#this same woman blew her top that people were late when a fucking tree was blocking the road

[knaveofmogadore]

You ever have a customer with a legitimate problem but they're such an asshole that they extinguish the embers of empathy within you with their insolence?

[lennonknowsmysins]

could you do the gangster au but the “turning point” in their relationship?? i love your work so much 🥰

pt. 3 to gangster!George

tw: mobster gets a little too handsy, mild violence, arguing

-

You and George had been married for a month and you’d had maybe five conversations with him. He was a reserved man but you weren’t sure what else you expected from a gangster. Truthfully, you weren’t sure you minded. Since your conversation with Cynthia, Linda and Maureen, he didn’t put you on edge every time he was in the room but he still intimated you. George was practically always working, spending all day in his study (which you still had yet to see) and coming to bed late. He never tried to wake you up but you still liked to wait for him, pretending to be asleep.

Realistically, you figured you shouldn’t be too upset with him for not making much of an effort to get to know you considering hadn’t attempted to reach out to him either. Still, when the only time you really saw him was dinner and he spent most of the time talking to his mates, you couldn’t deny that you felt ignored. It wasn’t like you were thrilled to be married either.

The real struggle was trying to find something to do with yourself. Normally, you’d be busy with school but part of your father cutting off your freedom including forcing you to drop out of university. Now nothing seemed to hold your interest.

Linda, who you learned was a journalist (making her and Paul’s relationship taboo in the mob world), had begun enlisting you to spell check her articles. You spent a good amount of time with Cynthia as she’d invited you to help her paint the baby nursery. She was a lovely woman and you enjoyed her company but even as you painting those little blue birds and bounced baby names off one another, you couldn’t help the looming feeling of loneliness. You were just disconnected from the rest of them. Cynthia, Linda and Maureen were involved with each others lives while you...well, you were just there.

You were manifesting that your first public outing with George - some sort of annual gathering for allied mobs - would do something to help the disconnect between the two of you.

-

Upon entering the mansion, you pressed yourself closer to George. You may have not felt entirely comfortable with him but since Cynthia and Linda hadn’t been able to come (Cynthia because she was pregnant, Linda because of her profession) and Maureen was very much looking forward to having a date night with Ringo, George was your lifeline for the night.

The hall was full of men in fancy suits with dark looks in their eyes, most of them appearing to be twice your age. One by one, they came up to George, asking him about business deals and his father before eventually landing on you, at which point, George thankfully steered you away.

“Sorry about all of them.” George apologized, finding a seat on a couch in the corner of the room, “They’re swingers, the whole lot. ‘s why my da stopped coming to these events.”

You snorted as you sat down, “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, I am. They’ve been dropping hints that they’re interested in an orgy ever since we got married. Quite frankly, I’m not sure how to tell them no.” George said, shooting you a look. You burst into laughter, making George smile.

“Wait here, I have to talk to someone but I’ll be right back.” George told you, squeezing your shoulder before standing and beckoning to Paul. Paul smiled at you apologetically, following George and leaving you all alone in the corner. You watched Maureen dance with Ringo. You wished Linda and Cyn were here, if George wouldn’t dance with you, you were sure they would. At least, you wouldn’t be lonely.

Your bottom lip trembled but before you could feel too sorry for yourself, you felt the couch dip. A handsome blond man with the most dazzling blue eyes you’d ever seen had sat next to you. He wore a suit of velvet purple and had a martini glass in one hand and a curious grin on his face. A feeling of dread immediately crept into your gut.

“Now, why would a lovely lady such as yourself be sitting here all by herself?” He hummed in a confident tone. Unsure of how to react to the situation, you turned your eyes to your drink, swishing the clear liquid around.

“Waiting for someone.” You murmured back. You could’ve sworn that as soon as you’d said that, he scooted closer to you.

“You can call me Yates.” He said, although you hadn’t asked, “I don’t believe I caught your’s?”

You cleared your throat awkwardly, “I’m not sure I feel comfortable telling you that.”

“Aw, why not? Is it because I’m a big, scary gangster?” Yates chuckled, definitely scooting closer this time. He continued when you didn’t respond, “That’s fine baby, I’ll come up with one for you. It’s just important you know mine so you know what to scream later.”

Your face twisted in disgust and you would’ve attempted to get up had it not been for his hand curling around your thigh. The sudden grip made you freeze, giving Yates a chance to press himself against you.

“Let go of me. I’m here with my...my h-husband.” You stammered, trying to sound tough.

“Come on now, you don’t sound so sure of that. I doubt that George is that much of a husband anyhow.” He leered, tapping your cheek. Just as you were about to retort, Yates was being dragged off of you.

An angry George stood before you, clutching Yates’ collar in his fist. Everyone around you had stopped what they were doing to watch you.

“Don’t fuckin’ touch my wife.”

With that simple warning, he dropped the creep and grabbed your wrist, pulling you from your seat. As he brought you to the exit, the crowd resumed the party as though nothing had happened. You assumed this sort of thing happened often at mob events.

Once you were outside, George let go of you to light a cigarette, not bothering to look at you as he took a drag. John and Paul burst through the door after you.

“What the fuck just happened mate?” John asked.

“Yates had his hands all over (y/n).” George spat bitterly. The two men turned to you, shivering in your dress.

The alarm on Paul’s face dropped to concerned, “Are you alright, love?”

“I’m fine. Just a bit freaked out.” You shrugged, still trying to process the event. You hadn’t seen George this angry before.  

“Yer cryin’.” John pointed out bluntly. You blinked, touching your cheek. Huh. You hadn’t realized.

George tilted his head towards you with an unreadable expression. He placed the cigarette between his lips, shrugging off his suit jacket and wrapping it around your shoulders.

“‘m taking her home.” He decided, putting an arm around you, “Paul, can you take John, Rich and Mo in your car?”

“Course, but-”

George didn’t wait for Paul to finish, grabbing your arm and pulling you towards his Mercedes. You glanced behind you to see Ringo and Maureen had joined John and Paul, who were explaining the situation to them. You caught Maureen’s sympathetic look before the car door closed.

-

The entire ride was silent, an awkward, bitter silence sitting between you and George. He didn’t even look at you as you walked up to the house, leaving the door for you to close.

“Go to bed.” George ordered gruffly, his back turned to you as he headed toward his office.

You stared at him for a moment, dumbfounded. He hadn’t really just spoken to you like you were a misbehaving child and not his wife.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

George paused. Then he turned around, his eyebrows set in annoyance. He wasn’t used to people questioning him, “What did you say?”

“I asked if you were joking about telling me to go to bed.” You huffed, rolling your eyes, “You know, just because I’m your wife doesn’t mean you control me.”

He glared at you, his eye twitching as he tried to think of a response. You saved him the trouble,

“For the record, you didn’t have to make such a big scene back there.”

“He had his hands all OVER you!” He spluttered, spit flying from his mouth, “And it wasn’t like you were doing anything to stop him!”

“I was scared, a strange man was invading my space because my husband completely abandoned me at a party where I didn’t know anyone!” You shout, your voice shaking as it echoed through the ridiculously large foyer.

George’s sour expression softened and you notice he chewed on the inside of his cheek. He swallowed thickly, “I had to talk to someone.”

“You still left me all alone.” You whispered angrily, “I know that this isn’t what either of us wanted and if I could, I’d go back and stop my father from getting us in this situation but we don’t have that choice.

You took a shuttering breath, squeezing your eyes shut for a moment before continuing,

“George, I get that we’re from two completely different worlds but I just had mine completely uprooted for your’s. You’ve barely spoken to me since the first two days after the wedding. For god’s sake, we sleep in the same damn bed and I don’t know that we’ve ever had a conversation. Y’know, the only thing I actually know about you is that you’re a mobster? I...I was just really hoping that tonight could fix that.”

George’s face didn’t change throughout the course of your rant but there was something that looked like a mix of surprise and guilt in his brown eyes. Ever the man of few words, he didn’t respond - you didn’t know if he didn’t want to or if he didn’t know how. You shook your head.

“No, no, you know what? I am gonna go to bed. I need some sleep.” You muttered, turning away from him and storming up the stairs without another word.

Linda was waiting for you at the top of the stairs but you brushed by her in silence, too pissed for any intellectual conversation. You slammed the bedroom door shut, not bothering to turn the lights or take your clothes off. You curled up above the covers, looking out the window.

The wind blew softly, gently rustling the leaves of the tree peaking through the glass. A single tear trailed down your cheek as you thought about how you hadn’t even gotten to dance with George. The night had been spoiled from the start.

At some point, you finally managed to fall asleep, missing the lanky, mop toped figure that took your shoes off and tucked you in.

[heli0s-writes]

Artichokes

Summary: A peek into the beginning of Bag of Tricks

Pairing: Chaotic Dumbass!Reader/ Exasperated! Bucky

A/N:  ~2k words. Written for @sunmoonandbucky​‘s challenge! So sorry it’s late! Congrats on your milestone, you deserve it and so much more! ✨ My prompt was “Even artichokes have hearts” 

Warnings: Canon-level violence, cursing. StupiT stuff.

“Hey.” It’s not a greeting.

The flight is still long, at least another two hours until the destination is reached. Behind his seat, you poke with your foot, other leg stretched over Natasha’s knee as she dozes off.

“What.” It’s not a question.

Fifteen minutes since the last time you opened your mouth and Bucky knew he wouldn’t make the half-hour mark; it was too good to be true.

“If you were an animal, what would you be?”

“Don’t like animals.”

A huff as you glare out the window and into the clouds, cross that he’s decided to be cross first.

“Okay. If you had a kid, boy or girl?”

“Don’t like kids.”

Natasha chuckles, eyes still closed, hand gently rubbing your knee in consolation because sometimes Bucky just gets this way, and he often gets this way in prolonged flights or car rides—when he’s showcasing his most winning personality trait: patience. Ha-ha.

And he gets this way, especially, with you. 

The new addition, after a disastrous mission where you almost blew everyone’s cover by getting into a near-scuffle at the bar. It’s not your fault you were dragged into that impending train-wreck on your day off—never even having met the Avengers to begin with, and then immediately being thrust into an asinine high-profile mission requiring you to wear an evening gown with heels.

And if the situation couldn’t get any worse, as you were stuffing yourself into spanx and tacking fake eyelashes to your lids, you were informed that you’d be Bucky Barnes’ date for the night. Discomfort in itchy and too-tight, clothing, a room full of strangers, remanded to being someone’s mute eye-candy. It was the perfect cocktail for fisticuffs with the very man assigned to be your date.

Moving on.

With a heavy roll of your eyes, you lean right, let your shoulder press up against Nat, trying to find a comfortable position. “It’s probably a good idea,” she soothes, cracking her neck a little and the light flickering through the window makes her wince before it’s cut off by her hand closing the shutter.

-

“Stop looking at the squirrel,” Bucky shoulders his rifle. You’re sprawled out on your stomach, eye pressed against the scope, as he clocked—looking at a squirrel. It’s just so damn cute, stuffing that acorn into its cheek where the nut joins about three more. Beady little eyes flit back and forth before it takes off and you retreat from the show, crawling back on your elbows and lifting yourself up.

“You scared it!”

“Shut up. Let’s go.”

Nat crackles in your ears, “Stop arguing.”

You do, because Bucky yanks you away by the back of your suit, and because you (kind of) listen to your superiors. Might as well, you’ve only been a part of the team only two months and Bucky’s been here since the goddamn Stone Age, it seems, with the way he struts around so fucking stoic and grim. Me Bucky Barnes. Me Crush Newbie Into Dust. Me Don’t Like Fun. More Hulk than Winter Soldier. You snort.

Even Natasha will spend a little bit of time with you, watch a movie or do something that doesn’t require staring into the eyes of the same people every. Single. Day. She’s glad to have another woman around, anyway. You’ve been told Wanda and Vision (a robot, or something) have taken a sabbatical from the life.

Steve will go on runs and let you tag along for the first twenty minutes. Tony will let you put on the booster boots and clap when you careen yourself into a table because it warms his little troll heart to see you nursing a welt on your eyebrow. Sam? Sam will tear it up at a club; he will dance on top of the goddamn bar. Sam Wilson is a riot and a half, but Bucky?

Nothing. Looks at you disparagingly from across conference room tables. Rolls his dead-eyes at every opportunity when you open your mouth. Granted, your mouth doesn’t have a lot of helpful information and most of it is a deflection from true answers because that’s your stupid coping mechanism for when people get too close—but everyone else laughs.

Bucky Barnes doesn’t laugh. Bucky Barnes doesn’t like jokes.

Doesn’t like animals. Doesn’t like kids. Doesn’t like fun. Doesn’t like you.

Doesn’t help that you tried to strangle him with an evening gown two months ago, but, pish-posh, past is in the past.

“What’s the timeline for when I can graduate from newbie-status?” You ask breezily, inflecting your tone just the right way so that he knows you’re not that invested in this conversation.

“Whenever you can run a solo.”

“I can.”

An exasperated huff as he sticks his arm out in front of your collar. You look at him in irritation, ready to swat it away until your feet trip over a loose root and Bucky catches you by the shoulder. 

“No,” he says calmly, setting you on your feet, “You can’t. You were on probation for a reason. Still on it, even if you moved jobs.”

Okay. So maybe calling it a “day off” was giving yourself too much credit. Fury was – haha—furious with you after The-Mission-That-Will-Not-Be-Named (lots of explosives, your boredom, paranoia, and inclination for entropy) and took you out of the field. Desk duty was the only apt punishment, until your immobility spiraled out of control and led you down the rabbit hole of hacking into your co-workers e-mails. He put you on probation after that. Took all your toys. No laptop. No badge. No gun.

Smartly, you shut up, letting Bucky walk ahead in case any more errant roots might make you eat your words again.

The path to the hideout is thick, full of stupid twigs and branches and you repeatedly brush spiderwebs from your face. Keeping close to Bucky, you let him shoulder most of the burden, only putting your hand up when a branch he snaps off with his hand flies too close to your eyes.

“IF—” You start loudly, and Bucky bristles at your volume, “If you had to go back into a burning building to sav--?”

“I wouldn’t.” He retorts, “And you’re being annoying.”

Three bullets whizz over Bucky’s head. He ducks immediately, snatching your arm and taking you down, too. If only this were one of those moments in the romantic comedies where he cages you in with his arms and you have a brief and blessed second of staring into his blue eyes where the world goes quiet and he realizes maybe you’re not that bad.

“ROLL--” He yells, instead, as he ducks behind a boulder. “--OUT OF THE GODDAMN WAY.”

Alas, not meant to be.

His gloved hand pushes into the air sideways, like he could push you, too, across the bed of fallen leaves and to safety. You’re quick enough to flip on your side, but not quicker than a third bullet and it streaks through the top of your forearm, carrying a fast stream of blood with it.

Your reach into the side holster on your thigh, pulling out your knife and launching it past the barrel squeezed between two trees. A clink as it misses and ricochets off the gun. Bucky does the same motion and it goes right into a shoulder with a firm squelch. He’s up on his feet, rushing across the leaves in a blur. Throwing the rifle down, you start sprinting right as an elbow jabs itself into Bucky’s chest and he stumbles. Then, a quick turn and you hurtle your weight across the air, spinning both feet into the man and landing on top of him. Bones crack beneath your weight.

There go the shoulders.

The agent gurgles again as you roll your sleeves up, ignoring the blood that splatters onto your knee.

Bucky steps back when you grab a fistful of dirt and throw it into his face, “Pocket sand, motherfucker.” Then, the butt of your handgun meets his temple with a loud pop. “Goodnight, ya dumb bitch.”

More rustling ushers in more lackeys and Bucky is dodging behind tree trunks, weaving knives and dodging bullet hailstorms. He warily looks around the bend of a tree, breathing through his mouth, assessing the situation. There are about four guys, armed to the teeth, well-trained as far as he can tell. Bucky should be able to take them out, and it would go easier with yo—Where the fuck are you?

Your shriek makes him flinch and he dashes across the way behind another trunk, heels digging into the dirt ready to charge. Guns are firing off, grunts and yells, and not even one second after Bucky comes out from behind the tree, he watches you punch a goddamn grenade into the thicket before shooting its previous owner in the neck.

The explosion rocks the ground slightly, but you’re unfazed, instead, focused intently on your hand. There is something wrong with your left arm. You hold it close to your side, fingers curled gingerly under your rib.

You look up at him, eyes brimming with tears.

Dread boils up from the pit of his belly. Bucky calls out to you, asking if you’re okay. You turn around and he hisses at the sight— shot through the bicep, cut over your cheek, but your gaze keeps falling downward.

Inside your cupped hands is a hedgehog, nose frantically twitching like a tiny rotten gumdrop. A sniffle as you slowly set the creature down, waiting for it to scurry away, but it never does.

Bucky groans. Shoulders his rifle with a disappointed sigh, exasperated that you tricked him into being concerned for your well-being, “Fucking-- you’ve got to be kidding. You got shot for that rodent?”

“He’s helpless! Look at him! Little baby! He could have a family! A hedgehog wife and hedgehog kids!” A wilted blubber, and good God, you’re completely serious about it, “Even artichokes have hearts, Barnes!”

“I’m about to artichoke you,” Bucky retorts, irritated, and the first comeback that pops into your head isn’t ideal for a family setting, but your mouth moves faster than your brain and there aren’t any kids around anyway.

“How’d you know that was my kink?” And then you brace yourself for the moment when Bucky Barnes annihilates your entire life, but there is only silence. Then, a snort. Then, finally, a series of low chuckles before he gasps, “Jesus Christ.”

You’re stunned into silence, and it’s a wonder, since he’s never known you to be silent for anything. Two months of no-filter commentary that makes him physically ill at times, and you’re shocked quiet.

“Holy shit,” you murmur, “You laughed. You don’t like anything. You don’t like kids. You don’t like animals… I don’t really know if you like to even laugh. God knows you don’t like me very much.”

“I like you just fine,” Bucky grins, and-- it’s a little blinding. His eyes shine brightly, midday sun in a mischievous blue sky, framed perfectly with those dark, long eyelashes. For a second you regret almost pummeling that nice-looking face in the first time you met it.

“You can’t keep that thing. I can see you.” Your hands freeze, one opening a pocket on your thigh, the other halfway sliding the creature in. Bucky glares when you continue, pretending he’s not there.  

“Barnes, I’ve decided,” you declare, hoping it would throw him off, “This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

A beat passes as he chews on his next response, deep in contemplation. Bucky’s not sure what being your friend would entail— his annoyance, at the very best. His literal death, at worst.

“Hm,” he grunts softly, edge of his voice giving way to amusement, unable to fully keep his stoic demeanor. One eyebrow raises your way, corner of his mouth lifting ever so slightly when your forehead furrows in wait.

“What?” You ask.

“Don’t like friendship.”

Taking a note from your book, Bucky punches the back of your hand, launching the hedgehog into the thicket, cackling at your screech all the while.

-

tags: @whothehellisbucky @serpentbaby @badassbaker @alagalaska @cake-writes @crist1216 @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan @infinity-saga @jamesbarnesthighs @pinknerdpanda @xoxabs88xox @imsoft-barnes @momc95 @typicalangel @wretchedgoddess @readeity @iwannasail @ya-lyublu-tebya​ @geeksareunique​ @wildefire​ @satanxklaus @jhangelface0523 @wkemeup​ @ixcantxdecidexwhosxmyxfave

[slipping-through-my-fingertips]

mad woman

part of my folklore series

Summary: Kurt is concerned that Santana has lost her voice; Blaine helps her get it back. 

Notes: I really feel that this song embodies Santana. I can’t explain it but it just reminds me so much of her. HAPPY 1 YEAR OF FOLKLORE!!!!!

AO3

Anytime he heard Santana singing in the shower, Kurt wondered why she gave up performing. Sure, she had the Spotlight Diner shifts but she was seldom a soloist. More likely, Santana opted to be backup vocals unless she was feuding with Rachel that day. It was like glee all over again. Her voice silenced or drowned out by the attention seekers. She didn’t fight for it as she had during her short-lived time as a member of the Treble Tones. Hell, she wasn’t into the music as much as Elliott and Dani were when One Tree Hill had been a quintet. 

Kurt was worried about her. Though she’d deny it, Santana loved to sing. She needed glee just as much as the rest of them. The problem was since she moved to New York it was like she lost her voice. 

He remembers feeling like that when he first arrived. Without NYADA, Kurt was another drop in the huge sea of city folk. No longer did he stand out for his bold fashion choices or being gay. Here, the things that once made him eccentric were just another thing people tried to ignore as they went about their days. No one in the city had time to pick on or compliment a newcomer from a small town in Ohio. 

At first, Kurt liked it because the fear of being beaten for being himself had completely vanished within a few weeks of moving. That was all behind him. Way back in Lima. After a few months, the novelty wore off. He actually started to miss the stares from his classmates at McKinley High. 

He hated to admit it but Rachel may have been right when she said they were similar. Sometimes, Kurt felt like Tinkerbell too. He needed applause to live. Craved the attention. Then, he got it at the Winter Showcase. Madame Tibideaux handed the limelight to him on a silver platter. The entirety of the NYADA staff got to hear him sing. 

Of course, he could’ve thrown up because he was so nervous and completely unprepared. Yet, it had been exhilarating. That rush of being on stage with a captive audience. Combined with his attendance to NYADA being on the line, Kurt hadn’t felt this energized since he last saw Blaine in person. 

None of that seemed to faze Santana Lopez. 

Honestly, after pulling her into the band and having her quit, recommending the evening dance classes at NYADA, and taking her out to Callbacks on weekends, Kurt was out of ideas. She refused to get on stage. But he saw that small smile on her face when she hummed under her breath when she thought no one was listening. No matter how vehemently she denied it, she missed singing. So, Kurt called Blaine. 

“I don’t know, Kurt, it’s kinda hard to help when I’m not seeing the situation for myself.” Blaine sighs, likely bummed he can’t solve this. 

Kurt practically saw him pouting through the phone. Thank god, they weren’t on Skype. He hated seeing his boyfriend looking so defeated when he wasn’t there in person to kiss the top of his head. 

Blaine had become the self-proclaimed advice-giver of the New Directions since he transferred. 

He helped Mike Chang fix his relationship with Tina when they had a week-long fight about only eating at Asian restaurants on their date nights. Tina had been pissed. No simple apology was going to cut it.  Blaine single-handedly compiled a list of Tina’s favorite places to eat and added a few of his personal favorite date night places. 

When Finn would forget special dates and Rachel got fussy about how Finn never uses the couple calendars she made for them, Blaine stepped in and helped him set up a reminder alert on his phone. 

And there was that whole fiasco about Miss Pillsbury not-so-subtly hinting that she wanted to get engaged. Blaine was able to straighten Mr. Schue out pretty quickly that day. For the life of him, that man didn’t understand why Miss Pillsbury was acting so weird. 

“You don’t have to be so roundabout, you know?” Kurt told him. 

“Huh.” Playing dumb, typical.

“Just come up to the city, Blaine,” he said. “I know you want to ask.” 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, boyfriend of mine,” Blaine huffed. “I have zero ulterior motives while being completely unhelpful to your current predicament.” 

“Uh-huh, I’m sure that’s the case. I’ll see you next week.” 

“Unless Cooper can find an earlier flight!” Blaine exclaimed. 

He had been using up the countless number of frequent flyer miles his older brother had racked up to make weekend trips to New York. After Cooper discovered their long-distance relationship (likely after one too many late-night calls from Blaine missing his boyfriend), he offered them to Blaine. 

Blaine arrived the following Friday. McKinley had some teacher’s day so Blaine was able to hop on a morning flight. He was waiting in the loft when Kurt finished classes for the day. 

“Okay, we’re going to Callbacks tonight,” Kurt said, removing his coat. 

“Hello to you too,” Blaine replied, standing up from the sofa. “How are you, Blaine? How was the flight, Blaine? I missed you so much, Blaine.” 

Kurt rolled his eyes and ignored his boyfriend. 

“This isn’t about you, Blaine,” he said, “it’s about Santana.” 

“Wow, Blaine, you look great! Aren’t those my yellow pants you’re borrowing?” Blaine crossed his arms. 

“Hey!” Kurt exclaimed. “Those are my pants!” 

“Yeah.” Blaine blushed. “I rolled them so they’d fit better.”

Kurt marched over to him and knocked him onto the couch. “You look hot in my clothes.” 

“I look better out of them.” 

Instead of verbally agreeing, Kurt unbuttoned his yellow pants. Blaine was quick to keep up removing his own shirt and attempting to pull off Kurt’s as well. However, Blaine was sitting on the couch and Kurt was kneeling between his legs. It was proving to be rather difficult a task. 

“Kurt…” Blaine groaned, “come up here with me.” 

“I can’t very well do what I want up there, Blaine.” 

He sat up straighter. “Is this payment for not properly greeting me because I’ll take a blowjob over ‘how do you do’ any day?” 

Kurt pressed his face into Blaine’s naked thigh. “So long as you aren’t accepting blowjobs from anyone but me.”

“No, I would…” Kurt licked around Blaine’s hip. “Never.” 

Within seconds, Blaine’s head was fully tipped over the back of the couch and the only thing coming from his mouth were moans. He couldn’t even force the word ‘Kurt’ from his lips. When Kurt finally gave in and decided Blaine had received efficient teasing, he sucked at the tip until Blaine screamed his name. 

They were quick to clean up their mess afterward, unsure of when the girls would be home. It was one thing to have sex in the living room, it was a whole other to get caught. Though, Kurt figured Rachel owned him after Brody paraded around naked for the few months they dated.  

“Okay, now that we’ve defiled Santana’s bed, can we focus on helping her?” 

“Step one, don’t tell her about this,” Blaine suggested. 

Kurt slapped Blaine’s chest. 

“Ow.” 

“Be helpful. You said if you were in New York, you’d be able to help better. So do it.” 

“FIne,” Blaine replied, “no Callbacks. I have a better idea.” 

Turns out that idea was a speciality club night of Alternative Tunes. 

“It’s open mic. There’s gonna be singers, poets, magicians, and I heard their harpist is opening tonight,” Blaine explained, as they waited in line. 

“Is that why she brought your violin?” Rachel questioned. 

“Yup!” Blaine held up his black case. “I haven’t played to an audience of more than one in a while.” 

Kurt smiled at him. He loved when Blaine performed just for him almost as much as he enjoyed watching Blaine in front of an audience. Something about his face just lit up on stage. The same way Santana’s did in front of a microphone. 

“As much as I love talking about violins…” She rolled her eyes, “is there alcohol at this place?” Santana asked, “because that’s like 90% the point of going out.” 

“Yes, there’s alcohol,” Kurt confirmed. 

He told Blaine they’d need at least two drinks into Santana before they brought up performing to her. Which proved true. After nursing two long island ice teas, Santana was finally talking to Blaine about being on stage. He hadn’t gone up yet and she was teasing him.

“Come on, you brought your own instrument and everything,” she said. “Give us a show and tell.” 

With that, Blaine stood up and walked to the stage. No one was in line so he went right up after the juggler finished. He tapped the microphone and introduced himself.

“I’d like to dedicate this first one to my boyfriend.” 

He mouthed an “I love you” towards Kurt, who blew a kiss back. 

Then, he was lost in the strings. The next song he did was for Santana. Blaine didn’t announce it or anything but he watched her face when he could during the progression of the song. When he finished his set, Blaine thanked the audience. Kurt whistled and clapped, Rachel was jumping up and down while screaming for an encore, and when Blaine was back at the table Santana offered to buy him a drink. 

Without Kurt even realizing it, the next performer on stage was Santana. Just her. She didn’t introduce herself as Blaine did, the piano music just started to play and then she was singing. 

“What do you sing on your drive home?

Do you see my face in the neighbor's lawn?

Does she smile?

Or does she mouth, ‘Fuck you forever’?” 

Kurt couldn’t say why exactly but the song suited her well. Santana was always one to command an audience when she soloed. Soft instrumental with harsher lyrics was always her style. 

While Santana had the audience and Kurt captivated, Blaine bounced back over to their table. He had two drinks in his hand. 

“For you,” he said, passing Kurt a mojito. 

In return, Kurt pecked his check. He really was so lucky. Then, his full attention went back to the stage. 

 “Every time you call me crazy, I get more crazy

What about that?

And when you say I seem angry, I get more angry

And there's nothing like a mad woman

What a shame she went mad

No one likes a mad woman

You made her like that”

 As Santana finished her song, Kurt and Rachel turned to Blaine, who was positively beaming. He’d done exactly what he had told Kurt he could do. 

“How?” Rachel asked. 

“I’m a smooth talker,” Blaine said with a smirk. 

Kurt rolled his eyes.

 If anything, his boyfriend was a clumsy mess. Romantic and adorable? Yes. Tripped over his words? Constantly. 

“Come on, Blaine, give it up,” Kurt said. 

“Magicians never reveal their secrets.” 

Rachel huffed. She had a glint in her eyes suggesting she wasn’t giving up. Rachel rarely did when she really wanted something. Kurt had a theory that she could pester anyone enough to get what she wanted. Example A, a ticket to NYADA by tracking down the head of admissions and inviting her to Chicago to watch a show choir competition.  

Before Kurt could tell Rachel to drop it, Santana returned. She had a new drink in her hand. 

“Compliments of the lady in red,” she told them. 

“Excellent song choice,” Kurt said.

“Blaine’s idea.” she shrugged, sipping her drink. 

Blaine was still beaming. 

“It’s perfect for her, isn’t it?” Blaine replied, “When I first heard it I knew I had to hear Santana do a cover of it.” 

Santana winked at him from across the table. 

“What is going on with you two?” Rachel asked. “The devil incarnate and the sun from teletubbies should not get along this well.” 

Santana shrugged. “He’s besties with Britt.” 

“It’s true.” Blaine nodded.  “She even called us the Sunshine Twins.” 

Kurt’s eyes drift to Blaine’s—his—yellow pants. “Yeah, that fits.” 

[svtegg]

time savior (svt apocalypse!au)

♡ wordcount: 1,8k ♡ chapter 14/?

(ch.1, ch.2, ch.3, ch.4, ch.5, ch.6, ch.7, ch.8 ch.9 ch.10 ch.11 ch.12 ch.13 )

♡ this won’t make any sense if you haven’t read the last part so make sure to catch up on those before reading! they’re all linked above!

♡ rating: PG-13 death/violence, language, gore themes, mentions of murder, mentions of pregnancy

♡ pairing: svt (soonyoung) x reader

I had left Soonyoung’s sleeping body early the next morning, carefully dressing myself in the clothes of yesterday and closed the door behind me as softly as I could. Wonwoo had fallen asleep in the watchtower when I opened the latch in the floor to let myself onto the platform. Jihoon murmured a raspy good morning in my direction, his eyes not leaving the horizon for a second. I followed his line of sight, the man seemingly entranced with whatever it was that he was observing. In the midst of tall grass and overgrown trees there where a herd of stallions. They where running around, jumping and chasing each other through the huge fields, the hard stomping of their hooves barely audible. I felt myself slightly gasp as I moved over to the half wall facing the fields. There where at least ten of them, all in different colors and patterns. Their long hair flaring behind them as they galloped around the plains, oblivious to the small audience watching them.

One of the horses was silently grassing, gently walking along the edge of the field, ears moving according to the surrounding sounds. It was a light buckskin, it’s hair long and black. It was so peaceful to watch, the animals running around like nothing was wrong, like the world hadn’t gone to shit over a decade ago. They where fine, happy even. As I watched them, I could feel myself getting almost jealous.

Wonwoo suddenly sat up, his body jolting up as he woke with a start, the small radio Minghao had fixed weeks ago sat in the corner buzzing to life as a voice rang through. At first one couldn’t hear what the person on the other end was saying, the signal too far away. The audio got cut several times before the three of us could hear the voice clearly. Jihoon had turned his head and was now looking straight at the radio, eyes stern and face cold as stone. Wonwoo, who had been woken by the static was still breathing hard from the shock, eyebrows furrowed and eyes flickering between the radio, Jihoon and I. The black zip up hoodie that had been slung over him now in a lump in his lap.

“We need help, the raiders have found us. If anyone is listening, please help. We are trapped in Gimpo Airport, we have wounded and children with us. Please. They are cannibals, they’re coming for us.”

The voice was raspy, I couldn’t make out if it was just because of the radio of the actual voice. It was a man, he sounded like he was in his late 20s, maybe early 30s. My eyes were still on the radio when Wonwoo softly spoke up, still sitting on the same place on the makeshift floor of the tower. “What the fuck…” It wasn’t a question, more like a statement. He sounded confused, maybe even a little scared. No one answered him, Jihoon sprung up, grabbing his sweater that hung over the railing of the tower. “It could be a trap. I’ll go wake up the others, we need to find out what we’re gonna do. Jeon, come.” He had already opened the hatch and lowered his body through it when he motioned for Wonwoo to follow him.

I was speechless as I sat back against the railing, my eyes on the open hatch as the unfamiliar voice rang through my ears, the words he had spoken repeating in my mind. I shifted my eyes over to the field, the horse that had previously been eating near the edge of the grass looking up at the tower with its ears pointed backwards, almost as if it was listening as well. I sighed, the sun slowly peaking up from over the old buildings and reaching its beams down onto the dewy valley.

Time passed slowly, I could feel myself starting to grow restless after having watched the rest of the group scramble from their rooms and into what Seungcheol had called the strat room. They had been in there for almost an hour now, and I was aching to know what they where discussing, not liking the fact that I had to sit up here and observe the fields and dirt roads that contained nothing but the flock of stallions, overgrown grass and the sun. A warm breeze moved the tops of the trees that surrounded the camp, the sound of leaves rustling almost drowning out the static that suddenly erupted from the radio again. It seemed to zone in on the signal, the same voice as earlier this morning coming through yet another time. “Seokmin, if you’re out there, don’t come back. They found us, they took Younghee. Don’t come back. We hope you survive. If anyone else is listening, we need help. The raiders have found us. Please help. We are trapped in Gimpo Airport, we have wounded and children with us. Please. They are cannibals, they’re coming for us.”

I scrambled over to the radio, lifting the microphone up to my mouth as I pressed the button to reply. “How many are you?” I whispered, almost scared that I would scare whoever was on the other side. I released the button to clear the line. Static. I waited for a few seconds before trying again. “Hello?”. Static. I looked up. The door to the room the rest where in was still closed, the door to Seokmin’s room as well. I quickly took in the field one more time. Nothing. Just the horses that had planed themselves in the shadow of a huge oak near the fence on the west side of the camp. Was the man talking about the Seokmin that we had rescued? And if so, was this his group. Who were these people? I looked down at the radio, the static almost overwhelmingly loud. It wasn’t that big. I could probably get it to Seokmin’s room to have him try to contact the person on the other end. But I would be leaving my post, and Seungcheol would not like that. Then the static stopped. It was completely quiet for a few seconds before the same voice spoke up. “We are 5. 3 men, a child and a pregnant woman. She’s hurt. Who are you?” I could feel my pulse quicken as I moved my body without thinking, almost jumping from the platform of the watchtower as I ran with the radio under my arms.

Sun barked loudly as I threw the door to Seokmin’s room open. The man was sitting on the edge of the bed, his face in absolute confusion as I scrambled through the door. I looked between him and the radio quickly before I sat it down onto his bed, the small talkie in my hand as I pressed the send button down. “We are a group further south, who is Seokmin?” I asked into the mic, the static taking over as I released the button, my eyes on Seokmin’s face. He looked utterly confused, his eyebrows furrowed and eyes wide. Sun was still barking slightly. I could feel the adrenaline running through my veins, and through the static I could hear footsteps scrambling from a few rooms down. Seokmin shook his head at me, his mouth opening to speak “What-“

“How far from Gimpo is your group? We need help. Please.” The voice said, and Seokmin’s face melted from a confused and half scared look to a mix between happiness and sadness as he scrambled over to take the transmitter from my hand. “Jeonghan?? Jeonghan?!” He almost yelled into the radio, the send button pressed down almost after he was done yelling the name.

Sun barked again as the rest of the group fell through the door, Seokmin still yelling down the microphone. “What the-“ Seungcheol looked around the room, Minghao poking his head around him, his eyebrows furrowed. “What’s going on?” Joshua said as he slipped through the door, Jihoon following right behind him. Jun hopped in, Soonyoung right behind him supporting him slightly. I could barely see Mingyu and Wonwoo’s heads from outside as Chan made his way between all the bodies to see what was going on. Sun was still barking at all the commotion, Seokmin finally quieting down as the voice responded. “Seokmin! Where are you? Oh my god, Seokmin…. I thought you where dead. They got Younghee, Seokmin, they’re gonna come back and we can’t move because Jangmi is hurt and she can’t walk. Vernon is fucked up, he’s completely shut down, we need help, Seokmin…. Where are you, are you okay?”

I met eyes with Seungcheol as he looked between the radio, Seokmin, Sun and I. Seokmin continued to talk, sounding a little anxious. Seungcheol motioned something to Joshua and the latter turned around, ushering Chan, Jun, Wonwoo, Mingyu and me out. I grabbed Sun by the collar and took her with me as the room cleared slightly.

“What the hell just happened?” Mingyu rasped as Joshua closed the door to the room behind us. No one answered.

The breeze blew the treetops again, the sound of the leaves rustling slightly drowning out the rapid exchange of dialog from the room behind us. Chan had sat down on the wooden porch, and Wonwoo was leaning against the railing, his hands folded in front of him. Sun was running around, digging her nose into the dirt as she smelled all the unfamiliar smells. Jun sighed from the garden chair that Mingyu had grabbed for him from another room. “So��Seokmin’s old group are about to eaten?” Jun said, probably in an effort to lighten the mood or break the slience, but no one answered. Mingyu had left to take watch for an hour seeing as I didn’t answer when they asked me if I wanted to get back up there. I could hear Chan kick the gravel, a small stone sliding across the courtyard. “Why did they make us leave though?” Chan whined; his lips pressed out in a pout as he folded his arm atop of his bendt kneed. “Probably so Seokmin wouldn’t get too stressed out, I mean, hearing that the group you’ve been with for god knows how long is about to be killed off is kind of rough.” Wonwoo murmured, cracking his fingers against the side of his bicep while still having them folded against his chest.

I hummed. My eyes was still fastened on the dog who was now happily chasing a butterfly that fluttered through the early September air, her mouth open so it looked like she was smiling. “He said they had a pregnant woman with them.” I stated, my eyes still fastened on the dog. “What..” Jun whispered, I could hear him shifting in is chair behind me. Chan lifted his head from his folded arms to look at me, his eyes slightly more wide than usual. Wonwoo was still standing with his back to us. “And a child.” I continued, my voice wavering slightly as I thought about how scared that kid must be.

“We have to help them, we can’t let a child die. At least not two!” Chan stated, his voice raising slightly. I sighed, unsure what the leaders of the group would decide.

[msjr0119]

Why me?

Part 33b - I do 💍💒🥰

Riley is forced out of Cordonia unknowingly to her friends, and moves back to New York.

She is later faced with her past from Cordonia and is hiding a few new secrets. With the help from her New York friends and friends from Cordonia will she escape her current situation and find her happy ever after?

Tags- @annekebbphotography @burnsoslow @drakesensworld @ladyangel70 @kingliam2019 @bbrandy2002 @butindeed @bascmve01 @drakewalker04 @pedudley @captain-kingliamsqueen @duchessemersynwalker @insideamirage @of-course-i-went-to-hartfeld @texaskitten30 @ibldw-main @kozabaji @kimmiedoo5 @nikkis1983

The last part of the series... thank you everyone for the likes/reblogs... some parts have been crap I’ll admit that- but I’ve really enjoyed doing this as my first series... Team Driley 🥰

*******

It was a summer wedding, in Cordonia- in the early afternoon. Riley Brooks and Drake Walker were finally getting married- the two commoners; who by fate, had fallen in love.

The gateway that was adjacent to Palace door, led into a large courtyard, where the nuptials were due to take place. The courtyard was separated into four uneven sections by flagstoned paths - each section was unique. One section was where the fountain trickled water effortlessly- providing a tranquil atmosphere. Another section held a large tree, it stood dormant- the slight wind blew the pink blossom away gracefully. The last two sections, provided a green lawn with a variety of flowerbeds that were a riot of colour.

******

Myself and my best man walked down the courtyard ‘aisle’ - well, Liam walked with his regal stance, I basically froze forcing my legs to walk. The sun was shining through the courtyard- rose petals delicately placed on the ground, the aroma consisted of them and peonies that were decorated around the area.

Why Drake I never knew you had such flair with peonies...- Never would I have imagined that just shortly after that she would kiss me for the first time in the Beaumont’s study.

I waited at the flower covered temporary alter feeling nervous, anxious, petrified that she may think this is the biggest mistake of her life. This short time that I have known Riley, it has been a rollercoaster of emotions. I couldn’t still believe that she had chosen me.

“Drake- Liam proposed to me tonight.”

“Oh.. I’m hap-“

“I said no.”

“What?”

“Drake I might’ve come here for Liam, but I want to be with you. You’re the only one I’ve ever cared about.”

I don’t know what the hell I’ve done to deserve this woman. Liam usual gets what he wants with him being royalty. But not this time. For the first time in my life, I was complete- it truly was love at first sight. I was knocked out of my thoughts when my Mom came to speak to me.

“So, I’m going to have a new daughter-in-law and more grandchildren. Our family is expanding. Drake, I’m returning to Cordonia to be with you all. Your Aunt will take over the ranch. Good luck darling. I’m so proud of both you and your sister!”

Shit! I - we are leaving Cordonia. Why would she want to move back, I thought?

******

The sun was shining and the echo of the birds tweets, created a calm atmosphere. Shame I wasn’t this content, this damn morning sickness, or was it just nerves? Myself and my bridal party strolled out of the palace, towards the gateway to the courtyard. My two maid of honours- Hana and Olivia were delicately holding the laced train that trailed behind my dress. It was now or never.

“Riley you need to breathe.”

“I’m trying Gran, I’m really trying. I’m excited but so nervous.”

“Baby, everything is going to be fine. I’m here! Forever.”

“What do you mean forever?”

“I’m staying in Cordonia- spending my last years with my granddaughter.”

My gran is moving here? But I’m- we’re leaving. Shit!

******

I saw the Beaumont’s and Leo leave the courtyard. I’m assuming my fiancée is here- at last. My hands became more clammy every second that went by. Liam must have noticed as he began to crack out shit jokes to me- maybe he should just keep to his King duties, something he’s good at and leave Maxwell to be the fun joker we all love. It seemed like forever, but the three men eventually returned- she looks beautiful,Drake- Maxwell said, now my heart was leaping out of my chest. I was eager to see her.

*****

Patiently having to wait at the entrance, was killing me. I just wanted to leap into Drake’s strong arms. Just then the Beaumont’s and Leo turned up by my side- You look beautiful blossom, are you ready? It’s not too late to back out? I was more than ready, are they stupid? I was ready before he even proposed to me. Deep- down in my gut, I knew I wanted to be with Drake Walker for the rest of my life.

“That leaves one question. Who are you marrying in this scenario? Me?”

“I.... Are you proposing to me Brooks?”

“Trust me, if I were, you’d know.”

And now was the time.....

*****

“Ladies and Gentlemen, if you’d please rise for the bride.”

Leo grinned as everyone stood up gracefully, winking at a nerve wrecking Drake.

I watched as my two maid of honours, gracefully waltz down the aisle, flashing smiles to our guests. They were naturals, must be the noble upbringing they both had, I assumed? I now knew that all eyes were going to be gazing in my direction- even though the spotlight always seemed to enjoy following me like a bad smell- I hated it. I linked my shaking arm through my grans fragile arm - her eyes and smile lit up showing that she was proud. We stood at the top of the aisle, it looked like it was never ending- it was like the yellow brick road. My Gran, was my strength- without her supporting me, I felt like I could possibly faint. I concentrated looking forward as we walked, I attempted to conceal the tears running down my cheek. In the corner of my eyes I could see our guests waving and smiling. Eventually we was about five steps away from the bottom of the aisle- at last. Liam looked regal, he pat Drake on the shoulder- then his baby blues focused on me. I looked down towards the Rose petal covered floor to avoid his gaze. He ambled towards me, bowed and gave me a kiss on the cheek- you look lovely Riley, I’m truly happy for you. I looked into his eyes and mouthed -thank you. My Gran gave me a hug and imitated what Liam had just done- I love you Riley, go get your man. Liam, escorted my Gran safely to her seat- he really was a gentleman. Then my gaze fell on him- my marshmallow. The handsome commoner, standing tall in front of me. My, Drake. My, soon to be husband. My, children’s father.

Hana and Olivia began to walk down the aisle, along to the music. Myself and Liam pecked them both on the cheek as they arrived near us. My focus now was to see my bride- she’s kept me waiting this long. A moment later, she was in my view. She was breathtaking- I’m so lucky I thought, I never believed I would be worthy enough for a woman, such as Riley Brooks. I saw her dress for the first time- my knees went weak. It was a fitted princess style dress at the waist with a long train, crafted in silk and embroidery with beaded sparkles, and a close-fitting bodice with v-neck, and v-back. My eyes were now glistening with emotion- maybe I should have stolen some Kleenex from Maxwell? As they were in touching distance to us, I could see the sparkle in her ocean blue eyes, she too had been crying. She looked just like her Gran, both stunning ladies. My beautiful bride standing next to me. My, Brooks. My, Riley. My, soon to be wife. My, children’s mother.

******

Drake took Riley’s hands into his, both smiling with relief that they were reunited again. They whispered to each other so prying eyes and ears couldn’t hear them.

“Wow! You are so beautiful and look incredible Riley. I love you.”

“I’m just trying to keep up with my handsome fiancé. I love you too.”

“ I’m the one who needs to keep up. I need to tell you something, it’s about my Mom....”

“I need to tell you something too, it’s about my Gran....”

“FUCK!” They both whispered in unison- now realising it was the same thing.

******

“Ahem. If I may have everyone’s attention... I was honoured when I was asked to unite this incredible couple in marriage... So shall we get to the good part? The marrying part? Now, I believe you both have your own vows you’d like to recite?”

Riley and Drake nodded, their eyes still fixated on each other- the longing stares.

“Lady Riley, we will begin with you...”

Drake brushed his thumb over Riley’s knuckles, before holding her hands tighter- giving her an encouraging smile.

“Drake, I’ve now realised that you was always going to be my soulmate. You are loyal, my protector and my best friend. I could have hated you when we first met- you was the biggest jerk I’ve known, but now I realise you’re just a marshmallow. My grumpy marshmallow. I know things haven’t been easy. I always wondered why some people disliked me, so much. Why me? I thought. But, we have got through what most people don’t in a lifetime. You have always been there, having my back. I promise to appreciate every second spent with you and the twins. I will never ask you to change who you are, because I fell in love with who you already are.”

“Drake...now you.” Leo gestured.

“I’m going to keep my vows short and simple... Brooks, Riley... You took me by surprise the moment we met. I knew you was always going to be trouble- ever since you snuck us all out after curfew. You’re a bad influence, you know that? Every moment I spent with you, I always wanted more. I was determined not to fall for you - but I couldn’t help it. I fell in love with you instantly. I never knew what love was until I met you. You are beautiful in every single way possible. I’m going to continue protecting you and the twins and love you all for as long as I live.”

“Beautiful you two. Savannah? Is the ring bearer ready to steal the spotlight?”

Everyone laughed at Leo’s comment. Savannah carried Bartie over to his Uncle and Auntie, helping him hold the small cushion that was weighed down with the wedding bands.

“Do you, Drake Walker take Riley Brooks to be your partner in life and sharing your path; equal in love, a mirror for your true self, promising to honor and cherish, through the good times and the bad, until death do you part?"

“I do.”

"Do you, Riley Brooks take Drake Walker to be your partner in life and sharing your path; equal in love, a mirror for your true self, promising to honor and cherish, through the good times and the bad, until death do you part?"

“I do.”

"By the power vested in me by the Kingdom of Cordonia, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss your bride."

“S ' agapó Ó Morfi gynaíka mou”

Riley didn’t know what Drake had just said to her- she didn’t care, his husky voice sounded sexy. She ran her fingers down his chest, before pulling him closer until there was no gap between them - she could feel the rapid beating of his heart against her chest. That magnet was still there. Drake cupped her cheek, and brushed a lock of stray hair behind her ear. The newlyweds passionately kissed as if the world had fallen away. It was slow and soft to begin with- comforting in ways that words could never describe. His hand sat below her ear, his thumb caressing her cheek as their breaths mingled. Drake lifted his new wife up and spun her around, holding her protectively- his gaze not leaving hers. He eventually let her down, and they turned to face their applauding guests.

*******

The reception room echoed with excited chatter- when the Riley and Drake entered, applause spread throughout the room. The sound of scraping chairs resonated as everyone stood up for a standing ovation. The couple made their way over to the head table, smiling and holding hands- both feeling content. There were cheers- Maxwell being the loudest, of course. A while later, Drake kissed his bride on the cheek before taking a deep breath to make a toast. The sound of a teaspoon on the side of the champagne glass was a signal to gain attention and for their guests to become silent.

“On behalf of myself and my new wife, Mrs Riley Walker... we’d like to thank you all for coming to celebrate with us today before we start our new adventure.”

That previous excited chatter had now turned melancholy. Their friends and family now knew this was the Walker’s way of saying goodbye.

Riley stood up next to Drake, placing one hand around his back and the other on his chest- her baby blues stared into his deep earthy eyes that contained a mischievous glint.

“Yes. Myself and Drake wouldn’t be here without the support from each and every single one of you. We love you all so much...���

Riley and Drake both smirked at each other after witnessing everyone’s down hearted expressions.

“And because we all love you so much.... myself and Drake... we ... we can’t leave you all here on your own. Unfortunately for you all, we are staying in Cordonia.”

[emmybluefire]

Epiphany

The mage’s doors slammed open with a noisy crash as they impacted the stone of her tower walls.

She knew it! She knew something was up! The world doesn’t just go quiet for no reason. The spirit realm even less so. Something was happening. Something big.

Papers and vials went clattering off of her desk, and onto the stone floor beneath them. Her enchanted books fluttered and rustled in protest, flocking off to their respective bookshelves lining the floors up above. Ignoring the minor papercuts down her forearms resulting from their decent, Emmy searched through every remaining parchment she had layed out months prior.

“Come on... where are they?” her cosmic blue eyes frantically darted around, looking for the records. The symbols she’s seen recently and drew onto paper. The notes from her personal journal on how she’s been feeling. Signs, omens... ANYTHING that could indicate what she was looking for.

One roll of parchment flew off behind her. Two... three. It wasn’t long before a newly disorganized mess of paper, crystals, dust and ink were scattered all over her bedroom floor. None of these were it!

With a frustrated hiss, she glanced off behind her, to her bedside cabinet. One of it’s dark, heavy, alderwood drawers slightly ajar...

“Come on, I didn’t put them there did I?” But yes, she remembered now! She left her sketchbook there last night after coming home because she took a moment to remake the bed. Though she never actually slept in it, her day to day habits often did rustle the sheets just a tiny bit. Especially during her... Experiments with Vidri. With a slight chuckle, she hoisted the drawer open and yanked out her sketchbook! The shear momentum from the force she exerted to do so almost forcing it to nail her in the face! But she caught it just in time. Just before it would have broken her nose.

She was beaming now, every neuron in her body firing at once, forcing her to shiver with anticipation.

Slap! Whap! The hard leather-bound cover of her sketchbook filled the room with such sounds. The rapid flitting of turning pages blew wind into her face, and filled her nose with the distinctive earthy smell of old leather and papyrus. Her fingers stopped just towards the middle of the chronicle. There she saw them. 

The skull like silhouette she saw in the fog as it passed the upper-left side of her doorframe this past hallow’s end. 

The brown and shriveled leaf that passed the exact same spot a few weeks later as it fell from the canopy of trees above. The sunlight hit it in such a manor that she could make out every single detail on it.

The way the way the clouds rolled and broke apart the moonlit rainbow that ringed White Lady during the first snowy night of the winter season. There was a short note on the side of this page: It looked like the cosmology map... until they bleed into each other.

She glanced over the next page of her sketchbook briefly, her mind drawing a blank as to why she was going this far. She was still looking for something, why wasn’t i- wait!

Abruptly she darted out of her beedroom and into her lab just a floor lower. Her enchanting table still littered with glowing dusts and smoke from incense. In it’s center was a cracked leycrystal. It’s fracture uncharacteristically uniform to what these breaks normally looked like. Dim lavender energy seeped out from the seam, Emmy’s keen eyes noticing that the light within it had dulled significantly sense she’d last seen it. The more she looked at it, the more she realized the resemblance it bore to a torn piece of cloth. 

When it cracked this morning, she was imbuing a shimmering silvery cloak with latent arcane power. She almost payed no mind to it. Duds were common in the world of enchanting reagents. That is why she always ordered extras... but for a brief moment, this particular crack stood out to her. She just figured she was running late to work today, and decided she’d look into it later. But now, she understood why.

The spirit of her twin brother Andrew didn’t make his presence known to her this past Hallows End. And while she was saddened by the event, she was more confused as to why. To her knowledge, spirits often left behind a sign for the people they were watching over when they decided to move on to the next stage of their afterlife. It was often in the form of an item that was related, and very special to them. One you could never find before, but somehow, by shear luck or a miracle, could now. Or it was in the form of a dream, a memory long suppressed of them leaving you. But not a bad memory. More... bittersweet. Or perhaps, it was something as simple as a warm embrace you felt suddenly that brought you comfort, then faded away. 

No matter how they did it, you always got a loving sense that they believed you were ready to be on your own. And they would leave you with something to remember them by.

When Emmy reflected upon it though, she’d never felt anything like that in recent months. No, instead this sense of dread had always pressed upon the back of her mind, in it’s farthest, most suppressed reaches. It was almost like... he was distant. In danger, but never able to be contacted.

For a long while though, she dismissed it as the healthy dose of paranoia she always carried around with herself to keep herself cautious. She believed she was just overthinking things, and imagining the worse case scenario when none existed. As she looked back through the journal entry’s she’d written these last few months, this theme became painfully obvious to her. This whole time, her gut was telling her something was wrong. And fuck! She was right! Of all the times she had to of been... it was now? She wished it wasn’t so. But alas! The evidence was starring her right in the face this whole time!

Andrew’s ghost didn’t move on. It was in trouble! He was trying to tell her this whole time, but her logical mind prevented her from seeing it! Why did she never listen to old superstitions as a whelpling? Why!?

Why did it have to take the words of a mysterious Kaldorei she’d never met before to make her realize this!? She remembered the conversation so vividly now...

“Do you know what her end goal is?”

“Only some... what is the word? Abstract? ...Balance is her goal. The balance between life and death. Between the elements.”

“... Has she noticed anything odd with the veil of late?”

“We have. And we seek an answer to what must be done about it.”

These words echoed in her mind dozens... if not hundreds of times.

“The balance is shifted. Death holds more domain than it should. The war is likely the culprit, but... something tickles at the edge of my senses that we can’t quite place.”

Emmy’s form went still, her muscles limp. But the shuddering did not cease. Slowly, she turned her head towards the scattered drawings and broken enchanting reagents, and began to arrange them in the form of a cosmology map. The moon picture with the note in the center. The skull to the upper left, the leaf to the bottom right. And the cracked crystal? Placed directly in the center, on top of the moon. What she saw shocked her.

The lines she drew to indicate the direction of the wind, the way she drew the fog... and the clouds around the moon, it all lined up. What she saw now, was the cloudy, silhouetted form of a small elven woman, and a large... humanoid titanic creature. The woman below the cracked crystal, the titan above. The crystal, a depiction of the veil. It was going to be torn apart. The dull, now purple, light of the leycrystal briefly illuminated the shape of the elven woman, and she realized then who it was. Sylvanas Windrunner.

Her mouth agape, she turned her head towards her journal to peer at her notes once more. She had to be missing something right!? She has to be drawing conclusions from nothing! Yes! her eyes flitted to the words within the pages. But the first words she saw: “Congratulations Emmy, you figured it out.” It was an old entry, but it was about a study her brother did. The quote she pulled directly from her bother when she wrote it...

[crue-sixx]

Hungry Like A Wolf

Title: Hungry Like A Wolf

Author: tiddly-winx

Fandom: The Dirt (Motley Crue Movie)

Summary: The reader is bitten by a big dog, but she's in for more than just an infection.

Warnings: Swearing, Blood, Gore, Sickness, Smut. Animal Death, Werewolves

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It was Halloween, the band's favorite holiday.  You guys went all out, decorating the apartment, making your costumes with whatever you could find and throwing them together last minute.  Of course you stocked up on candy-both for you all to eat and to pass out to the kids in the building.  You and your boyfriend Tommy were handing out the candy, and when the trick-or-treating hours had concluded, the real tricks would start.

Nikki had bought five dozen eggs a month ago and let them rot, planning on having you all throw the putrid stink bombs at adult passerby who happened to be roaming around.  You all had it planned out-two on the left, two on the right and one sitting in a tree or on the roof.  You were with Tommy on the right, Mick and Vince to the left and Nikki up high.  You bombarded a few groups of teenagers who were bullying younger kids for their candy.  The little bastards deserved it. 

The stink exploded on impact, causing the pizza faced boys to gag and scatter.  "That's what you get for bein' mean to little kids, assholes!" Nikki shouted from up top.  The teenagers all cursed and vowed revenge, but you all knew it was an empty threat. 

When all the eggs were spent, you kissed Tommy on the cheek and said "Go on back to our room, Babe" you said winking "I gotta go pick something up for your treat tonight" he grinned, knowing full well that he was getting a special sex session tonight.

"Why didn't you just have it delivered or pick it up earlier?" he whined, not wanting to wait for his Halloween Treat.

"Because" you eyed them all "Most of you guys like to try and ransack my drawers for my underwear" except for Mick, they all nervously laughed and glanced down.  "And I didn't want the surprise to be spoiled" you wrapped your arms around his neck and kissed him tenderly.  He of course returned the gesture with aplomb.

"Hurry back, Y/N" he said, not wanting to let you go but he had to.

"I will, Tommy" you blew him a kiss, to which he caught it and sent it back.  Nikki and Vince made mock gagging gestures and Tommy laughed at that.

You were on your way to the shop that was open late tonight when you had to cross the park to make a short cut.  It was like Central Park in New York, but considerably smaller.  You could see your destination just on the other side when you heard a rustling in the bushes.  You turned and saw a rather large dog, you didn't think anything of it and tried to go on your way, but a supernatural force pulled you back to stare into it's eyes.

Your heart rate slowed down and you entered a dreamlike state.  The dog's eyes were yellow and looking at you like you were it's next meal.  You were in a trance, the creature having reared up and walking on two legs like a human.  You knew you should have been terrified and run off, but the power keeping you there made that impossible.

You could smell and feel it's hot steamy rank breath as it exhaled on you.  It's fangs were dripping with saliva and you could see it's mouth twisting into an ugly snarl.  It then howled and lunged at you, knocking you over.  The sudden movement snapped you out of the trance and you screamed for help.  The thing clamping down on your arms with its jaws and scratching at your belly with claws so sharp it could cut diamonds.

It would have killed you if someone hadn't blown it's brains out just as it was going in for the kill.  Your neck was exposed and it was about to bleed you dry when you heard a crack of thunder and then a pink misty cloud of blood and brain matter splattered the white rose bushes, painting them a brilliant red.  The shooter stepped forward, a young teen boy right after him. "What should we do about 'er Pa?" asked the boy in a nervous tone.

"Let's put 'er outta 'er misery" the older man cocked the shotgun and pointed it at you.

You had tears running down your face as you tried to speak "Please no..." when you heard more people coming your way with flashlights.

"Damn it!" the older man cursed "Grab the beast boy and hightail it outta here!"  The son did as his father bade, and they left you to bleed.  It wasn't long however when a group of police officers came to your aid and radioed for an ambulance. 

In your blood loss induced state of delirium, you asked "Why did they paint the roses red?  They're gonna lose their heads..." before you finally passed out.

Back at the apartment, they were all getting worried.  They knew where the sex shop was-they all frequented it for condoms and various other sex novelties.  It didn't take two hours to get there and back.  Tommy was pacing around in circles cracking his knuckles."Where the fuck is she?" he felt the worry puke coming on.

"Relax" Nikki tried to reassure him "Maybe there's a long line at the check out counter or something..."

Then the phone blared.  An ominous pressure filled the room as they all stared at it.  When the phone rights at two in the morning, nothing good ever happens.  Tommy picked it up and said "Y/N?"

"No" an unfamiliar voice answered "Is this Tommy Lee?"

"Yeah" he had to steady himself on the table.  From the expression on his face, they all knew it couldn't be good.  They waited in uncomfortable anticipation for more information "Who're you?"

"I am Doctor Finkle from L.A. General.  Do you know a woman by the name of Y/N L/N?"

"Yeah she's my girlfriend" his voice cracked "Is she okay?"

"I cannot say exactly" the sound of papers shuffling "from the police report, it states that she was attacked by a large animal in the park and was just bought into our operating room for emergency surgery.  Please get here as quick as you can..." it sounded like you didn't have much time left, and Tommy bolted for the door without even hanging up the phone or putting shoes on.  The rest of the guys followed him and he filled them in on the way in the car.

When they finally got there, Tommy ran in, knocking over a nurse with a cart full of medicine.  "Y/N L/N!" he wheezed, out of breath "Is she still in surgery?!"

The receptionist typed in your name and your status was stated next to it "Yes, she is.  The O.R. is on the fourth floor.  Please fill out a visitors-" he wouldn't let her finish, him sprinting to the elevator and pressing the buttons repeatedly.  His rational mind knew that pressing the same buttons over and over again wouldn't make the damn thing go faster, but his emotional side was nervously twitching.

"Come on, damn thing..." the others caught up to him as the doors opened and he went in, repeating the previous motions of button mashing the fourth floor button.

A passing orderly was unfortunate enough to be within reaching distance of Tommy's arms.  He grabbed the poor unsuspecting young man and shook him violently "Y/N L/N!  Where is she?!  Where's the fuckin' doctor?!"

Dr. Finkle heard the voice he had spoken to fifteen minutes ago and came out in scrubs, fresh from surgery "Mr. Lee?"

Tommy's head snapped to him and he said "Dr. Finkle?!"

"Yes, that's me.  If you'll stop terrorizing my orderly I can fill you in on your lady friend's condition" Tommy let the trembling man go, offering him an apologetic look.  "The consultation room is this way" he motioned with his hand to a small room that could only fit two maybe three people.

Tommy went in and sat with him while Mick, Vince and Nikki watched from the waiting room trying to read their lips.  Dr, Finkle looked haggard, he had been working all day on idiotic drunkards who had gotten themselves into ridiculous situations.  Most of them were minor injuries, cuts and scrapes that the patients INSISTED were broken bones.  But this woman was the real deal, her blood tests showed no alcohol or any other substances in her system.  She was just a poor soul in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"How is she, Doc?" Tommy's voice cracked, on the verge of tears.

"She's stable" the doctor answered.  Tommy breathed a sigh of relief.  "She lost a lot of blood, but we were able to stop the bleeding and replace what she lost.  She'll be alright, she just needs a few days in here to recover and to make sure she didn't get any diseases of whatever animal attacked her" he took a deep breath and rubbed his eyes.

"What's the damage?" Tommy wanted to be ready for what he was going to see.

"She has extensive bite marks on her arms-most likely defensive wounds-some deep.  She also has claw marks on her chest and abdomen, but those are superficial.  They're not much concern at this time."

Tommy swallowed hard and asked "When can I see her?"

"In about ten minutes.  She's being settled into her room right now.  The anesthesia may last longer than that, but that's to be expected" he took off his glasses and added off the record "you can stay as long as you want.  I recon that you'll be the first person she wants to see when she wakes up..."

"Thanks Doc" he was very appreciative and shook his hand "For taking care of my girl..."

"She's in room 509 on the recovery floor" the doctor added.  She should be settled by the time you get up there" they then parted ways, Tommy grateful for the man who saved his lover's life.

The others got up when they saw him come out, the waiting game being too much for them "How is she?"

"She'll live" Tommy said flatly "Go on back to the apartment, I'll stay with her" they looked at each other uneasily and agreed.

"Do you want us to get you anything before we go?" Mick asked, being uncharacteristically empathetic.

"Nah, I'm good.  I'll just have the shitty coffee and snacks to hold me over" he tried to smile, but it was very weak and unconvincing.  They reluctantly left but they knew he needed alone time with his girl.

You were still in your drugged sleep when he came in.  He thought he'd mentally prepared himself for what he might see, but he was wrong.  Most of your upper body was bandaged up like a mummy, but your head was still visible.  He let out a few whimpers before breaking down like a lost child.  "Y/N...Baby..." he took your hand and held it.  "I'm so sorry...I never should have let you go alone..."

You were starting to wake up then, saying "Don't beat yourself up, Tommy" he jumped, startled at your quick recovery.

"Y/N!" he was both happy and perplexed "How are you awake so soon?!"

"I heard you crying and thought I'd wake my lazy ass up and see what's going on" you smiled at him, still groggy from the drugs.  He was just so happy that you were okay, that he leaned down and gave you the sweetest, softest kiss he ever did.

"I love you" he confessed through his sobs, snot dripping down his face.

"I love you too, Tommy" you reached up to try and clean his face, but you were seeing triple and couldn't tell which Tommy to wipe.

"I got it, Babe" he laughed and wiped his face.

All the tests came back negative for any animal borne diseases, and you were clear to go back to the apartment.  Tommy was there by your side all the while, the guys bringing him clothes and toiletries so he could be clean.  He hated being able to smell himself and it was nasty.

The guys had a small party when you came home, just the five of you and a little welcome home cake.  You thanked them and had a few beers, Tommy leading you away from them to make love to you in a proper fashion.  He gingerly touched your scars and kissed them, You tried to shy away from his touching them but he insisted "They're a part of you now, and I love everything about you..."

"Tommy..." you sighed a ragged breath of carnal desire.  "Fuck me..."

"Don't gotta tell me twice"  you were already so wet from just him touching you that he didn't need to do anything like oral or fingering.  He was rock hard too, so he just slid inside easily.  He let out a gasp of pleasure and commented "Oh fuck baby you're tighter than usual..."

"Well, I have been out of practice for a week" you whispered into his neck before kissing it.  You then felt a strange savage second nature begin to wash over you.  You smelled his blood pumping through his veins.  You wanted him.  His flesh.  His meat.  You were able to push the urge down and he continued to fuck you.

"Jesus Fuckin' Christ" he moaned into your mouth "You feel hotter too..."  he grunted loudly "my dick's on fire...fuck" he had you against the wall, holding onto you tightly.  You turned your ass to him.

"Do me from behind Babe" you groaned and dug your nails into the plaster.  He happily obliged, liking this new angle.  You could hear his balls slapping against your ass gently, serving to draw the both of you closer to your climax.

"Oh God" Tommy gasped, bucking his hips wildly "I'm gonna fuckin' cum..." you quickly pulled away from him and took him into your mouth, deep throating him as he pumped his seed down your gullet.  He held your head in place, his own falling back in exhausted pleasure.

After you had swallowed his semen, you looked up at him and said "Was that hot for you baby?"

"So fuckin' hot Y/N" he was panting "I could feel your nose against my stomach..." he gulped hard "I love it when we try new stuff in the bedroom..." he picked you up and kissed you tenderly.  He was spent, but you hadn't finished.  You didn't care about that, you had your man with you and that's all that mattered.

The next morning, you smelled the sweet aroma of frying meat.  It lulled you out of bed and into the kitchen where Tommy was making breakfast.  "Mornin'!" he greeted, but you didn't answer.  You smelled the raw bacon on the counter and couldn't take your eyes off it.  Your mouth began to water, just the thought of tasting fresh meat driving you mad with ravenous hunger.

You scooped up the raw meat and tore into it like a wild animal, your teeth making it easier to shred than before.  Tommy watched you in amazed horror, then put a hand on your shoulder to stop you from eating raw meat.  You snarled at him, your eyes full of pure rage at having your meal interrupted. "The fuck you want?!" your voice wasn't just your own, but a deep throated. rolling growl.  You were so pissed that he'd interrupt your meal like that!  You imagined ripping out his esophagus and making his intestines your meal but you realized how fucked up that was and calmed down.

He was actually scared to respond at first but he said "Dude, you're eating raw meat...that's got bacteria in it..."

"Erm...right..." you put down the raw meat and looked down "sorry..."

He gave you a strange look, but let it go.

Things went back to normal for a few weeks, then exactly one month after the attack you fell ill.  First, you were burning up and sweating buckets.  Then the vomiting when you had nothing in your stomach.  Everyone thought it was just the flu and they stayed clear of you, Tommy bringing you soup and some crackers.

Then your insides started burning, and the vomiting turned more violent.  It was when you saw blood in the toilet that you started to panic.  "Tommy!  I need-" a new round of blood vomit came but this one actually hurt.  It was then your skin started to itch-like tiny bugs were crawling all over the surface.  You started scratching.

Tommy had heard you call for him, and when he came in the bathroom, he saw you clawing at your arms "Y/N, what the fuck?!" he grabbed a towel "You're bleeding!"

"I'm just so itchy..." you brushed him off and continued to scratch, drawing more blood from your body.

"Fuckin' stop!" Tommy grabbed both your hands to keep you from doing more damage.

"Tommy what the fuck's going on in there?!" Nikki shouted.

He didn't have time to answer, you had stood up, whipped your head back and headbutted him, breaking his nose.  Nikki and Vince burst through the door when they saw the carnage.  They stared speechless, Tommy knocked out on the floor and you bloody with your muscle meat on display.  "T-Bone!" Nikki went to his fallen friend, and you had thrown up blood all over him.

You were then on the ground twitching.  They thought you were having a seizure and Tommy was trying to help you, but then they saw your features begin to change.  Your bones began to break on their own, your skin tore away from your frame, the largest organ of the body unable to contain the new growth.  In it's place, coarse fur and animal skin grew.  Your nose elongated into a snout, fangs protruding  where your teeth once were.

Nikki and Vince didn't wait around to see what was happening next, instead grabbing Tommy and dragging him out of the apartment and hauling ass out of there.  You-or whatever version of you that was followed them down the hallway on all fours.  "Holy shit!" Tommy had woken up and was staring a behemoth of a dog in the face.

The thing had leapt up, ready to completely devour them all when a soft whistling was heard, then a yelp from the animal and then the thing skidded across the floor.  They looked up and saw Mick with a hunting rifle, but a tranquilizer dart in the animal's thigh.  "What the fuck was that?" Tommy asked.

Nikki and Vince looked at each other, unsure to what to say.  They knew what they had saw and weren't on anything that would make them see that.  Mick spoke up and said "That's Y/N.  She's a werewolf" as easily as saying "Pass the fuckin' potatoes".

"What the fuck?" Nikki whispered.

"How do you know?" Tommy looked at Mick.

"Shut up and watch, Drummer" he said, and you started shrinking back to normal size.

"H-how is this possible?" Tommy stumbled back, his broken nose the least of his worries.

"It was on Halloween when she was attacked.  A few of my buddies heard about werewolf activity in the area and decided to check it out" he pulled the dart from your thigh, you giving a small yelp of pain as he did so.

"How do you know all this shit?"  Vince questioned "Werewolves and all that crap are just myths!"

Mick took a long while to respond, but when he did "There are things that go bump in the night, boys.  I'm one of the ones who bump back" he grabbed you by your foot and began to drag you across the floor.

Tommy got up and shouted "Hey!  Where you takin' her?!"

"To a place where she can turn and not hurt anybody" he took you down the stairs, being careful not to smack your head against them.

"You're not takin' my girl anywhere without me!" Tommy grabbed a hold of his arm, but Mick gave his signature glare and he backed off.

"You really want to be around the thing who just tried to eat you?" he asked sarcastically.

"She's not a 'thing' Mick!  She's my girlfriend!"

"Get that nose looked at first, then I'll come back and take you to her.  I promise..."

Tommy let him go, Nikki and Vince having been shell shocked into silence.  After he got cleaned up, Tommy waited for Mick to come back,  When he did, he kept his word and took him to the police station.  "Mick why the fuck are we here?"

"To see Y/N" he gave an unfamiliar hand gesture to a guard and he let them in a secret passage.  At the end of the passage, there was a group of fortified cells with all sorts of giant dogs in them of varying colors and ferocity.  Then at the very end, they saw you in your human form, still knocked out from the drugs.

"What did you shoot her with?" Tommy asked, caressing your face.

"Wolfsbane" Mick answered "It reverses the transformation and makes them sleep it off.  Too much will kill them though" he slipped a freshly dead goat into your cell, to which Tommy gagged.

"How do you know about this Mick?  I mean really?"

"My family have been monster hunters for generations"  he washed his hands of the blood "Going all the way back to Abraham Van Helsing and Dracula" he loaded his shotgun with a round of silver bullets and waited.

"Hey, what are you doin'?" Tommy protested.

"If she wakes up and turns again, then there's no hope for her.  I'm going to put her out of her misery" he cocked the gun.

You woke up a few hours later, still your normal self.  You were confused about your new surroundings.  "Good!  You're awake and you!" Mick smiled warmly.

"What happened?" you asked "Why am I in this dank cell?"

They had explained what happened, you not believing them until you talked to Vince and Nikki, then seeing the damage of the bathroom for yourself.  You certainly didn't want to die or kill anyone, but you couldn't resist the transformation.  "What do I have to do?"

"Keep track of the lunar cycle and lock yourself up in the cells when the full moon comes around" Mick answered "eat all the raw meat you can get to control the hunger."

You looked at Tommy and started to cry.  "Baby what's wrong?" he hugged you close to him.

"I tried to kill you guys" you sobbed into his shirt "I can't be around normal people anymore!"

"Are you breaking up with me?" Tommy whispered quietly.

"No, but I understand if you want to break up with me..."

"Babe, the thought never crossed my mind" he pet your hair.

"You sure?"

"Of course!  If I wanted to leave, I'd be gone by now!" he smiled down at you.  "We just got to get used to the new you..." he grinned into a kiss.  You remembered how great the sex was the last time you did it with him, and that seemed to quell the beast inside you for a moment, but you knew that at any time, your inner wolf could strike and you counted on Mick to put that silver bullet in you before you could harm anyone.

[lastbluetardis]

Chemical Potential (2/11)

Summary: Slightly homesick and stressed about her abysmal chemistry grade, Rose Tyler meets quirky James Smith, the boy who sits in front of her in their chemistry class. They become fast friends as James makes it his personal mission to help Rose get through the semester.

Ten x Rose University AU

This chapter: ~2200 words, all ages

Notes: This was written for the lovely @thegreenfairy13 as part of the @dwsecretsanta gift exchange. I’ve changed my posting schedule to the middle of the week as AO3 is more frequently down over the weekends, I’ve noticed.

AO3 | Ch1 | Ch2 | Ch3 | Ch4 | Ch5 | Ch6 | Ch7 | Ch8 | Ch9 | Ch10 | epilogue

The early October sun shone brightly overhead as they walked towards the center of the sprawling campus, their joined hands swinging loosely between them. The day was cool but steadily warming, and Rose saw several students carrying jackets and sweatshirts over their arms.

“This is one of the most annoying times of year,” James said. “The mornings are cold but the afternoons are warm. It’s impossible to know how to dress!”

“Layers,” Rose answered, unzipping the front of her jacket to reveal the long-sleeve shirt underneath.

“Quite right,” he agreed. “I can’t wait ‘til the trees start to change. It’s beautiful.”

Rose nodded. The campus had been built into a mountain, and trees lined every walkway. She couldn’t wait to take photographs in the height of autumn.

“What year are you?” Rose asked curiously.

“Second year,” he replied. “And you?”

“First year,” she said.

“Oh, so you must be brand-new to the country and the whole institution of university.” When Rose nodded, his voice softened. “How are you adjusting?”

A dull ache radiated through her chest, though not as fierce as it had been when she’d broken down in the loo.

They’d reached the dining hall, and James released her hand to jog a few paces ahead of her to hold open the door for her. The chivalrous act made her smile. Jimmy had never gone out of his way to hold open doors or anything for her.

James’s eyes were expectant, and Rose remember he’d asked her a question.

“Oh, you know.” She shrugged. “Some days are good, others not so much.”

James nodded knowingly, and when they were both inside, he rested his hand at her lower back and guided her to the food court. The touch sent tingles down her spine.

Rose looked around with interest. She very rarely found herself in this building; most days, she packed breakfast and lunch and had no need to purchase a meal. She thought of the banana and baggie of cereal in her backpack, but when she smelled eggs and bacon, her stomach rumbled, and she knew she wasn’t in the mood for the breakfast she’d brought.

James grabbed a tray for himself and one for her, then he made a beeline for the pancake station.

“Oh, brilliant!” Rose followed him and saw a giant grin on his face. “Banana pancakes!”

Rose smiled at his enthusiasm and giggled when he stacked six pancakes onto his plate. She was more conservative and only took two, then followed him to scoop eggs and bacon beside her pancakes.

“I’m still not completely used to Americans’ love of sweet foods for breakfast,” Rose said, watching James completely douse his plate in maple syrup, covering not only the pancakes but also his eggs and bacon.

“Oh, I love it. I’ve got a bit of a sweet tooth,” he admitted sheepishly.

“You don’t look like it,” Rose blurted, and she cringed.

But James laughed and winked, then moved to the other end of the food court for coffee. Rose followed and got herself a cup of tea.

When they reached the register, James whipped out his student ID card while Rose dug into her backpack for her wallet. James frowned when he saw she’d taken out cash.

“You don’t have a meal plan?”

“Am I supposed to know what that means?”

“A meal plan,” he repeated. “Everyone who lives on campus is required to have one. And even some people who don’t live on campus get a meal plan. Like me. I don’t live on campus but I spend so much time here and sometimes I don’t feel like bringing my own food. I’m rubbish with having cash on me and I don’t like using my credit or debit card for small purchases so it’s just easier for me to put dining dollars into my account.”

Rose bit her lip to stifle a smirk the longer he rambled on. She met the eye of the clerk at the register and grinned when the woman rolled her eyes in exasperation.

“No, I don’t live on campus,” Rose explained. “I pack breakfast and lunch most days.”

“Then here, let me…” James turned to the cashier and said, “All of this is together.”

Heat flooded from the tips of Rose’s ears down her neck. “No, you don’t have to do that. I can pay for myself.”

“I know, but I want to,” James answered, his cheeks going pink. “Please? I’d like to. It’s not every day I make a new friend.”

Rose sincerely doubted that, what with how talkative he was even to a perfect stranger like her.

“Are you sure?” she mumbled.

“Absolutely.”

He handed over his ID card to the cashier, and one swipe later, James and Rose walked with their food to the long wall of windows at the back of the room.

“Thank you,” Rose said softly, following James to a round table that could comfortably seat six people.

“Anytime. God, I’m famished! I usually eat breakfast before class but I accidentally overslept this morning. I thought it was Tuesday, not Wednesday. I’ve got a totally different alarm for Tuesdays. So I didn’t have time to eat.”

James sliced his fork through his stack of pancakes and shoveled them into his mouth. His cheeks puffed out comically and his eyes fluttered shut as he let out a soft humming sound of contentment.

“I love pancakes,” he sighed through his full mouth.

Rose smiled and took a reasonable bite of her food.

“I’ve got another class at eleven,” James warned. “Calc 3. Do you have another class today?”

“Art of the Renaissance at noon.”

James furrowed his brow. “What’s your major, anyway?”

“Art and education,” she replied. “I want to teach someday, I think. You?”

“That’s brilliant. And I’m double-majoring in physics and mechanical engineering.” He paused. “What the hell are you doing in general chemistry?”

Rose looked down at her plate and speared her fork through her eggs.

“It was the only science class that fit into my schedule,” she muttered. “I didn’t think it would be this hard.”

“Can you withdraw?” he asked gently.

“Not without dropping below twelve credits,” she said bitterly. “I’m here on a full scholarship, and they’ll take it away if I’m not a full-time student. So I’m kinda stuck.” She huffed out a huge breath and massaged her temples, her earlier anxiety coming back. “I need to keep a 3.0 GPA, and I can’t get anything below a C.” Tears welled into her eyes as her heart started hammering throughout her whole body. “I’m so fucked, James.”

“Hey, hey, hey.” His chair scraped across the floor until it was butted up against hers. His thigh pressed into hers and he wrapped his arms wrapped around her shoulders, tugging her into his chest. She tensed for a minute but then melted into the embrace.

Tears dripped down her cheeks as he hugged her tightly. He nuzzled his cheek into the top of her hair and rubbed his hand up and down her back in long, slow strokes. She buried her face into his chest when she remembered she’d wiped off all of her makeup and wouldn’t ruin his shirt. She sniffled, and her lungs filled with the smell of him. Sandalwood and laundry detergent and fresh air. God, he smelled good.

“Easy does it,” he murmured.

She let out a shuddering breath, mortification overtaking her. Pulling back from his hug, she grabbed her napkin and blotted her eyes and blew her nose.

“God, I’m sorry,” she whispered, pressing her lips into something she hoped looked like a smile.

“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “It’s okay to show emotion. It’s okay to cry when stressed. You’ve had loads to adjust to in such a small space of time.”

Rose nodded and mangled her napkin in her fist.

“How did you get here, anyway?” he asked. “To an American university.”

“A plane,” she teased, a genuine smile finally crossing her face.

James rolled his eyes and snorted. “Smartarse.”

She giggled, and said, “I applied to a few universities in America. A mate of mine moved to New York last year with his job and really loves it here. I wanted a fresh start. Moving to a different country seemed like a good way to do that.”

He looked at her curiously, obviously wanting more details. She didn’t feel like going into her past with him yet, and she waited to see if he would press for more information. She was relieved when he stayed silent.

“How about you?” she asked. “How did you end up here?”

“I’ve lived in the United States since I was sixteen,” he replied. “My Aunt Sarah moves us around a lot for her job. She’s a journalist and is always moving to different countries, chasing stories. She moved us to the US six years ago. She’s currently in Flint, Michigan doing some reporting. I moved here for school.”

Rose desperately wanted to ask what happened to his parents, but he’d given her the courtesy of not asking for more information than what she’d provided. She would do the same.

Instead, she asked, “How old are you?”

“Twenty-two,” he answered. “Twenty-three in December. A little older than the typical undergraduate student, but I got a late start. I did a bit of travelling, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. And I honestly still have no idea what I want to do.”

They lapsed into an only slightly awkward silence. Rose trailed her fork tines through the leftover syrup on her plate and James finished the food on his.

“Do you want to study together?”

Rose looked up at him when he spoke, but he was very intently adding packets of sugar to his coffee. One… Two… Three… Four… Blimey, five! He wasn’t kidding about the sweet tooth, she thought.

“I thought it might be nice, y’know? Chemistry is hard, and next to impossible if you go it alone. I thought maybe we could buddy up and help each other through.”

Rose was about to decline. She’d caught a glimpse of his exam score over his shoulder in class that morning—a perfect score. He didn’t need her help studying, he just felt sorry for her. She didn’t want to burden him, no matter how much help she needed to get her through the class. If it was even possible for her to get through the class with a satisfactory grade.

But it would be so nice to have a friend to hang out with, even if it was just to study. She liked James—a lot—and she found herself wanting to get to know him. He seemed like someone she could become really good friends with.

James had finally looked up from his coffee. His eyes were deep and earnest, and she saw absolutely no hint of reluctance in them like he regretted offering to help her study.

“I’m really bad at chemistry,” she warned.

James shrugged. “We’ll take it slowly.” He opened and closed his mouth a few times, then reached out and covered her hand with his own. His palms were hot from being cradled around his coffee, and the warmth felt nice. “I want to help you if I can, Rose.”

Rose bit her lip. What was the worst that could happen? She could agree to study with him and still fail the class and their study sessions would be a complete waste of James’s time. But if she studied alone, she was certainly going to fail the class.

So what if she did study with James and still failed? Maybe she’d get a good friend out of the experience.

And what if—what if—she studied with him and passed?

“Okay,” she said softly. “Yeah, let’s study together.”

James’s face lit up in a delighted grin, and he gave her fingers a sharp squeeze. “Brilliant! I look forward to it.” His eyes drifted behind her shoulder, and his brows lifted. “Bugger. We’ve been here longer than I thought. I’ve gotta run.”

Rose glanced over her shoulder to the clock on the wall. Ten-fifty-five. Oh, right. He had a class at eleven.

“I’ll talk to you later,” he promised, standing up from the table.

Rose smirked. “Yeah? And how are you gonna do that?”

“Hmm? Oh! Er…” He fumbled around in his pockets, first the front pockets, then his back pockets, then finally his jacket pocket until he found his phone. Rose took it and typed her contact info into it. When she handed it back, he tapped on the screen and Rose felt her own mobile vibrating. It stopped after a second when James shoved his phone into his back pocket.

“There, now you’ve got my number,” he said. “Right! Goodbye for now, Rose Tyler!”

“Bye, James. Thanks for breakfast. And thanks for… thanks.” She trailed off awkwardly, but James’s eyes softened in understanding.

“Gotta dash,” he said. He turned away and began walking away, and Rose settled in at their table to catch up on some homework before her noontime class. “Hey, Rose?” She looked up to see James had turned back around. “I’m so glad I met you.”

Rose beamed at him, feeling her heart skip a beat when he returned the smile.

“Me too,” she called out, and she heard a high-pitched giggle before he turned and strode outside.

[the-walking-memelords]

Allegiances: Chapter 5

Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 6

Series is rated M

Word Count: 2600

Cracks have been slowly forming since the beginning, but when does the weight become too much?

Read it on Ao3!

Read it on Wattpad!

Three days had passed since the group voted for Marlon to stay with the group. Louis eventually managed to convince Marlon to leave his room, though it was rare for him to speak to anyone else other than his best friend. Shame seemed to be eating Marlon alive, choosing to complete whatever tasks he’d been given without help from anyone else. Marlon wouldn’t so much as make eye contact with Clementine or Brody. At least Rosie treated him as if nothing had changed.

Tension still ran between the group’s members but some of the cracks had begun to close over time. Another day of damaged relations came to a close as the sun set over the forest. The final rays of sun shining through the orange leaves left a warm golden glow over the school.

Clementine was unable to feel the warmth, however, as the final breaths of day faded away to night, she prepared herself for the next step in her mission.

---

The halls of the dormitory grew still as its occupants drifted off to sleep. All but one, that is. Only the faint creaking of the floorboards could be heard in the otherwise silent night as Clementine snuck away from her temporary home. The harsh brick scraped her hands as she scaled the outer wall of the school, landing in the dirt on the other side with a thud.

The overcast why made it difficult for her to see. Clementine relied on her ears to signify any dangers nearby. Pulling her denim jacket tight against the chill of the wind, she trekked further through the forest towards the rendezvous point.

She had been dreading this night for a while. Being around people her own age was comforting. Clementine hated most adults. They seemed to rather solve problems with bullets rather than actual civilized solutions. She pushed her opinions out of her head.

Thinking too much will get him killed.

Her mind wandered instead to AJ. That sweet little boy was all she cared for in this shit world. She could be free if she so chose. Missions like these offered ample opportunities for escape, but how could she? Clem had promised so many people that she would keep him safe. So many of her friends, dead. All so she and that boy could live. It felt as though Alvin and Rebecca were with her. Watching her. Begging her to save him at every turn. Their screams only becoming louder in her dreams. Just thinking about their broken family caused her chest to hurt. Her heart raced, she steadied herself against a tree and tried to calm her breathing.

Why am I like this?

Her legs felt weak underneath her but she pressed on still. The trees began to clear as she made out the shape of the weather-worn roof in the distance. The train station looked more like a junkyard. Decayed boxcars littered the area, the wind whistling through the rusted out holes. Hopping the fence, she stepped over the dead plants that used to make up a garden.

Someone must have been living here at some point.

This placed seemed to be as dead as the rest of the outside world.

She took one final deep breath, staring at the cracks in the old wooden door.

Don’t fuck this up, Clementine.

Two knocks.

Then one.

Then three.

The door swung open, the toothy grin of Abel visible in her peripheral vision as she stared blankly ahead.

“Right on time as always.” He greeted, stepping aside to let her enter. The smell of his hand-rolled cigarette filled the small room.

The inside of the small building was trashed, clearly unoccupied for some time and picked over again and again by any scavengers who’d come across it. Her foot crunched over the remains of a glass jar as she moved to stand at attention before the woman she dreaded seeing.

“Welcome back, soldier.” Lilly smirked, leaning back in one of the chairs. “How was your first week of school? I trust you learned a lot?”

“Yes, commander.” She said flatly. “It has been quite eventful these past few days.”

“I can tell.” Abel stood uncomfortably close behind her. He reached around, harshly flicking her bruise causing it to sting.

She tried not to flinch.

Clementine recapped the events that transpired surrounding Marlon and Brody and the revelation of what truly happened to the twins, a devilish smirk across Lilly’s face all the while.

“I told you that little bastard was a pansy, Lilly.” Abel laughed. “I’m surprised he didn’t run away or just off himself once they found out. That kid has coward written all over him.”

“They’re suspicious that our forces might be in the area.” Clementine warned.

“Not of me, but the robbery of the fishing shack has them a bit on edge. New management wants to significantly upgrade the defences just to be sure.” She mentally cursed out Abel for doing something so pointless. Everything was a lot more complicated now because of him.

“On what grounds?” Lilly asked, leaning forward.

“Pure anxiety, I believe. I disposed of the bible cigarette that had been left behind before they discovered it.”

A sloppy and careless mistake. If Brody had seen it…

“Are you saying I almost blew the operation?” Abel accused, his hand grabbed the back of her neck tightly.

“No, sir.” She spoke through gritted teeth.

He released his hand, but never backed away.

“Tell me some specifics about these kids. Basic rundown.” Lilly ordered. “I want to get to know your new friends.” The smile on her face was sickening

“There’s ten of them in total, eight of them are of a decent age to fight being between about sixteen and eighteen.” She began. “There are two kids about twelve or thirteen who would be better used as… leverage pieces.” She winced internally at the thought of Willy and Tennessee in the same boat as AJ.

Clementine continued to describe the members of the boarding school.

“Marlon is as you remember. Emotionally weak, quick temper, but a good shot.”

A coward who did the wrong thing for the right reason.

“Violet is their new leader. Typically uses melee weapons, but I’ve observed her being pretty accurate with a bow. She was Minerva’s girlfriend.”

A good friend who had her heart broken too many times.

“Brody is emotionally unstable. Her anxiety causes her to shut down, which has only become worse as of late.”

Brody and I really are alike, aren’t we?

“Mitch is a fighter. Ruthless against walkers. He hand-crafts tools and weapons for the group.”

Fiercely protective of his friends, especially Willy.

“Omar is the cook of the group. Knowledgeable about spices and local plant life. Appears physically strong but I’ve never seen him fight.”

Kind-hearted soul, looks out for everyone.

Clementine’s heart ached as the list went on. She forced herself to keep her voice steady.

She couldn’t lose it here.

“Tennessee and Willy are the younger ones. Tenn is the younger brother of the twins. Both are usually given watch duty since they can’t really do anything else.”

A couple of sweet kids, they’re not going to last once we take them.

“Aasim is a hunter. Practical dead-eye shot who knows how to track game through most conditions. He does whatever it takes to make sure everyone gets fed.”

He was never afraid to challenge any of Marlon’s decisions. One of the bravest.

“Ruby is the group’s doctor. She was trained by an actual nurse who worked at the school. She knows how to patch people up, medicine and such. She often looks out for the kids the most.” A sweet person with a big heart.

Someone was still missing. The one she could never quite figure out. Emotions were a tricky business, and he made her feel all kinds of those.

“Louis is…” She trailed off, trying to get her thoughts aligned. There were so many things she could say about him, but she had to be careful which ones she vocalized.

“...an optimist.”

That’s safe, right?

“He always looks out for everyone.”

A shoulder to lean on so we don’t have to suffer alone.

“His weapon is a makeshift bat.”

Heh, ‘Chairles.’

“He lives life in the moment and doesn’t like to think long-term.”

This moment is all we have after all.

“Louis…” She bit her lip, trying not to get carried away. Everything here seemed wrong. Her heart was beating so loud she wondered if Lilly could hear it.

Clementine started to lose herself again. Her throat dried up as she struggled to find the right words. A thousand words could be used to describe Louis but none were safe to say. If she showed any real attachment to these people she would be pulled immediately, but she couldn’t help how she felt, even if she couldn’t explain why. Her knuckles went white as she clenched her fists at her sides, her nails biting into her palms.

“Louis is going to die when we send him to war.”

“They all will, Clementine. You know that.” Lilly hissed, raising an eyebrow at her.

She stood from her chair, approaching her. Clementine felt infinitely small practically squished between the two towering adults. She shuddered as she tried to retain her composure. Lilly grabbed Clementine’s chin, her sharp nails scratching her skin.

“Don’t forget what’s at stake here.” Lilly leaned in until her face was only a few inches from hers.

“Are these people really worth his life?”

“Never.”

“That’s what I thought.” She finally let go.

“You are dismissed, soldier.”

---

Clementine was a mess by the time she was far away from the train station to feel alone. A walker emerged along the path, no doubt drawn by her breathy sobs. Its boney fingers clawed at her jacket as she struggled against it. The stench of death stung her nose as she kicked its leg out. She threw herself on top of the walker, her sorrow turning to rage as she plunged her knife into its face over and over, splattering her tear-stained face with its dark rotten blood.

“Come on then!” She screamed at the darkness surrounding her. More undead snarls came from the blackness as she raised her knife. One by one they fell. Each stab not nearly as satisfying as she wished it was.

There was something odd about the next walker that challenged her. Something about the way it carried itself was unnervingly alive.

“Stop.” Clementine’s eyes shot wide as the walker spoke to her. She tried to convince herself she imagined it, knife still poised to attack.

To her further surprise, the walker backed away, pushing past two walkers headed in her direction. Picking up a sizable rock, he threw it far into the trees with a few loud thunks that drew the walkers in the other direction.

Clementine stood there shocked, knife still in hand.

“I-I uh…” was all she could muster.

“I’m sorry the herd attacked you. I tried to steer them away but we were already too close. Are you alright?” He spoke lowly, keeping his distance.

As Clem looked closer, she could see human skin peeking out behind the rotted mask. His soft brown eyes clearly not matching the clouded-over look the dead had.

“A Whisperer…” She had heard rumours about a group that wore the skin of walkers in order to live among them, but she could hardly believe such a group actually existed. This boy was young, too. Couldn’t be much older than her.

This world is always full of surprises.

“Not anymore but… I used to be.” He rubbed his arm.

“I’m surprised you’ve heard of them. Most people who encounter the Whisperers aren’t so lucky as to tell the tale.”

“I’ve heard stories.” She sniffed, finally lowered her knife and trying to act composed.

“Didn’t think they were true.”

“You’ll find truth in a lot of stories these days.”

The two stared each other down for a moment. Both unsure but neither threatening. The boy was the first to break the short silence.

“I have a small camp nearby if you’d like you can stay there for the night, and I’ll take you to the school in the morning.” Her eyes widened at that.

“How did you know I was from the school?” Has he been watching them?

“Good guess, I suppose. I’ve lived in this area for a while. I usually stay away from your territory but I know a group of kids live there.” He didn’t mention her only recent appearance. Maybe he was just a loner trying to survive after all.

“I uh, appreciate the offer…”

“J-James.” He studdered, almost unsure.

“I appreciate the offer, James, but I need to get back before they know I’m gone.” She wiped the blood off her face with a shaky hand.

“I’m not supposed to be out by myself. I just needed to get out for a bit and got carried away.” A convincing enough excuse, not that it really needed to be. She could feel his eyes wander to the purple mark on her cheek, but he didn’t bring it up.

“As long as you know your way back. Safe travels.” After that, the two parted ways. James disappeared to rejoin the herd as Clementine continued on towards the school, reaching the walls just as the sky began to lighten.

---

She snuck back into the school the same way she had gotten out. Clementine was exhausted both physically and mentally, her body still shaking and her chest aching with every rapid beat. Even though she was incredibly tired she knew no sleep would come to her in the few hours she had left to rest. Her sloppy footsteps were met with a more steady sounding set as she realized she wasn’t the only “Early Riser” in the dormitory.

“Someone’s up early.” The quiet yet cheerful voice of the exact last person she wanted to see at that moment whispered from behind her.

I hope he didn’t see me sneak in.

“Good morning, Louis.” She stopped for only a second, not turning towards him before continuing to walk towards her room.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” She didn’t answer him as she closed the door behind her.

“Clem?” He sounded worried.

“Are you alright?”

She tried to muffle her sobs with her pillow gripping it for dear life as fell from the bed to the floor. Why did he have to make her feel this way? Why couldn’t she just ignore it?

“Clementine?” Hearing the thump his voice became frantic. When his knocking received no response, he tried the unlocked handle.

Of course, I didn’t fucking lock it.

“Oh my God.” He rushed to her side immediately.

“Clem, please, tell me what’s wrong.”

Clementine couldn’t do this. She just couldn’t take it anymore.

She abandoned her pillow, throwing her arms around Louis’ torso and burying her face into his chest. He didn’t hesitate to return the embrace, resting his chin on the top her head as he stroked her hair.

“It’s alright, Clementine.” He tried to calm her as she practically hyperventilated in his arms.

It wasn’t. It really wasn’t, but her throat was too tight for her to do much but choke out sobs as she sunk into the warmth of the hug.

“Shh… I’m here. I’m right here.” He continued to hold her close as she continued to stain his shirt with tears.

“Please don’t leave.” Her hoarse voice made the words barely audible

“I’m not going anywhere, I promise.” Louis pulled his coat around them both.

“Ever.”

[cudan2]

The Scarf Not Taken

Word Count: 2,035

Summary: Carlisle goes clubbing to get his first taste of the New York nightlife. It doesn’t go quiet as planned.

A/N: Many moons ago, I promised @kellythepitiablefangirl that I’d tell the story of how Carlisle found out he didn’t like clubbing (#6 on my headcanon list). That was Christmas. Of 2016. Woops. Without further ado, here is my terrible writing. (A little Carlisle x Reader because we don’t get enough of that.) Please note that I’ve never actually been to a club and also thanks Kelly for helping me with this!

Masterlist

XXX

“It’ll be fun,” they said. “You’ll like it.”

Oh, how wrong they were.

The night started off with Carlisle standing in his unnecessarily expansive closet. Sounds of crickets chirping and wind blowing through the surrounding New Jersey forests were accompanied by the soft melody of Liszt’s “Liebestraum” coming from speakers in the adjoining bedroom.

Carlisle wore his typical attire: grey slacks, a striped button down, and a knitted pullover – also grey. Of course, no outfit would be complete without a signature scarf he grabbed off from a rack and tied around his neck.

He headed downstairs to meet his family, or just Rosalie and Emmett in this case. Edward and Bella were at Dartmouth and everyone else, including you, happened to be on a two and a half month vacation in Europe.

It was two and a half months too long.

Although Carlisle wished for you to experience the world, he missed the feeling of your body in his arms. He missed seeing your lips purse as you concentrated on something or how you were able to make him feel as though nothing else in the world mattered. He missed you. Despite calling or FaceTiming you nearly every night, it just wasn’t the same.  

Meanwhile, it was one of the several nights Carlisle had off from the hospital – a mandatory break from his boss. With nothing to do, he felt it appropriate to finally experience the modern nightlife near his new home. New York City wasn’t coined “The City that Never Sleeps” for nothing.

However, he wasn’t so sure clubbing was the kind of nightlife he wanted to experience no matter how much Emmett insisted on it. It just didn’t seem like an activity a nearly 380-year-old vampire would be particularly interested in. But then again, he’d been proven wrong before.  

“What are you wearing?” Rosalie exclaimed in horror from the bottom of the staircase the moment Carlisle came into view. He stared curiously at her.

“I was told to dress comfortably.”

“We told you to wear something comfortable. That doesn’t mean you have to look like you’re going to an early-bird special,” Emmett laughed.

“Well technically, I am an old man.”

“But to a human, you are 23. There is no way in hell anyone will let you in dressed like that,” Rosalie scoffed, eying Carlisle’s clothes distastefully. “Alice would keel over if she saw you.”

“She probably did, assuming she wasn’t buying every piece of clothing in Paris. Or y’know, doing the dirty deed with Jazz.” He wiggled his eyebrows before his mate roughly hit his chest. Carlisle’s eyebrows scrunched slightly at Emmett’s crudeness. It was enough to have to live with everyone and their… late night activities. He didn’t need to be reminded of it every other moment.

“Emmett!” She groaned loudly before dragging Carlisle upstairs by the arm. “Argh, you people sometimes! I swear!”

Carlisle walked down the stairs for the second time that night, this time followed by Rosalie. She’d forced him into a barely worn t-shirt, tucked into a pair of dark jeans that were tighter than what he was used to, finally topped off with a blazer. His beloved scarf had been discarded somewhere in his closet. Carlisle hadn’t even left the house yet and he was already feeling out of his element.

Rosalie told him they were using “Uber” to get to the club – something about acting like a normal human. Quite frankly, she had made absolutely no sense to him but he didn’t question her. They knew what they were doing, right?  

Fate just had to prove him wrong though. When Rosalie called for the Uber, Carlisle didn’t expect to see a tiny sedan pull up in front of their house. He also didn’t expect to be forced to sit in the passenger seat, surrounded by the stench of vomit, cigarettes, garbage, and what he suspected was some sort of illegal substance. The driver was shaking and for some asinine reason, no one decided to get out of the car.

“Are you alright?” Carlisle asked.

The driver turned towards him and offered a lopsided, toothy grin. “Awesome, dude!”

Carlisle couldn’t ignore the red eyes and dilated pupils that stared back at him. He stiffened and sent a mental prayer that they wouldn’t get into an accident.

The hour it took to get from the outskirts of Alpine to the Meatpacking District was one of the most uncomfortable experiences he’s ever endured. After a while, Carlisle had resigned to holding his breath in order to stop inhaling in the horrid smells. It was almost as bad as a candle store.

Carlisle sighed. Rosalie and Emmett seemed like they were having fun so far though.  

After paying the driver, the three of them stepped out of the cramped car, and the sedan sped off to endanger someone else’s life.  

The street was bathed in glaring red lights. Sweat and alcohol infiltrated his nose and loud music flowed out from club, assaulting his ears.

They made their way towards the end of a line already wrapped around the block. Both the men and women lining the wall eyed him – some with lust, others with awe or envy. He swore it was the pants that put him on display like that.

Oh, how he wished you could be here tonight with him. At least then he wouldn’t be so inclined to sprint off. With every minute that passed by, Carlisle felt the urge to go home becoming stronger and stronger. Honestly, how those two managed to peer pressure him into clubbing was beyond him. And Carlisle thought he was the one with self-control.

Over an hour and a half had passed by the time they even reached the inside of the club. Carlisle felt the thundering bass reverberate through his chest while the artist spat out words at a rapid fire. Every corner of the club was packed with people either getting drinks or… good god, was that seriously what people considered dancing nowadays?

He felt a light tap on his shoulder and turned around.

“Dance with me!” a girl that barely looked 21 shouted at him. He smelled the alcohol roll off her with every breath she took. Carlisle wildly looked around for Emmett and Rosalie before realizing that he’d been abandoned.

Of course they would leave him.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea…”

“Come on! It’ll be fun!” She then began grinding against him much to his surprise. He tried to step back, but there were just too many people around him to move away far enough.

He didn’t enjoy this at all. How you would react if you found out this happened… he couldn’t even fathom it.

“Hey! Get the fuck away from my girlfriend!” Carlisle felt a hand on his shoulder and took this as a cue to quickly step aside and dodge a fist flying towards him. Another fist came at him but was easily dodged again. He mentally groaned. Why on earth did he agree to come here tonight?

“Please, I believe there was a misunderstanding,” Carlisle said before any bystanders could get hurt.

“I don’t give a shit! Stay away from her if you know what’s good for you,” the boyfriend huffed, realizing he wouldn’t be able to land any hits, and stomped away with the girlfriend.

Carlisle stared after them in bewilderment. He was definitely too old to be dealing with these sorts of things, or that was how he felt in comparison to everyone else in this cramped place.

To avoid that… situation again, he made his way towards the bar where the crowd was thinning. Bad luck seemed to strike once more. Not paying attention to where he was going, Carlisle bumped into another body and what smelled like vodka spilled onto his blazer. Now Alice was going to kill him when she got home.

“You asshole! That was seventeen dollars!” a man seethed at him.

“I’m terribly sorry about that. Perhaps I could buy you another–”

“Just get out of my sight. I can get my own drink.” The man pushed pass Carlisle, muttering more obscenities under his breath.

Carlisle sighed for what seemed like the millionth time tonight. Clubbing really wasn’t meeting any of his expectations, even if those expectations were practically nonexistent to begin with.

The vodka was starting to soak through the blazer. He maneuvered through a sea of people and finally discovered a bathroom in the back. Opening the door, he found the room to be just as filthy as predicted. The dim lights did nothing to hide the revolting grime on the floor, the shattered mirrors, or the peeling paint. He was almost afraid to walk further than the doorframe. He heard a loud moan and looked towards the one stall – a shaking stall. Two pairs of legs could be seen.

Carlisle decided that he had truly entered the first ring of hell itself.

He swiftly turned around, blazer be damned, only to find someone running towards him. He meant to move out of the way, but it was too late. Vomit spilled onto his shoes and formed a puddle where he stood. There was nothing he could do but stand there.

“I’m so sorry about my friend!” a woman came rushing up.

“It’s… fine…” He offered them a strained smile. The woman helped her friend into the bathroom behind him. Carlisle shook the vomit off his shoes, or as much would come off anyway. It was time to go home.  

Skirting around the crowd to avoid being seen, Carlisle ran for the closest exit he could find. The cool air blew across his face as he darted back to New Jersey, sending a quick text to Rosalie and Emmett to let them know that he’d left. Cars and streetlights quickly morphed into blurs of trees. Somewhere along the way, his vomit-covered shoes found home in a dumpster.

He didn’t notice that your scent had filled the house once again when he came home. Too focused on the terrible night he just had, Carlisle hadn’t realized he wasn’t alone until he heard the sound of a page turning from upstairs. He sprinted to the bedroom you both shared and there you were, sitting up in bed with a book in your hands and wearing only your underwear and one of his long-sleeved shirts.

“You’re home,” he breathed out.

You looked up from the book with a smirk playing on your lips. “I am.”

In less than a second, you were in his arms. He twirled you around the room, kissing you as though it’d been years since you last saw each other. Neither of you could contain the laughter that permeated through the air when he put you down. His hands cupped you cheeks, golden eyes gazing down at the face he’s thought about for so long. Nothing else mattered now that you were home.

“You have no idea how much I have missed you, my darling. Why are you here? I thought you weren’t supposed to be home for another two weeks. Where is everyone else?” Carlisle continued his questions until you shushed him with another lingering kiss. His hands slowly moved down to your waist as you wrapped your arms around his neck.

“Carlisle!” you giggled, eyes twinkling with mirth. “Calm down, Alice just thought you could use some cheering up after the night you’ve had. I cannot believe you of all people went clubbing.”

A wry expression formed on his face. “I didn’t particularly care for it.”

Another laugh escaped from you. “Of course you didn’t. Clubbing isn’t fun when you’re incapable of getting drunk.” Oh. Carlisle mentally reminded himself to confront Emmett and Rosalie about that later.

“Alice should’ve sent you sooner. It would have spared me from that awful experience.” His forehead came to rest on yours, but you nudged him back.

“Okay, as much as I love you and would love to spend the rest of eternity like this, please go take a shower,” you pushed him towards the bathroom. “You smell disgusting.”

“My apologies, darling. Perhaps you could join me?” Carlisle offered, grinning.

“Maybe when you stop smelling like a bad college memory.”      

[vizhi0n]

Sawney - Part 37

Chapter Masterlist

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HELLLO. 

Okay I’m so so sorry for being so annoying with this bc I legit update every day, sometimes twice a day and I don’t want to annoy anyone. So if I am let me know srsly I can take it. But anywho, I hope ya’ll enjoy this chapter. It’s probably one of my favs and I’m super proud of how it turned out. Thank you guys so much for reading - we’re essentially in the final stretch of this fic now. 

Warnings: Gore, language. Fun stuff.

“We start moving when the sun sets,” Alpha said. She glanced back down at Carl, then Desa. “We take these two with us.”

“We’re taking the bus, correct?”

“The herd is too far out. No amount of noise will be able to redirect them from our position,” Alpha explained. “The girl is with us, now. We’ll execute the boy if he causes too much trouble. Until then, he is an investment with potential.”

Carl was groaning, holding his ribcage. Dried blood caked his lips and nose. Desa was hovering over the boy, shielding him with her own body as Beta and Alpha surveyed them as if they were prey.

“Load them up.”

Desa and Carl were dragged. The bus was parked by the tree line, its colors old and worn down. The yellow had been sprayed with graffiti, the windows smashed in. One of the Whisperer’s remained up front, while the other two ushered Carl and Desa to their seats.

A shout.

Desa and Carl’s head whipped to the side. They craned their necks, trying to see where the sound had come from.

“That’s my dad!” Carl hissed. One of the Whisperer’s stepped closer, but that didn’t deter Carl from rising to his feet so he could get a better look.

He wasn’t wrong. Rick was standing before Alpha and Beta, an almost casual tilt to his hips. Desa’s eyes narrowed — there was no way he’d come alone. Then again, the man was bold, and stubborn as a mule. He was clearly outnumbered, and the Whisperer’s behind Beta and Alpha had perked up, hands on their weapons.

It had to be a trap.

“Sit down,” one of the Whisperer’s planted a firm hand on Carl’s shoulder, pushing the boy back into the seat.

When Desa turned back to look out the window, something had gone wrong. Whether it was intentional or not, Rick was diving to the ground as bullets began to fly, all coming from the direction of the trees. Desa ducked, before lifting her head to peer out once more.

Alpha and Beta were running. And then, appearing behind Rick, was the one person she’d been longing to see.

“Negan!” Desa screamed as loud as she could. His head whipped to the side and he shouted something. Again, Desa yelled, “Ne—”

She was cut off mid word. One of the Whisperer’s backhanded her, but she snapped forward and clamped down, hard, upon his exposed wrist. Her teeth pierced the skin and he screamed, just as Alpha and Beta burst onto the bus.

“Drive!” Alpha snarled.

Desa released the Whisperer. The bus was assaulted with bullets, and she promptly fell to the floor. Carl did the same. It was too late, and the vehicle was bouncing across the field and towards the main road.

“Shit,” Desa murmured, scrambling to look back out the window. Rick and his people were in pursuit, tearing onto the asphalt in their own vehicles. Not taking her eyes off the road, she shouted to Alpha and Beta, “Nice job choosing a bus! These things are slow as shit!”

The Whisperer she’d bitted yanked her by the hair, into the aisle, and she screamed. Carl lunged but was held back. Beta, the top of his head fully touching the ceiling, began walking over with a scowl on his face.

He drew his knife.

“Easy, Beta,” Alpha said from the front.

Before he could do, well, whatever it was he was going to do, the bus rattled, the impact knocking almost everyone to the floor. An engine revving sounded from outside, and Desa dared a peek outside — a jeep was pushing against the side of the bus, driven by Michonne and a dark-haired girl Desa didn’t recognize.

“Desa!” Carl warned. When she looked up, Beta had regained his footing and was bringing his curved knife down towards her face.

Desa brought her arms up to meet him halfway. The blade pierced her wrists, just a bit, while the rest sliced clean through the rope holding her hands together. She retaliated immediately, aiming for the first part of Beta that she saw — his crotch.

Beta howled. A second of celebration, and then Desa was tackled, cheek connecting brutally hard with the window of the bus. The entire vehicle shifted to the side, driving Michonne and the dark-haired woman off the road and into a ditch.

Gunfire shattered the glass of the back emergency exit. In her peripheral, Desa saw Alpha’s shoulder spewing blood. The Whisperer holding her dropped, a clean hole blown through the side of his head. She immediately began digging through the corpse of the Whisperer, yanking his knife from his belt.

Before Beta could intervene, she began cutting Carl’s bonds. Alpha, holding her wounded shoulder, snarled, “They’re up on top!”

 Footsteps pounded from the roof of the bus, and Beta have a roar of frustration. The moment the emergency hatch began to shake, he charged, giving Carl and Desa no time to brace themselves. He batted Carl to the side as if he weighed nothing, seizing Desa by her shirt.

She screamed.

The emergency hatch opened. Negan and Regina dropped to the floor. A Whisperer lunged and Regina blew a hole through his skull, before turning her gun on Alpha.

Beta saw, and he reacted by tossing Desa through the air. She slammed, hard, into Regina, both women crashing to the ground like a pair of bowling pins. Air left Desa’s lung like a vacuum, and she gasped. Her ears rang and she scrunched up her face, inhaling through her nose. Her entire body hurt. So, so terribly bad.

Alpha, the driver, and Beta were the only ones left. She shakily looked over her shoulder and saw Beta advancing on Carl and Negan, dwarfing both with ease. An intimidated look flashed across Negan’s face, and he gripped Lucille tightly.

Regina, dazed from the fall, scrambled to her feet, and to Desa’s horror, Alpha sprung into the isle.

It was over in a second.

Alpha’s knife pierced the side of Regina’s neck, coming out the other end. Blood gushed from the wound and she gurgled, reaching out to grip Alpha’s shoulder. It did nothing, and her knees buckled. Desa turned away in horror, sparing a glance behind her. Beta was backing Negan and Carl towards the emergency exit, footsteps unwavering. He would trap them, and kill them. 

So Desa, tearing her eyes away from Regina’s corpse, stood and ran. She threw her full weight against Beta, clinging to his back and doing the only thing she could think of doing — she bit into an exposed sliver of flesh just past his shoulder.

He bellowed, and she saw Negan and Carl scramble towards the emergency hatch. Using the seats as support, Carl went first, lifting himself onto the bus’ roof. The entire time, Desa clung to Beta’s back. She only released him when she felt sinewy flesh come free, her hold on his loosening as blood flooded the back of her throat, making her gag. Her rear hit the floor and she spat out the chunk of meat.

Alpha, wounded, slumped against the wall with a glare on her face. Beta was still bellowing, holding his own wound. Negan took advantage of the opportunity, helping Desa to her feet.

They clambered through the emergency exit, Carl and Desa hauling Negan up with them. Lying flat on their stomachs, Desa glanced over the side and saw herself staring at the flatbed of a truck, Drake’s arm hanging from the driver’s seat.

“That’s our ride,” Negan rumbled. “Jump!”

Two things crossed Desa’s mind: she was afraid of heights, and slamming into the flatbed of a moving truck hurt much, much more than she’d anticipated. She crumpled, knees first, before landing on her back. The truck bounced on its axels as Carl joined, and then Negan.

The bus swerved, suddenly, prompting Drake to serve. Before Desa could say anything, the truck flew from the road, dipping head first into the narrow drainage ditch by the side of the road. Desa, Carl and Negan tumbled from the back before landing in a heap of tangled limbs. Once again, the wind was knocked from Desa’s body, and she felt drain water soak through her clothes.

“Nice job Drake!” Negan bellowed, wincing in pain and holding his shoulder. “Pretty sure I just broke every bone in my fucking body!”

Smoke seeped from the hood, and Drake fell from the drivers seat. The car was cloudy on the inside, the airbags having deployed, full force.

“Sorry,” Drake groaned, falling to his knees and holding his head. His eyes fell across Carl, and he said, “Shit, uh…the kid isn’t moving.”

Desa immediately flipped Carl onto his back. She checked his pulse — he was unconscious.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Negan groaned, staggering to his feet. His head whipped back and forth. “Where the fuck are they?”

“Got caught up by biters. A bunch flooded the road. We were so far ahead…,” Drake trailed off. “We need to move. Like, now. They’re coming.”

Groans filled the air. Gurgling, gasping groans that made Desa’s blood run cold. She felt Carl’s cheeks, checking his pulse once more out of instinct. She grabbed his hat from where it had fallen, placing it atop her head before hooking her arms beneath him.

“I’m not saying it’s the right thing to do, but we could, you know, leave the kid,” Drake wiped blood from his forehead. “Uh, shit.”

A few biters toppled into the drainage ditch, landing with a splash. Negan squeezed Desa’s shoulder and said, “I’ve got him.”

Drake drew his gun and fired, downing a biter. Negan, holding Carl in a vice grip, began limping towards the woods. Another biter fell, then another, flooding the ditch.

“Drake, cmon!” Desa shouted.

Another gunshot. Then Drake turned and began limping, his movements slower than Negan. Getting out of the ditch was going to be difficult. They were all wounded, to some degree. Drake fired, and fired, occasionally glancing over his shoulder, before a biter yanked at his shirt. 

“Drake!”

“Go!” Drake waved an arm as Negan, Carl in his arms, crawled up the steep, muddy slope. When he lost his footing and nearly fell, Desa began pushing him from behind. Drake was still fighting, attempting to keep them at bay — it wasn’t working, and with a final shove, he turned and limped with vigor from the ditch, Desa in tow.

They were still overrun. The biters looped in from the right, hobbling towards what they assumed to be their next meal. Desa wiped mud and sweat from her brow, cursing. Beside her, Negan repositioned Carl in her arms.

All of a sudden, his face paled.

“Drake?”

“What?”

“Your neck.”

Desa’s first instinct was to do nothing. She just stared. The bite mark was bleeding, but it was a bite mark, right above his collarbone.

And Drake, like her, did nothing. He just glanced down at the wound, and then glanced at Negan, acknowledging the horrified look on his face, and then at Desa.

“Tis’ but a scratch.”

“This…is not the time to be quoting Monty Python,” Desa said hollowly. “Drake…”

He just shrugged. He turned back towards the tide of biters, extending a hand and gesturing for Desa and Negan to get back.

“Go. Seriously. I’ll handle this.”

“Drake, we’re not leaving—”

“I’m giving you guys time. Being the hero or whatever,” Drake drew his knife and advanced. Over his shoulder, he called, “Take the kid and get out of here. And don’t die.”

Then, he began yelling. Waving his arms and his knife. The biters point of interest changed in that very moment, and they began shifting towards Drake as he hooted and howled and swung his knife, slowly inching towards the woods.

“C’mon,” Negan murmured. “Desa, let’s go.”

“I can’t—”

“You have to leave him. Let him go.”

Desa’s feet carried her, mind blank. Every once and a while she’d turn, watching Drake advancing farther and farther into the woods. The fifth time Desa looked back, she could see the color of his clothes and the glint of his knife. His hoots and howls had transformed into shrieks of agony. Teeth tore chunks away from his flesh, the dead descending upon him like a swarm of bees. His cries eventually became gurgles.

And then, there was nothing left.

[fangurk]

When I Was Your Man (Jacob Black x ex! reader)

Key-

Y/n - Your name  Y/l/n - Your last name   Y/e/c - your eye color                      Y/h/c - your hair color

Prompt - Songfic based on Bruno Mars’ “When I Was Your Man”. Jacob severely neglected the reader for Bella and they broke up with him. After this Jacob realizes how much he loved them through flashbacks due to certain items, the next time he sees the reader they’re with Embry...the wolf that imprinted on them.(A lot of gifs sorry!)

Word Count - 1,618

“Same bed but it feels just a little bit bigger now“

Jacob turned in his bed and looked to the empty side, the side where Y/n used to sleep. His mind immediately flashed back to the good mornings they spent together, the mornings when he’d turn to see them with a goofy smile and a crazy bed head. The two would share a small kiss and Y/n would play with Jake’s hair while they talked, but those were the good mornings.

Those were the mornings before Jake phased, before Bella clung to him, before he began to neglect the one person who loved him for someone who didn’t. Jacob blew the air from his cheeks as an aching feeling filled his heart, the bed felt so empty without his lovely Y/n……

“Our song on the radio but it don't sound the same”

Jacob, Quil, and Seth sat around in the Black’s garage as Jake continues tinkering on his car. The other two wolves did most of the talking and Jake would occasionally let out his input from his place rolled under the car, eventually Seth grew quite bored of the awkward silences and put on the radio. Jacob took a break and sat on the creeper while drinking some soda, laughing occasionally when Quil and Seth would burst into song when they heard specific lyrics of their favorite songs.

The atmosphere was light and happy, buzzing with energy until the spokesperson announced what song the station was going to play. Seth and Quil watched as the smile left Jake’s face slowly, watched as the pain etched into his face with certain lyrics. He could see Y/n, singing along to the song as he drove them both on dates and the song played.

The way their y/e/c eyes would light up as they’d belt the lyrics, the way they’d dance in the passenger seat along to the beat and a blush would cover their cheeks when they noticed he was watching them. The aching feeling came back just a little stronger this time and Quil shut off the radio, sure Jacob liked the song but it just wasn’t the same without Y/n there…

“When our friends talk about you, all it does is just tear me down 'Cause my heart breaks a little when I hear your name”

Jacob hadn’t seen Charlie since before the breakup, neither of you had. People would always say that he and Billy Black were the relationships biggest supporters, they were the type that believed you’d get married. That’s why when Jake saw Charlie’s cruiser pull up a lump formed in his throat, at least Charlie wasn’t one for making a huge scene in public.

He made it to the living room when the chief walked into the house, his dark eyes immediately searching for his friend and his kid.

“Hey Charlie” Jacob greeted in a fake cheery voice, hoping to god that Charlie wouldn’t bring up Y/n at all.

“Hey Jake, where’s Y/n? You and that kid share a brain” Charlie asked with a smile, a twinge of pain shot through Jake’s chest as he remembered the fishing trip they all went on a year ago.

Y/n had spent a good fraction of the time complaining about the bugs and sun glare, the other fraction though they had been absolutely adorable to Jake. He remembers their concentrating face, the way their nose would wrinkle and eyes would squint as they tried to patiently wait for a fish to bite their line.

Charlie watched the smile fall from the young boys face in confusion, Billy sighed and gave Jake a sad smile.

“We broke up a few weeks ago” and Charlie immediately felt awkward and horrible.

“I didn’t know kid, I’m sorry” The chief said sincerely and Jacob smiled a sad smile.

“It’s alright Charlie, you didn’t know”. Jacob was starting to understand why his heart hurt so bad when he thought of you…

“too dumb to realize;That I should have bought you flowers; And held your hand ;Should have gave you all my hours When I had the chance;Take you to every party 'cause all you wanted to do was dance”

Only after the breakup settled with him did Jacob enjoy the pack mind, it was always clustered and he was always distracted from his thoughts.

This was until Jared begged Jacob to run his rounds for him so he could see his imprint, Jacob only said yes because Jared was extremely persistent and who was he to deny Jared sex or love?

His paws thudded against the ground as he ran watch for both him and Jared, his abnormally large wolf body wading through the trees perfectly as he kept his senses aware for the sick smell of leeches. His dark eyes skimming the trees around him so he didn’t crash suddenly when he saw an indent in one that made him skid to a stop, once finally stopped Jacob went over to the tree and got a better look at the indentation.

An older mark showed that a heart was carved into an area where the bark was peeled off, inside the heart were the initials of Jacob and Y/n’s names.

A high-pitched wailing whine fell from Jacob’s wolf, the heart had scratches over top of it that looked a few weeks old. The scratches were made with a human’s nails, he sniffed it and it smelt of his sweet Y/n. No not his anymore, he ruined their relationship.

He was too stupid to realize that Y/n needed him just as much as Bella did, maybe more. He realized that Y/n deserved him giving them their favorite flowers because the damn flowers always cheered them up, always brought the smile that Jake loved to their face.

Jacob realized just how much Y/n loved PDA, realized that he should have held their hand instead of been texting and conversing with Bella. Jacob registered that he could’ve spent so much more time with his significant other between pack meetings and spending time with Bella, instead he spent all his extra time with Bella.

He could’ve stayed late with Y/n when they had dates or went to parties so they could dance, he knew how much they loved dancing and he could’ve let them do what they loved. Now he couldn’t do that though, because he broke them up with all of his neglect….

“Now my baby's dancing; But she's dancing with another man”

Jacob picked at the muffin on his plate, ever since he realized everything he did his mood has been even worse. It didn’t help that no one knew where his best friend had gone last night, Embry had suddenly disappeared.

“Jacob…” Leah sighed from beside him, patting his arm lightly because she understood how he was feeling now but knew it was his fault.

“I’m fine Leah” Jake grumbled shoving another piece of muffin in his mouth, Paul snorted from across the table and shook his head while shoving food in his mouth.

“Hey guys” Embry’s cheery voice called through the air and everyone erupted into questions, Jake though that Sam was going to kill him judging by his tone of voice.

“I’m sorry Sam, I was with my imprint” Embry said scratching the back of his neck before the pack collectively asked “You Imprinted!?”

The lanky boy chuckled nervously at his packmates before glancing at Jacob, Embry gulped and sat as far away as he could.

“Yeah and they really like to dance, I didn’t keep track of time” After he spoke Embry grabbed some food and immediately looked down at it.

Jacob heard ringing, his heart began thumping in his chest as that painful aching feeling filled his chest again but now it was four times as strong.

He now knew why Embry sat away from him.

“Are you serious?” It came out a little colder than Jacob first expected and Embry shrunk slightly in his seat.

“Yeah…everyone I imprinted on Y/n” Embry said and the pack double took, Jacob ran outside and phased before running into the woods.

“It’s alright Embry” Sam said before following the extremely loud whines and yowls coming from the woods outside his house….

“My pride, my ego, my needs, and my selfish ways; Caused a good strong woman like you to walk out my life; Now I never, never get to clean up the mess I made, oh; And it haunts me every time I close my eyes”

Sam, Jared, and Paul followed Jacob into the woods and phased. They all stayed quiet as they heard all the thoughts swirling through Jacob’s mind, all of them whining as they feel the pain radiating off him.

All he could think about was how much he fucked up, Y/n was the best thing that ever happened to him and he neglected them. They loved him and he loved them, he still loved them and he let it go on some schoolboy crush.

He let Y/n go and now he could never ever get them back, he could never right the wrongs he’d done. He was so self-congratulatory that Bella had seemingly chosen him over the bloodsucker that he focused on her, not the one who actually loved him and cared for his wellbeing.

Y/n was one of the strongest people in his life, they were his rock throughout everything and he broke their heart.

But now they were gone and never coming back to him, all because of him. Why was he such an idiot? Bella never loved him and now ruined everything

“Although it hurts; I'll be the first to say that I was wrong; Oh, I know I'm probably much too late; To try and apologize for my mistakes; But I just want you to know I hope he buys you flowers; I hope he holds your hand; Give you all his hours; When he has the chance; Take you to every party: 'Cause I remember how much you loved to dance; Do all the things I should have done ;When I was your man ;Do all the things I should have done ;When I was your man”

Jacob was laughing for the first time in weeks, he and Leah had been joking around for a good portion of this bonfire when they saw two people walk down. Y/n was walking next to Embry and he wrapped his arms around their shoulders, Leah smiled and Jacob couldn’t help the sad smile that came to his lips. It was much too late for him to take back everything but he had apologized and they made up, slowly a friendship was blossoming.

Embry was perfect for them, it was everything Jacob hoped would happen to Y/n. Embry gave them the attention they deserved, He bought them their favorite flowers on a daily basis, Embry loved showing them off and holding their hand, He took them to so many parties because both he and Jake knew how much Y/n loves parties.

Embry did everything for Y/n and sometimes it made Jacob smile, he did everything Jake didn’t do when he was their man.

[notsdlifter]

Kill Hollows: Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO:

THE FACILITATOR

Robert Warrington’s Journal

Token-Oak, Summer of 1996

8888 days before the Syndemic

I didn't see Jacob again for a long time. He spent two years committed at Shadow Mountain. They taught him, according to the grandparents, the “tools to cope.” By the time Jacob got released, he was equipped to “handle the peaks and valleys of life.” Unfortunately, those peaks were too high and those valleys too low.

I moved from Token-Oak to live with an Aunt Gina in the “big city” 300 miles away. Gina was a domineering woman who worked the night shift at a local hospital making beds and mopping floors. She lived in a mobile home nearby the hospital. Even though her house had four wheels and no yard, she kept it meticulously clean. No matter what the excuse, I was not to wake her from sleep. I spent my days tiptoeing around a rickety trailer barely grabbing door handles and plates just trying to survive. The only thing that didn’t wake Gina was reading, so I devoured books on my twin bed at the end of the trailer.

Aunt Gina and I visited Token-Oak on holidays, and even that became rare. The grandparents sent me cards on birthdays, and we had the occasional phone call filled with the truncated dialectic between the elderly and children: “[question]: how was [blank]” . . . “[answer]: it was good.” About once a year, the grandparents would visit. Most of the news I heard about Jacob was cliched mundanities about how he was “finding his way” or “the Lord’s plan for him is different.”

It wasn't until I was in high school that I saw Jacob again for any meaningful stretch. I'd bought my first car and itched to take my first trip. Vegas was out of the question. Even a day trip to the Lake of the Ozarks made my aunt nervous. Eventually, she agreed to let me stay with family. One summer morning, I loaded up my car and headed back.

Token-Oak had been calling me home ever since I left. On the drive back—my teenage nervousness with driving on the highway in full bloom—I thought about all the things I hated about the place: the smallminded bigotry of the town, the anger everyone seemed to wear around their neck like 7,000 scarves, and those fucking oak trees, dying everywhere. The broken fingers of their limbs reaching up into the sky like the tiny fingers of long-dead children. Most of all, though, I thought about that man on the driveway. I’d had dreams about his black gums for years. Waking up sweating, breathing in short puffs to avoid the ammonia stench, I’d curse the thought of Token-Oak.

I had to see it again. I had to.

Jacob was living in a dilapidated home on the south side of town. As Token-Oak’s first neighborhood, Old Town houses were built at the turn of the nineteenth century. Big houses with sprawling lawns, there was a time when well-to-do citizens lived in Old Town. In 1955, the tire plant was built nearby, and a smoky haze blanketed the area. A few years later, an oil drilling company bought a plot of land across the road from the tire plant. All through the night, the clanging of pipes and the smell of burning rubber filled the air. Families left nice cape cods and Tudor homes to flee the nuisance. Over the years, Old Town buildings and homes turned black from the smoke. Rough necks and immigrants working nearby filled the neighborhood.

Jacob bought a home there, an L-shaped two-story in between a flop house for illegals and a home with all the glass broken out and no front door.

I met Jacob one Saturday, and he was raving about his new business on the outskirts of town. The tires of his new pickup thumped as we drove over railroad tracks into a neighborhood with single room cinderblock houses. A few of the houses were ashen-black with burnt roofs and shattered windows. Many others sat abandoned like open sores on a very sick patient. The lawns were dust patches littered with trash and dilapidated automobiles. Front doors of many of the houses sat wide open like amazed faces. The smell of ether singed the air.

A pregnant dog with enlarged teats darted out of a leafless bush. As we rolled through, I felt suspicious and alert and nostalgic at the same time.

At the edge of this neighborhood, there was an aluminum building with a steel door. It was surrounded by a ten-foot razor wire fence with a remote gate.  In the back of the building, there was a garage door with two commercial padlocks. White gravel was thickly spread throughout the storefront. On a long, skinny piece of plywood, a sign outside hung under the peak of the roof that read “Buy, Sell, and Trade.” It was an old-style sign, a pure anachronism that should have read “general store” or “saloon.” The remote gate slid open, and Jacob and I pulled inside.

“What is this? A pawnshop?” I said, looking up at the sign.

“Better,” Jacob said, striding to the entrance. 

He pulled out a ring of keys and plucked one from a set of two dozen. After inserting the keys in the lock, he looked left and right then leaned to glance around the back of the building. He raised his eyebrows when he saw me watching him “C'est la vie,” he said. When the door opened, he turned off an alarm near the front and hit several switches of lights. There was a large sign at the entrance that read “NO MORE THAN EIGHT PEOPLE IN THE STORE AT A TIME” in block letters.

The store had shelves on every wall. On each, as best I could tell, sat jugs, glass pitchers, rubber tubing, and all kinds of chemicals. The wares displayed were a mixture of garden supply store, indoor pool cleaning agents, and farming chemicals. In the far corner, there were generators of various sizes. In the back, there were two, 2,000-gallon trailers marked with anhydrous ammonia.

There were no prices listed on any item.

As I walked around the store, Jacob stepped behind the counter and pulled up a bar stool. He smiled while nodding his head. He spread his arms and swept the shop with his eyes. After a deep breath, he blew it out like a puff off a $50 cigar. He pulled out from behind the counter a double-barreled shotgun. He broke the gun open, looked in the barrels, confirmed it was loaded then snapped it shut.

“You know what it is now?” Jacob said, standing.

“It’s a store for chemicals?” I said.

“Am I going to have to spell it out for you?”

“He touched a shelf near the door that had smaller bottles and batteries. “You got your lower rung shake and bake stuff here.” He stepped a few feet to the right next to matches and a series of plastic jugs and tubes. “Here is your Nazi Cold/P2P cook.” He stepped back a little further to a steel tank and near the generators. “I can even provide the necessaries for an industrial cook. Top quality shit, too.” And he banged a 500-gallon steel drum that reverberated through the room in a loud wobble.

“You can legally do this?” I said.

“What’s illegal here? Name one thing. Hell, I am even a licensed dealer for the fertilizer. Check the name on the jeans, broseph! That says it all.” He pointed to the back of his jeans at the Levi’s logo.

Jacob told me about his hero: Levi Strauss. During the 1849 California gold rush, hundreds of thousands of miners hit the hills and streams of rural Cali looking to strike it rich. Only a few of them found gold and fewer still made money. Most ended up broke, desperate, and dead in pursuit of the dream. But “Uncle Levi” was a visionary, instead of focusing on the unlikely profits, he outfitted gold rushers with new pants, double stitched with denim fabric. He made a killing, and his empire grew, according to Jacob, by “feeding the frenzy.” 

“Sutter’s Mill is now in shambles. But Levi’s has a corporate headquarters on the San Fran pier that ships clothes worldwide.”

“So, you’re outfitting the meth crisis?”

“Nah. I’m a facilitator,” Jacob said as he grabbed the shotgun on the counter and rested it on his hip. Jacob was posturing again, and the message he wanted to convey was clear: he was not to be fucked with. He explained his profit margins and how he tipped the police to “unusual purchases” so they never gave him any trouble. There was a specific dealer, a “skinhead with a bridge piercing and facial tattoo” that bought over half his supplies each month and paid for information about any new cooks.

“Who is this guy?” I asked.

“He is quiet—comes late—after dark. He pulls his truck in the garage and takes a tank of anhydrous and some parts. Pays cash and asks who’s cooking. Some weeks, I make three or four thousand off of him alone.”

“Four thousand… in a week?”

Jacob laughed and slapped the counter.

Jacob walked to the window and pulled the string on a neon open sign. He pressed a button to open the front gate. A razor wire chain link on wheels rattled backward. Jacob walked back to the barstool on the counter and sat down with his shotgun within reach. “Watch this,” he said with a wry smile. In less than ten minutes, the place was filling up with “customers.”

The first person to shuffle in was a woman in her mid-thirties. She had wild, red hair and her freckled skin was pockmarked with sores. The skin on her face sagged in flabby pouches so I could see the outline of her skull. She blinked often and hard. A blue T-shirt that had holes across the belly had a picture of a grey wolf.  It took me a while to realize that these were cigarette burns.

Her focus was in the shake and bake section. She picked up a two-liter bottle and a few packages of batteries. She shuffled to the counter, set them down, and stepped back with her eyes on the floor.

“Fifty,” Jacob said, staring a hole through the woman.

She pulled out a fifty, slid it across the counter, and picked up her supplies. She shuffled out the shop without making a sound. There was a rhythm to purchasing materials from the store, and she knew it well. In less than a minute, she disappeared between two houses.

“You see that?” Jacob said, smiling. “That’s respect. First time, she gave me trouble. But I put that shit down quick.”

“Fifty for a bottle and two batteries? That’s crazy.”

“Yeah,” he said through a pride-filled smile. “She’s going back to her house to start a batch in her little bottle. In a few hours, she’ll have a thousand dollars’ worth of “dirty meth.” He said she was a “small-timer,” but a steady customer. “In a way, she’s smart,” he said. “She does just enough to avoid being tracked by the cops or put down by the big timers.”

A few minutes later, the shop filled up with more customers. Several of which looked like they were in high school. They were looking in the “Nazi Cold” area. One of them, a kid with a backward cap and skinny jeans below his waist, picked up a jug and some tubing and brought them to the counter.

He leaned in close to Jacob and said in a suggestive whisper, “So . . . I need heat to break down pseudo or can I do it cold?”

Jacob’s face contorted into a snarl so intense his eyebrows covered half of his eyes. The kid stepped back and exchanged a glance with his friends. This question, it was clear, was not part of the well-established shop etiquette. Jacob reached up and grabbed the materials from the kid’s hands. He set them behind the counter. And walked around and seized the kid by the shoulder.

“Get the fuck out of here. I don’t know what you think, but we don’t do that here.”

I saw then that Jacob had indeed matured into a man. It wasn’t a display of force—I have no doubt he would have hit that kid if necessary—it was the fact he showed calculated restraint in handling the situation.

Jacob watched them all leave. He sat back down and explained that high schoolers just getting into the trade often wandered in the store. He did not allow store customers to discuss the making of meth inside—“no synthesis talk, no exceptions.” Most importantly, he explained, he did not make scenes with the kids. According to Jacob, they had “parents, people that cared.” A corollary to the rule, Jacob treated full-blown addicts differently.

A man walked in wearing a dirty wife-beater and itching at a ragged beard. There was an instant tension when he entered the shop. His eyes were glazed, and his fat tongue bulged in his mouth. He looked fifty but had the bouncy movements of a younger man. The skin on his arms hung in flabby rivulets riddled with acne. He had a tattoo, an Aztec chieftain astride a pyramid of skulls, with bold lettering, the phrase “Aztlán” coiling up one arm to the base of his chin. There were seven black teardrops tattooed on a single cheek. His eyes connected with the two tanks near the back of the store and he shifted in that direction.

Jacob saw the man walk past and stood behind the counter and scowled.

“Those are ag only!” Jacob said loud enough to grab everyone’s attention. The man stopped and looked Jacob up and down. Two tweakers near the door slipped out. Another customer froze and started shaking. I noticed a bulge in the man’s belt at the base of his spine. When he turned to square up with Jacob, I saw it was a gun. Guns tell the truth. You can tell a person’s experience with firearms by the way they walk. This man had been carrying for a long time.

I held my breath as I stepped back from the counter towards the back of the store. My nerves took over, and my knees shook.

The man smiled at Jacob, exposing a row of golden teeth.

“Necessito… fifty gallons,” the man said in Spanish accent.

“Motherfucker, that’s AG-RI-CUL-TUR-AL only.” Jacob’s hands reached under the counter and his fingers wrapped around a shotgun.

The man looked at the tanks and back at Jacob. There was a stillness in the room as the man’s eyes danced over the store. There was a calculus occurring in his head. When he reached the end of his conclusion, he chuckled. I heard confidence in that laugh, a sound that said he had no problems putting blood on the floor.

He reached behind his back while exposing his horsey teeth.

I hoped to make it to the back of the store, but I knocked into a pallet of aluminum cans, sending them crashing to the cement floor.

An electric snap of a tazer vibrated through the room. There was a hollow moan that mimicked the sound of the electric current. The man grabbed his chest while going down to one knee. Jacob jumped the counter with his shotgun, landing with both feet. Raising the butt of the shotgun, Jacob struck the man in the face with the butt of the gun. He caught him clean on the right cheek. The bone-chilling sound of cracking teeth preceded another moan.

The man collapsed backward clutching his face. Jacob pulled the handgun from behind the man’s back and pistol-whipped the man across the forehead. The sound of metal smacking a skull bone produced a dull “thwap.” The man balled up on the floor in exquisite pain. The man’s desperate hands grabbed the handgun and Jacob pinned his wrist to the concrete.

“Let it go!” Jacob commanded. But the man, even on his back, was defiant. He held on. He clenched his teeth and glared up at Jacob, who towered over him with the shotgun.

“Libre Soy!” Jacob said. Jacob aimed the shotgun at the soft part of the man’s throat.  

The man spat through cracked lips. Blood ran down his forehead and across his face. He pulled himself up, as far as he could with his wrist still pinned, and screamed, “jódete hijo de puta!”

Jacob took the butt of the shotgun and brought it down on the man’s knuckles. I heard the man’s bones breaking against the floor. The man screamed, and Jacob shoved the barrel of the shotgun several inches down his throat. The gun barrel separated more teeth as it destroyed the man’s tonsils. There was a desperate gasp of air as the man took sharp breaths through his nose. Blood covered his face and neck. Each breath was a hollow gargle. In less than thirty seconds, Jacob had obliterated the man’s face.

Jacob grabbed the pistol off the pavement. He slid it into the pocket of his pants. Jacob released the man’s wrist. The broken fingers of the man’s hand contorted into directions in which they were not meant to turn. Jacob leaned into the butt of the shotgun pressing it into the man’s tonsils and cracked teeth. The tearing flesh caused the man to whistle a muffled howl through the gun barrel. It reminded me of how we used to blow on the bottles of our soda pops as a kid. Jacob held the gun in that position until the man was entirely out of breath. Jacob pulled the shotgun free, the barrel dripped a river of blood and mucus on the floor. Jacob raised the dripping barrel and pointed it directly at the man’s head.

There was a calmness to Jacob, though he held an intense stare. His fingers tightened over the trigger as his lips stretched over his teeth.

The man rolled to his stomach and broke into a run. He hit the steel door of the entrance so hard he tumbled to the ground in the white gravel outside. In his wake, he left a bloody trail through the shop and on the door.

Two customers stood silent, watching Jacob. Their mouths agape in shock.

I could not stop shaking. I crouched in the corner surrounded with aluminum cans. I had come so close to death. One wrong move, one fumble of the finger—hell, an unexpected sneeze—and that could have gone much differently. I forced myself to breathe in through my mouth and out my nose, counting each inhale. One . . . ahhh . . . two . . . ahhh. 

Jacob walked over and handed me a spray bottle. “Calm down,” he said and asked me to clean the blood from the floor and on the door. Before I could refuse, he pulled out his cell phone and stepped past me to the back of the shop by the anhydrous tanks. He spoke in a hushed tone into his iPhone.  

“The Mexicans are back.”

The voice on the other end asked a question that I heard vaguely mumbled.

“Guy’s wearing a beater—face all smashed to shit—driving a Black Silverado heading south on MLK.” There was a short pause as Jacob looked up front. He mumbled something into the phone and stuffed it back into his pocket.

Jacob took the spray bottle from me and asked me to sit behind the counter. He cleaned up the blood on the floor and the walls quickly. Bleaching it and then soaking it up with a mop. He brought in a leaf blower and had everything dry in a few minutes. He had a system for cleaning up such a mess and the tools at the ready. The store never shut down, even for a minute.

I sat inside watching customers for another two hours, focusing on my breathing. During that time, over fifty people wandered in. The clear majority of them were full-blown addicts and cooks. They overpaid for parts without a word. Throwing down twenties and fifties for things they could buy from Walmart—which Token-Oak did not have—for a tenth of the price.

Jacob didn’t speak again until late afternoon. The customers shuffled silently about. The shop filled up, there were people in front of every shelf, perhaps eight, maybe ten. All were veterans of the trade. One more walked in, and Jacob stood. He refused to let an additional person in the store and kicked one more out.

In that day alone, Jacob netted over $2500. By five, he locked the front door, padlocked the garage, and we drove out of the gate. He had this little grin on his face, a quiet satisfaction as he turned the wheel, guiding his truck back across the railroad tracks. We turned south on MLK.

As we drove over the bridge into Old Town, Jacob looked over to the passenger seat and said, “It’s not for everyone.”

 “It’s not for me,” I said, still rattled from the incident. Jacob laughed and whistled to the radio. “You beat the hell out of that guy. Once he sobers up… heals up, he’ll come back.”

Jacob cocked his head to the side and looked over at me with a toothy grin. There was something he understood behind that smile, something he would not share. He turned the wheel and took a deep breath.

“He won’t.”

I thought about asking more questions, but I let it slide. It was one of those feelings people get, perhaps a conversational cue. I didn’t want to know more, so it sat. And we drove down Main Street listening to the radio as we headed towards Jacob’s home.

“Why only eight?”

“Huh?” Jacob said in response. “Eight what?”

“In the shop, why do you cap it at eight people? There is enough room.”

Jacob explained that, for whatever reason, once the shop filled up with over eight tweakers, they displayed unusual behavior. They seemed more standoffish. He felt they were “doglike” and when they “packed up” they felt fearless. So, he kept the number of customers searching the shop small at eight.

Once we arrived at Jacob’s house, we walked upstairs. He said he wanted to “show me something I’d appreciate.” We climbed out a second-story window onto an old shake shingle roof. And we laid on our backs in between two half-dead oak trees looking across the rooftops of Token-Oak. The sun set behind the buildings of downtown. Jacob lit up a joint as he looked out across the quaint tableau of the small town. He took a long draw while watching the fading daylight for a long time. It wasn’t comfortable, not exactly, because there were no comfortable moments with Jacob, but it was a pause in the madness. 

Token-Oak, like so many small towns, was built around a courthouse. The building had four columns and a clock tower at its apex. Though not the tallest building in town, it was the most commanding. Blazing white and set upon a slight hill for all to see, the courthouse evoked a Grecian heritage.

In the center of the courthouse square, there was the Token-Oak. The old oak had a way of making people stop in mid-stride to take in its twisting branches. They say that the beautiful old oak on the hill was the reason the first settlers stopped in the town. The pioneers named the village after the tree, viewing its strong trunk and vast branches as emblematic of the town’s inevitable future success; a “token” of good times that were sure to follow. Every town event dating back to the 1860s was held under its branches. For a hundred and fifty years, the “token oak” symbolized manifest destiny and the rugged frontier spirit of its founders.

“It’s dying,” Jacob said. “The Token-Oak. It started dropping leaves last year, and they say they are going to leave it alone.”

We both looked out at the old tree for several minutes.

Set off from the high school, there was a football field with enough stadium lights surrounding it that gave it an ethereal feel. At night, the field glowed as a bubble of brilliant light. It made you understand the fascination so many youths had with the game.

On the outskirts, north of town, there was the meat packing plant surrounded by feedlots of soon-to-be slaughtered cows. Nearly every night, you could hear the wailing of the herd, and if you really listened, you could feel the cattle calling to those headed into the plant. Those yearning bawls were Token-Oak’s background noise

Far in the distance, about two miles northeast, some hills rolled together into each other leaving deep ruts. The view of the setting sun above those hills with the bright clouds just above was spectacular. The townspeople called these deep roots the Hollows. The forest of oaks surrounding Token-Oak was exceptionally thick, but it was a veritable riot of tangled branches along the Hollows. So thick, that some claimed, sunlight couldn’t touch the ground.

The dark lines of the Hollows meandered to a rare bald spot on the tallest hill in the county. People called this bald spot the Hilltop. The Hilltop held a macabre lore that never lost its power to scare. Back in the day, it was rumored that Osage Indians used to come from all over America to die up there. They would sit Indian-style and pile fist-sized rocks in a ring around their legs and let the elements do the rest. They were sick or old or just too sad to live anymore. They would die out in the open, sitting upright enclosed by the rock circles. And the sun and the wind would dry their skin tight, and the skeleton would stay upright in that position for months. The Osage believed the Hilltop was a conduit to the dead. A rally point for the living to meet with deceased loved ones.

There were hundreds of rock circles sitting up there undisturbed. And they weren’t all old-school circles, either. Every year, a teenager, a mother who lost her daughter to a drunk driving accident, a depressed middle-aged man, walked into the dark of the Hollows and up to the Hilltop. They sat down in a circle of rocks and “died.” Anyone who went into those woods, townsfolk said, rarely came back. If they did, they were different, disconnected from their family and friends, they might wander the town for a time, but they eventually disappeared. That fact, more than the weird stories, prevented people from fucking around up there.

The Hollows were full of off-the-grid types and had its share of meth labs and murders. Supposedly, a collective of dealers and ne’er-do-wells ran the Hollows. No one went into the Hollows for a stroll. At the crossing of two dirt roads at the base of the Hollows, someone had been dumping dead town dogs there for as long as I could remember. It was a message, a not-so-subtle reminder to anyone that might wander into the dead oaks. It worked, too. Few went in those woods. Not even the cops. Unless they were going to drag out a body. Even then, they walked in at noon, eight deep, fully loaded.

To Jacob and me, the Hollows held a nervous fascination. It was more legend than story. There were town kids that claimed to have a circle rock from the Hilltop that would whisper to them at night. Every few months, there was a fire lit in the darkness of the Hilltop. I knew a kid with a telescope who claimed to see pagan-style dancing around the fire. Everyone had a story from McClintock’s Tree Farm claiming to see lines of people in the woods. When the wind blew in from the Northeast, which was rare, a haze drifted into town that reeked like ether. There were bits of truth braided with exaggeration, yet the Hollows were real enough. It was the one thing that Jacob was scared to face.

Jacob had been trying to get me to go to the Hilltop since we were little kids. But it held such a mystical fear that we never made the trip.

We sat on the shake shingles of his roof, staring at the Hilltop. As the sun was setting, the ring of the horizon—especially north of town—was dotted with eighty-foot-tall oil rigs. Each one lit up in the shape of a Christmas tree. It gave the little town a bustling feel.

As I looked over at Jacob, he was doing it again. That weird ass thing he did when he knew people were watching him. It was his “deep-thinking-stare” and he was looking right at the Hilltop.

“We should go tonight,” Jacob whispered.

I took a long pull of my beer and shook my head in the negative.

“We should,” he said again with more force, but still no real motivation. 

“People don’t come back,” I said in quick response.

“That is bullshit. That lady came back. The teacher with the two twin girls. What was her name? Amanda something.”

“She came back for two weeks. Remember? And she got a motel room and didn’t speak to a single person. Not even her kids. A few people saw her around town. She was all freaked out.  Right before she disappeared. And her family moved away a few weeks later.”

“Well, the point is, she came back.”

I laughed at this, and we both looked up at the Hilltop. An October wind was blowing across town. A dust devil spun leaves along the ditches of MLK.

“We could sneak in from the north. That old creek bed that runs through Miller’s pasture. It's low and dry and rounds straight up to the Hilltop. Come on, Bha-aab. It’ll be fun. For old times’ sake?

That nickname. I hadn’t heard it in years and, hearing it now, it brought back all the old insecurities. For the briefest of moments, I had relaxed with Jacob. That silly moniker wrecked any rapport that was building. I realized, looking at Jacob, that he was waiting for the right moment to insert the jab. It was the first of many insults, I was sure. I let it pass.

Jacob took a quick pull of his beer and emptied the longneck. He threw it off his roof in a twisting parabola over the reaching fingers of the dead oaks. The bottle hit the street below and shattered. 

Old Town was full of older homes with big porches. Jacob’s immediate neighbor had couches in the front yard. Another had two bumper pull campers sitting on blocks with an extension cord running to each. The house across the street had a hole in a wall the exact size of a car. It was the kind of neighborhood where breaking glass bottles was an everyday occurrence.

“You think that’s true? You think a person can talk to the dead?” he said, looking at me with squinted eyes.

I didn’t answer. We both stared out across Token-Oak. Out through the dead branches of the trees near his house. I heard the bawling of the cattle as they shuffled into the slaughterhouse plant. Faint cries floated on the wind. Just to the North, I saw roughnecks on oil rigs twisting pipe thousands of feet down into the earth. Each pipe spinning into the liquefied remains of ancient life buried beneath eons of geology.

It was a Friday night, a half mile away the football stadium was glowing. There was a helmet crack, and Jacob and I listened to the roar of the crowd. From such a distance, it sounded like an exasperated moan that twisted into the night.

Courthouse square was bathed in brilliant moonlight. A twisting string of low-lying clouds floated above. It was a beautiful side view of the town. From the third story of Jacob’s roof, you could see about everything: the Elks Lodge, McGuillicuddy Mortuary, Zion Lutheran Church, and the open ground around the massive white columns of the courthouse. You could even see the alleys between the principal streets of the town.

I took a long pull on my beer. It was my fifth, and I felt a little loose. So, I threw it in the same spinning parabola that Jacob had. I tossed it a little too hard, and a rictus of alley cats erupted as the glass of my longneck shattered below. Jacob looked at me in a broad smile, though his lips never parted. He was well past five beers, and it showed.

Suddenly, he was up on his elbows looking out at the courthouse square. His eyes narrowed, and his mouth opened in a perfect circle. He raised his index finger to point out. “Watch this,” he said.

There were people on every corner of the courthouse square. All of them standing in front of back alleys. The sun dipped below the horizon, and I didn’t remember seeing so many people moments before. But I didn’t know. I was sixteen and drinking longnecks on a roof. It wasn’t my best moment for memory.

“Who are those people?” I said, looking at Jacob. Token-Oak had several dozen town drunks that wobbled around at night. Shuffling between two dive bars on opposite sides of the courthouse like seasonal birds. They hit the Elks for happy hour, the Moose Bar for quarter beers, and then migrated to McSmitty’s Bar (a local dive named for its owner, so the drunks called it McShitty’s bar) for closing time. It wasn’t uncommon to see a few drunks slouching about. But looking out at the square that night, there were at least two dozen. All of them stumbling around.

“Tweakers,” Jacob said, “Now watch.”

Jacob had gone from leaning on his elbows to sitting, to a full stand as he looked out on the town. He was moving his index finger and mouthing numbers with a Shiner Bock still in one hand.

“Twenty-nine,” he said without looking at me. “And there is another one by McGuillicuddy’s and the cemetery, so thirty.”

“Twenty-nine?”

“Thirty,” Jacob said, correcting me. “. . . wait for it . . .”

They were all moving in various directions, at least it seemed that way at first, but as I stared out, I saw something unique. All thirty took a step at the same time, in a weird shimmy. They moved a quarter block in a few seconds, each of them with curled hands and their necks contorted way to the left. We were too far away, but I swore it looked like their teeth were shut, yet their lips curled back. They walked a few more gamboling steps. Then, as if on a cue, all thirty did the same thing again.

“Whoa . . .” I said raising to a stand, “that is fucking spooky.”

In a few seconds, most were blocked by our vantage point and disappeared behind buildings. In a few more, they were all gone, as quickly as they came.

He only nodded. “This place is full of surprises.”

And he sat and glared out at the square for at least an hour. A few groups of people wandered underneath the Token-Oak in the square. There was a rowdy group of town kids smashing pumpkins. We watched the cops give a half dozen sobriety test to patrons leaving the Elks. But the tweakers didn’t come back. Not that night, at least.

[d2kvirus]

Dickheads of the Month: October 2018

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of October 2018 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

The entire Jamal Khashoggi affair has been one hell of a shitshow, starting with the Saudi Arabian government sending a hit squad to Turkey to murder him when he visited the Turkish embassy and then, after weeks of pretending that Khashoggi was alive and well, stating that he died when he got into a fight - because apparently the Saudi definition of a fight involves having fifteen people, one carrying a bonesaw, ambushing somebody before torturing and murdering them.  In response to this cock and bull story, the font of 90% of the world cock and bull stories Donald Trump states he wholeheartedly believed the Saudi’s version of events (until, two days later, saying that he didn’t) in an effort to deflect attention away from how he blew off any suggestion that the FBI should launch an investigation because, while Khashoggi may have resided in Virginia and worked for the Washington Post,  he wasn't a US citizen so fuck him.  The British response wasn’t much better either, with Jeremy ...Hunt waffling on about how Brits and Saudis had shared values just days after Khashoggi’s disappearance - all of which left us with a situation where Turkey’s dictatorial leader Recip Erdogan was somehow the voice of reason in the whole affair 

It’s funny how we’re supposed to think there’s no connection between Cesar Sayoc Jr embracing Trump’s rhetoric wholeheartedly and him sending bombs in the mail to several of Trump’s most frequent targets - sort of like how we’re supposed to think there was no connection between Trump’s rhetoric and  Brandon Griesemer threatening to go on a shooting rampage at CNN’s HQ back in January, or  Robert Chain threatening to blow up the Boston Globe’s offices back in August.  One thing’s for certain, though: those 4chan dullards saying the left can’t meme have been very, very quiet since it emerged that Trumpists’ meme ability is a tad more explosive than they’d like to admit

On the subject of the MAGAbomber, let’s not forget that countless Twitter hate preachers such as Paul Joseph Watson, Candace Owens and EducatingLiberals were all so quick to claim that the Democrats were sending the bombs to themselves as a false flag attack they were boldly predicting, and not one of them has retracted their original comment - or think that, by deleting it, nobody remembers it.  That’s not how screengrabs work.

In the wake of the Tree of Life shooting Gab hid behind a blanket statement about the “alleged terrorist” responsible for the shootings - which presumably sounded better for PR purposes that stating “We’re currently having hosting problems as a direct result of one of our many antisemetic users posting material claiming he was going to shoot up a synagogue and we sat back and did nothing, which made us look like negligent dickheads when that user then went and shot up a synagogue” 

As the Tory conference took place there was obviously going to be a lot to choose from, so I’ll compile it in one supersized entry: starting at the top we had Theresa May claim that austerity was over in spite of the fact the previous day Philip Hammond, who happens to be Chancellor, said the exact opposite - but far more ridiculous than her apparent ignorance of what other members of her cabinet said in their speeches is the fact ABBA are threatening legal action over her unauthorised use of their music for her cringe-inducing entrance; then there was Jeremy ...Hunt demanding respect from the EU before promptly comparing them to the Soviet Union; the waffling buffoon Boris Johnson went on a dog whistle spree that mainly consisted of saying Jeremy Corbyn’s name a bunch while also saying there’s nothing wrong with police using their stop & search powers to harass black people; and then we had Chris Grayling write so many punchlines about his ineptitude as Transport Secretary by arriving on stage seven minutes late for his own speech, before promptly trying to blame eight years of rail mismanagement under Tory rule on Labour

While there is plenty of justified criticism for Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov turning UFC 229 into a pub car park in Maidstone on a Friday night (which conveniently drew attention away from McGregor getting utterly annihilated in the bout), plenty should also be aimed at Dana White for his mealy-mouthed response afterwards where he failed to take responsibility for the situation, not least his complete failure to punish McGregor in any way for trashing Khabib’s bus or his repeated Islamophobic slurs against Khabib in the months leading up to the fight

Not only is Philip Green the sort of shithead who sexually and racially harassed members of staff, but he's also the kind of shithead who pays his lawyers half a million quid to issue a gagging order on it being revealed he’s the sort of shithead who sexually and racially harassed his staff - which I’m sure pissed off the thousands of former BHS employees who saw him scarper with their pension fund, as they can take a wild guess where that half million quid came from

The Tory conference must not have gone as well as hoped considering Sajid Javid repeated the repeatedly debunked lie about there being parts of London that are no-go areas for non-Muslims, and the fact Javid is regurgitating lies that Nigel Farage told Fox News says a hell of a lot doesn’t it?

Taking a page from her husband’s playbook Melania Trump claimed she is the most bullied woman in America, a week after her husband publicly bullied Christine Blassey Ford in the exact same way that his supporters had been doing for several weeks beforehand.  As if that wasn’t bad enough, she also claimed that if a woman is going to make an accusation of sexual misconduct they need to have evidence - which sounds an awful lot like telling them to keep their mouths shut, doesn’t it?

In a bid to prove that they should not be boycotted by readers wondering why the paper had turned into the Daily Express in recent years The Guardian ran an op-ed piece where Theresa May said any Labour voters dissatisfied with Jeremy Corbyn should vote Tory, which reeks of desperation just as much on May’s part as it does the Guardian’s

It appears that Esther McVey is unaware that people can see that she spent months saying that Universal Credit is perfectly fine until she suddenly turns around and says, actually, it's not fine - or maybe she can, given the amount of gagging orders she handed out to try and avoid the tsunami of criticism headed her way

Waffling gargoyle Nigel Farage demonstrated how desperate he is for attention these days by popping up on Fox News to say that Americans should be far more worried about the Jewish influence in their country than any rumours of Russian influence - a mere 48 hours after the Tree of Life synagogue shooting left eleven people dead at the hands of a white supremacist with a track record of posting antisemitic material to their Gab profile

Definitely not using the inquest into the Westminster terror attack as an excuse to clear his name and/or conscience, Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Craig Mackey claimed that the reason he locked himself in his car and instructed the driver to get the hell out of there while PC Keith Palmer was being stabbed to death yards away was because he didn’t have a stab-proof vest as if that’s any form of consolation to Palmer’s relatives given he didn't have one either.  What's worse, the inquest somehow came to the conclusion that Mackey acted properly, as opposed to showing extreme cowardice 

To prove just how caring and tolerant the Tory party are we have Daniel Phillips O’Leary, Jake Thurman, Ross Horton, Josh Hocking,  Charlie Edleston-Haynes and friends pictured wearing shirts featuring slogans such as “Fuck the NHS”, “Enoch was right” in support of racist ideologue Enoch Powell, at least two of them with the Star of David and the word “Jude” written on them that is both anti-semitic and the terminology of the fucking Nazi Party, while one of them was also flashing a white supremacy gesture to camera while another was done up to look like Adolf Hitler.   Yes, “tolerant” is the word I’d think of there... 

There was two levels of dickheadishness from Rockstar Games in a matter of days.  Firstly they proudly stated that their devs were working 100 hour weeks in order to have Red Dead Redemption 2 finished on time, an announcement they made just as the debate about game devs treatment of their staff was back in the spotlight after reports of Telltale Games expecting their staff to work a hellish schedule in order to meet a release date, and a few days later - having coerced their staff to say that, actually, they were “only” working 80 hour weeks and not the full 100 as if that’s any better - Rockstar followed that up by announcing that independent game shops would not receive copies of RDR2 until at least a week after the major stores, hitting them hard in the pocket as a result

In yet another desperate shriek for attention Roseanne Barr wailed about how terrible it is that her character was filled off in Roseanne reboot The Connors by an opioid overdose - apparently failing to not only see the irony considering she tried to blame her batshit outbursts about Valerie Jarrett and George Soros on an ambien, but also failing to consider that they couldn't have killed off her character due to a joke, voting Trump, or thinking the bitch was WHIIIIIIIIIIIIITE that were the other excuses Barr used when trying to avoid taking responsibility for getting her show cancelled

Continuing to justify the no confidence vote she received from the local party Kate Hoey decided the wisest thing to do would be to retweet posts from Avi Yemini - because when you really want to prove that you’re a credible MP for your constituents, retweeting somebody banned from social media for both antisemitism and Islamophobia who also happens to associate with Tommy Robinson, you’re not helping yourself 

Doing a fine job of making it impossible to differentiate between NBC and Fox News we had Megyn Kelly say that blackface is not offensive as long as it’s done for Halloween, because apparently Halloween is a gateway to Purge Night

Fox News contributor Jason Chaffetz decided to be an edgelord by tweeting a photo of him stood next to a cigar store Indian at Disneyland just so he could make a snide jibe in the direction of Elizabeth Warren, which implies he wasn't paying attention during those two years he was on the House Oversight Committee

If it wasn’t galling enough that Lancashire Council decided to spend £38,000 of their budget on new iPhones for themselves, they soon raked in £43,000 by doubling bus fares for disabled people

Demonstrating their levels of editorial competence, the Daily Mail reported on a story where Indonesian pallbearers caught by a gust of wind dropped the body they were carrying into a swimming pool...having failed to verify that the video footage they were using as the basis of this story was taken from an Indonesian soap opera

Ever the edgelord Rod Liddle used a column in the Sunday Times to encourage Islamists residing in Tower Hamlets to blow themselves up - mainly because he doesn't live near the area so he wouldn't have to worry about the after effects of countless people blowing themselves up in a populated area, although he doesn’t seem to understand that just because his not living in Tower Hamlets hasn’t prevented these comments sounding like the deranged ramblings of an Islamophobic moron

Am I the only person who thinks the Banksy stunt where he shredded one of his artworks the second it was sold at auction looked an awful lot like a child throwing a tantrum, only for their mollycoddling parents to say how clever they were for doing so?

It apparently didn’t occur to William Sitwell that sending an e-mail to one of his staff asking for an article about “killing vegans” or tying them up to “Force-feed them meat” makes him look like an intolerant arse, especially since he then sent another e-mail suggesting vegans were all liars who couldn’t resist a bacon sandwich.  Funnily enough his position as editor of Waitrose Food magazine did not last long after that... 

According to increasingly bitter musician Jon Crosby anyone who believes that a healthcare system that doesn't financially cripple the country’s citizens with medical bills is, and this is a direct quote, an "anti Semite Nazi apologizing communist bigot" who must be blocked from his Facebook page so he can continue posting Alex Jones levels of ignorant tripe such as that old chestnut of the shamefully ignorant, the “Hitler was a SOCIALIST!!!!!!!!!!!1″ argument, without anyone pointing out that he’s a complete fucking idiot

And last but by no means least, there’s harasser of attempted rape victims and the only person on earth who thinks blaming the victims of a mass shooting for their being shot Donald Trump, who believes that addressing Hurricane Michael is far less important than hanging around with his new best friend Kanye West