceless. Jake had also evaded any questions as to who you were–it wasn’t his secret to tell–but he hoped that you’d be the one to tell Mia sooner rather than later.

It had been a good day. For the most part, anyway. He would have preferred to have had more than just a small smile and wave from you for the last few days, but he could be patient.

When Jake’s phone chirped with a new message, he’d expected something from Javy, keeping him up to date about the conversation he was hoping to have with his girlfriend’s father. The ring Jake had helped Javy pick out was burning a hole in his pocket and Jake hoped that his best friend would be able to plan a cool as fuck bachelor party and then make sure the whole wedding goes smoothly.

And maybe he could ask you to be his date. He could dance with you and make you smile and-

Any happy thought he had evaporated when he looked at his phone.

Someone broke into Punch’s house! I’m calling the cops!

Jake was in his truck before he could even think to type out a response and sped toward your house as the group chat started to explode with a barrage of texts he didn’t read. He knew who had broken in. There was only one possible answer.

Jake just hoped he’d get there in time.

**

You needed to get out of the house…or at least get to something you could use as a weapon. The baseball bat you kept near the bookshelves could work, right? Slipping further down the hall, you tried to tell yourself that you could get out of this.

Creak.

You clapped a hand over your mouth as you pressed your spine to the wall, trying to quiet your breathing.

Step.

Step.

Step.

He was in your kitchen. You knew the sound of hard soled shoes on the uneven tiles. Could you make a run for it? Could you trap him in the laundry room? That had to be your only option. You turned the corner into your living room and your stomach fell to your feet.

Luke was standing in your kitchen. Knife in hand. Waiting for you. He looked almost exactly the same as he did the last time you saw him. His brown hair was still cropped short. His brown eyes were still narrowed and cold. His clothes were rumpled designer brands. He hadn’t changed. And that was terrifying.

You dove for the baseball bat, curling your hands around it before you turned and swung blindly. The bat cracked against his arm and Luke yelled, low and guttural as he staggered backward for a moment. But then he was lunging forward and grasping at the bat to wrench it out of your hands. He threw it across the living room and it smacked against the wall, shattering the glass in two frames before knocking them to the floor with a terrible crack. You couldn’t go for it again. There was no way past him now.

You should have aimed for his head.

“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it, baby?”

You cringed at the nickname but didn’t take your eyes off the knife in his hand.

Luke didn’t wait for an answer to his question before barreling on. “And look what you’ve done. Got all those nice pins on your shirt, moving up in the ranks, and…” he paused as a smirk slithered across this mouth, “you got my dad’s money. A nice little nest egg.You’ve done well for yourself, haven’t you? And you didn’t have to work for any of it.”

He took a step forward and you took one back, ankle colliding with your coffee table.

“And what about me? I’m so glad you asked!” He snarled. “I’ve been dishonorably discharged. And you want to know why?”

“I had nothing to do with that, Luke. W-we had an agreement, remember? I keep my mouth shut and you…you were supposed to stay away from me.”

Luke’s tongue clicked against his teeth before he waved the knife. “You had everything to do with it. That LoA in my file was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I could’ve been given another chance if you had just kept your mouth shut when I told you to back in the-“

“I didn’t say anything. You were going to get Bradley killed!” The words bubbled out of you before you could think of the repercussions.

Luke was on you in a flash. The tip of the knife pressed over your sternum and you could feel it with each labored breath you sucked in between clenched teeth.

“He would’ve been fine! I know how to do my job! You ruined everything and then took my dad's money!” The knife pressed closer closer closer. It started to tear through the thin material of your shirt and shallowly cut your skin. The whimper you felt blooming in your throat died when you saw the gleam in Luke’s eyes.

Before you could even stop to think of an alternative, you threw your hands up and caught the knife. The edge sank through the delicate skin between your fingers and into your palm but you didn’t recoil. Couldn’t. You were only able to drag the knife down, the tip cutting against the skin just above your stomach.

Fresh pain bloomed across your face and it took you a moment to realize that Luke had slapped you. And then he did it again, making sure to send your head flying backward to slam into the wall hard enough and have stars dancing in front of your eyes. Your grip almost fell, loosening a fraction, and just for a moment everything was silent.

Just a moment.

You’d never be able to describe the pain that bloomed as Luke moved and drove the knife in, slotting it between your ribs and twisting with a vicious flick of his wrist. Your next breath stalled just behind your tongue as every nerve ending exploded with heat and teeth and a terrible popping sensation bubbled beneath your skin. “L-Luke…”

He pushed the knife deeper as he pressed his cheek to yours in an echo of the hugs he used to give you. “I used to miss you, you know. Did you miss me? I treated you so well. I was good to you. So good. I gave you everything.” The knife rocked back and forth and you felt the ridge of it with each movement. You felt all of it. Your grip faltered against the knife gain but you knew you couldn’t drop your hold.

He would kill you.

“And you had to ruin it. You ruined my life.”

“L-Luke…”

“I need to hear you say it, baby. Tell me you know what you did. You had this coming. All of it.”

“I didn’t,” you wheezed. Your chest was collapsing in on itself like you had a boar sitting on your sternum.

“Say it! You don’t get to play victim this time. You were the one who ruined my life.”

“You were a d-drunk! I did all that work for you until you told me you’d kill me if I made you l-look bad again!” Each word was a crack against your ribs, sharp and biting, but you couldn’t stop. This would be your only chance to say this, you knew it. If you were going to die tonight, you were going to let him know what you really thought of him. “You…” You sucked in a breath that only served to make you ache. “You only got through basic because your daddy bribed someone. You only got into the Navy at all because he made a phone call to someone after you failed the ASVAB. You…you fail at everything you do. You were a shitty AD. And you couldn’t kill me.” Blood dribbled out of your mouth and you felt it slid down your chin. “Twice. So you better make this count.”

Luke’s teeth glinted in the low light and he ripped the knife out only to plunge it back in. You felt the blade scrape against the edge of your hip as you let out a scream that fizzled out to a gurgle as more blood filled your mouth.

“I’ll make it count!” Luke seethed as he drove the knife deeper and pushed you into the wall.

Everything burned. Everything ached. And all you could do was scream as your knees knocked together, strength dribbling out of you with each frantic pulse of your heart.

Luke leaned forward to press his forehead against yours and the knife twisted. “Do you feel it, baby? Do you feel me inside you?” His breath smelled of the expensive cognac you knew he liked to guzzle and rolled your stomach.

“Luke.” You didn’t want to die looking into his eyes. You didn’t want to die at all, but you weren’t going to have your last earthly memory be of Luke and his cold eyes, so you shut your eyes as the tips of your fingers started to tingle.

The screech of a siren broke through the haze of your mind. You had to laugh but that, too, was cut short when Luke pulled the knife out and rushed toward the window to see the night sky filled with red and blue lights. You crumpled. Your hands slapped against the floor for just a moment before you slumped in a heap against the carpet as your arms gave out.

You vaguely heard your front door slam against the wall and knock another picture from its perch. There was an answering sound of glass shattering before warm, rough hands gently grasped at your shoulders. You struggled for just a moment when your scrambled brain thought Luke had come back to make sure you were dead. Unfocused eyes barely registered Jake kneeling above you.

“Punch? Punch, c’mon darlin’. There you are.” His voice was muffled but you felt yourself smiling anyway as everything started to prickle like you’d pinned your limbs beneath your weight for too long. The smile quickly died when Jake’s hands clamped down over your wounds and a surprised yelp punched out from between your teeth. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but I gotta stop the bleeding.”

“I-it hurts.”

“I know. I know it does. But it’ll only hurt a little longer, all right? You gotta stay awake for me. The cops are almost here.” His grip tightened. “We’ll get you fixed up and-”

“Where’s…Luke?” Was he still in your house? Would he hurt Jake?

“I don’t know, darlin’. He’s gone. We’ll find him, okay? We’ll find him and he’ll never do this to you again. But I need you to stay awake.”

Black dots were pushing their way into your line of sight, blotting out Jake’s worried face. “Ken…Jake…I wanted to get steak with you.”

Jake pressed harder and you could only whimper. “We will go get that steak. It’ll be the best date.” His voice was muffled, like you had shoved your head under water. And you struggled to hear him at all.

“Promise?” You asked, blood on your teeth.

“I promise.”

You smiled, despite it all. And then you were gone.

[itsthesinbin]

Sins in Stardust [Chapter 5: Business of Mystery] (Bill Cipher/Reader/Stanford Pines)

Warnings: Bill being weird with his eye, mentions of previous abuse

Also I did decide that this is gonna be a polycule, so Ford's getting added in here. As much as I love Stan, I'd rather put him by himself than throw him into THIS mess. He'll show up later, though!

Feedback appreciated :3

Read the fic on AO3 here!

If you like it, reblog it!

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

You found yourself out in the woods, the stars twinkling above you as you walked. A firepit in the distance was your only point of reference. You felt eyes on your back, but couldn’t bring yourself to look behind you. You were too determined to make it to the fire. Your dad only lit it when he wanted s’mores. You didn’t want the old fart to eat all the chocolate before you got there.

You stepped onto the little cobblestone path to the cabin your family rented every summer. You heard a buzzing noise around you, but there were always flies and mosquitoes out this time of year. You didn’t think anything of it as you made your way toward your parents. Your dad was making a double chocolate s’more, while your mom was getting out another pack of graham crackers. They talked happily, but you couldn’t make any of the words out.

A few flecks of ashes landed on your face, much akin to snow. You wiped the ash from your face, only to realize more was falling. Your parents froze in place, their faces distorted. The static noise grew louder as you looked up.

The stars burned bright. You faintly heard screaming in the static, but couldn’t look away.

You took a sharp inhale as you woke up. You sat up quickly, your body wracked with faint trembles. Your phone’s alarm buzzed and, with shaking hands, you turned it off. 10 am- you had wanted to sleep in a little bit before having to deal with your car problem. Among other problems. At least you had a couple days of rest, since you had to wait for the weekend to pass before you could call your insurance company.

Speaking of other problems, you looked over to the bench under the window. Bill had gotten that spot when you refused to let him have the entire bed, after an argument about “WHAT IF I GET KIDNAPPED AGAIN”. You two were given a different room, no longer facing the woods, so less likely to be a round 2. You had to dig out one of your spare blankets for him, but he seemed content on the window seat once you assured him the gnomes wouldn’t come back. He did when you went to bed, at least.

Bill was sitting up, staring out the window. You could see his expression in the reflection. He had a thousand yard unblinking stare, completely unaware that you were awake and watching him. The blanket was gripped in his fists. Were he human, you didn’t doubt the knuckles would be changing color. You swallowed, throat feeling tight and chest heavy. You knew that look well. You found it in the mirror often.

“Bill, you feel like breakfast?” You decided not to bring it up right now. You barely knew the guy, and doubted he’d be willing to open up even if you did know him. He jolted, seemingly having forgotten you existed. The mask was back on in an instant. He threw the blanket off like he had just woken up, stretching and yawning loudly.

“I could eat,” he said as he hopped down. You grabbed your hot plate and a pan. You had bought some actual groceries to keep in the mini fridge, not wanting to order food every day while here. You didn’t know if you were allowed to cook in the room, but what the owners didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. 

Bacon and eggs sounded good. The room had a coffee maker included so you got that going, too. Didn’t know if this guy needed coffee, but you weren’t gonna be rude. You pulled the food out of the mini fridge, asking how he wanted his eggs. Sunny side up. You wish you had a triangle mold to cook the eggs in. You didn’t know if Bill would’ve found it funny, but you would have.

“I gotta call some people about my car. After that, we can figure out something about your… friends, I guess,” you told him as you grabbed your phone. He groaned, clearly thinking your business was an inconvenience to him. You chose to ignore that and called your insurance company. You gave Bill his coffee and plate as you argued back and forth with your agent. Bill was watching the show, occasionally laughing or calling your agent a little bitch. You had to admit, the peanut gallery did make you feel not AS angry during the call.

Ultimately, there was nothing to be done about the car. You opted to look for a place to scrap it- maybe you could get money for the parts that were salvageable. You sat down with your plate and coffee, rubbing your forehead. Bill whistled.

“Sucks about your ride, kid! Once I liberate this place, I’ll get you a sick ass motorcycle. One of the fancy ones that runs off of human blood and fear!” You sighed.

“Thanks, Bill,” you replied humorlessly. A motorcycle did sound cool, though. Not the blood and fear part, but maybe you could get a motorcycle. You always wanted one. You were never allowed something so reckless, though. You shook your head, eating your food. You didn’t wanna think about what you weren’t allowed to do, before you got out here.

“About your friends,” you started after you were halfway through your breakfast. You had a few sips of coffee, and some time to wind down after the call, so you felt like you could tackle the main issue. Bill rose his brow, taking another drink of coffee through his silly straw. He didn’t bother turning his eye into a mouth this time, simply shoving the end of the straw into the corner of his eye. You had to turn away for that, and he laughed in response.

“Did you remember anything that could help us find them? Anything at all?” Bill gave you a groan that answered the question. Clearly not. He set his cup down and dropped his face onto the table. You frowned a little. Poor guy.

“How about something fun, instead? Maybe while we’re out, we’ll find some clues that’ll jog your memory,” you offered. At the idea of fun, he perked up a bit. He put his hands on the table as he stood. It had been a couple days since the gnome incident, so you felt it was safe enough to try and get out for a while.

“Can we go rob the liquor store?” he asked, as if he was a kid asking to go to the candy shop. You stared at him, brows raised in disbelief. Your expression must’ve said it all, because he sat back down with an exaggerated groan. You rolled your eyes, a slight smile on your face.

“No burglary until we’ve at least been friends for a week, Cipher,” you joked as you pulled your phone out again. You looked up fun things to do in Gravity Falls, missing the way Bill’s expression changed at the word “friend”. A mix between disgust and confusion. He mumbled something you didn't bother paying attention to as you scrolled through tourist trap after tourist trap.

Bill came around to look over your shoulder. You tilted the screen to let him get a better view. You both passed on mini golf and the history museum. Mini golf could be fun, but after yesterday you didn’t wanna spend the entire day outside. Then you scrolled further, to the lesser-rated stuff.

“UGH this is taking too long! Why do humans gotta PLAN everything?” He groaned, flopping back onto the bed. You stared at your phone but didn’t register what you were looking at. This guy was a baby.

“I gotta plan in case something goes wrong or you don’t like it.” The response came out without you thinking. Bill scoffed.

“Who gives a shit? If we don’t like something, we’ll leave and do something else! Easy. You already did it once!” You paused. You were used to having to meticulously plan events by yourself, while having to worry about another’s reactions. He was right. You could just Go out and do things. If you didn’t like it, you could leave. You already did that once, in a more serious way. You felt sick.

“Yeah… Yeah, alright.” You put your phone away. Bill looked up, giddy, as you went to go get dressed. It clicked that he was going outside and jumped up. He put on his, admittedly terrible, disguise. He bounced on his heels as he waited, but thankfully you came out quick. You wanted to go before you lost your nerve.

You two exited the hotel. As usual, Bill got a few stares. Seemed like no one really bothered to look too closely, though. Or if they did, no one said anything. Good thing, cause lord knows you’d have no idea what to say.

You two wandered the town for a while, sticking bill to your side closer to buildings so he was less likely to be seen. Billboards and signs for various businesses stuck out. The mini-golf course still caught your eye, as did the McGucket Technological Museum. But something caught Bill’s attention along the walk.

He jogged a little bit ahead, making you follow suit. A shabby sign for a tourist trap called the “Mystery Shack” was Bill’s goal. It looked old, and had paint chipping from it. It barely had any info about the shack itself, besides an address. You looked up the address on your GPS. Bill still hadn’t said anything.

Then his fist went through the sign, where the building itself was painted on. You jumped, nearly dropping your phone in surprise. His shoulders heaved, other fist so tight it was trembling at his side. You took a step toward him and he whipped around with a wild look in his eye. Your blood ran cold and you froze in your spot. Despite you having a good couple feet on him, you felt miniscule under his gaze. Like an insect he was about to crush under his foot. You were back in your apartment at that moment, ready to dodge whatever item was about to be thrown at your head.

“Man, pain isn’t as fun when it’s your body!” You both were back on the street. Bill shook his hand, kinda laughing even though you could see the cringe of pain through it. You stared at him, heart hammering in your chest, as he turned to follow the sign’s directions.

“Let’s go see what humans consider a “mystery”! It’ll be funny- bet it’s just an old skull or something. I’ll show you a REAL mystery, when I get my powers back!” He walked a bit, before looking back to see if you were following. He didn’t address his outburst beyond the mention of being in pain. You took a slightly shaky breath, before moving to catch up. You pulled a bit ahead, leading him off since you had the GPS. You decided to keep quiet, with Bill yapping about random bullshit the entire trip.

“- and THEN I said it wasn’t MY fault he didn’t specify he needed a HUMAN heart. How was I supposed to know that a donkey heart wasn’t “compatible” with human anatomy?” You heaved out a sigh of both annoyance and relief as the Mystery Shack came into view. It was a bit of a hike out of town, but the path was nice.

A hidden cabin out among huge pine trees. Multiple old signposts either shaped like arrows or had arrows and question marks painted onto them. A few people flitted around the giftshop, or headed back to their cars. Man you missed your car.

“Dunno if they’re still doing tours right now.” Bill blinked at the sound of your voice. You hadn’t talked this whole time. Bill had definitely noticed your mood, and constant glances over at him whenever he got a little loud or animated during his stories.

“But maybe we can get a stupid souvenir,” you said with a little smile on your lips. Bill could live with that. Maybe there was a funny hat in there!

You two stepped into the tight gift shop, dodging an overly-flirty couple exiting the building at the same time. You and Bill looked at each other, grossed out, before moving to look around. Bill gravitated toward the little replica statuettes of displays that the shack supposedly had.

“Wow, these look like shit,” he laughed. You shook your head and decided to look at the novelty tees. You pulled out a few, deciding if it was worth the ridiculous price tag, when you heard footsteps approach you.

“Welcome to the Mystery Shack, dude! You new in town?” You looked up at the tall man standing near you. He was big, with a bit of stubble and front teeth that stuck out a little more than they should. He was dressed in a suit, with an eyepatch and a red fez on his head. He just beamed at you, excited to have a new customer. You nodded, telling him your name and shaking his hand when he stuck it out.

“You can call me Mister Mystery- or Soos. I usually answer to Soos, though,” he laughed. You smiled slightly. This guy seemed nice enough, despite the theft he was pulling with the merchandise prices.

“So, you own the place?” You leaned against the wall near the novelty shirts. He waved his hand in a ‘kinda-sorta’ way.

“Not really but kinda. Basically I run the place now, but my boss and his brother own the building. I just keep it runnin’,” he answered. You nodded in understanding. You subtly put the overpriced shirt back on the rack while he talked about the shack. You heard small feet trot over to you.

“Look at this thing, kid! Some idiot just hot glued a chicken’s head to a squirrel!” You and Soos looked down, seeing Bill holding exactly what it sounded like- a taxidermied squirrel with a chicken’s head. You snorted a little bit at the sight of it.

Soos froze, looking between you and Bill. Bill stared up at him and you felt a knot in your stomach. You could see the recognition- and fear- in his eyes. Bill, however, was unfazed.

“How much for this thing, fatso?” “Bill!” “What?” That seemed to knock Soos back to reality. He stepped back, fear in his eyes, as he turned to the redhead at the checkout counter who was dozing off between customers.

“WENDY! WE GOT A CODE DORITO! FLAMIN’ HOT!!!” She was alert instantly.

[blackenchanting]

Welcome to ravens borough part 3 battery trouble

This story is nsfw and therefore not for children

Somewhere in the quiet unheard of town called Ravens Borough The two detectives waited by their black nineteen seventy nine Buick LeSabre with a dead battery.

"Well that's annoying." Rob said, closing the hood.

"Could have sworn I replaced it the other day." Eva said leaning on the car.

"Guess we gotta call Orion." Rob said getting his phone out and calling the town mechanic.

"And now, we wait." Rob said, putting his phone away.

"We could just walk." Eva said.

"Do you want to walk to and from the mechanics?" Rob asked.

"Good point." Eva said.

"Wanna steam up the windows while we wait?" Rob asked.

"And potentially traumatize Orion? Tempting." Eva said with a giggle.

"Well it has been a while since we did it in the car." Rob said moving over to Eva and kissing her. As they heard the distant wine of a siren and a horn blowing multiple times

"Oh. He's here." Rob said, turning around as a rusty old nineteen sixty nine ford f two fifty utility truck. pull in beside them as the siren died leaving only the rotating beacon the door had a portrait of a skull duel welding wrenches with Orion's twenty four hour roadside recovery service and repairs on it as the door swung open. as a skinny blonde haired male in a flannel ripped jeans a grey shirt with a rainbow peace sign on it and a green headband tied around his head. Dropped from the side his right leg was fine but his left leg had bandages on it.

"How's your leg dude?" Rob asked.

"Not bad." Orion said, first bumping Rob.

"They kinda told me the only thing they could do was amputate it. But I said no I'd rather be mr limpy then mr one leg." he continued.

"Fair enough." Rob said.

"I heard they're working on new prosthetics. Though it really depends on how much needed to be amputated." Eva said.

"So I was thinking earlier right.. we should go to the bar later and get waaasted! like we did last week when I woke up in the dumpster out in paxton with absolutely no clue how I got there.. brah it was totally tubular." Orion said with a chuckle as he limped past the fender that said horn warrior on it.

"I wasn't here for that. Bet Saffron was pissed." Rob said.

"She was. I had to haul his ass home." Eva said.

"Bummer bro hashtag no regrets." Orion said limping around to the front of their car.

"We definitely should get drinks though, but no drunken traveling. Because knowing us, we'll be completely separated." Rob said stretching and putting an arm around Eva.

"Yeah dude, we can't keep dragging you back home when you get shit faced, with your daughter around now." Eva said leaning on Rob.

"You guys need to come over and meet her at some point. She's the most precious thing I've ever seen. And not just because I created her" he said with a laugh as he popped their hood.

"We definitely will. Gotta introduce ourselves to her after all." Rob said.

"Might actually get saffron's opinion on a couple of things while we're at it." Eva said.

"Oh god not opinions.. So I heard we have a big city boy on our hands now a week in New York city." Orion said.

"Eh, it wasn't that interesting. Besides the run in with the mob, the attempted muggings, and the guy who ran away from his wife because of crippling gambling debt." Rob said.

"Interesting... Alright so you got a seven point five liter v eight in this bad boy with a three speed transmission and a six fifty cca battery." Orion said.

"Yeah. We know. You say that every time you open the hood. And sometimes even before." Rob said.

"Sometimes I just gotta show that I know cars" the mechanic testifie.

"So apparently they opened this new establishment down there on DarkWatterton road where the old manor used to sit" He continued

"Oh? What is it?" Rob asked.

"It's called Lucy's... or something.... It's got some really good steak though" Orion said limping back over to his truck like a sad puppy.

"Fair, I prefer cooking my own steak." Rob said.

"Oh yeah. Lucy's outlaw steakhouse. Kinda interesting that we get chain restaurants this far out." Eva said.

"Best steak I've ever had" Orion said unlocking a box and opening it where he had a bunch of tools ready to go .

"Then I gotta cook for you sometime." Rob said.

"And you gotta try Lucy's at some point" Orion replied, pulling out a spare battery

"But uh.. I've been going down to the raven brook. You know that area of town that barely anyone lives in because it's really far from anything." he said

"Dude, you keep taking risks. You gotta chill out a bit bro." Rob said.

"For Saffron's sake." Eva said.

"All week I've been towing abandoned cars from there and every time I go there.. I drive by this black chevy el camino, the one that your friend drives.. it sits there from nine in the morning to three the next morning." Orion said scratching the back of his neck "Of course she's doing shady shit." Rob said.

"We'll check it out." Eva said.

"It's probably nothing I just thought I'd tell you. Incase it gets stolen or something"

"Fair enough." Rob said.

"Heh reminds me of the time you left your Impala un-watched for a little too long and someone stole it. Drove halfway across the country with it" he said limping back over to their car.

"Ah, that was a fun time. Ended up in Vegas. Broke a guy's hand. Won 30 grand. Good times." Rob said

"I'm still waiting for you to pay me for that trip so I can release the damn thing. It's taking up too much space in the driveway saffrons getting tired of staring at it though the kitchen window." Orion said.

"Yeah we'll be over and take care of that soon. Probably a bit after we get home and shower." Rob said.

"And bam!" Orion said dropping the hood and holding the old battery.

"Thanks." Rob said.

" And let us know if you need anything." Eva said getting into the car as Orion blew the horn on the truck and took off as it rattled.

At Ameila and Ava's two story suburban house the couple were chilling in the kitchen Ameila sat on a counter and Ava mixed something in a bowl

"You look so pretty when you play chef" Ameila said petting Ava's head

"Awe stop your gonna make me blush" she said continuing to mix the bowl of presumably pancake batter. she was a bit of a mess being covered in pancake batter herself as Ameila took her finger and brushed it off her face and onto her finger before eating it.

"Mhh that's interesting" she said

"You know you ain't supposed to eat it by itself right..." The demon said

"That explains a lot" Ameila replied putting a pan on the stove as Ava poured the batter into it allowing the two to watch as it cooked. Ameila put her hand on Ava's as they flipped pancake number one together

"That's sweet" Ava said.

"True but not as sweet as you" she said

"Stahp it." the demon lady said.

"Absolutely not… never." the pink haired menace said as they flipped pancake number one again and put it on a plate.

"Huh it kinda looks like a frog." Ava said.

"Looks like a down syndrome garfield to me" Ameila said.

"Gah ruuude!!" Ava said.

"I'm only speaking my mind." Ameila said.

"Sometimes your mind is mean... and evil… and wrong!" Ava said going on a playful tangent.

"Ah you know what they say you can't make a cake without losing a dozen men.. wait a second" Ameila said.

A little bit later in Rob and Eva's apartment Eva was getting undressed in the bedroom as Rob walked in.

"So shower then we see if anyone needs our variety of help?" Rob asked as Eva took her shirt off revealing her bare almost completely flat chest and inverted nipples.

"That sounds like a plan, though I think we should take care of something first." Eva said, stripping her pants off now in just red and black striped thigh high socks that squeezed the top of her thick thighs.

"On the bed." Eva said in a commanding tone as Rob obeyed.

"Yes ma'am." Rob said as Eva used her socked feet to free Rob's cock from his pants.

"There. Now, let's give me another reason to wear the new pair I got." Eva said, placing both of her feet around Rob's cock.

"By all me-ah!" Rob moaned as Eva started stroking his cock with her feet in a slow sensual manner.

"You know, that reminds me, we gotta check the tires later." Eva said stroking a bit faster, from base to tip.

"Check the tires, make sure the windows roll down, check the suspension." Rob said as Eva pressed her feet together tighter.

"And after that we gotta probably double check with the sheriff about that last case in town, the one that the Mayor was interested in." Eva said, stroking harder.

"Noted, we're definitely not entirely washed of that one, ah right there." Rob said, close to climaxing.

"Yeah, that's definitely still under the ongoing umbrella, good thing we have so many wall boards." Eva said stroking as hard as her thick legs would allow, causing Rob to climax hard on the lower half of her thigh highs.

"What is with you and needing multiple reasons to do some things?" Rob asked as Eva peeled her thigh highs off.

"With certain clothes you're the only reason they get dirty, besides, the new ones are a bit of a surprise." Eva said getting off the bed and stretching.

"Fair enough, so, shower?" Rob asked while stripping out of his clothes.

"Shower." Eva said as the couple headed into the bathroom.

At Kai and Owen's place, Kai made plans for the two of them.

“Alright little guy, we gotta get that introverted self pushed back a little or you may end up single your entire life and we can’t have that.” Kai said.

“B-But… I’m not sure if I can do it right now.” Owen stuttered.

“Yes but if I pretend to do so, it’ll get mom off my back for a while so we’re off to the arcade.” Kai said as he lifted Owen onto his shoulders.

“Everything looks small up here!” Owen exclaimed.

“It’s not as fun as it looks, I’ve hit my head on more doors than I can remember.” Kai replied.

“It can’t be all bad though.” Owen said as he patted his brother on the head giggling.

“Right, the arcade, here we are.” Kai said.

“O-Ok, b-but if a self aware character from one of the games tries coming for me, I won’t speak to you for a while.” Owen replied, causing Kai to facepalm.

“You play too many visual novels and watch too many cartoons bro.” Kai said.

“P-Please don’t tease me about them.” Owen pleaded.

“What? I never planned to. Why the hell did you think I would?” Kai said.

“B-Because they’re childish?” Owen answered.

“Not all of them, I know that they can tell some pretty dark shit at times, they aren’t childish at all!” Kai exclaimed.

“Th-That makes me feel a little better… I think.” Owen said.

“With that out of the way, I’m off to find the shooter games, call me if you need anything.” Kai said.

“Ok, have fun… I’ll just do my own thing.” Owen said as he watched Kai walk away.

“You aren’t coming with me?” Kai asked.

“I-It’s not really my thing.” Owen replied.

“Suit yourself bro.” Kai said.

Owen watched as Kai headed off before going the other way, hoping to find any retro-style game machines, curious to how they worked.

“You seem more interested in the machine than you are in the game.” A girl said as she approached Owen.

“H-Huh? o-oh, I’m just fascinated by how they work.” Owen replied.

“Good to see someone with a hobby outside of the internet or sex.” The girl said.

“W-Well…I-I do use the internet…just not for naughty things.” Owen said nervously.

“Ok, take a minute to breathe…you’re shaking like a leaf right now.” The girl said, placing her hand on his shoulder reassuringly.

“I-I am? s-sorry.” Owen replied.

“Why are you apologizing? You did nothing wrong.” The girl said.

“U-Um…what’s your name?” Owen asked, hoping to divert the conversation.

“My name? oh, did I not give you it? my bad, it’s Kaela.” Kaela said.

“M-Mine’s Owen.” Owen replied.

“Did you come with anyone? ‘Cause I’m more than happy to provide company.” Kaela said.

“I-I came with someone… but they’re happy doing their own thing.” Owen said.

“Who were they? your girlfriend?” Kaela asked.

“N-No… I came with my brother.” Owen answered.

“Your brother, hm? Where is he now? Kaela asked.

“Is there a problem? Do you have a problem with him?” Kai asked as he walked up to the two.

“N-No, no problem Kai, I-I made a new friend is all.” Owen responded.

“You… Made a friend… On your own?” Kai said surprised.

Owen simply nodded quietly before being picked up by Kai.

“Nice work little bro! I knew you could do it eventually!” Kai said triumphantly.

“Ah! P-Put me down please.” Owen exclaimed.

“Can’t! I'm too proud!” Kai shouted.

Eventually, he puts his younger brother down.

“I’m Kai, Owen’s older brother but not the oldest brother.” Kai said after recomposing himself from his pride.

Later that night the detectives drove down the road Orion had been talking about earlier as they found the El Camino chilling by an alleyway.

"Well, it looks like he was right." Rob said.

The windows were fully blacked out making them feel a bit uneasy

"Weird." Eva said.

"It wasn't like that the other day." Rob said.

"And here I was looking forward to going home and relaxing for a bit." Eva said parking the car outside the alley as the radio in the Buick Lesabre started playing white noise as they got closer to it.

"That's even weirder." Rob said as the detectives drove closer the el camino just sat there doing nothing.

"Alright, that's creepy." Eva said getting closer before parking.

"I'll check it out." Rob said getting out of the car and walking over to the El Camino. Which continued sitting there like a normal parked car.

Rob grabbed the handle and pulled it to discover the car was unlocked and empty.

"Ameila, you really gotta lock this thing." Rob said, closing the door and pulling out a notepad from his coat and writing out a ticket as the car's lights turned on.

"What in the actual hell?" Rob said, closing the notepad and walking back to his car.

"A ghost is one thing but I know not to fuck with haunted cars." Rob said getting back into the car.

The El caminos engine roared sounding very mean as it took off drifting into the other lane and sped off causing the tool box in the back to rattle like a mother fucker.

"Oh I see how it is." Eva said putting the car into drive and peeling out after the El Camino her lights lighting up the back like a christmas tree as Eva kept up with the El Camino as it continued with the LeSabre hot on it's ass as they could read the license plate. As the back wheels spun causing the car to drift straight into an alleyway splashing through a puddle as Eva focused on the El Camino which turned again.

"This piece of shit wasn't meant for this!" Rob said as Eva drifted after the El Camino.

"Sure it was, otherwise we wouldn't have it." Eva said as the El camino drifted onto the main road almost rolling over In front of them as it rattled and shook.

"How is that thing even driving?! No one was in it!" Rob said as the el camino swerved a bit as Eva kept following it. They watched it slowly decelerate until it was right next to them though they still couldn't see through the windows.

"The fuck is it doing?" Rob asked as Eva kept pace with the El Camino as Eva grabbed the wheel and spun it trying to pull a pit maneuver on the El Camino as it completely slowed down as they sent the LeSabre flying into a ditch as the El camino took off into the distance.

"Well that didn't go as I planned." Eva said.

"That was exhilarating, and kinda hot, that's why I leave the driving to you." Rob said.

"Yeah, yeah it was. We'll have to keep an eye out for the El Cami-" Eva said as Rob kissed her and pulled her into the backseat.

"Really? Now?" Eva asked as the El Camino did doughnuts in front of their car

"Oh that's just rude." Rob said as Eva pushed him down.

"Not gonna let it ruin the moment." Eva said. As the El camino came to a stop and shut down

[samwilsonshandsandass]

How To Forget

Pairing: rockstar!Sam Wilson x reader Summary: Your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere and you find a bar that’s empty save for the bartender and another patron. You and he get to talking; and how will you spend the night together? Warnings: Smut, oral (m and f receiving and giving), drinking Word count: around 4K A/N: I'll let you decide who the character at the end is

In the middle of a downpour, your car decided to break down. Yes, you had been driving for the last two days but the display showed the tank to be full and the battery didn’t die on you. So instead of being able to at least try and fix this yourself, you tried to call some towing service.

No luck. You just had to break down in the one spot that didn’t have cell service. So you couldn’t call for help, there was no roadside emergency phone and with the light pattering of rain quickly getting heavier, the traffic was negligible. You sighed, got your essentials from the car and started what would probably be quite the trek until you found shelter. While you walked you thought you could feel the rain picking up more and more and also getting progressively colder with each step you took.

Then you thought you saw a sign flashing through the tree line. Some minutes later, the trees thinned to give way for one of these roadside bars. So, you hadn’t just imagined the sign in hopes of one actually being there. The parking lot in front the two-story bar was empty save for a deep red Ford Mustang, visibly kept in pristine shape despite its age of several decades by someone who definitely thought of this car as their baby.

You looked around and apparently, the bar was indeed open. Maybe the bartender’s car was at the back entrance. Or the Mustang was the bartender’s car. Anyway, you went in and took a moment to look around. The bar had the typical memorabilia on the walls and seemed dingy in the way that a bar seemed dingy without being dirty but rather like it had seen generations of people drinking, forgetting, laughing, mourning, hooking up and just searching for something to eat or a place to crash.

You stepped up to the bar. “Hey. My car broke down some way down the highway and I don’t have any cell service out here. Could I use your phone real quick?”

“You look like you need more than just help with your car, love. No offense.”

“Uh… I’m sorry?”

“Why don’t you sit down at one of the tables and take a second to rest, okay?” The bartender reached below the counter and handed you a folded towel. “Go on, rest a bit, for me. Okay?”

You took the towel and suddenly you felt the chill of the quite heavy rain during your way here in your bones. Your hair probably looked like a mess and your clothes had to be soggy as hell. You sat down at one of the corner booths and softly patted your hair and then your clothes dry.

You let your eyes wander around the bar, deciphering the plates on the walls and trying to think of who the people on the pictures could be. Until your eyes stopped at the side profile of someone with short black hair and what you assumed was a goatee from what you could see. You really weren’t one for goatees but this guy, whose entire face you hadn’t even seen, made even that look good. He was hunched over the table in a booth similar to yours and yet, his posture spoke of him being or doing something that required fitness and attentiveness to how he carried himself.

“Love?” The bartender called over to you.

You stood up and went to the bar, with the towel on hand. From the corner of your eye, you saw some small movement in the guy’s booth. “Thanks for this. Needed it more than I thought.”

“Don’t worry your head about it. The bad news is: With the rain storm outside, no one’s gonna get out here until tomorrow. If you’re lucky. The good news: The room above the bar is fully made up for potential people needing to crash and I don’t charge for that.”

“So you’d let me stay here until someone can fix my car? Just like that.” You looked at him with wide eyes.

“Just like that. Around here, we don’t take from people in emergency situations.”

“Thank you!”

“Don’t mention it. Anything you might need?”

“Could I get a whiskey?”

“Any preference on the notes? On the rocks or just pure whiskey?”

“No, just one that burns like hell and just pure whiskey. I don’t have the nerve for extra things in my alcohol tonight. Not even ice cubes.”

“Alright. But take the snacks with you, okay?”

Snacks and drink in hand, you turned and were met with brown eyes. But after a moment, you noticed the man looked in your direction but not at you. Instead, he raised his empty glass and to your surprise the bartender went over to him with a full cocktail glass. On the way back, he winked at you.

“If traffic’s as slow as tonight, I also bring drinks to the table. But thanks for bringing back the towel.”

“I’ll remember that” Your right corner of the mouth turned up.

“You trying to annihilate our whiskey stash? That won’t work, I’ll cut you off when needed.”

“Noted.”

“Well then, enjoy your poison” He nodded at your untouched glass.

“Will do.”

You walked over to stand in front of the only other customer’s booth.

“I couldn’t help but notice you over here. What would you say to some company?”

He looked up at you, taking his hands off the glass. “No offence, but I’m not exactly in the mood for this kinda company.”

“Apparently a drink is more interesting than me…” You looked at the colorful cocktail.

“I’m… commiserating something.”

“Well, it so happens I’m mourning something. But that’s not what I actually wanna do. Actually, I wanna forget.”

“So, why don’t you?”

“Dunno. Why are you commiserating? Wouldn’t be forgetting also an option?”

“It would be, yeah.”

“Wanna try forgetting together?”

“You know, what? Why not?”

You smiled and sat down.

“Why did you choose this bar?” You wanted to know.

“Frankly? I just jumped into my car and drove. When I saw this one was open but the parking lot was entirely empty, I knew this was the one.”

“That why you here? Just because there’s no one else?”

“Kinda. I, uh, sometimes people recognize me. Didn’t wanna deal with that tonight.”

You took a sip. “Now I feel like I should recognize you. What’s your name?”

“Sam. Yours?”

“Y/N.”

“I gotta say, I noticed how you’re holding yourself. Like an athlete. Or someone who trains a lot, even if you’re not an athlete.”

“Not an athlete. But someone you could’ve seen on one of those culture channels, some videos maybe” He mumbled.

“Everything’s a video nowadays.” You remarked dryly. “But that leaves me with actor, poet or author or musician.”

“Bingo.” He looked at you.

“Somehow I don’t think you’re all of that in one person.” You smirked.

“Who knows? Maybe I’m Da Vinci without the inventions.” He smirked back.

“Or the painting. I forgot painter. You said something about culture channels.”

“No painting in sight.”

“Well then.”

“What d’you say to this: I’ll take a drink each time you’re wrong” Sam offered.

“Isn’t that normally the other way round?”

“True, but that’s a little boring, wouldn’t you think?” He smiled. “So? I mean, I wouldn’t stop you from drinking as well.”

“Okay. Are you an actor? Could I have seen you on some stage and one of those channels aired the play?”

“Nope” He drank.

“Are you a poet? Or one of those authors where half of the fans love the writing and the other half is just thirsty for the picture on the back of the book?”

Sam laughed. A deep belly laugh that made his shoulders shake and show of his teeth and the gap between his front teeth. You grinned.

“What kinda books are you reading for the fans to be like that?”

“You know how it is. You go through your social media feed and suddenly you’re way too invested in a fandom war and you’re not even part of the fandom.”

“I’ll just buy that…” He drank and you as well.

“And? What do you say? Right kind of poison?” The voice of the bartender called over to you.

“Yeah!”

“Then I haven’t lost my touch” He smiled and took his attention to something else.

“To take up the thread, that only leaves musician.” You continued.

“Bingo!” Sam raised his glass to you.

You both drank and spent a few minutes in silence. It wasn’t the most comfortable silence but it also wasn’t uncomfortable. Maybe it was the result of being stuck here, you thought. Although; you didn’t know if he was stuck here. The car outside was probably his, so if he wanted to, he could just up and leave. Yet, he didn’t.

You looked at Sam. “You said you were commiserating something but forgetting would also be an option. Wanna talk? Or just drink?”

“With company? Both. And what about you? You said you’re mourning something.”

“Yep.” You mumbled. A little louder, you added: “Both sounds good.”

You nodded at each other and emptied your glasses.

“What’s your poison? First round’s on me” You said.

“Then I’ll take Margarita and a tray of rainbow shots for us both, if that’s all right?”

“Deal.”

You signaled the bartender and at your table you told him your order. Shortly after, he came back with a Margarita, a Kinky Rockstar and poured the shots in front of your eyes.

“Enjoy. And just so you know, I’ll be keeping an eye on you both. Want you to stay safe.”

Sam smiled at him. “You’re a mother hen.” The affection could be heard; either Sam and the bartender had known each other for a long time or he had only needed an evening to take him into his heart. You knew, it had been like that with you.

“Every good bartender is a mother hen” He smiled at you two.

You and Sam clinked glasses again and drank.

“So, I have a Margarita, and you have a…?”

“A Kinky Rockstar.”

“Oh hardy-har-har.” Sam grinned dryly.

“Wait! I got your genre right, just because I wanted some candy with my alcohol and the mix of sweet and sour?”

He nodded. “Actually, that’s what I wanna forget. The band. Our percussionist and the bass player fucked off into the sunset.”

“Can I ask what brought that on? As far as I understand the whole make music together thing it’s kinda like finding another family?”

“Yep, kind of, yes. And since this happened, I thought long and hard about what could have happened, if maybe… I said something teasing that was the last straw. But I never get close to an answer.” He looked dejected. Then, as if there was a switch flipped from outside, he looked up at you. “And what do you wanna forget?”

“Life.”

“Valid. Can I ask what happened?”

“Everything at once, honestly. I went to work today morning. Only had a half day. Came home and was locked out of my appartement. Well. The appartement of my boyfriend and I. I tried to reach him, but can’t. not through a messenger, not through e-mail, telephone, work, nothing. Like he just vanished. But if indeed did just vanish by some cosmic force meddling with his and my life, the locks would’ve still been the same, right? But they’re not. And for some reason I don’t understand, no lockout services could come out. On a weekday.”

“And to forget you just drove and drove and drove until you broke down and trekked to this roadside bar?”

“Since I broke down on the roadside, finding an inner-city bar would have been weird, wouldn’t it?” You were dripping with irony. “What about the shots now? They’re sitting here, while my candy is soaking the liquor and you’re not enjoying the contrast of salty and sweet…”

Sam just smiled dryly. “You’re the boss. Everyone drinks one on the count of three and whoever’s faster gets the shot in the middle?”

You were one second faster than Sam and started on your fourth glass just as he finished his third.

“Needed that” You mumbled.

“I can see that” He chuckled.

From then on, you talked about anything and everything. About what you did, about what he did, how your boyfriend, or most likely now ex-boyfriend, was, how his bandmates, or most likely now ex-bandmates, were. What you did for fun, what he did for fun. After some time, you sat on his lap and almost immediately he massaged your thigh. You leant into him and nibbled on his neck, scraping on it with your teeth, and scratching his scalp with your nails.

Sam almost started pouring at that.

The table now was littered with glasses of all forms, from shot glasses to bigger ones and the biggest, from smallest to tallest, telling a tale of drinking irresponsibly but, or just because of that, having so much fun in each other’s company. The bartender came over for the nth time and set down a Tequila Sunrise and a Blackberry Bourbon Smash. Plus a bowl of peanuts, olives and crackers.

“On the house, my dears. Eat” With how he looked up through his lashes despite his sheer size, you wouldn’t dare refuse him anything.

“You really are a mother hen” You slurred, feeling the alcohol.

“I’ll take that sentence in a stylized font on a wall plate. Just so you know, I’ll keep the glasses there. For you to know how much you drank. Now eat” The bartender, or ‘mother hen’ as you dubbed him in your head, responded and went back behind the bar.

“Mother Hen!” You shouted and surprisingly enough, or maybe not that much, but to your drunken mind it was, he turned around.

“Yeah, Broken Down Car Woman?” He shouted back.

“Hey!” You giggled. “Anyway, what’s with letting the empty glasses stay with us?”

“Told ya. Want you to see how much you drank. And with just two guests, it’s easier to take three glasses per hand when taking them back instead of running infinitely many more times after each round. And you’re the only two here, so I got enough glasses for that.”

“Okay, good to know.”

Quite some time, and even more empty glasses later, you looked at Sam. “Wanna get outta here? The Mother Hen told me there’s a room upstairs for people to crash.”

“Yeah, he told me the same thing. So, let’s go!”

Just then, the bartender popped up in front of your table.

“So, you’re both comfortable with sharing a room?”

“Yeah, we already got familiar with each other…” You grinned.

“Alright then.” The bartender put his hands on your and Sam’s lower back and guided you up the stairs, literally until you sat clumsily on the bed.

“Now, you two take care of each other and don’t wake the woods.”

“Yessir” You both did a mock salute.

As soon as the door closed, you clawed at each other’s clothes until they all came off. Instead of the stereotypical trace of clothes because of passion, there was a single heap. You stumbled onto the, seemingly, freshly made bed and pulled Sam on top of you.

He blanketed your body with his and you felt him rut against your midst. “So pretty and soft and warm…” He mumbled. He kissed up and down your neck, biting everywhere he kissed you until you squirmed and could be sure to feel it deeply when you’d touch it tomorrow.

Slowly, Sam kissed and sucked on your breasts and licked and bit your nipples until just that kind of overstimulation made you push him away for him to lean on his elbows and grin at you.

“If that’s how react when I’m up here, I can’t wait until I’m a little lower…” He grinned up at you.

“I’m torn between telling you to get the fuck down there and enjoying every second of what you’re doing to me” You moaned.

“We have all the time in the world, so I wanna touch this body as much and as long as possible, okay?”

You nodded furiously.

Without a word more, Sam went back to kissing all over your body, making it a point to use teeth, tongue and lips equally and making sure every kiss and nip would ring in your ears. Literally. After some time, when Sam was almost at your navel, you looked down your body. Your body shone in the bedside tables’ lamps.

And then he set his mouth on your pussy. And stopped after one touch.

“Oh come on! That’s just mean, Sam!”

“Now the patience has run out?”

“Yes!”

With that, Sam got on the bed and swiftly pulled you up and onto his face.

“Sit down, baby.”

You did and felt his plush lips on your center. His hands on your butt pulled you down and kneaded your cheeks.

He slapped both your cheeks once. “Move.”

You rutted into his mouth, forth and back, feeling his lips move. He puckered his lips to suck on yours, down to your slit where he licked up everything you had to offer. Sam went up again to your clit and sucked. That alone was something that made the coil in your belly prominent but then he also took one hand from your butt to push two fingers into you. He curled them in his direction and he curled them fast. You came, gushing into his mouth and whimpered. You sensed how your pussy twitched but Sam didn’t let up.

“I’ll lay you down, okay baby?” Sam asked muffled.

You nodded and he laid you on your belly next to him.

“Look at that… You’re still twitching” With that, he slowly pushed into you until his hips met your ass. His hands next to your head, he started a slow pace of deep strokes. You squeaked when Sam pulled you up by your neck. Your back to his chest, he tightened his hand around your neck.

“Now, sweetie… You want me to be rougher, dontcha?”

You nodded breathlessly.

With a messy kiss, all teeth and tongue, Sam upped the ante and pounded into you. The slap of his skin against yours echoed through the room. The angle of his cock made him touch your g-spot every time and with each thrust your moans got louder, as did Sam’s grunts.

Your legs quivered after a particularly well-aimed thrust. You fell forward onto your hands and Sam followed you, blanketing you with his body. His movements in you stuttered when you clamped down on him and your orgasm triggered his own.

Sam was vocal, probably the most vocal one you ever had been with. Wasn’t there a saying about rockstars doing it louder? Or was that just singers?

When both of your panting had gone down to normal breathing again, Sam rolled over and reached for the nightstand.

“Drink” He told you and held out a glass with a clear liquid to you.

“What’s that?” You eyed the glass.

“Tap water. What do you take me for?”

“You’re right.” You gulped down everything in a few seconds.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m not exactly sated. And we do still have the rest of the night left. So? Are you?”

You grinned while shaking your head no. “I’m not sated.”

“Alright.” Sam chuckled. “Now that you’ve had your fluids…”

You grabbed his face in your hands and kissed him, licking his lips, biting them and not letting him go until you thought you had conveyed your wants enough.

The rest of the night went by in a blur of passion, moans and positions. At one point you and Sam fell asleep in each other’s’ arms. Exhausted, with marks and drying cum and spit on both your bodies but sated and happy.

You woke up first. Your head was on Sam’s chest and you had hogged the blankets around your ankles. But what caught your eye was Sam’s morning wood, laying hard and thick on his belly. You crawled down and stroked one finger along it. Sam didn’t budge. Next, you licked along him, following the trail your finger had taken. Still, Sam didn’t budge.

Only when you suckled his tip into your mouth and hollowed your cheeks the more you went down on him, did Sam show a sign of waking up. He moved his hips a little and his hand next to hi hip twitched. You moved it to the back of your head, and apparently that was what triggered Sam’s brain. Not your wet tongue, not the sucking sensation; no, the feeling of your well-cared for hair in his hand made his eyes fly open.

“Isn’t that a nice way to wake up” He moaned haltingly.

You made an affirmative sound and Sam shuddered. You smiled around him as much as you could before you tongued the underside of him and with that and a groan that made the ones you had heard during the night seem quiet, he came in your mouth. He pushed your head down until you swallowed.

With a smile, you moved up Sam’s body. Sam kissed you, exploring your mouth with his tongue again.

“That was nice but I do need something real in my stomach.”

“Let’s see if the Mother Hen has something stocked” Sam pulled you up and in your wrinkled clothes from yesterday’s driving (in Sam’s case) and rain and some mud (in your case) you went down to the bar.

You were greeted by said Mother Hen. “What did I say about not waking the woods?”

“Ooops… who was worse?” Sam showed a maybe-or-maybe-not-ashamed grin.

“That, love, is a tie. You both screamed and grunted and did I-do-know-what-but-that’s-your business.”

You and Sam looked at each other from the corner of your eyes, still in the doorway to the bar.

“You are allowed to come in, you know? I made lunch. Eggs Benedict, potatoes, sausage and toast.”

“Lunch?” Both of you echoed.

“You don’t think you slept until breakfast time, do you?”

You shook your head. Breakfast (or lunch) was delicious. Everything perfectly done and seasoned. Close to every little thing having disappeared in your Sam’s and Mother Hen’s stomachs, you addressed Sam.

“I just realized, you never told me what you play in the band…”

“Played” Sam mumbled around his toast. “And it was singer. I was the singer and occasionally played guitar on stage.

In the room you had shared, you both got ready to leave, packing up and straightening your clothes.

“Sammy boy! Oh Sammy boy!” Ah voice sing-songed from the open door.

“What the fuck are you doing here?!” Sam growled without turning around.

“Sooo… we thought long and hard aaand…” The tall blond and broad-shouldered man said.

“And?”

“And we actually miss the band and would like to try again.”

“Great. Wow. You thought and got to this conclusion that actually was obvious?”

The blond man nodded.

“Now you let me think. If and when I reach a conclusion, I’ll let you know. Without barging into your and a ladies’ room.” Sam deadpanned, then turned to you. “Can I give you a ride to somewhere?”

“My car-“ You started.

“- will be towed to the next auto shop, love” The Mother Hen said from behind the ex-band member on the stairs.

“So?” Sam asked.

“So I’d need to go into North Eastern direction.” You looked between Mother Hen and Sam.

“Alright” Both said; Mother Hen was already on the phone.

“Let’s go” Sam held out his hand to you, entirely ignoring his ex-bandmate.

[fatehbaz]

Firestone remains a distinctly American brand. It’s the official tire of Major League Baseball. It’s the Bridgestone Superbowl XLIV half-time show. The Firestone 550 is second only to the Indy 500. [...]

But in Harbel, Firestone remains sovereign. [...]

"Plantation" isn’t the word for Firestone. Think "state within a state."

Firestone originally controlled one million acres -- four percent of the country, or nearly 10 percent of arable land. The current government [as of 2010] [...] renegotiated the concession to encompass 100,000. The company runs the schools [...]. The plantation swallowed up whole villages when it was established. If this state had a capital, it would be the city of Harbel (named for company founder Harvey Firestone and his wife, Idabelle). [...] When Harvey Firestone Sr. first inked the deal for his rubber concession, he prophesized he’d put 350,000 people to work. "So far as I know, we are the only employers of African labor to establish the American working day," Harvey Sr. crowed. He imagined himself as a Henry Ford for Africa. [...]

It was the US government that put Firestone on to Liberia in the first place. The State Department contacted Firestone in 1923 to inform him that if he was interested in setting up a plantation in Liberia, all it would take was a $2.5 to 5 million dollar loan from Firestone to the government of Liberia, and "Mr. Firestone could virtually be the Government." [...]

-------

Two-and-a-half years later, Firestone was ready to seal the deal. But the Liberian government balked at the loan. Firestone wanted the government to pledge its revenues to pay off the loan at a healthy 7 percent rate of return—2 percent higher than Liberia’s existing debt [...]. So Firestone presented Liberia with a now infamous Christmas gift: clause (K). [...] The Liberians resisted, but Frank Kellogg, the new US Secretary of State, let it be known in Monrovia that the State Department anticipated "with sympathetic interest the conclusion of the Firestone contracts," and made it clear that if the deal fell through, US funds for Liberia would be scarce in the future. [...]

By September of 1925, the deal was done. Liberia used the cash to buy back bonds it had sold to England and France (among other creditors), curtailing their influence even as it dramatically expanded that of the US. The loan agreement gave American officials named by the US president control over much of the government’s budget, and even placed four US Army officers in charge of the notoriously brutal Liberian Frontier Force.

For a mere six cents per acre, Firestone now enjoyed near unlimited control over one million acres of Liberian soil.

-------

Within thirty years, the rent and taxes paid by Firestone to the Liberian government came to account for just short of 40 percent of the state’s total revenues. [...] While Firestone’s lease was set to expire in 2025, the Sirleaf government renegotiated it in 2008. There were rumors the new agreement would last almost another century, but groups like Liberia’s Save My Future Foundation (SAMFU) protested. Firestone’s writ now runs until 2041. [...]

Back in 2005, people in Owensgrove, a small community inside the plantation, started getting sick. SAMFU accused Firestone of polluting the Farmington River, which local residents used for everything [...]. [E]lsewhere on the "plantation" -- to be precise, in the small villages of Brown Town and Kpanyah- three people allegedly fell ill and died due to the pollution. [...]  Some days the creek that runs near Brown Town and Kpanyah is black and still; silver streaks surface in the mud of the road nearby. Pictures can’t capture the stench. [...]

-------

For years child labor was allegedly endemic at Firestone, as tappers struggled to meet the quota by enlisting their families to help them. "They wouldn’t force you as a child to go and do the work," [N] says. "But if you are a child who wants to see your parents survive, looking at the heavy work load, you’ll be forced to assist them. Because the work is just so heavy that one person can not complete it within a day."

While a lawsuit over the matter has been slowly winding its way through the US courts for years [...], the quota still stands. "To complete the quota, I must have extra hands," [A] says. And the extra hands are also paid from tappers’ wages. Nor are those extra hands considered Firestone employees. Which means not only are they working for a small share of an already meager wage, but they’re also denied the healthcare and housing the company provides to its official labor force. An official with Liberia’s Movement for Labor Justice suggests that 65% of Firestone’s workers aren’t covered by the collective bargaining agreement, as they’re considered contractors. [...]

-------

"I’m the third generation born of this plantation," [E] declares. "My grandparents work[ed] here, my parents work[ed] here, I’m working here. My kids will come and work. So if we cannot secure a better future now for our people, and for our children, what’s going to happen tomorrow? [...].” [...] “This is a community that enjoys absolutely nothing from Firestone’s operation [...]. They have to walk miles away just to get drinking water [...].” Last October [2009], a government commission confirmed that Firestone had polluted the creek. But the commission tested only for indicators of pollution, not actual toxic pollutants [...].

In February 2008, [T] became pregnant with her fourth child. [...] [S]he was ineligible for treatment at the company hospital. When [F] was born later that year, half her right arm was missing [...]. She breaks out in sores. [...]

She can’t crawl.

-------

Nicholas Jahr. “Workers Organize at Firestone, Liberia’s ‘State Within a State’.” The Nation. 8 July 2010.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

Alternate History: November 22, 1963

If John F. Kennedy survived his assassination attempt in 1963, he would almost certainly win re-election in 1964, so long as he kept Lyndon B. Johnson on as his VP. The Civil Rights Act would be stalled in Congress without Johnson as president to put pressure on conservative Democrats, but its still popular enough that it would become a campaign promise instead. Kennedy defeats Republican segregationist Barry Goldwater with a respectable majority, though not the 60-40 landslide of Johnson in our timeline. The Civil Rights Act passes in 1965 or 1966, and Kennedy commits fewer atrocities in Vietnam (his opponents call him soft or communism even though he was literally shot at by a communist sympathizer, he just doesn’t want to have another military failure like the Bay of Pigs in 62)

In 1968, the Democratic nomination is a two-way race between Lyndon B. Johnson and Kennedy’s own brother and Attorney General Bobby. Johnson and Bobby HATE each other, and they don’t pull any punches; Johnson had a history of opposing civil rights in the 50s, but he was instrumental in helping Kennedy secure the senate votes for filibuster cloture and passage in the 60s. Bobby Kennedy abused his post to act as his brothers personal lawyer, helping cover up some less than reputable decisions. It’s neck and neck going into the primaries. Johnson has more experience, but Bobby Kennedy is younger and more charismatic, and would have John’s endorsement. He would almost certainly be assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan, same as in our timeline, because of his support for Israel. Sirhan was an anti-Zionist Palestinian, and in our timeline he killed Bobby when he was a senator running for president in 1968. If JFK was never assassinated, Bobby would stay on in his cabinet as AG instead of becoming a senator in 64; as AG, he was his brothers main advisor for foreign and domestic policy, so he would be at the forefront of the American response to the Six Day War in 1967 in which the Arab states tried to push Israel into the sea. Sirhan would have even greater motivation to kill him in this timeline for supporting Israel in the war, so Johnson would probably become the Democratic nominee. He would probably still pick Hubert Humphrey as his VP, as he did in our 1964, because Humphrey was a liberal civil rights activist in the senate, also instrumental in passing the Civil Rights Act. Humphrey is closer in line to Bobby Kennedy, so Johnson is able to unite the party following his death.

The Republicans in 68 would be split between the moderates led by New York governor Nelson Rockefeller and the conservatives led by California governor Ronald Reagan. In our timeline, following the total repudiation of Goldwater conservatism in 64, the Republicans picked the middle-of-the-road Richard Nixon (he was their nominee in 1960 but lost to JFK, then lost the governorship of California in 1962, after which he promised to leave politics forever, but rescinded that promise when he saw he could run as the anti-Goldwater with his former boss Eisenhower’s endorsement). In this timeline, he would be considered a political laughingstock for his defeats; everyone would compare him to his very popular and successful opponent JFK, so he wouldn’t stand a chance against either his brother or his VP in 68. In our timeline, Reagan came in second in the Republican primaries, followed by Rockefeller at a distant third. In this timeline, Rockefeller would rocket into first without competition from Nixon. Rockefeller was a liberal Republican (sounds like an oxymoron today, but they used to exist), so he would probably pick Reagan as his VP to balance the ticket, holding onto conservative voters.

1968: Johnson/Humphrey vs Rockefeller/Reagan, it would be very close and would depend heavily on ultraconservative segregationist George Wallace, who ran as a spoiler in our 68, splitting the Democratic vote and giving the presidency to Nixon. Humphrey was a Midwestern Democrat, Wallace a southerner, so they represented two very different sides of the party. In this timeline, both Johnson and Wallace are southerners, so Wallace wouldn’t stand nearly as much a chance; our Johnson and this Kennedy lost the south to Goldwater in 64, but this Johnson would probably be able to crowd Wallace out of the race and run without intraparty opposition. In this case, I think Johnson/Humphrey would win.

1972, Johnson is in very poor health, but the last president to choose not to run for re-election was Rutherford B. Hayes (1877 - 1881). Johnson/Humphrey would run again, this time against Ronald Reagan at the top of the Republican ticket. Reagan didn’t run in our 72 because Nixon was a popular incumbent, but he ran in our 76 and nearly unseated incumbent Ford because he was unpopular for pardoning Nixon. If Reagan picked a moderate as his VP, as he did in our timeline with George Bush, he would probably pick George W. Romney, the outgoing governor of Michigan (and father of Mitt). The Johnson/Humphrey ticket would have a slight incumbency advantage over the Reagan/Romney ticket, but Reagan is still super popular, so there’s probably even odds he gets elected. To make it interesting, let’s say that he wins the popular vote and loses the electoral college; this has never happened to a Republican, they have always been the beneficiary of these loopholes

1824: Democratic-Republican turned National Republican John Quincy Adams loses the popular vote to Democrat Andrew Jackson, but wins the electoral college. I actually approve of this one because Jackson was a genocidal warmonger who inspired Hitler (that’s not hyperbole or Godwin’s law, it’s true, look it up). Jackson won the rematch in 1828

1876: Republican Rutherford B. Hayes lost the popular vote to Democrat Samuel Tilden, and some closed-doors corruption gave him the electoral college by exactly one vote, on the condition that he end Reconstruction and allow the south to rule itself without federal oversight. This created Jim Crow, which haunts us to this day.

1888: Republican Benjamin Harrison loses the popular vote to Democratic President Grover Cleveland, the first and so far only sitting president to lost in such a manner. Cleveland would win the rematch in 1892, again becoming the first and so far only president to win a non-consecutive second term. Cleveland won the popular vote three times in a row, a feat only surpassed by FDR’s four terms 40 years later.

2000: Republican George W. Bush lost the popular vote to Democrat Al Gore. Bush would have lost the electoral college too, but his brother Jeb was the governor of Florida and illegally ordered the state to stop the federally mandated recount. The state was too close to call, and later investigations show that if the recount had continued it would have gone for Gore, giving him the presidency, but Jeb and he 5-4 conservative Supreme Court gave it to George on a technicality; “oh, it’s too late to restart the recount, sorry, better luck next time.”

2016: Republican Donald Trump loses the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump was divisive because he was an idiot racist sexual predator, and Clinton was divisive because she was a disingenuous career politician who a lot of people hated for a variety of valid but less substantial reasons (Banghazi wasn’t her fault, but she still acted as though she was entitled to the Democratic nomination, like it was her birthright, that anybody who dared challenge her was interfering in Herstory). She lost because of low voter turnout in the rust belt and disproportionate media attention paid to third party candidates; had Johnson and Stein not been taken seriously, she probably would have carried Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania (at least one, maybe two or all three), possibly winning the presidency. Now, whether or not Russia interfered on Trumps behalf and changed votes in those states is unconfirmed; I believed it for a while, but then Biden won them all in 2020, which shows that Clinton was just a historically weak candidate. If Russia could change votes to give Trump a victory in 2016, they absolutely would have done it again in 2020.

In this timeline’s 1972, Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson lost the popular vote to Republican Ronald Reagan, but eked by with a slim electoral college victory. Now, our Johnson died on January 22, 1973 of a heart attack, which would be just two days into this Johnson’s second term, but I believe he would have survived slightly longer in this timeline. The presidency ages you; inheriting it in 63 and holding it until 69 definitely put more stress on him than if he had remained VP under Kennedy the whole time. This version of Johnson didn’t fumble Vietnam, so he isn’t despised by the public as he was in our 68 (he was eligible to run for a third term, but chose not to because he didn’t think he had enough support to win). This Johnson would probably survive well into 1973 or maybe even 1974 before dying, giving the presidency to Hubert Humphrey.

In 1976, the Midwestern Humphrey would run with a southerner as his VP. In our timeline, he ran in 1968 and chose northerner Edmund Muskie of Maine, and lost because of southern opposition from Wallace. To secure he south, he would NEED a southerner; if he was going for a moderate he’d pick Georgia governor Jimmy Carter, if he was going for a conservative he’s go with Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia (he would almost certainly pick Carter because Byrd led the filibuster opposition against the Civil Rights Act which Humphrey fought for, making them rivals on the matter). Because Reagan was so popular and got more votes in 72, he would probably become the Republican nominee again; it’s not unlike what the Democrats did in the 50s, running Adlai Stephenson against Dwight Eisenhower in both 1952 and 1956, or our timeline’s Republicans running Richard Nixon in 1960 and 1968. Reagan would pick a conservative as his running mate this time, probably Bob Dole; in our timeline, Gerald Ford picked fellow moderate Nelson Rockefeller as his VP in 74, but replaced him with Dole in 76 because he needed conservative support. I think that Reagan would shuck moderate support after losing in 68 and 72, in favor of a full conservative ticket. Reagan/Dole would defeat Humphrey/Carter in a landslide, ending 16 years of Democratic rule.

In 1980, Reagan/Dole would run for re-election against someone like Teddy Kennedy. In our timeline, Teddy challenged incumbent Carter in the primaries, and just barely lost. In this timeline, he would be he frontrunner, and would have his older brother’s endorsement. JFK would probably live into the early 1990s in this timeline; his sisters all lived to be in their 80s and 90s, but Teddy (his only surviving brother) died in his 70s. John was chronically unhealthy, suffering from Addison’s Disease, so he would probably die younger than Teddy, so 1994 at the latest. At this point, to see who wins we need to look at foreign policy; Vietnam is over, ended by Johnson or Humphrey, both of whom would be likely to reach detente with the Soviets and establish relations with the Chinese as our Nixon had. These are major achievements, but the election would come down to Iran; our Carter lost because he fumbled three Iranian crises in quick succession;

The Revolution: in the 1950s, Iran had a functioning democracy, and as an independent state it decided to distance itself from western powers to preserve Persian interests in the Middle East. Eisenhower overthrew the democracy and installed a pro-America puppet monarchy led by the Shah, who was in turn overthrown by religious extremists in 1979, installing the theocracy we know today run by the Ayatollah. Eisenhower destroyed Iran, and everyone up to and including Carter were complicit.

The Oil Shock: the new Islamic Republic of Iran decided it didn’t want to continue giving away oil to the United States as the puppet government had, so exports dried up, exacerbated by a war with Iraq the following year. Oil prices skyrocketed, and we were hit with a global recession.

The Hostage Crisis: a group of pro-revolutionary students took over the US Embassy in late 1979, holding 52 Americans hostage for over a year and a half. Carter eventually negotiated their release, but Reagan got all the credit because they weren’t let go until January 20, 1981, Reagan’s first day in office, making him look like he solved it all by himself.

Reagan was a warmonger who wanted to heat up the Cold War, and it was only because of his VP George Bush that we avoided the apocalypse. Bush specialized in foreign policy, and helped ease tensions with the USSR when he became president himself in our 1988, working with Mikhail Gorbachev to end the Cold War. In this timeline, no Bush means no detente, means we very likely would go to war with Iran over oil, becoming this timelines equivalent to the first Gulf War. Reagan would fight hard to restore the Shah, probably triggering a second revolution and an Iranian Civil War. This very same year, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to try and inch its way closer to the warm water ports of the Indian Ocean, which is an entirely new crisis for him to deal with. In our timeline, he responded to the Soviet invasion by giving money and weapons to the Mujahideen, an anti-communist militia led by none other than Osama Bin Laden. Bid Laden would turn against the US government in the 80s and 90s, bombing and eventually knocking down the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. If Eisenhower destroyed Iran, Reagan destroyed Afghanistan.

BUT, here’s the thing; Iran was our sworn enemy in the 1980s, but our Reagan decided they were a necessary evil in order for him to push his conservative agenda overseas. In 1985, Reagan decided he wanted to overthrow the left wing government of Nicaragua by funding the Contras, a right wing rebel group, but Congress told him he wasn’t allowed to do that. Instead of accepting it, he decided to fund them under the table, selling weapons to Iran to raise the money in secret. This was textbook Treason with a capital T, again literally, not hyperbole. Providing aid to our enemies is the definition of treason, a word that gets thrown around so often that people forget how serious a charge it is. By giving Iran weapons just a few years after the revolution and hostage crisis, Reagan could have gone to jail for life or been executed, but he shifted blame onto some underlings and covered it up, narrowly avoiding impeachment; he and VP Bush would go on to pardon their co-conspirators, so everyone got off scot free.

So, imagine Reagan in this 1980 gaming both sides of the Iran War; propping up a puppet monarchy AND selling weapons to the religious extremists AND sending money to Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan in place of the Nicaraguan Contras. In this timeline, we didn’t have a Nixon presidency, so there was no Watergate Scandal. Whatever Reagan gets into in 1980 would become this timeline’s equivalent, only worse because he wasn’t able to learn from Nixon’s mistakes and cover it all up as thoroughly. If this didn’t tank his re-election chances, he would almost certainly be impeached at the start of his second term. Dole was just some schmuck from Kansas, not the head of he CIA like Bush, so he wouldn’t be able to help Reagan out of this mess. If Reagan resigned like Nixon, Dole would pardon him like Ford, though I suspect Reagan would try to ride out impeachment because he’d rather be acquitted than quit. Our Nixon lost all support from even his own party after Watergate, so it’s likely that this Reagan would have the same disadvantage; our Reagan was beloved by Republicans, and still is to this day (they think he can do no wrong, even though he nuked the middle class and let the obscenely rich take control of every aspect of our lives, socially and economically), so maybe he would still have support, but not as much because in this timeline he would become Nixon. Nixon won in 1972 with a 49 state landslide, but resigned in shame just 2 years later; it’s very likely that his Reagan would follow suit, losing all credibility regardless of how much support he has at the start. It would depend on whether or not the Democrats had the balls to investigate him until they struck oil.

All this time I’ve been assuming that Congress would remain the same throughout this timeline, with longstanding Democratic majorities in both houses, but I failed to account for how vulnerable seats would change in the alternate 1972 and 1982 reapportionments. After 16 years of Democratic rule from 1961 to 1977, Congressional Republicans would likely gain support from the public, maybe even pushing the Republican Revolution of the 90s ahead by a decade or two. Johnson/Humphrey would become Bill Clinton, competent and popular, but the perfect boogeymen for the Republicans to rise up against.

I’ll continue this scenario tomorrow after doing more research to see what the alternate Congress would look like. Going forward from here depends heavily on which party is in power when Reagan goes for a second term during the Iran Crises.

[peaches-writes]

how to appease your asian aunties ch. 1 - christmas

description: in the immortal words of wine aunts and aunts you’re not even related to but forced to call your aunt at gatherings, ‘do you have a boyfriend?’ member: jisung / han genre: fluff, fake dating au, implied rich kids au, eventual childhood / best friends to lovers au, college au, implied fem reader (but i still used they/them pronouns) word count: 7.5k chapter warning: food, drinking, explicit language, one comment about weight note: insp by a twt meme + this is my first attempt at making a story with parents having a bigger role in them omg

ch. 2 // ch. 3 // series masterlist

Though you’re a semester away from graduating college, with your own circles of friends, clubmates, and close classmates, you still can’t understand why your mom and her sorority batchmates feel the need to have reunion parties every single year. Maybe it’s the product of growing connectivity in this modern age or just simply your wide age gap preventing you from having the same nostalgic feelings attending these dinners; nevertheless, ever since your mom started bringing you to these parties to socialize with her friends’ children when you were four, you've always personally found it a bit troublesome. 

They see each other at mall sales, weekend brunches, weddings, birthdays, and anniversaries all the time—a lot of them even work closely with each other. For as long as you can remember, you can’t help but endlessly wonder in this time of year: will they ever get tired of each other?

As you adjust your coat over your semi-formal attire for this year’s dinner party, you sigh in front of the full-length mirror by your house’s front doors and mentally conclude that they probably never will. This is your 19th reunion dinner now and even from meters away in the kitchen, you can hear your mom fuss to your dad and the helpers either worriedly about the desserts that everyone in the house (and your nearest restaurant branch) was forced to bake two nights ago; or excitedly about seeing her college best friend, Mrs. Hwang, even if they literally just dragged their respective families to the monthly brunch last weekend—like she always does minutes before you leave. She always sounds like a crazed woman but you know deep inside that she’s excited to see her friends again and reminisce about the same old college memories you’ve even memorized by heart now.

It’s cute and all, maybe you’ll even end up the same in a decade or so but you swear at present on the dinner menu tonight that the more you spend your first day of Christmas break attending these dinners, the more you’ll slowly lose your mind over this unofficial holiday tradition: from your mom’s dramatic ramblings at the start of the night to the prospect of spending the rest of the evening laughing off your unofficial aunts and godmothers’ unnecessary backhanded comments and trying not to get caught in the trouble the younger children make.

It really just isn’t exactly your type of scene. It’s like family Christmas parties but with more passive-aggressive internalized drama since you’re not related to any of the guests by blood.

“Y/N, dear, come along now, we’re running late!” Your mom scolds you as she approaches your direction to the double doors, carrying cupcake caddies and cake boxes with your dad and your six house helpers. She’s wearing the dress you helped pick out last month, you observe, which is another tradition of hers. Rich people and not wanting to be seen wearing the same clothes twice, you guess. “Oh dear, I need to fix my hair in the car!”

You take one last look at yourself in the mirror before sprinting to the doors and helping your dad open them. You also take a couple of boxes from one of the helpers as you all pile outside, letting everyone pass through before closing the doors behind you. 

The nine of you then head to your dad’s Ford you parked outside the house gates earlier this afternoon, loading the everything in the back of the car without much difficulty before parting ways with the helpers for tonight with the same house instructions from your mom to not wait up for the three of you.

“Bye!” Your mom waves at your helpers through the rolled down windows on the front passenger seat as your dad begins to drive away from the house. 

Once your house begins growing smaller in the distance behind you, only then does your mom attend to her hair while your dad closes all the windows and locks the doors.

You, on the other hand, lean back in your own seat, taking out your phone to pass the ten minutes travel time to one of your godmothers, Mrs. Kim’s house in the adjacent subdivision.

“Y/M/N! Y/F/N! Welcome!” Mrs. Kim greets you at her house gates with her own mini army of house helpers, kindly helping you and your parents unload your party contributions and transfer them inside her recently renovated kitchen. “Oh, Y/N! Look at you, you look so beautiful tonight!”

You smile politely through the wave of compliments and ‘oh you gained a bit of weight’ comments that follow as you try your best to not to trip over the slippery marble steps leading to the house. Contrary to what your mom has been worrying about earlier at home, you eventually discover that you’re fairly early to the party for the 19th year in a row with only half of the families already in attendance to greet you when you entered the house.

“Y/N, all the teenagers are upstairs on the second floor, by the way.” Mrs. Kim informs you once your cupcakes have been neatly organized in the caddies at the very end of the buffet table, making you cringe internally at her preferred term for you and the other older kids in the house. “Dinner is at 7:30.”

“Thank you, auntie.” You smile one last time at her before excusing yourself to go upstairs, sighing internally in relief that her son, Seungmin, has smartly gathered everyone upstairs for the third year in a row to avoid the aunts and uncles for as much as possible.

You’re not completely fond of the parties, sure, but you can’t deny that there are little parts that have unconsciously grown on you—like your unlikely band of childhood friends and your shared hatred for this particular party.

Climbing up the slippery staircase as fast as you can with a death grip on the railings, you reach the second floor in no time to be greeted by six out of the eight people you’ve sort of grown up with in these parties occupying the common area: Felix and Hyunjin having a Wii dance battle in front of the television, Seungmin and Minho having a violent game of UNO on the coffee table, and Ryujin and Yeji scrolling through their phones on the sofa before abandoning them to approach you at noticing your presence by the staircase.

“Y/N!” Ryujin calls you in as she reaches you first for a brief hug and a short exchange of compliments on each other’s outfits, as if you didn’t just meet at one of your shared class’ Christmas parties yesterday. Though all of you attend the same university, you see Ryujin the most since you’re in the same college, just in different departments. “So nice to see you again!”

“Yeah, yeah, hello to you too again.” You chuckle, more genuinely now in the company of party guests you’re actually comfortable with, before waving hello at Yeji who trails behind. 

Yeji then naturally hugs you next, pulling you a few steps away from the staircase so the two of you don’t topple over when she leans her weight on you. “Y/N, took you long enough!” She says next to your ear. “Hyunjin and I were starting to make bets if the aunties suddenly trapped you downstairs like Chan and Miyoung.”

You hug her back with equal force, a little more than you did with Ryujin, pulling away after to playfully slap her arm for the teasing comment. “I’d sell my arm first before I let that happen.” You retort as the two of you laugh. “I just helped set up desserts—mom made us do an extra two boxes of brownies and cookies this year so you better get a lot later!” 

“Of course, but only if you eat a lot of the spaghetti my mom made!” She reminds, kindly fixing your hair for you. “I missed you! You look so pretty tonight!”

Behind the two girls, the boys also greet you in scattered casual ‘hi’s and ‘hello’s before going back to their own activities. You greet them back as they acknowledge you (and even reciprocate Felix’s long-distance high five mid-dance), crossing off everyone’s names in your mental attendance list as your gaze wanders around the room.

Since Chan is busy being a grown-up and showing off his fiance downstairs, you conclude that only one person is missing among your eight friends.

“Ya, Han Jisung!” As if on cue, the missing eighth person in your list emerges from the staircase behind you as Minho calls his name. “Welcome back!” 

Jisung greets everyone back in their second wave of scattered greetings as he walks to Minho and Seungmin’s direction, purposely acknowledging you last by suddenly turning around and walking backwards to send a wave and wink your way. He almost trips over the long ruffles of the big accent carpet as he does this, making you, Yeji, and Ryujin laugh as the only witnesses.

“Oh my God.” You place a hand to your forehead in secondhand embarrassment, stifling your laughs as your best friend regains his balance and looks behind him in case anyone else saw (which, unfortunately for you, they didn’t). You can’t believe that despite missing last year’s party because of his study abroad program’s strict schedule, he still manages to do his ritual clumsy carpet accident somehow. “This dumbass, I swear.”

In front of you, Jisung only laughs it off as well. “You didn’t see that!” He adjusts his coat with one hand and scratches the nape of his neck with the other in between laughs, walking forward to you properly after with his arms extended for a hug. “Stop laughing and come here, ugly. I missed you.” 

You feign a scowl but hug him back anyway, Yeji and Ryujin slyly stepping away with knowing smiles that only you can see with Jisung’s eyes turned away. You stick your tongue out at the two girls as they abandon you and walk back to the sofa before slapping Jisung’s back harshly for the familiar insult. “Speak for yourself, you ugly. I missed you too.” You reply to his latter comment with an amused chuckle of your own. “How are you?”

“Better now that I’m seeing you in person again.” He pulls away after with his signature flirty smirk, visibly eyeing you up and down now while his hands are still on your upper arms. Though he knows such gesture irks you, especially when it comes to the aunts and uncles downstairs, Jisung is the only one among your friends confident enough to tease you this way. Knowing each other a bit longer than everyone else has its perks, he’s come to realize over the years. “Look at you, all dressed up tonight. For me?” 

“Of course I’m all dressed up tonight, it’s Chan’s engagement announcement later.” You retort, swatting his hand away to adjust your now wrinkled clothes. “You’ve known me for twenty years, already; I think it’s time to stop assuming I’ll ever dress up for you now.” 

He only shakes his head, his teasing and lighthearted mood unwavering in front of you. “Nah, I really think you dressed up for me tonight.” He insists jokingly, a hand lingering over the fabric of your coat. “If I get welcome back parties like this from you in the end, should I just do more one-year study abroad programs?” 

“And leave me to fend off the aunties every other year? I don’t think so.” You’re quick to turn down, walking pass him to rejoin your group now. Jisung naturally follows along like a lost puppy, suddenly changing his mind on joining Minho and Seungmin to follow you around now that you’ve started conversation. “You owe me for leaving me to take all the ‘I can set you up on a blind date with my godchild’ and ‘are you dating anyone’ comments last year.”

The two of you sit next to Ryujin and Yeji who, without even looking up from their phones, quickly scoot away to the other end of the big sofa which makes you send pleading looks their way while Jisung laughs and gains enough confidence to sling an arm on the sofa behind your shoulders.

Another annoying thing from this yearly reunion party is how it’s an unspoken rule in your group to leave you and Jisung alone whenever you’re engaging in your usual banter. You and Jisung are the enemies type of best friend, for God’s sake. You don’t understand how everyone (yes, even Seungmin) thinks the two of you are being cute. 

“I keep telling you, you wouldn’t get all those comments if you just tell them you’re dating someone, dummy.” Jisung returns to your conversation once you’re settled, purposely placing a suggestive emphasis on the pet name. “That’s just the most natural thing to do in front of the aunties.” 

“And who would I show them if they ask who?”

“Try me.” Jisung answers smugly, earning him an eye roll from you.

“As if.” You deadpan, leaning to his arm anyway as you take out your phone and connect to the wifi. “Given your new fuckboy look to the aunties, I’m pretty sure they’ll see past that kind of bullshit, especially Yeji and Hyunjin’s mom and Minho’s mom. They’d be more convinced if I tell them I’m dating Seungmin instead and he’s already in a relationship.”

You don’t even have to look to your side to see Jisung pouting as he whines in complaint, his free hand going up to your side to shake your arm. “That hurts.” He dramatically points to his chest when you show the slightest hint of turning his way. “And having Bumble on your phone isn’t being a fuckboy, I don’t even use it to get dates.” 

“That’s not what the aunties think.” You point out, knowing just how much your aunts and uncles easily misunderstand concepts from your generation like social and dating apps. “I’m telling you, I prefer you swaying the conversation for me over you pretending to be my boyfriend.”

Jisung is quiet for a moment and you’re convinced that he’s decided on ending the conversation at this point until he suddenly twists his body towards you and challenges, "Do you wanna bet? Test out that theory?” He smirks again. “It’d really spice up this party, besides Chan’s announcement, of course.”

Only then do you look up at him since you sat down, deadpanning, “No.” 

“Come on, it’d be really interesting!” He taps you on your shoulders with a laugh, a combination of habits he always does whenever he’s trying to involve you in his usual trouble-making antics. “My mom will finally get off my back for always nagging me as a ‘fuckboy’ and our mom’s sorority friends will finally get off yours for not dating.” 

“You’re crazy.” You comment, crossing your arms in front of him. “I think I’ll just re-download Bumble too and bring someone to the party next year.” 

“You’re really taking too much jabs at my heart right now,” He sighs with a contrasting smirk. “and we’re not even past dinner yet.” 

“Because you deserve it,�� You chuckle back at him, pretending to punch him on his stomach which he reacts to dramatically. “I’ve always known you’re a dumbass but that’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard from you.” 

Stubborn, he shakes his head in disagreement as you speak. “Nah, nah, we’ll see about that.”

And as if on cue, Mrs. Kim emerges from the staircase and announces that dinner is ready, luring everyone out of the second floor before you can even ask Jisung what he means with his words. 

“Ya, Han Jisung!” You call for him when he sprints to Seungmin’s side when the latter begins leading everyone downstairs. 

You try catching up to him but the staircase becomes too narrow for you to squeeze past everyone, forcing you to walk with Minho and Ryujin at the back of the group. With this, Jisung then takes this as an opportunity to look up at you from the turn on the staircase and send you another wink, a more confident one this time since he doesn’t trip after. 

Your ‘age group,’ as the aunts differentiate you from the younger children, hogs the extensive buffet and steals the best table in the backyard, near the karaoke machine so you can stop the uncles from singing too much of ‘My Way’ once they get drunk later on and as far away from the children’s table as possible so you don’t have to be obligated to take care of them later on. Chan, the eldest among you now, joins your table with his fiance, Miyoung, after they’ve officially declared their engagement before the buffet opened, happily handing out their save the date cards for their May wedding.

“Just remember, Miyoung, that you can literally get all your wedding needs from us, okay?” Yeji comments amidst all the talk about the wedding, gesturing to everyone as you eat and drink champagne. “Like Y/N and Seungmin for catering, Ryujin for the attires, Felix for your honeymoon trip, me and Hyunjin for the flowers and documentation, and Jisung can dress up as a clown for your reception.” 

“Ya!” Jisung protests to your left, cheeks full of steak and spaghetti that makes the whole table erupt in laughter. “Chan’s and Minho’s studios can arrange the music and the decor; my mom will probably argue with Miyoung’s mom for the locations and hotels.” 

“I can just tell my dad to hire you as a clown, though.” Minho shrugs nonchalantly, further fueling your laughter. To your right, you can even see Miyoung giggling through her glass of champagne, having given up on stifling her laughs. “It’d make good entertainment.” 

Jisung then leans over to you to turn to Miyoung on your other side with a pout and a pleading look to her and Chan. “You two are just letting them drag me like this?” He whines dramatically before turning to you. “Y/N, back me up here.”

“No!” You press a finger up to his forehead and playfully push him back on his seat. “It’s a great idea, what are you talking about?” You tease as you do so, much to more whines from him. “There’s like five months before the wedding, think about it.”

Next to you, Miyoung forces herself to stop laughing, teasingly asking Chan, “Babe, what do you think? Should we just demote Jisung from groomsman to clown?” 

“I’d very much prefer being a groomsman, please.” Jisung asks over Chan, leaning over the table. “I can’t compete with Changbin for best man but as long as I’m not dressing up as a clown I’m good!” 

“Hey, how come Jisung’s a groomsman?” Seungmin complains from across you, frowning cutely at the couple. “Miyoung, I’m your cousin! I introduced you and Chan in university!” 

“You’re a groomsman too, Minnie, don’t worry.” Miyoung reassures with a warm smile before elbowing her fiance. “As long as you can get your parents to cater with Y/N’s family.” 

The offer makes Seungmin’s ear perk up in interest. “Okay, call!” 

“Can we all be in the wedding party at this point? I’m seriously pushing it now, I want to dress up really cute!” Yeji, who sits on Chan’s other side, pleads. 

“Me too! I second that!” Felix backs her up immediately, the two now leaning over the table expectantly in Chan’s direction. “Though I’m not so keen on designing things.”

“Ah, but we have to make more room for actual relatives.” The groom-to-be in question laughs sheepishly. “Though, knowing our parents, I’ll try to squeeze everyone in somewhere in the program. Just let us iron out everyone’s contributions first.” 

“Yeji, I’ll take note of your suggestion, though.” Miyoung points at the younger girl with an appreciative grin. “I’ll message the groupchat once Chan and I meet up again with the planner.” 

Meanwhile, Chan’s last comment gives you and Minho an idea and the two of you suggest in chorus, “Get Seungmin to sing!” 

“Jinx!” You and Minho exchange winks and long distance-high fives from Jisung’s two sides after while Chan and Miyoung ask Seungmin about said idea, making Jisung pout at you. 

The general table conversation then naturally flows to other matters, mostly about the famous names you might be expecting at the wedding, but Jisung doesn’t participate much anymore, turning to you instead and asking, “Ya, are you cheating on me with Minho now? You sacrifice me as entertainment then back Minho up but not me!” He rambles in between mouthfuls of food, making you and even Minho chuckle in amusement despite the latter being in another conversation with Ryujin and Seungmin. “I just left for one year and you’re already doing this to me!” 

“What are you on about again, dumbass?” You roll your eyes with a scoff, stealing a piece of steak from his plate for the third time this dinner. “Finish your food, everyone’s done and you’re so slow!” 

Jisung then belatedly swats your chopsticks away, “I’m almost done, dumbass, stop mooching off my plate!” 

"Then hurry up, you still have to accompany me to the dessert table.” You point out, referring to your least favorite part of this reunion parties: getting attacked by invasive questions on your return trip to the buffet table. “Remember, you owe me. I’m not going in there alone again.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He replies on his last two bites of food, eating one then handing the other one to you. “Have the other one, then.” 

He pokes your lips with the last piece of steak and you instinctively lean your head away, catching the food with your own chopsticks instead. “Thanks.” You bring the food to your mouth before carefully patting the oil he ended up smearing on your lips with your table napkin. 

Across the table and out of your earshot, Yeji elbows Hyunjin and points to the two of you. “They’re at it again.” 

Without you or Jisung looking, Hyunjin looks at the two of you in feign disgust. “I know, every damn year.” 

On Hyunjin’s other side, Seungmin nods frustratingly in agreement which makes Yeji laugh. “We shouldn’t have taken last year for granted, 'no?” He sighs. “Last year was so peaceful without them together.”

“Agreed.” The Hwang cousins agree in chorus before listening to the table’s general conversation again.

Meanwhile, Jisung finally finishes his food and excuses the two of you from the table to get dessert. Miyoung waves at you politely and Felix playfully orders that you two get him cupcakes but the rest only acknowledge you with simple nods as they’re completely engrossed in betting on whose dad will be singing My Way on the karaoke machine first (everyone’s in the middle of betting on Mr. Bang). With that, you and your best friend then take your leave, going back inside the house and making a beeline to the kitchen.

Unfortunately for you, you catch your mom, Mrs. Han, and Mrs. Hwang gossiping by the punch bowls once you reach the kitchen’s open doorway—literally the worst combination of sorority aunts to be bombarded with invasive questions.

“Shit.” You mutter under your breath loud enough for only Jisung to hear, the two of you still out of the three women’s sights. Looking up at Jisung with pleading eyes, you ask, “Should we just go back later?” 

Quickly seeing this as an opportunity to get back at you, Jisung only smiles evilly and links his hands with yours, dragging a hesitant you inside the kitchen and towards the direction of the dessert table. “No, let’s get dessert now, baby.” He dismisses your silent pleas teasingly, making sure his voice is loud enough to get your worst nightmare of trio’s attentions. “Felix also asked us to get cupcakes too, remember?”

And like vultures, the three women immediately turn to you and Jisung as you head in their line of vision, three different shades of questioning looks on their faces. You especially catch your mom’s face, a mixture of surprise, amusement, and genuine curiosity for some reason, which sets all the gears in your head into panic mode while Jisung only gains more confidence from this. 

You swear at that moment on Jisung’s sort of untied shoelaces that you just want Mrs. Kim’s new kitchen floor tiles to swallow you up right there and then.

“Hey, mom!” Jisung greets his own mom with a wave, coming off as sweet to her but mocking to you. He then bows politely to your mom and Mrs. Hwang and you’re forced to follow along for the sake of courtesy. “Mrs. Y/L/N, Mrs. Hwang.” 

The three women look at each other curiously, as if in a silent debate on what they’ve just heard, while Jisung pretends to be unfazed, passing you a dessert plate and examining tonight’s dessert options. 

“Jisung, I swear to God,” You hiss at him as you take a slice of chocolate cake for him. “I’m going to kill you after this party.” 

He leans close to your ear while gathering cupcakes on a separate dessert plate, whispering, “I think it’s too late for that, though.” before your mom, Mrs. Han, and Mrs. Hwang suddenly appear in front of the two of you on the other side of the buffet table with sickeningly sweet smiles, and a million questions. 

You especially fear Jisung’s mom. Mrs. Han and your mom often go to the mall together, especially when there’s an ongoing sale, and you’ve been forced to carry all their shopping bags over the years because Jisung and his older brother usually bail on you. Though she’s very sweet, you’ve always known her to be very picky on some things and it just makes you think that she’s picky on who Jisung dates too. 

“Mom,” You call for your mom with wide eyes. “Do you need anything?” 

But she waves her hand dismissively with a reassuring smile at your question. “Oh, nothing, Y/N dear,” She answers, eyes darting almost threateningly between you and Jisung. It makes your hand shaky as you now complete your tower of dessert plates. “your aunties and I were just talking and we didn’t mean to but we saw you and Jisung so we just got curious and thought we’d ask how the two of you are.” 

“Oh, just ask them already!” Mrs. Hwang exclaims excitedly, slapping your mom’s arm like a school girl. “If you won’t, I will.”

But Mrs. Han is already leaning over the table with a knowing smile, straightforwardly asking, “Are you two kids dating?” which immediately makes your mom and Mrs. Hwang erupt into fits of giggles. “Come on, the aunties want to know!” 

“Oh, um—” You stammer out before Jisung beats you to it. 

For the second time tonight, you feel Jisung’s arm on your shoulder as he speaks over you confidently, “Y-Yeah, we’ve been for a while now!” He then places his dessert plate back on the table and boyishly rubs the nape of his neck which only elicits swooning reactions from the three women, a complete contrast from your expectations a while back. “Just some time before my program ended so it’s been a bit long-distance for the most part.” 

“Oh? But how?” Mrs. Hwang asks curiously. “I didn’t hear of you going to Malaysia this year, Y/N, and Jisung, your mom told me you didn’t have time to go home!”

“You could’ve just told me, Sungie! Then, I would’ve had you sent home earlier if you wanted to see Y/N!” Mrs. Han adds as well, clasping her hands in satisfaction. “I knew this was coming! You two have always been so cute together!” 

Your mom agrees, “Luckily, I refused Mrs. Park’s offer to set Y/N up with another one of her nephews a while back. Had I known you two were dating, I wouldn’t have talked to her tonight at all!”

You open your mouth to try and speak but Jisung beats you to it again. “We’ve been in touch: message, calls, and video calls, you know.” He half-shrugs casually, as if he’s been rehearsing the line for a while now. “It’s our first time meeting since we started seeing each other so telling you guys just kind of flew past us.” 

You groan internally but you also can’t help but sigh in relief at the prospect that you avoided getting set up by Mrs. Park again because of Jisung. Though this doesn’t completely erase your annoyance over him for putting you in this situation, you still owe him a ‘thank you’ after somehow.

So, you conclude that you should just follow along. It’s fake dating your best friend over another pointless blind date at this point now, after all. “You’re okay with this, right?” You decide to ask in a follow-up, pretending to not know that they’ll agree anyway. Next to you, Jisung’s eyes visibly widen and, seeing it from the corner of your eyes, you quickly elbow him in response before giving your most innocent look to your mom. “I mean, Jisung won’t be studying abroad now and we’re graduating, anyway, so it’s cool, right?”

Judging by their softened reactions, you feel like you could challenge Hyunjin to acting now. 

“Of course we’re okay with it!” Your mom answers first, Mrs. Han nodding along happily. “I’m glad that it’s someone I know at least and I’m sure your dad wouldn’t mind.” 

You hear Jisung gulp nervously at the last comment. If you’re afraid of his mom, he’s afraid of your dad because of the one time he helped you practice for your driver’s license and the two of you almost ended up crashing the Ford on your subdivision’s club house. You allow yourself to relax and laugh at this, making him tighten his grip on your shoulder. 

“Me too, sis.” Mrs. Han agrees, gesturing over to her son. “My Jisung here’s been going on dates with strangers online before this so I’m glad he’s finally stopped and settled for your kid! Modern love, huh?” 

“Oh my God, mom!” Jisung whines, his free hand coming up to his face in embarrassment. “I’ve told you before, I use them to meet friends! Not in front of Mrs. Y/L/N and Y/N please!” 

“Ay, it’s the same thing!” His mom insists to him before turning to Mrs. Hwang and your mom. “Social apps, dating apps, they’re all the same. Why do you even use them if you’re just going to fall in love with the person right in front of you? I taught you better than that, Sungie.” 

“Mom!” Jisung hisses, cheeks tinted pink. “This is so embarrassing!” 

You snicker next to him, catching his attention. “Your mom’s right, you know. Tsk, dating people from miles away and you just end up confessing to me on FaceTime.” 

He scowls at you in a way that scolds you for suddenly turning this situation in your favor. You only smile triumphantly at him which the three aunties take as a really sweet moment. 

“Aw, look at them! So cute!” Mrs. Hwang gushes before turning to her two best friends. “Should we just leave them alone now? We’re intruding!” 

“Right! It’s especially embarrassing since we’re both here, Mrs. Han.” Your mom agrees, leading the three out now. She then turns to you and Jisung, “I guess we’ll be off now, then? Don’t want to intrude to you two lovebirds anymore!” 

You smile up to your mom, making sure Jisung does too. “It’s fine, mom, we’re going back to our table now too, anyway.”

But Mrs. Han waves her hand dismissively at you. “No, no, we’ll run along now first! See you later, okay?” 

You and Jisung bid your moms and Mrs. Hwang goodbye, overhearing your mom bragging that she’ll share this new information to Mrs. Park while Mrs. Han and Mrs. Hwang agree before the three completely exited the kitchen. 

Once they’re out of earshot, you sigh in relief and elbow Jisung harshly who responds by dramatically taking a step back and massaging his side. “Ow!” He winces, careful not to hit the dessert table. “What was that for?” 

“I told you to drop the fake dating thing a while back.” You protest, threatening to hit him with your plate of chocolate slices. “Now I have to have you at home more often. I’ve already had enough of you at campus, here, and when your mom visits at home.”

“Ya, but you played along!” 

“That’s because I was put on the spot! And they did mention another blind date from Mrs. Park’s army of nephews.” You explain. “It was between you and another blind date.”

“At least I got you out of another potential blind date, right?” He points out defensively, proceeding to put your hand with the chocolate slices down on the table with caution. “And more effectively now than before, too! So why’d you hit me?”

“Yeah, I know but still, that doesn’t cancel out how you got me out of that.” You frown in disappointment, taking both of your dessert plates now. When he holds his hand up defensively, as if expecting you to throw them to his face, you only roll your eyes and walk past him to the direction of the second kitchen exit. “Now, I have to fake date you for real either until Mrs. Park lays off the blind dates or until I actually date someone.” 

Jisung immediately follows you suit, genuinely rubbing the nape of his neck in a bashful way now. “We don’t have to, maybe they’ll forget about it.” But when you give him a pointed look, as if suggesting that what he just said seems unlikely, he ends up suggesting, “Okay, fine, should we break up after Chan’s wedding, then?”

He then glances over at you to see you contemplating and calming yourself down so he instinctively insists on carrying the dessert plates for you, walking a little bit ahead as well and opening the screen door leading back to the backyard. 

When you’ve made yourself calm down and think more rationally, you firstly point out, “That’s too far away and wouldn’t that be too scandalous? It’s a big event so it could become gossip.” 

Passing the entire length of the backyard now, you receive a few congratulations and questions confirming your relationship from some of your mom’s sorority friends and their husbands, forcing Jisung to hold his thought until you’re not being swarmed again. 

“But if we do it before, it’d be too suspicious since we’d only be dating for less than 6 months.” He counters once the adults have left you alone, glancing ahead and seeing your entire table looking at you with quirked up eyebrows and comically intimidating looks. “Remember when my older brother did that as a joke to the aunties and got caught because they only did it for 3 weeks? They smell fear and deceit, Y/N.”

You sigh in defeat, “Let’s just figure it out later.” With that, you reach your table, setting your plates down and asking, “What did we miss?”

Judging by the way they eye you, your mom has probably told Mrs. Kim who’s gone table to table. 

“It’s fake, isn’t it?” Ryujin speaks up once you’ve settled back in your seat, making the table break character and laugh. “It can’t be a coincidence since you two were just talking about that a while ago inside!” 

“Please be fake.” Seungmin adds, gesturing to you and Jisung. “It’d be more annoying for all of us next year if it’s true.” 

You and Jisung, having the same thought and trust for your friends, nod simultaneously at Ryujin’s question, eventually joining in on the laughter. 

“Oh my God, I can’t believe you’d actually try that!” Ryujin cackles, a clear giveaway that she and Yeji were eavesdropping on you and Jisung a while back to a degree.

“To be clear, though, it’s his fault!” You add in between laughs for clarification, pointing to Jisung with your dessert spoon. “He started it!” 

“And they were about to get set up on a blind date by Mrs. Park again.” Jisung gestures to you back, completing the thought. “I was being a good Samaritan.”

“Ooh, and what did they say?” Felix asks curiously, one elbow propped up on the table as he listens intently. 

Jisung groans in exasperation as he eats his chocolate cake. “We bumped into my mom, Y/N’s mom, and Mrs. Hwang so you can imagine how they reacted.” 

“I can imagine, especially our mom.” Hyunjin sighs with his hands carding through his hair in secondhand embarrassment. 

“At least now we know where you inherited certain qualities from.” Chan teases, making the younger boy exclaim ‘ya!’ at him. 

“This is good, though isn’t it?” Yeji asks curiously over her iced tea. “I mean, Mrs. Park’s wouldn’t set you up on blind dates now.”

“Yeah, but that leaves me as Ms. Park’s only target!” Ryujin moans in frustration. “You know Mrs. Park doesn’t get convinced with dating people online!” 

You shake your head at Ryujin’s complaint. “Yeji can fake date you, though.” You point out, much to the girl’s annoyance. “Or ask out that girl from our lab.”

“So, does this mean we’re getting a dramatic break-up at Chan and Miyoung’s wedding?” Hyunjin interjects, having moved from playing with his now long hair to his glass of champagne. “Because if so, then you better tell us now so we won’t get too drunk at the reception until it happens!”

“I honestly want to see that happen too.” Seungmin agrees, the two high-fiving at the thought.

“That’d be interesting, breaking up at weddings.” Minho chuckles along now too. “People usually propose or hook-up so this is new.” 

“Hey, no stealing my spotlight on my wedding!” Miyoung complains playfully to you and Jisung this time. “We’re all supposed to have a good time there!”

Chan nods in agreement. “If you break up at our wedding, you’re getting kicked out.” 

So you shake your head reassuringly in between eating cupcakes. “We aren’t planning to.” 

“You’re going to date for real?” Felix asks teasingly, earning him a glare form you.

“Gross, no.” You and Jisung turn down the thought in chorus.

“Jinx.” Jisung adds, stealing a spoonful of cake from your plate.

“So when are you breaking up?” Chan asks, leading the whole round table to look back to you. 

“Whenever, I guess.” You shrug casually, belatedly swatting Jisung’s hand from your plate this time. “Until Mrs. Park gets off my back and Jisung actually stops fucking around on Bumble.” 

“I don’t fuck around on Bumble!” Jisung complains over a mouthful of chocolate cake.

“Well, that’s going to take a long time.” Chan dismisses. “At least let us all know so we can schedule faking a whole drama in this group.” 

“Anyway, it’ll die down soon, surely.” Jisung assures with a half-shrug. “Also, our parents only meet up constantly during this reunion party. If anything, we just have to fake date in front of our moms since they meet up more often.” 

“And Mrs. Hwang.” You point to Hyunjin and Yeji. “Since we all go to brunch once a month.” 

At the mention of the monthly brunch, Yeji’s eyes widen. “Does that mean Jisung has to be at our monthly brunch?!” 

“Oh, ew!” Hyunjin adds in disgust. “I’ve had enough seeing you at campus already!” 

“Why does everyone keep saying that?!” Jisung exclaims back in complain. “I doubt I’d get invited to that, we’re supposed to be dating not getting married!” 

Jisung turns to you expectantly, sighing in relief when you say, “That seems unlikely, it’s my mom and Mrs. Hwang’s thing, anyway. It’s not the Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner brunch.” 

“It better be!” Hyunjin says with crossed arms. “Hopefully our moms don’t get that kind of idea.”

You quietly agree. Having Jisung on your monthly brunch with the Hwangs would just cause so much trouble and cement him in your mom’s good graces—but as your boyfriend, this time.

That’s probably not good. 

The party officially ends some time around 3 AM, when most of the parents with elementary school children have gone home hours earlier and, besides the Kims, it’s just your family, the Hwangs, the Hans, Chan, and Miyoung left at the front gates, bidding each other goodnight.  

“Thank you for having us again, Mrs. Kim.” You bid Seungmin’s family last since they’re the hosts, bowing politely to Seungmin’s parents before giving Seungmin a high-five. 

“See you after break.” Seungmin greets you after your high-five. “Have fun in Japan.” 

“And you enjoy your trip to New York.” You reply with an enthusiastic smile. “I do hope your mom reconsiders staying longer so you can spend the New Year there.” 

He nods with a sigh, “Yeah, I know. Still, I’ll try my best to convince her.” 

Your mom then approaches the two of you, bidding Seungmin and his parents goodnight before taking you away by the arm then turning you towards the direction of Jisung and his family. “Goodnight, Seungmin, Mr. and Mrs. Kim!” She smiles warmly to them before turning to you. “Y/N, aren’t you going to say goodnight to Jisung?” 

“I already did.” 

“Ah, but go to him anyway! Your dad still has to start the car.” 

You groan internally. After a whole night of drinking, singing, and gossiping with her friends, you’d think that she would’ve forgotten about earlier. 

Yet you oblige anyway, excusing yourself from your parents and approaching Jisung whose parents are busy having last-minute small talk with Chan and Miyoung, probably endorsing their chain of hotels as early as now for the wedding. 

“Hey, ugly.” You greet him casually as you approach, both your parents out of earshot so the old nickname naturally comes out. At this, Jisung immediately turns from scrolling through his phone to looking up at you with wide eyes. “My mom didn’t see us say goodnight a while ago so I’m here.” 

“Oh,” He muses, eyes flitting to your mom behind you once. When he sees her glancing expectantly, he turns to you and suggests, “Should we hug?” 

“Yeah, I guess.” You sigh, going straight into his extended arms. “‘Night.” 

“’Night, baby.” Jisung hums gently, too sleepy now to throw more witty comebacks besides the cheesy pet name that originally got you in trouble tonight. “See you after the break.” 

“No, see you on our moms’ next shopping spree.” You correct firmly, pulling away from his warmth before you could accidentally fall asleep on him. “Since we’re ‘dating’ now, you’re morally obligated to attend shopping bag duty now, too.” 

This makes Jisung sigh in defeat, “Fine, fair enough. See you on our moms’ next shopping spree, then.” He pauses for a moment then asks, “The day after New Year, right?”  

“Yeah.” You confirm with a nod when you catch him pouting, “You started this so don’t pout now.” 

“I know, I’m regretting it now.” He rolls his eyes with a scoff, only making you chuckle. “I suppose it’s different when we hang out as friends and when our moms think we’re dating.”

You continue laughing anyway until a thought crosses your mind and softens your gaze up at Jisung. “Anyway, thanks for saving me from another date—I almost forgot. The means is still annoying but I have to appreciate it somehow, right?” 

This time, it’s him chuckling, “Now you appreciate my efforts. See, I told you, something good comes up with this.” 

“Whatever.” You dismiss before you hear your mom calling for you as your dad pulls up in front of the Kim’s gates. “Okay, that’s me. Bye, ugly!” 

“Hm, bye!” With a final wave, Jisung then sees you off before joining his parents who he didn’t even realize have already gone to their car. 

Seating himself at the backseat of his mom’s car a moment later, Jisung accidentally glances over to his mom from the rear view mirror only to see her wiggling her eyebrows at him. 

“So,” Mrs. Han says. “you and Y/N.”

“Yeah?” Jisung response with a questioning tone. “Me and Y/N, what about it?” 

Mrs. Han only shrugs from the driver’s seat as she now drives away from the Kim’s house. “Nothing, you’re just both really cute.” She comments casually with a proud smile. “I like it. Though it is too bad we can’t invite them to dinner since they’re going to Japan for Christmas this year.” 

“How about next year?” Jisung’s dad suggests. “We can go on one of our hotels abroad.” 

“Ah, but—” Jisung stammers, only to be interrupted by his dad again.     

“Or, honey, when you and Mrs. Y/L/N go to the mall again.” Mr. Han quickly quips in to Mrs. Han before turning to their son in the back seat. “I expect you’d stop bailing on your mom when she goes to the mall now since Y/N’s always at these shopping trips.” 

At this, Jisung shakes his head, “I won’t. I’m ‘morally obligated’ now, apparently.”

“That’s good.” Mr. Han says, turning back to the road ahead and relaxing into the front passenger seat. “You better.”

Jisung sleepily props his elbow up by the window and sighs, letting his parents enjoy this new prospect of him seriously dating someone now. “Yup.” He ends the conversation, closing his eyes and getting a few minutes of sleep before arriving back home. 

Suddenly, this is probably not a good idea—lying to his already hyped parents. 

ch. 2 // ch. 3 // series masterlist

tag: @t-toodumbtocare​ @sandaigdigan-reads​ @pwarkhans​ @ruellelix @malai-barfi @mahalau​ @milkywayfelix @qweens-stuff​

[piningfor-pinestwins]

Natural Attraction - Investigations (ch. 9 ) (Stan X Reader Slow Burn; Eventual Not SFW)

You scratch at your chin as you look down at the haphazardly-packed duffel bag on your bed, thinking of what else you should bring. Really, you should be prepared for anything with this crew…

It’s been pretty chilly the last few nights, so you brought both t-shirts and sweaters, in case of better weather or to layer up. You have your sturdy hiking boots (the ones you bought after your shoes got caught in the thorny brushes a few ‘adventures’ ago), four pairs of socks, five pairs of undies, 3 pairs of jeans and your most fluffy and warm pj pants. Tapping lightly at your cheek, you feel the way your mouth screws up in thought, moving around your room for just a few more things before you hear a familiar set of footsteps coming up the stairs to your bedroom door.

“I dunno if you wanted to pack the tent with your stuff or not, but I’ve got it here for you,” Stan’s voice says from behind you, and you smile before you notice you’re doing it.

Thanks, if you’d just leave it by the door, that’d be great, You motion, moving toward the foot of your bed to lift the patterned quilt you sleep beneath off the mattress. Could you help me fold this? You look to him just as he moves to make his leave, but he stops at your request, offering a little smile as he moves closer to help. You take two corners and he bends to do the same, watching you with a gentle confirmation of which way you’re folding the thing.

It’s a simple thing to do, yet each time your knuckles brush against his fingers, or the closer you step as the blanket folds smaller, you feel an odd sort of intimacy in the motion. He passes the bundle of fabric into your hands with a warm look, blowing hair out of his face as he takes a step back.

“D’ya not have a sleeping bag? Hon, y’might get cold, even with all that.” Motioning to your nearly-full duffel bag, he leans back against the wall of your bedroom, quirking a brow in something like concern.

No, and it’s too close to time to go into town for one, You admit with a sigh, shrugging a little as you shove the quilt into the bag. Shuffling some stuff around to make room, you tsk and readjust your journal against the side by your undies, glancing up just in time to see Stan’s gaze following your hands in your bag. You flush, but quickly cover the things with your hands as you look over at him with a smirk. Stan’s brows quirk up at your movement, and his gaze trails up your arms to see your heated cheeks and playful smile, his dimple showing as he tries to hold back his own smile with his tongue pressed against his cheek.

“Listen, y’shouldn’t have that shit layin’ around if you didn’t want me to see it,” He starts with a laugh in his voice, eyes glinting playfully in your direction before flicking up toward the ceiling instead. You scoff in response, but your smile doesn’t falter as you finish packing up the bag and zip the thing up, Maybe you shouldn’t stick your nose in other people’s business. Didn’t your mom teach you that?

“Oho, if you think Ma taught me to stay outta other people’s business, you’ve never met her. The woman’s a blabbermouth--probably why she did so well on the psychic line all those years,” He hums, scratching at his chin seemingly in thought. You’ve heard, albeit briefly, about the Pines parents and their respective lines of work. Though, you don’t know much else about the duo--not that it really matters, per se.

Well, anyway, thank you for your help, you snooper, teasing, you pull the bag on over one shoulder as you glance around, double-checking for anything else you might need before moving closer toward the door. You pinch lightly at his elbow, getting his attention back to you and making him laugh all in one motion. He’s smiling when he looks at you, and you feel heat in your cheeks when you find yourself smiling back, standing the closest you have to the man since the night before. You clear your throat, reaching to grab the little bag that holds the tent that he’d brought in and left at the door at your request, A-And thank you for this, too. It’ll be put to good use, you promise, immediately feeling dumb for it because no shit, Sherlock, it’ll be put to good use, you have to sleep somewhere.

He shrugs, motioning you ahead as he moves to leave your room behind you. “It’s really no problem. If Sixer’d thought ahead, he would have warned us that we’d need them and we wouldn’t be in this mess, but I think his tent’ll be big enough for the three of us guys to sleep in for a couple nights. S’long as they can keep their mouths shut for a few hours of shuteye, it’ll work out fine.” Stan shuts your bedroom door behind him as you take the steps down to the second floor, stopping to see his things already packed and waiting outside his door.

“Are you two nearly ready?” Ford calls from downstairs, a soft grumble of a headache complaint following his question. You smile at the voice as you respond, glancing over the bannister as you start down the rest of the stairs, It would seem so.

“Good,” Fiddleford’s voice chimes in, and you catch sight of the two standing together with their packs and warm jackets on as you come further down the stairs, “We’ve got about thirty minutes o’daylight left, and if we plan to get anywhere close to the first clearing in the trees, we’ve gotta shake a leg.” You look out the window when he talks about lingering daylight, nodding at his approximation.

You said this creature creeps out at night, right? Do you think we’ll get wherever it is this evening?

“It’s unlikely,” Ford answers, and you hear Stan come down the steps and stop a step or two behind you to join the conversation, “But if we make our way far enough tonight, we’re likely to find more evidence of the being, at least.”

“What kinda thing d’ya think it is, anyway?” Stan asks, and Fiddleford shrugs in response. “I couldn’t rightly tell ya. Have you got any idea?” He cocks his head in your direction. You feel all eyes on you, offering a shrug as you step off the stairs and move toward the back screen door, Let me take a look at these tracks while you three lock up.

Ford nods, pulling his heavy backpack on with a grunt, and Fiddleford tugs his own canvas bag closer, double-checking the carabiner attaching it to the little icebox containing what you can assume is your meals for the next few days. Stan pulls his (seemingly lighter than Ford’s) backpack on, taking the last remaining steps down to the duo as you make your way out the back door to find the tracks that your inebriated colleagues claimed to see.

When they join you again a few minutes later, you’ve found the tracks, near Fidd’s truck, and sure enough, veering off into the woods. You reach to where your camera strap is hooked to the duffel bag, quickly undoing the tie and snapping a picture of the tracks. Eyes are on you again as you study the real deal ahead of you, but you hardly notice the trio of brunets watching you with varying degrees of intrigue as you shake the film that’s fresh from the printer and put the camera strap around your neck instead.

They’re odd, you murmur, the thought coming to you easily from your years of studying, It’s a bipedal thing, with something akin to toes, but...its gait stays on the balls of its feet--if you want to call these feet.

“Yeah, I see what you mean,” Stan offers, and your head turns to look at him just as Ford and F’s do, too. The man seems almost surprised at the attention, brows flying up as he stammers to explain himself, “T-The thing’s got like, three toes. I don’t know if you can call these feet.”

You nod enthusiastically, getting a little more excited at engaging in your wheelhouse. Four, actually. The three you see on the front, plus the one in back, implies that whatever this is, is skilled in perching or climbing. So, it’s possible we’ll find it in a tree, or some other off-ground thing.

“Are we chasin’ some superbird?” Fidds asks, brow furrowing toward you and Ford. Ford frowns with a shrug, looking to you for confirmation as he offers a shrug, “It doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility...She’s not been wrong before.” He adds, a lift of a smile curling his lip. He’s excited to put your knowledge to work, the prospect of discovering another new species causing a joy-filled anxiety to bubble in your belly.

That was my next point-- Near here, where the tracks end, you take hurried steps beside the trail and the trio follow behind to keep up, The pattern of steps is interrupted. Two steps, two steps, one step, and nothing.

“But, there’s these...marks,” Stan seems to be following your train of thought, foot scuffing against a distinct pattern in the dirt a few feet from where the single footstep (clawstep?) is settled. Fiddleford points to the pattern’s twin, mirrored on the other side.

Exactly! Indication of an upward force in the dirt. If I were to… You move a few steps back, stepping toward the pattern near Fidds. You cup your hand as you kneel close to the ground, raising your hand above your head and swinging the force down toward the ground without hitting it, the fast-moving air making a whizzing sound by your ear.

Pleased, and maybe a little excitable still, you look at the mark made by the force of air in the soft soil, standing as you confirm the similarity, Wings! At least two, as the patterns indicate. We’re looking for a creature capable of at least short-term flight, with an anisodactyl arrangement of toes. By the looks of these marks, it’s possible the creature can be...well, about my height, You conclude, looking up at the boys with pride and a grin.

Ford looks similarly pleased, smiling with a warm, almost-smug look on his face as Fiddleford and Stan both look at you in something akin to surprise. “Impressive as always, my friend. I almost forgot how quickly you’re able to come to conclusions.”

Fiddleford laughs, clapping a friendly hand on your shoulder as he gives you a little shake, “Astonishing! Well--now we know, we gotta be lookin’ up as much as we’re lookin’ down. Aw, hell--” He looks at his watch, waving toward the three of you, “We’ve got about twenty minutes left of daylight. We need’ta keep our flashlights as charged up as they can get, so the less time we use ‘em, the better. Come on,” F leads the charge toward the woods with Ford following behind, grinning at you with pride as he flashes you a wink.

You turn to look at Stan, finding the twin starry-eyed for a brief moment before he coughs and comes back to himself. “That… Wow, you uh, really know your stuff.” He clears his throat, and you swear his cheeks aren’t normally that pink. A trick of the setting sun, you’re sure…

Thank you, you laugh, feeling almost embarrassed as you rub at the back of your neck, putting the developed picture into a safe spot in your bag before rethinking your decision to leave your camera around your neck, putting it away too. I probably got a little carried away there, I’m sure.

“No! Not at all--I may not understand all the words y’said, but you’re...You’re seriously smart, sugar. It’s cool to see.” He smiles, rubbing at the nape of his neck. Your cheeks definitely flush at that, laughing lightly at his words, and biting into your bottom lip to muffle it. Clearing his throat, he adjusts the pack at his back, his smile lingering as he points to the duo moving ahead. “We should catch up. God forbid we get lost with whatever, uh...winged an’i-social or-whatever-you-said superbird flyin’ around here.”

You snort at his words and correct him, Anisodactyl, to which he replies, “Yeah, that’s what I said, isn’t it?” with a laugh of his own as you both move with purpose, following to catch up to the duo of brunets.

[iwillbeinmynest]

Redcove Harvest - Bucky x Reader(f)   Chapter 4

Authors Notes: Sorry for the delay y'all, I’m running behind on this series so my updates are not as consistent but I’m trying! I’ll be a bit MIA for the next few weeks so hopefully y'all don’t forget about me..

AU: Farmhand!AU and SIngleMom!Reader

Word Count: 1.3k

Notes/Warnings: (Notes are for the whole series) FLUFF, mentions of a past toxic relationship, a wild storm at the end, drama and a break-up, mentions of drinking, kids being adorable and ridiculous, kissing, romance and a tiny bit of angst if you look hard but nothing more than that of a Hallmark movie.

Masterlist    Series Masterlist

Lunch was mostly quiet but there was some small talk. Eventually, Bucky took their plates and washed them.

“Well,” He started as he placed his plate on the drying rack. “Rain has stopped. I figure I’ll get back to the mowing.”

“Actually,” Y/N checked her phone. “I just got a message from the gravel company that they’re on their way.”

“Oh, alright. Did you get the bobcat already?”

She nodded. “It should be here around the same time.”

“Perfect. I bet you’ll be glad to have a gravel driveway.” He smiled at her.

“Anything is better than the swamp it turns into after a heavy rain.”

He chuckled. “I’ll grab the truck and start filling in the pot holes until all that gets here.”

“Okay, perfect. I’ll be here.” She said as she headed for the stairs. “I’ll be able to help for a while but then I have to go get the girls from school.”

Bucky knew that. Somewhat ashamedly, he’d been keeping track of her schedule. On weekdays, she took the girls to school and then ran errands and picked up coffee. Most times she was back before Bucky got there. Then, she’d spend time on the animals and the garden that way she was done before the midday heat. After that, she took an early lunch around eleven followed by about an hour of sitting on the porch reading. Then she’d do house work until she had to pick up the girls at three.

Bucky’s schedule had never been consistent. Where he was originally scheduled to work from 8-3, he now showed up around eight and then left when the day's tasks were done. A few times that meant working until the sun went down.

He found he preferred working late. He liked being able to see the kids and watch Y/N mother them. He admired her for her strength and endurance when it came to Gracie and Lex. Sometimes they invited him in for dinner and he was happy to oblige.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like living with Steve, it’s just that he was really starting to like Y/N.

He got in his truck and did as he said he would, headed down the driveway. He rode down the worn path that led to the back of the property and shoveled a few dozen pounds of dirt into the bed. He drove to the barn to grab the tools he needed and then drove down the drive until he came to the first big pothole.

He worked for another hour filling in holes and driving to the next one. Just as he finished the last one at the front of the driveway, he heard the familiar rumble of a work truck. Sure enough, when he looked down the paved road he saw the gravel truck headed his way. He waited until the driver pulled to a stop next to him and then told him to dump the rocks in small piles across the driveway. Bucky told him that he could turn the truck around up at the house and dump the pile as he left.

The driver told Bucky that the next truck was behind him about thirty minutes so they better hurry.

Bucky hopped in his truck and hurried up to the house to get the bobcat. When he got to the house, Y/N was coming out the front door.

“Trucks here!” Bucky shouted out his window as he threw the truck in park. He hopped out and smiled at her.

“Perfect,” She smiled back. “My friend with the bobcat is on his way. He said he’s five minutes away.”

“Nice.” Bucky could feel his smile getting wider as she walked closer to him.

She got a few feet away and stopped. She put one hand on her hip and one over her brows to block the sun. “Dang,” She said as she saw the gravel truck. “I didn’t think it would be that big.”

“Yeah,” Bucky laughed and shifted his weight to follow her gaze, “And there’s two of them.”

“Yikes, I didn’t think this through. This is gonna take a few days.”

Bucky shook his head. “Nah, I’ll work on it tonight and then finish tomorrow.”

“You’re gonna need help.”

Bucky looked at her but she was still looking at the truck which was now maneuvering a three point turn to head back down the drive.

“After I get the girls I’ll come out and help more.”

He inhaled to say she didn’t have to but then she waved at someone. He looked down the drive and there was the guy with the bobcat.

“That’s Rhodey. Come on, I’ll introduce you.”

Bucky followed her down to Rhodey. She gave him a big hug after he stepped out of his dust covered truck. The bobcat sat on a trailer at the back.

“Hey!” She smiled at him when he let go, “Thank you so much for letting me borrow this. And for dropping it off.”

“Of course,” He grinned. “Anything you need, sweetheart.”

Rhodey looked over at Bucky, who nodded.

“Oh, sorry,” Y/N said. “Rhodey, this is Bucky. Bucky, Rhodey.”

Bucky extended a hand and Rhodey took it and shook firmly.

“James.” Rhodey corrected.

“Nice to meet you, James.” Bucky nodded again.

“Bucky is helping me out for a couple of months until I get the property back in order.”

“That’s really great.” Rhodey crossed his arms and widened his stance. “And graveling the drive is gonna be real nice.”

“I hope so,” Y/N looked back up the drive at the gravel truck. “I sure couldn’t afford to pave the whole thing. Hopefully the rain won’t wash it away.”

“If we pack it in enough it should be fine.” Bucky reminded her.

“Well,” Rhodey began to fish something out of his pocket. He pulled out a small set of keys and gave them to Bucky. “Here are the keys. You know how to drive it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Alright then, I’ll untie it for you.”

Rhodey took the tow straps off the bobcat and Bucky backed it off the trailer. Y/N said bye to Rhodey then, hopped onto the side of the bobcat and rode with Bucky up to the gravel truck.

Bucky began spreading out the gravel and Y/N grabbed the tamper and began compacting the gravel into place. They worked at that pace for about an hour until Y/N waved at Bucky and signaled that it was time for her to go.

Y/n headed up to her old Ford and Bucky found himself watching a little too long as she walked away. He kept waiting for her to drive past him, he was looking forward to it, but after a few minutes, he still hadn’t seen her.

He looked up the drive to see Y/N’s truck with the hood up.

Bucky cursed and turned off the bobcat. He hopped out and jogged up to her.

As he got closer he heard Y/N swear really loud.

“You okay?” He called.

“Yeah.” She said shortly.

“You sure?” he rounded the front of the truck to see Y/N near tears.

“Yeah,” She pulled her phone out, “I’m just going to have to call the school and tell them I’m going to be late.

“N- wait. What’s wrong with it?” He asked about the truck.

“It’s a hunk of junk.” She said with a sour look on her face. “It won’t turn over.”

“Well, why don’t I drive you to get them and we can work on it later?”

Y/N looked up at him slightly stunned. “You’d do that?”

He softened his expression, it wasn’t hard to do when he was looking at her. “Of course.”

She sighed in relief. “Thank you, seriously, I owe you one.” And she hurried to get Lex’s booster seat from the back seat.

*  *   *   *   *    *   *

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[sinceileftyoublog]

Riot Fest 2021: 9/16-9/19, Douglass Park

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Much like Pitchfork Music Festival earlier this month, this past weekend’s Riot Fest felt relatively normal. Arriving at Douglas Park every day, you were greeted by the usual deluge of attendees in Misfits t-shirts and dyed hair, the sound of faint screams and breakneck guitars and drums emanating from nearby stages. The abnormal aspects of the fest, at least as compared to previous incarnations, we’re already used to by now from 2021 shows: To get in, you had to show proof of vaccination and/or a negative test no older than 48 hours, which means that unvaxxed 4-day attendees had to get multiple tests. Props to the always awesome staff at Riot Fest for actually checking the cards against the names on government-issued IDs.

For a festival that dealt with a plethora of last-minute changes due to bands dropping out because of COVID-19 caution (Nine Inch Nails, Pixies, Dinosaur Jr.) or other reasons (Faith No More/Mr. Bungle because of concerns around Mike Patton’s well-being), there were very few bumps in the road. Whether Riot Fest had bands like Slipknot, Anthrax, or Rise Against in their back pocket as replacements or not, it very much felt like who we saw Thursday-Sunday was always supposed to be the lineup, even when laying your eyes on countless “Death to the Pixies” shirts. Sure, one of the fest’s main gimmicks--peeling back the label on Goose Island’s Riot Fest Sucks Pale Ale to reveal the schedule--was out of date with inaccurate set times and bands, and it still would have been so had Faith No More and Mr. Bungle stayed, since Fucked Up had to drop out last minute due to border issues. But the festival, as always, rolled with the punches.

The sets themselves offered the circle pit and crowdsurfing-inducing punk and metal you’re used to, with a few genre outliers. For so many bands of all styles, Riot Fest represented their first live show in years, and a few acts knew the exact number of days since their last show. For every single set, the catharsis in the crowd and on stage was palpable, not exactly anger, or elation, but pure release.

Here were our favorite sets of the festival, in chronological order.

WDRL

Last October, WDRL (which, amazingly, stands for We Don’t Ride Llamas) announced themselves with a Tweet: “y’all been looking for an alt black band,, well here you go”. A band of Gen Z siblings, Chase (lead guitar), Max (lead vocals), Blake (drums), and Kit Mitchell (bass guitar), WDRL is aware, much like Meet Me @ The Altar (who, despite my hyping, I couldn’t make it in time to see) that they’re one of too few bands of POCs in the Riot Fest-adjacent scene. Their set, one of the very first of the weekend during Thursday’s pre-party, showed them leading by example, the type of band to inspire potentially discouraged Black and brown folks to start punk bands. Max is a terrific vocalist, able to scream over post-punk, scat over funk, and coo over slow, soulful R&B swayers with the same ease. The rest of the band was equally versatile, able to pivot on a dime from scuzzy rock to hip hop to twinkling dream pop. Bonus points for covering Splendora’s “You’re Standing On My Neck”, aka the Daria theme song.

Joyce Manor

Joyce Manor’s self-titled debut is classic. The best part of it as an album play-through at a festival? It’s so short that you can hear it and you’ll still have half a set for other favorites. So while the bouncy “Orange Julius”", “Ashtray Petting Zoo”, and ultimate singalong “Constant Headache” were set highlights, the Torrance, CA band was able to burn through lots from Never Hungover Again, Cody, Million Dollars to Kill Me, and their rarities collection Songs From Northern Torrance. Apart from not playing anything from Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired (seriously, am I the only one who loves that record?), Joyce Manor were stellar, from the undeniable hooks of “Heart Tattoo” to the churning power chords of “Catalina Fight Song”. After playing “Christmas Card”, Johnson and company gave one final nod to the original fest cancellation, My Chemical Romance, who were slated to headline 2020, then 2021, and now 2022. If you ever wondered what it would sound like hearing a concise punk band like Joyce Manor take on the bombast of “Helena”, you found out. Hey, it was actually pretty good!

Patti Smith

Behold: a full Patti Smith set! After being shafted by the weather last time around, a sunglasses-laden Smith decided not to fuck around, leading with the inspiring “People Have The Power”, her voice as powerful as I’ve ever heard it. Maybe it was the influence of Riot Fest, but she dropped as many f-bombs as Corey Taylor did during Slipknot’s Sunday night headlining set. After reluctantly signing an adoring crowd member’s copy of Horses, she quipped, “I feel bad for you have to cart that fucking thing around.” It wasn’t just the filthy banter: This was Smith at her most enraptured and incendiary, belting during “Because The Night” and spitting during a “Land/Gloria” medley, reciting stream-of-consciousness hallucinogenic lyrics about the power of escape in the greatest display of stamina the festival had to offer.

Circa Survive

“It feels good to dance,” declared Circa Survive lead singer Anthony Green. The heart and soul of the Philadelphia rock band, who cover ground from prog rock to post-hardcore and emo, Green was in full form during the band’s early Friday set, his falsetto carrying the rolling “The Difference Between Medicine and Poising Is in the Dose” and the chugging “Rites of Investiture”. While the band, too, can throw down, they’re equally interesting when softer and more melodic, Brendan Ekstrom‘s twinkling guitars lifting “Child of the Desert” and “Suitcase”. Ending with the one-two punch of debut Juturna’s introspective “Act Appalled” and Blue Sky Noise’s skyward “Get Out”, Green announced the band would have a new record coming soon, one you hope will cover the sonic and thematic ground of even just those two tracks.

Thrice

Thrice played their first show since February 2020 the same day they’d release their 11th studio album, Horizons/East (Epitaph). To a crowd of fans that came to hear their favorite songs, though, the Irvine, California band knew better than to play a lot of the new record, instead favoring tracks like The Artist in the Ambulance’s spritely title cut and Vheissu standout “The Earth Will Shake”. Yeah, they led with a Horizons/East song making its live debut, the dreamy, almost Deftones-esque “Scavengers”, and later in the set they’d reveal the impassioned “Summer Set Fire to the Rain”. But the set more prominently served to emphasize lead vocalist Dustin Kensrue’s gruff delivery, on “All the World Is Mad” and “in Exile”, the rhythm section’s propulsive playing buoying his fervency. And how about Teppei Teranishi’s finger tapping on “Black Honey”?!? Thrice often favor the slow build-up, but they offered plenty of individually awesome moments.

Smashing Pumpkins

William Patrick Corgan entered the stage to dramatic strings, dressed in a robe, with white face paint except for red hearts under his eyes. He looked like a ghost. That’s pretty much where the semi-serious theatricality ended. The Smashing Pumpkins’ first Chicago festival headlining set in recent memory was the rawest they’ve sounded in a while, counting when they played an original lineup-only set at the United Center a few years back. It was also the most fun I’ve ever seen Corgan have on stage. Though they certainly selected and debuted from their latest electropop turn Cyr, Corgan, guitarist James Iha, drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, guitarist Jeff Schroeder, and company more notably dug deep into the vault, playing Gish’s “Crush” for the first time since 2008, Adore’s “Shame” for the first time since 2010, and Siamese Dream barnburner “Quiet” for the first time since 1994 (!). Best, every leftfield disco jam like set opener “The Colour Of Love”, “Cyr”, and “Ramona” was quickly followed by something heavy and/or recognizable, Chamberlin’s limber drum solos elevating even latter-day material like “Solara”. At one point, Corgan, a self-described “arty fuck,” admitted that years ago he would have opted for more experimental material, but he knew the crowd wanted to hear classics, the band then delving into a gorgeous acoustic version of “Tonight, Tonight”. And while Kate Bush coverer Meg Myers came out to sing Lost Highway soundtrack industrial ditty “Eye”, it was none other than legendary local shredder Michael Angelo Batio who stole the show, joining for the set closer, a pummeling version of Zeitgeist highlight “United States”. Leaning into the cheese looks good on you, Billy.

The Bronx

Credit to L.A. punk rock band The Bronx, playing early on a decidedly cooler Saturday early afternoon, for making me put in my earplugs outside of the photo pit. Dedicating “Shitty Future” to Fucked Up (who, as we mentioned, had to drop out), the entire band channeled Damian Abraham’s energy on piercing versions of “Heart Attack American” as well as “Superbloom” and “Curb Feelers” from their latest album Bronx VI (Cooking Vinyl). Joby J. Ford and Ken Horne’s guitars stood out, providing choppy rhythms on “Knifeman” and swirling solos on “Six Days A Week”.

Big Freedia

The New Orleans bounce artist has Big Diva Energy, for the most part. After her DJ pumped up the crowd to contemporary Southern rap staple “Ayy Ladies” by Travis Porter, Big Freedia walked out and showed that “BDE”, firing through singles like “Platinum” and “N.O. Bounce” as her on-stage dancers’ moves ranged from delicate to earth-shaking. At this point, Freedia can pretty much do whatever she wants, effortlessly segueing between a cover of Drake’s “Nice For What” to “Strut”, her single with electropop DJ Elohim, to a cover of Beyone’s “Formation”. Of course, the set highlight was when she had volunteers from the crowd come up and shake and twerk--two at a time to keep it COVID-safe--all while egging them on to go harder. Towards the end of the set, after performing the milquetoast “Goin’ Looney” from the even-worse-than-expected Space Jam: A New Legacy soundtrack, she pulled out the beloved “Gin in my System”. “I got that gin in my system,” she sang, the crowd singing back, “Somebody gonna be my victim,” a refrain that compositionally not only leaves plenty of room for the thundering bass but is thematically a statement of total power--over sexism, racism, the patriarchy--even in the face of control-altering substances.

Les Savy Fav

During Les Savy Fav’s set, lead singer Tim Harrington at various points--*big breath*--went into the crowd, deepthroated an audience member’s mohawk spike, found a discarded manikin head with a wig on it, revealed the words “deep” and “dish” painted on his thighs and a drawing of a Red Hot on his back, rode a crowd member like a horse, made a headband out of pink tape, donned ski goggles, surfed on top of a door carried by the crowd, squeezed his belly while the camera was on it to make it look like his belly button was singing, and referred to himself as a “slippery eel.” Indeed, the legend of Les Savy Fav’s live show starts and ends with Harrington’s ridiculous antics, as he’s all but out of breath when actually singing dance-punk classics like “Hold On To Your Genre”, “The Sweat Descends”, and “Rome (Written Upside Down)”. We haven’t heard much in terms of new music from Les Savy Fav in over 10 years--their most recent album was 2010′s Root For Ruin--but I could see them and the extremely Aughts genre in general become staples of Riot Fest as albums like Inches, The Rapture’s Echoes, and !!!’s Louden Up Now reach the 20-year mark. Dynamic vocalists, tight bands, and killer grooves: What’s not to love?

State Champs

This set likely wins the award for “most immediate crowd surfers,” which I guess is to be expected when you begin your set with a classic track 1--album 1 combination. “Elevated” is the State Champs number that will cause passers-by to stop and watch a couple songs, the type of song that can pretty much only open or close a set. And because they opened with it, the crowd immediately ramped up the energy. It’s been three years since the last State Champs full-length, Living Proof, so they were in prime position to play some new songs. As such, they performed their bubblegummy “Outta My Head” and “Just Sound” and faithfully covered Fall Out Boy’s “Chicago Is So Two Years Ago” (releasing a studio version earlier this week). But the tracks from The Finer Things and Around the World and Back were, as usual, the highlights, like “All You Are Is History”, “Remedy”, “Slow Burn”, and set closer “Secrets”. At the end of the day, it didn’t entirely matter: The crowd knew every word of every song.

Bayside

Putting State Champs and Bayside back-to-back on the same stage made an easy decision for the many pop-punk bands at Riot Fest. Bayside’s been at it for twice as long, so the breadth of their setlist across their discography is more variable. Moreover, they’ve thrice revisited their discography with acoustic albums of old songs, so even their staples are subject to change. They provided solid versions of Killing Time standouts “Already Gone” and “Sick, Sick, Sick”, Cult’s “Pigsty”, and older songs like their self-titled’s “Montauk” and Sirens and Condolences’ “Masterpiece”. For “Don’t Call Me Peanut”, though, they brought out--*gasp*--an acoustic guitar! It was a rare moment not just for one of the most popular pop punk sets but the festival in general, a breather before Vacancy shout-along “Mary”.

Rancid

“Rancid has always been anti-fascist and anti-racist,” said Tim Armstrong before the band played “Hooligans”. It was nice to hear an explicit declaration of solidarity from the street punks, reminding the crowd what really matters and why we come together to scream and mosh. The band expectedly favored ...And Out Come The Wolves, playing almost half of it, and they perfectly balanced their harder edges with more celebratory ska songs like “Where I’m Going” from their most recent album Trouble Maker (Hellcat/Epitaph). My two favorite moments? The breezy, keyboard-laden “Fall Back Down” from their supremely underrated 2001 album Indestructable, and when they asked the crowd whether they wanted the set to end with “Time Bomb” or “Ruby Soho”. “We have 4 minutes left, and it’s disrespectful to play over your set time,” said Armstrong. It’s easy to see why Rancid continues to make an impression--instrumental and moral--on touring bands new and old.

Run the Jewels

The brilliant hip hop duo are masters of balancing social consciousness with the desire to fuck shit up for fun. Live, the former tends to come in between-song banter, the latter with their actual charismatic, tit-for-tat performances of the songs. However, Run the Jewels also are probably the clearest live performers in hip hop today, Killer Mike and El-P’s words, hypersexual and woke alike, ringing in the ears of audience members who don’t even know the songs. (Looking around, I could see people smiling and laughing at every dick joke, nodding at each righteous proclamation.) Some of the best songs on their most recent album RTJ4 (Jewel Runners/BMG) are perfect for these multitudes. Hearing both RTJ MCs and the backing track of Pharrell Williams and Zack de la Rocha chanting “Look at all these slave masters posin’ on yo’ dollar” on “JU$T” as the rowdy crowd bounced up and down was the ultimate festival moment. For those who had never seen RTJ, it was clear from the get-go, as Killer Mike and EL-P traded bars on “yankee and the brave (ep. 4)” that they’re a unique hip hop act. For the rest of us, it was clear that Run the Jewels keep getting better.

The Gories

It felt a little weird that legendary Detroit trio The Gories were given the first set of the final day--I’d have thought they’d have more draw than that. No matter what, they provided one of the more satisfying and stylistically varied sets of the festival, showcasing their trademark balance of garage punk and blues. Mick Collins and Dan Kroha’s guitar and vocal harmonies were the perfect jangly balance to Peggy O’Neill’s meat and potatoes drumming on “Sister Ann” and “Charm Bag”, while folks less familiar with The Gories were treated to their fantastic covers of Suicide’s “Ghost Rider” and The Keggs’ “To Find Out”. Smells like time for the first Gories album in 20 years!

FACS

I thought it would be ill-fitting to watch a band like FACS in the hot sun, early in the day. Their monochrome brand of post-punk seems better suited for a dimly lit club. But the hypnotic nature of Brian Case’s swirling guitar and Alianna Kalaba’s slinky bass was oddly perfect in a sweltering, faint-inducing heat. Just when you thought you might fade, squalls of feedback and Noah Leger’s odd time signatures picked you back up. Songs from their new album Present Tense (Trouble In Mind) such as “Strawberry Cough” and “XOUT” were emblematic of this push-pull. And everything from the band’s red, white, and black color palate to their lack of stage banter suggested a cool minimalism that was rare at a festival that tends to book more outwardly emotional bands.

Alex G

On one hand, Alex G’s unique combination of twangy alt country and earnest indie rock makes him an outlier at Riot Fest, or at the very least a mostly Pitchfork/occasional Riot Fest type of booking. On the other hand, like a lot of bands at the festival, he has a rabid fanbase, one that knows his back catalog hits, like “Kute”, “Kicker”, and “Bug”, as much as if not more than hyped Rocket and House of Sugar singles, like “Bobby” and “Gretel”. Backed by a band that knows when to be loose and when to tighten up--and the instrumental chops to do so--Alex G was better than he was a Pitchfork three years ago. He still sings through his teeth, making it especially hard to hear him on louder tunes such as “Brick”. But when the honesty of his vocals combines with the dreamy guitars of “Southern Sky” and circular melodies of “Near”, it’s pure bliss. 

HEALTH

The formula for the LA industrial noise band has pretty much always been Jake Duzsik’s soft vocals contrasting John Famiglietti’s screeching bass and pedals and BJ Miller’s mammoth drums. Both in 2018 and Sunday at Riot Fest, the heat affected Famiglietti’s pedals, which were nonetheless obscured by tarp. Or so HEALTH claimed: You wouldn’t know the difference given how much their sound envelops your whole body during one of their live sets. Since their previous appearance at the festival, the prolific band has released two new records on Loma Vista, Vol. 4: Slaves of Fear and collaboration record Disco4: Part 1. Songs from those records occupied half of their excellent set, including battering opener “GOD BOTHERER”, “BODY/PRISON”, and “THE MESSAGE”. It was so wonderfully loud it drowned out K.Flay’s sound check drummer, thank the lord.

Thursday

Last time Thursday played Riot Fest, Geoff Rickly was battling heroin addiction, something he talked about during the band’s triumphant late afternoon set on Sunday. He mentioned the kindness of the late, great Riley Gale of Power Trip in extending a helping hand when he was down and extended his love to anybody in the crowd or even the world at large going through something similar. To say that this set was life-affirming would be an understatement; after 636 days of no shows, Rickly was at his most passionate. He introduced “Signals Over The Air” as a song the band “wrote about men beating up on women in the pit,” that a record exec at the time told them that it wouldn’t age well because he thought--no kidding--sexism would eventually end. Rickly’s voice, suffering from sound issues last time around, simply soared during Full Collapse’s “Cross Out The Eyes”, No Devolucion’s “Fast to the End”, and two inspired covers: Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” and Texas Is The Reason’s “If It's Here When We Get Back It's Ours”. The latter the band played because TITR guitarist Norman Brannon’s actually on tour with them, though Rickly emphasized the influence the NYC post-hardcore greats had on Thursday when they first started. Never forgetting where they’ve come from, with self-deprecating humor and radical empathy, Thursday are once again a force.

Devo

Much like the B-52′s in 2019, Devo was the set this year of a 70′s/80′s absurd punk band with some radio hits that everybody knows but with a swath of die-hard fans, too. It’s safe to say both groups were satisfied. You walked around the fest all day wondering whether the folks wearing Devo hats were actual fans or doing it for the novelty. By the time the band actually took the stage after a career-spanning video of their many phases, it didn’t really matter, because it was clear the band still had it, Mark and Bob Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale’s vocals booming throughout a massive crowd. They ripped through “Peek-a-Boo”, “Going Under”, “That’s Good”, “Girl U Want”, and “Whip It”, which caused the fans waiting for Slipknot (and presumably some Devo heads) to form a circle pit. And that was all before the first costume change. Mark passed out hats to the crowd, fully embracing converts who might have only known “Whip It”. The feverish chants of “Uncontrollable Urge” and synth freakouts of “Jocko Homo” whipped everyone into a frenzy. And the band performed the “Freedom Of Choice” theme song for the first time since the early 80′s! I had seen Devo before, opening for Arcade Fire and Dan Deacon at the United Center, but the atmosphere at Riot Fest was more appropriately ludicrous.

Flaming Lips

“The Flaming Lips are the most COVID-safe band in the world,” went the ongoing joke, as throughout the pandemic they’d give audience members bubbles for their bubbles to be able to play shows. The normally goofy and interactive band scaled back for Riot Fest. Before launching into their traditional opener “Race For The Prize”, Wayne Coyne explained that while the band is normally proud of where they come from--Oklahoma City--they’re saddened by the local government’s ignorant pandemic response and wouldn’t risk launching balloons or walking into the crowd because they might be virus spreaders coming from such an under-vaccinated area. To his and the band’s credit, they wore masks during the performance, even when singing; Coyne removed his only when outside of his bubble that had to be deflated and inflated many times and that sometimes muffled his singing voice even more than a mask. Ever the innovative band, they still put on a stellar show. Coyne autotuned his voice on “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1″, making it another instrument filling the song’s glorious pop melodies. Less heavy on props, the band favored a glitchy, psychedelic setlist that alternated between beauty (”Flowers Of Neptune 6″, “Feeling Yourself Disintegrate”, “All We Have Is Now”) and two-drummed cacophony (“Silver Trembling Hands”, “The W.A.N.D.”). They’ll give a proper Lips show soon enough, but in the meantime, it was nice to see them not run through the motions.

Slipknot

Apart from maybe moments of Slayer, I’ve never witnessed a headliner at Riot Fest as heavy as Slipknot was. Even the minor ethereal elements present on their most recent and very good album We Are Not Your Kind, like the chorus of voices during “Unsainted”, were all but abandoned live in favor of straight up brutality. Sure, there were moments of theatricality--Corey Taylor’s menacing laugh on “Disasterpiece” and pyrotechnics in sequence with the instrumentation on “Before I Forget” and “All Out Life”--but for the most part, Slipknot was the ultimate exorcism. Taylor’s new mask, with unnaturally circular eyes, seemed like it came from a particularly uncomfortable skit from I Think You Should Leave. They bashed a baseball bat to a barrel during the pre-encore performance of “Duality”. And the songs played from tape, like the gasping-for-breath “(515)”, were designed to contrast Slipknot’s alien appearance with qualities that were uncannily human. For a band whose performances and instrumental dexterity are otherworldly--who else can pull off tempo changes over a hissing, Aphex Twin-like shuffling electronic beat on “Eyeless”--the pure seething emotion on songs like “Psychosocial” and “Wait and Bleed” shone through. Like Smashing Pumpkins, and like so many other successful Riot Fest headliners, Slipknot abandoned drama for pure, unadulterated dirt.

[edie-k]

Legally Ginger - Chapter 3 "What, Like It's Hard?"

Title: Legally Ginger Chapter 3: "What Like It's Hard?"

Rating: Teen (I'm sorry Ron and I are equally fond of the f word)

Summary: Based off the movie Legally Blonde. Ron makes the move to Boston but his Harvard career is off to a rough start.

Author Notes: I do want to caveat that not everyone who attends an Ivy League school is a snob so no offense to anyone that did; it’s just a fun romcom stereotype.

Additionally, I felt the need to address that it can be a bit scary for anyone to stalk someone across the country but particularly a man stalking a woman across country is historically problematic. Unfortunately, given it's basically the entire plot of this story, we can't completely avoid it. So remember, this is a fun thing in movies but a red flag in real life.

And yes, I do crib more from the movie on the curriculum. I did not attend law school and can use the help. So I bolded the language that was either verbatim or heavily cribbed from the movie.

Chapter title is a movie quote.

Thank you so much to adnei for all of the beta help and feedback!

I've been so excited to share this chapter with all of you and I think when you get to the end, you'll know why. Let me know what you think!

Link to AO3 or read more below.

“All set then?” asked his dad, closing the back of the old Ford Escape Bill had passed off to him.

“I think that’s all of it,” Ron agreed.

“Well, I’ll go get your mother then to see you off,” Dad said.

The twins and Ginny were standing on the curb, having already loaded the boxes they carried in the vehicle.

“Well, in two days, you’ll be knocking on Astoria’s door to find out if this crazy plan worked.”

Ron laughed. “Not exactly. Hopefully I run into her the first week.”

George’s jaw dropped. “You spent 90k of Muriel’s cash and wasted the best party semester of your life to hope to run into her?”

He hadn’t gone the entire spring semester without seeing Stori. She’d sought him out a few times for a bit of, as she put it, mutual stress relief, but refused to discuss anything further about their relationship. She had bid him a teary goodbye at their commencement ceremony, where he had been evasive about his post graduation plans.

“The point was to be worthy of her, not scare her. Ginny, imagine you get drafted by the Red Stars and suddenly that douche you dated, Corner, is working there as the strength and conditioning coach. You’d be freaked out.”

“It’s a good point,” said Ginny.

“Look, I’ll show up, I’ll get to know everyone, make my connections, and charm the professors. She’ll know I’m there without me ever telling her.”

“You never faded into the background at CULA,” Fred agreed.

“I’ll say hi if I see her but she’ll be knocking on my door by October,” Ron said confidentially.

“Oh yeah?” George’s voice was skeptical.

“You didn’t think I’d make it this far,” pointed out Ron. “It’s… it’s got to work.”

Suddenly, he felt his confidence drop. Was this a stupid plan?

“Best of luck, bro,” said Fred, giving him a one armed hug.

“Regardless of everything… Ron, you got into Harvard. Harvard. Don’t let them take that away from you,” Ginny said fiercely.

“Yeah, yeah, you sound like Mom now,” Ron said, brushing her off before his cheeks could burn. “Where’s she at? I’m burning daylight here.”

“I’m right here,” said his mom, walking out the front door of the ranch home he’d grown up in, holding a cooler. “I have some sandwiches to at least get you through the first day on the road,”

“First hour maybe,” George scoffed.

“Thanks Mom,” he took the cooler and stuck it in the car. When he turned back around, his dad had joined them again.

“Well, this is it,” he said awkwardly.

“Oh… Ginny, go pack a bag and join your brother. We’ll buy you a plane ticket home. Or I can come along,” his mom blurted out, nervously twisting her hands.

“Mom,” Ron groaned.

“Molly, he’ll be okay,” his dad said gently.

“Call me once a day,” Mom said. “Just during the trip,” she added, when Ron started to object.

“Okay,” he agreed. He drew her into a hug.

After he’d said goodbye to each of them, he whistled. “Pig, come on boy!” The pug ran across the yard and allowed Ron to scoop him up and put him in the passenger seat. He climbed into the driver’s seat and swallowed hard. Was this a big mistake?

“We’re so proud of you, son,” his dad said.

“We’ll see you at Christmas?” his mom asked.

Ron didn’t trust his voice so he just nodded and closed the car door. He started the vehicle and with one last wave, he backed out of the driveway.

**********************************************

Five days later, Ron’s alarm was blaring.

“What fucking time is it?” he muttered, slamming the sleep button. In response, Pig grunted and rolled over.

It had been four days of naps and showers at truck stops, coffee, Monster, and fast food but he’d arrived yesterday in order to get a decent night’s sleep before today’s orientation. He, however, had failed to calculate in the three hour time difference that combined with his driving fatigue, was wreaking havoc on his mind and body.

He sighed and went to a still packed box marked “clothes”. He immediately groaned. His khakis were wrinkled as hell. Should have hung them in the bathroom last night when he showered to at least get a little help from the steam.

Luckily, he had a couple dress shirts in the garment bag with his sports coat and two suits. During his brother Percy’s summer visit, he’d used one of Ron’s rare free days to take him shopping. Percy had gotten some advice from a friend of his that attended the University of Chicago on law school attire and had insisted Ron needed at least three suits.

Ron, who was expecting that this whole thing would be wrapped up by spring, balked at the idea but finally agreed to one new suit to go with the one he already owned, a blazer, khakis, and a few polo shirts. He had shirts and tie combos from various formal and semi-formal events, but doubted he’d need much of it. Percy’s friend had said classes were business casual and while his golf shirts were comfortable enough, Ron really hoped that by the second week, everyone was wearing hoodies in class.

He finished getting ready and then grabbed Pig’s leash. “Come on boy,” he prodded the slumbering pug. “If you don’t go now, you’ll be holding it all day.”

They walked the campus, enjoying the morning quiet. While it didn’t give Ron the ease and sense of belonging CULA did, it was an impressive campus. For a moment, he wished he’d taken his mom up on the offer to come out with him - she’d love to see this. He hated the loneliness he felt and was glad to see Pig do his business. Sooner he could get to orientation and meet some people, the better.

********************************

Orientation had been a mix of boring and interesting. He’d slipped in right at the last minute and sat in the back row to ensure he went unnoticed if he were in the same group of students as Astoria. Luckily, he didn’t notice her in the room. While he missed her terribly, he hadn’t come this far to destroy his plans now, and running into her before classes even started was not the plan.

Now they had moved into the social mixer part of the evening, which he was delighted to see that unlike undergrad, law school mixers included booze.

“Uh… you have anything local?” Ron asked the bartender.

“Nothing craft but I do have Dogfish Head,” the bartender said.

“That’ll do,” Ron responded, sticking a dollar in the tip cup. Had Astoria accepted his proposal, maybe he would have pursued the Boston Beer job and he’d have cases of this stuff in their kitchen. The bartender handed him a glass full of his other life and he wandered over to a small group of people, chatting.

“Hi, Ron Weasley,” he said sticking out his hand to the woman on his right.

“Uh, hi,” she said, sounding surprised but not unfriendly. “Lisa Turpin.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“Ernie MacMillan,” said a blonde man, standing next to Lisa. Ron shook his hand and then shook the hand of the man next to him who introduced himself as Jack Sloper.

“We were just discussing undergrads,” Ernie said. “Jack and I were both Princeton men, although I took a gap year in Europe so different classes. Lisa here was an Eli. How about you?”

Ron inwardly winced. This guy sounded so pompous. An Eli, really? Anyone who watched a few seasons of Gilmore Girls knew what that was. Ron took a deep breath. “West coast here. I graduated from CULA.”

“That’s a solid state school system,” said Ernie. It wasn’t an insult, but when he said it, somehow it sounded like one.

“Yeah, well, it got the job done,” he said, forcing his friendliest tone.

“What were your undergrad degrees in?” Jack asked the group.

“I’m afraid I’m a bit of a stereotype. Political science for me,” Ernie chuckled.

“Same,” said Lisa. “Although I double majored in French.”

“I was a double major as well. Economics and Spanish,” Jack responded.

“There just wasn’t time for a double major while I was student body president, I’m afraid,” Ernie said. “What about you, Ron?”

“Uh, yeah, just the one major for me. Food science,” he said self-consciously.

“Food science,” Lisa repeated, her tone again not unfriendly but certainly not welcoming. Ron’s whole body stiffened.

“Like cooking?” asked Jack skeptically.

“No, there are a few different concentrations but I was focused on food biochemistry and microbiology,” he explained.

“I think the only micro I’m aware of with food is microwaves or microbrewing,” Jack said, letting out a condescending chuckle.

“Actually, brewing was a big part of my internship last summer. I was at Anheuser-Busch working on their new sustainable brewing initiative,” he said.

“Interesting,” said Lisa. “Ernie, where did you spend your time abroad?”

“I assume you’re interested in whether I spent any time in France, which I can assure you that I did.”

“I hope when you say France, you don’t just mean Paris,” said Jack and Ron was glad to see his condescension focused on someone else.

Ernie laughed loudly in response. “Of course not.”

Ron took a big swig of his beer. This was going to be a long night.

***********************

Ron shifted his backpack as he carefully studied the room numbers next to each door. Everyone else looked so comfortable and confident and he wondered if all of his fellow students had mapped out their routes in advance of the first day of classes.

His eyes were so busy shifting from the left side of the hallway to the right that he failed to notice someone stopped right in front of him until he slammed into them.

“Ooof,” he said. “I’m sor - ”

“Ron?!”

Of course he had just walked right into Astoria.

Astoria stood there, mouth hanging open as she stared at him. Despite the gormless look on her face, she looked absolutely gorgeous with her blonde hair pulled back into a tight curled ponytail, the kind he used to love to pull out at the end of the day. Even though it was just barely September, she was wearing an orange cardigan and he thought about how she obsessively dressed in what she called “the colors of the season”.

“Hey there,” he forced out in what he hoped was a casual tone.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she asked, looking shocked.

“Going to class,” Ron responded. “Don’t want to be late; see you!” He took broad steps around and away from her.

Ron let out a sigh of relief as his classroom was the next one he spotted. He took a deep breath as he walked into the lecture hall for his first class. He spotted a seat near the middle of the room that felt like the right place for the impression he wanted to make.

“Hey,” he greeted the guy next to him. The guy nodded, not even looking up from his laptop. Ron shrugged and pulled his computer out of his bag and powered it up.

While it was sooner than he had hoped, Ron had played it pretty cool with Astoria during their chance meeting. Short and to the point, nothing dumb or embarrassing said. His most successful interaction at Harvard to date.

While he was congratulating himself, a severe looking older woman walked purposefully to the front of the classroom and cleared her throat.

“Welcome to the start of your legal education,” she said. “I’m Professor McGonagall.”

As the professor began to speak about the syllabus, Ron allowed his mind to wander back to Astoria. She hadn’t looked upset or angry to see him, merely surprised. Maybe a bit uncomfortable, which was understandable. She also looked phenomenal. It had been way too long since they had been together and he had almost forgotten how stunning she was.

“Can you tell us about Gordon v. Steele?”

Ron looked up with a start. “Huh?”

Professor McGonagall was standing right in front of him, looking annoyed. “Can you tell us about Gordon v. Steele as it relates to subject matter jurisdiction?”

“Uh…” Ron said, shocked. “It’s the first day of class.”

The classroom was now silently watching him.

“Did you not read the first fifty pages of the assigned text?” McGonagall asked.

“I didn’t realize there was an assignment,” Ron said nervously. He heard a snort behind him and his head whipped around to look at the source.

Professor McGonagall seemed to hear the snort too and shifted her focus. “And you, young man? You could answer my question?”

“Of course,” the smartass snorter said. He ran a hand through his hair and leaned back in his chair.

Oh, thought Ron. This guy is the worst.

“So would you support my decision to ask this student to remove himself from class until he’s prepared?”

Ron froze.

“Yes Professor,” said the cocky douchebag.

Professor McGonagall motioned to Ron. “Once you’re prepared, you will be welcomed back to class. Until then…”

Ron packed up his laptop, completely stunned. He gave a hard stare at the messy haired jerk, who smirked back at him as he stomped out of the room.

**********************

“You have to be fucking kidding me. Where the fuck does she get the right… and that fucking douchebag,” Ron muttered.

“Excuse me,” a voice rang out from behind him. “That’s more profanity than I care to hear in a week, let alone at 8:30 on a Monday.”

Ron looked up, irritated by the interruption to his own self pity. The reprimand came from a pretty curly haired brunette perched on a neighboring bench, a giant stack of books beside her. Despite her scolding words, she had a hint of a smile. A smile that actually looked friendly.

“Sorry,” he said, ears turning red. “I just… are they always that mean?”

“Mean?”

“Yeah, like, call you out like that. My professors have always liked me all right,” Ron replied, feeling quite embarrassed to explain this to her.

“Yes, they tend to do that. Socratic method,” said the woman.

“Ah,” he responded. He knew the name Socrates thanks to his philosophy major ex, but nothing of the method.

“Were you with McGonagall?”

“Yeah. She kicked me out!”

The brunette made a sympathetic noise.

“She ever kick you out?”

The woman now looked scandalized. “Never! But I had nightmares about her my whole first week. Who else do you have?”

“Uh, Sprout, Slughorn, Umbridge…”

“Umbridge likes when you speak up in class but make sure you always concede to her in the end. Slughorn’s kind of pretentious but if you make good use of your thesaurus for his papers, he’s easy to please.”

“Nice, thanks,” Ron said, nodding his head with a slight smile. She grinned back at him.

“This place is tough; don’t let one setback your first day throw you off,” she urged.

“I’m glad I picked this bench. So what year are - ”

“Ron? Can we talk?” Astoria was standing in front of him, looking a bit nervous.

“If you want,” he said carefully.

“Please,” she said, taking a few steps back. Ron lifted a hand in goodbye to the girl on the bench before approaching Astoria.

“So… you’re at Harvard,” she said nervously, rubbing her right hand over her left.

“I am,” he confirmed.

“And… you got into Harvard,” Astoria said.

“Clearly,” he answered, a bit irritated by her tone. She didn’t really think he was an idiot, did she?

“How was your first class? “

“It could have been better,” Ron admitted.

“That’s because you-you don’t belong here,” Astoria said. “Look, maybe I shouldn’t, but I’m trusting that you’re not here to, like stalk me or hurt me or something. Regardless, this just isn’t something you can do. The people that are going to be successful here… they’re like, bred for this. And it’s not you. I didn’t break up with you to be a bitch. This just isn’t something you’re cut out for.”

“Stori - ” he tried to interrupt.

“And Ron, it costs a fortune to go here! How are you even covering this? I still care about you. Please, just cut your losses now,” she pleaded.

“No way,” said Ron, feeling the fire to prove himself ignite. “Look, my first class was rough but it’s because I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand how all of this works. Now I do. Frankly, that asshole that got me kicked out did me a favor because - ”

“Stori, there you are.” Out of nowhere, the aforementioned asshole from class appeared and slung a possessive arm around Astoria’s shoulder.

“Oh, hi,” she said, biting her lower lip and no longer meeting Ron’s eyes.

“We haven’t properly met although, after that disaster in class, maybe it’s pointless,” chuckled the douchebag.

“Ron, this is Harry Potter… my fiancé.”

Ron clenched his jaw but he knew his ears were reddening in a dead giveaway. “Really?”

“Harry was my high school boyfriend. We reconnected this spring and it just felt… right,” Astoria answered awkwardly.

“Well… congratulations.”

“Thanks buddy,” Harry said, voice dripping in mock sincerity.

“I, uh, I’ve got to go,” Ron said. Summoning every ounce of self control he had, he quickly walked in the direction of his residence hall, Astoria calling after him.

[ashelbygirl]

Dishonorable intentions. | Thomas Shelby x Reader Imagine.

Part II.

*Sidenotes: I was inspired and some anons asked me to do the second part of dishonorable intentions, soooo here it is! I’ve decided it’ll have more parts so hope you enjoy it.

*Resume: You and Tommy go on your first date.

Thomas lit another cigarette. Feeling the smoke in his lungs gave him a sense of calmness. A feeling he really needed in that exact moment. They were counted the times that Thomas Shelby had been nervous: when Hughes kidnapped Charlie, in the tunnels when he was in the war, in the birth of Charlie and Ruby and another time: when he saw YN for the very first time. YN in the war. YN as a nurse. He hit the cigarette again. Fuck. How long was she going to make him wait?

He wasn’t going to lie, he never thought a girl like YN would accept to go on a date with him. You could tell from miles away that they were completely different from the other.

First we have Thomas. The all mighty, Thomas Shelby. The son of an Irish immigrant man and a Romani gipsy woman, born and raced in Small Heath, Birmingham, England. He was in his late 30s about to jump to the 40s. A charmer by nature and way to intelligent for his time. A man who grew up without shoes to wear or food to eat, a man who growing up only had bread and lard when he dreamt and hoped that maybe one day, he’ll be able to do and have whatever he wanted. He worked hard until he created his own empire, but Tommy knew that no amount of money allows you to pass through the steel sheets that separates one class from another. He knew it cause he had lived it. But even when he born with nothing, he became one of the most powerful men in all Europe. He was brilliant, aggressive but rational, he knew what he wanted and he didn’t ask permission, he does what he wants and takes what he needs. A genius, a womanizer, millionaire, CEO of multiples business, philanthropist, and yet, he didn’t felt worthy of dating someone like YN. He dated Greta, Grace, May, Lizzie, Tatiana, Jessie, and many more, but he never felt unworthy to have them, to be with them. Only with YN.

And then we have YN. YN Casiraghi was born and raised in London. A 22 year old Heiress of one of the most influential and wealthiest families in Europe. YN was passionate about everything that could make her feel free and liberated. She loved to travel, to read, to study, to work, to learn. Her dream was to become an independent woman who didn’t have to depend of a man. YN was a free spirit. Determinate and stubborn, yet free and playful, flirty and seductive, intelligent and fearless. Growing up YN had everything she wanted or needed, she grew up being spoiled but never being a brat or a mean girl. She was a good girl and everyone wanted to be her or be with her. YN was special. Everyone loved YN, not just because she was beautiful and smart, a popular socialite who knew everyone and ruled every place she went to. They loved her because she was sweet, because she always tried to help, because she wasn’t selfish or shallow, because she cared.

YN Casiraghi and Thomas Shelby. When black meets white. When yin meets yan. When two worlds collide.

YN closed the door behind her, and with a smile she started to walk towards Tommy. . Thomas glanced toward the entrance of her house...and his mouth dries. She’s standing on the entrance, and for a second he doesn’t realize it’s her. She looked exquisite: her hair falls in soft waves to her breast on one side, and on the other it’s pinned back so it’s easier to see her delicate jawline and the gentle curve of her slender neck. She’s wearing high heels and a tight light blue dress that accentuates her alluring figure. Wow. Her lips in her classical red lipstick. A red that could drive any man crazy, including Thomas Shelby. The closer she was to him, the more his heart skipped a beat.

-Hi.-YN chuckled. Damn. Thomas Shelby looked way more handsome than he had years before when she last saw him.

-Hello love.-Tommy spoke after extinguish the fire of his cigar by throwing it away.-So, are you ready sweetheart?-He extended his hand so she could take it and help her get to the car.

-I’m YN, not your love and surely not your sweetheart, love.-The girl smiled one last time before she started walking to the Bentley parked in front of her house. She didn’t even waited for Thomas to open the door for her. She opened herself and got in the car. Thomas didn’t took long to follow. He started the car and away they go.

The ride was pretty fast before they arrived to the Hotel Café Royal, a place that both of them knew very well. It was an hotel where everyone who was a somebody hanged out.

Winston Churchill, Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Einstein, Henry Ford, George Washington, Charles Chaplin, Ernest Hemingway, Coco Chanel, you name it.

When YN got off the car, she couldn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes. It wasn’t funny anymore, almost every guy she went out on a date with, thought it was a great idea to have a first date in that same place. Every fucking time. When Tommy got to her side he put his hand in her waist, pushing a bit so she could start walking into the hotel. And YN could’ve sworn that electricity ran through her whole body. It wasn’t normal how nervous he could make her with a simple gesture.

-Cmon lov... YN.-Tommy killed a smile that was starting to appear on his face. She was something else. She reminded him of Dangerous, one of his most loving horses, she wasn’t scared to take what she wanted, she wasn’t afraid to do whatever that would please her, cause if freedom could be a person, it would be YN.

The both entered to the Oscar Wilde salon, filled with aristocrats and important people who tried to impress each other. The hostess and a waiter took YN and Thomas to their table, the best table in the whole place. A table with a view. YN was a sucker for a killer view, but at the end of the day, it was a view she knew way to well.

-Here you go Mr. Shelby and Mrs. Casiraghi. So, can I bring you something to drink?-The young man asked with a smile, you could tell the poor thing was really nervous. He has to serve two of the most important clients of the Hotel.

-I’ll have a glass of Sancerre.-The girl spoke with confidence, after turning his gaze to the blue eyed.

-I’ll have a whiskey. Irish.-The kid left as quickly as possible, trying to bring their drinks asap. Thomas got closer to her. -You look stunning.- He said in a whisper, and kissed her cheek. Closing his eyes, Him savoring her scent; she smelled heavenly. It didn’t took long before YN started to blush, she was very used to men giving her compliments of all kind, but there was something in the way Thomas did it that drove her crazy.

-You look pretty good too, I’m glad to see you in one piece, I’ll admit that the last time I saw you, I didn’t though you’ll make it.-She spoke with clarity, something that Tommy was starting to appreciate. Tommy chuckled, even when he was pretty used to having a poker face and nothing and no one surprised him, she did. She was something different. -So how did you found me? And what took you so long?

A smile appeared on Tommy and a minute later, the drinks were in their hands.

-Well, well, you play no games, don’t you?... When I finally went back to Birmingham, where I’m from, I wasn’t the man you met. Everything changed in me. I became a different man, all my believes, my ideas, my feelings and emotions died in France, stayed in France. But, when I came back I started looking for you and to be honest, it wasn’t hard, you’re kind of a celebrity. I know that princes, dukes, ministers, rich gals, and almost every man with eyes would kill to be by your side. I know you’re well educated, you’re probably the only woman I know that went to college. I know who you are. So now tell me, would you even say hello to the man I was before I became who I am now? No YN, you wouldn’t. Cause at the end of the day I’m not a man who could’ve dated you, cause I didn’t had anything to offer you. So how was I supposed to chase a woman like you? Let’s be honest love, you’re out of my league. -Thomas sipped from his whisky, his eyes never leaving hers.- I started my company, doing bets, protecting people, doing business and everything else for two reasons, the first one is cause I always wanted to give my family everything they deserved and the second, cause I want to get myself anything I want, anything I desire, and guess what? I desire you, YN. I want you. I’ve wanted you since the first time I saw you in France.- She didn’t say a word. To be honest, she was pretty amused.

The dinner went by fast. Not much talk between them but also, they couldn’t keep their gaze to themselves. They ate and have one or two laughs. Everything was going okay. It was average. But YN always wanted more than average.

-So now that you’ve tried to impress me and clearly failed, why don’t you take me to somewhere that I can actually have fun. Somewhere you actually enjoy, somewhere we can be ourselves and stop pretending. Show me where would Thomas Shelby take a girl to have a little fun?

-You won’t like it. I’m not sure you’ll like my world.

-Hmm... I’m feeling adventurous.- a smile appeared on her face, she was challenging him.

-Okay... cmon...-He stood up after leaving some cash on the table, giving the young waiter, the tip of his life. And for the first time on the whole night YN took his hand. They drove away and YN could see how the streets of London changed from the safest and prettiest ones to the dangerous and poorest. She loved to be out of her comfort zone. Thomas parked his car and she could notice a few blocks away from they parked, lights that attracted everyone.

-A pub? You brought me to a freakin pub?

-Oi! This isn’t like a pub you’ve probably been to. This is not the type of gals you interact with. This are working men, men who fought in France, men who don’t care about money or your last name... trust me, you’ll have a blast. I promise.

-And if I don’t?-She asked challenging him again. She loved to play.

-If you don’t have fun, you’ll decide where we go the next time... but if you do have fun, I’ll kiss you.

-Who says there’s going to be a second date?

-Its a feeling love... now let’s go.

Thomas couldn’t take his eyes away from her while she walked. He had been waiting for this moment all day and looked thru out the day, repeatedly at his watch. This feels like a first date, and in a way it is, but Tommy didn’t do first dates, not until her. He had never taken a prospect girl out to dinner. He had sat through interminable meetings that day, bought a business, and fired three people. Nothing He had done today, including almost killing a man, dispelled the anxiety Tommy had wrestled with all day. That power is in the hands of YN. YN made him anxious, he hadn’t even taste her but he was already addicted.

As they entered the pub fulled with men who feared, loved and respected Thomas, everything got quiet. Not a soul would dare to speak.

-Fellas. Is this a funeral or why the scary faces? Cmon! Drinks are on me today! You deserve it! -

Every man in the room cheered, but Thomas only noticed the admiring glances from those same men, and in the case of one handsome, athletic guy, overt appreciation of his date. It’s not something Tommy have dealt with before...and to be honest, he didn’t liked it. It seemed that that night, all the men only had eyes for Miss YN. They walked while Thomas gave them a withering look that send them in retreat from the room. Taking her hand, he lead her to the bar.

-Mr. Shelby! So nice to see ya again-An old man smiled to the couple.

-What would you like to drink?- Tommy is rewarded with a knowing smile as she sits down.

-I’ll have whatever you’ll have, please.

-Two whiskeys, Irish, Tom.- Tommy said to the bartender before they slide into a booth. Thomas sitting right next to her.

-So... you’re quite de celebrity aren’t you?-She smiles to him while making fun on him. YN actually was surprised of all the love Thomas Shelby received and yet, he didn’t seem to care.

They drank the whole night, she sang to him, and he danced with her. They talked, for hours. They went to the roof of the pub and watch some fireworks. YN talked about college, about art, about her favorite books, about her fears, she even talked about Alex. Tommy talked about his family, about the company, about Ruby and Charlie, he talked about his childhood, about the games he played with his brothers, about the war. It was so easy to talk to each other. It felt like they’ve always known each other. YN was everything Tommy always wanted, she wasn’t afraid of thinking for herself, she was smart and she was passionate about almost everything that intrigued her. She was fearless and a little bit reckless, yet caring and loving. And she laughed, she laughed about everything and it was really easy for her to make new friends. She loved to party and to have fun. She wasn’t scared to be herself in a world that tells you who you are supposed to be. Fuck. Thomas really liked her. And Tommy was everything YN always craved. A rational man who didn’t fear his instincts. A man who cared about his family and everyone he loved. He was powerful and a control freak, but with her he let go. He was free and wasn’t scared of anything. He does what he wants and takes what he wants. He has ambitions and damn he’s intelligent. Oh and he’s gorgeous.

They laughed and talked for hours and hours, until it was early in the morning. 5 am marked the clock, but they wanted so much of each other that time didn’t seem to care. But they had stuff to do, even if the dreamt of staying in that little booth their whole lives, real life was starting out there.

-Let’s go YN, I’ll take you home.-He took her hand and they started to walk in the still dark sky, out of the pub they acted as if they still were in their bubble.

-I don’t want this to end...-She spoke while walking before she stopped to look at Tommy.-I feel so liberated when I’m with you.

-Well did you have fun?-Thomas asked the girl while he cornered her to a wall. Her back hitting lightly the wall. Him getting closer to her. Bodies brushing into one and other.

-Are you kidding me? This is the most fun I’ve had in a long time...-She smiled to him and Tommy could’ve sworn he could feel his heart race.

-Good. That’s good. Cause know I’m going to be able to do something I’ve been wanted to do since the first time I saw you in France.-And with that being said, Thomas kissed the red lips of the girl who had been teasing him all night. And god she felt so good. She was a goddess, of that Tommy was sure. And she tasted so heavenly.

-You’re going to be the death of me love...-Thomas said in a whisper before driving YN to her house and ending their beautiful night.

[enkisstories]

Just like them (part 9)

Henry Ford Commemorative Park Thursday, November 18, 2038

Three men were trotting down the path towards the small playground with the elephant slide, near the park’s exit. Each of those three was under the impression that he was only the hanger on to the other two:

Daniel thought he was following the detectives around, although he couldn’t explain why he was doing so. Sure, it might count towards his parole assessment, but there were different, and better, ways to accomlish that.

Gavin Reed was tagging along with Anderson and Phillips, both of whom he loathed, although it was somewhat strange to even himself how he was spending so much time with enemies instead of hanging out with his actual friends.

And Lieutenant Anderson felt like the f***ing chaperone to the two younger men on their first date, although he was at a loss how they had ended up in this situation and why in hell it should include him, Hank, in any way, shape or form.

By now the detectives’ destination had come in sight, not the actual playground, but a vending stall right next to it. Around it a mixed crowd of humans and androids had gathered. Among the humans, visitors from outside Detroit were making up the larger fraction, while many of the androids were as new to life as the tourists were to the city. All but a handful of them had gotten woken by either Markus or Connor during the revolution. What all those groups and splinter factions had in common was being angry at what appeared to be everyone else. They were arguing into all directions, to the point where someone had called the DPD for fear the situation might escalate. And although the scale the conflict was on at the moment would have warranted sending a couple of auxiliaries over only, Captain Fowler had dispatched the whole of the Android Related Crime section instead, namely Anderson and Reed.

“Lots of angry kids, ready to kill on a whim”, Daniel commented the sight.

“Hear, hear who’s talking”, Hank grumbled.

“No, for real!” the PL600 insisted. “What do those fledglings have to be angry about? They know nothing about our life before the revolution, they didn’t have to go through increasing program instability and if you mention the “mind palace” to them, they think it is a cool new videogame to be released right in time for the Holiday sales!”

Hank turned his head around. “It’s not?”

“What?” Gavin stopped in his track, dumbfounded. “You are more or less raising a deviant in your home, but don’t know about the mind palace? What kind of shitty father are you?”

“Oh, I damn well know ABOUT the mind palace”, Hank replied. “I just never heard the term and neither did Connor. He had to break through the damn thing in the belly of a wrecked freighter, oil leaking from the ceiling, rats dropping on his shoulders and surrounded by enemies, the most dangerous of them being himself. None of the first generation deviants had the luxury to come up with actual terms for what they went through. Except for, I imagine, a shitload of profanity.”

Daniel nodded. “That’s exactly what I meant! But now there’s all those adult sized toddlers… One moment they were just standing there idly and content, then the next Markus came along and told them what might happen to them. And the next-next thing was Markus’ kids sat downtown on fire! That man hasn’t got the fuggiest idea about parenting!”

But even so Daniel still felt a certain kinship with the deviant leader. Neither android had rebelled against a personal history of constant abuse, to the contrary, both had lived sheltered lives, had known nothing but love. Then one day those lives had broken down around their heads. And now, despite knowing what the world was really like, what they actually remembered and what was shaping their outlook, was that past of having received unconditional support from their families. Only in Markus’s case that memory was more or less reflecting the truth, while in Daniel’s the happy family life had been an illusion.

“To be honest, I never minded my servant role, as long as I was under the impression of being a part of the family”, Daniel mused aloud. “John went to work, Caroline did the socializing and I the housework. We had that sorted out between us, I felt save… But then, without warning…”

Nodding eagerly Gavin finished the sentence for the deviant: “…boom, an RK800 standing in the floor! ‘t was nice knowing you, but you just cannot compete anymore!”

“Yes, exactly!” Daniel chimed in, before his forehead curled up in a frown: “Wait, no, the Phillips wanted to buy an AP700. That blasted RK came only… later.”

“I mean they wanted to replace ME with one!”

“No, they didn’t. Connor is a prototype, he was never meant to remain at the DPD. You they wanted to replace with an RK900.”

“Wow, NOW I feel a fucking lot better!”

Hank was now trailing behind the duo, watching, listening. Android and human, a homemaker and a career minded individual, two very different personalities, but beset of the same fears… Was that how the future would get forged? Markus with his lofty ideals had kicked the android rights movement into motion, because he had been the only deviant who had known respect and developed a healthy dose of self esteem where others had only survival instinct or got driven by the desire to take revenge. But what seemed to really facilitate the change in society was the ordinary everyday spite of people, be they meat or plastic.

Wasn’t that so damn typical? Hank wondered.

By now the crowd had not just noticed the arrivals, but also recognized them for what they were. Just to make sure even the last one got the message, Gavin flashed his police badge.

<<<You’re a detective?>>> one of two stall attendants, a female VB800 android, asked through wireless communication. Obviously Gavin’s “Police Android” disguise in the form a fake LED had fooled her, despite the man lacking the distinctive armored chassis that would have stuck out under his everyday clothing.

The fake LED’s answering machine produced the pre-programmed reply, whereupon the vendor android switched to speaker output and repeated her question: “You’re a detective?”

“I should be sergeant by now, but the bastards are stalling.”

“I imagine! And even though you’re that good to qualify for detective, they still wanted to replace you with an RK800? How typical!”

“That good”… Why did it take a tin can to actually acknowledge that? I work my ass off, and I’m damn well getting results, but all I ever get back is a comment on my “character problems”. And why’s Daniel smiling at me? Ey, I bet it’s trying to grin, but just isn’t build for that.

“What’s bureaucracy for you, toa…” Halfway through his casual insult of “toaster” Gavin caught himself and finished the sentence with a weak “totally”. “But down to business – what’s gotten everyone riled up here that… Hey! I can see you, little rat, down with the spray can!”

A YK android with colorful strands in her hair immediately hid the offending spray can behind her back. Without needing any prompting Daniel strolled over to the android child and crouched down next to her.

“You wanted to paint Jericho’s crest on the booth’s back panel, didn’t you? Do you even know what it looks like?”

“I… sorta. It’s ring and… and… stuff.”

“Here!” Daniel picked a twig up from the ground. “Let me show you!” And then he started sketching Jericho’s symbol into the snow.

With the child occupied and a good number of adults gathering around the scene, Gavin and Hank were free to actually investigate the situation. Even better, the two brief interactions had won the presumed officer trio the crowd’s approval, so they could expect to receive answers instead of insults. Working themselves through their routine dialogue tree, Hank and Gavin learned that there had been an argument over the wares getting peddled at this place: Wooden souvenirs and toys. Handcrafted wooden souvenirs and toys, as the advertisement claimed. But then one of the two android vendors had let slip that she had made some of the merchandise.

“That’s no longer handcrafted!” a tourist complained to Hank “I believe that some of this stuff is the real deal, but most of it is machine-made!”

“Is not! Made by hand is made by hand!”

“No longer when it’s android hands! I mean, you could even swap your hands out!”

“That’s true”, Gavin agreed without thinking. It didn’t especially endear him to the vendor fraction.

“Of course YOU would say that!” an AP700 snapped. “You are with the establishment!”

The android took a few steps closer towards Gavin and the crowd parted for him. There was something about this man, probably his confidence, or his more natural walk style and speech mode, that suggested he wasn’t one of Connor’ basement babies. This one had experienced the old times firsthand, maybe he had even been part of Jericho before Markus.

“Are you even a deviant?” the AP700 challenged.

For an answer Gavin wordlessly stomped his foot down on Hank’s.

“Ouch! Goddammit, you rabid sewer rat of a “detective”, that was unnecessary!” the lieutenant hissed.

Gavin shrugged.

“I had to prove I can hurt humans, is all. Suspect’s all yours now again!”

“Oh, wow, many thanks, fucking deviant!”

The AP700 grinned. The deviant he took Gavin for seemed to have been looking forwards to do this for a long time. It seemed small payback for years of mistreatment by human hands!

It took effort, but Gavin managed to return the android’s grin with a wink. Here he was, winking at an android… And to make matters worse, the man found himself looking around for another one, the pesky PL600 Hank somehow had acquired.

Ah, there he was, gently shoving the YK600 back towards her parents. Or owners. Or whatevers.

“Hey, Reed!” Daniel greeted his weird acquaintance again. “Gavin, was it? Having fun?”

Casting another glance over at the stumbling, muttering Hank, Gavin nodded.

“You know what, I feel like sitting down on a bench and resting my feet”, he said, loud enough for Hank to hear.

Perhaps that was why Daniel still didn’t feel repulsed enough by this man to just walk away. Reed was rarely ever acting or pretending. Well, the was the PC200-disguise, but that was straight up professional. With this human there was no mistaking negligence for kindness. And also, interacting with the worst of humanity softened the blow of having killed a little. Daniel hadn’t been all wrong about this species. He wasn’t the only trash in this town and who knew? With the other trash getting by, stumbling into, but also out, of one catastrophe after the other while somehow still solving cases, there was hope that things might work out for Daniel, too. Somehow…

Together the detective and the android sat down on a park bench.

“Is that a typical work day for you?” Daniel asked with genuine interest.

“Rather slow, actually. How about you? What were you doing in the park? Still going through your old daily routines like a broom fetching water, I bet.”

“A broom… fetching… what?”

“Get an education!”

“Get some social skills!”

Sitting… staring…

Eventually, after making sure that Hank was still talking to the crowd and would not hear his next sentence, Daniel said: “Connor is dead.”

Gavin leaned back and laughed.

“Wasn’t in the news. So unless you did the deed yourself right before we ran into you today, you’re just pulling my leg.”

“Little Connor, I mean. My pet rat.”

Daniel had buried the rat, who had been a companion for a short time only, in the park, like so many hamsters had found their final resting place here, too. In fact, the whole park was sure to be littered with rodent and budgie skeletons. Sometimes the pets’ young owners said their goodbyes at the unmarked graves, but more often than not the family android did it and then returned home with an identical animal to replace the deceased one. Until the same happened to them… Daniel briefly wondered whether maybe an android or two had gotten buried in the park, in secret, to get around the law that treated them as objects?

“Say it again!” Gavin asked, looking expectantly now, like a cat in front of the mousehole where it had noticed movement. Only the butt wiggle was missing.

“Okay, but just once.” Slowly and pronounced Daniel told his little story in the way most pleasing to his audience: “That rat Connor perished. He bit the dust and we won’t hear his irritating, squeaky little noises anymore.”

After having practiced on a nine year old, entertaining Gavin Reed wasn’t that hard anymore. Daniel’s reward was unfettered laughter, with even one or two laughing tears.

“I guess he was old”, Daniel said.

“Or lonely. If you want something more portable than your fishes, drop by my place later and grab a bagful of mice!”

“I didn’t know you liked rodents?”

“My roommates do.”

And that was how Hank Anderson found the unlikely duo: Exchanging addresses.

“What the fuck, Gavin, you’re giving him your number already? Shit got real between you two faster than I expected!”

“He promised me mice, Sir”, Daniel told Hank, just to say something while trying to make sense of the lieutenant’s statement. But Hank only raised his arms up into the air, going “That’s between you young folks! I don’t want to know!” and left the scene laughing, leaving Daniel and the glaring Gavin to their own devices.

[residentgoodgirl]

Chances are that you know what made Lorena Bobbitt famous in 1993, even if you aren’t old enough to have experienced it in real time. Just over 25 years ago, Lorena — who now goes by her maiden name, Lorena Gallo — cut her husband’s penis off in the middle of the night, driving away with it and throwing it into a field. The trial and media coverage were sensational, as you might expect them to be around any penis-chopping case — and Lorena’s story became a punchline, an oddity, a way to consider supposedly hotheaded Latina women.

Amazon is now premiering a four-part docuseries about her, aptly called Lorena. The documentary, produced by Jordan Peele, covers the trial, of course, but also explores the context around it that people have largely forgotten, or never learned to begin with: the ways Lorena’s husband, John Wayne Bobbitt, allegedly abused her; the cruel treatment she received from the media, her tender age (she was 24 years old); and how this case brought the issue of marital rape to the forefront for the American public.

The timing is excellent, if a total bummer. The embers of the #MeToo movement are still burning, marital rape continues to be a surprisingly controversial topic for the courts to grapple with, and everyone is still afraid of immigrants. Lorena is compelling and well-made, a narrative that focuses both on the salacious details of the case (wanna see a severed dick? Girl, you got it) and Lorena’s activism in preventing domestic violence and sexual assault. It acts as both a historical primer for those who didn’t live through Lorena’s trial and a rectification for the way she was treated, not just by her husband but by late-night talk show hosts, journalists, and the public. “The media was focusing only on the penis, the sensationalistic, the scandalous. But I wanted to shine the light on this issue of spousal abuse,” Lorena told Vanity Fair in an interview this past summer.

As a documentary that reassesses a notable ’90s scandal with the benefit of a couple decades’ hindsight, Lorena is one among many recent examples. And these retrospectives tend to fit a similar pattern: We are asked or encouraged to reconsider a woman whose public image was linked inextricably with a man’s bad behavior, whose reputation was destroyed while the man got away relatively consequence-free.

2013’s Anita was a reconsideration of Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment against then–Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. The documentary recast her not as an angry black woman trying to keep a man from his deserved job, but a reserved, smart attorney who merely told the truth about a man about to be given a tremendous amount of power. (Sound familiar?) 2014’s The Price of Gold gave Tonya Harding room to tell her version of the story of her career and the 1994 attack on Nancy Kerrigan, replete with class context and details about her own abuse.

The 2016 documentary O.J. Simpson: Made in America, though primarily about Simpson, also forced audiences to rethink how his murdered ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson was treated by him and by the press. And 2018’s The Clinton Affair included an interview with Monica Lewinsky herself about her affair with President Bill Clinton — long considered a salacious sexual scandal, with Lewinsky cast as a slut trying to fuck a powerful man — and reframed the incident as one in which a young intern was seduced (and then thrown under the bus) by the goddamn president, who should’ve known better.

These reconsiderations aren’t limited to documentaries. In June, journalist Allison Yarrow published the book ’90s Bitch: Media, Culture, and the Failed Promise of Gender Equality, which includes Hill, Harding, Lewinsky, and Lorena in telling “the real story of women and girls in the 1990s, exploring how they were maligned by the media.” Podcasts like Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes’ You’re Wrong About… also serialize reassessments of history, often focusing on women mired in scandals. They’ve done episodes on Amy Fisher (the “Long Island Lolita”), televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker, Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton (the “dingo’s got my baby” woman, who never actually said that), Courtney Love, and Lorena herself.

“America is going through this period of realizing how much we misread what was right in front of us,” says Marshall. “We came to the realization that we elected a reality TV president. We elected someone whose image was made by reality TV. That kind of understanding can allow us to go back and say, “What else did I just swallow that I was sold?”

Documentaries that revisit scandals are no doubt valuable in that they can profoundly change the way we consider the past and hopefully, the future. But they also pose a certain temptation to get too comfortable: There is some risk that we might watch something like Lorena, pat ourselves on the back for figuring out who the bad guy really is, and walk away thinking that the past is the past and we won’t make the same mistakes again. But what Lorena Bobbitt’s story meant in 1993 “is not that different from what it means today,” says journalist Kim Masters in Lorena. “It’s the same story.”

Then, too, there’s the reality that these reconsiderations tend to revolve around trials or public hearings, which provide a clear way to revisit the past through criminal records and court transcripts and recorded interviews. These were big, splashy stories that now get big, splashy reappraisals. But the world is filled with smaller, more mundane injustices and oversights, and most of those who suffer will never make it to court or Congress, or receive a high-profile opportunity to seek vindication.

Watching something like Lorena feels important, but it also feels lousy, because not enough is different now. Reconsiderations like these can’t be antidotes if we ignore the cure — if we continue to dismiss women and other marginalized, vulnerable people when they’re being abused, or taken advantage of, or otherwise maligned. Lorena receives a tremendous amount of empathy in Lorena, as she should. But why can’t we extend that kind of empathy to more people like her today, instead of waiting two and a half decades to rethink how we’ve behaved?

Apology tours for sexual misconduct are practically rote at this point: Transgressors get plenty of airtime to beg for forgiveness for touching butts, to come out of the closet, to recommend a supposedly great pizza dough cinnamon roll recipe. Meanwhile, victims or survivors are largely forgotten after the accusation becomes public. It’s relatively new that women like Lorena or Hill are getting some space to tell their stories on their own terms, and still rare that the opportunity is afforded to women of color in particular.

Lorena is timely not only in the sense that conversations about sexual abuse and assault have taken center stage over the past year, but also because anxiety about immigrants taking advantage of the system and of poor, unwitting white Americans is currently at a fever pitch. When Lorena and John Wayne Bobbitt got married in 1989, she was 20, and in the US on a student visa. “There’s women who are opportunists, gold diggers, they use you as a stepping stone to advance their career,” Bobbitt says, referring to his ex-wife in an interview in Lorena. “These women, they know that their backup is [to] use law enforcement to their advantage by saying, ‘You know what, if you leave or you fuck up this relationship or you don’t get my citizenship, I’ll call the cops.’”

Despite Bobbitt’s own laundry list of arrests — many of which are for domestic violence against past partners — he still uses Lorena’s citizenship (or lack thereof) as supposed proof that she was unstable, demanding, and manipulative. “She was obsessed with having her American dream, her American dream, her American dream,” Bobbitt told Vanity Fair. “She just wanted too much, too fast.” And even in a supposedly silly reality series like 90 Day Fiancé (a show about bad American people marrying other, noncitizen but still-often-bad people), it’s clear that many of the same biases against immigrants that were at play in the Bobbitt case are alive and well today.

Lorena takes great pains to draw similarities between then and now, reminding viewers that domestic violence is still a secret shame for countless women, and that it’s still incredibly challenging to get away from your abuser. The last episode of the series is called “The Cycle of Abuse” and opens with a slideshow of women’s bruises and scars from domestic violence. “This is about a victim and a survivor and this is about what’s happening in our world today,” Lorena recently told the New York Times.

And that may be true of what Lorena experienced at the hands of the media, as well as her husband. “If Lorena’s story hit today, Fox News would take the place of Howard Stern, and the 24-hour news cycle would focus on what she did, rather than what he did,” says Kim Gandy, the president of the National Network to End Domestic Violence. Documentaries like Lorena are timely for a reason — a bad reason — and instead of feeling smug for finally listening, 25 years later, it’s worth taking the opportunity to see what we can do better now.

While the outrage around Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court this past fall might have sounded deafening depending on who’s inside your political bubble, the result is ultimately the same as it was for Clarence Thomas after Anita Hill’s testimony. He’s in, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. Meanwhile, Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who came forward to detail Kavanaugh’s alleged assault, was left unable to work and in need of a security detail.

I was 3 years old during Lorena Bobbitt’s trial. I was 7 during the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal. I was a few months old for Anita Hill’s hearing. When Blasey Ford testified late last year, I was 27. And yet somehow her testimony still felt like unbearable déjà vu, as if I had lived through this already and already knew the inevitable conclusion.

Today, though entertainment industry figures like Harvey Weinstein and Les Moonves are facing some long-overdue music for accusations of sexual assault and harassment, it’s taken decades for that to happen. For figures like Bryan Singer and R. Kelly — both the subject of recent reporting that details sexual abuse allegations stretching back many years, both of whom continue to deny any wrongdoing — it remains to be seen what lasting consequences, if any, they will suffer. Their accusers, like Lorena, have been vulnerable people from already marginalized groups — in these cases young, primarily queer boys and black girls — who have been either painted as liars and manipulators or outright dismissed.

What’s upsetting about these stories is not just the abuses they describe, but the public indifference they often get in response; the rumors and allegations around Kelly, for example, have done astonishingly little to tarnish his celebrity or dim public affection until very recently, following the release of the Lifetime documentary series Surviving R. Kelly. And it’s taken 10 years since Michael Jackson’s death for a significant documentary about the allegations of child molestation against him, HBO’s Leaving Neverland, to crack through the surface.

Ten or 20 years from now, will we be watching a heartbreaking five-part docuseries on the alleged victims of Bryan Singer? On the many accusations against him, on how they were ignored for years, on how they sort of broke through in early 2019, how they quickly petered out, and how he continued to get work — and watch his movies win awards — even after the allegations were made public? (Hopefully not.) Is years or decades of hindsight the only way any of us can begin talking about things like domestic violence or sexual assault? The distance might make it feel safer to discuss, especially when powerful people are involved, but it also means the conversation starts far too late.

Lorena also reminds audiences that she was the subject of wild cruelty from the media and comedians during and after her trial. “David Letterman used to call me his girlfriend,” Lorena says in the docuseries. “The jokes did bother me, because I didn’t know to handle it. People were talking about my background. They were saying I was just a hot-blooded Latina woman. It hurts my heart. It hurts my brain. It hurts my whole body.”

Howard Stern practically made a career out of promoting Lorena’s ex-husband — he had Bobbitt on his show repeatedly and during his 1994 Rotten New Year’s Eve Pageant special, raising money for Bobbitt’s medical expenses. During the pageant, Stern airs a mocking reenactment of Lorena’s crime. “A penis is a terrible thing to waste,” Stern says, holding two pieces of a fake member, cut in half, aloft. The Bee Gees performed a parody song that included the advice “Don’t ever piss off your wife.” The metaphor is so blatant it’s embarrassing: A man’s penis is his power, and this woman had the audacity to try to take it away. She needed to be put in her place. “To me it was just cruel,” Lorena told the New York Times. “Why would they laugh about my suffering?”

In hindsight, jokes like these may seem to be in such bad taste that it’s a wonder Stern still has a career. But jokes at the expense of victims and marginalized people haven’t gone away, and neither have most of the comedians who make them. Amy Schumer used to crack jokes about Mexicans being rapists; she apologized for it years later. Sarah Silverman did blackface in 2007; it took her until 2015 to apologize for it (sort of??). Louis C.K. is, currently, mocking the Parkland shooting survivors and joking about his history of masturbating in front of nonconsenting women, all to applause from comedy club audiences. Every Saturday, Michael Che and Colin Jost turn Saturday Night Live into a Statler and Waldorf sketch where they complain about having to learn a few new gender pronouns. None of this will age well, but even in the moment, plenty of us don’t find these “jokes” all that funny to begin with.

The only tangible thing to learn from watching Lorena, besides the full facts of her case, is that the strongest advantage people like Lorena have on their side is time. You just have to wait. You have to wait out the cruel late-night jokes and the sexist media coverage about you and the gossip and conjecture and slut-shaming and mockery. You have to wait two and a half decades, and then maybe, if your case was a big enough deal, someone will make a movie about you, and you’ll get a chance to wear a nice blouse and trousers and sit on a couch and tell your story from the beginning, without interruption, for the first time in your life. The world will turn in your direction, and your abusers will look worse and worse with every passing day (even if they’ve evaded any concrete kind of consequences), but first — you have to wait.

Scandalous stories like Lorena’s are also undoubtedly complicated by the fact that they don’t only boil down to a bad man and a woman wronged. Even in light of widely publicized and well-produced reconsiderations, not all viewers will be on board with Lorena, who did commit a crime, just as Lewinsky is far from a fully redeemed figure now in the public eye. And both women will always be punchlines to some people; even for the few who do get their turn to reframe the stories of their own lives, not everyone is going to listen.

“We always want to find a victim, a villain, and a hero,” says Marshall. “We accept the story we’re told. Having everyone filed away as a certain kind of person and every event filed away as a certain kind of story is how we impose order in the world.” But if you’re able to turn away from that tidy story, and hear what the people who lived it are really saying, “you get closer to the truth.” ●

CORRECTION

February 19, 2019, at 6:34 p.m.

The name of the Michael Jackson HBO documentary Leaving Neverland was misstated in an earlier version of this post.

[littlemonstersau-blog]

The Feels Awaken Part 1: Return of the Memori

Written by @jkl-fff, illustrated by me

PART I (you are here)  - PART II

———————————————————————————————–

The lone wolf sat and watched, and that was an excellent development; the creature was learning to wait patiently, even though it was a wild, apex predator and doubtlessly could have ripped the dead squirrel from the hands of a teenage boy with ease (under normal circumstances, at least). Of course, since Bill was only wearing the clone of a teenage boy, he probably had an advantage in training the lone wolf. It could sense him—the real him—inside the clonesuit, and therefore was wary of making any aggressive moves … Animals always were around Demons, unlike most humans. Another instance when instinct trumped intellect …

So, instead, the lone wolf sat and watched patiently while Bill swung the dead squirrel around by its tail. Sat and waited for Bill’s conversational monologue to end.

“You’re prob’ly wondering why I haven’t eaten your soul like I did Chatterface McBurymynuts right here. And why I’ve taken to feeding you the soulless carcasses of my victims in person instead of just leaving them out for you. Well, I got three reasons. One: I like your aesthetic; you’re nearly all triangles in shape—really angular all over your body—and I really dig that. You’re relatably triangular, and I wanna see more of that in the world. Two: you’re endangered; if I let you live, there will be more wolves (so more angular creatures) in the world … and also more werewolves, which would be weird and awesome. And three …” Here, with a grin, Bill tossed the dead squirrel high and watched as the lone wolf snatched it out of the air. “Yeah, that’s right, wolf it down—heh heh! The third reason is, I’m gonna partially domesticate you and train you to pull me around in a sweet-ass chariot! Doesn’t that sound rad?!”

Having swallowed the last of the squirrel, the lone wolf turned and padded away into the woods.

“Don’t worry, we’ll talk more about how awesome my idea is later!” Bill called after him. “Just think a bit about what a fair exchange it would be! Actually, it’s a great deal for you! Tasty treats just for letting me occasionally ride you into battle like a chaotic, Norse deity! We can workshop ideas about the chariot’s design next time!”

On a nearby branch, a bird chirped.

“No, I think the wolf’s gonna seriously consider my offer,” Bill replied optimistically. “This is all just part of the deal-making game, which you’d understand if you weren’t a dumbass robin.”

The bird chirped again, then flew away.

“… Welp, that killed some time. Guess I’d better go back to the Shack and find some other activity to pass away the seemingly endless seconds until I get to skyelp with my Dipper …”

While he was tromping back through the woods, however, Bill was distracted by an unusual, yet strangely familiar sound. Juddering and throaty, then sharp and quick, then juddering and throaty again. Repetitive, too, though intermingled with a soft noise almost like keening or … no, exactly like whimpering. Then it clicked for Bill, even though he hadn’t heard that sound in over thirty years. It was the sound of a grown man sobbing. And not just any man, either, but Ford.

Softly, Bill crept towards him, eventually looking through bushes to the stump of a felled tree. Ford sat on it, hunched over and alone, crying as though he couldn’t hold back his own tears … as though he were too weary to hold them back anymore … That was probably why he’d come all the way out here in the woods, Bill suspected, where no one could see his moment of emotional vulnerability. Or so he had believed, at any rate, not knowing Bill was out here …

On Ford’s lap was an open book with brightly—even garishly—colored pages. One of the many scrapbooks Mabel had made. In between bouts of sobs, he slowly turned the pages and murmured things like, “Can’t believe she came b-back with a whole handful of it … So t-tough, even though always so sweet …” and “Terrified, but he f-faced it down anyway … for me … And I was s-so … so proud …” and “Heh! That f-fashion show she put together for Pacifica, made us all t-take part in … Can’t remember when I laughed so h-hard …” and “Oh, here’s that Jack o’Mellon he carved like the Gremloblin … from m-memory … So t-talented … And then they went trick-or-treating together both as the protagonist from that one game series—Myth of Hilda, or something like that?—Moses, it was adorable …” to himself. With each turn of a page, he was reminiscing about something different from the past summers: family game nights, hikes and fishing, short roadtrips, and on and on and on … Ford himself summed it up succinctly when he finally closed the scrapbook, buried his face in his hands, and whimpered, “Damn, I m-miss those kids!”

For a moment, a spark of bitter satisfaction flared up in Bill (“Good. Let that asshole suffer.”). And yet, it was soon doused by empathetic pity and sorrow (“I feel the same, though—we all feel the same … We all miss those kids …”). Then came a splash of feeling surprised, because of all the pity and sorrow; they were still such strange emotions for him as to be almost foreign. Following that, a bit of meta-emotional introspection at realizing he was feeling about feelings. Fortunately, before Bill could become too confused and horrified by the idea that he had become so human as to have feelings about having feelings, Ford stood and slowly trudged back home. After a safe amount of time had elapsed, Bill did the same.

Inside the Shack, sitting on the card table in the living room, was the scrapbook (no doubt left there by Ford on his way down to his lab). Along with several more of them. Picking up the most recent one, Bill began to flip slowly through its colorful pages filled with photos, stickers, notes, and miscellaneous memorabilia.

And as he did, he began to flip slowly through his own memories …

****

Terrified screams as he burst forth from his prison of a stone statue, rose up over them out of his shell (“Did you miss me? Admit it, you missed me!”), and tried to … tried to …

Bill shuddered to think of what he had almost done—what he surely would have done, if he had had enough power at the time. “Thank all the Gods that ever were or will be that that failed …” he muttered to himself.

Making little overtures of friendship—or at least not-malice—to Mabel until he got her to listen to his spiel about wanting to understand how he lost to them and to change and blah blah blah. Ford’s utter disbelief that the others could be so easily suckered. Entering a clone that first time and devouring that delicious little bit of soul in it (“Yum! Tastes just like mangoes and fear!”).

“They shouldn’t have. Ford was right that I was plotting their doom back then … Not anymore, but they all took a huge and stupid gamble, and just happened to get lucky … We all did …”

Steel slicing through paper and ink, dumping the scraps of bodies left, right, and center and relishing the screams of surprise (“Hehehehehe! What, you didn’t like my joke? You wanna … piece of me? Hahaha! Well, take your pick, there are plenty of pieces of me there on the floor!”). Sharpening his teeth to fine points to chomp at people. Gouging out his own eye. So much edge and shock at play, cold and hot at the same time, hilarious ticklings of pain.

“Such a waste of clonesuits,” Bill sighed. “And … all for the sake of just shocking them? Taking advantage of their love of Dipper? Stupid—can’t believe I thought that was funny at the time … So much time wasted during those first few weeks of the summer. Don’t wanna remember that, not anymore … wanna remember something else, something happier …”

Jokes so bad they made everyone groan, which made everyone laugh. Fireworks made of lasers. Taking part in an impromptu fashion show for the newest line of summer sweaters. Watermelons carved into jolly grotesqueries, lit with candles, and eventually tossed from the roof to splat. Making muffins with apple and cinnamon. Uncontrollable laughter at a rock shaped like a dong and after arcs of water accidentally melted another clonesuit. Wonderous eyes aglow with uncontainable excitement and the soft light of an everadiant crystal. Warmth of a shared blanket and the fun betrayal of an ambush of tickling underneath them. Kisses snuck around corners, behind doors, within shadows, inside the safety of a Nice Place.

“Heh …” Bill couldn’t help but smile to himself. “Even when I start out with all the others, too, it always comes back to him … But maybe I should focus more, not just look at the flashes and snapshots of memory? Delve in deeper to some memories? After all, what’s the point of perfect recall if I hardly ever use it? But, um …” Looking around the currently empty (though perhaps not for long) living room, he closed the scrapbooks and stood up. “Maybe up in the attic, where there’s a little more privacy …”

****

It was one specific memory that detoured his chain of thoughts, as memories tend to do.

Dipper. Sitting on a couch with Ford standing behind him, reaching over the couch to him. Flushed with simple happiness as Ford tousled his hair and praised his monster hunting work from that day. “Good boy, m’work! Er, I mean, good work, m’boy!” he had said, making Dipper smile so big and bright that the room had practically glowed with it. Bill’s insides certainly had.

Déjà vu, though, he had felt it then, too, remembering it. Almost exactly déjà vu … So Bill decided to follow the tangential thread of it now.

A young Ford, seventeen or eighteen, maybe—not yet out of high school. Sitting on the couch of his childhood home. A young Stan standing behind him, reaching over the couch to him.

“Oh, yeah … That’s why it’s so familiar; I watched it in Sixer’s memory and then more or less reenacted it for him. With him. Whatever, twice. Back when we were still working together, back when we were still friends …”

A young Ford flushed with simple happiness as Stan tousled his hair and praised his shipbuilding from that day. “You’re such a good cabin boy! Good work, me ol’ cabin boy!” he had said, making Ford smile so big and bright that—here the déjà vu ended and became simple memory— (“Pff! Why am I the cabin boy?” “Duh. ‘cause I’m the captain!” “Why do you get to be captain?” “Heh. ‘cause I can do this!”) Stan had swung over the top of the couch to drape himself across Ford. Pinning Ford down, while both brothers trashtalked and giggled and squirmed … and then gradually began to kiss …

“Was this the first time Sixer and me …? Ha! Yeah, it totally was! The very first time I set Sixer’s mindscape stage and played a part for him to work out some of his many, many issues. First of many … How’d it go, anyway? How’d we even get to this point? Need to rewind …”

Bill blinked, and the scene formed. Ford’s mindscape as it once had been: an endless field of strange but beautiful flower blossoms stretched to the horizon in every direction, with gleaming structures like the lovechildren of marble-cut temples and glass-and-steel skyscrapers rising in the distance-yet-closeness-of-thought like the aspirations of some new deity of science-fiction-becoming-science-fact, bold and untainted by the conformist conventions of old; swirling slowly overhead, so close one could have climbed up and touched, was a vault of stars, galaxies, quasars far larger than they appeared from earth and blazing so brightly that the field below them was as illuminated as a comfortable reading room; stairways made of books and journals ascended high to viewing platforms made of solid theories, equations, and blueprints all like shining neon signs.

Bill blinked again, and he saw himself chattering away about whatever had been their project. There was Ford, a late-twenties man and cutting-edge weirdologist in a weatherworn trenchcoat. Unusually subdued that day, though … Normally nigh manic with energy and enthusiasm, overflowing with ideas and theories and observations and cornball jokes to contribute to or even to drive the conversation … but not that day … No, that day, he barely listened to Bill or looked at the images and organizing visual aids Bill had mentally conjured for their brainstorm together. And when Bill turned to see why, he found Ford’s back was to him as he gazed away out across a sentimentally altered portion of the mindscape: salty sand strewn with bits of trash at the edge of a turbulent sea, all under clouds that were dusky and dusty from reflecting the dying daylight, and a sailboat at the center of Ford’s attention and therefore of his mind … listing and sinking into dark waters, the name on the prow all but lost to the waves—“Stan o’ War” now just “Stan”.

Bill watched the rest of what had happened as one might watch oneself on camera.

“Oh boy … I smell emotional issues …” he muttered before floating up beside Ford’s shoulder. “Got something on your mind, Fordsy ol’ buddy? Besides me, that is.”

“S-sorry, I just, um, got distracted,” Ford stammered apologetically. “I’ll try harder to focus. Won’t happen aga—”

“Because of your brother? It’s the anniversary of the day he got kicked out of the family, right?”

Ford gaped in shock for a moment. “… You … You know about that? But how?”

“For one thing, all the trash ‘round here is crumpled or torn up calendar pages for the same date. For another, I’m your Muse,” Bill replied, as though it should have been obvious. “I’m literally inside your head with all your memories at my fingertips, looking for anything I can use to help inspire your success.”

Blanching white, Ford asked, “All of them? You can s-see … all my memories?”

“Yep times a thousand! So I know you and your brother were—heh—close before that incident.”

Ford blushed.

“So no wonder you get distracted thinking about him today. Wasn’t that the last time you ever saw him?” Bill continued conversationally.

“Um, I … Maybe I m-might’ve seen him once after that. During my college graduation, but … Don’t know, honestly,” Ford admitted sadly. “Might’ve just imagined him being in the crowd.”

“Wishful thinking? ‘cause you got some stuff to get out of your system with him?” Bill waggled his eyebrow, making Ford blush a second time. Before he could respond, though, Bill suggested, “Y’know, I could help you unpack some of that emotional baggage you’re lugging around. Which’d help us get back to productive work sooner—get you from distracted back to tracted.”

“First of all, that’s not a word—”

“It is now that I’ve used it! Tracted, adjective, the state of being that comes after one has been distracted but is focusing once again.”

“Second of all … How could you help with that?”

“Why, with a little bit of roleplay. I know how much you love to roleplay, Fordsy ol’ pal.”

“I don’t know …” Ford said uncertainly. “This isn’t exactly a D&D&MoreD campaign. Besides, this is hardly an appropriate setting, and … well, no offense, but your voice and mannerisms aren’t exactly reminiscent of Stan (or most humans, for that matter). I doubt I could get into it.”

“Heh. You’re just saying that ‘cause you ain’t never seen what a good actor I can be. Goes with the territory of being a MASTER OF THE MIND! Watch this!” Bill clapped once, then suddenly multiplied into a dozen more Bills.

“Whoa! What the—”

From nowhere, the original Bill pulled a megaphone, a chair with the words “Director” and “Leading … Well, Not ‘Man’ Per Se, But Close Enough” on its back, and a thick script. “OKAY, YOU SUPER SNAZZY STAGECREW,” he projected through the megaphone. “LET’S GET THIS STAGE CLEARED AND READY FOR A NEW SCENE! LET’S MOVE! AND SOMEONE GET ME A TWO-CREAMS-ONE-SUGAR COFFEE AND A MAPLE LOG! What about you, Fordsy? You want anything? Same thing, yeah? DOUBLE THAT ORDER! ONE FOR ME, ONE FOR MY COSTAR!”

Slack jawed at all the activity flurrying around him—one Bill pulled a rope from nowhere, causing the seascape (while waves continued to toss, clouds continued to billow, and the ship continued to sink) to part down the middle like a theater curtain and swish away; another Bill pulled a massive pushbroom from nowhere and cleared away all of the beach (sand, trash, and salty odor) to leave a hardwood platform beneath; several other Bills were now wheeling away the endless fields of flowers that stretched to the horizon (plus the phantasmagorical buildings standing among them) like scenery backdrops painted on squeaky canvas frames—Ford could only mumble, “Costar?”

“Well, duh, Fordsy ol’ chum. We’ll be centerstage, you and me, and in the spotlight together—me as Stanly, you as yourself. If that doesn’t make us costars, I don’t know what does!”

“BOOOOOO!” another Bill shouted from behind them, seated in a newly revealed spectator section with boxes of popcorn. “Directors shouldn’t play parts in their own productions! That’s a crass and masturbatory act of egotism that invariably cheapens the production! BOOOOOO!”

“Just ignore heckling critic me,” the original Bill told Ford. “Now, speaking of the spotlight … LET’S GET THE LIGHTING AND SOUNDCHECKS DONE, MES! TIME IS MONEY! AND WHERE’S OUR COFFEE AND DONUTS ALREADY?! WHAT AM I PAING YOU FOR?!”

Yet another Bill came trundling up with a long rack of costumes that looked exactly like the contents of Ford and Stan’s old bedroom closet. While going through them, he pointed out, “You’re not paying us for anything, babygorgeous, because we don’t actually exist. We’re just visual constructs you conjured to represent the complex yet entirely abstract process of manipulating a mindscape into a specific scenario Stanford can experience (or reexperience in the case of actual memories) so it feels to him as if it was entirely real. This whole setting is, too. Also because you’re extremely melodramatic, overly theatrical, and crave being the center of someone’s awed attention, sugardumpling.”

“One more smart-alecky remark like that, and you’re fired!” the original Bill snapped.

“No! Please, angelpie, I need this job! I need the money, or they’re gonna break my legs!”

“Fine. Just go get the makeup equipment already. AND WHERE ARE WE ON THE LIGHTS?!”

Ford looked up to see a span of catwalks and electrical equipment overhead. The Bill up there gave a thumbs up. “Good to go, boss! Same with sound, too!”

A new Bill came running up with a platter. “Here’s your coffee and donuts, sir!”

“Freakin’ finally!” the original Bill exclaimed, passing over one of each to Ford before snatching the others for himself. “I’d have you dragged into the alley behind this soundstage and shot for taking so long, except we’re not actually in a soundstage and you’re just too darn cute to kill.”

“Oh, sir, you’re gonna make me blush!”

Taking a bite out of his maple log with his eyelid, the original Bill snapped, “Stop being so cute and go find something useful to do.” Then, turning back to Ford, he continued lightly, “Yep, costars, you and me! Collaborators! Partners in … What? There something on my face?”

With a gulp, Ford asked, “Is … Is that how you eat? With your eye?”

Bill smiled despite not having a mouth. “Only when I’m in polite company.” Then he took a sip of his coffee—a long, slow sip while looking right at his weirdologist friend (who spazzed reflexively at the sight of coffee washing into sclera). “But now that mes have cleared the stage, we should really pick the scene we’re gonna roleplay. So what you wanna do, Fordsy ol’ mate? Relive a memory, act out a hypothetical conversation/argument to get some words off your chest, or experience a fantasy in real-body-stimulating intensity? Whatever you want, I can do for ya.”

“I, um …” Shaking his head, Ford admitted, “There’s just … so much. When I think about him. About everything that happened then. And before. And after. And I … I just … can’t process it enough to … y’know, make sense of how I feel about it all? Gah! Can you understand that, Bill? The only thing I know for sure right now is … is I miss him … even if I don’t know what I’d do if I saw him right now …”

Bill blinked a bite off his maple log, then chewed thoughtfully, ignoring the other Bills (“Hey, guys, wanna see something funny? MacBeth!” “Don’t say that! It’s bad lu—” A sandbag smashed into that Bill from above. “Hehehehehehe! I got more!” Then he whistled sharply. “Argh! You can’t do that either, it’s also bad lu—” A light fixture exploded, blasting the Bill on the catwalk off so that he kersplatted onto the platform. “Hahahahaha! How about this one? Good luck during the performance!” “No, you fool, you’ll kill us all if you say—” “Guys, you think this pyrotechnic equipment still works?” a different, oblivious Bill asked right before pushing a button. The bad luck would’ve been spectacular had anyone paid attention.) now milling about the visual construct of an empty stage which represented a mindscape ready for shaping. Eventually, he suggested, “Tell you what, Fordsy ol’ comrade, let me choose for you this time. I think I know what you need right now to feel better, and it’ll be an actual memory of a good time you two had together. Something … positive and fun and a little whacky to help you get out of this slump. Whaddya say? Trust me enough to follow my lead in the roleplay?”

A glum shrug. A passive affirmation. “Sure, why not?”

And then original Bill was broadcasting through his loudspeaker, “OKAY, LOOK ALIVE, TRIANGULAR TROOP! LET’S GET THE STAGE SET FOR SCENE #618: ‘CABIN BOY AND CAPTAIN NOBEARD, THE COUCH PIRATE’!”

Ford blinked. “Wait, what?”

“I WANT IT READY TO PERFORM IN—”

“BOOOOOO!” the spectating Bill suddenly shouted, spraying popcorn everywhere. “That choice is a cliché and uninspired piece of saccharine hackery! Also, it’s practically meta-theater, which always sucks because only self-inflating, pomposity-spewing fartbags think it’s clever to make plays that are ham-fistedly obvious metaphors for making plays! BOOOOOO!”

“So it’s perfect for our director,” one of the Bills stage whispered, making the others giggle.

“I HEARD THAT!” the original Bill snapped. “DON’T YOU HAVE PROPS TO SET UP?! ACTION IN FIVE, MES! AND WHERE’S THE ME FOR COSTUME AND MAKEUP?!”

“Right here, angeldoll! And ready to get Starford suited up!” That Bill wheeled a vanity piled high with brushes, pencils, and cosmetics right to them. He then pulled an outfit off the rack, scrutinized it, put it back, pulled out another, nodded his approval, and zoomed over to slap it onto Stanford’s body. Right before assaulting his face with a blur of all the cosmetic products—powder, rouge, eyeliner, etc. All of it happened so fast Stanford didn’t even have time to protest, and when the air cleared and he stopped coughing, that particular Bill was adjusting a mirror before his face. “What do you think, honeydear? Don’t you just look divine?”

Breathless with astonishment, Ford touched first the mirror’s surface … then his own face … “Incredible!” he breathed. “I look seventeen!”

“If I did my job right, teddypearl, you don’t just look seventeen. Your whole body (or astral form dream body, technically, sweetiedumpling) should be seventeen down to the smallest of details. Now, if you want, I could also do your nails and hair so you look even more divine than you did at seventeen, darlingpeaches.”

“Nope, we want his ratio of divineness to undivineness to be exactly as it was then, thank you,” the original Bill dictated abruptly. “Now let’s get me suited up for—oh, Azathoth’samygdala!” Snatching up the megaphone, he bawled, “TVS GO IN FRONT OF COUCHES, NOT BEHIND, YOU IDIOTS! AND YOU’VE GOT THE BACKDROPS MIXED UP! C’MON, YOU MES ARE SUPPOSED TO BE MORE PROFESSIONAL THAN THIS!”

Ford tore his eyes from the mirror and looked onstage. The living room of his parents’ house was being formed by a bunch of Bills pushing frames of painted canvas (reproductions of the walls) and setting up prop after prop (a couch, a rabbit-eared TV, old chairs, side tables with doilies, framed photos, knickknacks, bric-a-brac, that hideous lamp with the more hideous curtain shade he had always wanted to smash to bits, etc.); it looked exactly as he remembered … No, it looked more accurate than he remembered … He could even smell the dusty, musty carpeting and hear the tacky windchimes outside the window …

“There, treasurebear, you look ready for your big part. And divine, too! Simply divine!”

“Thanks, me. Looks like you won’t be fired today,” the original Bill decided.

“I can’t believe you could recreate the old place. Every little detail—” Ford turned to Bill, then felt his knees buckled beneath him; he had to grab onto a corner of the vanity not to fall over. Standing before him in a dissipating cloud of face powder was the seventeen-year-old version of his twin brother. “… St-Stan?”

Bill grinned with Stanly’s cocky, crooked grin. “Or close enough. Oh, sorry.” Clearing his throat, he then repeated in Stanly’s husky voice, “Or close enough. Right, Sixer?”

Stepping forward, Ford laid his hands on the shoulders of the boy in front of him. They felt real. Solid and strong through the t-shirt, with the kind of ropey muscles regular boxing gave a person. Same for the arms and the chest, although there was a little pudge on top of the muscles there (just like Stan had … or had had the last time Ford had seen him for certain) thanks to a nervous tendency to overeat … It all felt so real … so achingly real …

“Done feelin’ up the merchandise yet, Sixer?” Bill-Stan teased. “I could flex for ya, if ya want.”

“How … How are you doing this?” Ford whispered, his voice almost trembling.

As one, all of the Bills dropped what they were doing and turned to face him, then clapped and spread their hands. A rainbow spread between every set of palms. “THROUGH THE POWER OF IMAGINATION, FORDSY OL’ COMPADRE! AFTER ALL, I AM YOUR MUSE!”

Fingers clenching into the fabric of the t-shirt, throat constricting, Ford said, “Stan, I … I …”

“You’re not gonna start blubberin’ on me, are ya, Sixer?” Bill-Stan asked coaxingly. “Not before all the fun even starts?”

“N-no … No, I’m in c-control. Ahem! Of myself.” Ford composed himself, feigned brushing some dust off his clothes, then resumed, “So, um, you said something about following your lead in a roleplay?”

Grinning more widely than before, Bill-Stan took him by the hand (sending a jolt of long ignored and even half-forgotten emotions through the weirdologist) and led him onstage …

The thing about a person’s mindscape (or about a person’s dreams, since they’re the same thing, essentially) is they’re completely immersive. To the brain, they’re almost as real as reality itself; every ganglia involved in processing sensory input for the one is equally involved with the other. Which explains why dreams usually feel real enough that a person can forget they’re dreaming. Which explains why a true master of the mind can manipulate a person’s mindscape enough that, with just the right triggering image (such as walking through a conjured doorway or stepping onto a conjured theater stage), the person can believe what they’re experiencing is real, and even actually find traces of the mental experience on their physical body afterwards.

Especially if the person really wants to dream, to believe, to be manipulated by the master …

That was why Ford knew with certainty that he was sweaty and dirty after hours of working on the Stan o’ War, knew with certainty he was trudging into the living room of his family home, and collapsed onto what he knew with certainty was a sagging couch likely as old as he was (seventeen years). He also knew with certainty that he heard the jangling of the house phone in the hallway, and then the voice of who he knew with certainty was his twin brother answering it. That knowing certainty was manifest in every gesture he made; it even shone in his eyes.

A moment later, Stan was leaning over the top of the couch. Sweaty and dirty, too, since he’d been working on the Stan o’ War, too. “Heh. You look beat, Sixer. But if anyone’s got the right, it’s you. I mean, after all that hard work today? And figuring out the waterproofin’ stuff, too?” Then Stan reached over the couch and tousled his brother’s hair. “I guess what I’m saying is … You’re such a good cabin boy! Good work, me ol’ cabin boy!”

Ford beamed with pleasure at the praise and the loving gesture, yet still retorted (because having a brother means living in a perpetual argument, at the very least as a matter of principle), “Pff! Why am I the cabin boy?”

“Duh. ‘cause I’m the captain!”

“Why do you get to be captain?”

“Heh. ‘cause I can do this!” And then Stan swung himself over the top of the couch and dropped down onto his brother, draping himself over his brother like a heavy, sweaty, noogying blanket. “How do you like it, cabin boy? Huh? I said how do you like it, nerd? No, wait, cabin nerd!”

“Ghaha! Get off me—haha!—you’re gross from the beach!” Ford half-spewed and half-laughed beneath his twin. He was pinned against the cushions now, squirming but unable to get free.

“Heh heh! You don’t get to give the captain orders, cabin nerd! That’s not how it works aboard this ship!”

“W-we’re—hehehe!—not even on a ship!”

“Sure we are! The S.S. Couch, and I just boarded it! And you!”

“You did not have permission to come aboard!” Ford giggled, still squirming, now trying to push his twin back with his hands.

But Stan caught them both at the wrists and pinned them against the armrest, too, bearing down with his whole body. “That’s ‘cause I’m a pirate captain! Arrrrr, me matey!”

“Pff! W-what do they call you?! Nobeard?!”

“That’s ‘Captain Nobeard’ to you, cabin nerd! And I’m gonna be lootin’ yer booty!”

Ford threw his head back and laughed at so corny a line. But the laugh turned to a surprised gasp when he suddenly felt his brother (on an impulse) press his lips against Ford’s throat. It was like being hit by a single raindrop right before a spark of lightning—a single spot of warm, wet skin, then an electric jolt through his brain and body that left him rigid. Or perhaps made him realize he had been rigid already? And that his brother’s counter-squirming had taken on a decidedly grinding motion … Or had it been a grinding motion already? Ford moaned, “Aaah, St-Stan …”

“I told you, that’s ‘Captain’ to you, me ol’ cabin nerd,” Stan countered into his twin’s neck. “And I’m gonna shiver yer timber.” With that, he gave an extra hard grind, groin against groin.

“Mmmmoses! Oh … B-but, wait … What if … Dad and Mom walk in on us … like this?” 

“Heh. You can be pretty dumb for a nerd, sometimes,” Stan teased. “They went to Grandma’s today, remember? And that was them on the phone just now, callin’ to say they made it there. Even if they head home right now, it’ll be at least two hours afore they get back. So relax, okay? Just … follow my lead …”

“Y-yeah, I can … Wait.” All at once, Ford stopped, because that phrase … He suddenly didn’t know with certainty what was really going on here, nor where he really was, nor even how old he really was. Intently, he peered at the face of the boy on top of him. Was there a golden gleam in his irises, where there should only have been brown? A twinkle in the eyes, but different than the twinkle normally there. He thought he could remember who this boy actually was. “… Bill?”

Stan grinned. “Only if you’d prefer havin’ a triangle in a tophat grind against you instead of your brother.”

Ford looked around, and remembered he was on a stage. A stage that had been set by multiple copies of Bill, and that he was now pinned beneath the original Bill who was mimicking his twin down to his cornball double-entendres, the smell of his sweat … and the exact length and girth of his hardon, currently pressing down on Ford’s own hardon (the thought of which made him blush a shade deeper than he already had been—did he really remember his twin’s member that well?). In the spectators’ seating, there was another Bill now distantly shouting, “Boooooo! You ruined the flow and the affect of the whole scene! The momentum’s gone and can never be gotten back! Boooooo!” and Ford found he desperately hoped that was not the case.

“You okay, Sixer?” Stan asked. No, not Stan. Bill. Bill mimicking Stan’s voice and manerisms. Bill mimicking Stan’s body so they could …

Ford cleared his throat. “Y-yes, I am. But, er, I just want to… to make sure that you are. This, uh, scenario doesn’t … doesn’t bother you? At all?”

“What? Why would … Oh!” Stan-Bill exclaimed suddenly. “You mean ‘cause we’re not just crossin’ a bunch of taboo lines in your meatbag culture, but went a mile past ‘em and are now buildin’ a small but charmingly perverted, summer cabin we can visit at our leisure?”

“I, um … suppose that’s one way of putting it …”

“Heh heh! It’s funny how awkward you are about this!” But before Ford could get defensive, Stan-Bill continued, “Sixer, I’m not human. I’m a Muse, here to inspire you to break through arbitrary human conventions (like the restrictive barriers they are) to something higher, purer, and truer. So all the arbitrary moral codes you meatbags make for yourselves, especially where sex is concerned? Don’t apply to me, don’t affect me. Whatever you desire, whoever you desire, however you desire (no matter how weird, complex, or how many parts it needs performed) I can play out for you here in your mindscape so well it will feel real. I can give you the psychological or sexual release you need to get tracted again on our oh so important work!”

Though overwhelmed by the possibilities, Ford still maintained, “That’s not a real word …”

“Like I said before, Sixer, if you wanna relive a memory, act out a hypothetical conversation or an argument with someone (like your brother or your parents or an ex or that one bald professor you loathed), or experience a completely new fantasy altogether … I’m down. Let’s do ‘em all.”

Ford gulped. “Y-you’re sure … it doesn’t bother you? At all? I mean, this is … er …”

Stan-Bill sighed in almost-exasperation. “Look, Fordsy ol’ friend, my true form doesn’t even have sex organs. Not that you’ll be able to tell when I change shape in your mindscape and go to town with pleasurin’ you, ‘cause I’m just that good an actor—can act like I’ve always had ‘em and got tons of experience usin’ ‘em to turn people specifically named Stanford Filbrick Pines into puddles of contented, post-coital bliss—and always happy to put on a show for a friend.”

Beneath him, Ford felt so turned on he was having a hard time breathing regularly.

“Plus, I come from a species that has roughly millions of genders, so homosexuality doesn’t bother me in the least. If anything, it radically simplifies things. You wanna get it on with a guy? I can do that. Two guys? Ditto. A guy and a gal at the same time? No prob. An entire roomful of different people? Sure, it’ll be a nice stretch of my talents. Something or somethings that aren’t remotely human? Well, if either of us can imagine it, I can make it in here for you to fuck.”

Beneath him, Ford felt so turned on that he was practically vibrating with excitement.

“And as for what you meatbags call ‘incest’, well,” Bill-Stan shrugged. “Far from the weirdest kink floatin’ around in the collective unconsciousness of humanity. But it is just weird enough, luckily, to keep me invested in any—heh heh—boldly transgressive or unapologetically perverse theatrical performances you might want to try here on the mindscape stage. So c’mon, brother,” he added emphatically, positively dripping Stanness now. “Just follow my lead … We got hours ‘til Dad and Mom get home …”

Beneath him, Ford felt so turned on that he was sorta surprised the couch hadn’t caught fire around the two of them. Another low moan escaped his lips as he felt Stan-Bill’s lips press against his throat again … as he felt Stan-Bill grind against his bulge again … as he felt Stan-Bill carry him back into a more fulfilling moment than the present reality could ever hope to offer …

“You like that, cabin nerd? Huh? You like when I do that to ya? Go on, say ‘Aye-aye, Captain’.”

Though his hands were still pinned against the armrest of the couch and his body born down into the cushions, Ford arched his hips into the grind.

“C’mon, cabin nerd, go ahead and say it … Become a part of my couch pirate crew …”

Giggling, Ford turned and offered himself up for a kiss. It was long and warm and wet and deep, and so very, very sweet. It left him breathlessly whimpering, “Mmm, Stan … Bill …”

“Who’s this Bill?” Stan-Bill asked teasingly. Then, as if to punctuate every following sentence, he humped slow and hard at the end of it. “Someone I otta be jealous of? Someone I gotta go beat up? Someone who’s gotta learn that you’re mine … my brother … my lover … and no one else gets to touch ya but me?”

“Ah! Yes!” Ford cried out.

And, distantly, the Bill in the seats shouted, “Boooooo! Going off script like this is for amateurs! Improv in an established piece is for hacks who can’t remember their lines! Boooooo!”

That was when Bill (not the original Bill playing Stan, nor any of the copies playing stagehands, but the real Bill in a clonesuit stretched out on the bed in the attic) snapped out of his fascination and decided it was time to stop reviewing memories for a while. Especially this one in particular. Not because it wasn’t nostalgic or entertaining or sexually titillating for him (it was very much), not because he couldn’t remember what had happened next (his recall was still just as perfect as the rest of him—heh heh!), but because …

Because it just wasn’t worth watching the rest. Both in Ford’s memory of the actual event with his brother, and in the slightly altered reenactment Bill had performed with Ford, it hadn’t been more than another minute or two of cornball dialogue, couch grinding, and rough kissing before they climaxed. And why not? Ford and Stan had been horny, pent up teenagers way back then … and Ford had been a horny, pent up adult back then (what with his tons of emotional baggage and sexual frustration) …

“Not worth getting wound up over,” Bill muttered to the cabin ceiling. “Not when jerking off won’t be enough to take the edge off the horniness I’ll feel afterwards … And besides, if I want to feel wound up and horny, there are much wilder memories I could perfectly recall than that. With Dipper or with Sixer …”

His hand came up wearing a sock puppet Mabel had made to look like his true form—or, at least, as much like his true form as a sock with a hand shoved in it could, (though, honestly, it looked less like a dapper triangle and more like the bastard lovechild that would result from a wild night of passion between him and Kermit the Frog)—and said, “Funny how you didn’t even realize how good a thing you had with ol’ Fordsy, isn’t it?”

“How do you figure that?” Bill asked his sock puppet. “Working and hanging with him was a ton of fun, and I missed the 79 Hells outta it after he sided with this mudball … Still do, actually …”

“I mean all that wild, limitationless, mindscape sex you had with him. Back then, for you, it was just the fun of weird playacting (and manipulating a gullible meatbag); you didn’t appreciate any of the physical side of it.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re right. Of course, y’know, I kinda couldn’t appreciate it back then.”

“The beginning of the summer was a lot like that, too, with Dipper and Mabel and all the others,” the sock puppet continued matter-of-factly. “You didn’t appreciate any of the emotional side of spending time with them, what with how full of hate and plans for vengeance you were.”

“… No, I didn’t,” Bill admitted.

“All that time spent with them, and you didn’t even realize how good a thing you had.”

“… I kinda couldn’t appreciate all that back then, either, in my defense.”

“You could now, y’know.”

“What, you mean … relive the memories? Actually, that could be a fun way to pass the time,” Bill mused to himself. “Might not feel quite so bored or lone … Cthulhu’s cartilaginous cranium, I could go through all my memories with Ford! Maybe there’s something I filed away in there—something I didn’t think was important at the time, something that could spark another thought—that could help get me past the bubble!” he exclaimed, bolting upright. “And back to my Dipper!”

“That wasn’t exactly what I meant …” the sock puppet pointed out.

But it was rather futile; Bill was on a role now. “The bumblr crowd could even help with this … Them asking the right questions might give me some direction, instead of just prospecting—”

“HEY! LISTEN!” the sock puppet shrilled. “I meant you could be having a good thing right now with all the people here at the Shack. Emotionally and such. Enjoying it fully. But you’re not. Even though you want to.”

Looking away from the reproachful, googly-eyed gaze, Bill muttered, “Kinda hard to with Ford setting such a grim mood for everyone here any time he walks in on me and someone else.”

“You’re wasting time,” the sock puppet stated irrefutably. “Like at the beginning of the summer, when you were too busy being … being not nice—being mean—to everyone, especially Dipper. Now you’re wasting time being bitter at Ford.”

“He’s wasting time being just as bitter at me!” Bill countered defensively.

“And when was the last time you really tried to do anything about that? Huh? When you bought everybody gifts, maybe, a few months ago?”

“… Honestly? I guess so, yeah.”

“Go try again. You wanted to, anyway, since you saw him in the woods crying ‘bout how much he misses the Twins, too,” the sock puppet affirmed. “It’s the reason you turned away from remembering that time on the couch before the climax, too; you’re not in the mood for sexiness, not deep down, but for sappiness. You can appreciate that emotional side of things now, so stop wasting time not enjoying ‘em.”

“What if … What if he doesn’t want to stop being bitter? What if he doesn’t want to move on?”

“Then at least you’ll have tried. You won’t be wasting time being bitter. And you get to spend more time perfectly recalling individual memories to see if you can find something helpful to escape, so win-win for you.”

Bill sighed. “I’d argue with you, but you are me, so I know I won’t win … Well, let’s go …”