#they will assume there’s no point in persisting with CPR if they don’t get a result within the first couple of repetitions

[grimark]

fictional characters being cavalier about head trauma, and shitty movie CPR scenes, are two of my biggest pet peeves in terms of inaccurate depictions of health and first aid things that could and probably do get people killed for real

[ellsbclls]

The Fire Escape

warnings ➛ A couple of swear words here and there, mentions of death, endgame spoilers, and a dash of far from home erasure.

word count ➛ 4.7K

synopsis ➛ After the events of End Game, Peter Parker takes a break from his crime fighting persona, but when Spider-Man is called to a mission in Sokovia, he realizes that you might not be ready to handle the life of an Avenger’s girlfriend. There’s a little bit of angst, but not enough to keep you up at night.

“Y/N… Earth to Y/N.”

Peter ropes you back to reality with a light squeeze of your hand, a simple gesture that you return two-fold. On normal dates, the competition would ignite almost immediately, squeezing each other’s hands back and forth, under varying degrees of pressure, until one of you cried uncle — but this is far from a normal date.

It had started innocently enough. Peter had begged Dr.Banner to let him leave his “internship” an hour early just so he could surprise you at work. You assumed — after some superb groveling on Peter’s part — that Bruce agreed, because the end of your shift was met with a parchment wrapped dozen of blushing roses, accompanied by your equally blushing boyfriend. The two of you were able to snag one of the emptier carts on the N train, and were accompanied by a small Greek woman who sent a warm smile when you nestled your head into Peter’s shoulder. The smile disappeared as soon as he started using the poles as his personal jungle gym, but your laugh made up for its loss as he offered his hand out, begging you to join him with a Gene Kelly-esque flair. He ushered you into one of your favorite ramen places during your stroll down Ditmars, pulling out your chair when you were given a table, pretending not to notice how you snuck a noodle or two from his bowl when he wasn’t looking. Your heart felt so warm, you’re surprised it didn’t melt.

So why does everything seem so off now? You and Peter are walking side by side down 37th avenue, he’s rambling excitedly about some new enhancement he made to his web slingers, the evening breeze is kissing your cheeks as it waltzes around the autumn foliage, and somehow, you feel like you’re in the eye of a hurricane.

“Where’d you go?” Peter tries to reel you back in once more and succeeds, craning his head to meet your gaze.

“Oh, just a quick jog.” you tease. There’s a thin edge underlying your sarcasm, and you wonder if he can hear it, too. You’re only a block away from your apartment, and the tiny voice in the back of your mind rationalizes that nothing could ruin your impromptu date night if you were tucked away in your home — because you always feel safe when you’re home. Yet, with no solid evidence to confirm or deny the thought, you’re in a race with the block to dig through your purse.

“Oh, well don’t forget to warm up.” he teases back. His caramel hues, once alight with a mirthful glint, start to descend into an uneasy resolve that only confirms your suspicions, but you’re too occupied by the whereabouts of your keys to notice. “Speaking of warm up, actually, there’s something I have to ask you.”

“Shoot.” you reply offhandedly.

“Well, I- I don’t know how to say this.” The tremor in his voice is subtle, but just present enough to pull you from your search.   “There’s- uh- there’s something going on in Sokovia, or at least what’s left of it. There’s a lot of feedback coming off the maps, like a… a hotplate of cosmic activity, so Captain wants the entire team there.”

There it is — that dark cloud that hung over your head this evening finally drenches you in a sharp, cold blanket of realization. Your heart stops, aches, and then crumbles to the pit of your stomach, waiting to be washed away by the waves of terror that crash upon your airways, and despite the wash cycle of emotions you’ve just endured, you feel far from clean. In fact, everything feels heavy — from the weight of your heart to your ragged breath — paralyzed by the idea that each thump, each exhale, brings you closer to the moment where Peter has to leave.

You started dating a year and a half ago, and two years have passed since half of the population was restored to its rightful plane of existence. Iron Man’s death left a massive hole in Peter’s morale, as well as a nagging doubt that he would never be able to take on the mantle he was left with. So, for the first time since he was bitten by that radioactive spider, he cowered in the face of adversity. Not only had he lost a mentor, he had lost his friend — and when Tony Stark sacrificed his life, he was under the impression that the heroes he saved would continue to protect the world, but sometimes Peter wonders if that still reigns true. If Mr.Stark knew just how easily the team had crumbled, how easily he had crumbled, would he still leave? Three and a half years later and Peter still can’t find the answer.

Meanwhile, when it seemed like the world needed him most, Spiderman slipped into obscurity. Now he only makes an appearance when the newscast is a little too bleak to ignore, and even then, he usually sticks to the rogue bank heist or back alley mugging.

You try not to pry, knowing that each time you ask about his brief hiatus is like poking an open wound, and, albeit selfishly, you relish in the fact that your boyfriend isn’t throwing himself in harm's way. However, now seems like a better time than ever for an interrogation, seeing as this is not only the first Avengers mission he’s attended in your relationship, but the first mission to ever span past the Hudson.

No obstacle prior has conjured a looming sense of dread and anxiety as palpable as the one you’re toting now. You can already feel it bubbling in your chest, like a cauldron of endless toils, expelling a hazy fog that makes your head spin.

“Hey, hey, hey, don’t give out on me now.” You don’t realize that your knees buckled beneath you until Peter comes to your rescue, and you silently wish that all of his heroic excursions could be this simple. The warmth of his hand bleeds past your winter coat and business casual blouse as it settles against the small of your back, and your body betrays you as it melts into his touch. “Contrary to popular belief, I’m actually not CPR certified.”

“I- I’m sorry.” Your mouth is bone dry, and you can barely muster a laugh convincing enough to counter his attempt at humor, so you don’t. You opt on settling your gaze upon the entrance of your building, just over Peter’s shoulder, and trying to ground yourself enough to stand without his help.

Peter’s hand still lingers on your form when you shuffle away from him, moving from the small of your back to the curve of your elbow. He can tell that you’re shaken, he expected that much from the get go, so he doesn’t leave your side, encroaching on the space you so obviously seek.  

“I don’t know- I don’t…” You muster just enough courage to counter his gaze, and a tiny frown creases between your brows, confusion riddling every other feature. “What exactly are you asking me?”

He pauses, searching for the answer himself. “Well, I guess- I just wanna know how you’re feeling.”

You chalk it up to your sudden sense of irritability, but his question just pisses you off. How dare he throw out a semblance of hope, a faulty impression, that you’d have any choice in this matter. You climb the three steps up to the front door, dolled up in dismay, and still try to find purchase in the illusion that you have any control in the matter. Maybe that’s what pushes you over the deep end, your once honeyed voice now curdled by venom — the hopelessness of it all. “Oh, I’m fine! I’m amazing, Peter. After the way you buttered me up all evening, how could I possibly be upset?”

“Y/N, that’s not fair-” Peter’s visibly taken aback, his features mimicking your own. You can see the cogs turning in his head, formulating some way to diffuse this situation before it really begins, but now that the gates are opened, it’s too late for you to hold anything back.

“Why not? Cause it’s the truth?” You cut him off, freshly manicured nails digging into your palms in an attempt to keep your tone even. “Let me tell you what’s not fair — You don’t even know how long you’re gonna be gone, do you?”

You’re met with a mutual silence, which confirms just how equally unaware you both are.

“Exactly.” At this point, your nerves are getting the best of you. Whether you lay all of your feelings out to him tonight or not, a sickening thought will remain — Peter is going to leave, and there’s a chance he won’t come back. So you persist, your hues boring into his own with each word. “You don’t know what it’s like to sit in our bed and wonder if you’re gonna be in it the next morning. You don’t know how terrifying it is to watch the news and pray to god that you’re not a part of it. You’re never going to be in my shoes when it comes to all of this, and I pray to god that you never have to be because I never want you to feel this way. That’s what’s not fair.” You wish your voice hadn’t grown weaker with each blow, you wish you could utter your last few thoughts with an unwavering certainty, but you know you can’t — not when a sob threatens to bubble up from the back of your throat. “That you can just decide to swing across the globe and put your life in danger while I sit at home and worry about you, and the worst part is that it only makes me love you more.”

“Y/N, do you think this is easy for me?” he’s never raised his voice at you, especially not like this, but it looks like tonight is a series of firsts for the both of you. “I haven’t been on a mission with the Avengers since high school, since —” Since Mr.Stark died. You know.

It’s not like he didn’t try to say it, he did, but the name just felt so foreign on his tongue. After years of inactivity, the threat of unearthing all those memories, all those bright eyed, bushy tailed endeavors, was almost as bad as remembering that he was gone — or even worse, not remembering them at all. But where could he retreat to now? He’s stuck between a rock and a hard place, forced to choose between the thought of losing Mr.Stark, or the thought of losing you. His thoughts are raw and earnest as he tries to placate the latter. “I don’t want to leave you. It terrifies me to think of all the things that could happen to you while I’m gone —”

“Obviously it doesn’t scare you enough, because you’re still going!” You punch the last two words, as if you’re suddenly trying to talk to him from across the street.

“I don’t have a choice, Y/N! I don’t-”

Your argument skids to a screeching halt, rivaling the groan of the metal door that guards your apartment complex, and with it appears Ms.Nunez — the single mother that lives a floor below you, whose ability to juggle her graveyard shifts at the hospital with her two rambunctious toddlers is almost as impeccable as her timing.

She appears to be in a rush as she skirts past you, but not enough to stop her from sending Peter an all too knowing look — one that screams “what did you do to that poor girl?”, with only the view of your red, puffy eyes and guarded stance to back up her assumption.

And with an opportunity so golden laying at your feet, who are you to ignore it? You catch the door before it hits the frame and slip into the yellowed entryway, barreling up the stairwell before he can question her weighted stare. You leave Peter no choice but to slip past Ms.Nunez in your pursuit, without so much as a goodbye, but a few choice words still sit on the back of his tongue, waiting to be swallowed.

Normally, the five stories of stairs leaves you winded by the third, but you chalk your superhuman stamina up to adrenaline. Luckily for you, you’re able to reach the last flight of stairs as Peter climbs up the first. Unluckily for you, you seem to forget that your boyfriend actually does have superhuman stamina, and you swear to fucking god that he’s flying up the stairwell by the time you shut the door behind you.

The door slams twice more after that, one loud bang to signal Peter’s entrance and one to punctuate it. His voice pierces through the apartment, firm and unyielding. “This conversation isn’t over, Y/N.”

He has no idea where you’ve run off to, ruling out the kitchen once he drapes his jacket over the center island. All he can hear is your voice, muffled behind one of the walls, calling out to him with little emotion to spare. “Oh, yes it is. I’m over it. It’s over.”

“Well, that’s mature.” He mutters under his breath, not expecting you to hear him, let alone respond.

“Oh, I’m so glad you think so!” You chuckle dryly, ”‘Cause your judgment of maturity is oh so rational and not at all fucking batshit.” And he thought he had enhanced hearing.

“You know what? You’re right.” He scoffs, letting the slam of the bathroom door punctuate his final words. “I’m over this, too.”

🕷 🕷 🕷

“Y/N?” Peter calls out, but to no avail. It’s on nights like these where he wishes you weren’t fighting, knowing fully well that you would command him to the bed with a downward pointing finger and the best glare you could muster. You’ve always loved the way his hair curled into soft, chestnut waves, so you didn’t mind weaving through his damp tresses before he went to sleep. You would make up some excuse about how the process helped give his curls definition, and he would always end up way too tired and relaxed to call you out on it.

You’re nowhere to be found, though. Your comforter is still as haphazard as it was this morning, and the kitchen is void of your late night snack ravaging. The only sign of your presence is found in the open window next to you bed, and way the curtains float against the evening breeze, leaving him to ponder your whereabouts at a breakneck speed. 

A million visions of paranoia screen through his mind all at once, but he’s quick to dismiss them, oddly familiar with the prospect of losing someone, and all the fretting that comes with it.

And you know better than to wander the streets of the city so late at night — but with all of the venom being spewed throughout the apartment, Peter wouldn’t be surprised if you needed a small reprieve. Even for just a quick trip to the corner market. He’s well aware of the eagle eye you sport in the moonlit streets, as well as the switchblade that sits in the side pocket of your bag, but he knows better than anyone that you have to expect the unexpected in these streets.

He pulls out his phone, ready to shoot you a quick text when the bars of the fire escape let out a metallic groan. Despite your apartment’s... adequate amenities, you’d never had a problem with the fire escape. The finicky oven? Maybe, but never the fire escape.

Even without his spidey senses tingling, he has no choice but to poke his head through the window pane, and to his surprise, he ends up killing two birds with one stone.

“I didn’t know you were out here.” Peter balances on the window sill, crouching in a near feline stance as he surveys your position — bundled between the metal grates of the fire escape and your downy comforter. Your lips are parted in a tiny “o”, eyelids blanketing your hues, and with the street lights flickering to life across the seam of thirty-eighth avenue, you’re nothing short of angelic — features now outlined in a seraphic, dewy haze.

If he wasn’t feeling guilty beforehand, the sight before him guarantees he is now.

“Yeah, that was kind of the point.” you murmur. You don’t bother to open your eyes, not even when the iron beams start to squeak under Peter’s weight. “Can I help you with something? I’m pretty sure this thing has a weight limit, and this is a weighted blanket.”

You’re met with silence, and you hate to admit it, but you’d take his silent presence over your self-induced isolation any day. Despite the fact that you only moved in together four months prior, your body has grown accustomed to his presence, subconsciously weaving it into your daily routine. There were nights when you would splay out like a starfish in your childhood bedroom, waiting restlessly for the gentle wrap of his knuckles at the window pane, and that same restlessness bleeds into nights in your shared apartment,  which then bleeds into now. Sure, you can trick your body into sleeping, but rest seems to be boroughs and islands away when Peter’s not there to wish you a good night.

A terse silence settles between the two of you, and you blink up at Peter, expecting him to break it since you surely wouldn’t.

“Why here?” Peter exceeds your expectations with his query. His gaze is fixed on Manhattan’s skyline — even from the tippy top of the complex, he can still make out the jagged glittering, crust of the city’s bustling core — and it’s then he finds the answer to his very own question.

“I used to sneak onto the fire escape at my parents place, too.” you reminisce, the corners of your lips curling into a bittersweet grin. “The apartment walls were thin, and whenever they would fight, or talk shit about something I did that day, I would just sit on the fire escape until I fell asleep.”

“How?” He breaks yet another lengthy pause, and you fight the urge to chuckle at his candor, settling with a lazy grin. “I mean, no offense, but Astoria isn’t exactly a library.”

“Yeah, but inside, I knew exactly what they were saying, how they were feeling — it was all in the air. At least out here everything just… blends together. It’s kind of peaceful in a way.”

Your voice is so timid and gentle as you recall your childhood, reflecting on moments that seem lifetimes away despite the handful of years in between. Peter’s gaze is transfixed on your profile, skating down the slope of your nose and skirting the curves of your lips until he realizes just how small you are. He tends to hold you on a pedestal, a habit he’s retained since the very beginning of your relationship, so sometimes it still baffles him to know that you can be anything but perfect — that you too can be human, and make human mistakes.

“How come I’ve never seen you out here before?” He feels like a little kid, question after question slipping past his lips before he even has the chance to filter them.

“‘Cause I haven’t had a reason to hide since I moved in with you.”

And just when he thought he couldn’t feel even guiltier, he’s soon overflowing with it. It kills him to know that you felt the need to escape, and you’ll never admit it after tonight, but he was the one who pushed you toward it.

“I’m sorry.” Peter blurts out, not expecting you to say —

“I’m sorry.”

You furrow your brows, cutting him off before he can even open his mouth to protest. “I’m just so used to my Peter. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that I’m sharing him with the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.”

“Hey, hey — look at me.” His thumb traces the spot right under your eye, using his pinky to nudge the curve of your jaw upward, toward his gaze — heavy and drenched in a type of resoluteness that leaves your mouth bone dry. “It may not always seem like it, but trust me when I tell you that you’re always going to be my top priority.”

“Peter, you’re being dramatic.” You sigh, finding it hard to believe that your life could take any precedence over the safety of mankind itself.

“No, I’m being honest.” His voice, his gaze, they leave no room for protest. You feel a little awkward being the center of their attention, and so it’s a relief when they shift to the city’s skyline once more. “Look over there, you know what that is?”

“Central Park?”

“Mhm, good girl.” Crimson blooms across the valley of your cheeks at his choice of nickname, no matter how innocently he uttered it, but your attention still remains undivided. “I figured out that I can get home quicker if I cut through it.”

You quirk a brow, and he doesn’t need to ask to know exactly what you’re thinking — So what if he hasn’t figured out which trains he needs to board in order to make a dent in his homebound commute? It’s the thought that counts.

“Sometimes like to just stop for a second and watch some of the people in the park, but not in, like, a creepy way? You know what I mean?” A subtle hint of embarrassment tinges his features, but dissolves once he notices your understanding nod.  “Is there a word for that?”

“Yeah, it’s called people watching.” You snickered, trying to imagine your boyfriend and his attempts at roasting the New York natives. “MJ and I do it all the time.”

“No, but with less… shit talking.” He counters.

Ouch.

“Oh…” You’re stumped, unsure of where he’s heading and, quite frankly, a little humbled by his read. “Hmm… Carry on?”

“Well,” Peter lets his hand rest palm forward on his knee, fingers gently curled, and you’re well acquainted with the gesture. Almost instinctively, you hover your hand above his own, digits clumsily dancing with one another as he speaks, and for a fleeting second, everything is back to normal. “It’s just… mind-blowing sometimes. There’s so much life there, all at once. All of these people are just living their lives, making their way home, falling in love, falling out of love, buying overpriced hotdogs from the street vendors — The other day I saw this mom fishing her two toddlers out of that fountain on Terrace road and honestly, if they don’t end up with superpowers, I’ll be shocked.” He can tell he’s drifted wildly off track by the way you nod, slowly and unsure, as to not offend him and his train of thought. “The point is… I used to protect all of that, and it used to make me so happy.”

“You still do,” You murmur, not one to discredit the risks he does take in the name of New York. Just because his enemies aren’t held to the same caliber as, say, Thanos, doesn’t mean they aren’t worthwhile. “All that matters is that you’re doing what you can.”

You hesitantly intertwine your fingers with his, in just a delicate enough hold to let him reject it if he so chooses. Your lips softly quirk upward when he only tightens the grip.

“Thank you.” He offers a comforting smile, one that barely reaches his eyes, and you can tell that he has more to say. So, you squeeze his hand, silently urging him to continue. “Well, I just- after Mr.Stark… passed away… it was really hard to remember why I started doing all of it in the first place. Like- I hate saying this, but why do we keep protecting all of these strangers when all the people we do know just keep getting hurt?” He winces at his own words, so far removed from such bitterness that he can barely believe he once thought such selfish things. “But then- then I get to see all of the people that I’ve been protecting, and suddenly it all makes sense again. All I want to do is make sure people are safe, and happy, and hopefully… Hopefully, when we’re older, and we have kids that jump in the fountains at Central Park, someone like me will be watching… and they’ll feel the exact same way.”

When we’re older, When we have kids... Those promises of marriage, of a loving family, of a future — they bounce off your eardrums like a mantra. Soon, you can’t even imagine thinking about anything but Peter’s words, and how much you love him right now, and how you’ll love him until your heart can’t possibly take it anymore. You can read what he’s trying to portray loud and clear — He loves you, he can see a future with you, and if there’s ever a doubt in your mind that his feelings may have changed, you can look out into the world and find pieces of his heart in every passing face.

“I haven’t been doing everything I can to make sure that’s possible, though.” He breaches your lovesick trance, reminding you that there’s still a thread of discord dangling between you. One that you can see rapidly disappearing with each passing second. “I have to go on this mission, Y/N. I wanna start helping people again. I wanna do right by him.”

“I know.” You whisper, conceding to the fact that you will always want what’s best for him, even if you aren’t a fan of the circumstances. “It doesn’t make it any less sucky.”

“C’mere.” He can barely pat his thighs before you’re crawling toward him. He passes a warm hand under your thigh once you straddle his waist, scooping you further into his lap, and uses his free hand to encompass the nape of your neck. You feel like you could melt, being cradled between his strong, toned  arms, and the feeling only intensifies when his lips seek out yours. His lips are soft, and warm, and taste like listerine, and you couldn’t ask for anything more perfectly suited for you.    

“I love you.” He murmurs against your lips, without a trace of uncertainty. His thumb wipes the corner of your mouth, and he continues to plant a series of sweet, soft butterfly kisses over every patch of skin he can get his lips on — your cheeks, your nose, your temple.

He’s so wrapped up in his gentle ministrations that he barely hears you return the sentiment, eyes fluttering to a close as you breathe out, “I love you.”

“Please come inside,'' he whispers against your forehead, punctuating his plea with a chaste kiss.

You pretend to entertain the thought, tapping your index finger against your chin, before shaking your head with a waggish simper. Fortunately for you, it doesn’t take long for him to take the bait, and he disappears through the window. You can just barely make out the harmony of wild rustling and hushed obscenities coming from your room before Peter is returning to your makeshift bed, clad in the cheesy “The Floor is Lava!” hoodie you snagged from a street vendor during your trip to Pompeii the summer beforehand.

“I’m not gonna lie to you, Y/N,” Peter’s voice is tight, shuffling his knees across the fretted ground as he crawls into your lap. It takes him all of three seconds to make himself comfortable, collapsing between your thighs, and you seize the opportunity to weave your fingers through his soft, chestnut locks. “I don’t think I can make this a recurring thing. I can already feel the scoliosis forming.”

“You’re such a drama queen,” you scoff, only to be met with a scandalized set of caramel hues. “I think you can make it through the night without any permanent damage to your spine.” With droopy eyes, your body starts to hum with the tell-tale signs of sleep, and your voice drips with drowsiness as you murmur, “And I wanna savor as many nights with you as I can.”

“I know,” he whispers back, the aftertaste of guilt intermingling with the abashment that follows your sleepy confession. ”I know. I’m right here, babe.”

And he swore, in that very moment, that nothing would change that.

[syntaxeme]

Giardino Segreto ch. 3

[Read on AO3] | [First Chapter] | [Next Chapter] Rating: T Chapter summary: Alastor finally has the opportunity to introduce himself to Angel. If only Cherri weren't there to ruin the moment. Angel is surprisingly receptive to his story, and Alastor finds himself battling a temptation he's never before dealt with. Courtship is different for everyone, isn't it?

— — –

How strong were those drugs he’d taken? Had Cherri given him too much? Or was it that final laced drink that tipped the balance? Never mind exactly how it had happened; Alastor refused to let this boy die. The very thought made his ‘illness’ flare up again, his chest tight and uncomfortable, but he pushed past it nevertheless. After a moment of frozen panic, he checked Angel’s pulse and was relieved to find it still beating, albeit faintly. If his lungs weren’t functioning, that likely wouldn’t go on for much longer, but it did make the solution simpler.

He knelt at Angel’s side, pinched his nose, and, despite his apprehension, covered the boy’s mouth with his own to breathe into him. Perhaps he hadn’t been formally trained in any sort of first aid or CPR—in fact, it was quite the opposite—but still he persisted, each breath infused with every ounce of demonic magic he had, with a desperate desire to see Angel through this night.

At last, the boy twitched and tensed and coughed, his eyes fluttering open briefly and sending Alastor’s head reeling with relief. Their gazes met for only a moment, then Angel’s eyes fell shut again, but he was breathing as normal, simply unconscious. He would have the opportunity to recover from the disaster this night had become. Alastor very nearly thanked God before realizing that wasn’t quite appropriate.

Just as his body began to relax, the cough he had been suppressing forced its way up again, and he turned away to choke out another pile of blush-colored petals and rust-colored blood. He tried to tell himself that his efforts were all motivated by self-interest; after all, if Angel died, he could never return Alastor’s feelings and would therefore seal his fate as well. But he knew better. He knew that in that moment, all his fear and desperation had been entirely for Angel’s sake. Oh yes, he was in much too deep here—yet the knowledge that Angel would live filled him with such joy and relief that he could hardly complain.

While he was distracted with wiping blood from his chin, the demoness, Cherri, evidently recovered from her shock and pounced on him, sending the two rolling across the ground. Already on edge and bristling even further at being touched, he easily pinned her to the floor and got to his feet again, one gleaming wingtip planted between her shoulder blades to keep her there.

“Get the fuck off me, and stay away from him,” she snarled viciously, likely still in the grips of whatever drugs she had taken earlier. Alastor reminded himself of that and tried not to take her aggression personally.

“That’s a strange way of pronouncing ‘thank you,’” he pointed out, “considering the position I helped you out of minutes ago.”

“Kiss my ass. I never asked for your help.” Her hostility might have been amusing, had he not been so busy figuring out where this left his pursuit of Angel, how he might explain what had just happened. A glance at the boy showed his sleep was undisturbed by their scuffle, so that concern could wait a little longer.

He kept his voice low as he answered, “I know it might be difficult for you right now, but think: if my intentions were malicious, why would I have gone to the trouble of rescuing you?”

“So we’d be in your debt? So we’d trust you? I don’t fuckin’ know, and I don’t care,” she growled, shoving out from under his foot and instead putting herself between him and Angel. That, he didn’t much care for. “Whoever you are, whatever you want, I’m not letting you hurt him.”

“First, just so you and I are straight: I don’t need you to ‘let’ me do anything, dear. Your trying to stop me would be a mild inconvenience at best.” His pleasant smile remained in place while he stated these facts. “Second, the point is moot, because I don’t have any desire to hurt him. And as long as you don’t insist on testing me, the same can be said for you.”

Her eye—as the other was hidden by her bangs—narrowed, but her posture didn’t relax. “What do you want, then?”

“Didn’t you just say you don’t care?” he chuckled.

“Shut up and answer the question.”

Are contradictions like this a common side-effect of recreational drugs?

“I want to speak with Angel. That’s all.”

“Why?” She looked him up and down as if sizing him up, yet she didn’t back down. Courage, if a bit ill-advised.

“Now I’m not sure that’s any of your business. For that matter, what do you want with him? I’ll assume you haven’t told him what you are. You brought him to that den of iniquity and put him in danger. Are you trying to make sure he ends up the same as we are when he dies?”

“No!” Cherri barked, her eyes starting to redden and tear up. “Ya think I’d do that to somebody on purpose? Of course not. I’m his friend. One of the only real friends he has. I look out for him and I try to help him deal with his shitty family. I just…I just don’t always do it right.”

Interesting. A guardian angel, I would’ve expected, but a guardian demon…?

“I know you,” she went on after a moment, scooting back to check on Angel, pushing his bangs out of his eyes and stroking his hair. Interesting to see any demon so affectionate. He almost wondered whether he could learn something about this very unfamiliar terrain from watching the two of them together.  

“Do you? I don’t think we’ve ever met.”

“Nah, but anybody who’s anybody in Hell knows you. And that makes it weirder that you bothered helping us,” she noted, watching him with a healthy dose of suspicion. “I always heard you liked seein’ people suffer.”

Yes, Alastor, whatever happened to that brutal inclination that earned you a place in Hell to begin with? How is it you’re now here, doing this, instead? There had indeed been a time not long ago when he wouldn’t have involved himself in any altercation between mortals and wouldn’t have felt a bit of guilt afterward. Some part of him was nothing short of furious that this business with Angel had instilled such an undeniable change in his behavior. He should’ve been making deals, collecting souls, entertaining himself with the misery of any mortal foolish enough to trust him, not…whatever this was. Yet all that anger was directed only toward himself and his own weakness; he couldn’t bring himself to resent Angel for being who he was.

“Consider yourself lucky that Angel seems to care about you. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have made the effort for your sake.”

Cherri let out a scoff. “So no point in me thanking you anyway.” When Angel shifted and grimaced, his body starting to shiver slightly, she bit her lip in concern. “I need to take him home. Moll’s seen him like this before; she can help.”

With an overdose? What could she possibly do? “Do you really think so? Or are you just trying to get him away from me?” Alastor asked, friendly as ever, and the girl blanched. “You aren’t going to stop me talking to him. Even if it doesn’t happen now, it will later.” I really don’t have much choice in the matter. He’d delayed for long enough; it was time—beyond time—to take action.

Luckily, he was saved from thinking too hard and sabotaging himself when Angel groaned and his eyes eased open again. “Mph, fuck,” he muttered, turning over slowly to try to push himself up.

“Hey, take it easy,” Cherri told him, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“What…happened?” He tried to blink his eyes clear, frowning hard. “I thought…” He trailed off as his gaze found Alastor’s shoes, then slowly trailed upward to take in the rest of him—his vibrant hair, his wicked smile, the antlers atop his head. “This is a fuckin’ weird trip.”

“True as that might be, my being here isn’t part of it,” Alastor answered, and Angel’s eyebrows jumped up as if he hadn’t expected a hallucination to speak. He’d hoped his first words to Angel might be something a bit more charming, but nothing about this was going as he’d hoped, really.

“You…” The boy frowned and pressed a palm against his forehead. “At the club earlier. You were there.”

“I was.” Alastor could hardly contain his giddiness at the fact that this conversation was finally happening.

“Who are you?”

“My name҉ i҉s҉ A҉la҉st҉o҉r,” he said, sweeping an elegant bow. Angel squinted at him, and he realized that in his excitement, his voice was beginning to crackle with static. This is your first impression; get it together! “Ahem. Alastor. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you properly.”

“Properly? What does that mean?”

“Yeah,” Cherri agreed, jerking her chin at him defiantly. “What does that mean?”

Alastor raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m not sure you’re the one to be asking questions at the moment, dear. Unless you’re planning to provide some answers yourself.”

“What? What’re you talkin’ about?” Angel asked, steadily growing more agitated. “Look, can somebody tell me what the fuck is goin’ on here? Do you two know each other or somethin’?”

Again, Alastor looked to Cherri. “Would you like to explain, or should I?” Angel’s head whipped in her direction, and she tensed up where she sat. She hesitated, looking cornered and panicked, but seemed to realize quickly that it would be safer to confess of her own will than to be exposed by another.

With a sigh, her form shifted to something more recognizably demonic: a single large eye, a mouthful of sharp teeth, clawed fingers, and deathly pale skin. Angel simply stared and blinked at her. “So,” she started without looking at him, “I might be…kind of a…”

“A demon,” Alastor said clearly, and she snarled up at him. “Like me. Well, in some ways.”

“A demon,” Angel repeated after a few seconds. “Are you serious? Like, an actual biblical demon from Hell?”

“Exactly like that,” Alastor agreed, but Angel’s eyes stayed firmly fixed on his friend.

“So what?” he asked. “You were tryin’ to get me killed or somethin’? Taking me out and hopin’ I’d OD? What the fuck, Cherri? I thought we were friends.”

“We are! Babe, it ain’t like that,” she insisted, shifting back to her human form, moving closer and visibly deflating as he withdrew from her. “Come on, you know me. I’m your girl. Always have been. I’ve never let you get hurt before, have I?”

“Yeah, until tonight.”

A moment of silence passed between the two, and although Cherri’s distress didn’t mean much to him, Alastor could see how much pain their disagreement was causing Angel. He felt compelled to do whatever was possible to help that. “I may be an outsider to this situation, but from what I’ve seen, she hasn’t held any ill will toward you, Angel.” No, she hadn’t intentionally endangered him; she had simply failed to protect him.

“And how do you fit into this?” the boy demanded, looking up at him, now very much on the defensive. “You said you’re one too? How do you know my name?”

“That’s going to take some explanation. And I would prefer that you and I have that conversation alone, if it’s all right by you.”

“No fucking way,” Cherri growled, eager for conflict with a common enemy. “I’m not leavin’ him alone with you, ya son of a bitch.”

“That ain’t really your call to make,” Angel told her coolly.

“Angel, seriously. I know you’re pissed at me, but this is a big deal. This guy is dangerous.”

“What, because he’s a demon? Does that make him any more dangerous than you?”

“Yes! He’s—”

“Look,” Angel said, pinching the bridge of his nose, shutting his eyes tightly. “I’m havin’ a hard time handling all this at once. It’ll be easier if I can focus on one thing at a time. You… I need ya to give me some space, all right? Like, I love you, but you can’t blame me for bein’ a little freaked out. So let me deal with this right now, and you and me can catch up later. Okay?” He turned his eyes toward her again, and although she looked sort of lost, she agreed with a slow nod.

“Yeah. Okay,” she mumbled, getting to her feet. Despite the shine in her eyes, she still managed a vicious glare in Alastor’s direction. “If you hurt him, I’ll snap those fuckin’ horns off your head and cut your heart out with ‘em.”

Without even the will to snipe at her (though he was impressed with that creative threat), Alastor simply nodded toward the hotel’s front door so that she would see herself out as quickly as possible. And so she did, leaving him—finally—alone with the object of his affections. And Angel’s dark eyes fixed firmly on him.

“So?” the boy asked, sitting up properly, pulling his knees to his chest. “What’d you say your name was? Al-something?”

“Alastor.”

“Right. What’s a demon want from somebody like me? I figure I’m a shoo-in for Hell, but I didn’t think it’d happen this soon.”

“You’re surprisingly calm about all this,” Alastor noted.

“Yeah, well the way I see it, there’s like a fifty-fifty chance none of this is real and I’m just havin’ the freakiest trip of my life,” Angel reasoned, tilting his head to one side and looking Alastor over from head to toe in a way that felt like more than simple curiosity. With a mischievous smile, he added, “I’ve had worse hallucinations, though.”

“Ahem!” Alastor tried to force himself to stay calm, to not let the flirting get to him; after all, he knew that was the sort of thing Angel was prone to with any man he found attractive. But then, the idea that Angel was attracted to him… “I can say with some degree of certainty that this is real.”

“We’ll see in the morning, I guess. In the meantime, why’re you here? I mean, I was fucked up so it’s all kinda blurry, but I’m pretty sure you helped us out when those bastards started gettin’ handsy. What was that about?” His body gave another powerful shiver, and he curled in tighter on himself. Without thinking, Alastor swept his coat off and knelt to drape it over Angel’s shoulders. After all, it was late in the year, Autumn edging toward Winter, so he must be cold even without the drugs.

“I’ve been keeping an eye on you for some time now,” Alastor confessed, remaining knelt on the floor in his shirtsleeves.

“Huh. Stalked by a demon. That’s a new one,” Angel answered mildly, pulling the coat a little tighter around him. What about that image was so painfully endearing? “How come?”

A very simple question with a very complicated answer. Alastor was normally a master of improvisation, but with the stakes so high, he was having a harder time of it. He had hoped to ease into this information much more gradually, but desperate times and all that.

“Because I want…to help you,” he said carefully.

Angel snorted a laugh. “Sure.”

“I do. I’ve seen the way your family treats you”—at those words, Angel’s smile disappeared, and his eyes dropped toward the ground—“and it isn’t right.”

���So what? What do you care?”

Alastor let out a sigh and rested his chin in his hand. “You’ve said you aren’t religious, but you must know the reason Hell exists. Yes?”

“Uh, I guess.”

“Then you know it’s there to punish those who’ve sinned in life. Those who were immoral, who hurt others, that sort of thing.”

“What’s your point?” Angel asked with a frown.

“My point is that I spent enough time there to recognize a cruel and evil person when I see one. And you don’t fit that description,” the demon explained. “It bothers me to see anyone get more or less than they deserve. Call it a concern for balance. My point is that you deserve better and I can provide it.”

Angel observed him in silence for a moment. “How?”

“However you want.” This pitch had taken quite a turn from the one he’d hoped to give; it was beginning to sound like the sort of speech he gave before making a contract. That was not what he wanted to accomplish with Angel. At least…he didn’t think so.

But then, it would irrevocably bind them together and give him an excuse to stick around. It would also allow him to legitimately keep an eye on Angel and be sure no harm came to him. He would have a claim to stake if another man tried to pressure the boy into anything. In fact, all the many potential benefits were quickly filling his head and pushing out all the inevitable negative consequences. This entire situation is strange enough already. What’s one more complication?

“I can help you out of your father’s reach,” he went on, resolving to pursue this idea to completion. In for a penny, in for a pound. “I can take you somewhere safer, somewhere you’ll be respected. I—”

“Did you kiss me earlier?”

Alastor’s body went rigid, his voice choking off in a squeal of static. “Excuse me?”

“Earlier. When we first got in here.” The boy finally took a moment to look around the room and determine where they were. “I woke up for a second, and you were awful close.”

“You. Ahem. You weren’t breathing,” Alastor explained, every bit of his willpower going into keeping his voice even and his smile calm. “I…did what I could to help.”

“Huh. So you save me from getting drugged and probably raped. You save me from suffocating when I pass out.” He talked as if this was all perfectly normal for him, as if none of the night’s events fazed him at all. “I already owe you for that. And now you’re trying to do more for me? I have a hard time believing you’d do all that without expectin’ some kinda payback. So what’re you tryin’ to get outta this?”

Well. That was a very fair assessment of the situation, but it happened to be missing one crucial element. “You don’t owe me anything. I was able to help, so I did. As for what I want…” After a few seconds’ consideration, he got up and offered Angel his hand. “It’s getting late. Will you let me walk you home? We can talk on the way.”

Angel looked at his hand, then back up to meet his gaze, batting his eyelashes pitifully as he whined, “Mm, I don’t think I can walk. I’m still so weak and dizzy. Carry me?” Alastor froze, unsure of how to respond, until the boy’s expression broke into a playful grin, and he laughed, “Relax. I’m just messin’ with ya.” He took the offered hand to get to his feet—and promptly stumbled forward to collide with Alastor’s chest. Judging by the tension in his body and the irritated “shit!” that passed his lips, his teasing might have had some truth to it after all. Nevertheless, he forced himself to his own feet and started out of the hotel with his head high while Alastor tried to shake the feeling of how warm he was.

As they stepped outside, Alastor toned down his appearance just enough that he would be believably human to any passerby. Walking at Angel’s side, he surreptitiously checked now and then to see that the boy was steady and not in danger of falling. And, as promised, he explained in simplest terms what a contract would entail.

“It’s a soul thing, right?” Angel asked plainly, still holding Alastor’s coat close around him. “That’s what it always is. Shitty life, near-death experience, demon shows up and offers to help, but you gotta give him your soul once it’s over. The whole Faust story. ‘S been done a million times.”

Somehow, he hadn’t expected Angel to know Faust. But what he did expect was to be surprised, and as always, Angel delivered. “Yes, that is the typical arrangement. Service for a certain period—a set number of years or to the completion of a goal, most often—in exchange for ownership of one’s soul.”

“And you’re saying you could do something for me that would be worth that?”

“Well, that’s for you to decide. All I can say is that if you’re unhappy with your circumstances, I can provide better ones.”

Angel’s questions of “why me?” and “how long have you been watching?” were deflected with humor or ambiguity. Alastor hadn’t planned to start this conversation with Hello, I’m a demon, I’m in love with you, and if you can’t or won’t love me back, I’m going to die, and he certainly wasn’t going to get into all that on their first night of knowing each other.

Not once but twice, a passing man took an interest in Angel and catcalled him—only to be immediately chased away by the Radio Demon’s protective glare and menacing static. He wasn’t above hurting a mortal for the sake of his interests, and Angel’s interests ranked far higher than his own. After the second time, the boy smiled and hooked his arm through Alastor’s to walk a little closer at his side.

“You know, you’re one hell of an actor,” he noted. “If I didn’t know any better, I might think you actually cared about me.”

When they reached the Dellarosa home again and stood under the third-floor balcony, Angel started to climb up the ladder Cherri had left there—but considering how exhausted he was and how many mind-altering substances were still flowing through his veins, he fell almost immediately. Into Alastor’s waiting arms, of course.

“I could take you up, if you like,” the demon offered. Angel’s arms wrapped around his shoulders almost reflexively, and he snuggled closer without argument. Trying to focus on action rather than Angel’s nearness, Alastor stepped into the shadows and swept them up into his room to set the boy carefully on his bed.

“Thanks,” Angel muttered, folding his legs beneath him and running a hand through his hair. “For gettin’ me back home. For everything, I guess.”

“It was no trouble, especially if it meant your safety. Though under this roof, under your father’s control, I’m not sure how safe you can be.”

“Yeah,” Angel laughed dryly. “Yeah, that’s fair. Uh, about your offer—”

Alastor stopped him with a raised hand. “You’ve gone through a lot this evening, Angel; don’t concern yourself with that right now. You should concentrate on recovering.”

As he began to step back, Angel caught his hand, and he couldn’t bring himself to jerk away as he might have from anyone else. The boy pulled him close to the bed, and he allowed it, stopping at the edge while Angel’s fingers worked carefully through his. He hardly realized his eyes had fallen closed until Angel whispered, “Alastor. Look at me.”

So he did, unable to refuse a direct command and shocked by how much he enjoyed his name on the boy’s lips. Between the haze in his dark eyes, the part in his lips, and all the skin his outfit displayed, Angel was the very picture of temptation, entirely too gorgeous for his own good. Something about this moment, the two of them alone in his darkened bedroom, had become much intimate than expected. A sense of comfort, maybe, after the distress they’d endured earlier.

And Angel clearly felt it too. “Do you have to go?”

Alastor swallowed hard. What to do here? Judging by the way Angel leaned toward him and wet his lips, he could guess what the boy had in mind. While it was true he didn’t have much interest in sex as a general rule, what he did have was a powerful desire to be as close to Angel as possible: to please him and hear his voice pitch upward with longing, to taste his lips, to know he was satisfied…

The Radio Demon’s chest constricted painfully, forcing him out of his own amorous musings and back into the reality of the moment. “Yes,” he managed, tearing his eyes away from Angel’s. No matter how much he would’ve liked to, it would be wrong to accept any sort of advances under these circumstances. He’s not in his right mind. I would be taking advantage of him as surely as those brutes in the club. “And you really should get some rest.”

“But you can’t just leave,” Angel insisted, holding tight onto his sleeve, as if letting go would allow him to disappear. “What if I wanna see you again? What if I wanna talk? I don’t want this to just be a trip. I want you to be real.” There was a certain air of desperation in his voice that wrenched at Alastor’s heart.

“Then it’s a good thing that I am.” His free hand trailed lightly up Angel’s cheek, then combed through his hair. It was a valid point; Alastor himself hardly wanted this conversation to be their only one. “If you want to see me again…come back to the hotel we were in tonight. You remember where it was?”

“Yeah.” Angel sat up on his knees, his eyes clearing up enough to sparkle with excitement. “Even if I don’t, Cherri can remind me. And if I go, you’ll be there? You swear?” As if he could begin to argue.

“I’ll be there, cher,” Alastor assured him. “If you want me, that’s where I’ll be.” Angel nodded slowly, nuzzling his head into Alastor’s hand. After a moment more of insistent clinging, he eventually succumbed to his weariness, relaxing into the bed without ever letting go.

The Radio Demon could hardly believe how well this had gone. Perhaps not the way he’d expected, perhaps not the way he’d hoped, but judging by Angel’s reluctance to let him leave, it had gone well regardless. He very carefully extricated his hand from the boy’s grip before rushing out onto the balcony to lean over the railing and cough out another mouthful of petals. Were there more this time? It was hard to tell. But it seemed the sickness always got worse when he found himself dwelling on his desires without acting on them.

Realizing that he was without it, he considered trying to get his coat out from under Angel without waking him but thought better of it. Better for him to have some concrete evidence that this conversation had actually happened so he wouldn’t brush it all off as a hallucination.

It was all he could do to hope that even once Angel woke, even once his mind was no longer clouded and his judgment no longer skewed, he might still have some interest in getting to know a demon. If not, Alastor might very well have ruined the only chance he had of being cured.

[rachelisnotatwork]

Week 6: in which there’s a big rock, papier-mache apples, a giant fork and I probably get arsenic poisoning

Google is normally pretty good at guessing how long drives will take...apart from in rural Australia. I think it must base it’s data on the seemingly endless caravans and camper vans, because it assumes an average speed of 80kmph in the Northern Territories when the speed limit is 130 kmph on the highway and there isn’t much (apart from the occasional overtaking of a caravan or road train) to stop you driving that speed.

The result was that whilst we’d planned the entire day to drive down from Alice Springs to Kings Canyon, we were done by around about late lunchtime. We decided to go for a short easy walk down by Katherine Springs. It was into a valley so we were hopeful for shade as it was a “cool” 36c. Alas there was no shade apart from by the almost dried-up waterhole at the end of the walk, and there were enough of Australia’s fucking persistent flies to discourage that (seriously, I don’t know how they survive as you go somewhere with no signs of life, water or really anything you’d think a fly could live on but the second you get out of the car 500 turn up and try and fly up your nose). Thanks to the flies and the heat, we’d done the walk at a pretty decent clip so we still had plenty of time before sunset.

The main reason people go to Kings Canyon is to do the rim walk, which you have to start by 9am on most days because it is too hot in the afternoon for anyone to want to do CPR on your sunburnt corpse if you collapse from heatstroke. There is however a walk in the canyon, which we did although the end of it was shut due to a landslide. This landslide cemented the reasons I’d not be doing the walk the next morning- 1) I hate dawn 2) my knees hate steps and there are 1000 involved 3) I hate heights, especially when I think the cliff top I’m walking on has a chance of sliding in a landfall into a valley.

It was growing close to sunset at this point so we headed to our hotel at Kings Canyon Resort. This is the only hotel for about a hundred kilometres and they are very well aware of that fact, so they were both the most expensive hotel we’ve stayed in on this trip and the providers of the worst service. Think comically bad, including a buffet crawling with flies and most of the lights in our room being broken. Thankfully since Marcel had to get up at 5am to start the walk at the recommended sunrise, we could go to bed early.

The plan before we’d visited the resort was that Marcel would return at about 10am and then we’d have a nice brunch/early lunch. However the walk time (4 hours) was presumably for overweight elderly tourists because he was back home by 7.30am. Which I was thrilled about as I had pretty much no desire to stay any longer at the resort. We went for the free breakfast (fly-ridden again) and then tried to plan what to do with our day. Because we’d thought we wouldn’t have left until later in the day, we had just planned on driving to our next lodging (a road house in the middle of nowhere) before visiting Uluru the day after. However we didn’t really want to arrive at our road house in the middle of nowhere at 11am, so we decided we’d move our timetable forward a day and visit Uluru that day.

We arrived in time to have some (thankfully fly-free, palatable) lunch before heading to the national park. There are two attractions in the National Park, Uluru and the Kata Tjuta, which is a collection of rocks similar to Uluru but very close to each other. We decided to go there first.

When you drive into the park, you are given a leaflet warning you about the heat and also about hyponatraemia from over-drinking water. I’m not surprised that they had to warn people about hyponatraemia as everywhere inside the park it says to drink at least 1 litre of water an hour. Assuming you are out there for the daylight hours, that would be 13 litres of water a day. Not a sensible amount to drink.

There is one bigger long walk at Kata Tjuta, which was closed because it was too hot, and one shorter one that was open and described itself as going into a lush valley. I assumed this would mean shaded. I assumed wrong. It was in full 37C sun all the way.

Afterwards we headed over to Uluru. I have always thought “but isn’t it just a really big rock?” The answer is, yes, yes it is. It is really very big, but...I guess I’m a bit spoilt from travelling because Utah is very full of big red rocks, which might not be quite as big but they form lots of nice things to see that are much more accessible and most of the time it isn’t hotter than the surface of the Sun there. It’s quite a nice rock, but it costs a small fortune to get there and we’d pretty much driven for days to get there.

We did a few short walks around it’s base and went to the sunset viewing area to see the sun go down. It looked just like it does in the photos. Which means you can go now to google images and avoid the whole hassle.

We had dinner in the town by Uluru as we were about a three hour drive from our roadhouse and that would have stopped serving food long before we got there (we tried to book accommodation 6 weeks in advance in the town with Uluru in but by the time we tried everything was booked out). We then headed out onto the completely empty roads (it is really in the middle of nowhere so there is no through traffic). The drive back was mildly hair-raising as we shared the road with a LOT of wildlife. A dingo, a herd of horses that emerged from the darkness, several herds of cows that we had to slam on our brakes for and a pair of kangaroos. Arrived at our road house at near midnight feeling very lucky that we hadn’t crashed into any large animals as amongst everything else, there is no reception on roads like that and it would have been about 150km to the nearest emergency phone.

Our roadhouse accommodation had just left an envelope with our room keys in stuck to the door. There was a little bit of information about the property including the line “Our water is from a bore hole”. Okay I thought, lots of people’s are, doesn’t seem to taste any worse than any of the other water around here (water tastes terrible in most of Australia, I assume because they are so short of it that it is either desalinated or from some underground reservoir). It was only the next morning when we went into their cafe that we saw the notices above the taps about how you couldn’t drink the water or even boil it for tea. So when I die of arsenic poisoning, we will know why.

There wasn’t much to do at the roadhouse beyond pose at the sign marking the centre of Australia and see their “famous” chicken, Chuck Norris, who apparently thinks he is a kangaroo. He just looked and acted like a regular chicken but I guess there isn’t much in the way of entertainment or fame in those parts.

We had been supposed to have two nights at this road house, but instead we drove onto our next destination, Coober Pedy, a day early.

Coober Pedy is a very strange town. Opals were found in that area and the town sprang up around the mining community. The surrounding area could best be described as a boiling wasteland, so everyone lived in mine tunnels and so about half the town is underground. Driving up to our hotel, it just looked like a hillock. A hillock with a door in the side. We headed in and were shown to a rather cosy, albeit dark room, carved out of the rock with a slight whistling from air coming down the ventilation pipe.

The next day we decided to explore the sights of the town. The first stop was the Serbian Orthodox Church. This was carved by very devoted miner on his day’s off. The place was empty except for one elderly man, very determined to insert the vacuum cleaner he was wielding in front of my camera every time I tried to take a picture.

After that we headed to The Big Miner (a large miner) and a dumped spaceship prop from a movie.

Then we headed to go on a self-guided tour of an old mine. They made you wear helmets. I snorted slightly at this as I thought it was health and safety gone overboard. However the tunnels were about 5ft tall and I hit my head about 500 times in 20 minutes. Part of that was due to being repeatedly startled by creepy mannequins. 

Attached to the mine was a museum, which was mostly full of random rocks but it did have some clippings from some great 1920s and 1930s newspapers that they’d found left down the mine. 

It also featured a poster on the snakes of Australia, including this one that really doesn’t cope well with rejection.

After relaxing in our room for a bit, we headed out to an area called The Breakaways for sunset. These are some hills in the middle of an area called the Moon Plain, which is miles and miles of nothingness which is apparently of a very similar composition to Mars.

The Breakaways were still boiling despite it nearly being sunset and despite there being no tourists, or really any signs of life, as soon as we got out the car we found….lots of flies willing to try and fly into our eyeballs. Thankfully once you climbed any of the hills it got really windy, which confounded them for a few brief minutes. 

We couldn’t stay there until actual sunset as there are pretty much only two restaurants in town and one of them seemed by its menu to be committed to casual racism so we had to make it back before the other place, a pizza joint, shut.

The next day we left Coober Pedy and drove down to Adelaide. This was our longest drive of the trip- 9 hours, because there was pretty much nothing worth stopping at. It was also the biggest contrast. We went from 37c desert to huge fields of hay being harvested and by the time we arrived in Adelaide it was only 10c! I had to dust out my thermals from where they’d been hanging out in the bottom of my suitcase. We’d had quite enough of the car by that stage so walked to a surprisingly good neighbourhood Japanese restaurant (Yakitori Takumi, if you ever find yourself in North Adelaide) and then on our way back home, not only did we find a giant fork to pose with, we also found a late night chocolate dessert bar!

Adelaide is a very green city, so we decided to make it an outdoorsy sort of day. We had brunch (oh the joys of being back in a big city) and then walked to the Botanical Garden. There was a huge queue there to see a corpse flower that was flowering, which we decided to skip (despite the inbuilt British love of queueing) but we did head into the Museum of Economic Botany, mostly because we were curious what that meant. It turned out to be “plants that you can in someway exploit”. Anyway, it was pretty interesting and contained a huge collection of incredibly realistic papier-mache apples. I don’t quite remember how that fit in with the theme, but they were impressive.

Afterwards we decided we’d see if we could circumnavigate the centre by walking through all of the cities network of parks. It was a lovely sunny day and the parks there are beautiful...and also riddled with weddings and wedding parties getting photographed on a hot spring day. At one point we wandered into a Japanese garden to find a queue of bridal parties waiting to pose for photos.

We got pretty tired and stopped for ice cream at a place called 48 flavours (does just what is says on the tin) and I was intrigued enough to get a pear, walnut, fig and roquefort ice cream. Marcel was horrified. I rather enjoyed it though and it gave me enough energy to stagger home. Probably would not have worn my flip flops that morning if I’d known we were going to walk 16kms…

Sunday it was time to say goodbye to Adelaide (after brunch of course) and drive down to our next stop, Warrnambool. We’d thought we’d get there a while before dark because google had always predicted our journeys to take much longer than we actually took. We had however forgotten about the existence of other cars. We were now in the part of Australia with other cars, settlements to pass through with low speed limits etc. It was…annoying. I did find a giant rhino to pose with though.

We had wanted to walk at a small park where an extinct volcano had left a lake, because it was apparently one of the spots where you could see emus, kangaroos and koalas in one place. I’d seen a koala earlier in the day, ambling along the side of the road, whilst driving, however Marcel had been busy pouring over the map at the time and missed it. He was thus desperate to see one. We arrived shortly before sundown. It was cold. 12c. There was no one else in the park (win) and right in front of the (unmanned) visitors centre there were emus and kangaroos grazing. However walking around the lake we saw approximately 0 koalas. 

Plus on the way back to the car park our route was blocked by a very large male kangaroo. The problem with male kangaroos is that when they challenge each other to a fight, they stand up straight, so our bipedalism is taken as an invitation to a boxing match. We had to take a huge detour to our car as we had little interest in being disembowelled by an angry kangaroo.

By the time we arrived in Warrnambool it was 8c and I was suffering from temperature shock from having gone from nearly 40c to misty breath and cold toes in a week. Luckily our airbnb had a huge bath so after grabbing some Thai take out, I spend the evening wallowing in that, topping up the hot water and wondering how we could be in the same country we’ve been sweating in for the last 6 weeks.

Ways I’ve thought I might die in Australia this week: the standard heatstroke, hyponatraemia, some sort of epic GI disease secondary to a buffet of flies, death by crashing into a cow in the dark, poisoned by borehole water, from the collapse of an ancient opal mine, beaten by angry brides for ruining the background of their photoshoot, disembowelled by an angry kangaroo, hypothermia.