#this has made me hungry i might literally fuck around and get a burger after my play is over

[yay-depression]

Burger

borgor

[rhaenyraisadyke]

Healthy Competition Transcript: 7/25/21

It's the entire thing so I hope this helps!

W: Hey.. Phil

P: Oh.. Hey

W: Hey, hey Phil how’s it going? How's It going man?

P: Oh, it's going, it's going alright.

W:I just thought I'd visit, Phil. I just thought you knew I would come and visit you. I haven’t seen you in awhile.

W: Phil I must confess I have come to you with a bit of a proposition. You into propositions Phil? Are you a proposition kind of guy?

P: Oh it depends depends, oh you, you’ve had some pretty lets just say not a great track record of propositions you’ve had in the past

W: I mean I’m trying to move past that. Listen Phil, I met Quackity after you kindly lent me your house, I went and met him, I met up with him, and I hadn't seen him in ages and it was nice, it felt good. He didn't seem afraid of me. Which is cool, not many people do. Phil, you don’t seem afraid of me?

P: No. No not at all

W: Good. Good because I’m not afraid of you. Uh.. Listen I met quackity and I hung out with him and I came to one conclusion about him and MY GOD the pricks resourceful aint he.

P: Yes.. he’s very.. he's one of the richest on the server at the minute. He's one of the richest people

W: What happened? What? You, you are telling me Quackity, the guy who made SWAG party, would be the richest man, geez I wouldn’t have believed you for a second but here we are.

But look, Phil, I am a bit of a propagator of the idea that capitalism shouldn’t be unchecked. You know the free market, maybe isn’t ever really that free you know. I am a bit into my interjection, you know the government interjection but there’s isn't a government anymore phi its anarchy it's pretty much what ah I see his name I see his name. (Ran boo)

P: Ha, Ha you see it

W: As much as I disagree with your opinions on anarchy. It's pretty harmless. I can’t hate you for it. I can’t hate you for literally living in a peaceful little village in the snow, I mean the server, it's never been this peaceful since the countries and nations and cities… So Phil I came to you with one question. Do you think quackity should be allowed to be left unchecked?

P: Uh no.

W: Do you think he should be allowed to grow? Oh you answered already. I agree with you Phil, I also don’t think quackity should be allowed to be left unchecked.

But you know what the problem is, there’s no Interpol, there’s no government, there’s no police force.. Technoblade spent this entire time taking down the establishment and what he's left with as predicted a POWER VACUUM for a new establishment to come in and this establishment is ahh ahh pretty unethical Phil its gambling, you a fan of gambling

P: Oh gods

W: This servers like 50% children Phil..

P: oh gods that's terrible.. yeah no that's awful.

W: ahh haha don’t sound too..

P: Gambling ruins peoples lives dude.

W: TRUE TRUE! And you know what He's getting away with , Phil. I have a proposition for you, I am glad you’re on my side and glad you agree with this Phil. I want to make a burger van.

P: Oh….

W I know when you heard of the burger van, you walked away. I get it. It's a bit of deja vu, but the difference is the burger van isnt gonna sell drugs. We are against toxic money making schemes now. We GENUINELY, genuinely selling burgers, I want to make burgers, I want to make every stake so it has a name. And. And uh (Wilbur re reads the book “Project Nevadas” Quackity left for him)

P: It definitely sounds better than the drug van,

W: yeah yeah yeah that's what I’m going to do Phil, but you see you need to understand I need someone to help me, because I’m not doing this for any reason outside of “I have an aspiration.. a goal in life to be a culinary expert” I want to be chef now Phil. I’m done now with being a President, being a government, being an authority, I want to be a burger man. I wanna sell burgers. That's my calling. That's been my calling all along. There's no ulterior motive behind this plan. I’ve got the real-estate, I’ve got the know-how and I’ve got the chutzpah (it's a yiddish word for guts basically woooo). Phil are you in?

P:I mean, ahh. You know I don’t know much about making burgers and burger vans, but I want to know who does?

W: Who?

P: Ranboo. He could help out.

W: what the fuck does he know about burgers?

P: he's literally the richest most knowledgeable person on the server besides me -

W: Phil you called - that's literally the second person you called the richest on the server. How does being rich climate him know about burgers?

P: Well you said you needed bread, you said you needed resources.. he has everything you could need.

W: What do you mean?

P: And also, he kinda knows… Right i'll be honest i'll be honest will, he's a little bit lonely, um there’s not much going on out here we are in a wilderness, a snowy blizzard wilderness right? Nothing goes on, nothing really happens here.

W: ha haha, sorry sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh at him being lonely. That shouldn’t of tickled me.

P: He needs something to keep him busy, to keep him occupied. He's done everything on the server, he's literally done everything. Give him, give him something else to do. Have fun.

W: I don’t want to. I genuinely don't want to. He's weird Phil. he's the weird neighbor kid.

P: oh STOP no stop!

W: Look at him he's that weird neighbor kid who's got something going on, you know maybe in the basement or something there’s something going on right.

P: he's harmless he's harmless

W: he's harmless now, give him a burger van and he might spatula me. Phil looks at me. Can you imagine a spatula through my skull? Huh?

P: That's not gonna happen. He’s very nice. Go make friends. Alright

W: All I need is a fire aspect sword, a bunch of cows, an anvil and some levels and we can do this Phil.

P: And he (ranboo) can give you all of those.

W: Oh my gosh stop making me play with the neighbor kids.

P: Alright stop I’m putting my foot down. If you don’t go play with them right now, I’m kicking you out of the house.

W: What the fuck?! What do you mean? Kicking? You can’t just kick- ohhhhh

P: I can and will.

W: Phil I’m ah…

P: Be nice. Go say hi, he's great. He's a great guy

W: Look Phil I trust you, I'll trust you this much, and I'll trust you that he's fine and he can help me, BUT if he's shit, you gotta come help. You gotta be burger boy with me.

P: I’ll be around, I'll be around, he's fine, you'll be fine, you guys will get along so well.

W: Thanks Phil…

P: You got this Wil, bye mate.

W: I don’t really want… What is this, why is he treating me like a kid? Like a little baby? Oh shit he's got cows…. Ah aH oh god I wasn’t built for this (gets attacked by a spider which he then crits the spider) There we go.. My man got cows. This bread as well?? No,it's not that he can farm apparently. Wait, that is bread. Wait… was that fire aspect? Is this a set up? I guess I'll befriend him… Knock knock - oh

R: woah oh

W: Hi Ranboo

R: Woah hello

W: You remember me?

R: Yeah I remember you. How are you? Its been awhile

W: It's been a little while, I mean we only met once, I mean I was just coming through visiting me pa, in his little cottage in the snow, very cute in the snow isn't it?

R: Yeah it is very nice

W: I just happened to notice you have a lot of cows.

R: Yeah! yeah I have a nice little cow farm, it's been pretty good for food recently so its been kind of yeah.

W: Can you hit one of them with your sword again please?

R: You want me to kill one?

W: Yeah quickly

R: yeah okay

W: Ranboo, I have a proposition for you

R: Yeah what’s that?

W: I know we have not got off on the best of terms but I'd like to think bygones be bygones let's bury the hatchet, let's be..

R: Yeah

W: Ranboo I’m gonna go out on a limb here, do you want to be friends?

R: S- Sure. I don’t see why not. You seem alright.

W: Cool cool. Thank you, thank you, you seem alright too. Can I come inside?

R: Oh yeah sure sure

W: I have a proposition for you.

R: Do you like my live laugh love sign?

W: Why is life capitalized?

R: it's the most important one

W: Ha, living is the most important one, living Is above laughing and loving?

R: Yeah it's priority number one honestly I just look at it when I wanna know what to do.

W: ha, okay, look look my proposition to you, um (looking at the ranboo rug)

R: Yeah its um it's my nice little rug here

W: We, we will talk in the hallway, my promotion to you ranboo was, as I have a dream of being a culinary chef.

R: Oh really! Thats nice

W: I’ve been doing a lot of things on this server. You know? President, terrorist, dead.

R: yeah that's one of them

W: I feel like the next progression is chef. Every, you know the saying….

R: okay…

W: All musicians wanna be comedians, and all dead terrorist presidents wanna be chefs. So I decided I wanna be a chef.

R: Okay! Okay.

W: I want to be a chef for no other reason than I like cooking okay?

R: Cool!

W: All I need though, is I don’t have much to my name. I have a lot of stones, I have some TnT, I have some stone tools, and a rabbit's foot.

R: Oh okay.

W: But I don’t have the cows, I don’t have the fire aspect sword, and I thought if you wanted to we could um you could we could be business partners. I’ve got the real-estate. I’ve got a great location. It’s gonna be bustling, with people eventually, there’s gonna be people coming and going, hungry too! They’re gonna be coming and going, in and out and in and out and we’ll be here

R: Yeah…

W: And get the money! We will get the money Ranboo.

R: I mean yeah sure I’ve been needing something to do, I’m down for that. That would be cool.

W: Cool, cool come with me. I gotta show you the real-estate.

R: I’m actually really glad

W: I see this as the blooming of a brilliant business relationship or a business partnership. Have you heard of Las Nevadas?

R: ohhh… yeah, yeah I remember I had an old, old cookie stand there awhile back that we just decided to abandon because it was just.. it was more just trouble.

W: A cookie stand?

R: It was more trouble than it was honestly worth.

W: Wait, you tried? You had a cookie stand?

R: I mean yeah….

W: Outside of Las Nevadas? So you did the cooking?

R: Yeah it was a little, yeah

W: Outside of Las Nevadas?

R: Yeah but then, but then, he the guy Quackity, he got all up in arms about it and everything because we decided to expand a little bit and then we just decided it was, it was too much troubles so then we kinda just, we kinda just left it so

W: So he didn't like it? He didn't like your selling of a cookie stand?

R: Yeah he didn't like it all too much. I don’t, I don’t know what it was but like it was just eh it was just more dumb conflict but eh ti was whwatever.

W: Well that's fine, that's fine because we’re Ranboo we’re not gonna annoy quackity… we can’t annoy him because we are simply put, gonna be making, I got the real-estate and he gave me the area and we are going to be making a competing business.

R: okay…

W: Because competition makes business flourish, the consumer.. Do you like the consumer? You’re a bit- a big fan of the consumer ranboo?

R: Yeah yeah, I consume things from time to time

W: Look Ranboo the consumer, the consumer is the one who does well when there is um conflict and competition right?

R: Yeah that makes sense

W: So what I want to do is make competition right? So I want to make competition so when Las Nevadas fully opens up and you can go gambling and stuff I want to make it so that people have options so people don't just have to eat at las Nevadas grills and such. So if they want they can come to our grill,

R: Yeah that's good

W: and the difference is that is that we will make our grill better than theirs and we will make lots of money and then quackity will be able to you know maybe have to make a deal with us and to maybe be our friend and and

R: But we are gonna do this respectfully right? We are gonna do something smaller and everything right?

W: Yeah I have the land and we can make it small and honestly there’s no reason for us to go further out then we need to because you know we got the location. So have you ever been in Las Nevadas or gambling Ranboo?

R: Well no, no one has actually been there when I’ve been there.

W: It’s very fun, gambling is very fun.

R: Ah

W: Gambling is what I would argue like the only reason to go to this Las Nevadas place, I mean there’s nothing else to do there

R: Okay…

W: Its like its ll that happens you know

R: Yeah just gambling

W: There's a strip club there Ranboo

R: OH yeah! For logs

W: You- you into strippers?

R: Um I mean all it just does is make the wood look different so it doesn’t really do much

W: It does make the wood look different. You’re right, you’re right Ranboo. Would you say you like Quackity? Sorry I’m really bombing you with questions right now - eh I just wanna, I want to pick your brain. I wanna know how Ranboo works.

R: Hmm no its okay its okay. I’m completely okay with it, yeah. Um I think that I, hes, I mean the thing is I just haven't seen him in so like long you know the last interaction with him I had was before the stuff that happened with everything else it's just kind of been I don't know, we were part of the same cabinet with New Lmanburg or whatever it was.

W: Cabniet…

R: Yeah Canbiet it was like…

W: A canbiet? Was this with Tubbo…?

R: Yeah yeah he had like me, Fundy, I was the minutes man and I wrote stuff down well they never checked my notes so I don’t know how useful my job was honestly. I don't know if they actually needed me but I was there.

W: Yeah yeah I know that. I know that feeling.

R: Yeah

W: So you were part of the old Lmaburg government? I didn’t know that actually.

R: Yeah, yeah

W: I thought you were a bit of an independent. I thought you were you know… so you would say you are friends with Quackity?

R: I mean yeah.. I mean I’m not really TOO much against him, but I mean yeah

W: Do you dislike anyone Ranboo?

R: Not.. too much I dont think. I mean there are other people I don't agree with of course but I think everyones just a product of what they have gone through and everything so if you understand that then you understand that, then you understand the person.

W: But don’t you think there’s sometimes allying yourself with everyone you know, it can actually make your life more complicated, more complex, more difficult…. more…

R: Yeah….. which is why I’ve kinda just went to live with Techno and Phil kind of away from everything. And try not to involve myself in that much. But then I just have a terrible radar of what is involving myself and what isn't so.

W: Right..

R: It's difficult sometimes.

W: It sounds like you set yourself up for a bit of a stressful, stressful life… So you don’t dislike anyone?

R: Yeah…

W: What about Dream?

R: Ummm yeah Well that's that. With Dream it's kind of like, all I’ve, all I’ve heard about Dream, all I’ve seen about Dream is just been the really bad things that he's done and everything so I would say I- I yeah I don’t really like Dream, but I mean he's also not really someone that it matters whether or not I like him because he's away in that prison for a very long time, so I mean, yeah.

W: With no trail.

R: Well I mean.. he… its

W: This is our competition Ranboo!

R: Oh!

W: Here's the competition

R: Okay. No ones really been here I dont think…

W: Can you even buy anything?

R: I don’t think they have half, half doors… they have

W: Smokers, Furnaces, they don't, it's just nothing

R: Huh.

W: It doesn't benefit the consumer Ranboo does it? Imagine you come here gambling.. First off the fucking door is shut

R: Mhm

W: Wait there’s a hole…

R: ohh… uh? that's interesting. I haven't been here in awhile, I just haven't been outside in awhile honestly.

W: Are we allowed… in?

R: I dont… I dont know.

W: It looks like crap Ranboo. Don't bother, it looks awful.

R: Oh, oh okay. Okay.

W: The point is this does not benefit the consumer right? This building does not benefit the consumer, it's just made to look pretty and make the consumer feel like.. lee do a test. I can promise you me ol, or should I say new pal, that this sign, I guarantee will not go. That will be here forever and that will never leave. (Signs that say “closed forever” “Quackity burger place is crap” “Go behind this building to better burgers'')

R: It's.. I don't know if abandoned is the right word, I don't know what you call it.

W: There we go, I guarantee these signs will stay there because they don’t care about the customer. They only care about looking cool and ooh ooh we got a restaurant, no they dont.

R: Yeah no one is really keeping it up.

W: Let me show you the real-estate. This is the best part, so come with me. Bah bum ba bum bum bum bum ba Oh ranboo, do you see the cock ranboo?

R: Oh that's what that is? I thought it was a clock actually

W: See that cock?

R: Yeah I see it.

W: That's our border. Well, technically, this wood is our border. This area.

R: Okay.

W: This area is ours. I’ve been trying to think of a name for it.

R: Hmm

W: I’m thinking about Paradise.

R: Paradice…

W: How’d you think about Paradise Ranboo?

R: Well I mean it could be good word play with the whole gambling thing.. pair of dice.

W: That is good.. you, you really are a smart cookie, a smart kind of guy.

R: Thank you!

W: Well, this is where I’ve been sort of working. So this is sort of where Tommy and I have been working. Tommy sadly couldn’t be here to help me, and um let me show you where I think we should make the burger van.

R: okay

W: Well I think it should be, it's to be close to the border so that people can access it and then get straight back to gambling. The customer, the customer, is happy, the customer gets their burgers and then goes straight back to gambling. How about we build it here, right here.

R: Right here? Okay that works. So what do you have in mind, you seem to have a vision.

W: 1950s… burger, retro. Red and white stripes.

R: Red and White okay, I have Blue?

W:Blue…

R: I have blue.

W: I’m not a big fan of Blue.

R: oh okay well I don’t really know where to get a lot of red.

W: Flowers… I can get you red. Ranboo you seem to be proficient, you can start building the van I’ll be back.

R: Alright..

W: Also, also give me your fire aspect, I’ll get the beef and then we can begin and we can get the bread.

R: okay uh here

W: Ran-orad, Ranaord? Ranord.

R: I name all my things with different puns. It's just Ran and sword

W: That's good, that's a good one, new friend, I like it. This isn't drawing any parallels to your cookie shop right? This is a completely different feeling?

R: yeah no the cookie shop I’m pretty sure, I don't even know if it was a cookie shop to begin with… because it was a little fortified if i'm entirely honest…

W: Fortified?

R: yeah did you not see like oh! That giant stone structure as you came in here and walked around

W: oH wait, that's a cookie shop?

R: Yeah

W: I thought it was like a, I thought it was like a palisade

R: no I mean tubbo told me it was for cookies but I’m thinking about it now..

W: oh tubbo.. tubbo.

R: I don’t think it was

W: See I like tubbo man, he's strong headed and he doesn't let people push him around.

R: Yeah yeah

W: Did you learn a lot? Did you learn a lot from him?

R: Maybe yeah, I also just, if people aren't willing to change their views or anything I find it unnecessary to mindlessly argue so.

W: So Ranboo you say this yet you show up in all the conflict. I’m not I’m not coming at you like judging you, I'm not one to talk about conflict.

R: Mhm mhm

W: But when I think of Ranboo I don't think of what a calm guy who’s neutral and stays out of everything, I don't think of Switzerland when I think of you ranboo, I think I think you're a bit more dynamic than that, why do you claim that you’re so peaceful and neutral and yet you appear in almost every conflict the server has had since I died.

R: I mean ah, that's because I’m bad at avoiding the thing that I don't like, which is, I don’t know it's it's weird. It's a weird situation that it's mostly my fault but I’ve been doing alright with it recently. I haven't been doing too much to anger people I don't think but I think it's just because I really want to help sometimes and sometimes I let my desire to help people get in the way of what I have previously said or previously claimed about myself.

W: Ranboo? Why did you come to help me?

R: Well because I think, well I need one I kind of need something to do and this is pretty fun, I like building little things and everything although they may not look too good and also I just think you can I think you are an alright person you know? So I kind of wanted to get off on a better foot from what happened before.

W: Why?

R: Just because I don't really like having the thought that people don't really like me.

W: No no not the bit about the right foot, why don’t you think I’m a bad person?

R: Well I mean I think you did bad things but you also went through things that made you that way and then I also think that you’re changed now. I mean if you ask me to talk to the older Wilbur before you died, for a little bit then yeah I would think you’re kind of not a good person.

But I think now you’ve apparently been away long enough, that I think if anyone goes away long enough for that long of a time that eventually they’ll have a thought of their morality, and everything and become a better person because of it. So, I'm hopeful. I’m hopeful. I like having a good amount of optimism.

W: Cool.. ah cool that's nice, thank you.

R: Yeah!

W: Uh, I think I needed to hear that, I’ve um, can I be real with you? Sorry Ranboo, you really got me. Fucking hell can I be real with you man?

R: Yeah sure.

W: I think I scare people.

R: I mean, yeah I do the same thing

W: No no, I mean I don't think I, I think a lot of people share your idea in trying to try… to keep me from hurting you know? They have seen what I can do and they don’t want me to do it again, so they adopt your emotion in order to do it.

Do you know I demolished his house and brutally ignored him? He fought for my country! And I ignored him. I didn't look at him. I didn't give him so much a medal, I didn't give him so much a rank, I gave him the lowest rank in the cabinet, and do you know what it took? Do you know what it took for him to forgive me? A “sorry” And I’ve, I’ve spoken to Tommy about Jack Manifold, and Jack Manifold is NOT the sort of person to forgive with a sorry.

Can you imagine if Dream said sorry to Jack Manifold? What has Dream done to Jack Manifold huh? Barely anything. I imagine if Dream said sorry to Jack Manifold, Jack Manifold would ignore him. Do you wanna know why? It’s because Dream is in prison, and I’m not. Dream! He's had his comeuppance and I’ve not! My comeuppance was apparently not good enough for these people, they are just waiting for the next thing, the next slip up and Ranboo I’m not gonna fucking slip up Ranboo. I’m different.

I’m not Dream, god I wish I was. Sometimes I wish I was. I wish I had that comeuppance. But Ranboo I’m not Dream and I’m not gonna be Dream and that's ahhh. I am living in eternal limbo again. I’ve been through limbo. I'm out of limbo and socially I’m still in limbo and man hearing you say those words that you said to me, do you remember what you said?

R: Yeah… I do?

W: You said “I think people can change” that's number one

R: Mhm

W: And number two you’re “scared if people don’t like you”

R: Yeah

W: I’ve been investing, I’ve been investing into the wrong areas Ranboo. I’ve been investing in the wrong people. Were kindred man, we get each other

R: Yeah, Yeah I’d say so.

W: We have SO much difference, but you know what the one thing we got incommon? Our strongest point? And you mustn't take offense to this, okay?

R:Okay..?

W: Neuroticism. Me and you are just as neurotic as each other. Just as nervous but the thing is it’s not our downfall you know? Anxiety isn't necessarily an evil trait to have. Anxiety is what kept our ancestors alive Ranboo.

R: Yeah

W: You? Me? Your Parents, whoever they may be, my parents, do you know how they’re alive? Because they were anxious. They didn't let another thing kill them, they didn't let another thing take them down. Our ancestors, the cavemen in the woods or the cave enderman, were anxious when they heard the lion roar; they were anxious when the wolf howled. And you know what they did? They went inside and they hid and that's what they did and that's why we are here today. Ranboo me and you are neurotic, and that's why we are alive..right now talking to each other and doing this.

R: Okay…… I really, I really do hope that's um a good thing.

W: Sorry, ha, that's uh that might have come across- I’m really sorry I meant um, I’ll go get you some more red.

R: No no I understand what you mean I think, we both are kind of thinkers I think well yeah, we tend to think about a lot of things. Think about a lot of situations and how people are affected by said situations. How we can make things better and although we may think in different ways the fact we both, I think we both think at the same level just in different ways sometimes.

W: I think you might be a bit braver than me and showing your true colors. I feel like, I feel like with you Ranboo I never have to guess your next move. I never have to guess your hand, you know?

R: Yeah

W: I feel like, I feel like life dealt us the same cards and the difference is you, you build your trust by showing people your cards whilst, I keep them close to my chest and I feel like that may be the difference. But I’m gonna stop psychoanalysing you so

R: heh

W: And let's… let's, Ranboo how’d you feel about thievery?

R: Oh uh ooh, what types? What do you-

W: I’m going to steal Las Nevadas cows to cook our burgers.

R: Oh oh okay?

W: And I’m not going to re-breed them. I am going to simply kill them.

R: Alright I mean, so you are? Are you gonna steal all of them? Or just

W: Nahh just enough so it's annoying ya know?

R: Okay um

W: Unless, how about this if this makes you feel a bit less uncomfortable about it how about if I steal all the cows unless they have a sign on them that says “these cows are property of las Nevadas” then I’ll leave them alone so unless they have an expressed sign that says “do not steal please” I’ll leave them alone. But if not… it seems like a good idea

R: Okay yeah

W: You’re really good a building vans

R: Oh thank you

W: I’m pretty good at building vans too.

R: Okay.

W: Okay I’ve got the steak.

R: Oh, nice

W: Pretty good, is that enough red for you?

R: I just need something to put the red on

W: Oh cool yeah, I can go find you some wool.

R: There could be some chests around. You know I found a full netherite block in one the other day?

W: Wait what?

R: There was just another netherite block in one of the chests, it was very interesting.

W: I’ve just restocked for us.

R: Ohh, nice I’ll put some of our building materials here. Oh wow, wait did you get, did you get all of them?

W: Yeah heh, pretty good yeah?

R: Oh geez.

….. [Talk about Minecraft mechanics]

W: So this is your cookie factory, your cookie shop, your giant fortress

R: Yeah you realize a lot now that it’s a giant fortress. Sometimes, sometimes I don’t realize things until they’re an afterthought.

W: How is Tubbo?

R: He's um, alright. I think he's doing pretty well.

W: What is he up to right now?

R: He's um he's just building around Snowchester you know? Not really doing-

W: Snowchester?

R: Oh you- don't know about snowchester? It’s basically just like this little- it used to have some people but then everyone just kind of went off on their own ways. It’s just like this little arctic area, a village he created.

W: A town?

R: Yeah basically!

W: So, Las Nevadas, Snowchester, - I thought Techno and Phil told me they were successful? Well just Phil I haven't spoken to Techno since, since, it happened.

R: Mhm Well it

W: Phil told me they were successful and there's no more nations and that there’s anarchy here.

R: Well it's not a nation it's literally just- it's literally just him.

W: What about this Kinoko Kingdom I keep reading about?

R: I have no idea. All they put down there was just signs and I havent heard anything about that honestly.

W: So there’s, there’s a lot going on Ranboo. What part do you play? Go on, You can't be THAT neutral, if you’re not a part of Kinoko Kingdom, then you must be a part of something.

R: I mean I guess you could say I’m a part of.. Snowchester a little bit? I think I’m mainly just um with Phil and Techno I’m pretty sure. It’s mainly, it's mainly just them and everything. Because that's pretty much where I’ve been living for awhile and all so.

W: And now the Paradise Burger Van.

R: And now the Burger Van I guess yeah.

W: Good, good! I’m coming back. Do you need more red or?

R: No, we got enough.

W: Then the final step is to name the burger and name the beef!

R: Name, name the beef?

W: Oh so another thing I wanted to do is to legitimize our burgers so it's not just stake right is to make a uh name for all our stakes so when they've had it you know our stake shop that they know this is our stake shop, and only the high grade beef. So we are all gonna name the burgers with an anvil and I wanted, I wanted to give them like versions and wanted to use an alt code so that no one could copy it. So it's like “hey you’ve got a volume one steak, burger steak” so people would come and it's sort of an NFT value to it. A bit of a you know, once you’ve had volume one of burgers then that's gone forever like versions, is this making sense? Are you following?

R: Yeah this is making sense, I’m following I think

W: Cool cool

R: Yeah

W: What do you think of calling the burger shop?

R: Hmm

W: I’m thinking of either Paradise or Wilburger?

R: Well Wilburger is funny

W: Wilburger is funny but it doesn't take into account the work you put in.

R: Hmm maybe paradise burgers might be good

W: What about Wilbooger?

R: Will- Wait a minute but then that means we have booger in it, and then they will make fun of it.

W: Yeah yeah, paradise burger has a meaning behind it. So like, you know paradise next to Las Nevadas. Have a think

R: Paradise…

W: Weeeeeeeeeeee, ding dong we got everything we need. Right, let me go to an anvil and think of a name. This has been good, this has been chill.

R: This has been nice

W: I feel like we are good business partners. I’m excited to show Tommy. What's your opinion on Tommy?

R: Oh he's great. Tommys awesome.

W: Agreed

R: Yeah. Definitely gone through a lot but I definitely think that has made him a good person.

W: Mmm yeah well you seem to think everyone going through something at least gives them some merit you said

R: Well I mean yeah. I mean if- if no one, the only really bad people are the ones who are just evil because, just because then they don't really have any reason why you know? Those are in my opinion the bad people.

W: Right

R: I don’t really think there’s that many bad people like that so yeah.

W: Let me find an alt code, I want to find a cool alt code for the Wilburger, let's go for a sunbeam

R: ooooh

W: This is sexy, what I've done. Here we go here we go The beef! The bread doesn't have to be named

R: yeah

W: It’s gonna be good. Here we go, here we go. Look at this!

R: Oooohhh thats cool

W: No ones copying that

R: Yeah especially the thing in the eye as well.

W: It's a watermark no one, no one can copy it now so we can sell those with one slice of bread on either side and that's our thing. That's our shtick.

R: Yeah I think thats good thats good

W: I think we are getting to the point Ranboo where we are almost done I mean I do have a question to ask you though

R: Yeah of course ask away.

W: Just gonna put the bread back. This is gonna be a make or break

R: Okay.

W: Come with me

R: Yeah

W: This really could be, could be a make or break. And what about the Wilburger Ran Van?

R: Oh thats good thats good

W: Cool cool, then we’ll have your name on as the co creator I won’t be ceo, I will be vice chairman of the wilburger ran-van corporation

R: Cool, awesome.

W: So here’s our completion ranboo you remember the signs?

R: Yeah? They are still there.

W: Yeah it's good innit? Ranboo I want you to smash the windows.

R: Smash the windows? Like how? How do you want me to do it?

W: Take this (gave ranboo a cobblestone block) hold it in your hand

R: Okay

W: Now break the window.

R: okay

W: More

R: Do more? Okay

W: A lot more

R: keep going? Oh uh oh

[Wilbur places down TNT in a corner of the competition restaurant]

R: Are you sure about that one?

W: Come here

R: Oh? Okay

W: You trust me alright?

R: Yeah?

W: Detonate that, its only in the corner to prove we are not fucking around

R: I mean it's just in the corner right and then it will, it will drop all the blocks

W: Yep

R: And then we can put it somewhere

W: We can put it in a chest next to it.

R: Okay.. ohh Careful! [Wilbur stood really close to the TNT so he took damage]

W: It’s alright

R: That was a little bit more than I thought

W: Picking up those blocks

R: Yep, I think we can just put them in the chests here I think.

W: Okay I’ll fill this in, you passed the test, good job man. You can go back to the van, I’ll be back there soon. Ranboo

R: Yeah?

W: I’m proud of you man. You, you’ve taken a side, you’ve proven you can choose a side and I’m proud of you.

R: Thank- Thank, thank you. I haven't-

W: You’ve got something to work for.

R: Yeah, yeah

W: I’ll see you around. I’m gonna head off after I fix this but you get to work on the Ranvan. See you soon.

R: Yeah I’ll get to work, see you soon, buh bye

W: see you soon man.

[Wilbur breaks one of the signs placed down from earlier then goes to the explosion site and writes a sign with the NFT symbol saying Wilbur + Ranboo Did this together and places a chest to put the exploded materials in a chest along with two diamonds]

W: ahh, I love that guy.

[brelione]

Road Trip (JJ Maybank X Reader)

  so this was requested a while ago by @afterglows7b-tch13​.I started it and its just been vibing in my google docs ever since so I decided to publish it.If you guys like it I might make a part two :)

All you wanted was to have a nice,relaxing sunday morning.But of course there was never a dull or relaxing moment in your life.You had been trying to have an aesthetically pleasing morning as you sipped your coffee by your window as the sunlight peaked through the blinds.But then JJ walked in.You could tell by the big grin on his face and the backpack hanging from his shoulders that he wanted to do something stupid.He frowned once he saw you enjoying your morning. “I wanted to wake you up.”He sounded disappointed as he placed his cheap speaker down on the counter.

You sighed,sipping your coffee. “What do you want,J?Its seven in the morning.”You grumbled.He giggled,jumping up and down. “Ok,ok,ok.So you know how you’ve always wanted to go to the White Mountains?”He asked.You shook your head. “No,I dont think i’ve ever said that.”You replied.He sighed,scratching the back of his head. “Ok,well I’ve always wanted to go and then I realized we have literally nothing to do ever so why dont we go to the mainland and take my cousin’s truck and drive to New Hampshire?”He explained his idea.You looked up at him. 

“Baby,as much as id love to,we cant go to the White Mountains.”You watched as his smile faltered. “Why?”He asked,squatting on the ground in front of you.You ran your fingers through his hair. “How are we gonna get to the mainland?”You asked.He leaned his elbows on your knees,gazing up at you. “A ferry.”He answered.You looked around your messy kitchen. “Right now?”You asked.He hummed,arms going around your waist.You couldnt say no to him.

You huffed,slowly standing up.He stood up as well,looking at you and waiting for you to say something. “Okay.Alright.Let me shower and get my shit together.”You kissed him quickly before heading to your bathroom.He made it his job to go into your bedroom and into your dresser.He knew where you kept all of your things by now.He couldnt help staring at your bed and smirking at all the memories.He remembered all the way back to the first time he had fucked you on your bed.It had been after he had walked you home.

He remembered asking if your parents were home and you had simply laughed and reminded him that your parents were dead.He had been embarrassed of course but it didnt matter when his head was between your thighs and your fingers tugged at his hair.He heard your shower turn on,snapping him back into reality.He grabbed a few of your bras and panties before putting them at the bottom of your bag as neatly as possible.He grabbed eight of your crop tops,a few normal t shirts and a baggy long sleeve.

He went into your pants drawer to grab you a few pairs of shorts,a pair of jeans and socks.He forced the bag to zip shut,opening the next pocket.He thought about things you might need.He reached under your bed to grab you a handful of pads and tampons,pushing in a bottle of ibuprofen.He sat down on the bed,waiting for you to get out of the shower.He had told the others already that you two would be gone for a while and hadnt even bothered telling his dad.You walked into your room,your wet hair in a bun and a towel wrapped around your body.He watched as the towel dropped and you opened your dresser,eyebrows furrowing at your lack of clothes. 

“I packed your bag,baby.”He grinned.You nodded,grabbing one of the two bras left.You settled on a sportsbra,pulling it over your head and down your chest. “Stop staring at my ass,J.”You grinned as you picked a pair of boyshort undies.He sighed,still looking. “Its right there though.”He frowned as you pulled the underwear up your legs.You smirked at him,straddling him on the bed and placing a kiss on his lips. “Do we have time?”You asked,kissing his neck gently.A shiver went up his spine,his hands going straight to your butt.

 “Im sure if we’re fast enough….”He let out a small moan as you bit his tan skin.You smirked,kissing his lips. “You know,I just showered so probably not the best time.”You grinned before getting off of him and grabbing an oversized shirt.You slipped on a pair of joggers,tying the shirt into a knot at your waist.You looked like a hippie but you didnt care,you were comfy as hell.You grabbed the bag that JJ had packed,swinging it over your shoulder. 

“bras,panties,socks,pants,bikinis,shorts,pajamas,pads,tampons,ibuprofen.Did I get everything?”He asked.You shrugged. “We’ll find out.”You smiled up at him.You two began the walk to the docks.He had left his packed duffel bag on your steps and had it swung over his shoulder,holding your hand as the two of you walked. “Ive got $400 to last us.”He informed you. “I’ve got my $100 for emergencies.”You kissed his cheek.

The ride on the ferry wasnt payed for,you two had just snuck on with the others.JJ’s cousin’s house was only a mile walk from the docks. “I cannot believe I agreed to this.”You giggled.He wrapped his arm around your waist,kissing your forehead. “Well believe it because its too late to turn back now.”He smiled.His cousins house was exactly how you imagined.

Small but much cleaner than anything in The Cut.He told you that he already knew you two were coming.You two went up to the door,JJ swung it open without even knocking and the fumes of weed immediately filled your senses. “HEY BITCH!”JJ shouted.Another voice shouted back before a tall boy with brown hair came into view,a blunt hanging from his mouth as he fist bumped JJ.

 “Hey,hoe.”He nodded towards JJ,glancing over at you. “This is her?”The boy asked.JJ nodded. “Leo this is (Y/N),(Y/N),Leo.”He introduced you two.Leo laughed loudly,holding out his fist and looking you up and down. “You know,he told me you were hot but I didnt believe him!I mean seriously though,have you seen him?You’re like wayyy out of his league.”JJ smacked Leo’s arm jokingly.

You just grinned,hands in your pockets. “You and me though,we could work.You know where I am.”Leo winked.God,he was so much like JJ.He tossed JJ the keys to the truck that was parked outside along with a tin,waving bye to you guys.You two tossed your bags in the back seat,seeing the stacks of blankets and pillows ready for you two.You got into the passengers seat,JJ’s hand resting on your thigh after he began driving. “You hungry?”He asked,pulling up to a McDonalds drive thru.

You got icecream and fries as well as a burger,sitting in the parking lot to eat. “Hey,hey (Y/N).”JJ turned to look at you.You raised your eyebrows as you put a fry in your mouth. “Hey,hey JJ.”You mimicked,making him roll his eyes. “Are you stressed?About the car ride,I mean.”He sipped his cola.You shrugged. “I dont know,dude.The Mountains are far away I just like...dont want you to fall asleep driving.”You answered.He nodded,his hand squeezing your thigh reassuringly.

You went through Leo’s CD’s,pleased to find Panic At The Disco Too Weird To Live,Too rare to die.You played it,leaning back in your seat as JJ drove.The area was unfamiliar and he seemed to just be driving in whatever direction his heart was telling him to.You didnt care though,you just enjoyed having some time alone with him.You ended up stopping at a large gas station to get snacks.Oreos,a jar of nutella,brownies,chips,iced coffee,gum and energy drinks was what you ended up getting. 

“This is fucking insane.I dont even know where we are right now.”JJ admitted,laughing.You took a sip of iced coffee with a smile on your face. “I’ve literally never left the island so like,you know,im lowkey freaking out.”You giggled.He nodded in agreement,looking at every house you passed by.There were large and small houses next to eachother,high end stores next to shitty looking bakeries.It was nothing like OBX. “Everywhere else has middle class families,cant relate.”He chuckled,pointing out to the medium sized houses with three cars in the driveway.

Thats the last thing you heard from him before you fell asleep.When you woke up it was dark out and the truck was coming to a stop. “Rise and shine,princess.”He smiled.You rested your head against your hand,looking at your surroundings.You were parked in a field surrounded by tall trees.The sky was full of stars,the moon a bright crescent. “Where are we?”You asked. “Somewhere in New Jersey,Diner Capital of the Country.Pretty cool,right?”He raised his eyebrows.You nodded tiredly,reaching for his arm.He intertwined his fingers with yours,lifting up your arm and kissing the back of your hand lightly.

[alarawriting]

52 Project #27: The Pale Bro

Five friends drove up the mountain into the forest, where the vacation cabin waited for them. It was their senior year of college, so it wouldn’t be long before they’d be graduating and going their separate ways, and who knew when they’d all be able to hang out together again? So they’d decided that this year, instead of going on spring break someplace where there were a ton of other people, they’d spend break together in a cabin in the woods, because there was no possible way that that could go wrong.

They were just five totally ordinary college guys. Steve, a white dude with brown hair who loved video games and playing guitar; Trevor, a black dude with short hair who was on track to graduate magna cum laude and had already been accepted at a top medical school; Harrison, an outgoing, short, red-haired white dude who played soccer, but not, like, at career athlete level or anything; Evan, an Asian dude who kept his hair in a long ponytail, and whose family owned the cabin, who was planning on taking a year off after graduation to backpack around Asia and had sold it to his parents as an exploration of his heritage; and the Pale Bro, a twelve-foot tall dude with paper-white skin whose fingernails were like long razor blades and who was completely covered with eyes and mouths, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, cut-off shorts that would have been nearly pants on any other guy, and a pair of Vans on his feet. Just five ordinary young fellows, like anyone you might know.

Steve was driving the minivan, kinda wishing it was his dad’s SUV because of the effort of getting a minivan up the slope, but his dad’s SUV was in a different state and besides, it wouldn’t have had room for the Pale Bro. The minivan was the kind where you could put down the back row of seats to expand the cargo capacity, and the Pale Bro had laid out a thick sleeping-bag style blanket on top of their suitcases and was laying on them now, curled sideways because there was no dimension where he could stretch out in the van. Must be rough for him, Steve imagined, always having to bend down or curl up to fit into buildings and vehicles with his bros. He never complained about it, though. He was a great friend.

“How much farther is this place?” Harrison asked. “I gotta piss like you wouldn’t believe.”

“I’ve been unfortunately next to you at the urinals,” Trevor said. “I’d believe it.”

Steve checked the GPS. “Shit. The GPS has just decided to get the vapors because it’s up too high. It’s telling me I’m literally in the middle of nowhere. Like, look at this.” He showed the screen to Evan. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. It isn’t even drawing the road.”

“Don’t worry about it, I can guide you in from here,” Evan said. “Just stay on the road another 20 minutes or so.”

With a voice that rumbled like the sound of tectonic plates grinding together and the hiss of static from the birth of the universe behind it, the Pale Bro conveyed that there had better be some fucking food at the cabin, because he was starving.

“You and me both, buddy,” Trevor said.

“We all just got Burger King like, two hours ago,” Steve complained.

“Yeah, well, me and Pale are tall dudes. We need more food than you.” Trevor smirked.

“There should be food, I had a grocery delivery scheduled for earlier today and one of my parents’ employees was supposed to swing by the place, pick it up and put it in the fridge.”

“There’s a fridge at this cabin?” Harrison asked.

Evan looked at him. “Yeah, dumbass, you think I’d have suggested coming here if there was no fridge? There’s running water, too. It even gets hot if you run it long enough.”

“Well, excuse me for not being so rich I can afford to go to a cabin in the woods, ever, before now.”

“What else has it got?” Trevor asked.

“Well, there’s three bedrooms, one of which has a king-sized bed and the other two have bunk beds. I figure, Pale Bro gets the big bed and we break up into two’s and do the roommate thing. There’s a sofa bed too, in case someone really can’t stand having a roommate. We don’t have a washer or dryer, but if you only brought one pair of underpants and it’s getting really rank, we’ve got detergent and a clothesline so you can wash them in the sink. There’s a dishwasher.”

“I would have put in a washer and dryer before I put in a dishwasher, personally,” Steve said.

“Yeah, well, my mom had a different opinion. Anyway, it’s camping in the woods. It’s not supposed to be just like if we were at home.”

“I call top bunk!” Harrison said.

“There’s two top bunks. Both rooms have bunk beds.”

The Pale Bro expressed in a voice like a Gregorian chant of nightmares that he wanted to know if there was a bathroom in the master bedroom, because that shit would be sweet.

“Naah, man, sorry,” Evan said. “But there is one of those really deep claw-foot bathtubs that you like.”

Like the rumbling of an oncoming avalanche, the Pale Bro opined that that was excellent.

***

“I don’t believe this shit.”

They had just disembarked, the Pale Bro in the rear bringing his own suitcase and the beer cooler, which was the size of a mini-fridge, and everyone else dragging their suitcases in… except for Evan, who had gone directly to the kitchen without bringing in his own stuff yet. He came stomping out. “Joe never showed up, the bastard! I’m totally having my dad fire his ass.”

“What do you mean?” Steve asked.

“I mean that food order never showed up. So we have canned food, and boxed food, but we don’t have anything perishable. No bread, no lunchmeat, no eggs, no bacon, no orange juice, none of that shit.” He sighed. “I’m gonna have to drive down into town myself to get food, and we just got here.”

“Hey, man, I can still drive the car,” Steve said. “You just need to tell me where to go.”

“Steve, you’ve been driving for 6 hours, you’re probably wiped. I can drive,” Trevor said. “It’s the least I could do with Evan buying our food.”

“Yeah, but you bought the beer, man,” Evan said. “So maybe Harrison needs to drive.”

“Uh, hey, before anyone drives anywhere, maybe you should call and find out if your parents even know where that Joe guy who never showed up is, and if he’s all right?” Harrison called from outside.

“Why?”

“Just… everyone come take a look at this!”

Everyone went outside and congregated around Harrison’s find, which was a roughly humanoid, but clawed, tread that was at least three times the size of a normal footprint. Experimentally the Pale Bro put his own massive foot into the tread. Harrison whistled. The footprint was about 25% bigger than the Pale Bro’s.

“Dude. What is that? Is that a bear?” Harrison asked.

Trevor shook his head. “Those are sneaker treads, Har. Bears don’t wear sneakers.”

In a voice that was the perfect auditory personification of the Zalgo font, the Pale Bro suggested that it looked like one of his cousins was back on its bullshit again.

“Goddamn,” Evan said. “That’s a big fellow.”

“I think maybe if we go into town we should all go,” Steve said.

“We’ve just been driving all this time, though,” Evan said. “I wanted to relax, crack a cold one, put on some MP3s. We don’t get Internet worth shit out here but I’ve got a huge music library on the stereo’s hard drive.”

The Pale Bro opined that before anyone drove anywhere, maybe he had better find his cousin and make it clear that if his cousin touched any of his friends he would shove its head so far up its ass it would be blinking shit out of its 27 eyes for a month.

“That… sounds reasonable,” Trevor said. “Since we don’t know what happened to Joe. We can hunker down here and wait for you to get back.”

“I’m pretty sure I got instant just add water pancake mix,” Evan said. “And my mom stocked this place with crappy dehydrated chicken pieces like the kind doomsday preppers buy. I could make a shitty chicken soup, we’ve got bouillon and noodles. Oh, and there’s a few cans of chili. Canned stuff is shit but I could maybe perk it up with some spices, some extra beans… put some rice in the cooker, I bet my mom left rice here, she buys like 100 pound bags of rice.”

Like the sound of Jupiter hovering in orbit above, rotating ponderously, the Pale Bro agreed that some canned chili with extra spices sounded pretty good considering how fucking hungry he was, and as soon as he found his asshole cousin he’d be back to eat with the rest of his bros. He also reminded them to save him some beer.

“Dude!” Steve laughed. “We’ve got three keggers’ worth in that cooler! There will be plenty of beer for you.”

Evan called his parents as the Pale Bro left the house, and reported back, somewhat gray-faced. “They said Joe never called in to say he got to the house. He reported picking up the groceries, he was headed up here, and then nada.”

“Oh, well, then, you work on the chili,” Trevor said, “and me and the rest of the guys are gonna lock up all the windows and doors and put someone on watch for when the Pale Bro gets back. You don’t have any guns up here, by any chance, do you?”

“Nope, my parents aren’t really hunters,” Evan said.

“Well, I’ve seen your kitchen at home, I know what kind of equipment your mom likes to stock. We’ll have plenty of sharp knives, I’m betting.”

“Yeah.”

And so as Evan attempted to turn six cans of canned chili into something his bros would find edible, and the Pale Bro stalked through the forest on the mountaintop looking for his asshole cousin, the other three made sure everything was locked up, that the car keys were secure, and that there were wicked cooking knives within easy reach, but not line of sight from the outside, of every door. Just like ordinary bros do, every day.

***

The Pale Bro stalked through the woods. Now, you’d think that being twelve feet tall and having a foot easily the size of a car tire’s diameter would make it hard to walk through a thickly wooded forest with plenty of underbrush, but the Bro’s long, skinny arms and legs could easily step over bushes and shrubs, and could pivot in directions that didn’t seem to quite exist within three-dimensional space. So he had very little difficulty making his way through the dense forest.

In the beginning, he was tracking the large treads that may or may not have been left by his asshole cousin, but the trail disappeared as it crossed a small creek. In a tone that sounded like the anthropomorphic personification of the trumpets of Jericho, the Pale Bro groaned, recognizing that he’d lost the trail and would have to search for it.

And so he went up the creek, and down the creek, and out from the creek, and up the trees around the creek, looking for any sign of his cousin… until he heard, in the distance, human voices.

Human female voices.

He stumbled through the woods, suddenly much clumsier than he’d been, following the sound of girls, until he half-fell out of the treeline and ended up in a clearing around another cabin, like Evan’s but bigger. The sounds were coming from around the corner of the cabin. The Pale Bro slid forward, long long legs making long long strides through the yard around the cabin, until a hot tub with a wooden deck came into view. The hot tub was on, and populated by five smokin’ hot girls.

There was a fair-skinned blonde girl, in a skimpy blue bikini that showed off all her curves, whose wavy hair floated angel-like around her head, improbably given that she was in a hot tub. There was a short, delicate black girl with hair in very wet braids and a soft, beautiful face, wearing a candy pink bikini. There was an Indian girl with long hair and an athletic build, with a red bindi mark on her forehead and a pale turquoise one-piece bathing suit with a little skirt, sitting on the deck and kicking her feet slowly in the water. A red-haired white girl with tan Mediterranean skin, tight curls, and a bright white bikini that stood out against her tan, had turned away from the tub and was looking directly at the Pale Bro, a slight smile on her face. The fifth girl was green and scaly, with webbed hands and golden eyes with nictating membranes; she didn’t have hair, but she had betta-like, beautifully colored fins on her head that looked hair-like.

All of them were absolutely gorgeous.

The blonde girl shrieked and ducked into the tub; the black girl bounced and climbed out of the tub, a big grin on her face. “Hi there, stranger!” she yelled from the rail around the deck. “Why don’t you come over and have a beer with us?”

The Pale Bro admitted in a tone like the creaking of an ancient rusted machine at the base of an abandoned windmill that that sounded awesome.

The green girl rolled her eyes. The Indian girl gave the black girl a questioning look. “Are you sure, Kayla?”

“Come on, Nandi,” the red-haired girl said. “I think he’s cute.”

The blonde girl came back up. “Are you inviting him over?” she asked, sounding horrified. “What if he’s a psycho killer?”

“Oh, right,” the green girl said. “He’s pale and tall and has eyes all over his body so he must be a psycho killer. Racist much?”

“No! He’s just a strange dude, that’s all! You have to watch out for strange dudes!”

The Pale Bro explained in the voice of a broken subwoofer booming at outdoor concert sound levels underwater that he didn’t really want to scare any of the girls and he’d go if they didn’t want him here.

The green girl leaned her elbows on the edge of the hot tub. “Forget Ashlee, she’s just paranoid.”

“You didn’t want him coming over either, Y’lehna,” Nandi said quietly.

“I just knew that if Kayla invited him over, we’re gonna lose Rhiannon for the rest of the night,” Y’lehna muttered.

The red-haired girl, presumably Rhiannon, was smiling broadly at the Pale Bro now. “Hey there,” she said. “We’ve got hard cider and hard lemonade, Bud, Corona and a couple of local microbrews. What’s your pleasure?”

In a voice that was actually surprisingly normal-sounding for once, the Pale Bro said he’d have whatever Rhiannon was having, which turned out to be hard cider.

He clambered up onto the hot tub deck, pulled off his sneakers, and soaked his feet in the hot tub, which barely came up to his knees.

“So what are you doing around here? You don’t live near here, do you?” Kayla asked.

And so the Pale Bro explained that he and his bros had decided to spend their last spring break of college together, in a cabin in the woods, because once graduation came they might never see each other again, and certainly even if they made excuses to get together on occasion, they’d see each other a lot less.

“That’s so sweet!” Kayla said.

“We’re juniors,” Rhiannon said. “Except Ashlee, she’s a sophomore, and Y’lehna’s technically a senior but she’s planning on doing a fifth year. But we decided to hang out here because Ashlee’s parents just put in a hot tub.”

“Hot tub!” Kayla sang out, and slid back into the tub. She was maybe just a little bit drunk.

As it turned out, they all went to the same university, and Y’lehna and the Pale Bro chatted for a bit about sports. “I tried out for the swim team,” Y’lehna said, “but when they found out I had gills, they disqualified me because apparently part of the point of the sport is that you are only allowed to breathe gaseous oxygen?”

The Pale Bro commiserated, as he hadn’t even tried trying out for the basketball team like he had once dreamed of, realizing that they would never allow someone who was taller than the hoop to play.

***

“I don’t know, though,” Ashlee, who had warmed up to the Pale Bro once another hard lemonade was in her hand, said. She was lying in a deck chair rather than in the tub. “Normally I love this place, and the tub’s great, but something just feels really creepy today.”

“You’ve been on edge since we got here,” Nandi – whose full name turned out to be Nandini, but she insisted that the Pale Bro should use her nickname – agreed.

The Pale Bro was thus reminded that his bros were expecting him to track down what might be a killer who may or may not have murdered Joe, the guy who was supposed to bring in the groceries, and also that he was very hungry and the hard cider wasn’t doing him any favors on an empty stomach. He pulled his feet out of the tub and confessed, in a voice like the grinding of the gears of the machinery that runs the universe, that his bros had sent him out to find a monster – he didn’t mention that the monster was probably his cousin – who might have killed someone, and also that dinner was waiting for him back at the cabin.

“Oh, you should bring them over!” Kayla said cheerfully.

“Are they all like you?” Rhiannon asked in a tone that might be considered “sultry” by anyone not as oblivious as the Pale Bro.

The Pale Bro shook his head and admitted that his bros were all much shorter than he was.

Rhiannon put a hand on his arm. “Well, that’s too bad, but I guess one handsome, tall fellow in a group is all I can expect, right?”

The Pale Bro looked at Rhiannon’s hand like it was an inexplicable glob that might be ice cream and possibly should be washed off, but equally possibly should be licked up.

Y’lehna said, “Why don’t you bring them over? They might be cute.”

“Yeah,” Nandi said, “we can’t all fit in the hot tub at once, but didn’t you say you had four friends back at your cabin?”

“That makes five,” Ashlee said, “and there’s five of us!”

“Also,” Nandi said, “we’ve still got, like, five pizzas in the house.”

This made the decision for the Pale Bro. He took the girls up on their offer of a couple of slices of pizza – they were cold, but he didn’t mind – and then headed back to the cabin to let his bros know about the girls’ offer.

***

The Pale Bro knocked on the window of the cabin, which apparently gave everyone inside heart attacks, even though he’d just meant to warn them to open the door for him. “Jesus, Pale,” Evan complained. “There’s a door.”

Within a few minutes – and after dropping his hard cider bottle in the recycling bin, because Evan’s family were big on recycling and the Pale Bro wanted to be polite – he had explained the situation to his bros.

“Let me get this straight,” Evan said. “You didn’t find any sign of Joe, you didn’t find your cousin or any other kind of monster or killer, and you want us to leave and go hiking through the woods to go hang out at a cabin full of strangers?”

When Evan phrased it that way, the Pale Bro admitted that it didn’t sound like a great idea, but on the other hand, there were five incredibly hot girls, plus a hot tub, plus pizza.

“Now let’s talk about this,” Trevor said. “Has anyone considered that if there’s really a psycho killer or a monster loose in the woods, those five girls might be in a lot more danger than we are? Maybe we should go over there to help protect them.”

“Yeah! And we could bring some of our beers, and Evan’s chili and rice—” Harrison suggested.

“Fuck no, I’m not making anybody else have to eat this chili,” Evan said. “It’s shit. It’s just the best I could do with the supplies I’ve got.” He sighed. “Too bad I can’t bring my tunes.”

“We need to be careful about locking everything up,” Steve said. “We really don’t want to come home tomorrow morning and find the psycho killer waiting for us here.”

“Or a gaggle of rabid raccoons,” Evan said. “That’s a thing around here.”

“Did any of you guys bring condoms?” Harrison asked. “Because I didn’t think we’d be seeing any action this weekend, so I didn’t bring any…”

Trevor chuckled. “We haven’t even met these girls, Har. Aren’t you jumping the gun a little?”

“Hey, I like to be prepared.”

“I’ve got a handful in my wallet, but I don’t think I’ve got five of them,” Steve said.

The Pale Bro pointed out with laughter like the rolling of thunder in a distant cavern that probably none of Steve’s condoms would fit him anyhow, so it would be fine.

“You don’t have to eat that chili, man,” Evan said, observing that the Pale Bro had dumped half a rice cooker’s worth of rice onto a plate and then all the rest of the chili that the other bros hadn’t eaten on top of that, and was currently chowing down. “It’s shit. I admit it. And you said you had some pizza.”

The Pale Bro declared that he was too hungry to care what it tasted like, that two slices of pizza weren’t nearly enough, and besides, it tasted fine to him.

So the five bros armed themselves with the sharp knives from Evan’s mom’s kitchen just in case they ran into a psycho killer along the way, locked all the doors and windows to the cabin and the doors to the car, and the Pale Bro carried the beer cooler as he led the way back to the house with the five hot girls.

***

It wasn’t particularly easy for the Pale Bro to retrace his steps through the woods; it’d been just short of sunset when he’d found the girls, and now it was full dark. His myriad eyes could see well in the dark, of course, but his bros couldn’t, so he had to watch out for them, and they were also a lot less flexible, and tall, than he was. Also, he hadn’t been toting a beer cooler the last time he came through here.

It didn’t help that his bros were very jumpy, freaking every time a night bird called or a twig broke loudly. The Pale Bro got it, he did – there might be a psycho killer in the woods, or a monster, or his cousin who was also a monster, and they couldn’t see as well as he could, or defend themselves. But this was just ridiculous. In a voice that was an auditory personification of the concept of dread, he suggested that they stop being such big pussies and concentrate on not tripping before they accidentally stabbed each other trying to brandish knives at random bushes.

“Yo, man, we can’t all be twelve feet tall,” Harrison said, sounding pissed but also still really anxious.

In a voice that was best described by some kind of metaphor implying a deep and scary sound that hopefully hasn’t been used already in this story, the Pale Bro offered to give Harrison a piggyback ride.

Trevor said, “Not in the middle of trees, man, you’d brain him. Walk right into a tree branch and knock him off.”

“Yeah, I gotta turn that down,” Harrison said.

“You smell that?” Steve said. “Smells like someone’s firing up a grill somewhere. I can smell the charcoal.”

“Did the girls have a grill?” Trevor asked.

The Pale Bro admitted that to the best of his knowledge, they did not, but on the other hand they had Hawaiian pizza. This, of course, triggered the old argument, where Steve and Harrison insisted that pineapple did not belong on pizza, and Evan and the Pale Bro insisted that pineapple on pizza was quite valid. The argument continued, with Trevor’s exhortations to show some common sense and save the argument until they were not walking through a dark forest that might contain a psycho killer going unheeded, until Steve accidentally fell in the creek because he couldn’t see it, and in the process lost one of Evan’s mom’s good cooking knives.

However, the Pale Bro mused, this was a potentially good sign because he’d found the girls while walking alongside the creek. So the bros walked alongside the creek, Steve muttering that these girls had better be hot after all this, until they heard the sound of female human voices, exactly like the Pale Bro had had before.

They entered the clearing, observed the very large cabin, Evan making comments like “I bet it’s a bitch to keep clean, ten to one that thing’s not sanitary” because he was jealous that the cabin was bigger than his family’s, and then around the corner to observe the very hot girls, who were all still very hot even though some of them had pizza sauce smeared around their lips.

“Well, hell-o, ladies!” Harrison said, trying to be suave and cool, and failing miserably.

The Pale Bro wondered, in the voice like the echoes of a rockslide in a canyon, if there was any of the pineapple pizza left, because unfortunately he was still hungry. He gestured at his very large body somewhat self-deprecatingly.

“Hi, guys!” Kayla, who was obviously the group’s ambassador to guests, said, with possibly more bubbliness in her voice than was currently in the hot tub. “I’m Kayla, and this is Nandini, and over there in the blue bikini is Ashlee, whose cabin this is – I mean, really it’s her family’s cabin—”

“I get it,” Evan said. “My family’s got a cabin too, that’s where we’ve been hanging. We just got in today. My name’s Evan.”

“Cool!” Kayla said. “That’s Y’lehna in the lawn chair with the wine cooler, and Rhiannon went to the bathroom but I’m sure—”

“I’m back!” Rhiannon announced. Trevor’s eyes widened and then turned heart-shaped. Metaphorically.

“And I’m Trevor. Hello, ladies,” he said, sounding much cooler when he said it than Harrison had.

“I’m Harrison, and this is Steve, and he’s kinda shy!” Harrison punctuated this by shoving his kinda shy friend forward.

“Uh, hi,” Steve said. “I kind of fell in the creek on my way here?”

Kayla’s eyes went wide. “Oh, wow! Hey, Ashlee, do you mind if I bring him inside and show him the shower?”

“Long as he takes his shoes off,” Ashlee said, coming to the deck railing. Steve saw her angelic hair, beautiful skin, and ample charms shown off by the rather small bikini, and fell in love.

“Oh, definitely. I’ll definitely do that. I – yeah. Thanks a lot for letting me use the shower, I’m all covered in mud. Which you can see. Because you’re standing there, looking at me covered in mud.”

Kayla laughed. “Oh, yeah, let’s get you cleaned up!” She took Steve’s hand with surprising alacrity and lack of reluctance, given that he was covered in mud.

Evan said, “The guy who was supposed to bring over the groceries never showed, and I made some chili and rice out of canned stuff for my friends, but it was kinda shitty. Pale asked if there was any more of the pineapple pizza? I could definitely go for a slice if you’re offering.”

Ashlee lit up. “Oh! Sure! I can take you in to get some pizza!”

Rhiannon had by then walked over to the Pale Bro, and put her hand on his arm again. “You know, I could definitely go for some more pizza myself,” she purred.

Meanwhile, Harrison was trying to chat up Y’lehna, and also strip to his boxers so he could get in the hot tub, without looking like he was doing it in a creepy way. “So, where’re you from?”

“Massachusetts,” Y’lehna said, lying back in the lawn chair and wistfully gazing at Trevor, who had followed Rhiannon, the Pale Bro, and Ashlee in for pizza. “A little town called Innsmouth, on the coast. Little more than half an hour north of Boston.” Y’lehna had legs, but they were covered with scales and her feet were large and webbed.

“Cool. I’m from New Jersey, but, you know, like the south end. Not the part that’s all gritty like Newark and Jersey City.” Harrison slid into the hot tub. “Oh, man, this is nice. You wanna get back in?”

“After I finish my wine cooler, maybe. Ashlee doesn’t like it when we eat or drink in the tub.”

Evan was the first to come back from the pizza hunt, carrying a beer and two slices and had actually had swimming trunks at the cabin – they hadn’t planned on going swimming on this trip, but Evan kept some clothes here all the time, and he’d already changed into them and then put his clothes on over. He stripped to his bathing suit and then went and got into the hot tub near Nandini. “Hey.”

Nandini barely noticed; she was too busy looking at Harrison. Evan had to say it again to get her attention. She turned and looked at him. “Oh, you can’t eat those in the tub. Or drink the beer.”

“What if I sit back from the tub and just soak my feet, until I’m done with the food?”

Nandini shrugged. “I guess that’d be okay, but you’d have to ask Ashlee. Can I ask you something?”

Evan beamed. “Sure! Whatever you want!”

She nodded her head toward Harrison. “Does your friend have a girlfriend?”

Evan’s first reaction was dismay – Nandini seemed to not even notice him as a man, and was just making eyes at Harrison, who was obviously captivated by Y’lehna. Then he narrowed his eyes and decided to make problems on purpose. “Oh, sorry, Harrison is gay.” Actually, Steve was bi and the rest of them were straight – Evan thought, anyway, unsure about the Pale Bro and if he even had a sexuality, but he did seem to like to look at girls.

Nandini sighed. “Aren’t they always.”

Ashlee was the next to come back. She sat next to Evan. “You know, if you want to get into the hot tub and still eat your food, I normally have a rule about that but I could let it go this time. Just as long as you keep the actual food and drink out of the hot tub so it doesn’t make everything gross.” She smiled at Evan.

Evan smiled at her, because it was always good to smile at your host, and it was also always good to smile at a pretty girl, and Ashlee was both. “Thanks,” he said, not planning to take her up on it because what if he dropped the pizza?, and then turned back to Nandini. “What’re you majoring in?”

“Ugh, I hate having to explain it to people,” Nandini said. “It’s… complicated. It’s a discipline that’s part economic theory, part psychology, part sociology and part anthropology. Basically, I’m majoring in the question of why do people do dumb things when they’d be better off doing smart ones, and how that impacts our understanding of economics.”

“That sounds really interesting,” said Evan, who had quit his business major because he was bored out of his mind by economics. “I’m doing Asia studies. Yeah, it’s a cliché.” He’d gone into Asia studies after he quit his business major because it was the only thing he thought his parents would let him get by with if he refused to study business. Some kind of “Mom, Dad, I really want to get in touch with our heritage and understand the culture of my grandparents” bullshit. Also, statistically you were more likely to find a girl who considers Asian guys hot in Asia studies than any other major, he suspected.

“That’s pretty cool!” Ashlee said. “Which part of Asia is your family from? China, Korea…?”

“China, originally,” Evan, whose real name was Haoran, but who’d been going by Evan since second grade, said. His pizza finished, he slid down into the tub and turned back to Nandini.  “So, we came over here to warn you – and maybe help you fight if it comes to it – but we’re worried there might be a killer or something in the woods?”

“Omigod, really?” Ashlee asked, eyes wide with terror.

“Why do you think that?” Nandini asked, seeming completely calm.

“Well, my parents had an employee, Joe, buy food for my cabin. He was supposed to drop it off… but he never showed up, and he never called my parents, and he’s not answering his cell. Meanwhile, we saw this absolutely huge tread in the dirt, and the Pale Bro thinks it might be his cousin.”

“Yeah, he told us all that,” Nandini said. “Except for the part about it maybe being his cousin.”

“So, a monster?” Y’lehna asks. “Because there’s a difference between a psycho killer, who’s human, and a monster, who isn’t. You don’t know what the monster’s capable of, but when you see them, you know they’re a monster.”

“Yeah, but just because they look like a monster doesn’t mean anything about what they’re like!” Harrison said. “The Pale Bro looks like a monster, but he’s a really great guy!”

“I’m guessing his cousin sucks, though,” Y’lehna said.

“Well, we don’t know his cousin,” Harrison said, somewhat diplomatically.

“Do you really think there’s a killer?” Ashlee asked, getting into the hot tub right next to Evan – and inconveniently, between him and Nandini. “But you’ll protect us, right?”

“Uh, some of us can protect ourselves…” Nandini said.

Evan got back out of the tub so he could see Nandini more clearly without Ashlee in the way. “Absolutely. I’m not trying to say that we’re offering our protection because, you know, we’re guys and you’re girls and we think we’re tougher than you. That’s not it at all; I bet most of you could kick my ass.” He did not actually think this; Evan was in pretty good shape, since he was preparing to backpack all over Asia next year if he got the chance, and also, he bicycled a lot. It was pretty clear to him, though, that Nandini was invested in thinking of herself as someone who could protect herself, and who knew? Maybe she was a martial arts master or a crack shot. “But we figure, there’s safety in numbers. Plus, if it is the Pale Bro’s cousin, he can get it to back the hell off.”

“Good point,” Nandini said.

At this point there was a glass-shattering, horrible screech, and then something, some unknown creature moving so fast it was a blur, leapt out of the hot tub and charged directly at Evan, Nandini and Ashlee. All three of them screamed, as it slashed bright pain across Evan’s legs, right above his knees.

And then Ashlee started cracking up, as the horrible assailant stopped at the edge of the deck and began washing itself vigorously. “Phenyl, you dumbass. I know you like to sleep on the tub when we have it covered, but couldn’t you see we have it open and it’s full of water?”

Evan’s heart was still pounding, but now that he could see the creature that had slashed gashes into his thighs, he took deep breaths to calm himself down. “That’s your cat?”

“Yeah, her name is Phenylephrine and she’s a dumbass. She catches rats, though. One time she chased off a raccoon who’d gotten into the trash.” Ashlee attempted to pick her cat up, but the almost-entirely-black-except-for-white-bib cat jumped down off the deck, apparently not sufficiently recovered from her ordeal to tolerate interacting with humans. Evan decided not to ask why the cat was named after a decongestant.

“So what are you majoring in?” Harrison asked Y’lehna, trying to come across as casual. “I’m doing liberal arts, you know? Just a little of everything.”

“Shakespearean literature,” Y’lehna said.

“Oh, wow! You know about the theory that he didn’t write his own plays, right?”

Y’lehna rolled her eyes. “Of course I do. It’s bullshit.”

And as she explained all the reasons why she thought the theory was bullshit, Harrison listened to her raptly with imaginary hearts in his eyes.

***

Steve was deeply grateful to Kayla for taking him in to find Ashlee’s shower. The cabin had wooden floors, thankfully, so the gunk still dripping off his body could be easily cleaned. It made sense – it was a cabin in the woods, after all – but Steve had some vague idea of what rich people houses were like from visiting Evan, and carpet played a big role in his mental image of a rich person abode.

He was less impressed with the towel Kayla found him, after he came out of the shower. It was very… brief. Bigger than a hand towel, but not by much, it covered the territory it was required to cover and not very much else.

“I hate to ask, but does Ashlee have any brothers or other family members who might be around my size? This towel is kinda…”

Kayla laughed. “I think you look cute in it, but yeah, I can see why you’d want something bigger!” She stuck her head in the kitchen, where Ashlee was serving pizza to Evan, Rhiannon, Trevor, and the Pale Bro. “Hey, Ashlee! Does Hunter have any swimming trunks or t-shirts here?”

“You can check. He usually uses the middle bedroom.”

Steve called out, “I can have them cleaned and returned tomorrow, I just… my clothes are all muddy… I don’t want to impose, but this towel’s kind of tiny…”

“No problem, I don’t even care if you keep Hunter’s stuff. It would serve him right for being a douche,” Ashlee said.

Kayla checked, and came back with a NASCAR t-shirt and a pair of swimming trunks with grotesquely grinning emojis all over it. “Sorry, I hope it fits! It’s all he had!”

“No problem, NASCAR’s cool,” Steve said. The sum total of his knowledge about NASCAR was that it had something to do with cars, probably, and that guys who drank warm crappy beer and drove pickup trucks liked it, and that was all. But if Ashlee’s family was into it, maybe it was worth checking out.

He and Kayla walked into the kitchen, now that he was vaguely decent. “OMG I am so sorry,” Ashlee said. “That shirt is awful. Is that really the only one Hunter had?”

Steve shrugged, understanding more about Ashlee’s relationship to her brother’s interests. “It’s not like I’m into NASCAR or anything, but beggars can’t be choosers, right?”

The Pale Bro chose this moment to inform everyone in a voice that echoed like a portent of doom that there was no more beer in Ashlee’s fridge, and this was a problem, because he and his bros had brought beer for 5 people for three days, but now they had ten people, so what if they ran out?

Steve privately thought it was good that the Pale Bro wasn’t majoring in anything that needed math. Ten people would burn through the beer for five people at twice the rate, but twice the rate of three days would be a day and a half, more than enough time to go get more beer, unless the psycho killer or monster slashed their tires or something.

Kayla spoke up. “I’ve got more in the trunk of my car, but I parked kind of crappy.”

“Well, no matter how crappy the parking job was, more beer’s always a good thing,” Trevor said.

The Pale Bro expressed in a voice that was like the crackling of atoms fusing together in the unfathomable heat of the sun that he’d be happy to go get them out of Kayla’s car.

“Uh… no, I think Steve should do it,” Kayla said. “Because he’s shorter, and it’s a really crappy parking job. Trust me, you will bonk your head on trees about six times just trying to reach my car.”

“Did you park it in the woods?” Trevor asked.

“Um, sorta… I was kinda excited about getting here and waving to my friends and I accidentally hit the gas instead of the brake and I ended up in the woods… yeah.” She looked up at Steve forlornly. “I’m such an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot,” Steve said, because it was always a good idea to tell a pretty girl who said she was an idiot that in fact she was not.

In a voice like the echoes of a NASCAR race going on over one’s head because one was in a sewer system under the track, the Pale Bro offered to help Kayla get her car out of the woods, if it was stuck there.

“That’s really sweet of you,” Rhiannon purred. “Probably better to do it in daylight, though. There’s a cliff drop near there, and you don’t want to accidentally slip over the edge.”

“Or worse, drop the car,” Steve said, and laughed. Kayla laughed with him.

The Pale Bro expressed to Kayla that if there was a cliff face near there, then he was very glad that she hadn’t accidentally driven off the edge, because that would have been bad.

“Yeah,” Kayla said, “but it all worked out so no harm done, right? Unless, like, I punctured the gas tank with a tree branch or something. That would definitely be bad.”

Steve, Trevor, Rhiannon and the Pale Bro all agreed that that would definitely be the case.

***

After Steve and Kayla had left to go to Kayla’s car to get more beer, Rhiannon asked the Pale Bro what his major was.

“I’m pre-med,” Trevor inserted, not actually having been asked.

“Mm, nice. I’m trying to become a physicist, myself. What about you?” She repeated the question in the Pale Bro’s direction.

In a voice that was muffled and full of pizza, the Pale Bro conveyed that he hadn’t heard the question, sorry.

“I just wanted to know what your major was,” she said.

The Pale Bro confessed that he was majoring in gender studies, having decided that hotel management was not really a good career path for him.

“Oh, really!” Rhiannon brightened. “You don’t see a lot of guys majoring in gender studies! You must be very secure in your masculinity.” She said this as someone who seemed very secure in the Pale Bro’s masculinity, herself, as she pressed against him.

The Pale Bro mumbled in a voice that really didn’t sound all that different from anyone else’s mumbling that he just didn’t like how society treated women, and added that his mother raised him to respect and look up to women. He confided that she had torn apart giant megafauna with her bare claws and fed them to her brood of spawn while insisting on table manners, and that he couldn’t imagine any job more difficult than being the primary caretaker of children. Children, he admitted, scared him.

“Oh, yes, the little rugrats can totally bring the chaos,” Rhiannon laughed.

The Pale Bro clarified that actually chaos was perfectly fine by him and the natural state of all things that the universe must someday return to; it was their high-pitched screechy voices that really bothered him.

“I never knew that,” Trevor said. “Weird, what you learn about people. Rhiannon,which kind of physics are you concentrating on? Like, space, or quantum, or what?”

“Haven’t really narrowed it down like that, it’s going to depend on what grad school accepts me and which programs I can get into,” Rhiannon said. To the Pale Bro she said, “Hey, do you want to go for a walk? It’s really nice out.”

“It is, but there might be some kind of killer or monster in the woods,” Trevor reminded her. “Do you really think it’s a good idea to go wandering off by yourself?”

She rolled her eyes and gestured at the Pale Bro. “I’m pretty sure that Pale here would be able to protect me if anything came up,” she said.

The Pale Bro confessed in a voice that echoed like the infrasound rumble of the collapse of a concrete building, but an embarrassed and regretful tone, that actually he wanted to wait right here, because he wanted more beer and also his feet hurt.

“Well, why don’t we go back to the hot tub and let you soak your feet for a bit?” Rhiannon asked.

“That sounds like a great idea,” Trevor said. “We’ve got our own beer cooler out there, remember? You brought it over.”

This was true, the Pale Bro admitted, but he couldn’t eat or drink in the hot tub, and he wanted another slice of Hawaiian pizza if there was any.

“Oh, but you’re a big fellow,” Rhiannon said. “You could totally sit back from the hot tub and dangle your feet in it while you’re eating, and you wouldn’t be close enough to the tub to bother Ashlee.”

In that case, the Pale Bro conveyed in a voice like the rumbling of a train full of dead bodies, he was all for the hot tub, because that shit sounded great.

***

The group joined back up around the hot tub, all except for Kayla and Steve, who were still in the woods, ostensibly getting beer out of Kayla’s car. Ashlee had brought out chips and pretzels, which, she said, were not to be eaten within five feet of the hot tub. This meant that the Pale Bro could soak his feet while he snacked, as promised, but no one else could actually eat near the tub.

“Come on, that’s not fair,” Y’lehna, who was considerably more drunk than she had been earlier in the evening and probably really needed to fill her stomach with chips and pretzels, complained. “I’ve been good all night but now I’m starving, and you know my skin needs to be moisturized.”

“I keep offering to let you try some of my Oil of Olay,” Ashlee mumbled.

“If I wanted to cover myself in something oily, I’d use fish oil, it’s traditional around my hometown,” Y’lehna said sharply. “I wanna be in water. Like, H20.” She looked up at Trevor, pleadingly. “Do you think I’m asking too much? I don’t think I’m asking too much.”

“I think you should definitely eat something,” Trevor said.

“I don’t think it’s too much to ask,” offered Harrison eagerly.

“But I don’t want to get any food in the hot tub,” Ashlee whined. “It’d be gross, and we’d have to drain it and clean it…”

“Well, I want to be in the water and I want goddamn pretzels, is that too much? Is that really too much?” Y’lehna yelled, making Ashlee quail.

At that point they all heard the sound of clanging and shattering, and Kayla and Steve screaming like they were being murdered.

Ashlee shrieked in terrified response. The Pale Bro, Trevor and Nandini were all off the deck and running toward the sound in a second, followed by Rhiannon, Evan and Harrison. Y’lehna took the opportunity to grab an entire dish of pretzels, drop herself into the tub, and stand at the edge of the tub, facing the concrete around the tub and stuffing her face. “I can be responsible,” she muttered. “I can not get pretzels in the tub. I don’t have to eat underwater. I don’t even want to. Pretzels aren’t like fish. They get soggy.”

No one was there to hear her, though, because they had all gone into the woods.

The Pale Bro had only gotten in a few feet when Steve yelled, “Don’t come any closer, guys!”

“Are you being murdered?” Trevor asked, loudly.

“We will totally fuck them up if someone is trying to kill you!” Harrison said, clenching his fists.

“No, guys, it’s good… it’s all good.”

“It’s not good at all!” Kayla wailed. “I spent so much money on that beer!”

The Pale Bro heard the word ‘beer’ and conveyed that if something was going on with the beer he absolutely needed to know, right now.

“We dropped it!”

“We dropped it off a goddamn cliff,” Steve moaned. “Kayla had this whole big cooler—”

“It was so expensive! So much beer!”

“And we were carrying it together, and then I tripped on a tree root, and slipped, and Kayla tried to grab me… and we dropped the beer.”

“Off the cliff!” Kayla couldn’t have sounded more heartbroken if she were a young lady during the Vietnam War being told that her betrothed, who had been her childhood sweetheart since she was three years old, had had a completely sober four-way with two Vietnamese twins and their pet goat, and then had been killed by the Viet Cong while he was still cavorting with the goat.

In a voice that sounded like the auditory representation of hair raising combined with the scream of nails on a chalkboard, the Pale Bro expressed that he couldn’t believe this and Steve had been such a fuckup.

Steve, actually kind of intimidated, raised his hands. “I know, man, I’m sorry! We didn’t mean to!”

The Pale Bro then lectured the two of them about how if he’d been allowed to help in the first place, he wouldn’t have accidentally dropped the beer off the cliff and right now they would all be knocking back some sweet brews, but instead they insisted they could handle it and now all that beer had been tragically lost, cut down in the prime of its life, its yeasty lifeblood spilling out across the rocks and stones below where none could drink it except maybe some squirrels who would get themselves totally fucked up.

“Come on, man, it’s just beer,” Evan said. “We can get more.”

“Not if there’s a killer out there!” Kayla wailed. “We won’t be able to leave to go get beer until morning! What if the killer slashes our tires?”

The Pale Bro conveyed that if that happened, it was fucking on because no psycho killer, monster, or cousin was going to get between him and more beer.

Trevor, trying to be the voice of reason, said, “Folks, we’ve got a lot of beer in our cooler and we’ve barely touched it. There’s no use crying over spilled… beer.”

“Yes, there is! It’s very cryable!” Kayla declared, starting to cry.

“God, you’re drunk,” Nandini muttered. “Maybe you shouldn’t be hitting any more of the beer anyway.”

“Come on,” Steve said, putting his arm around Kayla. “It’s gonna be all right. Don’t cry. Trevor’s right, we’ve got a lot in our cooler.”

Kayla turned toward him and cried against his chest, as he hugged her with one arm and awkwardly patted her head with the other.

“Wow,” Nandini said. “You’re really into this guy, aren’t you?”

Steve turned red, which they could all see by now because they’d made their way out of the woods and back into the outside lights of the cabin. “Uh, I don’t think so, I’m just trying to comfort her…”

“You’re a white guy touching her hair and she’s putting up with it,” Nandini said. “Kayla’s been known to punch white people who touch her hair.”

“That was that bitch Madison and it was one time!” Kayla cried.

Steve removed his hand. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable, I just…”

“No! I like it when you touch my hair! I don’t like it when bitches like Madison touch my hair after they’ve just said some racist bullshit, but you’re being so sweet! You can officially touch my hair,” Kayla said, and then started sobbing again, hugging Steve tightly.

The Pale Bro audibly sighed, in a voice like a dude who’s just seen one of his best friends score a date with a chick he was really into and he can’t even be mad because it wasn’t like he got anywhere with her himself or even admitted to anyone how cute he thought she was.

***

The group returned to find that Harrison had wandered back to the hot tub as soon as it was clear that no one was being killed except maybe a large number of innocent bottles of beer, and was sitting outside the hot tub but right by Y’lehna, who was in the hot tub eating chips.

Nandini said, severely, “Y’lehna! Ashlee told you not to do that!”

“Ashlee can tell me herself,” Y’lehna said with chips in her mouth.

“I’ve been watching,” Harrison said brightly. “None of the crumbs have fallen in the water! It’s all good!”

Trevor snorted. “Well, of course you think so, Har,” he said. “You’ve got it bad, haven’t you?”

Nandini frowned, and then scowled, and glared at Evan. “Wait, you told me he was gay!”

“You said what?” Harrison was shocked.

Evan held up his hands. “Sorry, Har. But…” He looked over at Nandini. “I thought that if I told you that he only likes really unusual girls, you’d feel hurt because it would sound like I was telling you you were basic or something, and that’s totally wrong. You’re gorgeous and you could probably get any guy you wanted, except Harrison, because you don’t have scales or feathers or six eyes or something.”

“Well, you could have said that,” Nandini said.

Kayla said, “I get it. Rhiannon’s like that, too.”

“To be fair,” Harrison said, “I am bi.” This was information Evan had not known. “I just haven’t yet met any weird dudes who aren’t related to Pale here, and it’s just way too weird to date one of your bro’s actual brothers or something.”

“Does anyone know where Ashlee went?” Steve asked.

Everyone looked around. There was no Ashlee.

“Could she be in the bathroom, maybe?” Nandini asked.

“Don’t think so,” Y’lehna said. “She ran off while you guys were running to the woods. I wasn’t gonna get in the hot tub and eat pretzels if she was still here!”

“Uh, yeah,” Rhiannon said. “That’s a little long to be in the bathroom.”

The Pale Bro expressed in a voice that was exhaustedly done with this bullshit that he could look for her.

“Nah, man, I’ll do it,” Trevor said. “I know your feet are hurting, and I’m the next biggest guy after you.”

“I could go with you,” Steve said.

Trevor shook his head. “Steve… that is a cute girl who is very, very drunk,” he said, pointing at Kayla. “I don’t know her tolerance, but I’m pretty sure that if she isn’t at puke bucket level now, she will be soon. You need to stay with her and make sure she’s okay.”

“Yeah, good point,” Steve said.

Nandini turned back to Evan as Trevor walked away. “I can’t believe you lied to me, though. I mean, I know Rhiannon. I could have accepted ‘he’s only into weird-looking chicks’—”

“Thanks, Nandi, that’s sweet,” Y’lehna said.

“You know what I mean,” Nandini said, waving her hand dismissively.

“Look, I’m gonna come clean with you,” Evan said. “I really thought you were great. You’re hot, you’re smart – I’m not dumb, but when you talked about your major, I realized you could run rings around me – and you stay calm in a crisis, and I really respect that. But you asked me if Har had a girlfriend, and I just – I’m sorry. It was like you didn’t even notice I’m a dude, and that made me feel bad. So I did something shitty, and I gotta apologize to both you and Harrison.”

“I mean, no problem on my end,” Harrison said. “It’s all good, bro.”

“Damn,” Nandini said, running her hand through her hair. “I didn’t even think about what that sounded like when I asked you. I’m sorry, Evan, what I said to you was a shitty thing too. I mean, I still think what you did was worse because you were lying, but I understand why you did it.”

“Hey, I know you didn’t mean to hurt my feelings.”

“Evan’s right, though,” Harrison said. “I mean, not about me being gay, I like girls just fine, but…” He shrugged. “Girls that look like normal human beings, even beautiful human beings, it just doesn’t click. Y’lehna here’s really different-looking, and that is so hot.” He turned to Y’lehna. “You know you’re super-hot, right?”

“Yes,” Y’lehna said, “but boys like you don’t usually agree. So that’s nice.”

“I guess I can forgive you,” Nandi said to Evan. “But you’d better not lie to me again.”

“I am pretty sure you could kick my ass if I did, so I won’t. I like my ass un-kicked.”

“Your ass is okay,” Nandini said. “I’ve seen better asses, but yours is all right.”

Rhiannon had offered to give the Pale Bro a foot rub, since his feet hurt. A guy as big as he was suffered from foot pain frequently, so he’d agreed, while apologizing in a voice like a church organ in a cave for his toenails. Some might say his toenails were worth apologizing for, as they were about four inches long and razor sharp.

But Rhiannon disagreed. “Your toenails are great. Look how white they are! I never see guys without all kinds of grody fungus turning their toenails yellow. And I bet you’re amazing at climbing trees with them.”

The Pale Bro allowed that this was true, and that climbing in general was one of his talents.

Steve, meanwhile, wasn’t exactly sure what he ought to be doing with Kayla, who was now lying on her back, her head in his lap, rambling about stars and how far away they were. When she’d asked for another beer, he’d gotten her cold water instead and reminded her that water was important to avoid hangovers. She’d finished most of the water – the rest had spilled – and now she seemed to be close to falling asleep in his lap.

“You’re really into stars, huh?” he asked. “You an astronomy major?”

“Oh no!” Kayla laughed. “Math! I’d tell you all about it but I’m waaaaaay too drunk. I just reeeeally like stars!”

“That’s cool,” Steve said. “I’m a comp sci major myself.”

“Are you gonna build an AI that wants to take over the world and enslave humanity?” Kayla asked.

“Hey, I’d be happy if I could build an AI that can identify rocks as not sheep,” Steve laughed.

***

Trevor had very quickly guessed where Ashlee might be.

Ashlee was nervous and reacted badly to things that startled or scared her. Ashlee was also at her own house – well, cabin. So odds were, Ashlee had gone into the cabin to calm down.

The cabin wasn’t very big, and Ashlee wasn’t in any of the rooms in an obvious place. So Trevor started checking the not-obvious places, like a closet in a room that looked girly enough that it might be her room. He knocked on the door.

She shrieked, inside the closet, but he said, “Ashlee, calm down! It’s me, Trevor. Can I check on you to make sure you’re okay?”

“Uh… okay,” she said, and Trevor opened the door. Ashlee was sitting in a lighted closet, on the floor, completely covered to her shoulders with stuffed animals.

“Wow. Are you okay?” He squatted down. Being a big black man, Trevor had learned many strategies for making himself look less threatening. Not towering over somebody was one of them.

“Not… really?” Ashlee said.

“I know you were scared with all that noise. Hell, I was too. But it turned out to be nothing. Steve and Kayla accidentally dropped some beer over the cliff.”

“It’s not that,” she whispered. “It’s just… it’s too much. Too many people.”

“Yeah?” He sat on the floor crisscross applesauce, making himself even lower and more relaxed-looking. “You want us to go?”

“No! I mean, this was supposed to be a weekend with just my friends, and then you guys show up, but you’re nice guys! I like you guys! But it’s just so many people, I started to wig out.” She lifts an arm out of the sea of stuffed animals. “So I do this thing when there’s too many people and I start to freak… I find a tiny place and I fill it with soft things and I lay in them until my tachycardia goes away.”

“Tachycardia?”

“Oh, um, that means fast heart beat. Sorry. I just always call it that because it sounds scarier than fast heartbeat and it really is scarier so I want people to know it’s a problem.”

“I know what it means, I’m a pre-med. I just wondered—”

“Oh wow! I’m in pre-med, too!” Ashlee sat up , some of the stuffed animals falling off her. “I guess we’re not in any classes together because you’re a senior and I’m a sophomore, but did you have Lessing for Organic Chemistry?”

“You’re doing orgo in sophomore year?” Trevor whistled. “That’s fast.”

“Yeah, I, um, my high school had like this program where good students could do science classes at a nearby college, for college credit, in senior year, so I took chemistry then, and bio last year and also the math I needed, so I get to do orgo this year.”

“I hated orgo. It’s just memorize a bunch of prefixes and suffixes and string them together. Couldn’t we find a better way to describe methylethylpropylene than that?”

She laughed. “Is that even a real thing?”

“I don’t know, but it’s pretty ridiculous that I can put together a string of prefixes and make something that sounds like a chemical even if it doesn’t exist.” He shook his head sadly. “And yeah, I had Lessing. She’s tough. She giving your brain a real workout?”

“Yeah. It’s a challenge. Everyone always told me, ‘Ashlee, you can’t just coast along getting straight As without ever studying. Ashlee, when you go to college it’ll be a lot harder. Ashlee, you need to learn how to study or you’ll fail in college.’ Well… I haven’t failed yet, but… it might be close.” She sighed. “I’m sorry. I must sound so stuck up with my humblebrag. ‘Oh, it’s so hard to be a gifted student who gets straight As!’ But it really is hard. Because if it was too easy for you in school you don’t learn how to handle it when it gets too hard, and I’m just, like, totally stressed.”

“I feel you. My mom made me study, and I was like, ‘momma, I do not need to read the book and highlight all the important parts and then write them in an outline and then read over the outline! I got it the first time I read the book!’ And that was what she said. ‘You take shortcuts now because everything’s easy, you’ll be in a world of hurt when things get hard.’ And hell, I ended up in a world of hurt in orgo anyway.” They both laughed.

“Anyway, your friends are worried about you and I don’t want people to think we both got bumped off by a psycho killer, so I figure, there’s three options here. I leave and tell everyone you’re okay, and I leave you the hell alone; I leave and tell everyone you’re okay, and then I come back and we keep talking; or you and I both leave together and we both tell everyone you’re okay, and then we get to eat some chips, if Y’lehna and Harrison didn’t get them all already.”

“She’s in the hot tub eating chips, isn’t she.” It was not a question.

“Yeah, sad but true. At least she’s leaning over the side so the crumbs get on the concrete and they don’t fall in the tub.”

Ashlee sighed. “I guess I better get back out there. But I do still want to talk and stuff. And I wanna check up on Phenylephrine so maybe you can help me find her.”

“Phenylephrine?”

“My cat. The cat before her was Sudafed so when she died and I got a new kitten I named her Phenylephrine.”

“I get the joke there, but why was the first cat named Sudafed?”

“My mom was allergic to cats and she said if we get a cat we might as well name it Sudafed because she’d be taking so much of it, and then we did get a cat, so she did name her Sudafed.”

“Maybe she shouldn’t have gotten a cat if she was that allergic?”

“Oh, no, my mom loves cats. She just says wiseass things sometimes. Anyway, Phenyl lives here at the cabin and the cleaning service makes sure she gets fed. They call her the head of Mousekeeping Services.”

Trevor laughed.

***

Outside, it turned out there was no need to turn out a search party for Phenylephrine, as for some entirely inexplicable reason it turned out she liked chips, and also Harrison’s lap, where he was feeding her chips. She didn’t actually eat the chips, she just licked them.

The party was starting to flag just a bit; Evan suggested putting on some music, but the internet wasn’t good enough here for Ashlee’s Spotify playlist and she didn’t have MP3s on a hard drive like Evan did. Evan was regretting not putting a bunch of MP3s on a flash drive and bringing them with him. Nandini had a CD in her car – the girls had all come up here in their own cars, except for Y’lehna who couldn’t drive – but it was hit songs from Bollywood musicals and no one here knew any of them, and she was self-conscious about whether anyone would even like them.

And then, as they discussed what to do about tunes, a shadow fell across them, blocking the moon for a moment.

They all looked up, even the Pale Bro. A shambling monstrosity, 20 feet tall and brick red, with sprouting tentacles where its face should be and eyes on the tentacles, and Edward-Scissorhands-length blades for fingernails, loomed over them.

Several of the group screamed. The Pale Bro got to his feet.

“D̶̫̊̚Ũ̸̟̝͍̘̮͒Ḍ̸͋̽̀E̷̛̝̹̗͈̊͌̍,̷̨̖̲̺̤̝͂̈́̎͘ ̴̛̱͚͗Y̶̧͔͉̙͋͊̊͋͘Ô̸̢̥̙͙U̴͖͍̳̭͗̊̌͘͘͜R̷̫̜̘̀ ̶̼̘̠̾̐̈́̒̚Ṃ̴̡̡̦̮̖̿͗̊͋͝Ȯ̴͛ͅM̴̺̱͕̳̀ ̷̱͔̄̃̎́I̸̙͐̍͑͐S̶͉͉̲͋̊͒̽̄͜ ̵̤̙̬̫̒͋́͛P̷̧̧̧̰͔̦͠Î̴̢̜͒̅͘S̷̛̝̤͂́̍̐S̴̭͉͆̋̿É̴̺͋́̋̚̚��̢̫̝D̴̥͈̠̋̅̅̀͝͝ ̴̡̡̖̬̓A̵͈͚̣͂̆̔̍̂̕T̷̡͙̠̙̫̎̈̄͝ͅ ̴͔͗̀̋͗̏Y̴̤͇̪͕͇͎͆̌̀̊̈́Ơ̸̡̢̙̭͇͕̒̐̕̕U̸̡̩̠̚.̸̣̖̼̫́͛̄,” the entity boomed.

In a sound like the rushing of lava through underground caverns just before a volcano was about to blow, the Pale Bro demanded to know if the entity had eaten any people lately.

“S̴̙̱͕̀H̴̭͐̈́͠I̷̘̟͉̝͊͐̄̋̀̑Ṱ̷̢̫̮͓̲̐̑͗̈́̀,̵͓̥͖͈̾́̏̇͘ ̵̣̳͍̿Ń̵̟̦̰͖̺͜O̸͉̓̈̊͛̔̕.̷̣̜̗̩̈́ ̸͖̋̓̀̀͝͝Í̶̘̗͓̱̗̬̀̈́'̴̗̯͈͈̥͎̎̇M̷̹̻͉̼͑̎̓̐̏̀ ̴͚̻͚̱̇̿͛̏͒͠O̴̩̪̣̯̤͙̐̐̚̚Ņ̶͇̘̤̗͗͗̑͛̏̇͜ ̸̡͎̔̽͛A̷̢̘̪͎̗͊͐̌͝͠ ̸̤̺͉̫̖̫̀̓̑̕̕D̴̡̜̤̻̉Ĩ̸̡̯͉͔́̓̂͘͝Ę̶̨̫͇̬̳̉̽͑̈̊͐T̸̥̝̹̑̾.̷̢̟̻̭̲̿ ̴̧̣͌̆̃̕ͅÏ̷̟̰̫̰̹̽̐̐F̶͖̂̉̌ ̵͔͚̊̐Y̸͔̆Ö̴̞̦͕̘̀̒̀͘Ṳ̶̪̝͙̎̿͘ ̵̥̀̏͗E̵̦̣̲͍͉̥̊V̶̑͒̏ͅȨ̷͚̪̲̎͜ͅR̵͎͖̀̓̈́͑͠ ̷̣̀̀̓͋C̸̲̗͎̞͔̭͌̈́̕͘Ã̶̝͉̮͉͉̓̄͒̈́͜͝M̵̙̮͎̹̌E̷̥̪̎̓͗́͝ ̷͎͓̙̺͔̗͂̑̕H̶̢̍͗́͋͊O̴̗̎̽̆M̴̮̭̮͐̑́̚Ë̶̩̦̹̞́͂̈́̆ ̴̩̻̈́͘Y̴̨͍̣̩͈̎̅͘͘O̵̠͉͒̐̈̕͝U̶̪̝̳̺͑͆̇'̸̖̋D̶̗̉̓̿͐̓ ̸͉̍̀͠K̷̥̞̼̍͛́̇͗͝N̵̡̹̠͚̥̰̋̈́̌̈́͘O̸̻̠͍̲͋̉Ẁ̸̞͎̺̀͆̌̀ ̴̛͔̙͗͗̉͠T̸̨̓̀̎H̶̡̱̘͈̹͐̔͗͂͘A̷̠̠͉͎̫̰̿̄T̴̡̰͍̦͕̉̌,” it said, rolling tentacles clockwise around its face in an approximation of an eye roll.

If that was the case, the Pale Bro shot back, explain why this entity’s footprint was found right outside his bro’s cabin, and a man was missing.

“Į̴̙͈̻̓͗͜ͅ ̷̙̑̔͛͝W̷̺̯̲͗͝Ã̸̹͕̊S̷̹̲͆̏ͅ ̵̝̈́̒͗̓̍L̸͖̺̊͛Ǫ̶̗̥̼͍̥̒̒̌̊O̸͙̊̎̋̏̕Ķ̴͚̫̤̈̔́̅͑͝Į̵͑̍Ṉ̸̨͌͂́Ǵ̵̭̥̹̮̞̏͂ͅ ̷͚͙̹̋F̸̧͕͉͓̊̾͊O̵̲̙͓͛̌̄̏̕̚R̴̬͚̠͉̬̘̽̀̌́͊ ̴͎̀̏̐͋Y̴͈̘̮͌͋̍̃̍̈́Ơ̷̞͉̝͙̻̒U̵̦̭͈̻̪̽͂͗̚,̴̳̐ ̸̢̠̙͕̰̐̅D̸̟̫̋͑̅̈́̄͜͝ͅŰ̵̡̜̤̺̿̍̃̈́M̵̼̜̳̊͊̋̈ͅB̷̧͖̲̮̤̜͋̐͑̔Ȁ̶̼̪̟̼̱̐̔̋̀͘S̷̨̳͂S̶̨̡͈̈́̐͂̿͜͠,” the entity said. “A̷͕̎͆Ṷ̴̢̣͙͐Ņ̷͓͔͕̙̟͛̿́̐͝T̶̠̹̜͇͐̾̊̂̚  ̸͔̐͋̓̓͐͝��̶͉̦̍̊̅₯̷̟̙̗̱̤̈́̋̌͂͌̚ῥ̷̠̩̇ῗ̶̦͎͚̃͊̾ᾗ̴̤̞̰͕͓̈́͜Ỷ̸͔̫͙̦͐ẞ̶̦͕̱́͂͑́͊̈́ ̵͉͍͉̼̐͑̈́͋͝S̷̢͇̽͗͛͊̏E̸͉̲̓̉̎̈N̸̤̾Ț̷̻̍́̍ ̴͓̱͉͍̝̄̐̀͜ M̷̹͖͝E̸̘̖͓̍͋͜ ̶̢̲̘͋ T̴̠̘̲̼̍̈́̄̏̃͝ͅǪ̷̨̡̤͕͎͠ ̴̬͑͊ T̵͚̫̆̏͘E̴͚̗̯̠̊͗͌̕̚ͅL̴̫̺̫̀̄̽̃̕L̶̡͚̫̬̈́͑̇ ̴̲͙̼̖̘̺̈͊̓̂͠ Y̸̰̳̰̑Ơ̵̢̼̯͕̌Ų̶̜̜͚͇̕ͅ ̶̟͎̫͌ Y̴͔̱̼̅̋̄̀͜O̴͕̰̰̎̄U̶͓̜̼̝͑̃͂͘͝ ̸̨͎̀͊Ṅ̵̢͙̙̹̀Ë̸̖E̵̢̪̪͛̒̈D̷͍͖̀̈̏͊͋̚ ̶̦̙̫̺͓̉͂͠T̸̙̮̬͚̚Ó̷̖̘̩̘̝̌̄ ̸͇͍͋͒̃̑Ṽ̸͉̞͔̘̱̃͑̌I̷͙͛͑͝S̸̢̗̬̞͂̽I̵̺̿̾͗̀̓̅T̷̢͈̺̹̀̇͊͐̊̍ͅ,̵̭̔ ̷̹̥̺̟̣͋̄͜Ş̵̺̱̃Ḩ̴̙͙̼͙͉̔̎̍̐́̃I̷͔͚͂̇̑͂͜T̷̲̱͔̬̓͠H̶̝̝͌̏͐Ę̴̨̰̙̤͖̎A̸͔͠ͅḐ̴̻͚͔̯̏́͐͘.̵͚͎̪͖̼̻̇̉.”

The Pale Bro replied, in a voice like the whining of an engine underneath the whapping sound of helicopter rotors, that he was on vacation with his bros and he was not here to visit his mom and she could just deal.

“A̶̱̘̬̪̝̓͌͊͐̚R̸͙͌̉̆̆̇̔ͅE̵̡̱̙̯̮̅͗ ̴͈͒̐Y̶̮̤̽̄O̴̢͓̙̝̮͉̾̆̈́̔̚͝Ų̸͚̗͓̞͎̀͝ ̶̡̬͚̄̆͌͋̉̆F̷̙͊͋U̷̿͊̊̽͌̚ͅC̴͙̦̼͕̈́̊̒K̴̬̘͆̀̑͒̐I̸̅́̈͒̅͠ͅŅ̴̪͍̭͂̈G̴̗̥͎͌̔̽̑̈́ ̸̻̰͆̈̕Ȟ̶̱̜̎̕Ī̴͎̝̖̼̤̱̏̐G̵͚͙̊͆̃̍̅ͅͅḦ̸̡̾̄̕?̵͉̫̠̉̈́̓ ̸̡͕̔͐Y̵̨͒͊̈̕O̴̮͓̼̽̓͝Ú̶̝̺͜ ̴̛̪̚ͅͅC̸̣̆͛̿̓̂Á̸͇͈̦͐͗̇͝N̸̞̭̲̻͖̦̽̈́̈'̶̪̪̐͐̈́T̸͔̘͌̄ ̴̨̪͙̫̩̐́S̶̩̋̃A̷̡̨͙͉͕͑́̔̓̌͜͠Y̸̯̝͕̋͗̄̾ ̵̲̜̥̥͆͊̾̑̊͜͝ͅT̴̟̭̼̲̐̄H̶͚̦̯̱̐̔͝Ą̴̥̤̅̃̄̂̾T̵̞̜̱̍̈́̔̕͜ͅ ̶̤͇͐Ṱ̷̃̾̚Ȏ̷͇͈͓̰͇͓ ̶͓̘̟̉̄̀͌̽ͅẎ̸̢̠̿Ỏ̸̧̢̹̹̀̓U̶̢̬͚̞̘͂́̃̆̽̔Ṛ̵̬̱̯̟̀͐̓̎̃͠ ̵̨̮̏̑̐̐M̷̽͜͝O̴̪̙͙͕̥̕͘M̵̨͉̫̭̩̔͑̈́̈̈͝!” the entity exclaimed.

“This is your cousin, bro?” Evan asked diplomatically.

In a voice like the moaning of the wind through a forest of dead things and disappointments, the Pale Bro admitted that this asshole was indeed his cousin, and was carrying a message from the Bro’s mom that he needed to come visit her, because somehow she’d found out that he was vacationing in the area.

“Well, why don’t you just tell him that you will go to visit your mom, in a few days, right before we head out? It is rude to be right near her house and not go visit her, but on the other hand you’re on vacation to spend time with us, so just do it at the end,” Evan suggested.

The Pale Bro expressed that if he absolutely had to visit his mom, that was probably the best way to handle it, and could his cousin kindly fuck off now.

“Ö̵̡̩͙̠̮͌̓̍K̶͈̬̳̰̺͂̋̂́̕Ạ̸̢̬̪̠̠̽͝Ÿ̴͓̰̰̻͔́̏͒̌͆,̶̮̉͒͒̿̏ ̵̦̺̠͓̩̲̍͆̉B̸͕̽͆Ư̵̟̔̈́̌̏͒Ţ̵̳̞̙̣̪̏̂ ̶͈̲̃͐̈́͋͛Y̴̝͍͌̈̍Ơ̶̙̝̱̘̈́̉́̊͒Ū̷͎̦ ̸͚̓B̷͕̥͊͗̿̒͝Ë̴͕͖̪͇̃́T̶͉̓̾̌̃̀͘T̵̨̟̠̩͚̜͂̎̚̕͝Ḙ̴͈̳̮͗̆͋̐́̈́R̶̡̛̪̮͖͓͙̍̈́͌́ ̸̧̘̻̞̣̈́͆͑̄͜N̷͎̦̬͊͌̆̌̕O̵̧̫̾́̾͜T̵͔̉́ ̸͔̒̀̐͆̌F̵̣͉̖̺̱̚ͅÒ̸̯̜̼̖̋̑͘͜R̶̲̦̱̭̱̙̆̈G̵͓̘̞͎̑̅E̴̲̓̿T̴̝̝̑͌̏̊̄̕ ̴̧̡̮̮͓͓̐͒T̸̡̛̖͈͒̕Ḥ̸̬̭͙̪̲̈́͌̈́̚͠͝Ì̸̡͎̝̎̈́̾͂̕S̷̠̻̣̈́̓͘̚ ̶̧̤̀̈́Ţ̴̧̛̫̫̑͗̓͌̉ͅÏ̵̧̘̰̆ͅM̶̮̤̎̉͜E̶̘̬̟͓̜͔̓̕̕̕,̶̗̈ ̶̖͇̞̀̾͑̓͜͠D̷̡̢̧̹̖͙͛̂̒̏̏I̵̛͍̘̜̲̥̓̏̅͐͂̋͝P̴̧̢̡̱͖̣͔̰̦̊̀Ṡ̸̳̺̓̓̕H̷̰̭̣͂͗Ị̶̢̧̜͇̅̎̓̈̉̂̃̐̕͜͜ͅT̶̰̰̋͐.̵͍̜̠̰͊͝ ̷̝͔̼̞͘ͅI̶̩͍̘͎̺̓'̷͕̟̗̣̳̻̀͂͠L̵̹̣̃͗̇͆L̴̢̛̩̤͖̬̆̚ ̸̲̬̲̈́͛͑̌B̴̘̹́́̈͝E̵͓͐̋͒͐̏̎ ̵͇̹̂͒Ẇ̵̨͎̣̝͔͘ͅA̷̻̗̫̍͑̈́̇̐T̸̥̱̘̲̳̋C̶̪̀H̵̢̏͜Ì̸̡̨͙̜̠̲͘N̸͖̹̦̿͊́͛̈́͝G̵̡̨̘̼̀̑̅̎.̷̍̑̆.” The giant creature lumbered off, back into the woods.

“Your family sounds like mine,” Evan said, commiserating.

“Mine, too,” Nandini said. “If I was within 50 miles of my mom while I was on vacation and I didn’t stop by to see her, I’d never hear the end of it.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met your mom,” Steve said.

The Pale Bro suggested that that was just as well.

***

Kayla was napping on Steve, whose legs were starting to go numb but he didn’t want to risk waking her up. Trevor and Ashlee were talking animatedly about terrible professors and classes that were absolute bullshit but required for the pre-med track. Nandini, having forgiven Evan for lying to her about Harrison, had agreed to go on a date or two with him once they all got back to school, and see where things went. Also, she’d helped him recover his mom’s good knives, which they’d all dropped in the dirt when they got here so the girls wouldn’t be scared of them. Rhiannon continued to hit on the Pale Bro, who either didn’t notice, or was so flustered by a girl paying attention to him that he pretended not to notice. Y’lehna, somewhat overheated by spending too long in the tub and not drinking enough water, had a headache, and Harrison was tending her by getting her glasses of water with ice from Ashlee’s freezer.

Everything was going pretty well, and a lot of fun, except for Steve and his numb legs, when a man wearing a ski mask and carrying a bloody knife came out of the woods.

Everyone except Trevor and the Pale Bro screamed. The Pale Bro growled, less like a dog and more like the sound of the devil’s car engine, down in Hell, when the devil is revving it because he’s just challenged the Archangel Michael to a race in a demonic replica of NASCAR. Trevor took note of where Evan and Nandini had put all of Evan’s mom’s kitchen knives, and yelled, “Can we help you?”, preparing to grab a knife from the pile and go knife-fight the dude, just in case the Pale Bro was too drunk to simply lift the fellow up and toss him off the cliff that had already claimed Kayla’s case of beer.

“I hope so!” the man yelled back. “I’m in the middle of cutting up steaks for the grill, and I realize, I don’t have any potatoes! I was gonna do the potatoes on low and slow so they’d be nice and soft inside, but turns out, all my potatoes rotted and I haven’t got any, and it’d take like forty-five minutes to drive into town. And now it’s too late for baked potatoes, but I haven’t got any kind of starch, so I was wondering if you guys have any French fries?”

Trevor blinked.

“Uh, why are you wearing a ski mask?” Nandini asked.

“Oh, this!” The man pulled off the mask. “Haha, almost forgot I had this on! I’m anemic, so my face gets cold. I wear ski masks around to keep warm, but I forgot how that would look to somebody else. Wow, that was dumb of me.”

The man was a good bit older than any of them, maybe late 20’s or early 30’s. He was a white dude with a tan complexion, like Rhiannon’s, but it was a little grayish and unhealthy looking in the bright lights around the hot tub, which could be due to the anemia. His black hair was wavy and longish, parted on the side and going down to his shoulders, framing his face, and he had a mustache and beard. “My name’s Jason,” he said. “My girlfriend and I just moved back in to the cabin – we live here in the spring and summer months because my girl can’t handle the summer sun, she needs some shade – and I brought the steaks with me to celebrate, but I thought I had potatoes. I forgot, potatoes don’t survive being stored for four months.”

“Whew.” Evan shook his head. “That’s nasty, man. I hope you were able to get the smell out of wherever you were storing them.”

“It might take a few more good scrubs,” Jason acknowledged, grinning. “Hey, do you guys mind if I put the ski mask back on? I know what it looks like, but my face is really cold.”

“Go ahead,” Trevor said.

“Yeah, we don’t mind,” Nandini said. “If you turn out to be a serial killer, it’s not like you’re not a serial killer when the mask is off.”

Jason laughed again. “Well, I can eat a whole box of cereal in one sitting, so I guess you could call me a cereal killer.” Many of the college students groaned at the pun.

“You and your girlfriend, do you have kids?” Harrison asked. “Because that was dad-joke worthy.”

“Haha! Nah, no kids yet, dunno if that’s in the cards ever to be frank. Angella’s not much of a kid person.” He pronounced the name On-zhellah rather than An-jellah, like it was French or something.

“I don’t think I have any fries,” Ashlee said. “Or anything, really. When I’m here at the cabin I mostly drive down into town and get takeout. I mean, I’ve got bacon and eggs and bread for toast, and I could make you a PB&J or a lunch meat sandwich, but no real food.”

“That’s better than what I’ve got,” Evan muttered, and then, more loudly, “You got any tomatoes or peppers? I could chop them up and fry you some Spanish rice; I’d just have to go back to my cabin to get rice and spices.”

“Hey, man, that’d be awesome,” Jason said. “Yeah, I’ve got tomatoes and peppers. We’ve got a lot of steak and I don’t think even Angella’s appetite for bloody meat will put a dent in it, so if you guys wanted to come over and get some steak…”

The Pale Bro said in a voice like the moon had crashed but was still orbiting, scraping itself along the Earth’s crust as it went, that steak sounded sweet and he wouldn’t mind having some steak.

“Bro, you are just, like, an eating machine,” Harrison said. “But yeah, wouldn’t mind a steak.”

“I prefer seafood,” Y’lehna said, “but I don’t dislike steak.”

“Guys, Kayla’s asleep and I can’t leave her alone here,” Steve pointed out.

“I’ll stay here with Kayla,” Ashlee suggested. “You can go get steak.”

“I don’t feel great leaving you guys by yourselves, though, you sure you don’t want me to stay?”

At this point, Kayla lifted her head and asked blearily, “What’s happening?”, which solved the issue of who would stay with her; when steak was explained to her she cheerfully agreed that steak would be nice, and everyone else agreed that Kayla had had enough to drink that, assuming she didn’t puke it up, putting more food in her stomach might be a good idea.

Trevor and a couple of knives went with Evan back to Evan’s cabin to get the rice; the Pale Bro went with the rest of them to Jason’s cabin, both to make sure nothing happened to any of his friends, and because steak sounded awesome. Since Evan’s family had been coming here for vacations since he was a kid, he knew the area well enough to know how to get to Jason’s house once Jason gave him the address.

***

Jason’s cabin was about the same size as Evan’s, and it did not have a hot tub, but it did have a barbeque grill. Not one of those tiny little portable things that run on charcoal, either. This was a large fancy propane-powered grill of the kind that could practically be used in an industrial kitchen.

“Honey! I brought guests! And they brought beer! And their friend is gonna make us some Spanish rice!” he called.

A woman came out of the cabin, looking so goth she might as well have invented it. She had incredibly pale white skin, without even the undertone of red most healthy human beings have; she wasn’t quite as pale as the Pale Bro, but it was close. Long black hair slunk down her back like she was cosplaying Morticia Adams. She was wearing hip-hugging black jeans and a long-sleeved black blouse, and a chain around her neck with an Egyptian ankh on it, and her lips were blood-red.

Then she opened her mouth, and it became immediately apparent that she had fangs.

“How do you do,” she said in a vaguely quasi-European accent. “I’m called Angella Darque, with a q. And you are?”

The college students introduced themselves, Nandini wearing a very skeptical pair of eyebrows the entire time. After introductions were done, she asked, “Is your last name really Darque?”

Angella looked taken aback. Jason said, “It’s really Duncan, actually, but she’s getting together the legal paperwork to get it changed because she hates her dad. Deadbeat, never paid child support, you know the type.”

“Oh, Jason, I had no idea today was ‘let’s tell total strangers all about my girlfriend’s private history’ day. Is that what we’re celebrating?”

“Sorry.”

“His lips are so loose,” she confessed to the students. “Sometimes I just want to… sew them shut.”

“Isn’t she hilarious?” Jason laughed. “We met at a support group for people with anemia, five years ago, and we’ve been together since.”

“Um,” Ashlee, obviously very nervous, said. “Uh, we brought some beer if you want. And also wine coolers. Would you like a wine cooler?”

“No, I never drink… wine,” Angella said. And then, “Do you have anything like a Jaeger?”

“Evan’s got vodka back at the cabin,” Steve volunteered.

“Does your cell phone work up here? Maybe you could call him,” Jason said. “Or I could, if he’s got a landline.”

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t want to put anyone out,” Angella said. “I have 151 here, and that’s quite fine. Would any of you like some?”

“Yeah, slip it on me!” Kayla cheered, somewhat mangling her idiom.

Nandini and Y’lehna said at the same time, “No.” And then Y’lehna clarified. “I’m a little drunk, but she’s, like, totally plastered. We can’t even let her have a beer at this point. Soda’s cool, though.”

The Pale Bro conveyed in a voice like a million marbles suddenly gaining sentience and stampeding for a cliff to fling themselves over like lemmings, except that lemmings don’t really do that, that he would appreciate a rum and Coke.

Angella went back in the house to make the Pale Bro a rum and Coke with dangerously-high-proof rum. Harrison, Steve, and the girls looked at each other. Finally Rhiannon said, “I thought maybe I saw… your girlfriend has fangs? What’s up with that?”

“Pretty cool, huh?” Jason said cheerfully. “Now you guys need to let me know, should I use the rosemary garlic marinade, the pineapple ginger, or the Brazilian steakhouse?”

“Why not mix it up?” Harrison asked. “You got a lot of steak there, you could do ‘em all!”

“I don’t think pineapple ginger would go well with steak,” Ashlee said uncertainly. “Doesn’t that sound like more of a pork thing?”

“Or fish,” Y’lehna said. “Oh, but wait! Nandini, can you even eat pork?”

“I can eat anything,” Nandini said irritably, “but my family’s Hindi, not Muslim. I’m supposed to stay away from beef, not pork. But some traditions I don’t even believe in is not going to stop me from eating a nice steak.”

“I could add pork medallions, if you thought it was a good idea,” Jason said.

“Nah, man, you’ve got a lot of meat here,” Harrison said. “It looks great! Maybe if you had like a swordfish or tuna steak for Y’lehna, but if you don’t, no worries.”

“I got a salmon.”

“Pineapple ginger might go really well with salmon,” Y’lehna suggested.

Meanwhile Angella had brought the Pale Bro his rum and Coke, and they were currently discussing literary trends in fiction aimed at college-educated women.

***

Evan and Trevor returned with rice, spices, dried vegetables, and coincidentally, a can of pineapple chunks. Jason ended up preparing the salmon with the pineapple chunks after defrosting it in his microwave, and Evan made the Spanish rice he’d promised, and no one actually questioned why someone had started grilling steaks at midnight.

The salmon was done first, and Y’lehna and Nandini, who was feeling just a little bit guilty over her earlier decision to eat beef, got most of it. Angella got the first steak that came up, when it was barely warmed, still dripping blood. Then the rest of them, as the rest of the steaks were all done around the same time, along with the rice.

At some point, Evan suggested that everyone return to his cabin, because he had video games and music and nice speakers; Jason and Angella turned the offer down, Angella saying, “The night is young, and has yet to yield all its delights”, which was really corny and pretentious, but given the look she gave Jason when she said it, none of the guys questioned why he was staying at his own cabin tonight instead of going with them. Ashlee also insisted on staying at her own cabin; after a whole night of having ten people at her house, she was kind of burned out on people, and needed to get some sleep. And everyone agreed that Kayla should stay at Ashlee’s cabin; she was still cheerful and fun, but she was still pretty plastered. Because of the potential threat of a killer, Steve volunteered to stay with the girls; he knew Evan’s landline number, so he could call in reinforcements if necessary. Everyone else trooped back along the road, many carrying tinfoil-covered plates of steak and spicy rice, back to Evan’s cabin.

There was blood dripped onto the driveway.

The Pale Bro noticed it before anyone else, with his multiple sensitive eyes. His arm went out to block Evan from going any further, and in a voice like the rumble of an entire river’s worth of water pouring from a broken dam, he warned everyone of the blood and suggested he should go first.

Evan put up his hands. “No problem, man,” he said. “You take point.”

“I’m right behind you,” Trevor, holding one of the knives in front of him, said.

“Okay, I’ll bring up the rear,” Nandini said. “Harrison, Y’Lehna, Rhiannon, Evan, you go between us.”

Harrison looked at Nandini, who was taller than him, and then at the others. Evan was maybe the same height as Nandini, maybe very slightly taller… or very slightly shorter. It was too dark for Harrison to accurately judge.

He, too, put up his hands. “Works for me,” he said.

Evan looked back at Nandini. “I feel like I should be back with you,” he said. “If Pale’s got Trevor as backup…”

The Pale Bro pointed out, in a tone that conveyed deep irritation, that he didn’t need backup because if it was a human killer he’d make short work of them and if it was a monster, only he had a chance, and anyway it was probably not a monster because his cousin had claimed to be on a diet and the only reason they’d thought it was a monster in the first place was his cousin’s footprint. He then walked forward resolutely.

The door to the cabin was hanging open. The Pale Bro ducked his head way down, which he was pretty much used to doing any time he was going through a door, and pushed through, followed by Trevor. They’d left all the lights on, with the shutters closed, so that the light leaking around the edges of the shutters would make someone think they were home, and also because the lights were LED bulbs so seriously, that was probably like only thirty cents worth of electricity wasted. In that light, they saw blood all over the floor.

All of the group looked at each other uneasily. Ever since the Pale Bro had found the girls and the hot tub, no one had really been acting as if there genuinely was a potential killer out there; they’d given lip service to the idea, they’d certainly gotten scared enough every time something bizarre happened – and a lot of bizarre things had happened – but they hadn’t really treated it as a serious risk. Now it seemed possible that someone had been murdered in Evan’s cabin, or had been stabbed somewhere else and staggered into Evan’s cabin, despite the fact that all the locks had been locked.

The Pale Bro went forward into the kitchen, following the blood trail – and stopped in confusion. This caused everyone else to stop short, without being able to see into the kitchen because the Bro was blocking the doorway.

“Come on, bro, what’s going on?” Evan asked.

The Pale Bro slid sideways out of the way in a fashion that didn’t quite look like a real way anything could possibly move, and Evan pushed forward to be right behind Trevor, both of them crammed into the doorway.

A middle-aged white dude wearing a baseball cap advertising Evan’s parents’ company was at the sink, his front covered in blood. He had turned to face all of them, his hands clean but his sleeves completely saturated with something’s death juices.

“Joe?” Evan said disbelievingly.

“Evan!” Joe said. “I’m so sorry about the mess, man, and the hour, I know you’re pissed and I don’t blame you, I’d be pissed too, I know I’m really late—”

“Joe. Why are you covered in blood? What happened?”

“The meat defrosted,” Joe said. “I was driving around this mountain trying to find the cabin for so long, the meat defrosted, and when I pulled it out of my trunk, the bag caught on something and ripped and all the blood from the meat defrosting was all over me. I’m so sorry.”

“Why are you—” Evan glanced at a fancy cuckoo clock on the wall that actually ran on batteries, not solely on clockwork. “—getting in at two fucking am when you were supposed to be here before six?”

“I have been driving around this mountain since four in the afternoon,” Joe said. “My GPS stopped working halfway up the mountain, and I swear I tried to follow your mom’s directions, I swear, but I couldn’t find Long Leaf Lane no matter how hard I looked, and I went back down and asked at the gas station but none of them lived on the mountain, so I bought a paper map but it didn’t help at all because Long Leaf Lane wasn’t even on it—”

“It’s a private drive, I don’t even know if they put those on maps,” Evan said.

“Evan, if this is your guy with the food and he’s not dying of stab wounds, I’m going to use your bathroom,” Nandini said. “Where is it?”

“There’s two, one upstairs with a claw-foot tub and one down on this floor, go back out of the kitchen and it’s the door on the east side of the living room,” Evan said.

“Great, using the downstairs one,” Nandini said, and ducked back out of the doorway.

“Are you okay?” Rhiannon asked Joe.

“I’ve been driving for ten hours. Last six of which I couldn’t find my way back down the mountain either, and I didn’t have any food and the only water was the ice that used to be in my Sprite that melted—”

“Come on, man,” Evan said, sighing. “Yeah, the GPS situation really sucks around here. I wouldn’t wanna try to find Long Leaf Lane if I hadn’t been coming here every summer for, like, ten years. Let’s get you upstairs and get you cleaned up.” He looked over at Harrison and the Pale Bro. “Guys, you know more or less where the stuff in the kitchen goes, right? Can you put the food away?”

“The ice cream melted,” Joe moaned. “I’m so sorry…”

“No, come on. Let’s get you a shower and a change of clothes. I’ll borrow something of Steve’s while you’re in the shower, he’s about your size.”

“I think I know,” Harrison said. “We put the meat in the freezer?”

Rhiannon and Evan said, “No!” at the same time, and Rhiannon added, “You’ve got to put it in the fridge. You can’t freeze most things twice, they get freezer burned.”

“Huh,” Harrison said, looking over the sheer quantity of meat that Joe had been trying to carry in a paper shopping bag with handles. “I guess we’re gonna go back to Jason and Angella’s at least one night this week, ‘cause this is way more meat than we can eat before it goes bad.”

The Pale Bro, who had just picked up the bag of melted ice cream and slurped the whole thing down like it was a milkshake, said, in the voice of a creature whose mouth was entirely full of melted ice cream, something very much like “Watch me.”

“Lemme go throw this shit out,” Harrison said of the paper shopping bag, whose bottom had almost disintegrated from holding way too much au jus for even a strong, well-made paper shopping bag to handle, and which smelled like a murder had been done, or at least that someone had lost an arm and was bleeding out.

Evan took Joe upstairs to the bathroom to wash himself, broke into Steve’s suitcase and took a random t-shirt and pair of shorts, and advised him that he could stay overnight, sleep on the couch, and have some eggs and bacon in the morning, now that he had brought the eggs and bacon.

And then they all heard Harrison screaming.

Evan got down the stairs approximately as fast as Nandini came racing from the bathroom, but Rhiannon, Y’lehna and the Pale Bro were out the door faster, having been closer.

Harrison was on the ground. The trash can had been dumped over. It was mostly cleaning products used by the team that cleaned the cabin between uses, but there were some banana peels and candy wrappers – and now, a bloody shopping bag – in the pile of trash.

Standing over the pile of trash, looking kind of pissed, was a black bear.

In the voice of a guy who has finally, finally gotten the chance to use his strength and size to protect his friends after like what seemed like twenty-seven false scares tonight, the Pale Bro said something that could possibly be understood to be “Fucking finally,” and charged at the bear.

The bear had a lot of mass, even more than the Pale Bro, who was a very, very skinny dude, but the Pale Bro was around twice as tall as the bear, had much longer claws, and was doing something weird to the space around the bear, making lensing effects that distorted all the angles of the trees and branches behind the trash can. The bear flailed a bit, and then the Pale Bro lifted it and held it straight out from his body, where its much smaller paws couldn’t hope to reach. It snarled and kicked and scratched, but the Pale Bro relentlessly carried it into the woods, where they both disappeared.

“Well.” Evan said. “Who wants to help me clean up this trash?”

“’Want’ is a strong word,” Harrison said, but he helped, and Nandini and Rhiannon pitched in. Y’lehna would have helped, but she had to run back into the cabin to run cold water over her arms and legs.

The Pale Bro returned minutes later, without a scratch on him. “Where’d you put the bear, dude?” Harrison asked.

The Bro conveyed that he could possibly have gone out to the cliff that ran alongside the road – the same cliff that, in a different location, had claimed the life of an entire case of beer – and by the way, did any of them know that bears bounce? Because he hadn’t.

“Dude, you didn’t have to kill it,” Evan complained.

“Yes, he did! It was gonna kill me! I don’t want it coming back for revenge!” Harrison gabbled out.

The Pale Bro declared that he hadn’t killed it. Before anyone could feel either relief or fear over that, he added that his mom lived down that way someplace and she would probably kill it, because eldritch spawn eat a lot and he had a lot of brothers and sisters.

***

And so the first night of their vacation ended, with the Pale Bro staying up all night playing video games with Trevor, who’d returned to the cabin with Steve once they’d both been informed that there was no psycho killer and Joe was actually fine, he’d just gotten really lost. Evan, Harrison and Steve went to bed like normal people, or rather, like normal people who are young men in college, around four am, after walking Rhiannon, Nandini and Y’lehna back to their cabin like gentlemen, because psycho killer or no, the woods were dark and any number of things could happen. In other words, it was a perfectly normal night on vacation, just like any group of friends in college might have.

As for anything that might have happened the next day, or any of the other days of their vacation… that’s a story for another time.

[alias-b]

sins of my youth. 003

Billy Hargrove x OC! Evie Fenny~ Also posted to my AO3

Summary: It was common knowledge that Billy Hargrove hated Hawkins. Hated Cherry Lane. Even loathed the strange girl next door. Evie Fenny wasn’t too fond of the chaotic Cali transfer either. An awful high school tradition sparks a chain of events that changes everything, ultimately bringing two frayed souls together.

A/N: Hey all! Enjoy the chapter. Billy trying again to woo Evie. They strike up a bet. TW: Pica. Light fatphobia. Taglist open :)

Chapter 3: To The Devil

   “Hey, Karen, here for the two o’clock?” Evie was jotting down slanted notes at reception, crossing the name off. Mona’s salon smelled of mousse and hairspray. Fans blared to keep the air moving. Karen beamed back.

   “I am. Need a touch up.” She touched her waves to give them a flick. "I'm so jealous of your curls, how do you get them to sit like that?"

   "Genetics, I'm afraid. Ah, I just dip myself in water and pray for the best." The dry humor she was known for. "Mom has them too, if only she didn't inject a gallon of product into her hair every morning."

   "Water. Innovative. Your secret is safe with me." Karen paused to laugh when Evie grinned, nodding as she finished the notes.

   “Seat four, Claudia’s getting your stuff ready now.” A smile beamed.

   “Thanks, sweetie. You’re mom in back too?”

   “Yeah, fixing the music, she’ll be out in a sec.” Evie flicked a page and peered around. Yellow walls with baby blue trim. Similar to a dollhouse her mother made once. Too many plants to count, but that was Evie's fault. 

   She did rounds and cared for each one. Even the new bloom of begonias in one of the back rooms hanging just out a window. Twisting silk petals all blushed and unfurled.

   Evie watered them, let the soil grow damp. Listened to the thumping of a dryer full of towels behind her in the cramped space. A rhythm she could write a song to. She saw a fallen petal and plucked it up. Felt the baby smooth texture between her finger pads.

   Lifted it idly to her cheek. Let it caress her skin in one graze. It comforted, the mere touch of it. And the calm stillness that followed as if someone was holding her welled euphoria. The petal ran her lips, she felt in control of her senses. This touch that was warm and ticklish. Evie gave a shuddered breath and just wondered. 

   Wondered.

   Evie spent too much of her life wondering.

   The petal touched her tongue and she half expected it to melt like a chocolate. Rich and silky. She rolled it damp around her mouth. Chewed for an earthy twang. Looking at the flowers. Feeling them across her running palms. Gently bouncing into place before she swallowed. Evie turned quick, jolting back into her skin for one fleeting moment.

   She was aware again. She was here. Still patting her cheek to stay grounded. Maybe the flowers would bloom a dainty beauty inside her. A delicate sensibility that’s evaded her all this life. Another flower petal plucked.

   He loves me.

   He loves me not.

   Fingers pulled a begonia clean. Chanted the little game in her head.

   He loves me.

   Swallowed. There was a slight of guilt. She’d stolen the power from this living thing and brought it into her own being. That washed away. She was carrying it now. Patting her cheek again to console herself.

   No one noticed Evie hidden in the back room. Indulging in control. It felt like a dirty school girl secret.  Evie dipped her fingers into the wet soil. Sighed and let the earth fall back into the plot. She brought them up to see the filth. Thought to lick herself clean.

   “Evie, can you bring the broom out?” A voice had her heart bursting. Evie yanked the watering can close, feeling the weight of liquid slosh. Her mother was next door fussing with music still. Blissfully unaware. Their usual relationship.

   “Y-Yes!” She felt this shame etch her spine. The rush of being caught doing something she shouldn’t have. Which Evie Fenny was already no stranger to. She washed the evidence away and snatched a broom handle. “Coming!” 

   “Thanks, honey.” Claudia took it and let Evie go about her business. Watering the last few pots at reception.

   The bell dinged right behind her as she stretched to water a pot above the door hanging from the ceiling, tip toeing upon a wooden stool. 

   Billy stood there, face at ass level and didn’t stop her. Not that he minded the view. A pink frilly apron over her violet dress. Black tights and belt to match. Big shiny hoops dangling caught the light above her, illuminating dark hair with a halo. Curls shifted and she eyed Billy Hargrove at the same time the music blasted back up. Dolly Parton of course.

   Here you come again

   Just when I've begun to get myself together

   "Angel...what a view." His bright eyes scanned, full of glittery stars. Tongue crossing pink lips in a vaguely obscene way.

   “Billy?” She hitched a breathy gasp and stumbled. Braced to fall on her ass before an arm swooped out to stop her. Muscles pulled Evie into a chest. A very cologned, hard chest. Those damn stars danced like she was in a movie, draped into Billy with the watering can clutched tight. Shifting around. Air sent their hair up and the door shut.

   Dolly’s lyric timing was really the worst. 

   You waltz right in the door

   Just like you've done before

   And wrap my heart 'round your little finger...

   Billy and his long lashes. Fluttering so pretty at her. Pulling her flush into the metalwork of his hot body. Evie lost herself.

   Swept up in his arms with no words. No synapses obeying her body’s commands. She choked there looking like the cover of a romance novel. Blushed at him. Flowers in full bloom.

   “You won’t soak my head if I make a joke about you falling from heaven, will you?”

   There he is. Evie rolled her eyes and found her footing.

   “Oh, but I will.” Hands pushed him to arm's length. No thank you followed.

   “Hon, you alright?��� Claudia had dropped her shampoo bottle. Few women echoed the call, eyes on the gorgeous boy who just strode in. Evie was quick to step from him.

   “Fine, fine, I’m…” Evie brushed herself awkwardly and went around the reception counter. Mostly to put distance between them, setting the can aside. Billy followed after to lean against the wood so she kept her voice low. “What are you doing here?”

   “I got bored.” He crossed his arms there to shrug, dressed to the nines and hair all done up. Eyes flicking. “Nice apron.”

   Evie scowled at him.

   “If you’re asking me to that party again, the answer is still-”

   “Billy! How nice of you to visit, I hope I see Susan in here again soon.” Mona swept toward them. Both teens leaned out from each other. Billy flashed his teeth, all charm.

   “She’s never felt better since coming in for the new do. Made my old man crazy.” He ignored Evie glaring at him.

   “That’s what I love to hear.” Mona came up to pat his cheek. Billy slid his eyes to her daughter. “What can we do for you?” She touched golden hair to sweep it aside. Mona was just the friendly sort. “You know, we do boy’s hair too. All the time. You look like you take care of these darling curls.”

   “I’ll keep that in mind, but actually I was just walking by and I saw Evie in her apron and thought we’d hit that burger joint for lunch.” His shiny teeth flashed to smile so Evie cut in.

   “And,” her voice rose, “I was just carefully explaining to Billy that we’re super swamped today. I couldn’t possibly go. Shucks.”

   Both Mona and Billy peered to see exactly three customers getting their hair done. No one outside. The appointment book near empty too.

   “So busy.” Evie pressed her teeth, eyebrows lifting for her mother to get the hint. "Extremely."

   She didn’t.

   “Oh, no, Evie. It’s your winter break." Arms waved at her daughter. Near ready to give Billy Evie's hand in marriage. "Go have some fun with the nice young man.”

   What a laugh.

   “Are you sure? I can stay...literally all day here. I can move in here and never have to leave ever. Never. Ever.” Evie was getting her apron snatched off by her mother. A couple shoves got her around the counter.

   “No, no. Go, shoo, have fun with a boy. Good to see you, Billy. Tell your parents that I said, hi. Have Susan bring your little sister in next time. What I wouldn’t give to style that pretty red hair she has.”

   “I’ll let them know.” Billy actually held the door for Evie as she shrugged on her coat. Another heated expression before she huffed and went out. Ire. He can work with that. “Bye, ladies.” A wink.

   “Bye, Billy.” Came the chorus. Both teens grinned all the way to the end of the window before hands snatched Billy’s collar when they were out of sight.

   “What the hell are you doing, Billy?” Evie shook him by the leather jacket. Even the scrunching snarl at him was cute. Actually had his taller, broad frame pressed into a brick wall. Made Billy pause to observe her face. Mauve lips frowned deeper.

   This was a cruel thing and she couldn’t stand it. This back and forth. These sides of Billy that only came out when it suited him best.

   “Making it up to you. Christ, just fucking let me. Easy...” He shrugged off, going around her. She was being difficult about this, maybe rightfully so, but it still gnawed at him. 

   “C’mon.” Billy went on. Not bothered by the cold in his white button up shirt and jeans. Tucked and tight. The gold saint chain bounced against his chest as he walked. Hard, intent steps with a lazy wave. “You like burgers? Who doesn’t, I’m hungry.”

   “I don’t need you to make it up to me, Billy.” She trailed after him. “This weird game you’re playing really doesn’t interest me.”

   “This town is so fucking boring. You know that?” He spoke instead, clicking his tongue and looking beyond them. “Got nothing to do, why not hang out? We’re neighbors.”

   “When have you acted like a neighbor?”

   “Right fucking now, Angel.” Blue eyes shifted to spot the right building.

   He was such an ass and she was still willingly walking beside him.

   “Ask Tommy or Carol to hang out.”

   “No one likes Tommy or Carol, would you want to hang out with them in your free time? Fucking annoying. Carol wants to fuck me and Tommy? ...You know, he might want to fuck me too. I'm the whole package.”

   “So, you’re with me because I’m not annoying like them and I don’t want to fuck you?”

   Billy turned sharp to see her at the crosswalk. Golden curls swept up. Almost offended.

   “Who said you didn’t want to fuck me?” The shit asked it so genuinely too. "I never said that."

   “Literally me, just now.” She pressed the walk button because he had her under a spell and Billy went before it changed. “Ugh.” Evie, ignoring her better judgment, paced after him. Street was empty.

   “You’re plenty annoying, Fenny.” Billy strode inside the diner and didn’t wait before he grabbed a table. Slapped a plastic menu down across the way until she moved to take the offered seat. A waitress appeared from nothing, but Evie figured Billy just had that effect.

   “Know what you want, sugar?”

   “Number three. Coke. Cheese Fries. Jalapenos on the burger and on the fries. And whatever the lady wants.” He stole an ashtray and dug for a smoke, not looking at either girl. Few people eyed them and Evie gave in.

   They were both still pretty hungover and she didn’t want to make a scene. Which Billy knew well and used to his advantage.

   “I will have the exact same thing.”

   “Are you sure?” The waitress looked Evie up and down as she said that. Oh, so carefully. Evie paused to tense up, acutely aware that she didn’t look right across from this gorgeous, golden boy. 

   The thought hadn’t even struck her until it was pointed out, that’s what sobered it painfully.

   “Yeah, she’s sure. We’ll take a large chocolate milkshake also. Two straws.” Billy snapped, flicking his menu up. The waitress bowed her head and hurried away. Evie’s jaw hung open while he played with his lighter distractedly. Eyes flicked up. “What, are you catching flies over there?” He lit a cigarette and her mouth shut.

   “I’m in the fucking Twilight Zone.” Elbows hit the table

   “That stuff you said Heather liked...” Billy tapped his ashes. Ignored the waitress when she set Cokes down. “That was about you, wasn’t it?”

   “Yeah, so?”

   “Museums and horror flicks. Noted.” He shrugged. “You into that poetry shit? Always writing.”

   “Song lyrics.” Evie took a breath and answered slower. This was weird. It was weird that...it wasn’t so weird all the sudden. Billy did what suited him. Blue eyes lingering on her then darting all over. He sat back with one boot up on the seat. Actually listening. Smoking. Present. “I play guitar and sing."

   Yeah, he heard her guitar from his window every other night if it was open.

   "You're always writing too," she went on, "I know it isn't school work." Observant.

   "I'd rather write some shitty story than listen to a lecture about nothing in class." Billy's ashes hit the tray again. “Are you going to be the next Dolly?”

   “My mom would love that.” She broke to laugh at herself and sip. “More Kate Bush or Stevie Nicks.”

   “Thank fuck, one Dolly is enough.” He snuffed his smoke out. “Why won’t you go to the party with me?”

   “Why do you suck with rejection?” She asked it bolder than intended. Half expected Billy to get upset and walk out. Smoke etched out his pink lips when he chuckled, catching his tongue between teeth. This girl was all four seasons in one spitting firecracker.

   “You got a wall up bigger than your mom’s hair, Evangeline.”

   “I built it myself, William, thanks.” Evie smiled sweetly that time, gazes locked. He twitched at the use of his birth name. A beat of staring before food arrived. 

   “Will that be-?”

   “Yeah, we’re good.” Billy plucked a fry up, watched melted cheese string from it before he chewed and the waitress saw herself off. “Don’t tell me you’re not gonna eat like normal in front of me.”

   He caught Evie picking up a knife and fork. She shot him a look. Dropped them and stole the milkshake to sip. Passed it over for him before she went for the burger.

   “There you go.”

   “Stuff it.” She grabbed a fry and watched him take the biggest bite he could. Cheese drooped out the bottom. “Hangover miracle, huh.”

   “Hmm.” Billy was too busy chewing. Evie took a bite, sipped more coke and decided to engage this. 

   “Can I ask why your dad moved you across the country during your last year of high school?”

   “New bullshit job.” He went at his fries, smearing them around cheese to eat with crunching jalapenos. “Wanted to start his white picket fence over since it didn’t work the first time and he thought he could spite me in the process.”

   Billy licked his thumb, eyes elsewhere.

   “I’ll bet he just wanted away from memories of my mom.”

   Evie paused carefully. It was the first he’d spoken of her.

   “Oh.” She pulled for a napkin, eyes on her food. Peculiar how quick he got real with her here. Billy Hargrove was usually putting up thick layers of artificial bullshit. Plastic cheese on greasy fries.

   “Didn’t help that I was in and out of fights.”

   “That changed?” She reached for the milkshake. “So, your mom-”

   “Did you really get into a fight last year?” Billy had finished the burger and was now going at his fries again, gestured so she slid the milkshake back.

   “I don’t remember it well.”

   “Bullshit, Fenny.” He smirked to himself. “I’d know. You see red and you remember how it tastes every single time.”

   “You’re the expert.” She shrugged, wiping her greasy fingers on napkins. Left a few bites of burger because a voice drilled to do so. Same with the fries. “He was a jerk and...my parents just got divorced. I was upset. I let him have it. Everyone got dramatic about it because I’m Evie Fenny and not Randy Savage.”

   "So, how'd it taste?" Billy looked at her eyes and saw them flash.

   He’s had enough! Students kept chanting that in her ear. Pulling Evie and her clawing talons out of the huge football player under her knees. She breathed pure smoke. Hair flying all directions. Felt the coolness of dewy grass and warmth of blood crusting her fingers.

   "It was like..."

   Descending upon Tannen like thunder. Heavy rain and cracks of lightning followed by a boom. Thunderous applause too. She stared back at Billy with a dreamy expression. Recalled cowering through rainstorms as a little girl. Into the closet where she felt safer.

   Her father, Jack, always found her. He’d sit next to her in there and bring her close under one arm.

   “Don’t be scared, little mouse.” Never could make out his smile in darkness.

   "It's...hot metal. Lava pouring down your throat trying to harden inside you." She got real too and Billy's lip lifted. Soft as can be. "Like it's making a cast of you in that specific moment of rage."

   Evie blinked out of the memory. Watched Billy stare again before he pushed the milkshake back to her side. A peace offering. She accepted and drank, let lipstick print on the candy cane colored straw.

   “I’m going to ask you out.” He decided gentler. Intent. “New Years Eve. Seven on the dot. You can show up in a nice dress when I knock and we’ll go. Or not.”

   “You might want a back up girl.” Evie sucked in her cheeks, eyes had to leave his to see the table. Thighs pressing. He'd definitely just undressed her.

   “No need.” Billy crossed his arms to shrug. “Don’t want one. Already asked the girl I want to take. C’mon, Fenny, quit hiding and get out. What are you waiting for?”

   “I’m not hiding.” Evie shook her head, chest sinking. “You’re the one hiding.”

   “Me?” His shoulders rose. Got all puffy like a peacock.

   “Hawkins High King. Billy Hargrove.” She lifted her hands for dramatic effect. Leaned forward to match him in intensity. “Thrashing forth in a billow of hairspray and cigarette smoke. Sun left in your wake along with a trail of broken hearts. You pose for them and they eat you up. There won’t be much left..."

   That sentiment kicked Billy in the chest.

   "...Everything you say is layered in rage and cheese. It’s mind numbing. I have a wall up, but you put up this flashy front that just blinds everyone. You want their eyes to bleed for you. Get real, Hargrove.”

   “I’ll get as real as you want. Ask me anything.” Came the challenge.

   “Okay. Why’d you beat up Steve Harrington?”

   “Cause he was lying to me and because I hated him.” Billy shrugged, eyes averting. "Because I wanted to taste hot metal. It's home to me."

   “Lying? About what?”

   “Still don’t know and frankly, I don’t care anymore.” A quick sip from his coke. “Go to the party with me.”

   “You just don’t give up.” She peered into her glass. Wanted to eat the ice cubes clicking there.

   “Maybe I’m asking you not to give up on me.” There was something almost sincere there like Billy was touching the earth for the first time.

   “Why are you trying to trick me?” Evie pushed her cup aside even though her teeth chattered to crunch.

   “Trick you?”

   “This party thing.” She paused when the waitress returned to clear the table. Leaving the check face down. “You’ve been nothing but an ass to me since you moved in. Ignored me. Probably can’t even recall what I was wearing when we met.”

   “Your mom’s hair kinda got in the way when she brought you over.” He joked and didn’t miss her stifle amusement, eyes rolling. “It’s not a trick, we might actually have something in common.”

   “What’s that?”

   “The people in this hell town aren’t very interesting. Maybe I find you interesting.” His brow quirked. Fingers tapped the lacquer table.

   “I don’t find you all that interesting.” Evie smiled that time and Billy matched it.

   “That’s fine. You will."

   "So certain?"

   "Give me a chance.” Billy’s eyes flicked over her before he sat up. Didn’t miss a damn beat. “You wore red button up shirt tucked into a little denim skirt with suspenders. Black tights. Grey shoes. Sunglasses with big white cat frames. That same gold necklace with the music note and dangle earrings to match. You introduced yourself with your mom. Took the sunglasses off and even had gold on your eyelids too. I remember it.”

   "Yeah?" Her lips parted with the audible breath he stole. And oh so easily. Evie leaned closer so he followed. Hooded eyes all aflutter.

   "Made your eyes look..." Billy searched. "Molten. Volcanic like."

   "Molten?" Evie wasn't even hearing herself anymore.

   "Just, I don't fucking know, warm like..." The beach. California. Home. Billy lost the thought and licked his lips. "You just looked painted."

   "Painted?" Evie had mused then. Entertained now at his odd way of description. Tried not to think about Billy running a wet paintbrush down her bare neck.

   "Yeah." Billy breathed slower. Painted. With the autumn breeze and sun in her hair, slowly brushing curls around those full, tinting cheeks. A subject the fucking Pre Raphaelites would have lost their shit over and painted all seasons. He could picture Evie floating in an endless pool being kissed by fallen flower petals. Draped in miles of iridescent chiffon reclined in emerald green grass. Looking straight at the viewer with intensity and still dreaming all the same.

   "You had on a black tee. Jeans. Your saint chain. A pair of aviators tucked into your denim coat pocket." Evie peered under the table. "Same boots... You looked like you wanted to be literally anywhere else."

   "That'd be the truth. Wasn't you or your mom's chipper greeting." Billy was looking down now. "Just realized I couldn't see the ocean anymore is all. You held out your hand and I ignored it because I'm an asshole. We established that this morning and now I'm making it up to you."

   “And you still peeked at my chest." Evie flashed a cheekier smile. "Said your name only after Neil gave you this hard stare. Max sped by on a skateboard, you must have thought I was distracted. But, I caught you.”

   “I did check your tits out, sue me. I have eyes. You have tits. The world spins.” He smacked a couple bills down as she went through her pockets. The spell on them both shattered to rain. “Already paid. Let’s go, the waitress is staring at us. We'll make a grand exit, huh?”

   “But-” Evie stopped when he grasped her wrist and pulled her up into his side. Spied the waitress scowling as he held her hip and they went out. Got away from the window before she pulled from him. “Get your mitts off me, Hargrove.”

   “Still open for questions.” He sniffed and they went back down the street. Another smoke was lit.

   “Okay. I'll go for the obvious. Do you think we look funny together?” She crossed her arms when Billy leaned against the side of his car.

   “Who cares. You’re making a big deal over nothing. It’s just a party.”

   “The world cares. That waitress back there. Kids at school.” She shrugged. 

   “You.” He clicked his tongue, head tilting.

   “I don’t care.”

   “That’s why you don’t want to go to the party with me, you’re stuck on what they’ll think.” He pointed with the red hot cherry of his cigarette. “Fuck ‘em. As your Louisiana folk would say: to the devil with false modesty.” He mocked her mother's accent with that.

   “Maybe, it’s because you’ve been a jerk to me. That reason enough?” Evie dropped her arms and Billy paused to nod, inhaling. “I don’t know what this is, Billy, but...just stop it. Ask someone else.” She eyed her mom’s salon and took a few steps back. “Thanks for lunch. I gotta go, my mom won’t turn this place over to the evening girl unless forced.”

   “Can’t tell me what to do, Angel.” He stood taller. “I’ll bet you another Coke that Mona invites me to dinner tonight. TV included.”

   Evie gaped at him.

   “A Coke?”

   “I’m easy to please. I’m gonna come to your house for dinner. Hour of TV at least.” He cocked his head. So full of pride.

   “Why are you dragging this day out?” She turned to face him again.

   “I want to meet your cat.” Billy wrapped his lips around the smoke. Exhaled after. “That little creep stares at me from your window day in and out.”

   “He doesn’t like boys.”

   “Bet he’ll like me.”

   “I bet he won’t. He’ll stay in his bed and not spare you the time. It'll hurt your ego.” Evie came to Billy with her own certainty.

   Bourbon was old. He liked to sleep, have his ears scratched, and purr. A lot. He hid when company came and keeps a safe distance once wandering out.

   “Oh, another challenge. Okay, Fenny. We’re doing this.” Billy came to her, flicking his smoke to crush it under the toe of his boot. Cold wind blew. “When I come to dinner tonight-”

   “If.” She corrected.

   “When Mona invites me with her beat to hell Louisiana accent,” Billy insisted, “you get to play hostess. If that cat takes a liking to me, you’re going to the New Years party with a Hargrove.” He towered there and studied her.

   “And that’s if you can even set foot into my house... It’s not a date. The dance.”

   “What do you have to lose here?” Billy offered his hand and Evie eyed him suspiciously. Lips pursed before she reached to take it. His other broad palm came up to prolong it, engulfed hers before he leaned in even closer. Whispering and sultry. “Oh, and literally everyone in that place is already staring at us. We look just fine together, Evangeline. To the devil.”

   Evie hitched a breath. Inhaled his cologne and twisted to see many eyes snap aside behind the glass.

   “Ah, shit.” She tugged from his warm palms and went inside. Billy, cool and collected, trailed after. He cleared his throat and spoke up.

   “I just really don’t want to impose, Angel.” The tone changed and her body locked, turning to question it before her mother replied at reception first.

   “Impose?” Mona blinked, snapping a book shut.

   “I-”

   “Your daughter kindly invited me to dinner, I figured it was too short notice for her lovely mother." Billy made a thing of it to sigh with longing. "Any other day, I’d-”

   Evie's entire face scrunched at him. Cheeks red like strawberries when her jaw set.

   “Oh, no! You’re always welcome. We’re having Swedish meatballs. Easy thing to whip up. I always make so much extra, don’t I, Evie?”

   Evie Fenny hated Billy Hargrove. Officially and totally. Hated his smug little face.

   Her tongue clicked at him.

   “Mm hm.”  

   Billy only smiled, winking. Too easy.

   “What a wonderful idea to invite him, baby. I’m going to be headed home soon. We might have a late meal. Is eight alright for you?” Mona tucked Evie’s curls behind her ear and flashed a hundred watt grin.

   “Eight is perfect, Ms. Fenny.” Billy charmed the entire room. Except the painted, plush storm cloud in front of him. “I also have to say, has anyone ever told you that you look like a brunette Dolly Parton?”

   The woman about squealed at him.

   “You know, I get it sometimes.” She touched her collar with one hand and pushed at him. “Does your family want to come over for dinner?”

   “Unfortunately, no. My dad is taking Susan out. You know, date night. Max is spending the night at a friend’s house. Police Chief’s new kid. So, I’m all alone tonight.”

   “Well, not anymore, come over and I’ll get you fed. My door is always open, Billy.” Mona tapped his chin. “Eight o’clock sharp.”

   “I’ll be there.” He turned to Evie. Speechless. Voice lowered as he leaned in to brush one knuckle along her jawline. “And I’ll be seeing you, Angel.”

   Billy seemed to linger for her to say something more, finger curling into unruly locks.

   "To the devil." She uttered with pointed brown eyes. Unable to leave him.

   The curl bounced back into place. Billy heard her lungs sputter with need and bit his lip, sly. A final wink just for Evie.

   One bell and he was gone.  

   “Mom.” Evie broke to moan and pull herself back together, following. “Why?”

   “Why, what? Let the boy come over for dinner.” She plucked up a comb to put some finishing touches on a woman’s hairdo, nodding to her stylist.

   “He’s trouble, you know about him. The whole town does.”

   “Sweetheart, we’re always going to be hospitable. Especially to troubled souls. It’s what Dolly and the Bible would have wanted.” That was always Mona's sound advice.

   “Christ.”

   “Evangeline.” Mona shot her a look. Fussed. “Do not take that tone with the Lord, young lady.”

   “I’m sorry, just,” she blew air out her lips and whined, “I can’t stand him.”

   “Seemed awful cozy out there or have I gone blind now? All the smiles and nicknames.”

   Evie bit her tongue at that because there was plenty Mona chose not to see.

   “Billy does that, he tricks you and then steps on you because it’s a game to him.”

   “Maybe he’s trying to do better. I know he gotten into some trouble, but what do I always tell you?”

   Evie crossed her arms tight, hip cocked. Monotone.

   “You’d tell me Dolly would want us to see the light of a clear blue morning.”

   “And has Dolly ever steered me wrong?” Mona pointed with the comb before she fluffed the locks up. “Perfect, go ahead and finish this. Good work, dear.”

   “Thanks, Miss Mona.” A new hire moved to finish, pushing large glasses up her nose. Mona went around them and Evie followed.

   “I know, I know. Be brave and kind. Honest and always open your heart. Blah. I’ll be civil if he is.”

   “Oh honey, let a boy be nice to you once in awhile. You might like it.”

   “Pssh. Find me one first.” Evie passed her mom to get her bag. “They only get nice when they’re older and mature.”

   “I wouldn’t always bet on that, baby.” Mona replied softer than intended. “Cruelty takes so many forms, that’s how it seeps into our lives so easily. It’s a comfort.”

   Evie didn’t find something to argue with there. Just watched her mother’s back tense.

   Let the words flutter like silken petals on the wind.

   To the damn devil.

~~~~~~~

Thanks everyone xoxo! Askbox is open. TAGGED:: @80sbxtch​ @nottherightseason​​ @orxhidshavana​  @alagalaska​ @alongcamedolly​

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #337

“if i showed you my soul, would you cover your eyes?”

What's your favorite brand of chips? I like Lays best. Are you a good painter? My Painting teacher when I was in college last said I did wonderfully, but I definitely beg to differ. Before buying a car, do you usually test drive it? N/A Have you ever written a poem and then read it aloud? No, but a teacher has. It was so fucking awkward; it was very pacifist, the topic being about war, and it had some depressing tones of death; there was just silence at the end of it, and I still don't know if it was shock or "what the fuck, she's messed up." There was this one guy that went, "Nobody is going to clap at that?", though, which I thought was pretty nice and reassuring. Do you like pineapple? Yeah, I do. Have you ever met your favorite author? I don't have a favorite author. Have you and your best friend ever liked the same person? No. Do you have any freckles? Not on my face (though oddly enough, I did as a kid?), but on random parts of my body. How many different languages can you say goodbye in? English, German, and then Spanish. Do you like or hate the smell of fish? I hate it. Have you ever been to Sea World? As a child, yes. I'd never go as an adult. Do you know someone who suffers from short-term memory loss? I don't know how this is actually diagnosed, but my memory is absolutely fucking nightmarish, almost exclusively in short-term situations. I can remember the most obscure events from my childhood, but not what I said to you five seconds prior. I'm rather sure my medications have made it worse over time. Have you ever read any of John Green's books? I got like, one chapter or less into The Fault in Our Stars before the book got replaced with the Wings of Fire series, so I never finished it. Are you a protective person? I'm an immensely protective person over those that matter to me. Have you ever experienced an earthquake? No, thankfully. I'm terrified of earthquakes. What's one thing that makes everything in life worthwhile? The fact that to our proven knowledge, this is the only one we'll ever experience. What type of waffles do you like? (Plain, blueberry etc..) I prefer plain, but I can eat chocolate chip ones as well as blueberry and strawberry. Have you ever seen the show Wife Swap? Yeah, I actually quite like it. Do you like chicken or beef better? Or do you not eat meat? Chicken, I think. I eat meat, but wish I didn't. What brand of dish soap do you use? Dawn, usually. Do any of your neighbors have dogs? Yes, and they never shut up. Do you believe in fortune tellers? They're money-driver bullshitters. Have you ever been to one? No, and judging by the fervor in the above question, I hope you can tell I never would do so and thus monetarily support them. Do you like regular or chocolate milk better? Chocolate, of course. But I love normal milk, too. Once again, wish I didn't, though. Forcing a cow to constantly reproduce to lactate is pretty fucking cruel. Growing up, did you listen to country music? I actually did. Do you normally wash your hands in warm or cold water? If it's just a quick wash, it's usually cold because our water takes quite a few moments to warm up. However, if I'm looking to thoroughly wash my hands, it's gotta be relatively hot. Do you believe in mediums? I see them in a worse light than I do fortune tellers, so... Like sure, manipulate grieving people for profit, sounds great. Have you ever been to one? Obviously not. Have you ever dated someone on the football team? No. Do you have a gazebo at your house? No. Do you like tomatoes? Solely when straight from a garden and on a bacon and mayonnaise sandwich. Otherwise I am noooot a fan. Are you a competitive person? Not very, but there's a tiny spark in me, really when it just comes to photography. I hate it. Google or Bing? Does literally anyone use Bing? What's your favorite brand of bottled water? Essentia. Do you have any ceramic animals in your house or outside? Ummm I don't think so. Have you ever given someone flowers? Yes. What is something you might eat with a hamburger? Fries or mac and cheese. What is a sport that you’ve always wanted to play, but never got a chance to. None. What is a fruit that you might eat in the morning? A banana. Who might you send a selfie to? I don't send selfies to anyone. About how many pages is the longest book you’ve ever read? I THINK it surpassed 1,000? At least in the high hundreds. Who would you call first after getting engaged to tell them the news? Probably Mom. Around what time do you start feeling tired enough to go to sleep? Truth be told, it's usually arouund 7-8. I rarely make it to 9:00 nowadays. What trends do you refuse to give in to? I don't even know what's trendy right now. What subjects in history interest you most? As dark as it is, I find the Holocaust interesting to learn about. Are you superstitious in any way? No. How do you get rid of anxiety? What a relevant question, being in a partial hospitalization program right now. Coping skills that help me are doing deep breathing, mindfulness exercises, and a little jerk back to reality is splashing freezing cold water on my face. It also helps to talk it out with somebody, just get my feelings into words. Then if it's a true anxiety or panic attack, I have my "emergency" anxiety prescription. Are there any items of jewelry you never/rarely take off? My lip and tragus piercings never do, and I always wear two rings. Do you find yourself correcting people’s grammar often? Not really, no. It just seems rude and snobby to me, honestly, if it's not in an educational setting, like helping someone with an essay. Correcting someone in your average conversation is just... unnecessary, imo. Now if you're talking like in surveys and stuff, I definitely do in questions and such, but I don't point it out. Gummi worms: Yay or nay? Yay, love 'em. What do you do when you have ‘me time’? I only ever have "me" time, so what I always do... Do you lack common sense sometimes? I have a horrible lack of common sense, shit's embarrassing. Have you ever poured glue on your hand just to peel it off for fun? No. How do babies make you feel? "Nervous. They’re so damn breakable." <<<< Mood. Would you/Have you milked a cow? No, and I'm not interested. What really gives you the creeps? #!: seeing a baby move inside its mother's stomach. It will actually make me scream and/or cry because it just grosses me the fuck out. Whale sharks' mouths also creep me out big time. Do you ever eat leftover pizza cold? Yeah, I love cold pizza. When you're wanting a midnight snack, what do you normally get? We normally have cashew bars that I like if I'm really hungry. Which cartoon character would you want to keep as a pet? Obviously Pikachu. My niece loves Pikachu anyway, so she'd be ecstatic to see a real one. Or well, maybe I'd go for an Eevee. Not as dangerous with electricity and all but just as cute and small. Do you like marshmallows? Yeah. If you had the opportunity to live forever, would you take it? No. It would ruin so many factors of the temporary nature of life. Things would lose meaning, get old and boring, it'd be much easier to take advantage of things... There are many reasons why I have no desire to live forever. Hell, I even wonder if I want an afterlife for those same reasons. Did you ever really believe in Santa Claus? As a little kid, yeah. Do you like quesadillas? I like cheese, chicken, and shrimp ones. What's the greatest/most influential song you've ever heard? Ozzy's "Life Won't Wait." Do you prefer to pull off band-aids slowly or quickly? I tend to do it slowly. What was the last thing someone told you that had you at a loss for words? Uhhh I feel like Sara said something, but I don't remember what. What was the last health scare you had? Ugh... I'm kind of living in one now. As my legs have been worsening, I'm becoming increasingly concerned I'm eventually going to need a wheelchair for "walking" longer distances. And mind you, "long" for me is probably short for the average person. My knees do nothing but crack incessantly and burn when I use them, and they frequently feel like they're going to give way, and in a few rare instances, have. It's my own fucking fault for not sucking it up and exercising with my mom in the room, so I'd like to move on. What is your favorite filling for a piece of chocolate? Caramel. Do you enjoy the sound of birds chirping? I do. If applicable, what’s your favorite drug, and why? I don't do drugs, so. What was the last TV show you binge-watched? Avatar: The Last Airbender with Sara. Would you rather eat burgers or tacos? Definitely burgers. I don't like tacos. Did your mother change her maiden name when/if she got marred? Yes. What was the last job you applied for? Did you get the job? Deli worker, and yes. Do you use TikTok? No. What decorations do you have in your bathroom? None. Our bathroom is pretty small. Well, the one we use, anyway. The one attached to the master's bedroom isn't cleaned up yet, but we'll use it in case of emergency. What year was your favourite band formed? (Before people think I'm smart, no, I looked the dates up, haha.) Well Ozzy was Black Sabbath's vocalist, and the band formed in 1968, but Ozzy became a solo artist in 1979. What's your favourite fruit? Strawberries. Have you ever had an out-of-body experience? No. Do you prefer gory horror films or the psychological ones? I prefer psychological. Are you easily paranoid? Yeah. Do you have a favorite obsession? Meerkats and Mark are kinda tied, haha. Are you a workaholic? No. Have you ever given a tattoo before and would you like to? No and no; that would be an awful idea, given I have bad tremors in my hands. Have you ever seen the movie Labyrinth? I actually have not. Would you rather be called pretty or hot? Pretty. Have you ever gotten a serious injury at school? What happened? No. Have you ever performed in front of my large group of people? Yes; I was a dancer for many years. Have you ever fundraised? If so, what for? You know how Facebook recommends making fundraisers for a charity of your choice for your birthday? I've done that for the Trevor Project and two charities for ovarian and pancreatic cancers. Are you wearing earrings right now? Ugh, no, even though I want to be. The first holes in my ears are just too stretched for normal earrings because I wore heavy ones too often, and I just don't have nice earrings. I still want to get very small gauges to put in the stretched holes. Name a singer whose voice makes you swoon? Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump can do that, holy shit. "America's Suitehearts" does it for me, man. Y'know, when his voice goes all deep. Do your pets follow you when you walk around the house? My cat Roman is quite literally my shadow. Where I go, he goes. What do you do online? I seem to only exist online, really, so I've got a lot on my plate to choose from, yet I'm still bored half the time, haha. I'm essentially always watching or listening to YouTube, I play World of Warcraft for varying amounts of time depending on the day, I scroll through deviantART, check KM periodically, do surveys obviously, "work" at the wikis I contribute to, wander around on Facebook... idk, that's all I really do at least semi-regularly online. Haha oh, wait, I also check Craigslist like... every day for tarantula and hognoses even though I can't currently get either. Let me dream. Do you have any scars on your face? I have a couple on my chin from when I fainted and busted it open. What countries were your grandparents born in? In the US. What was the most damaging relationship (romantic or not) that you’ve ever been a part of? Ultimately, with Jason, because of how it ended. The relationship itself wasn't at all damaging to me, but the breakup shook my entire fucking world. When in your life was your self-esteem at its lowest point? Self-esteem? Now. I'm very unhappy with my weight going back up, my body is just in poor health in general, I'm not employed, not in school... I just feel like a lowlife. Who was the last person you cut out of your life? Do you regret it? I want to say my sister's mother-in-law. Sure don't, considering she revealed her disgusting support for conversion therapy. I'm civil around her in person, but I kicked that woman off my Facebook so fucking quick when I saw that shit. Who is the most attractive person you know personally? That I know personally... I would say Alon, but I haven't seen even a picture of her in forever. Summer, though, shares selfies frequently, and by god is she gorgeous. I know a lot a lot of beautiful women, asldkjf;awe. It's funny that I'm blanking on men, at least involving people I still "know"/are somehow present in my life. Would you rather look older or younger than you are? I'm fine looking my age. Have you ever dated someone who was very vastly different from your “type”? No. What is the biggest project you’re currently working on? I suppose you can count an RP plot as a "project." I'm procrastinating so bad on it because it is going to be A LOT of writing. Is there a person from your past that you wonder about frequently? Who? Take a shot in the dark for me. Who knows you best, excluding romantic partners? My mother. What are your thoughts on human creation? I believe we evolved. How many people have you had sex with? One. Have you ever had a yard sale? Yeah. Have you ever been surfing? No.

[justacouplebandfics]

We’ve got scars on our future hearts (Jalex) - Chapter 2

Description: Alex dealt with self harm when he was younger, that’s over now though- he’s better, until he’s not. Struggling with the idea of self harming as an adult Alex keeps the issue to himself, but living on a tour bus with your band there’s only so long you can keep something a secret.

Warning: Contains graphic descriptions of self harm

It’s also available here on Wattpad, and you can find the masterlist here. 

Jack's POV

Something's up with Alex. The past few weeks he's been acting different, I think it's one of the benefits of being such good friends for so long, you can pick up on changes in each other that maybe someone else wouldn't see. He's been telling the guys that he's exhausted from the shows, and fair enough- this tour has been killer so far, we're all feeling a bit worse for wear. But I know exhausted Alex, he doesn't shut himself off like this- sure, he gets a bit quieter, and he might dip out of the occasional trip to the bar but he still thrives off being around  the rest of us. Being on the road for so long together it's like a family, we all support each other.

I also know Alex isn't the kind of person who'd tell you he's not doing okay to your face if you asked him point blank, he's been like that ever since high school. I know he had some issues back then, he still hasn't told me what he was dealing with but whatever it was it made him act the same way he's acting now.

I'm worried about him, not just passive worry, it feels like someone's grabbing my guts and twisting them in their fist when I think about him struggling through something on his own.

"So what do you think?" Rian snaps me out of my thoughts, and I look up to see him and Matt looking at me, clearly waiting for an answer.

"Shit, sorry guys. I was completely in my own head for a minute there, what were you saying?"

They both laugh, I hesitantly chuckle along as Matt gets up to grab a drink from the fridge. "We were saying," Rian starts, I flash him a quick apologetic look "The crew were talking about going to this club in town tonight after the gig, since it's an early one, I know we've all been a bit exhausted lately and it's only so long before that turns sour so it might be good to let off some steam."

"Have a good time" Matt pipes up from behind the fridge door "Did you even try to make that sound fun" he jokes as he sits back down.

I run it over in my mind- I'm super up for it, there's a reason I've got a reputation as a bit of a party animal, it's Alex I'm thinking about. Would he come? I don't really want to be leaving him alone on the bus all night, especially if he's not doing great. "Have you asked Alex?"

"He said maybe," Rian rolls his eyes.

"Then maybe" I shoot back with a cheeky grin.

"Fuck Jack!" Rian shouts, feigning anger "You're separate people, you do know you can go places without each other, come on, please? We haven't been out as a group in way too long." Matt nods in agreement "Obviously we'd love for Alex to come but if he's being a party pooper," he purposely exaggerates the last part, leaning out from the table so his voice carries down the hall to the bunks "that doesn't mean you have to be one too."

I sigh and look at him, "I'll talk to Alex."

"That's good enough for me!" Matt decides and stands up from the table, picking up his can of coke "Me and Rian are gonna go grab some lunch from that burger place next to the venue- wanna join?"

"He'll have to ask Alex" Rian quips, they both have a good laugh about it as I shake my head.

"I'm not super hungry, only just got up- I'll catch you later though."

I shut the door behind them as they continue to laugh a little too hard about Rian's joke. Damn, maybe we do need a night out.

I haven't been sitting down too long before Alex peeks his head into the lounge "Morning" he smiles at me.

"Afternoon" I say back, glancing at the clock that's proudly announcing it's well past noon. "What's your plans for before the show? Pretty much everyone's out grabbing food at the moment, I thought we could wait until they get back for a verdict on the best place in town?"

Alex nods, "Yeah sounds good to me, I'm just gonna grab a quick shower and then I'm good to go" he turns towards the back of the bus but pokes his head around again "Oh! Almost forgot, I borrowed your headphone charger again last night, I still have no clue where mine went- it's in my bunk if you need it desperately" he dramatizes the last word, giggling as he heads off towards the shower.

"You could ask!" I shout back, but the waters already running- he can't hear me, so I mutter it again to myself as I head back towards his bunk to grab my charger. It's sat up on the shelf in his bunk, I pick it up and go to put it away but then I see his old sunglasses case from high school- I'm not a stalker, I haven't memorised all of Alex's glasses cases, this one is just obnoxious. It's bright pink and has 'Alex' bejewelled in tacky rhinestones, the glasses that went with it were even worse- so aggressively 2000s, and I'm pretty certain they were women's.

I have a little giggle at the memory, and open it up to see if he still has the glasses too, tipping it over onto the bed, sure enough those awful glasses come tumbling out, did they somehow have more diamantes than last time I saw them? I stop laughing when I realise something else fell out of the case, 3 shiny blades now lying on the duvet.

I'm so caught up in my own mind trying to process why Alex has blades in his sunglasses case I don't notice the shower stopping, it's not until the bathroom door opens do I tear my gaze away from them, to direct it at Alex. He's all smiles until he looks down at the bed, and then I see a million emotions cross his face all at once. "Alex..." I start, making a move to stand up.

"What the fuck are you doing going through my stuff?" he shouts, voice quivering slightly, I don't know if it's from rage or what but it's not nice to hear.

"Alex I'm sorry I didn't mean to go through your stuff I just noticed the glasses case and wanted to see if you still had them." I try to explain, taking a step back as he moves towards the bunk "Honestly I didn't mean anything by it" I try to catch his gaze so he can see the concern in my eyes but he's too focussed on stuffing the blades back in the case.

He puts the case back on his shelf and stands upright, looking at me- in the silence I try to figure out what he's thinking, and how to ask him why he has those, a small part of me hoping there's a logical explanation for it and's he's not hurting himself. "Why Alex?" Is all I manage to get out.

Immediately he's on the offensive, it's rare I see Alex genuinely angry but it's not a nice sight "Why the fuck do you think Jack?" he spits "You know why, so don't ask stupid questions. And you can cut it with this whole pity routine, you can just say it's pathetic you don't have to stand there and pretend it's not" his voice cracks "It's fucking pathetic and childish and we both know that so just don't." He's run out of steam, no longer shouting- his shoulders are hunched over and he looks defeated.

"Alex, I wasn't going to say that, why didn't you tell me?" I take a step towards him, ready to pull him into a hug but Alex looks like he's in his own little world- he pushes past me towards the front of the bus, stopping to put on his shoes.

He sighs, standing upright and looking me in the eyes "Just," he lets out another breath, running his hand through his hair "Don't tell the others?" he asks.

"I won't Alex, but please talk to me about this," I step towards him but he's already halfway out the door.

"I'll see you at soundcheck!" He shouts as he walks away from the bus.

I sit down on the sofa with my head in my hands, I know Alex likes to deal with things on his own but this doesn't seem like something he should be dealing with singlehandedly- and all those things he was calling himself, pathetic, childish? I don't understand where those come from, whenever he talks to fans about their self harm he's always so supportive- why didn't he react the same way about himself?

I'm so confused, but I just want to help him- I know I won't be able to talk to him until after the show, I have no clue where he's gone to now and talking about it after sound check could potentially throw him off for the show, which isn't fair to him or the fans. I do know one way to help him for certain though- and that's getting rid of the blades, I go back to his bunk and retrieve them from the glasses case, throwing them in the bin and taking it out to the dumpster around the back of the venue where we're parked.

I reach the bus at the same time Zack and a couple others are returning from lunch "Hey guys, how was it?" I ask, barely listening to the answer as I think over what I'm going to say to Alex. He asked me not to tell the others, and I won't- it's his business at the end of the day and it's not my decision who gets to know. I just hope he's okay.

Alex's POV

I walked off the tour bus and just kept walking, I don't know where I'm going I just need to be far away from Jack. Fuck I'm such an idiot. Why did I react like that? Why didn't I just say I don't know what they are? Or that I don't know how they got there? Literally anything would've been better than what I did.

Looking down at my feet when I walk I very narrowly avoid bumping head on with someone, I lift my gaze to apologise and see I'm at a bar, the man having already walked off. I figure a drink might calm me down and head inside- it's quiet, I'm sure at night it's lively- dart boards line the walls and there's pool tables set off to one side, but it's too early for it to be full. I ask the bartender for a beer, probably best not to get too wasted before the show, and start peeling off the label as I let my mind continue it's incessant thinking.

I keep replaying what Jack said in my head, "Why Alex?" at first it sounds concerned, genuinely distressed, maybe I should talk to him about it? Then it gets chewed around in my mind.

"Why Alex?" Why would you do this to yourself?

"Why Alex?" Why would you beg for attention like this?

"Why Alex?" Why are you so childish?

"Why Alex?" Why are you being so fucking pathetic, stop dragging us into your bullshit.

What's spat back out of my mind is nasty and cruel, but Jack isn't nasty or cruel- maybe my doing this makes him like that, maybe I'm the problem? I take a long swig of my beer, then another, and a few swigs later it's all gone. So much for taking it slow. I order another, telling myself this is the last one.

I try to block out my thoughts now, they're coming hard and fast and they're nothing but painful; What if Jack tells the others? What if the others react the same way? He definitely already has, everyone's so open with each other- they're probably all sat on the bus right now talking about it, about how I threw a tantrum like a child. I hold my head in my hands and try to shake the thoughts away but they don't stop.

"You alright?" the bartender asks, probably more curious than concerned- I nod as I ask for a shot of tequila, he raises his eyebrow but pours one anyway, sliding it over the bar to me.

"Thanks," I give him an awkward smile and pay my tab, before heading back to the venue for sound check.

[imaginesmai]

Hvitserk-Him

Requested by @elyonsstuff, hope you like it!!

Plot: Hvitserk and you are seeing each other behind your boyfriend’s back, his half-brother Magnus. And leaving the latest isn’t easy.

Warnings: cheating

The books in your arms felt heavier each second, some of them sliding off. You shifted your weight from one arm to the other, trying to keep them up enough time to get to the bench, which seemed too far. It wasn’t supposed to be that way; you had a very comfortable couch with a perfect fluffy blanket in your apartment. Even more, you had a boyfriend that was supposed to pick you up from the library two hours ago. Yet the reality was that it was ten o’clock and that there was no car was in the parking lot.

You thought that you could wait for him inside, finishing your projects. Magnus was supposed to pick you up at eight, just in time to have dinner together and spend a normal night in your apartment. Seven thirty passed by, eight did too and nine o’clock arrived and you were still sitting in that uncomfortable seat. It was good, and you didn’t plan on getting angry with him. You could use a little extra time of study.

The problem came when the poor man in charge had to, quite literally, kick you out of the library. He had been kind enough to allow you to be there until then, as they closed at nine thirty. Outside, it was cold, dark and not a damned soul was in the streets. You sat on the bench, put your books aside and tried to call Magnus. After two failed attempts, he picked up; not that it meant any difference.

“Magnus?” you frowned, putting the phone away from your ear and checking that you had dialled the right number. “Magnus, you there?”

There were a few seconds of nothing, just the dull background noise of cars and people cheering. He was on it again, you sighed. When you started dating him a year ago, you really thought you could change him, and to take him away from the races. How foolish.

“Y/N!” he shouted, too excited. “Y/N, hey! I haven’t heard from you since this morning!”

“I told you that I was studying, Magnus” you rolled your eyes. “At the library.”

You waited to listen to some kind of recognition on his voice. After all, he had promised you at least five times that day that he would be able to pick you up at eight. You heard Magnus chuckling awkwardly before he talked again.

“Yeah, probably” he said, although he had to shout it over the noise. “I’m pretty busy right now, do you think you can call me later?”

“You promised no more races.”

The first time he came to your apartment drunk and high after a night in the races, you were mad beyond knowing. You shouted at him, cried and forgave him the next morning. By the tenth time he did, you were used to it. So your words held no reproaching, only tiredness.

“I’m sorry, babe. I’ll try to see you tomorrow?” he asked, and you knew he had no intentions of doing so.

“We had agreed on meeting tonight, you know” you looked at your feet, kicking a stone from the ground and watching it travel a few inches forwards. “You had to pick me up at eight form the library, and we were going to have dinner together.”

“Babe, I’m so sorry, I forgot. I promise-“

“No, Magnus. I’m tired of your promises” you gave him one last chance to tell you he was going to rush back to the library, but he didn’t say anything. “Call me when you grow up, we’re over.”

Before he could say anything else, you hang up. You took a deep breath, not feeling actually bad or sad; just relieved. You had tried to break up with him three times, yet each one he had put his best puppy face and you had convinced yourself that you could change him. Doing it over phone had turned out to be easy and practical.

The first drop of rain hit your head, and you looked up to see the night sky covered by clouds. It was a matter of time before it started raining, and you had to decide quickly. Without thinking much, you scrolled down your contact list and pressed the call button.

“Hey princess.”

Your relationship with Magnus had been boring and unsatisfying, and you could had spent that year a lot differently. But you had gotten something good out of it; Hvitserk Ragnarson, Magnus stepbrother and probably the hottest and flirtiest guy you had ever met. While he was mixed too with the races and probably with more illegal businesses, he was nicer than Magnus. He had kept you company in his house when Magnus had left you there, and had picked you up when his half-brother was too high to drive.

“Hey” you smiled without wanting too, something you hadn’t done in all day. “Can you come over? I’m in the library.”

“For you I’m always around” he laughed “What has Magnus done this time?”

“He was supposed to pick me up from the library” you shrugged. “Normally I wouldn’t mind walking, but it’s going to rain and I don’t want to get drenched.”

“I would like to see that, actually. Any other reason I should pick you up?”

“Burgers at your place?” you asked, already knowing the answer. If there was something Hvitserk liked more than women and messing with you, was food. And your proposition mixed the three things together.

“Be there in five, don’t take cover” you heard him moving on the other line. “I still want to see you all soaked up”.

You said a quick goodbye and rang off. Ignoring his petition of watching you under the rain, you ran to take cover under the library building, balancing all of your books in your hands.

For five months, you had been hooking up with Hvitserk. The first time you did it you felt horrible, because Magnus was your boyfriend and you had slept with his stepbrother. You had left Hvitserk’s bed that morning and blocked him from your phone, crying to yourself to sleep. However, you started to see how Magnus didn’t care about you or about your feelings, only about the races and his big brother, Bjorn. So you slept with him a second time.

By the second month of your “adventure”, you knew your relationship with Magnus was not going to last, and you had tried to break up with him. Hvitserk made you feel everything he didn’t. He was only two years older, yet felt like he was light-years ahead Magnus. Not everything was perfect, he was kind of a dick who messed up with you too often and didn’t deny that he could fuck other women. But as the months passed things became different; and the possibility of something more with him didn’t seem so far away.

The sound of a horn took you out of your daydreaming, and between the curtain of rain that was falling, you made out the silhouette of Hvitserk’s car. You ran towards it, changing your books to your left arm so that you could open the door with your right hand. Pulling didn’t seem to open it, and Hvitserk’s cocky smirk from inside of the car let you know that he didn’t unlock the car.

You tapped on the window, pouting for him to open. By then, the rain had already made the clothes stick to your body, and he winked at your playfully. After another five seconds of you growing angry, he opened the door and you sat quickly inside.

Even if he was like a playful child, he had worried about having the heat on and offered you a small towel to dry yourself. As he started the car, you placed your books on the back.

“You own me a kiss” he laughed, turning and putting his hand on your cheek. He moved your face and placed his lips on yours. “I’m not very good at maths, might give me two.”

“I hope you’re happy” you scoffed. “I could die from hypothermia now.”

He maneuvered out of the parking, looking back and tensing his arms on the wheel to avoid any scratches on his impressive red car. When he was done and again on the main road, he turned quickly and pecked your wet cheek.

“Don’t be so dramatic, Y/N” he laughed, and checked your chest without shame. “Besides, it’s worthy. Damn, I’ve never seen you sexier.”

“You’re a perv!” you smacked his arm playfully, careful of not making him lose focus on the road. “Seeing that you’re so eager for it, I might not even given to you”

“Come on, I’ve been hard for a week!” he complained, turning briefly to you and trying on his best puppy eyes.

You knew them too well; even if they looked nothing alike, Hvitserk and Magnus had the same way of making you do whatever they wanted. The small towel couldn’t cover your front completely, yet it was enough to hide you breasts and perky nipples from his hungry eyes. Finally, you shifted in your seat and sighed happily, the heat of the car traveling through your bones.

“I don’t know, you might have to earn it” you teased. “I though you would be on the races.”

Hvitserk twisted his mouth a little, letting you know that he didn’t like talking about the races. He knew that you were more than used to his half-brother and his way of life; still, he was reluctant about talking about them with you. Switching on the windshield wipers and turning the left intermittent, he looked at you briefly before answering.

“There has been some trouble there. Bjorn has bet a lot of money with a big sponsor, and he’s most likely to win” he shrugged, yet you knew he was worried about his brother. “I don’t know his name, just that he has charges for violence and weapon’s possessions. Ubbe and I have decided to stay back this time, to avoid trouble.”

Something that you had learnt about Hvitserk was that, despite his carefree attitude and messy family, he had a big sense of responsibility. Along Ubbe, he took care of his two little brothers and Magnus, and had time to study between hours to become a vet.

“Magnus is in the races today” you frowned. “He hasn’t bet on anyone, has he?”

“Probably has this time. Bjorn wanted all of us to do it, to earn more money. You know he follows him always” Hvitserk said. “Is that why he hasn’t picked you up?”

“Yeah” you looked at your hands. “We had met at eight, but when I called him he was at the races.”

“What a dick” he rolled his eyes. “If it wasn’t because he’s my half-brother I would gladly punch him in the face. You should leave-“

“I have.”

“For real, Y/N” he rolled his eyes, remembering all those times when you had broken up with Magnus only to tell him that you had gotten back together two days later. “He’s a manipulative man, and is doing with you whatever he wants.”

You had talked with Hvitserk a few times about the possibility of breaking up with his half-brother. If you did so, you both knew that you wouldn’t be able to meet so often; your relationship or whatever you two had would have to be a secret for a little longer. You weren’t sure if Hvitserk would be ready to be something with you at all, but you knew that’s what you wanted.

“I did! For real this time. I told him to call me when he grows up, and that we’re over” you turned your body into the car seat to face him. “I won’t go back to him.”

“You won’t, but tomorrow he’ll be at your door begging and you will take him back because Oh, Hvitty, he’s so, so alone, poor boy. He needs me!” he mocked you, one of his hands leaving the wheel to give intensity to his speech. “We’ve been over this a thousand times, princess. You’re too good to leave him.”

“Not this time. We’re really done, I don’t want to be with him anymore.”

The lights passed by your side of the car, barely visible because of the rain; they were enough to let you watch Hvitserk’s handsome face. He looked concentrated on the road, and you knew he had full control of the car. After all, it was his family business. You moved your hand to his thigh, giving it a soft squeeze and smiling at him when he looked at you. He smiled too and showed you his cute dimples.

“I really want to be with you this time” you assured him.

Hvitserk put his hand on top of yours, quietly telling you that he wanted it too.

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

The loud song you had chosen for your ringtone when you bought your phone woke you up, and it took you a few seconds to distinguish reality from your dreams. You rubbed one of your eyes as you tried to reach for your phone, Hvitserk’s arm wrapped around you and preventing you from doing so. After a few more tries of shaking the huge heater on your side off you, you gave up and the phone stopped ringing.

Morning lights crossed his room, making it look shady and grey. Outside, the sun was covered by angry grey clouds and the constant rain was making the city seem darker. One of your feet moved out of the duvet, a sudden wave of freezing cold hitting it.

You turned your back to his nightstand, where your phone was resting, and hid further into Hvitserk’s chest. He made some kind of noise, still half asleep, and you closed your eyes wanting to go back to sleep. You had almost reached your goal with the help of the falling rain when your phone sounded a second time.

Moving turned out to be something impossible, so you chose to ignore it until whoever was calling you gave up. Hvitserk didn’t like that.

“Y/N” he groaned, shifting a little. “Y/N, do something.”

“I don’t want to move” you pouted and looked up to his still closed eyes. The short scrub he had on his cheeks and chin seemed almost invisible with the soft light, and his long eyelashes were probably every girl’s envy. You moved your hand up, caressing softly his naked chest and touched his face. “You have long arms, take it for me.”

“Mm…”he mumbled, rubbing his head like a kitten against your hand and purring like a real one. “I don’t want to move either.”

“Let it ring, whoever it is will grow tired” you kissed his chest. “We can stay all day in bed.”

Hvitserk hummed happily, enjoying the idea of staying in bed with you. He wasn’t an early riser, you were lucky to know about him before midday, but you were used to that. Listening to his soft snores, you closed your eyes once again until the annoying sound woke you again.

You turned around angrily, Hvitserk scoffing beside you and turning onto his stomach, with his face away from you. He might had loved time in bed with you, but he loved sleeping more.

“Yes?” you asked, annoyed and grumpy. You sat on bed and looked towards his little alarm clock, nine thirty. Too fucking early.

“Y/N! Where are you?” Magnus asked through the phone, and even if you weren’t there, you could almost smell the alcohol on his breath. “I’m on your door, Torvi says you didn’t sleep here?”

Of course your roommate wouldn’t lie for you. She was tired enough from her night shifts as a doctor, it was a wonder how she hadn’t kicked Magnus on the balls yet for waking her up in her free day. You ran one hand over your face, groaning loudly.

It was always the same; you broke up with him and he acted like it never happened.

“I’m not going to be in my apartment in all day, Magnus” you said. “Probably not for a few days.”

“Where are you staying?”

“With a friend”

You crossed your legs on the bed, placing one arm on Hvitserk’s back and stroking it slowly. A friend, yeah, a very naked friend.

“Oh, is it someone from the uni? Someone I know?” he asked again, wanting to know who your mysterious friend was.

He was a jealous man, Magnus hated when you were with other male friends and you knew it. It was a toxic perk of your relationship, one that you decided to ignore when you started dating. Besides, you didn’t have much friends, just Torvi, Alfred and Aethelred, and some people from your class. Magnus saw everyone as a potential threat to your relationship, everyone wanted to steal you away from him. If he only knew.

“Magnus, that’s none of your business anymore” you said as you drew random patterns on Hvitserk’s back. “I told you we were over last night.”

“Look, I know I made a mistake. But I can fix it if you give me the chance! Where are you? I’ll pick you up and we’ll spend the day together”

“A mistake, Magnus? A mistake?” you said, anger bubbling in your chest. “You have left me alone more than ten times! Always in the races, with your friends or with Bjorn. I’m tired of waiting for you always.”

“Well, maybe it has been more than one mistake” he laughed awkwardly. “But Y/N, you know I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, I know this is all on me.”

“Of course it’s all on you, Magnus.”

“Yeah, yeah, what I mean” he took a deep breath. “I know I fuck things up a lot, and that I’m always away. But you keep me sane in here, Y/N, I can’t lose you. Without you, I’m nothing. I-I can’t do this alone, I’ll stop with the races. I can’t do it on my own. Please help me, Y/N.”

To you, it sounded like an old song that you had listened to many times before, and from which you’re tired. You were sure he remembered last night conversation, and that he had the intention of saying that to your face. In your apartment. Where you didn’t have anywhere to run off.

Hvitserk turned to his side and faced you, his eyes then fully open and his attention on you and your phone. You were quiet for a while, running your hand up and down his side and looking at his frowning face. Deep down, he was waiting for you to go back to his half-brother.

“I can’t give you the help you need, Magnus. You need professional help, to be out of the drugs, alcohol and races” you whispered, not moving your eyes from Hvitserk’s ones.

“Okay, I can do that, fine” he said quickly. “I will get professional help, I will get clean and go to rehab. But I can’t still do it without you. Promise me you will be with me. Promise me, Y/N.”

You didn’t say anything, afraid that if you did, you would give in. Hvitserk looked at with sad eyes, the scene familiar to you. It was always like that; you would stay with Hvitserk and give him hopes until Magnus told you that he needed your help, begging and crying to you until you give in. Some seconds passed away and neither of you did anything, just looking at each other. Silently daring you to go back to him. When he realised you weren’t going to tell him no, he got up from bed in an angry move.

He didn’t care that Magnus could hear some movement in the background, or that he would ask you about who you were with; he kicked the covers off him and got up.

“No, wait” you whispered to him, putting the phone away. “Don’t go.”

“Answer him” he stopped moving “Tell him that you’re tired of his manipulative ass and that you’re over for real. Tell him what you told me last night, Y/N.”

Silence came back to the room, the rain hitting the window and making a more dramatic effect. You looked down, not able to leave Magnus alone with his demons. It wasn’t the right choice, it was condemned to end in the same situation; him leaving you for the races and you calling Hvitserk for help. Yet you didn’t meet his eyes, only listened to his angry steps leaving the room and door of the bathroom closing after him.

“Can we talk in person, Y/N?” you had nearly forgotten about Magnus on the other side. “Where are you? I thought I heard someone talking.”

“Just the TV” you mumbled. “Maybe seeing you is not the best idea, Magnus. I meant it when I said I was tired of this.”

“I told you I can change!”

“Have you bet, Magnus?” you asked, suddenly remember last night conversation with Hvitserk.

“What?”

It was none of your business, but you needed to know. You wanted to know if Magnus was stupid enough to bet money in the races; because that was the beginning of someone destruction, and honestly it was enough reason for you to forget about him.

You waited for his answer, but he didn’t say anything. There wasn’t a doubt about what you were talking about, and he was painfully aware of that.

“At the beginning you promised me a thousand times that you wouldn’t bet” you whispered. “I can forgive a lot of things, Magnus, but betting? What were you thinking?”

“How did you know?” he surrounded. “Who has told you?”

“Does it matter now? I know, and that’s final. You promised, Magnus. And I’m tired! I’m tired of empty promises!”

“Y/N, please, listen to me. It has only been one time! I can fix this, give me time!”

“I don’t think we can fix this” you sighed, looking at the door where Hvitserk had left just seconds ago. “It’s over. Finished. There’s nothing left here worth fighting for. Goodbye, Magnus.”

“Wait! I love you, Y/N! I-“

You switched off your phone, knowing that he would try to call you again. With a deep breath, you threw it on the bed and got up, stretching your legs.

Your decision was made, Magnus was part of your past and you had a new future ahead you. The only thing left was to know if Hvitserk would be part of that future.

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

He had his head against the cold tiles of the shower, the hot water hitting his back and making his skin go red. By then, he should have gotten out; he didn’t have a lot of money, he couldn’t afford staying in the shower using hot water for an hour. His small apartment took all his money, at least his legal one. And if he wanted to stay out of the races for real, he had to make a good use out of it.

However, his head couldn’t wrap around the idea of leaving his safe place and facing an empty apartment, not once more. Everytime you spent the night with him, it was because his half-brother had done something wrong. Hvitserk had learnt to detest him along the years, since he came into his family claiming to be his father’s lost son and wanting to know everything. If that wasn’t enough reason, then he met you, his hot girlfriend who put up with things no one should. Magnus was an asshole who didn’t treat you right, and he wanted nothing more than to you to realise. To realise that his half-brother was a shit that didn’t deserve you, and that he could offer everything you needed.

The door closing made him turn his head briefly, and he saw your blurry body through the shower’s curtains. He went back to his position, his back towards you and his head supported by his arm on the wall. Hvitserk heard you moving around, and he prepared himself to your speech. I’m just going to talk to him, I’ll be back before lunch you told him the first time, and he didn’t see you for days. I can’t leave him like that, Hvitserk, he needs help! you told him the second time. He wondered what would you say to him that time; sometimes, you even left without saying goodbye to him.

What he didn’t expect was for you to open the curtains and to step behind him. He didn’t look at you when you hugged his middle and put your head on his back.

“You could have waited for me” you whispered against his body.

“What for? To hear you crawling back to him?” he spat, angry and hurt “I don’t want to see you giving up to his manipulative begging, Y/N. I’m tired.”

Trying not to fall on the slippery ground, you moved around Hvitserk. You circled him and squeezed yourself between him and the wall. The little space wasn’t enough for you to fit, so you managed to pull Hvitserk backwards. You enlaced your hand with his, ignoring the pang in your chest when he didn’t look at you.

“I like the way our hands fit perfectly”

You waited for him to say something, but he didn’t.

“I left him” you searched his gaze with your eyes. “I told him I won’t see him again, Hvitty, this time is the one.”

“Until when, Y/N?” he looked at you finally, his eyes teary. “You will get call from the hospital in a few days, saying that he has overdose. And you will be there again, with him.”

“No, no” you shook your head. “It’s just… I really think you’re the one, Hvitserk. Not him.”

His eyes held doubts, a lot of them, but for an unknown reason he thought too that that time was the one. Maybe because he was desperate to show you how much he could love you, how you should be treated and how he was really the one. How he was able to break your toxic routine with Magnus and to give you what you deserved.

You raised on your toes slightly, hugging his broad shoulders and kissing him. He stood in his place, not following you until you almost returned to your place.

Then, he gripped your hips and quiet literally smashed you against the tiles and tilted his head to kiss you deeper. Hvitserk’s mouth swallowed your surprised gasp and your smile. The rest, well, the rest was history. He really made you forget Magnus’ name in that shower.

“I like the way our hands fit perfectly”, “Can you come over?” “You owe me a kiss. But I’m not very good at maths, might give me two”, “It’s just… I really think you’re the one.” “I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry” “It’s over. Finished. There’s nothing here worth fighting for” & “I don’t think we can fix this.”From Prompt List Angst and Fluff.

Want to know more about me? Here is my Masterlist! Feedback is always appreciated!!

[safetypinsymphony]

“Is it a plot twist, or is it just lying?” and brief thoughts on the SPN road so far

To paraphrase an exchange from Bob's Burgers: Is it a plot twist, or is it just lying?

This seems to be an evolving theme of Supernatural's Season 15. I haven't been keeping up on my reviews here, dern it, but after some mild kerfuffles I've experienced between various fans (including myself), I'm re-inspired. Or perhaps incensed.

“Writers lie.”

When we first learned that God is a right asshole and as such, opened a rift in Hell before checking out to leave our intrepid heroes to deal with the undead invasion spilling forth—and then decided to check back in just to start fucking with the Winchesters again—I wasn't overly bothered, but nor was I particularly thrilled by the implications. I was begrudgingly interested to see what was evolving.

Well.

Kinda like watching a slo-mo train wreck, as it turns out. We're witnessing how this canon ret-conning is already starting to fray. How playing fast and loose with what the show has established as the rules of its universe is creating this “It was all just a dream” Dallas-esque meta embarrassment.

Seasons back, when the show first shattered the Fourth Wall by introducing the SPN books and conventions into its own mythos, that self-awareness was a really risky move. To this day, you either love it or hate it, but it managed to hold together because of the infrequency with which it was explored, and the skills of the writers at the time. (Even then, we got Season Seven, Time for a Wedding, arguably one of the more tasteless episodes of the whole series.)

As Dabb and company are choosing to further explore Chuck-as-God-and-puppetmaster, one of the show's important thematic cornerstones, that of the value of <i>freewill</i>, is taking a big hit. And the show knows it. They've had Dean come right out and air his disgruntlement with it several times already. So we get it, yeah, it's a thing. It's what Dabb is using to propel this last season (along with rampant fanservice and as many returning characters—dead or alive—that he can shoehorn into 43 minutes).

Now, I do loves me some fanservice on occasion, and there are certainly quite a few characters who died in rather inglorious ways and probably deserved better send-offs than they got, but I'm not sure 'hanging a flag on it' does enough to compensate for what this means in regards to the past 14 years of the show. In asserting that all of the past canon has been little more than Chuck's manipulations, it also means that the viewers' investment into the whole of the SPN universe has been hung on a lie within its own framework. “Ret-conning” doesn't even come close to describing this level of narrative dishonesty. (Wow, that sounded dramatic, but it's kind of true, you know?) By undermining the canon of the past 14 years, the current show creators have made Gamble, Carver and yes, even Kripke unwittingly complicit in this snake oil operation.

If SPN were just a movie, two hours designed from the jump to play out this way, I might think it was a little cheesy but oh well. I'm not that invested. (See 'Cabin in the Woods', which was a helluva fun neo-horror romp, in a similar vein.) But this is FOURTEEN YEARS we're talking here. That's a loooong time to be invested in a narrative, just to have the latest showrunner unseat all the canon that came before him. The only thing that matters one iota now? Season 15. It, apparently, is the only “true” canon. The only canon where “Chuck” is revealing his hand and operating with any in-world narrative legitimacy.

Thanks, I hate it.

I'm not going to pretend I like what Dabb is proposing. The segment of fandom hungry to bust Sam and Dean's so-called co-dependency is pretty stoked about it, naturally; they see classic SPN as toxic and unhealthy (and let's be real, in the way of a certain ship).

But here's the thing that gives me The Feels™, and it's not turning the Winchesters (or Cas, for that matter) into domesticated, well-adjusted Hallmark Channel leading men. (That's what, you know, The Hallmark Channel is for.) And it's sure as hell not invalidating the canon of the show I fell in love with.

It's urban legends, black humor, the endless highways and guttering neon. It's two brothers raised on the fringes of society, their unbreakable fidelity, finding comfort wherever they can since tomorrow, they may meet the business end of a rugaru. It's the colorful characters they meet along their travels. It's Led Zeppelin, greasy spoons and ancient tomes. It's faith and heart and sacrifice.

Unless Dabb dismantles these things too. At which point, a pox upon him and his house. Writers may lie, but this would be universe assassination.

●●●

Oh! I was going to mention some episodes too, lol. Here are a few quick take-aways, since I've already blabbed on enough.

Episode 3: RIP, Rowena. I looooooved the line, “But I believe in prophecy. I believe in magic.” That was SO her. Of course an ancient witch, the most powerful in the game, would live (and die) on those words. And kudos to the show for remembering it put that Sam gun on the mantel in Season 13, iirc. Pretty sure we'll see Rowena again before the grand finale, though.

Big happy for the suggestion that Sam is a witch-in-the-making. Also glad Cas finally got his brain wrapped around the fact that Dean was pissed at him but he didn't need to take it anymore. Dean has some valid reasons to need space from Cas, and it's a handy way to get Cas off doing his own thing (as Misha is not contracted for every episode).

Berens did a solid job writing this episode, but I'm glad we've wrapped the customary 3-episode season premier. I had high hopes for myriad crusty, decaying dead shambling around a grim world, but instead we got a handful of ghosts, literally running around in broad daylight. The first two episodes were … clumsy.

Episode 4: 'Atomic Monsters', was written by my favorite current SPN writer, Davy Perez, and he did not disappoint! Something about the way he writes dialogue sounds so naturalistic to me, and he manages to tap into authentic feelings in the characters without feeling rushed or contrived. I believe his stories. I never get thrown out of his episodes.

The episode was lovingly directed by Jensen Ackles. The guy flat out knows what to give us. That whole beginning red scene, with Dean and his John Wick bad-assery and then … then we get a Sam who has never eschewed his demon blood addiction. It was chilling and gorgeously actualized and I might have watched that bit more than is healthy.

And we got to revisit Becky Rosen, who is now a fangirl—like many of us—but she's grown up and assimilated fandom enjoyment into her daily life. Perez did a great job in saving Becky, as a character. She isn't the butt of anyone's joke anymore. She isn't a dangerously unbalanced fan. She's just … one of us. Thank you, sir.

Episode 5: Fun stuff in this one! Brotherly banter, Sam and Dean dressed as sort-of Fish and Game employees, a brilliant turn by actress Anna Grace Barlow reprising Lilith (no one saw this coming!), werewolf brothers as yet another example of monsters that aren't as cut-and-dried as hunters might like, and more 'visions' from Sam wherein Sam is Lucifer again, and Dean still has the Mark of Cain. YUM.

But there were also a couple some not-so-fun things. The girls glamping in the beginning was just plain silly, the fight scenes had too many jump cuts (imho), but mostly, why on earth would they leave the God gun in the glove compartment of the Impala?? I noted that back when Dean put it in there, Episode 2 I think it was, but I seriously doubt they wouldn't have locked it up safely after that. Please, foo. Don't make our characters stupid.

By episode's end, Dean is clearly frustrated and demoralized by their predicament. It's clear Sam and Dean will be taking turns buoying each other's flagging spirits this season. As co-dependent as ever. I am here for this.

●●●

This post has gone on long enough, so I think I'll hold Episode 6 ruminations for a separate entry, and maybe dish about where we think the series is heading, for a finale. Anyone reading this probably has a numb butt by now. Anywho, thanks for hanging in with me, gang! Talk at you later...

[killian-whump]

A Rude Awakening

@wyntereyez made the very valid point that there isn’t enough fanfic about Colin’s other characters. Too true! This is something I needed to remedy immediately, and so I have written the following extremely serious science fiction tale about the events occurring after the end of Storage 24.

Warning: Mentions of face eating. I mean, it can’t be avoided, can it?

"Wakey, wakey!" a voice crooned, interrupting Mark's slumber.

He tried to kickstart his brain into motion, but it felt like a haze of cotton had settled over it, leaving him confused and disoriented. Hadn't... something happened? Something bad?

"It's time to see if the operation was a success!" The voice was male, but Mark couldn't place it. And an operation? What operation? Why had he needed an operation? Had he been hurt somehow? Had he-

"Oh God," Mark mumbled. It felt like his mouth was full of marbles, but the words came out intelligibly enough. He remembered now. The storage facility. The alien. Getting his face fucking gnawed off.

Dying.

At least, he'd assumed he'd been dying. The monster had been devouring him face-first, last he remembered. It had been a pretty safe assumption to make at the time.

And yet, here he was.

"There you are, friend." The voice changed in tone a little as it talked to someone else. "He's coming around now."

Mark's eyes slowly slid open. It looked like he was in a hospital room of some kind - clean and sterile. Clinical. "What happened?" he mumbled.

"Oh, you had a little mishap," the man beside his bedside said cheerfully.

A little mishap? He'd had his face eaten off by a gigantic alien creature from another planet. One that had presumably gone on to devour his friends, afterwards. Well, at least the people who had been his friends before that night in the storage facility. He had a feeling they'd probably bristle at him using the term now. "Charlie?" he asked weakly. "Shelly? Did it... get them?"

"No, no. That one didn't."

"That one?!" Mark cried.

"The one you met in the storage facility was only the first of many. A scout, if you will. He was sent to Earth ahead of a military invasion, and was captured by the British government. It was their plane that crashed near the storage facility, releasing their captive. Your friends successfully destroyed the scout, but proved more or less useless in the military battles that came afterwards."

"How am I alive...?"

"Oh, there was enough of you left for us to salvage." The doctor smiled. "Very lucky, you were. Your friends destroyed the scout before it could finish devouring you."

"But my face..."

"I've done some of my best work," the doctor said proudly. "I can't wait to see the end result, and today's the day to remove your bandages."

"Oh." The response sounded dumb, even to Mark's own ears, but he really didn't know what else to say. He didn't have high hopes that the doctor would be able to give him a face anywhere near as handsome as the one he'd had before. He'd be lucky if he didn't look a bit monstrous, in fact.

A nurse stepped forward and began pulling bandages off of his face then, and Mark had to admit he was a little curious when he saw how pleased she and the doctor both looked at what was being revealed.

When a mirror was brought up for Mark to see, he literally couldn't believe his eyes. His face was... perfect. Exactly as he remembered it. There wasn't even a single scar. "How...?" he asked incredulously.

"It's actually been some time since your incident in the storage facility. Our technology is vastly superior to what you might remember of medical medicine back in your day."

"What year is it?" Mark asked numbly.

"2053!" the doctor chirped brightly.

2053? But he'd be an old man by then. He didn't feel old. His face certainly didn't look old. He picked his hand up from the bed and looked at it. No wrinkles. It looked just the same as it had before he'd die- Mark blanched. "How am I here?" he asked shakily. "Did I... die?"

"Of course," the doctor said, looking at Mark like he'd ridden into town on the Stupid Train. "An alien scout chewed your entire face off." The man nodded slowly and exaggeratedly, as if he were explaining himself to a child. "You definitely died. But like I said, there was enough of you left to salvage that we were able to recreate you."

Mark felt like he was going to be sick. Fortunately, the nurse appeared at his side with a glass of cold water, which he gratefully took a sip of. It helped, but nowhere near enough. "What am I, then?" he asked finally. "A clone or something?"

"Of course." The doctor smiled. "You represent the very front line of human cloning, Mark. You should be very proud."

Somehow, he wasn't. He was definitely more confused than anything else. "Why me?"

"Oh, your face was very unique. While your friends destroyed the alien scout that ate it, they hadn't done so before the scout was able to telepathically relay his experience with your face back to his home planet." The doctor looked at a clipboard and flipped through a few pages until he found what he was looking for. "10/10," he read aloud. "Absolutely delicious. The finest face in all the galaxies. Yum. Would cross entire universes for this delectable treat."

"This has to be a joke," Mark said incredulously.

"No, sir," the nurse said seriously. "It's no joke at all. He was very happy with your face. It became the stuff of legends."

"That scout had eaten the faces off of many humans and other alien species throughout the known cosmos," the doctor explained. "He knew his face cuisine. If he said it was the best thing he'd tasted, well, he would know."

"So... you cloned me for my face?"

"Let's be honest here," the nurse said bluntly. "It's really your only redeeming feature."

The doctor explained further. "We thought about cloning you as an infant, but it would take too long for your face to mature to its peak desirability. Ultimately, we decided to make an exact replica of you at the moment of your death, so we could heal your body and recreate the exact face that was eaten."

That left Mark with only one question - but it was an important one. Possibly, the most important question of his life. "Why?"

"Because we're hungry," the doctor said simply. "The last natural humans died off two decades ago. We've mostly been subsisting on tofuman burgers and non-specific human clones. But we've long been trying to recreate you, Mark, so we all can taste the face that launched a thousand starships."

"But aren't you... human?"

"Heavens, no." The doctor laughed. "These are just digital disguises so you wouldn't freak out on us the moment you woke up. Now that the cat's out of the bag, we might as well cast them aside."

And, suddenly, Mark found himself lying on a hospital bed, alone in a room with two of the gigantic alien monsters that had terrorized him and ultimately killed him in that Storage 24 movie facility. One of them was wearing scrubs and carrying a clipboard, whilst the other wore a bright white uniform and an old-fashioned nurse’s cap.

Not knowing what else to do, Mark screamed. And screamed some more. And a little more for good measure. Then he fainted.

"Well, that was rude," the doctor alien said with a sigh. "Don't you think so, Gladys?"

The alien nurse nodded solemnly. "Terribly so, Frank. Terribly so."

[luci-in-trenchcoats]

Not So Happy

Summary: Dean and the reader have to pretend to be married to work a case. The only thing is they aren’t getting along...

Square: Fake Married

Pairing: Dean x reader

Word Count: 2,300ish

Rating: teen (some language)

A/N: Written/created for @spnaubingo

“Sam,” you said, standing outside your car, hand on your hip. “Don’t get me wrong, Dean’s great. But you want me to pretend to be married to him?”

“It’s a couples only resort, Y/N. Dean and I can’t exactly work this one ourselves. Not without killing each other ten seconds in,” said Sam. “You guys work together great. What’s the problem?”

“Well that makes two of us that don’t want to kiss your brother,” you said, cocking your head. Sam rolled his eyes, putting on puppy dog ones when they returned to look at you. “No!”

“Please? I know you guys can figure this thing out,” he said.

“I’m not his type, remember? I’m too much of a ‘tomboy’ in his opinion,” you said, Sam sighing.

An after hunt celebration out had quickly turned sour when Dean let loose that it made perfect sense you were single. No one wanted a hunter. No one really wanted a hunter that dressed like a guy all the time.

“He said that as a joke, Y/N,” he said.

“Well guess who’s still single as ever Sam,” you said.

“We’re all single!” said Sam.

“But you would never date me,” you said.

“You’re not my type! You’re like my sister I didn’t ask for,” said Sam.

“Told you!” you said. “If I was walking around in a skin tight tank and boots with heels or a push up bra, things would be different.”

“Why would you want a pushup bra? Aren’t bras annoying enough? Or so I’ve been told,” he said.

“That’s not the point Sam. It’s that a guy who can’t find one positive thing to say about me while drunk, isn’t going to be able to act like we’re some in love couple that can’t keep their hands off of each other. You need to go find a prettier hunter,” you said, opening up your car door.

“Y/N, please-”

“I can’t do this Sam. I’m sorry.”

“Alright,” said Dean, bursting into your motel room a few hours later. “Cut the whiny crap. You’re the best chick hunter we know. You’re doing this whether you like it or not, Y/L/N. Pack up your bag, get your shit together and you’re gonna follow us to the resort or so be it I’ll drag you out of here myself.”

“Sure you will,” you said, laying on your bed, turning your attention to the TV.

“You asked for it,” he said. You scrunched up your face as he walked over with a scowl. “Last chance.”

“Get out of here before I kick your- PUT ME DOWN!” you shouted, find yourself face first with Dean’s backside, your body thrown over his shoulder.

“Nope,” he said, grabbing hold of your hips with his free hand when you squirmed, already moving for the door.

“Winchester I swear I’ll-”

“It’s a five hour drive. Plenty of time for you to change your mind,” he said, moving you outside, tossing you in the backseat and locking it shut behind you. 

“Huh,” said Sam from the front seat. “He wasn’t kidding when he said you were coming on this hunt no matter what.”

“Like hell I’m pretending to be married to him,” you said, climbing over the bench and out the drivers side, just in time for Dean to walk out the door with your bag.

“Get in the car,” said Dean. “Now.”

“Or what? I don’t want to work this hunt. Find someone else,” you said, walking to your car, Dean tossing your bag in Baby’s trunk by the time you’d ripped under the front dash to hotwire it.

“You’re really acting like more of a brat than usual, Y/N,” said Dean, pulling you out of the seat, putting you in the back of Baby like you were nothing. “Weaker than I remember too.”

“Sam, I told you I don’t-”

“Y/N. We need you. We’ll owe you one. A big one. Just one little hunt, please?” asked Sam.

“Fine. But I want Sam to be working this with me,” you said.

“Best news I’ve heard all day.”

“Sam,” you groaned in the motel room not too far from the resort you were supposed to be checking into in thirty minutes. “You can’t call and say you gave them the wrong name?”

“I told them Dean and Y/N Jones. Besides, Dean wants a free massage,” said Sam.

“Dean fucking Winchester wants a massage?” you said. “Do I look stupid to you?”

“Y/N. Just work with Dean on this one. I’ll make it up to you. I promise,” said Sam.

“You better.”

“You look weird,” you said, Dean wearing a polo and sneakers as he stepped out of Baby.

“You’re telling me. You’re wearing a fucking dress,” he said, glancing around. “Grab your bag and let’s get this done with.”

“Maybe my ever so loving husband can get it for me?” you said, cocking your head with a grin.

“I believe in equality. Get your own shit,” he said, grabbing his bag, leaving yours behind. You grumbled and pulled it out, tugging it behind you as he spun around. “And by the way, what the fuck did I do to piss you off? You’ve wanted nothing to do with me for months. I thought we were friends.”

“Nothing. Just got tired of running with you guys,” you said.

“Funny. Sammy doesn’t get the cold shoulder,” said Dean.

“Sam’s not a dick,” you said.

“Whatever. Try not to look like you hate me in there,” said Dean, holding out his hand with a groan. “You gonna hold it or what?”

“Yes, sweetie,” you said, grabbing hold of it, his hand warmer than expected and enveloping yours easily.

“Just make it to the room and then we can start investigating.”

“I got nothing,” you said hours later, flipping shut your computer. You heard Dean’s close as well, neither one of you coming up with any ideas on what was killing the couples here. “It’s getting late. We should grab a bite and hit the sack.”

“Last time I was at a resort and ate something, I got drugged,” said Dean.

“So we’re supposed to starve?” you said.

“PB&J,” said Dean, going to his bag and  pulling out a sandwich for himself, tossing another over to you.

“Dean,” you said, holding out your sandwich. “I can’t eat this. I’m allergic.”

“I thought that was shrimp you couldn’t have,” he said.

“Shrimp and peanuts,” you said, tossing the sandwich back. “It’s fine. I can not eat for a few days. I can stand to lose a few anyways.”

“From where? You’re skinny,” he said. “You need to eat something, Y/N.”

“I’ll be fine,” you said, walking past him for the bathroom. “I’m going to use that soaking tub as long as we got it. I’ll shout if something tries to kill me.”

Your bath was relaxing and you decided you needed to spend more time in hotels with nice rooms from now on to give yourself this luxury. Your stomach growled as you pulled on your pajamas though, a heavy sigh leaving you.

Back in the room Dean was in the lone, King size bed. It was big enough to share but your gaze falling on a fast food bag by your side of it was currently drawing your attention.

“How did you...” you asked.

“I told them when I came back you’ve been dying for a burger since you cut them out to fit in your wedding dress,” he said, tugging the covers up. “I ran to a minimart quick too and hid some snacks in the bag. It’s buried under my clothes in the suitcase when you get hungry. Figured you could handle anything if it burst into the bathroom.

“Thank you,” you said, opening up the bag, unwrapping the burger.

“Yeah, whatever.”

Two Days Later

“Y/N!” you heard Dean hissing in your ear, something grabbing your arm. You blinked open your eyes, no longer in your room. “Wake up! I gotta get you out of here.”

“What?” you asked, as he pulled you to your feet, your head swimming as he caught you.

“Blood suckers. Not vamps. Some sort of leech people. You’ve lost too much blood. I have to get you away before they come back,” said Dean, wrapping his arms around your torso, half-dragging you out of the room.

“I can help,” you said, resting your head against his arm.

“You’re gonna go hide in Baby while I barbeque these bottom dewlers,” said Dean. “I got this, Y/N.”

“How’s she doing?” asked Dean a few hours later, your body groggy as you laid in Sam’s motel bed.

“Sleeping it off. I made her chug some sugary drink to get her blood sugar back up. She’ll be off a day or so I’d guess. We’ll keep an eye on her but let her sleep and make sure she eats and she’ll be fine,” said Sam.

“You know it’s my fault she got caught,” said Dean, sitting down on the other side of the bed. “We got in a fight because I told her to stay put when we knew it was better to not get separated. I should have let her come.”

“Y/N’s a big girl, Dean. If she really wanted, she-”

“She’s different now. She either hates me or won’t look at me. I don’t even know what I did and she won’t tell me so I can’t try to fix it,” said Dean.

“Fix it?” asked Sam.

“Come on Sam. You know I’m not one for attachments. Y/N was my friend and I fucked something up. I’m not used to losing friends because they didn’t die. I thought being fake married might sort of help show I’m not the dick she thinks I am but that went horribly wrong. All we did was argue,” said Dean.

“You honestly don’t remember that night in Montana? At the dive bar?” said Sam.

“Not a clue,” said Dean.

“You...hit her self-esteem or confidence or that sort of thing. You said it as a joke but you kind of told her she wasn’t pretty...and would forever be single because no one wants that kind of girl,” said Sam.

“Sammy! That’s bull and you know it!” said Dean, running his hands over his face. “Did I really fucking do that? I had to go and get all shy?”

“Shy? What are you talking about?” asked Sam.

“You remember when I was in tenth grade and that girl, Sara, the one with the super long hair came up to me when I was grabbing you from the junior high? She asked me on a date? I said no because I froze up since I liked her and got real shy about it and your twelve year old ass gave me shit about it for three weeks straight?” asked Dean. “History repeated itself.”

“So you’re saying you like Y/N so you insulted her?” asked Sam.

“I didn’t say I was smart! Fuck. Sam, literally every woman we’ve ever had relationships with has ended up dead. How am I gonna apologize without telling her the truth?” asked Dean.

“You could do the easy thing you know and just tell her the truth,” said Sam.

“No,” said Dean. “It’s easier to just let her think I’m a dick. I swear if you bring this up to her Sam-”

“Still as scared as a sixteen year old, Dean. Don’t blame me when she doesn’t answer one of our calls ever again.”

Dean kept his word and didn’t say anything to you, neither of them knowing you’d heard their late night conversation. You thought about bringing it up but Sam had a point. Dean needed to decide for himself if he wanted to own this.

Not that you really forgave him for his reasons behind saying what he did anyways. Not until he could truly come to you on his own.

You didn’t hear a word from them for months after that, not until a text from Sam saying he was in the area and asking if he could stop by for a drink came your way.

“Hi,” said Dean, wearing one of his fed suits when you pulled open your front door, Sam nowhere in sight.

“Is Sam alright?” you asked. Dean nodded, a few flakes of snow outside landing in his hair. “Come in before you freeze.”

“I was wondering if you’d like to go out actually,” said Dean, glancing quickly at his feet, pursing his lips. “We had a hunt last week that...that made me think of some stuff and how I’m terrified of being alone when it comes down to it. People like us go through enough as it is and I’m sorry for ever making you feel like there was something wrong about you because you’re all right. I’m the one that’s wrong and can’t grow up to save my life. I’m sorry.”

“Dean, come inside,” you said. He stepped into the small older home you used on occasion when you were taking a break from hunting, glancing around at the space, shaking his head. 

“Can we try being friends again?” he asked. “I promise I won’t screw it up this time.”

“Yeah, Dean. We can definitely try that.”

@baconlover001 @emilymorgan1994 @jensenackesl @captainemwinchester @imissyoualittlemoreeveryday @xfanqirlinq @anokhi07 @akshi8278 @fandom--shipper @xxwinchester-22xx

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[thetravellingvagrant]

Day 2: Chisinau – Moldoverslept

So, an unfortunate side effect of being two hours ahead of proper, honest, hard working British time is that you wake up essentially two hours 'later' than you normally would at home. During Moldova's no doubt balmy summer months, you could probably just laugh this off- “ho ho ho, I slept until one in the afternoon, ha ha ha, what a disgusting sloth I am, he he he, I really need to sort this mess I somehow have the audacity to call 'my life' out”, however in its cruel and biting winters, sleeping until one obviously doesn't just mean that you need to have a long think about your lifestyle, it also means that you have wasted about 80% of the day's sunlight.

This was the boat I found myself in, this morning, or, I suppose, afternoon... Having been unable to approach anything even vaguely resembling sleep until around 5:00am, I slept far longer than I should have, finally lifting my drooling, idiot head off of my altogether too soft pillow at just past mid-day. Sunset here, is at around half past four in the afternoon, so, no matter how much my body was willing me to go back to sleep-and it was a lot- I decided to force myself out of bed and into the world.

By the time I had eaten, researched what there is to see in the city and wept for a solid forty five minutes, it was nearly one. I decided, due to the dwindling light and the fact that I felt like two garbage trucks smashing into eachother in slow motion, so allow myself a bit of an easy day, to gently lower myself into the whole vagranting thing, once more; a little sightseeing, a little lunch, a little grocery shopping and then returning home to write an incredibly long blog and probably pass out, still in my clothes. Perfect. I grabbed my list of places I wanted to visit (metaphorically, I didn't have a physical list, it was all on my phone, you caveman) and finally headed out into the nipple-stiffeningly cold Moldovan winter.

The price one has to pay for a quiet, pleasant apartment here (other than £14 per night, of course) appears to be proximity to anything interesting, whatsoever. There was a zoo and botanical garden some 5km to the south and the museum and shopping district 5km in the opposite direction. Today, I opted for the museums today, reasoning that going to the zoo on the first day of the trip was probably a little over-eager, (Side note: I did go the next day, though...).

So, I walked, happy to have avoided one vagrancy trope, though in doing so, having fallen directly into another, in the form of walking alongside a motorway, not really sure of where I was going and what I was doing. Things worked out fairly well, in the end, though, and I managed to deliver myself relatively unharmed into the museum district.

The city of Chisinau, barring the dual carriageway that I walked along, is a lot more interesting and developed than I expected, having been told more than once that it was one of the poorest countries in Europe and also having seen the broadcast quality of their Eurovision segments. It isn't by any stretch of the imagination a classy city, there is a crippling over-dependence on neon signs, making the place vaguely reminiscent of walking down the Las Vegas strip, if the strip exclusively housed budget pharmacies and places where you could buy rotten peppers from inexplicably furious street vendors, and the people in it seem to have no ability to determine when they are in the way, no matter how sternly you 'ahem' at them, but it's highly commercialised, very urban and even has a few international chain stores dotted around. A far cry from the shrieking, toothless old woman I imagined, whipping an emaciated horse, carrying a wicker basket full of sausages down a dirt road, on its back (Though, I do wonder, if I left the capitol city, whether I would actually be all that far off with that thought...).

I began my brief sight-seeing tour with the 'Victory Monument and Eternal Flame', which is a huge sort of...prism frame, with a little fire burning at its centre, in the middle of some park-land, which apparently stands to commemorate the soviet forces' victory during world war two, which I suppose is technically, linguistically the correct way to think about it. The monument itself was actually fairly cool

...Neat!

and about as Soviet as it was possible for something incapable of squatting, smoking a roll-up or wearing a knock-off addidas tracksuit to be.

славная мать россия

Attached to the monument was a civilian cemetery, which I ended up wandering into and subsequently getting a bit lost in. It was a sprawling mess of tombstones and mud and rather difficult to navigate. Big mounds of dirt, workmen's vans and even the occasional grave (obviously originally designed to fit neatly in a single patch of ground, though over time, expanded with additional family members, wishing to be buried in the same plot, to the point of infringing on the path) blocked my route. It reminded me of a poorly organised vegetable garden, except instead of cabbages, it was growing corpses.

I stumbled around for a while, before finally finding the exit, neatly concealed behind a big mound of gravel, and heading to my next stop; some museums.

I actually only made it into one of the three or so museums I had planned to visit. The first one, I arrived at, the museum of Moldovan art, looked shut and had big, imposing closed doors, so I didn't bother checking and the museum of Moldovan modern art, I simply couldn't find. That left the museum of Moldovan history. It too looked closed, though just as I was about to turn around and walk away, cursing my aversion to big intimidating doors, the big intimidating doors pulled open and out walked a punter. Good enough for me! I headed inside.

I paid the 20 lei entrance fee (approximately one euro; you can imagine my delight) to a frumpy old Moldovan woman, who's ability in English, if I was describing it kindly, was shit.

“You make peecture?” she boomed at me

“Uhh, what?”, I replied. Unsure if she was asking if I planned to take pictures, or if I was an artist. I was wearing a scarf, after all. She held her hands up miming holding a camera

“cleek cleek?”

the former, then. I racked my brains as to why she was asking me this, before quickly hitting on the conclusion that it might cost extra if I wanted to take pictures of things. Not wishing to pay any more money, despite the ludicrously cheap entry fee, I told her I was not.

“Oh.” She said, slightly bemused. “ok, it start second floor”.

On my walk to the second floor, I realised the question was probably more in an effort to make me switch my flash off than to weedle more money out of me. Still at least now I had managed to muddy the water over the legality of picture taking, for myself. So that was nice.

In the end, it didn't really matter, as I found very little of enough interest to photograph, anyway. Save for some fairly cool world war two soviet propaganda posters  

Fuck the police, probably.

the rest of the curios in the collection, while vaguely interesting, didn't grab my attention enough to really warrant the need for any kind of keepsake. I wandered slowly around the four or so halls of exhibits, losing interest more and more as I moved from pre-history, chronologically through to modern day (why lead with the Scythians? You're never going to top them.), giving up entirely in the final room, filled with Christian knick knacks, such as gilded bibles and twee Christmas cards from the early 1900s and heading back outside, realising in the process how much I had been enjoying the warmth of being inside. With one final photograph of the truly bizarre sculpture that stood in the museum's courtyard, I left it behind.

...’kay

By now, I was beginning to get hungry, having eaten two chocolate bars and one half-exploded Tesco pasta pot, since my miserable foray into burger king, the previous day. I decided, then, to make my way to the city's 'pedestrian street' (which I hoped alluded to who was allowed to use it, rather than it's quality) for some food. I ambled slowly through a couple of mini-parks on my way, passing some little cathedrals and other things I may have been mildly interested in, if my stomach wasn't half way through eating itself, and into the street of dreams.

Save for like, three restaurants, there was literally nothing on it. I'm not really sure why tripadvisor insisted I must see this place, but I was there for the restaurants, anyway, so I guess fuck the haters.

I plumped for a little burger bar place, who's name I forget, having obviously not learned any kind of lesson from the previous day.

Despite the slightly ominous menu...

It was awkwardly empty inside, but I had come this far and so, sat down and ordered some fried dumplings and a chicken burger.

At the time, I quite enjoyed my meal, though each time I have thought of it subsequently, I have savoured the memory, less and less and at this point, just find it a bit sickening. The patty was clearly a frozen farm-foods style affair, which had been hastily and poorly defrosted, meaning that the meat was soft and wet and soaked into my bun. The burger was served with some fries, which I had not expected. A nice surprise, though so horrifically oversalted that they burned my lips as I ate them. My fried dumplings, however, take the points for the most confusing item on my plate. Hard, as they were, they reminded me slightly of pistachio nuts, filled with...well, actually, to be honest, I'm not that sure. I had thought initially pork, though later decided it was cabbage and continued to sway between the two until I had finished them all. I still don't know, to this day. I suppose it doesn't really matter what they were filled with; the fact is that if it could be mistaken for pork, it was bad cabbage and if it could be mistaken for cabbage, it was definitely bad pork. Still, the entire meal came to four and a half euros, so how intensely can you really complain, right?

Now queasy due to both the quantity and quality of the food I had just ingested and with the temperature and my enthusiasm for being outside both rapidly reaching zero, I decided to leave the Afghan monument, whatever that is, for another day and to, instead, hobble my tired ass back to the apartment.

The walk home was laborious, owing to my having walked quite some distance in the opposite direction, it getting really rather cold, my full, churning stomach and my having failed to accurately retrace my steps, instead leading myself down an incredibly long, tedious shopping street, followed by the most terrifying underpass I have ever walked through

...This is fine.

and finally alongside an unlit patch of park-land (Chisinau is one of the darkest cities I have ever visited. Street lights seem to be reserved for only the most densely populated areas, which can be a little frightening, but also helps to no end in my pretending to be Batman).

With only one stop left before I could return home, I dropped in briefly to a supermarket for some food which I no longer wanted, for the evening.

As I previously mentioned, Moldovan people seem to have no grasp of the concepts of personal space or waiting their turn, so obviously I left the supermarket angry and having forgotten to buy both toothpaste and bottled water (the tap-water here, apparently being slightly poisonous to outsiders. For real). I did however remember to buy both wafer biscuits and the ingredients for the first set of shitty unappetising sandwiches of the trip, so I at least had all the important food groups covered.

After arriving home, I decided, as it turns out, stupidly, to take a nap. I awoke to my alarm forty five minutes later, feeling somehow about ten times worse, though not wanting to go back to sleep for fear of being unable to drop off that night, thus throwing my sleeping pattern even more out of whack with Moldova's zany two hour difference, I forced myself out of bed, for the second time in a day and set about writing my blog and staring at the wall, in a daze, with a long strand of drool hanging from my bottom lip for the remainder of the evening.

Finally, it was late enough to turn in and so I plopped into bed, once more, shut my eyes and...didn't fall asleep for another hour. The nap had really taken the edge off of my incredible overtiredness and so I just lay in the dark, tossing and turning with mounting frustration, before putting on a youtube video and being bored to sleep almost instantly. I probably should have just done that to begin with.

As you may have been able to tell, though the general quality of writing in this entry, an adequate amount of sleep was not something the gods of slumber saw fit to gift me, for the rest of the night, either, so look forward to tomorrow's entry, in which a barely functioning man, stumbles around a sad, deserted Moldovan zoo!

[alarawriting]

Inktober #20: Tread

Two people have done fan art for this character; I will reblog them after posting this, with a tag to make them findable, since Tumblr hides posts with links from search.

Five friends drove up the mountain into the forest, where the vacation cabin waited for them. It was their senior year of college, so it wouldn’t be long before they’d be graduating and going their separate ways, and who knew when they’d all be able to hang out together again? So they’d decided that this year, instead of going on spring break someplace where there were a ton of other people, they’d spend break together in a cabin in the woods, because there was no possible way that that could go wrong.

They were just five totally ordinary college guys. Steve, a white dude with brown hair who loved video games and playing guitar; Trevor, a black dude with short hair who was on track to graduate magna cum laude and had already been accepted at a top medical school; Harrison, an outgoing, short, red-haired white dude who played soccer, but not, like, at career athlete level or anything; Evan, an Asian dude who kept his hair in a long ponytail, and whose family owned the cabin, who was planning on taking a year off after graduation to backpack around Asia and had sold it to his parents as an exploration of his heritage; and the Pale Bro, a twelve-foot tall dude with paper-white skin whose fingernails were like long razor blades and who was completely covered with eyes and mouths, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, cut-off shorts that would have been nearly pants on any other guy, and a pair of Vans on his feet. Just five ordinary young fellows, like anyone you might know.

Steve was driving the minivan, kinda wishing it was his dad’s SUV because of the effort of getting a minivan up the slope, but his dad’s SUV was in a different state and besides, it wouldn’t have had room for the Pale Bro. The minivan was the kind where you could put down the back row of seats to expand the cargo capacity, and the Pale Bro had laid out a thick sleeping-bag style blanket on top of their suitcases and was laying on them now, curled sideways because there was no dimension where he could stretch out in the van. Must be rough for him, Steve imagined, always having to bend down or curl up to fit into buildings and vehicles with his bros. He never complained about it, though. He was a great friend.

“How much farther is this place?” Harrison asked. “I gotta piss like you wouldn’t believe.”

“I’ve been unfortunately next to you at the urinals,” Trevor said. “I’d believe it.”

Steve checked the GPS. “Shit. The GPS has just decided to get the vapors because it’s up too high. It’s telling me I’m literally in the middle of nowhere. Like, look at this.” He showed the screen to Evan. “We’re in the middle of nowhere. It isn’t even drawing the road.”

“Don’t worry about it, I can guide you in from here,” Evan said. “Just stay on the road another 20 minutes or so.”

With a voice that rumbled like the sound of tectonic plates grinding together and the hiss of static from the birth of the universe behind it, the Pale Bro conveyed that there had better be some fucking food at the cabin, because he was starving.

“You and me both, buddy,” Trevor said.

“We all just got Burger King like, two hours ago,” Steve complained.

“Yeah, well, me and Pale are tall dudes. We need more food than you.” The smirk on Trevor’s face indicated that he didn’t really believe that.

“There should be food, I had a grocery delivery scheduled for yesterday and one of my parents’ employees was supposed to swing by the place, pick it up and put it in the fridge.”

“There’s a fridge at this cabin?” Harrison asked.

Evan looked at him. “Yeah, dumbass, you think I’d have suggested coming here if there was no fridge? There’s running water, too. It even gets hot if you run it long enough.”

“Well, excuse me for not being so rich I can afford to go to a cabin in the woods, ever, before now.”

“What else has it got?” Trevor asked.

“Well, there’s three bedrooms, one of which has a king-sized bed and the other two have bunk beds. I figure, Pale Bro gets the big bed and we break up into two’s and do the roommate thing. We don’t have a washer or dryer, but if you only brought one pair of underpants and it’s getting really rank, we’ve got detergent and a clothesline so you can wash them in the sink. There’s a dishwasher.”

“I would have put in a washer and dryer before I put in a dishwasher, personally,” Steve said.

“Yeah, well, my mom had a different opinion. Anyway, it’s camping in the woods. It’s not supposed to be just like if we were at home.”

“I call top bunk!” Harrison said.

“There’s two top bunks. Both rooms have bunk beds.”

The Pale Bro expressed in a voice like a Gregorian chant of nightmares that he wanted to know if there was a bathroom in the master bedroom, because that shit would be sweet.

“Naah, man, sorry,” Evan said. “But there is one of those really deep claw-foot bathtubs that you like.”

Like the rumbling of an oncoming avalanche, the Pale Bro opined that that was excellent.

***

“I don’t believe this shit.”

They had just disembarked, the Pale Bro in the rear bringing his own suitcase and the beer cooler, which was the size of a mini-fridge, and everyone else dragging their suitcases in… except for Evan, who had gone directly to the kitchen without bringing in his own stuff yet. He came stomping out. “Joe never showed up, the bastard! I’m totally having my dad fire his ass.”

“What do you mean?” Steve asked.

“I mean that food order never showed up. So we have canned food, and boxed food, but we don’t have anything perishable. No bread, no lunchmeat, no eggs, no bacon, no orange juice, none of that shit.” He sighed. “I’m gonna have to drive down into town myself to get food, and we just got here.”

“Hey, man, I can still drive the car,” Steve said. “You just need to tell me where to go.”

“Steve, you’ve been driving for 6 hours, you’re probably wiped. I can drive,” Trevor said. “It’s the least I could do with Evan buying our food.”

“Yeah, but you bought the beer, man,” Evan said. “So maybe Harrison needs to drive.”

“Uh, hey, before anyone drives anywhere, maybe you should call and find out if your parents even know where that Joe guy who never showed up is, and if he’s all right?” Harrison called from outside.

“Why?”

“Just… everyone come take a look at this!”

Everyone went outside and congregated around Harrison’s find, which was a roughly humanoid, but clawed, tread that was at least three times the size of a normal footprint. Experimentally the Pale Bro put his own massive foot into the tread. Harrison whistled. The footprint was about 25% bigger than the Pale Bro’s.

“Dude. What is that? Is that a bear?” Harrison asked.

Trevor shook his head. “Those are sneaker treads, Har. Bears don’t wear sneakers.”

In a voice that was the perfect auditory personification of the Zalgo font, the Pale Bro suggested that it looked like one of his cousins was back on its bullshit again.

“Goddamn,” Evan said. “That’s a big fellow.”

“I think maybe if we go into town we should all go,” Steve said.

“We’ve just been driving all this time, though,” Evan said. “I wanted to relax, crack a cold one, put on some MP3s. We don’t get Internet worth shit out here but I’ve got a huge music library on the stereo’s hard drive.”

The Pale Bro opined that before anyone drove anywhere, maybe he had better find his cousin and make it clear that if his cousin touched any of his friends he would shove its head so far up its ass it would be blinking shit out of its 27 eyes for a month.

“That… sounds reasonable,” Trevor said. “Since we don’t know what happened to Joe. We can hunker down here and wait for you to get back.”

“I’m pretty sure I got instant just add water pancake mix,” Evan said. “And my mom stocked this place with crappy dehydrated chicken pieces like the kind doomsday preppers buy. I could make a shitty chicken soup, we’ve got bouillon and noodles. Oh, and there’s a few cans of chili. Canned stuff is shit but I could maybe perk it up with some spices, some extra beans… put some rice in the cooker, I bet my mom left rice here, she buys like 100 pound bags of rice.”

Like the sound of Jupiter hovering in orbit above, rotating ponderously, the Pale Bro agreed that some canned chili with extra spices sounded pretty good considering how fucking hungry he was, and as soon as he found his asshole cousin he’d be back to eat with the rest of his bros. He also reminded them to save him some beer.

“Dude!” Steve laughed. “We’ve got three keggers’ worth in that cooler! There will be plenty of beer for you.”

Evan called his parents as the Pale Bro left the house, and reported back, somewhat gray-faced. “They said Joe never called in to say he got to the house. He reported picking up the groceries, he was headed up here, and then nada.”

“Oh, well, then, you work on the chili,” Trevor said, “and me and the rest of the guys are gonna lock up all the windows and doors and put someone on watch for when the Pale Bro gets back. You don’t have any guns up here, by any chance, do you?”

“Nope, my parents aren’t really hunters,�� Evan said.

“Well, I’ve seen your kitchen at home, I know what kind of equipment your mom likes to stock. We’ll have plenty of sharp knives, I’m betting.”

“Yeah.”

And so as Evan attempted to turn six cans of canned chili into something his bros would find edible, and the Pale Bro stalked through the forest on the mountaintop looking for his asshole cousin, the other three made sure everything was locked up, that the car keys were secure, and that there were wicked cooking knives within easy reach, but not line of sight from the outside, of every door. Just like ordinary bros do, every day.

[ourgreatconcavity]

My One-Act Play

Written for my Playwriting class during my senior year of college, fall semester.

                                                          Have it Your Way

                                               (Lights rise on a  deserted café. MICKEY is sitting at a table alone, taking occasional sips of his coffee. He is dressed in khakis and a  sweater with a dress shirt underneath. His demeanor is calm. LOUIS then enters the café, and sees MICKEY sitting. LOUIS, wearing jeans and a sweater with a hat, rushes over to the table and  takes the chair across from MICKEY.)

                                                                       LOUIS

Hey, Mickey.

                                                                         MICKEY

Morning, Louis.

                                                                         LOUIS

I flew out to see you as fast as I could.

                                                                         MICKEY

I see that.

                                                                       LOUIS

How have you been? Sometimes I still don't believe that Dad is gone.

                                                                         MICKEY

                                                           (A beat.)

I’ve been better. 

                                                                         LOUIS

You should try keeping busy, keeps your mind off things. 

                                                                         MICKEY

Yeah... 

(MICKEY looks immensely uncomfortable, while LOUIS  looks somber, staring into nothingness.)  

                                                                         LOUIS

I haven’t seen you in forever.

                                                                       MICKEY

Yeah, it’s been a while.

                                                                          LOUIS

What have you been up to?

                                                                         MICKEY

                                                           (Agitated.)

I don’t know. Nothing?

                                                                         LOUIS

Come on, you have to be up to something. You can’t be doing nothing for twenty years, and don’t say you’re doing nothing now; I can see your shoulders going up and down; you’re breathing, for one. Blinking, too, for another.

                                                                         MICKEY

I mean, I've been depressed lately, but there isn't much to talk about. It's been hard.

                                                 (There is a real struggle for conversation. MICKEY is constantly touching his face and running his fingers through his hair, anxious.  LOUIS fidgets in his seat and keeps itching the back of his head. MICKEY looks at LOUIS and his outfit, eyeing him up and down.)

                                                                         MICKEY

People are becoming more top-heavy it seems. Large sizes on top, and like, chicken legs or poles on the bottom. It’s like those huts built over water in the east; those skinny poles holding up so much weight, the tide teasing its power and destruction. 

                                                                         LOUIS

Bro, have you looked in the mirror? Better yet, have you looked down? Everything on you is slim-fit when really, you need Slim-Fast.

                                                                         MICKEY

I make it work. I do just enough exercise to fit in these outfits. I have it all worked out measurement wise. Like, if I have a medium fry at McDonald’s, I’ll have to do one hundred and fifty crunches to work out the fat. 

                                                                         LOUIS

I’m guessing you’re the type of guy who only eats the top half of a Big Mac, too. 

                                                                         MICKEY

...You’re not wrong. 

                                                                         LOUIS

Do you eat all the scraps of lettuce that fall out too? 

                                                                         MICKEY

Alright, now you’re going too far. I’m not going to tell you if you’re right or wrong; I’ll leave it ambiguous. Let’s just say I count every little sliver.

                                                                         LOUIS

Lettuce is the most nutritionally devoid vegetable besides celery. It’s like the Styrofoam you get in a package, just fluffs it up but has no singular, meaningful purpose. It's just texture… set decoration. Yet everyone always gets it on their sandwich! You know one time, when I was a kid, I saw a giant head of lettuce in the fridge. I told Mom to make me a sandwich with just lettuce, like literally, white bread and lettuce. I cried after a few bites because I thought my taste buds died. 

                                                                         MICKEY

Well, um… that's good to hear?

                                                                                     (A beat.)

                                                                       LOUIS

So, how's Diane doing with the loss? I know her and Dad were close, conjoined at the hip almost. She blocked my number awhile ago; haven't been able to get in contact.

                                                                         MICKEY

Did you say something?

                                                                         LOUIS

Yeah, about the family.

                                                                         MICKEY

Have you ever tried a Big Mac with tomato? You remember the jingle, right? Imagine the jingle with three extra syllables in the Big Mac melody; it would not fit. You might as well use an actual leaf of lettuce if you’re going to do that. And then if you use a leaf of lettuce, you’ll have to add those syllables into the melody, and then you get like an extra bar of music, and then McDonald's would have to pay the studio musicians more because of that extra bar, and then if they did have that extra bar, then everyone remembers the jingle with that extra bar, and it’s a whole calamity, like an alternate timeline. The question itself of a Big Mac with tomato makes no sense. 

                                                                         LOUIS

Extra, extra, extra. So much extra, you really are. Well, since we're on the topic of extra, what about extra sauce?

                                                                         MICKEY

The sauce is already on there, no need to add that to the jingle. Besides, the ‘correct amount of sauce’ is at the cook's discretion. For the very brief yet painful three months I worked there, each Big Mac I made had a specific number of fluid ounces of Mac Sauce.

                                                                         LOUIS

What's the magic number?

                                                                         MICKEY

Ain't important. You don't need to know.

                                                                         LOUIS

                                               (Feigned frustration.)

Well that's some bullshit. 

                                                                                   (A beat.)

                                                                         LOUIS

I haven't been able to get a hold of Mom yet. I don't know if she has gotten the will yet or --

                                                                       MICKEY

                                                           (Slams fist on the table, screaming.)

Don't change the subject!

                                                                         LOUIS

                                                           (Exasperated.)

Oh, um… I just wanted to know---

                                                                         MICKEY

The bun... give me your opinion on the bun.

                                                                       LOUIS

But what about the famil-

                                                                         MICKEY

                                                           (Slams fist on table.)

No! Now tell me…

                                                           (A beat.) What do you think about the bun…?

                                                                       LOUIS

                                                           (Confused.)

I don't know… I think it's fine?

                                                                       MICKEY

Well, which bun are you talking about? For their 'Artisan Sandwiches' they use different buns than for their Quarter Pounders, and the buns for their Quarter Pounders are different than the buns they use for their Big Macs.

                                                                         LOUIS

                                                           (A beat.)

Big Mac. I think it works well for the sandwich?

                                                                          MICKEY

Well, it’s just a sesame seed bun. Notice the alliteration there: sesame seed. It’s like Mr. McDonald himself named that bun sesame seed so he could have some alliteration in his jingle. A true literary great. Even Joyce wouldn’t have that thought. 

                                                                       LOUIS

I’m sure Joyce would be a Burger King guy; he’s the type to have it his way. Pynchon, too. Faulkner would be Subway, Steinbeck: In-n-Out Burger, or maybe a winery in Silas. 

                                                                         MICKEY

What about Kafka? 

                                                                         LOUIS                                                                        

Hmmm. He’s a burger guy, but I don’t know where in particular. I feel no matter where he goes, the place would close due to an insect infestation. Or it would be a madhouse in there, like the DMV. 

                                                                         MICKEY                                

Who else?

                                                                         LOUIS

Maybe Cormac McCarthy... I could see him ordering a burger here, asking for it prepared like ‘the evening redness in the burger’, and he would probably get mad because the cashier taking his order only reads postmodern literature, and has no idea what Southern Gothic is, like he probably thinks it’s like a category at Party City for Halloween costumes. And when Mr. McCarthy gets his burger, the same as it's cooked for everyone else, McCarthy would complain fiercely in poetic anger, and the employee would tell McCarthy to hit the road, which is ironic because that’s a book by McCarthy, and also a popular phrase, AND also funny because the cashier wouldn’t know he’s making a literary reference to a book he knows nothing about.

                                                                         MICKEY

I think you're talking out of your ass.

                                                                         LOUIS                                                                          

What about a McDonald’s McCarthy Mac’n’Milkshake? 

                                                                         MICKEY        

That’s wrong on two levels.

                                                                         LOUIS            

Care to elaborate?

                                                                         MICKEY

I know for a fact McCarthy would not order a Mac and a shake – it would be a Mac and a Sprite, no ice. Second, McDonald's cannot call their shakes ‘milkshakes’ - they don’t have any actual milk in it. Haven’t you seen the commercials or the posters? No suspicion on why they don’t use MILK in the typical phrase that comes to mind, MILKSHAKE? 

                                                                         LOUIS

I guess you’re right. You’re a whiz when it comes to McDonald’s.

                                                                       MICKEY

They always bitched at me because I ate all the food that fell on the ground. They were really against that, like, reallllllly against it.

                                                                         LOUIS

Yeah, I bet. Listen, have you been in contact with any of the family at all?

                                                                         MICKEY

There was one time I almost bit my manager’s hand off. It was bad. It was the end of the night, and we were closing. We had some extra food, and I had been craving some nuggets, like really intense cravings, pregnancy style, like -- I wanted to mix sauce with sauce and apply it to the meat. Well, my manager takes all the nuggets, and all the sauces, and locks himself in the office, and it wasn’t even his office, it was the actual store managers office, and starts chompin’ away. Some people eat in their offices; well he was masticating heavily and aggressively in that office. I barge in and break the lock, hungry and angry, and I see a nugget in his hand, a golden fried literal nugget of recently introduced one hundred percent all white meat chicken. I go for the bite, and end up getting some arm, seasoned lightly with hair. I can even taste the dried tattoo ink. He’s screaming, and in that second, I knew I was fired. All my hard work gone for one leftover ten piece. 

                                                                         LOUIS

Mickey, we need to talk about--

                                                                         MICKEY

Ask me how it was.

                                                                         LOUIS

                                                           (Sighs loudly.)

 Did it at least taste good? 

                                                                         MICKEY

I’m not a cannibal, the arm was terrible. 

                                                                         LOUIS

No, the nugget. 

                                                                         MICKEY

Oh, it was okay. Could have used more seasoning. It looked good enough, but when I ate it, it was just alright. 

                                                                         LOUIS

What a shame.

                                                                         MICKEY

I didn’t even get any sauce! No honey mustard, no buffalo, no sweet and sour!

                                                                         LOUIS

Did they ever charge you for extra sauce? 

                                                                          MICKEY

No, that was one of the benefits. They let you have two sauces instead of one. It really adds up when you order a twenty piece during your break every shift. Those fifty cents for the sauce came in handy for the bus fare. Now all it’s good for is lottery tickets. I swear I’m winning one of these days. I can feel it!

                                                                                     (A beat.)

                                                                       LOUIS

So, now that you've dodged the bullet long enough, when are we gonna start talking about the burial plans for Dad? Or the will?

                                                                         MICKEY

When you were younger, which Kids Meal toy was your favorite? I always liked the Hot Wheels ones.

                                                                       LOUIS

Stop! We have to talk about the family. Dad left us in a serious hole.

                                                                         MICKEY

I was always pissed when they wouldn't offer me the Mighty Kids meal when we would go in. I mean, they could see that I was pretty grown--

                                                                         LOUIS

Will you shut the fuck up and listen? I'm tired of beating around the bush. This is a serious subject!

                                                                         MICKEY

Well yeah, the toys for the Mighty Kids meals were different than for the regular Kid's Meals--

                                                                         LOUIS

You're in denial.

                                                                         MICKEY

No, I'm not.

                                                                          LOUIS

Don't you care about Dad? Don't you care about anything regarding this family? It's easier for you to talk about McDonald's than about our family?

                                                                         MICKEY

Are you serious right now?

                                                                         LOUIS

Yes, I'm serious! Now, you can either tell me if you've talked to the family, or you can just leave.

  (MICKEY gets up from his chair and pushes it in. LOUIS looks at him in astonishment.)

                                                                       LOUIS

Are you serious? Seriously, Mickey?

 (MICKEY walks off the set, and LOUIS sits at the table, dumbfounded.)

                                                                       LOUIS

Fine, Mickey. Have it your way.

                                                                       Blackout.

[spideycents]

B-Roll // Shawn Mendes - 4: rolling

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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trigger warning: sexual harassment

---

"Maybe I'll just see you guys at lunch," Shawn suggests as we're climbing out of the van. It's stopped on the street outside a massive high school gym.

"Yeah maybe," I shrug. "Depends on how busy things get."

"I won't be busy," Michael chimes in. "I'll probably be on my third plate of pasta."

"Unless it's chicken," I laugh lightly.

"If it's chicken, then I'll eat salad," Michael says flatly.

Shawn's looking back and forth between the two of us. "Chicken's bad, eh?"

"Very," I say simply before Michael can go off on his long rant that I've heard a billion times.

"Man, guess I won't eat chicken today then," Shawn laughs lightly.

"Oh no," Michael cuts him off. "It's not your chicken. Crew food is always super bougie and delicious and amazing and sometimes you guys have lobster and chocolate fountains and basically crack. It's the extras food that's dogshit. It's like school mystery meat."

"Someone probably ran over the extra's chicken on their way to set," I add. "A month ago."

Shawn grimaces. "Crazy."

We nod.

"It's the worst," Michael continues. "Always has been. Always will be."

"I don't know," I shrug. "I think I've accepted it and kinda like it now."

"Well then we'll trade today," Michael says. "You can eat extras catering while I get crew."

I cringe. "I think I'll just bring you a brownie and we'll call it square."

Shawn chokes back a laugh and I look at him.

"Cause brownies are usually square," he smiles.

I roll my eyes, but a hint of a laugh sneaks it's way onto my face.

I'm about to say something really stupid about puns, but I'm saved by someone yelling for Shawn over by the gym.

We all look over and see the guy who was with Shawn in the parking lot this morning. He's waving him over. I can see base-camp across a practice field by the gym, so Shawn's trailer must be over there.

"Well," he turns back to us. "That's my cue."

"It was nice meeting you," I smile at him and hold out my right hand. He takes it in his. His handshake is strong, but it doesn't hurt. It's just...secure.

"Yeah, you too," he smiles back.

"See ya around," Michael nods at him.

"Let me know if ya get the bad chicken and maybe I'll bring you a burger, man." Shawn tells him.

Michael laughs lightly. "You got it."

"Break a leg," I tell him.

"Thank you," he smiles again and turns away. "See ya."

"See ya," I say softly as he turns away and heads over to his friend.

"Fuck, it's cold!" Michael exclaims, already walking quickly toward the gym doors. Blue signs taped to orange cones have arrows printed on them that say Extras Holding is that way.

We drop our things at our usual spot in holding.

Michael collapses into a folding chair. He pulls a hoodie out of his bag and bundles it up then sets it on the table in front of him.

I raise my eyebrows at him. "Nap time already?"

He nods.

"Are we not gonna talk about what just happened?"

He shakes his head.

"But-"

"Shhh." He folds his arms under the hoodie and buries his face in the fabric.

I roll my eyes and look around the gym. There are tables set up for breakfast, but nothing's been put out yet. There's a bright orange water cooler on a table against the wall by the door where we came in, but that's about it. No one's come by to set out boxes of fruit and granola bars and gummies yet. I'd kill for a PB&J station right now.

My stomach's actually starting to hurt, I'm so hungry. I should've grabbed something from home. Michael managed to down an iced coffee before we left, that'll honestly hold him until lunch. All I got was my water bottle.

If I don't have real food in five minutes, my inner Hulk might be unleashed.

Maybe crew crafty's been set up by now. I won't get in trouble if I ransack the cart. I have email proof that I'm part of this movie.

God, they need something more solid and tangible, like ID badges or something. Walkie-talkies with our names sharpie'd onto a piece of tape is so half-assed. I don't think I get one of those anyway.

I wonder where crew crafty is...

Close to set? Maybe? Probably?

I don't know.

Should I ask someone?

Can I ask someone?

I look like a fucking child. No one is gonna believe I'm crew. That PA definitely didn't.

Maybe I should pull up that email and have it ready to flash to anyone who questions me.

I wander out of the gym, into a big open hallway. The makeshift signs taped to the walls have arrows pointing toward holding, set, catering, base camp, and the bathrooms.

Thankfully, those are right by the gym. I make a mental note of the location of the women's room and head outside, toward catering and base camp.

There are no real parking lots at this school, which explains why we parked at a gravel lot behind some church a few blocks away. The only parking spots line three of the four streets surrounding the school. This part of the city is a grid system, which should mean we're downtown and near a parking garage or two, but we're basically in the suburbs. Like the old suburbs. The houses around the school are all one story, maybe two, not big at all and look like they were built in the 60s or 70s. Which they probably were.

I leave the school through a row of three sets of glass doors. I walk through the middle set and push both doors open in a grand double door exit because I'm extra like that.

I head for the large practice field behind the school and make a bee-line for base camp.

I wonder if Shawn's made it to his trailer yet.

Since they can't park any trailers on the grass field, they're all in a gravel lot in the corner farthest from me. Except for all the semis full of costumes and the makeup trailers that flood out onto the street. As I trudge across the field, which is slightly muddy since it's been raining a lot this summer, I notice another parking lot behind the gym. I see steam rising from a small village of tents, which can only mean one thing.

My pace goes from tired trudging to Usain Bolt Olympic sprinting in three seconds flat.

I lurch to a stop when I reach catering. I'm panting, but I can't tell if that's from the running or my hunger or both. The cooks are in a frenzy, getting stuff ready for breakfast. Everything smells so amazing that my mouth waters. I'm about to dive my face into a griddle covered in bacon when another smell catches my nose.

Nicotine.

Oh god, it's foul and unpleasant and completely ruins my appetite, so now I'm really pissed off.

There's a small group of smokers huddled around a loading dock that's just past catering. I'm so annoyed that they're standing so close to the food. They're gonna make their awful smells seep into the food. I swear, if I eat pancakes that taste vaguely of cigarettes, I will shove their lighters up their butts.

No pun intended.

There's a door that goes back into the gym, but to get to it, I have to pass the smokers.

I get some weird looks from the caterers while I quickly make myself a cup of coffee and grab some eggs, bacon, and toast, but no one comes up to me and yells at me or demands proof that I'm really crew.

I try to hold my breath while I walk past the smokers, but my lungs haven't been under this much pressure since middle school cross country.

I hate this.

The smell's going to cling to my clothes.

This sucks so much.

I hate nothing more than this god awful, putrid stench.

I try to take in long deep breaths in the clean air that still smells and, oh god, kind of tastes like bacon. Fucking shit. I'm so fucking hungry!

I don't want to make it too obvious that I'm holding my breath or speed walking, but I want to get by the smokers as quickly as humanly possible without full on running.

"Lyla!"

Oh god. Oh please no.

"Hey! Lyla!"

I look over at the group and waving back at me is Jake, the literal bane of my existence.

Fuck him.

"Hi Jake," I call back and walk over to him, but still keep a wide berth between us.

Take note of the space I'm not closing. Let this conversation end before it even begins.

He smirks at me and I notice his gaze fall down my legs and back up my body for an agonizing second, then he looks back at my eyes. "How you been?" he nods.

Really?!

A slight shiver makes me turn my neck and raise my shoulder slightly to force it down.

I hate this.

I hate him.

Rot in hell.

"I'm great," I say, faking enthusiasm. "How are you?"

"I'm good," he nods again, but it's more like a bro nod rather than a flirt nod. "Living the dream."

I choke back the feeling of something rising in my throat.

God, I forgot how much he says that. I hate that stupid phrase.

I laugh lightly, but it's in that moment that I realize everyone else in the smoker's group has stopped talking. They're watching us.

They're quietly taking long, slow drags, the soft glow briefly illuminating their faces. They're shrouded in shadow until the light catches their eyes and I know they're looking at me. I don't want an audience. I didn't sign up for this.

The stench of the smoke is still so foul and it's taking every ounce of self-control I have to not scrunch up my nose or cover my face with my hand or my shirt.

"What are you booked as?"

Why is he still talking to me? For once, I want him to be the douchebag that he is so I can go inside and get the hell away from him.

I don't understand. Usually, after we've exchanged the pleasantries, he looks bored and it's clear he's lost interest in me, but he's still looking at me intently. I don't think his eyes have left me once.

I feel a flush rise in my cheeks.

I don't want to deal with this right now. Especial not here, exposed and self-conscious. We're not doing this right now

"I'm not an extra."

Stop responding, Lyla. Walk away. Go inside.

His eyebrows raise in surprise and I have to fight the impulse to roll my eyes so hard, it gives me a headache.

"I'm a makeup assistant," I add.

"Oh, really? That's awesome!" Gotta love his fake excitement. "I'll be sure to come to your chair then."

He winks at me.

I'm gonna kill him.

He's not hot enough to get away with this shit. He may have nice eyes and he's tall and in moderate shape, but he's got a weird face, receding hairline, protruding jaw, and disgusting beard that's somehow always greasy.

He's garbage and I'm done with him. Really done.

"If it's open," I say curtly then I turn on my heel and walk back into the gym.

---

I couldn't sleep when I wrote this so if it’s awful, blame global warming.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #119

“she’s the type who likes to leave on all the lights.”

Are you friends with any bands?  No. How do you deal with oppressive heat?  Act like I'm dying because I probably slowly am. What’s one thing that people definitely CAN’T count on you for? Remembering something. What about something they definitely can count on you for?  An open ear. What’s one food that you want to try but haven’t yet?  Hmmmm... I know there's some, just nothing's coming to me. If you’re home alone and someone knocks on the door, what do you do?  I ignore it.  I don't check through windows or anything in fear of the person seeing me.  If you're coming to my house, let me know. Let’s say you received a gift from someone and open it in front of them – and it’s something you absolutely hate. How do you react?  Thank them anyway and act appreciative towards the kindness.  I usually won't actually say "I like it" unless they ask. If a friend suggested that you two were to do something/go somewhere, and you really didn’t want to, would you be more likely to just go along with it anyway or speak up? If I really didn't want to and we were close, I'd say no. What’s one book that you have read that will stick with you forever? "Johnny Got His Gun" by Dalton Trumbo.  I was strictly anti-war beforehand, but that book turned me into a full-blown pacifist. What type of movies do you get into the easiest? Paranormal ones. If you could learn to play any instrument, what would you pick? Guitar or piano or violin, idk. How do you feel upon seeing someone who’s missing an appendage?  I feel pity, but I feel no different towards them as a person. Why is your favorite store your favorite? They have clothing and accessories that best match my aesthetic. Would you let your child have a pet?  Depends on the pet, the child's age, and my faith in their responsibility level. Where were you raised and what’s it like?  I was raised in a bad neighborhood.  Lots of crime, gangs.  It was scary, yet at the same time, it wasn't the worst place in the world.  Good memories, bad memories. Do you get along with your best friend’s parents?  I'll find that out soon. Do you tend to become nervous when you know change is inevitable?  YES.  I don't like change. Are you a patient person when it comes to relationships?  Very. Do you prefer to hang out in groups?  Meh, depends on my mood. Would you ever consider styling your hair as a mohawk? Nope. Assuming you have blown bubbles in your milk before, were you yelled at for doing it as a kid?  No. Have you ever put on or lost a significant amount of weight?  I've done both. On a scale of 1-5, how often do you curse? 5. @_@ How is your posture?  It's fine, but I lean a bit to the right. Have you ever taken an Uber or Lyft? No. Do you shop on Black Friday? Only online. What do you dip chicken nuggets in?  Honey mustard or ketchup. Has your ex ever gone out with someone close to you?  No. Do you pay attention to how much you eat?  I think I'm overly conscious about it by this point. Does your town/city offer a lot of opportunity for your future career, or would you get more out of living somewhere else?  I'd have far more opportunity elsewhere, probably.  Well... maybe not.  I want to be a wedding photographer, and there's not many of those here.  But where I live isn't exactly a gorgeous place to get married. What's more painful: Tattoos or piercings?  Piercings hurt more.  They're super quick, but the pain is definitely more severe. Does your ex live in the same town as you?  None of them do. Do you have any of your teachers on Myspace/Facebook?  Previous teachers, yes. What comes up when you google your name?  The Instant Checkmate site. Where’s the closest church to you? Do you attend it?  Not even a minute away, and no. Dr. Pepper or Root Beer?  I hate root beer, but I'm not big on Dr. Pepper either. Do you have a firepit in your yard?  No. Who do you talk to about personal problems?  Mom or Sara. Have you ever captured a moth?  I had a "pet" caterpillar when I was a kid and it turned into a moth that I released, if that counts. How long have you been dating the person you’re with? A few days from five months. Did you have a tree house when you were a child?  No. What is something that makes you grumpy?  Being really hungry. What school teams or clubs are/were you apart of?  National Honors Society, National Art Honors Society You can get a $1,000 gift card to any store you want, what is it?  Hot Topic. What’s the longest book you’ve ever read? How long did it take you?  I think "Not Without My Daughter."  I was really invested in it, so I doubt less than two weeks. Should a convicted murderer have the same right to be on the organ donor waiting list as anyone else?  I mean I guess?  A valuable organ is a valuable organ. How is your blood pressure?  This may have changed since I've come off many medicines, but mine at least was usually concerningly low.  I always had to explain to doctors it was normal for me. Have you ever stalked or killed a wild animal?  No. Ever had a rumor spread about you?  Yes, that Jason and I had a baby.  Even though I was obviously never pregnant.  His ex started it. What would you want to be written on your tombstone?  Probably "but you took it like a woman," a reference to an Alice Cooper song. Ever kissed someone’s hand?  Yes. Have you ever ran for class president?  No. Are you a rather gullible person?  Not really. If it had to be only daytime or nighttime all day, which would you choose?  As much as I like the night, daytime.  Humans and most animals are diurnal, so it'd be very difficult to adjust to that. When was the last time you went camping?  I've never been properly camping. Did you play with Play-Doh as a kid? Hell yeah dude. Have you ever found a four leaf clover?  True shit, I found a patch of them in our front yard the day after Dad left. Do you own a raincoat?  No. Are you fascinated by outer space?  Yes yes yeees!  I'm scared of it also, though. Is there a tree outside your window?  Yeah. What season would you want to get married in? Autumn. Have you ever tried Akinator? Yeah. Do you swear in front of children? No. Are you good at catching things? NO.  My hand-eye coordination is shit. What’s the biggest bruise you’ve ever had?  I'm not sure... but I'm guessing one of my knees since they've seen some shit. How would you react if you had a particularly unusual pain or ache? Tell my mother.  Although I usually look it up online if she's not home and it's always a bad idea because I'll find something awful, and then my anxiety kicks up lmao. What’s something that you like wearing, but you don’t actually wear it often? Skinny jeans.  I never wear jeans anymore. How often do you paint your nails?  Never. Which one thing made you cry the hardest?  It definitely related to my breakup.  I think that actual night, I didn't cry as much as me being in shock.  Wait... no, pretty sure it was after Mom caught me running for a knife that night.  I sobbed my fucking lungs out. Could you fall in love with someone, despite what they might look like? Yup. If someone was crying to themselves in public, would you ask if they’re OK?  Absolutely.  As socially inept as I am, I'd still feel awful if I didn't. Ever fingered a girl?  No. Do your parents still hide eggs around the house for Easter?  No. Do you wear choker necklaces?  When I wear necklaces, sometimes. When was the last you ran a mile?  High school. Do you have a big butt?  No. Are you pro-life or pro-choice?  I'd say I'm mostly pro-life, but I believe abortion is acceptable in some cases. What color is your phone?  Really dark navy. Do you know more than two digits of pi?  No. Do you have any STDs?  No. Do you have a favorite NASCAR driver?  No. Who’s your celebrity crush?  Mark Fischbach. Have you ever had any article of clothing tailored? What for?  Yes, a prom dress and bridesmaid dress. What are two foods you think taste good with whipped cream?  I HATE WHIPPED CREAM. When you see a feather on the ground, do you ever pick it up?  If it's cool, I'll probably keep it. If you eat it, what is your favorite way to eat beef?  Burgers. When was the last time you had a pet goldfish? What was its name?  I couldn't tell you, dude. What are the three events this year you are looking forward to?  Seeing Sara in literally two days, probs getting a new tattoo, hopefully returning to my healthy weight or get at least close. Do you prefer nail polish with sparkles in it, or matte colors? I don't wear nail polish like ever, but matte. Would you rather hold hands or link arms with your significant other?  Hold hands. Have you ever done something bad but you don’t regret?  Yeah. Do you like getting hurt? Uhhh no I'm not a masochist. Do you believe in destiny?  No, I believe in free will. Do you have any birthmarks?  Yes, on the left side of my left arm. Have you ever watched anyone sleep? There were times where I'd still be up on the laptop at Jason's and look over at him and smile.  But it was never more than just a few seconds. Do you ever go back and read stories or books you read when you were a child?  Not for myself.  The only times I've ever done that is when I'm reading to Aubree. Have you and a partner ever had “a song”? My ex and I had two and Sara and I have about five thousand lmao. Do you think that it is okay for men to cry, or is it only okay under certain circumstances? Of fucking course it's okay. What is one of your favorite movie quotes?  "My mama always said, 'Life was like a box of chocolates.  You never know what you're gonna get.'"  From Forrest Gump. Describe your teeth:  Normal, just wish they were a bit whiter. What is one thing you look forward to every day?  A Markiplier video. What is one thing you dread every day?  Trying to go to sleep at night.  I like sleeping, just not tossing and turning until it happens. When was the last time you cleaned your ears via QTip?  Forever ago because they're the reason I got wax adhered to my eardrum from pushing it back too deep.  I use a different tool now. What's the longest you’ve lived without electricity?  Just like overnight and a few hours. Name all of the alcoholic beverages you have tried:  Daiquiris, sangrias, and margaritas are the only ones I like, but I used to have a sip of wine in Catholic school and also this disgusting coconut thing Nicole had. Name all the types/brands of cigarettes you have tried:  I've never smoked. Do you like to do puzzles (crosswords, word find, Sudoku, etc.)?  Yes. What is the most alcohol you’ve drank in a night?  I think five and a half daiquiris.  New Years 2017. Have you been to see an opera?  No. Have you ever been stung by anything? What?  A bumblebee. Is there anything you dislike about your house?  We don't have two bathrooms. What do you like to put on bagels?  Cream cheese. Do you like orange juice?  So long it doesn't have pulp, I love it. If you had to choose, which bug isn't ugly?  There's a number.  I love butterflies, ladybugs, moths, and caterpillars. Have you ever had an ulcer?  No. Do you have any rare medical conditions?  AvPD and (inactive) MRSA. The first time you remember being hospitalized, what was it for? Being suicidal. What does your favorite necklace look like? It's a spiked choker. If you crack your knuckles, do you crack them one at a time, or all at the same time?  I don't crack my knuckles. Do you sneeze into your hand or into the crook of your arm when you don’t have a tissue? The latter. Do you hate when grapes have seeds in them?  It doesn't bother me. Have you ever heard of Bananas in Pajamas? Yeah, my older sister loved that show.