#to fix this i must go to the hardware store and buy a lot of chains and random nuts and bolts | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

imaginethathaikyuu · 3 years ago

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tis the damn season

atsumu miya x fem reader

the first fic in a series i like to call “Me Writing Whatever The Hell I Want” (a working title) hope u like it or dont idk im not ur boss!!!!!!!!!!

synopsis: Running away was easy when you were chasing hazy dreams of a big city that was destined to be yours, when your rear-view mirror showed nothing but your hole in the wall hometown. But now it’s all waiting tables and failing auditions. You were still running, but somehow, these winding roads always lead you back to Miya Atsumu - a man you’ve loved and left, until you return home for the holidays.

tags: friends to lovers, exes to lovers, angst without a happy ending, established pre-relationship, friends with benefits, reader lives in Undisclosed Big City lmao who has celebrity dreams, atsumu is ur good ole southern boy (sort of), canon divergent, not edited, light nsfw, beginnings of sex but isn’t very detailed

word count: 4220

song inspo (tis the damn season by taylor swift)

i won’t ask you to wait if you don’t ask me to stay…

. . .

The soundtrack of this early morning replayed in your head as you made a hazy drive to the neighborhood’s hardware store, cutting left onto the correct street and forcing the car’s back tire over the curb you couldn’t miss.

The replay of events looping in your mind? A whirring, then a splashing, then your father’s booming voice shouting curse words at anyone who could hear them. Your name was laced in there somewhere with demands for you to get to the kitchen, and you couldn’t tumble down the stairs fast enough to see what in the hell was going on.

It was your first day home for the holidays, and already it was a catastrophe.

Somehow your dad had busted a pipe underneath the kitchen sink and a strong stream of water was spraying halfway across the room because of it - your feet landed in a shallow pool when you finally reached the first floor. You didn’t have time to think of any questions before the man at fault, who was on his knees with his head hidden under the sink relentlessly trying to turn the water off, sent you out the door with more shouts, telling you to go to Miya’s Hardware and buy… something.

“A connector?” You were talking to yourself, thinking out loud as you finally parked, but it didn’t help you remember. All you could do was walk inside the store and hope someone knew what you needed.

It’d been years since you had been in this shop, but it looked just the same as when you were following your dad through its isles. You didn’t even bother browsing now, though - you went straight to the back of the store to the counter, expecting to see a familiar, perhaps older, face eager to help you.

That isn’t what you found.

“Well, hey stranger.”

That voice rang in your ears like you’d just heard it through a megaphone pointed directly at you. Something about it was so warm, but it left you with a shiver down your spine and goosebump ridden skin. You could feel the hair on the back of your neck standing up, and you hadn’t even turned in the direction the words came from.

But you didn’t have to look in order to know just who it was. “Atsumu.”

“What in the hell are you doing back in town?” His voice rang with excited confusion; it carried the same inflection as anyone who’s happy to see you. Like nearly forgotten family members at a reunion before it all goes to hell, or the way the tone of your father’s voice changes when you tell him you’re doing well and mean it. People don’t speak that way often.

He pulled you in for a hug and you gladly reciprocated, already forgetting that you were supposed to be in a hurry.

“Home for the holidays. How have you been?”

“I’ve been alright,” he replied. “I’ve missed you.”

His voice felt more like home than your four bedroom walls did, the charming drawl and depth in his words immediately reeling you in. It was familiar. You had spent a long time trying to forget about that familiarity; too long learning how to straighten out your words and lose any hint of the small town you came from. But Atsumu - he sounded like the epitome of this place.

He didn’t give you time to reply, for one reason or another; instead he decided to push you back by your shoulders and get a good look at you. Up and down and up again, likely noticing every change you had made to your appearance in your time away.

“Are you still wearing your pajamas, or is this a new… trend?”

You looked down at yourself, “Shit,” and closed your jacket tight over the old graphic t-shirt you wore, but nothing could cover your pink polka-dotted pants. And you’d have been hit in the face with embarrassment if the image of your dad and the broken sink and a flooded kitchen didn’t smack you first. “Shit, no, um… I need something to fix a broken sink. Are you… do you work here now?”

“I do - and you’re gonna need to be more specific.”

“I don’t know, Atsumu,” you laughed, slowly realizing the bizarreness of what you were about to tell him. “I woke up to my dad shouting and water shooting out from under the sink, literally flooding the kitchen. He told me to get a part for the pipe… a connector, or a couple, or something - I don’t know.”

“...A coupler?”

“Yes!”

“...He didn’t happen to tell you what size to get, did he?”

The look on your face must have been a good enough answer for him, because he took off into a random aisle and left you wondering just how many sizes of couplers there could be.

“This one will probably do the job,” he said as his path rounded the counter. “If it doesn’t, then, I can ignore the return policy for you. Just this once, though.”

“Thanks, ‘Tsumu.” You made your payment and he slid your product over the counter as his elbows landed on it, leaning down to make himself comfortable. Like he thought he’d be there awhile.

“How long are you gonna be in town?”

“Two weeks. Why do you ask?” You knew why - you just wanted to hear him say it.

“We should catch up.”

He was grinning and shrugging and fidgeting with his fingers, just like he always did, and you would never turn down any offer he made you.

“We should. I’ve got to get home, but are you free tonight?”

“We close at six,” he said. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it,” you said, meaning every word. You wondered if he knew that.

“So will I,” he replied, and then you made your way out before you convinced yourself to stay.

It’d been three years since you last spoke to Atsumu. In that time, you had done a lot that felt like nothing, living in a different city that felt worlds bigger than this town - that city was a place you had once convinced yourself was all yours. You had pulled off running away effortlessly.

But it didn’t matter how much time goes by between your meetings with Atsumu. There was something there that you could never shake, the hold you had on each other was anchor tight. Ten years could pass and you would speak to each other like it had only been one day. You’d have world ending fights and one of you would always come crawling back, letting the other win as long as it meant things would go back to normal.

You couldn’t describe it. You never tried, you didn’t need to. The unspoken acts between the two of you didn’t need to be explained. It was something akin to a best friend with all the benefits included and most of the strings attached - confusing and nerve wracking but still so comforting.

Atsumu was the closest thing to home you had in this town, and somehow every road always leads back to him. With a few detours on your part, of course, because you just couldn’t stay away too long. Even moving across the country didn’t change that - not like you thought it would.

You just barely missed the turn into your driveway, being so distracted by your thoughts. So much was rushing back, so much that shouldn’t be - it isn’t a big deal, it’s just Atsumu, but it felt grand, like this was some massive reunion.

But it wasn’t. You were only here to celebrate Christmas with your family. You weren’t even planning on seeing Atsumu, let alone meeting up with him or rekindling any kind of flame that was once there.

And it was such a rush that you couldn’t even question why he was working at his father’s store - or why he was even in this town at all. What happened to the dreams he was chasing?

For what felt like the first time in your life, you had questions for him. But you’d have to wait all day to ask them.

. . .

You were thankful to come home to a dry floor and a calmer father - he finally figured out how to turn the water off and decided to fix the pipe later. You knew he’d inevitably be paying someone more qualified to repair it, but your mind had no space for that problem.

You were still trying to figure out how you’d meander the night with Atsumu by the time he was picking you up, and when the two of you arrived at his home you still hadn’t found your answer.

Easing into this would be best, and once alcohol was introduced to the equation it would turn into a slippery slope.

Nothing was hard with Atsumu. You knew that - that’s why you couldn’t figure out why you were having such a hard time talking to him.

A lot had changed. Not between the two of you, not exactly. You were right back where you were three years ago: on his couch, sitting too close to him, laughing at something he had said that was only funny because he said it.

But your lives had changed. Your worlds had changed. His mind had very obviously changed, and because of it all, you couldn’t keep pretending that the two of you were teenagers again.

You had to bite the bullet and ask the question that was on your mind, completely knowing that he could throw a hard hitting question back at you.

It came out more effortlessly and lighthearted than you expected. “So… what happened to playing volleyball?”

Atsumu scoffed. “You still remember that pipe dream? Nothing happened, it was just childish.”

You didn’t like his answer, so you pressed him. You worked up the courage to start this conversation, so you were going to get to the bottom of things. “You said you wanted to catch up - I know you, Atsumu. You get what you want and you wanted to play volleyball. You were going to be a pro, you were good.”

“I know you know me,” he said, and the smirk on his lips didn’t go unnoticed by you. “I wanted to get drunk and chat, not start up a fucking therapy session.”

You sat patient and waiting, eyes on him, refusing to go without the answer to your question. You were teasing, really, eyeing him up and grinning as you watched him struggle. The problem was: you didn’t expect the answer you’d get.

“I - I had the chance.” There was a scratch in his throat that wasn’t caused by the whiskey he’d just swallowed. “I was being scouted and playing my ass off and there were talks of being on an Olympic team one day, but… shit happens, and that’s it.”

“What shit, Atsumu? You didn’t just give up, did you? Were you scared or something?”

You didn’t realize how close you were to him until his hand came down to rest on your knee, and both of you focused on that touch as his next thoughts became words. “Dad got sick. And ‘Samu had just opened the restaurant, and… there were bills to pay and the store to run. Even though I wasn’t his preference, Dad had no choice and left the legacy of Miya’s Hardware to me, so - that’s where I am.”

“Oh. I… I had no idea - I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine. You were already long gone by then - don’t say sorry.”

“I’m sorry,” you said, and you hugged him without thinking, but he hugged you back all the same. “I’m sorry, ‘Tsumu.”

“It’s okay,” he told you, but you didn’t feel okay. You were sure he didn’t, either. “It’s not your fault.”

You pulled away from him just enough to look at his face, and you hadn’t noticed the distance in his eyes until just then. As you looked at him, you realized it was only familiar to now. It wasn’t there years ago, when you got to look into those eyes every day.

“I should’ve been there for you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, but his words were dangling on an edge. He didn’t quite mean them. “You were off in your own dream. I got through it.”

You only nodded. You weren’t sure what else to say after that.

As Atsumu sat back against the couch, he brought you with him, tucking you under his arm against his chest. His lips on your forehead made you close your eyes and for a second, it was like you were both nineteen again. You could’ve been, if time would only slow down or freeze or go back - what wouldn’t you give for that?

“I’m done talking about me,” he mumbled. “I wanna hear about your life now.”

You laughed, but quiet, “My life’s been fine.”

“Only fine?”

“You don’t see me on the big screen, do you?”

He laughed this time. “Not yet. One day, though. Have you gotten used to the city yet?”

“Oh… I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it, but… it does feel like home now. It’s so different from living here.”

“I bet.”

“I try not to romanticize it, but - I don’t know. It feels good, even if it’s not what I thought it’d be. The lights are pretty bright. Blinding compared to here.”

His response was a nod, and that was it. If he had any questions or comments, he held them back.

A break in the silence came soon, though. “You know,” he said, quiet, with a small laugh that was humorless, “I’m not as good at getting what I want as you think I am.”

“That’s not true,” you replied, and you were setting up an argument you weren’t ready to make. “You got me.”

“Did I?”

“What do you mean?”

Silence lingered, and after too long you sat up and looked at him, and that got him to talk.

“Nothing,” he insisted. He pulled you closer with two fingers holding your chin, and you didn’t resist. “Nothing, baby. Let’s just… just be quiet for a while.”

There wasn’t time for you to say anything else. His lips were on yours the moment he got his last word out. And even though you expected him to kiss you, it still made you gasp.

You couldn’t describe how much you missed kissing someone you wanted to, and Astumu’s kiss was like finding home. His lips were like candy, sweeter than sugar; his bite was a freezing shock that always pulled a giggle and a whisper of his name out of you. He knew how to kiss you, slow and deep with a hand on your jaw to keep you there, never leaving you wanting more because he gave everything you could ever need.

It didn’t take long for his kisses to trail down your neck, or for his shirt to come off, or for your back to land on the couch. You had already reached euphoria just seeing him hovering over you, eyes soft and hair askew; you didn’t need anything but this. You’d never want anything but this.

You did what you always did - trailed your hand down his torso, over his golden skin, stopping just after every freckle or scar or mark. This time, you were looking for something new. You didn’t find anything. You didn’t stop until your hand landed on his waist, and there, you squeezed -

“Stop, you little shit,” and he laughed, right along with you. A real and genuine laugh - you hadn’t heard that song in a long time. “Why do you always do that?”

Finally he moved down to press his chest against yours, his hips locking in place between your legs. A perfect combination.

“Why do you always give me the chance?” You were still laughing, not able to get over the cute sight. Atsumu was always so ticklish there, right on his waist, and when you made that discovery you swore you’d never forget it. And he sure as hell wished you would have. “You’re so cute. I’ve missed that smile.”

“I’ve missed you,” he replied. Somehow you just knew that he meant it.

“Don’t. I’m here.”

“You’re here,” he repeated. Like he was reassuring himself.

You took the initiative to unbutton your shirt yourself, so that there was no way for him to think that you wanted this to stop there. It couldn’t, not when you had him this close. And his eyes followed the popping buttons like stalking prey.

“And you’re still the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. Fucking hell.”

You cringed - you couldn’t help the feeling in your gut when he gave you those sweet words. You knew he meant them in some way; you knew Atsumu wouldn’t lie to you. He’s never told you anything just for the sake of it. But how many times, in the last three years, had someone done just that? Told you just what you wanted to hear so they could get inside you? It was vile the first time. The second, it made you ache. But now, you’re used to it. Nobody means what they say. You’re used to it.

And Atsumu could snatch up any girl he wanted. A girl who’s used to blinding lights and expensive wine and lying - or a girl who would stay with him, who wouldn’t push his buttons, who would be effortless in her charm and wit and beauty.

You couldn’t put yourself in either category.

“You haven’t seen many, then.”

“Why would I even need to when I’ve got you? You’re a fucking dream. All I ever think about.”

You shook your head, not even noticing you were doing it. Atsumu wouldn’t have it.

“Don’t do that,” he said. “Not when you know what you do to me. You’ve got my heart beating out of my chest, for fuck’s sake - it has been since you walked into the store.”

You never knew him to be so open with his feelings, or maybe you had just gotten used to being lied to. You weren’t sure and you didn’t care - all you could think about was kissing him, so you pulled him in, and you were sure he would devour you. You’d have no problem with that.

It was desperate when you said, “I need you.”

And reassuring when he replied, “I’m right here.”

He wasn’t close enough. You didn’t think he ever could be. And it was right then, when you were swimming in desperation, that you realized you shouldn’t have been doing this. It would only make leaving even harder. Doing it the first time was hell, letting him watch you leave and be okay with it. You hated yourself for wishing he wasn’t. And you were drowning.

You hated yourself for leaving.

You hated yourself more for coming back.

And you didn’t want to be there, all of a sudden, despite the ache in between your thighs and the addicting warmth he had you trapped in. You didn’t want to be there and you didn’t want to leave, either - you only wanted something easy, but you’d never have it. Not here, and not in the city, and not with Atsumu.

You felt him freeze, felt things shift. You hadn’t even noticed the way your energy had completely dropped.

“Something wrong?” He moved up to hold your face. He noticed the tears in your eyes before you did.

It was hard to look at him but you held his gaze, and his touch hurt more than it healed but you yearned for it. The concern on his face was genuine, the gentle strokes of his thumb on your cheek weren’t forced, and it all was making your stomach turn.

He cared for you - obviously he did - but not enough to ask you to stay. Not enough to find trouble in letting you leave him. So maybe you shouldn’t have a problem with it, either.

“No,” you said through a sore throat and a locked jaw. “Sorry, just…”

“We don’t have to do this,” he told you. “We can just talk - I want to talk. If it’s too much -”

“It’s okay,” you said. You tried to mean it as much as, “I miss you, Atsumu. I want you - touch me, I miss you.”

“I know,” and he was wiping the tears off of your cheeks as he kissed your lips, “I’ll take care of you, baby, just let me. Stop thinking so much. Let me take care of you like I always do, yeah? You want me to help you feel good?”

You always had a problem with that - thinking too much. He never hesitated to call you out on it. You nodded your head, strong and fast, like you were trying to knock the thoughts right out of it.

“Please, ‘Tsumu.” You were crying for him, pulling him closer. “Need you. Make it better, please.”

“I’d do anything,” he said. “You gotta quit crying, baby. You’re acting like our first time again.”

You laughed at that, wiping your own tears and knocking his hands away. “God, that was so embarrassing.”

“It was cute.”

“It wasn’t.”

“It was kinda hot, too.”

“Atsumu!”

It was his deep grin that made you relax again, and so did another blissful kiss that took your breath in a way that you enjoyed.

“You can cry, baby,” he said, popping buttons on both of your pants, “as long as it’s because of how good I’m making you feel. That’s what you need, pretty girl. Let me show you how much I’ve been missing you - get these pants off, baby, let me see you.”

He didn’t give you the chance to cry any more, at least not in an emotional sense. Your mind was stripped with your body, filled with nothing but him, no space between the two of you left for insecurities or questions.

It wasn’t until he coaxed you into his bedroom that those things had the chance to creep back.

Atsumu was out cold, cuddled into your chest and holding on tight to your waist, after smothering you in soft kisses and sweet sleepy words. You were comfortable there, warm and safe and content, but the pit in your stomach only grew. You watched him sleep, his mouth slightly open and eyes softly closed, and you wanted to reach down and kiss him but you resisted.

It was late and you should be asleep but you couldn’t rest. You couldn’t stop loathing yourself long enough to close your eyes, and the more you thought, the harder it got to breathe. Your throat was sore again. Your eyes were watering again. And every word you wanted to say to Atsumu was tumbling out of your mouth and falling onto sleeping ears.

“Why didn’t you ask me to stay?”

He didn’t stir. It was still rumbling breaths and the whir of the air conditioner filling the silence.

“Everyone else did. But you. Why… You of all people should know I’m just as worthless there as I am here - I’ll never make it - I’ve changed everything and still…”

You sucked a hard breath into your lungs to stop a wracking sob, just barely holding it in.

“I just ended up here again. With you. I’m so alone without you but I can’t - fuck.”

It didn’t even matter what you were trying to say anymore, because you had no clue. You didn’t know why you couldn’t just stay with him regardless of his choice to let you go, but something in you made you run. Maybe it was worthless pride or a childish desire to be something more - you didn’t know.

You didn’t belong in any industry you dreamed of working in. You weren’t born to be a star. You should know by now - should accept your failure and come back home for more than just one night.

But you couldn’t.

There was still a chance, wasn’t there?

A chance to belong somewhere.

A chance to be led home.

A chance to make it. Would you die trying?

You would leave in the morning. And you wouldn’t ask Atsumu to wait for you as he started getting ready for the day. And Atsumu wouldn’t ask you to ditch your own plotted destiny just to stay with him.

But this would happen again. Every time you would swear it off and every time, you would travel roads that take you right back to this town, this bed, these arms.

Running away would never get easier, but this is all it would ever be with him. He would never stop you leaving - and you would never ask him to.

. . .

...so i’ll go back to LA

#i researched how to fix pipes for this #by research i mean i went to hope depot dot com and looked at Pipes #my friend actually busted his sink pipe the other day exactly like i wrote and our other friend (who works at lowes) said he needs a Coupler #in conclusion i dont know how sinks or pipes work. do not perceive me or my writing.#miya atsumu #atsumu miya #atsumu x reader #miya atsumu x reader #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu imagines #i forget what other tags i need to use lmao

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watermelonlipstick · 4 years ago

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Dreams, Chapter 3

If you haven’t read this series before, you might want to start on Chapter 1, or check out the Dreams Masterlist! Here’s the series description:

When Dean dies for good leaving Sam and his girlfriend (the reader) behind, they must figure out how to carry on without him. Alone, reeling, and unsure what to do next, trying to honor Dean’s memory and follow their hearts gets even more complicated when their nightmares become dreams that feel a little too real.

Title: Dreams, Chapter 3

Pairing: (past) Dean Winchester x Reader, (eventual) Sam Winchester x Reader

Word Count: 2344

Summary: It’s Christmas in Wisconsin for Sam and the reader.

Warnings: angst (sensing a theme here), alcohol, slow burn

Christmas Eve was a Thursday, which meant you were working. You’d predicted it would be slow, but there were big chunks of time where no one was in the bar at all. Christmas carols on the radio helped pass the time, and you drank a little more of the almost-coquito you’d thrown together in the back at the beginning of the shift than you needed to. It reminded you of your aunt and the way she’d smell of coconut through Boxing Day every year when you were growing up; welcome nostalgia you could tolerate like pressing a thumb into a bruise and distracted you from the evisceration of thinking of Dean. The day shift had left the bar understocked, so Sam spent a good amount of time going up and down the stairs refilling refrigerators and cutting fruit for drinks. Around 10 or 11 the people who didn’t want to wrap up the night when their in-laws went home straggled in, a handful of regulars that you generally liked but had a tendency to get a little rowdy when left alone together. It didn’t help that they showed up a few drinks in.

The merriment was infectious, and it was sweet to hear grown men proud of the gifts they’d gotten their loved ones. One even brought a few bottles of homemade maple syrup to give to the others, sliding one sheepishly across the bar to you. You were pouring out a round of coquito when Sam came up from the basement with a towel tossed over his shoulder.

“Everything should be good,” he sighed, running a hand through his hair. He hadn’t cut it in months and the ends fell gracefully around his shoulders. A piece fell oddly across his forehead and you reflexively fixed it for him.

“What did you two get each other?” a regular, Steve, asked with a relaxed finger pointing between you and Sam. His cheeks were ruddy with whiskey and winter air.

“Oh. I—uh, we don’t really do gifts,” Sam offered placatingly.

“Man, where did you find this girl? Listens to classic rock, drives a stick shift, and doesn’t ‘do gifts’?” another, Joe, added.

“You better be buying her some presents or someone else will.” Jake, a customer you’d always felt safe around since he tossed out a rude guy for you a month back, chimed in.

You and Sam had never explicitly said that you were together. People just assumed, and it was easier to go along with it than explain the truth, especially because you didn’t look similar enough to be siblings and you still couldn’t shake your need to cling to him from time to time. It was almost never an issue aside from periodic mild teasing. This Christmas talk was a departure from the non-explanations you and Sam usually gave and you found yourself waiting for a cue on where to go. Sam seemed to be having the same thought, rubbing the back of his neck nervously.

You spoke before the moment had a chance to become too pregnant. “You know how hard it is to buy presents for a guy who doesn’t like having stuff? If he buys me something, I’ll have to get him something too!” You hoped it sounded smooth, your lying out of practice in the months since you’d had a cover on a hunt. Sam smirked gratefully at you.

Joe shook his head wistfully. “Seriously, where did you find her?”

“She’s pretty great, isn’t she?” Sam’s voice sounded sort of soft around the edges, almost like he was tired but not quite. When you looked up at him, that pebble of self-consciousness you’d felt at the hardware flipped in your stomach again and you glanced away in favor of a one-armed hug you intended to look affectionate. Sam did the same, encompassing your entire shoulder with his hand.

When you drove home that night, warm and full of coquito, Sam played Christmas carols.

“I think we should do gifts.”

It was the first thing you thought when you woke up, and you said it into Sam’s chest as you laid there before you opened your eyes. You could tell from the rhythm of his breathing that he wasn’t all the way asleep.

“Hmm?”

“I think we should do gifts. We should really do Christmas if we’re going to do it, and that means presents. What do you think?”

You felt as much as you saw out of the corner of your drowsy eyes that Sam raised his unpinned arm to rub the sleep out of his. “Mmm, okay? I mean if that’s what you want.”

“Thank you,” you said as you nestled deeper into him.

“‘S already Christmas though.” Sleep pulled Sam’s words together like taffy.

“It can be goofy stuff; I just think we should open presents under a tree and everything. Seems like the kind of thing we should do, you know? Like trying to be normal.” You couldn’t bear saying out loud what you meant, that Dean would’ve wanted presents and stockings and eggnog and Santa hats and a big roast if he could’ve, to fall asleep after watching the stars glitter off of falling snow.

Sam heard anyway.

“You’re right,” Sam murmured. He rubbed your upper arm absentmindedly.

“I’ll wake you back up when the bathroom’s free,” you offered, carefully rolling over him to get out of the bed. He nodded with closed eyes and flopped over onto his stomach.

About an hour later, a wet haired Sam slid into the Impala’s driver side and rubbed his hands together to warm them up. You could tell from the puffiness around his eyes and his overcompensating casual tone that he’d been crying. He set his phone to pipe Your Inner Fish through the stereo and backed down the driveway over snow tamped down over the last week.

It had been years since you’d gone Christmas shopping, as much as this could be considered Christmas shopping. The town you’d settled in had exactly 7 businesses on a tiny main street, including 1 small inn, a grocery store, the hardware store, a coffee shop (the most reliable internet in town, much faster than your place) and 3 different places to get a burger. You met Sam in the grocery store after grabbing what you wanted from next door in hardware, catching him just as he came out carrying a bag with a long pipe of wrapping paper stretching far past the top. When you left, there were only two other cars in the parking lot grabbing their own last-minute things.

You wrapped your presents on the bed. It wasn’t like riding a bike as you’d hoped it would be, and your sloppy corners started you down a mental spiral. What a completely asinine thing, wrapping hardware store presents to put under a stolen tree. This wasn’t the Rockwell painting you wanted to present as sacrifice to Dean’s memory. It was cheap and stupid, a sloppy high school production when Dean deserved Broadway. He always had. As much as the three of you had never really done Christmas, Dean knew how to make something special while maintaining the air of not caring. You remembered waking up on his made-up anniversaries: six months from the first time you kissed, three years since he realized he loved you (three years minus 53 days before he said anything), 14 months since you’d figured out how to put a gun back together in the dark. Even in the most podunk little towns he’d find gorgeous bouquets and put together great meals in tiny kitchenettes; drive miles away to pick up a cake for Sam’s birthday or pepper motel rooms with festive streamers and silly string. Two quick, hard breaths through your nose to collect yourself and you finished the wrapping. That would have to be good enough.

Sam was crouched in front of the fireplace with a bellows, a plucky little fire kicking into gear with his help. “All yours,” you called out, grateful your voice didn’t crack.

“Thanks. It’ll only be a second.”

He was right, and came back to you on the couch in only a few minutes with two wrapped bundles. You shyly handed him what you’d wrapped and took his.

“Uh, Merry Christmas I guess,” Sam said. You noticed the edge of discomfort in his voice and were sickly grateful not to be alone in your tentativeness as you popped open the scotch tape holding the paper on the rectangular package. Before you’d uncovered it, Sam had his first gift unwrapped.

“Nice! They had these at the hardware store?” he asked, snapping open the clamshell package on the cheap purple noise-cancelling earbuds you’d picked up.

“I’m sure they’ll sound like they were made underwater, but I figured you could hide them pretty easily if you wanted to wear them at work, listen to your podcasts while you restock or whatever.”

“That’s a really good idea.” He looked down at the headphones considerately for a beat.

You pulled the paper off your present to reveal a notebook and two ballpoint pens. It had a leatherette flexible plastic cover that felt smooth under your fingertips and was about the size of a standard hardcover novel. You opened it to see inside, and a few photos dropped out.

“I just—you didn’t have any—I can take them back if you want,” Sam stammered, but you heard him as if through those checkout-aisle headphones while your eyes blurred. These were pictures you hadn’t seen for years. The one on top of the loose stack in your lap was outside Bobby’s house. It felt like a lifetime ago, leaning over the railing of the small porch to kiss Dean as he stood on the ground in a sweaty t-shirt covered in engine grease. Under that was one you remembered used to be the background of an old phone, where you, Sam, and Dean huddled together in a booth at some bar you’d forgotten the name of in Montana that had girls dressed up as mermaids swim around in big tanks, part of the same theme that explained the blue fishbowl drink partly out of frame in Dean’s hands. There was one you didn’t recall with you and Dean stretched out on a nondescript motel couch, his arm protectively covering you as you coiled up into his side, both clearly asleep from the closed eyes and slightly parted lips. The last was a picture you hadn’t seen since the last time you went to Jody’s house; it had touched you then to see it hanging up on the wall, you carrying Dean piggyback while Sam clutched his knees laughing. It was the same day Claire had turned 16 and you had no idea why you’d needed to convince Dean you could carry him, but the whole thing had ended up with everyone rolling on the ground, grabbing at laugh-opened rib pains for what felt like blissful hours.

You weren’t surprised at the silent tears that were pouring gently down your face, but wiped at them harshly with your sleeve so they wouldn’t drip. “Sam—” you croaked. “I don’t…I didn’t—thank you. How did you find these?”

“They had an instant photo printer at the grocery store. I’ve had a flash drive with some stuff on it for a while.”

You passed through each picture again, studying them like the gospel. It was almost hard to match the photos to the memories, memories having been replayed and multiplied and color-saturated in your mind over and over again, too big to fit into these little pieces of cardstock. But Dean was so beautiful, and you all looked so happy.

“It’s supposed to help to write about how you’re feeling, so I thought…” Sam trailed off.

“It’s perfect. I—thank you, Sam.” You met his eyes, stormy blue-green and taking on an amber reflection off of the fire. He looked nervous and almost guilty, like he had miscalculated and hurt you. Carefully slipping the photos back into the notebook, you set it on the table like it was made of crystal and threw your arms around Sam to tuck into him, knowing you were crying through his shirt but unable to stop. You realized you were murmuring thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou into the crook of his neck at the same time you felt the wetness of his tears onto your shoulder. Pulling him in tighter, you slunk back into the arm of the couch behind you. Sam slotted into the curve of your body, wrapping around your torso with powerful, gentle arms. His hair was silken when you began to stroke it, feeling his wracking sobs against your chest. It was impossible to gauge the amount of time it took for both of you to stop crying, skin slick and hot against each other on the old couch as your bodies hardened together like a mold. You felt dried out and sore and wouldn’t have pulled away from Sam if you’d had a gun to your head.

“Man, and we were doing so well,” you hummed into Sam’s hair.

“Were we?” Sam asked, and it was all you could do to laugh. Sam laughed too, the emotional and physical fatigue of it blending between you in the air. He adjusted his arm and you could feel the span of his hand across your lower back. The two of you sat there for a few more moments before you gathered up enough courage to let go of him.

“Want to open the other one?”

Sam nodded against your chest and slowly extricated himself, running a hand through his messed-up hair and rubbing his neck as he reached for the other present you’d gotten him. He tore through the paper unceremoniously and smiled down at the shoe repair glue and new boot laces. “You saw they split, didn’t you?”

You smiled back at him. “Would’ve just gotten you a new pair of boots but, you know, late notice. Maybe this’ll buy you some time.”

He handed you his second gift from the coffee table. Inside the foil-adorned wrapping paper were three bags of gummy worms.

Continue to Dreams, Chapter 4

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kelyon · 4 years ago

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Golden Rings 18: A Bouquet

The Storybrooke Sequel to Golden Cuffs

Lacey Gold looks deeper into her past.

Trigger warning for grief over a deceased parent.

Read on AO3

Her mother is dead.

It does not rain on the day of Mama’s funeral, even though it should. The skies should break open and flood the earth. The sun should never shine again. All of nature should be consumed by darkness and despair.

Instead, it is a lovely, sunny day in early summer. Pink roses burst into life all over the castle grounds. They were her favorite flower. Mama always wanted her to get married at this time of year, when the roses bloomed.

Now, every pink rose that was in the gardens covers the casket. Even the flowers that showed only the slightest bud have been cut down before they had a chance to bloom. Some of them are already turning brown.

The roses are dying. The roses are dead. This is wrong. Mama wouldn’t want her favorite flowers to die.

She stands beside Papa at the graveside. Both of them are dressed in black. He says nothing. He does not let himself weep. He must show strength as a leader to their people. Mama is not the first casualty of what the common folk are already calling the Ogres War.

It is a small funeral, only the castle inhabitants and the villagers who live nearby. Traveling is dangerous now, and those far away cannot take the risk. King Midas should have come, or at least sent a royal envoy. The rest of Mama’s family and friends should be here. The whole kingdom--the whole world--should mourn the loss of the greatest woman of this generation.

As it is, all she has of her mother’s family is Uncle Pierre, Aunt Therese, and their children. Her cousins stand in the cemetery with the rest of the meager party. Little Claude may be too young to understand the words being said, but she knows her aunt is gone. She stays quiet and still. Jeanne cries into a handkerchief. She despairs for the future, for everyone in the land. Andre tries to be a man--he knows that he will see more dead very soon--but he cannot keep his lip from quivering. This is the first death that has come to their family. Does he know, somehow, that he and his father will be next?

Papa’s brother, Uncle Armand, keeps his head bowed. His long, curling hair falls over his face. Normally a man of laughter and warmth, he is solemn.

Ermintrude, Mama’s closest friend, is as stone-faced as Papa. It must not be decorous for a lady to weep over someone who is not a blood relative. Even if you have known her all your life and raised your children together. Even if you were the last person to see her alive. The last person to hear her screams as monsters ripped her out of your hands and left you holding nothing but a broken necklace. Ermintrude does not weep, but she holds her own daughter’s hand in a clenching grip and does not let go until long after the funeral has ended. Mathilde clings to her mother with equal desperation.

A cleric prays over Mama’s casket. She does not hear what he says. She speaks when it is time to speak, repeats the words she knows by heart. She sings the hymns and makes the signs. But it does not reach her.

They cover the casket in dirt. The pink roses will never see the sun again. Mama is dead. The world has ended.

What future is left for her now?

****

Mrs. Lacey Gold started the morning by walking away from the pawn shop and towards Marine Automotive. These red and navy mary janes were the lowest heels she had, and the sound of them was strange on the sidewalk. Mrs. Gold was used to the sharp click-clack of her stilettos, the powerful stride she made sure to use every time she went out in public, no matter how she felt in the privacy of her own skull.

But things were different now. She was different. She wasn’t just Mrs. Gold anymore. But she wasn’t Lacey French anymore either.

Truth be told, she had never thought much about being Lacey French, not the way she thought about being Mrs. Gold. She’d never trudged the halls of Storybrooke High thinking about how Lacey French would walk. She’d never pulled on an oversized tee-shirt and jeans because she thought that was the sort of thing Lacey French would wear. She had never wanted to be herself, she just was.

She wanted to be Mrs. Gold. She’d put effort into it. But now Mr. Gold didn’t seem to care. So she had to try something else. She had to try being someone else.

Why not Lacey?

Above her, Marco the handyman was hammering something into the roof of the hardware store. When she looked up at him and waved, the old man just frowned and muttered something in Italian. Maybe it was a curse. Maybe it was a sign against curses, something that protected good men from vile harlots. Either way, Mrs. Gold squared her shoulders and kept walking.

Marine Automotive was right across from the old abandoned library. Mom had always wished that the library would open up again, so she could get access to more books. At least once a day, every time she had a free minute, she would sneak off to her rocking chair by the window with some well-worn paperback. The flower shop was named after one of her favorite books.

The garage was empty when she got there, no one in the office and only one car lifted up into a bay. A young kid, Billy Citrouille, was rubbing his backside in front of a space heater. He stopped when he noticed her.

“Hey there,” he smiled. His dark eyes were warm and his white teeth shone against tan skin. “How are you today, Mrs. Gold?”

Her first instinct was to giggle. She wanted to bounce on her heels and twirl her skirt and make some stupid joke about getting her motor running. Over the years, Mrs. Gold had had a lot of fun playing with Billy. He wore loose coveralls, but she could make them feel very tight when she wanted to.

But she was trying to be better.

Lacey looked around the empty garage. “Is Manny in today?”

Billy shrugged. “Business is slow, so he went over to Game of Thorns for a bit.”

“Oh.” Her stomach sank. “Did he… say when he’d be back?”

“He’s supposed to be on a fifteen minute break, but he left an hour ago, so there’s no telling.”

“Oh,” she said again. It was suddenly very difficult to swallow. “Great.”

“Is there something I can do for you, Mrs. Gold? What’s going on with that gorgeous caddy? I’m surprised it’s giving you any trouble.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s not Mr. Gold’s car. This is just… a family thing.”

“Oh, okay,” Billy said. Then he began to nod. “Oh that’s right, you were Manny’s niece!”

“I still am,” Lacey snapped, more angry than she wanted to be. “There’s no expiration date on being someone’s family.”

At least, she hoped not.

Without saying more to Billy, she left the garage. Game of Thorns was on a dinky little side street in Old Town, only a block away from Marine Automotive. The location didn’t offer much opportunity for foot traffic, but it was the best the owners could get when they bought it. All the properties on Main Street, all the good places, were owned by Mr. Gold. Moe French took it as a point of pride that he owned the deed to his building, that he had paid off the mortgage in ten years. Owning property meant equity, it meant security, it meant being the lord of your own castle.

It meant he had something to sell to Mr. Gold when the cancer treatments had wiped out all their savings and the medical bills were still unpaid. It meant his family became tenants, renters in their own home, swallowed up in the financial ruin that came with tragedy.

When they got married, Mr. Gold had given her this building as a wedding present.

In the spring and summer the exterior of the shop hosted a riot of potted and hanging plants for sale. The front was covered in ivy, always advertising the greenery within. But on this winter afternoon, the ivy was dead. All the plants were kept inside. The store barely looked open or alive at all.

The front window display was themed for Valentine’s Day, one of the busiest days of the year. Faded red cloth provided a backdrop for limp paper hearts and plastic vases full of dusty fake roses. Of course, all the real flowers had been sold already. Cheap, plastic garlands were strewn haphazardly around the window. The whole thing looked so tawdry, so pitiful.

She tried not to think of the hours Mom had spent every holiday, planning out designs for the displays. And then the hours more they had spent together, executing her vision. “It’s more than just color, Lacey-loo. There’s texture and balance and harmony--and always some memorable details. A good display will tell a story. That’s what makes people want to stop and look. And then come in and buy.”

Dad was trying his best, she knew he was. But it wasn’t the same. Nothing could ever be the same again.

Tempting as it was to linger in front of the window reminiscing, she knew she had to go inside. Mrs. Gold tried to press her fingernails into her palms, but then remembered she was wearing gloves. Right. So she would just have to do this without any of her usual crutches.

Great.

Game of Thorns smelled damp and moldy. Most people would say it smelled like flowers, but Lacey knew the smell of floral foam and pesticides, of fertilizer chemicals and a building that had been patched up with endless haphazard DIY projects for as long as she could remember.

Refrigerated flower cases lined one wall, mostly empty. The flickering fluorescent lights provided most of the illumination in the store. There were overhead lights, but it looked like her father was keeping them off when there was no one in the store, to save on the electric bill.

Merchandise was crammed into every inch of floor space, but she knew the path by heart. The tables of gifts and knickknacks, the shelves of mugs and boxes of chocolate, the helium tank and the display of balloons--nothing had moved. Except for the accumulation of dust, nothing had changed at all.

That was Storybrooke for you.

The cash register was in the back of the store. Did the drawer still stick when it rang out, or had Dad ever fixed it? He’d been saying he would fix it for years now.

Behind the desk, someone was reading a newspaper. Lacey could tell it was a man, but the paper covered up his face. She stood in the middle of the floor--near the desk, but not close enough to touch the counter. Which one of them was behind the paper, her uncle or her father? Who was she going to see first, and how would they react to seeing her again?

She took a breath, and cleared her throat.

The paper lowered. Long, curling hair in a neat center part emerged from the other side. Then raised, dark eyebrows and wide, dark eyes. The eyes lit up. The paper was cast aside.

Uncle Manny beamed at her and stood up.

“Hey! Look who’s back!” Arms wide open, he walked around the desk to offer her a hug.

Lacey accepted his embrace and hugged him back. How long had it been since her last hug? Months or years? Uncle Manny’s coveralls smelled like metal and motor oil and aftershave. Smelling it made her feel like a kid in the best way--small and weak, but loved and valued.

She felt safe.

Dad’s younger brother had never been married and never had children. But he had been around for Lacey’s whole life--another parent in the web of family love she’d grown up with, and then been away from for so long. Uncle Manny had an open enthusiasm that Dad never bothered with. She could show him her crayon drawings or her middle school science projects and he would shower her with praise. When she became valedictorian, he’d been so proud of her he actually cried.

When the hug ended, she didn’t know what to say. Torn between saying nothing and saying everything, Lacey blurted out something completely stupid. “Your hair didn’t used to be so long.”

Uncle Manny laughed and clapped her on the back. “It was that cousin of yours, Janine. This past October she convinced me that if I let it grow out more, I wouldn’t look so much like a white man with an afro.”

Lacey let herself smile. “Well she would know. She’s the hair stylist.”

“I thought this would be better than getting it close-cropped. Curly hair is the French family trademark, you know.”

“I know.”

“Big hair and big brains, that’s us. All except for your father, but I think he’s adopted.”

Now Lacey giggled. The joke wasn’t funny, but it hadn’t been funny the first time Uncle Manny had told it to her when she was five years old. The funny part had been Lacey very carefully explaining to her uncle that Dad couldn’t be adopted, because that would mean she wasn’t really a French and that was impossible because she definitely had big hair and big brains.

Uncle Manny had been so tickled by the exchange, he had repeated it at least once a month ever since. Dad--who his entire adult life had kept his hair so short that almost no one knew it could curl--had never thought it was very funny. Which only made it better as a joke.

“It’s good to hear you laugh again,” he said. “It’s good to see you!” He held her by the arms and looked her up and down. “Yep, still pretty. You got that from Linda.”

That was a well-meaning lie. The Woolverton look was wispy blonde hair with bright blue eyes. Janine and Chloe looked like Mom in old pictures. Andrew had been the spitting image of Uncle Peter. Lacey had Mom’s eyes and Dad’s hair, but she didn’t really look like either one of them.

She changed the subject. “How have you been? I’m sorry we haven’t talked much since…” She trailed off, leaving the sentence unfinished, the past unspoken, unspeakable.

Uncle Manny kept his hand on her upper arm. He looked her in the face, his dark eyes worried and painfully sincere. “You don’t need to apologize, kiddo. Not to me. Didn’t you hear that love means never having to say you’re sorry?”

“That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.” She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The quote was another family joke, a line from an old movie making fun of another old movie. Lacey repeated the words she knew by heart, she let the ritual of them comfort her.

Why did it feel so strange to be here? This had been her home, this had been her family. For most of Lacey’s life, this had been her whole world. Had she really outgrown this place so much? Had she really let her marriage turn her into a different person?

Behind the thin walls, the steps up from the basement creaked and groaned under a heavy weight. She swallowed and her heart sank a little more as she automatically looked towards the door into the back room.

Moe French came up from the basement, his arms full with a plastic-lined cardboard box that overflowed with flowers. Dad had always been a big bear of a man--gruff but loving, full of ideas and hope for the future. Lacey remembered the game when he would pick her up over his head and twirl her around. Mom made up a story that Lacey was a clever warrior who refused to slay a dragon, but had tamed it instead and now she could fly on it to anywhere in the world.

Once Mom was gone, Dad had shrunk into himself, and the only thing bearish about him was his temper. A temper that Lacey had inherited and Mom wasn’t around to quell in either of them.

“Oh,” he said when he saw her. “Mrs. Gold.”

He took the time to put the box on the countertop before he turned and brushed his hands on his jeans. He crossed his arms tightly over his chest. His baseball cap was pulled low over his eyes, so his expression was unreadable.

“So, has the landlady decided it was time to start charging rent?”

She felt her expression change, felt her lips purse and her jaw clench. She felt her hackles raise, all without thinking about it.

Uncle Manny spoke up. “Moe, come on. It’s just Lacey.”

“I know who it is.” Dad didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to. The judgement came through better when he sounded neutral.

It really was a rare gift, the way he could mean so much while saying so little. Even now, he hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true. She was his landlady, she could start charging rent. Those were facts. But he said them like they were crimes.

And it was a neat trick, too, because he never had to defend himself. Because he had never actually said anything mean. For most of her adolescence, Lacey had known how useless it was to rant about feeling belittled or shamed or trapped. She would never have a direct quote that she could repeat to him to make him understand how much he’d hurt her.

Even now, she’d take a lifetime of Mr. Gold’s most obscene insults over hearing her father say “Fine,” with no emotion ever again.

Mrs. Gold stepped away from her uncle and faced her father. She said “Hi,” and it felt like a declaration of war.

Dad nodded. Without a word, he turned back to the box and began to pull out flowers. They were mixed roses--every color except white and red, which got their own packaging. He began to separate yellow from orange from salmon from magenta from pink.

Lacey’s heart skipped a beat at the pink roses. They were mom’s favorite. She’d always said they represented the best kind of love--sweet, gentle, light. Red roses were for the burning passion of new romance, and white roses were innocent and bridal. But pink roses were the compromise, the roses of marriage, of the simple love that warmed your heart and made every day a little brighter. A little spark of joy, those were pink roses for Mom.

And that was Mom for everyone who knew her.

She wanted me to marry in spring, when the roses bloomed.

Wordless, Lacey walked over to the counter and watched Dad sort the flowers. He placed the ends of the stems under a cutter and pulled the blade down like a lever. It looked mercenary, but it was for the flower’s own good. You had to cut off the parts that were dead so they could take in more water and stay fresher longer. It hurt, but was a part of growing--or at least staying alive in a world that wouldn’t let you grow.

After a few minutes, he stepped to the side, so there was enough room for her to stand beside him and help. If she wanted to.

That was the flip side of the way Dad said things without saying them--sometimes he could say nice things too. Sometimes it was easier for both of them not to talk. Then neither of them could say the wrong thing. She stood beside him, and began to place the sorted roses into different buckets filled with water and plant food. That way, he would have more room on the counter.

“Well, I guess I’ll get back to work,” Uncle Manny announced.

“Oh, do you have a job? I couldn’t tell,” Dad grumbled.

Lacey snorted. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the slightest grin from Dad.

Uncle Manny ignored the jab. “Lacey-girl, it was good to see you. You come and talk to me any time, okay?”

“I will.” She looked up from the flowers. “Thank you.”

“Ah, I gotta have one more hug!” Uncle Manny crossed the length of the store and wrapped his arms around her again. She felt the press of his lips on her curly French family hair. “Love you, kiddo.”

“Love you.”

“Aww, do I get a hug too?” Dad said. It would have been good-natured, if it didn’t sound so bitter.

“Brother of mine, you’ll get a sock in the jaw if you drive our girl away again. I’ll go with her this time, she’s better company than you.”

“Get outta here, you mangy grease monkey.”

Uncle Manny went back to the garage and Lacey and Dad worked together in silence. When the box was empty, Dad wiped his hands on a green rag and handed it over for her to do the same. It had been Mom’s idea for all of the shop’s towels to be green. That way they wouldn’t get mixed up with the blue and pink towels they used at home.

Lacey rubbed the rag between her finger and her thumb. The fabric was worn and scratchy, not like the big fluffy towels in Mr. Gold’s house. She kept her eyes on the ground. Dad hadn’t moved. He was waiting.

They were both waiting for the other one to speak first.

Papa, I’ve missed you.

It took her a minute, but finally she did the brave thing.

“Look,” Lacey said. “I guess I’m sorry it took me this long to come visit.”

She wanted to offer an excuse, but there was nothing she could say that wouldn’t be an outright lie. She hadn’t spoken to her father in years because she hadn’t wanted to. Because he made her angry and sad and made her remember things she’d rather forget. Because she had been too busy enjoying the better life she’d had as Mrs. Gold.

Dad looked around, trying to find something to do. He began to move the buckets of roses into the flower case. “The shop was always here,” he said, not as gruff as he could have been. “You own the place, you could have come by any time.”

“I didn’t want to bother you.” She’d taken her coat off to work, and now she clutched it over her chest. “I didn’t want to… embarrass you.”

Straightening up, Dad looked down at her. He was tall--a trait she had not inherited. His face was worn out, tired. Was he still disappointed in her?

“You didn’t have to do it, you know. Marry him. The rent wasn’t that overdue. I could have worked something out on my own.”

She’d married Mr. Gold on the day before Valentine’s Day. Two weeks after the January rent was due, one day before a huge influx of cash would be coming in for the store. If Mr. Gold had demanded that she marry him in lieu of rent, the timing could not have been more painfully tragic.

But that wasn’t what happened.

“I didn’t marry him for rent money, Dad. I married him because… because I wanted to.”

He grumbled and shook his head. Turning away, he reached into the bucket of yellow roses and counted out twelve blooms for a grab-and-go bouquet. Out of habit, Lacey went to her old place by the cash register and leaned over the counter.

More silence. It was times like these when she missed Mom the most. Mom loved words, she lived in words. She understood how to talk so people would listen, and she never said the wrong thing.

Dad counted out more bouquets, at least one for every color of roses. When he came to the bucket of pink roses, he lingered. It looked like he was trying to pick out the best ones, the largest, freshest blooms. As he had with all the others, he wrapped the bouquet in plastic and secured it with a rubber band.

But instead of placing it in the display, he set it on the counter in front of Lacey. She didn’t pick it up, but put her hand over the stems. There were thorns on these roses, but they were still so beautiful. Beauty and pain, Mom would say sometimes. No life was complete without both.

“I don’t… understand,” he said slowly. “And I don’t want to understand. Why you would… want that. Want him.” Dad shook his head. He looked like he had a bad taste in his mouth.

Lacey bit her lip. She waited for the rest of it. The condemnations, the accusations, the “we raised you betters.” She’d certainly heard enough of that once Mom got sick. Once she wasn’t everything he’d always wanted her to be.

But Dad just sighed, and put his hand over hers on the bouquet. His big hand covered half her fingers, stopping at her wedding ring. “Your mother… would want you to be happy.”

He didn’t ask if she was happy, or if Mr. Gold made her happy, or if he could help her be happy. But somehow, it was enough. Just to hear him say it. Mom would want her to be happy.

She knew what he meant.

****

It was a long walk to the cemetery. She might have asked Mr. Gold if she could borrow the Cadillac, but she didn’t feel like telling him that she was going anywhere. It was none of his business.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been here. Her feet walked like they were separate from her mind along the rows of headstones. They took her where she needed to go without her having to think about it.

Past the crosses and obelisks and statues of angels. The back of the cemetery wasn’t quite a potter’s field, but it also wasn’t as neat and well-maintained as the section by the gates. That was where the mausoleums were, the polished marble and memorial benches for people who used to be rich and influential.

Even in death, there was no equality.

Before she got where she was going, two tombstones stood out to her. Small and cheap and side by side. There were no decorations in the stone, no carved images or poems. Even adding dates would have been too expensive. All they had were words:

PETER HOWARD WOOLVERTON, BELOVED HUSBAND AND FATHER

ANDREW PETER WOOLVERTON, BELOVED SON AND BROTHER

“And uncle,” Lacey whispered as she stood by the graves. “And cousin.”

Unlike a lot of other headstones in this section, these had all the snow and moss and bird shit cleared off. There were flowers in the little vases, cloth bouquets that wouldn’t be affected by the cold. Daisies for Andrew, calla lilies for Uncle Peter.

Lacey wondered who was maintaining the graves. Even though Aunt Terri hadn’t been in the car crash, she had been all but comatose ever since it had happened. She’d withdrawn into her own sadness, leaving Janine to hold herself and Chloe together. Did Janine have time to care for the dead? Did Aunt Terri have the will for it? Or was it a family decision, an event? Maybe mourning was the only thing all of them could do together anymore.

Her family had been falling apart. They had been breaking at the seams while Mrs. Gold had strutted around like a prostitute, flaunting the money she had earned from being a fucktoy to the man who held all of Storybrooke in the palm of his hand.

Shaking her head, Lacey moved on. She wasn’t strutting now. She was hunched over in the cold, burdened by her memories. She had carried the plastic-wrapped bouquet all the way from town, through the neighborhoods and woods and into this lonely graveyard.

It was two rows up from Andrew and Uncle Peter. This was a double headstone. Her father’s name was already carved onto it, right beside her mother’s.

LINDA WOOLVERTON FRENCH

To Lacey, the grave looked like a double bed, like Mom had gone to sleep before Dad and was waiting for him to join her. Waiting for them to be together again at last.

There was already a bouquet here. Pink roses, brown and withered from at least a week’s worth of exposure to the cold. Was it wrong to leave Mom’s favorite flowers out here to die? Wouldn’t she think that was a waste?

But wasn’t death always a waste?

Crouching down, Lacey took the old bouquet and set the new one down in its place. The granite was dark and polished. She could see her own reflection in her mother’s grave.

“Mom,” Lacey whispered.

Mama.

For days now, she had been in a cycle of crying and being too worn out to cry. Ever since her fight with Mr. Gold, she’d felt like the world had ended. But the truth was that the world had ended before. The world had ended the day after she’d graduated high school, when Mom had gone to her doctor and come back with the diagnosis. Then the world ended a thousand more times: When she gave up her scholarship and her dreams of going to college, when Dad sold the store to Mr. Gold, every time there were new results from the doctor and none of them were good, every time Mom checked in to the hospital.

The time Mom didn’t check out of the hospital.

The funeral, more costs, more spending money they did have. Less than a month afterward, Andrew and Uncle Peter tried to leave Storybrooke to interview for jobs that paid double what the cannery offered. They took the widowmaker highway. It lived up to its name.

Death and debt. Over and over. The world never stopped ending.

“Mom, I’m sorry,” Lacey whispered.

In hospice, the nurses had told them that hearing was the last sense to go, that they should keep talking even if she seemed unresponsive. Mom could hear her. Mom was listening, even if she wasn’t talking.

Tears rolled down her cheeks and she didn’t stop them. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save us. I’m sorry I couldn’t stop any of it.”

She knew that it was irrational to blame herself for events that were beyond any human control. She knew Mom wouldn’t want her to think that. Mom wanted her to be happy.

“I’m sorry I only saved myself.”

That’s what it had been, to marry Mr. Gold, to do whatever he said in exchange for whatever he would give. She had been running away from her old life, the life of poverty and scraping by. She’d escaped. She’d gotten out. She’d saved herself and never looked back.

Until now.

She hugged her arms over her chest. She thought of all the hugs she’d ever had, and all the hugs she’d never have again.

“You know, I thought it would be easy. To not love someone. Because God knows if you love someone, you can lose them. It destroyed Dad. It destroyed Aunt Terri. I thought it would be easier to just not bother loving the man I married. To marry someone who would never love me. It was just a deal.” Mrs. Gold closed her eyes and shook her head. “Just a deal.”

A sob racked through her. She fell on her knees and let her tears fall onto the snow.

I love him.

“I wasn’t supposed to love him! I didn’t want to love him. I thought I was safe with just sex. I thought that was all he wanted too.”

But as soon as Mr. Gold had stopped demanding sex from her, as soon as he had started treating her with kindness--even that lukewarm politeness that she hated--then she had begun to see something real about him. Something that she just had to fall in love with.

He is so good. It’s hard to find, but it’s there. He’s so loving, Mama. He loves me so much.

Hearing those thoughts in her head, thoughts that she wanted to believe but knew were lies, just made her break down even more. Maybe she was going crazy. Maybe all these years of grief and loss and hopelessness were finally compounding on themselves to the point where she was hearing voices. What other finale could there be to this joke of a life than to end up in some kind of asylum?

The snow was seeping through her coat. She had to stand. She had to get somewhere warm. She had to start walking. She had to go home.

Or at least, back to Mr. Gold’s house.

“I miss you, Mom,” she whispered. “I wish you were here.”

I wish he could have met you.

****

She’d stopped crying by the time she got to the entrance of the cemetery. It wasn’t cold enough for her tears to freeze to her face, but her eyes were raw, and her skin was chapping in the wind. Her makeup was ruined and there was a trail of snot running down the front of her scarf. Not much she could do about it right now.

A black Mercedes-Benz was parked in front of one of the mausoleums. The car was smaller than Mr. Gold’s Cadillac, but newer and more luxurious.

She picked up her pace. The last thing she wanted was for somebody to see her like this. Especially not someone as important as--

“Mrs. Gold?”

Fuck.

No! Not Regina!

Mayor Mills came out of the mausoleum that bore her family’s name. Like Lacey, she held a bouquet of withered flowers--white chrysanthemums, it looked like.

Oh right. It was Wednesday. Every Wednesday Mayor Mills went to put flowers on her father’s grave. Everyone knew that.

How does everyone know that?

Maybe if she stayed far enough away from the Mayor, she wouldn’t notice what a state she was in. So Lacey just nodded and kept on walking.

But Mayor Mills didn’t give up. “Mrs. Gold, is that really you? I’ve never seen you so subdued.”

Run! Get away from her!

She couldn’t run. Now that the Mayor had seen her, she had to stop. She had to turn around and make polite small talk until she let her go. Before she turned around, she took a second to rearrange her scarf and put on a decent expression.

“Well, it is a cemetery,” she tried. “You’re not supposed to be happy here, right?”

“But you look downright tortured, dear.” The Mayor’s face was full of concern. “Are you alright? Do you want to talk?”

This was the second time Mayor Mills had offered support to Mrs. Gold. The first time had been when she’d seen her in the alley with Dr. Whale. Just like then, Mrs. Gold had the strangest urge to confide in the Mayor. She wanted to tell her everything, everything about Mr. Gold and their marriage and how miserable she had been for so long.

But the voice in her head had been screaming ever since Mrs. Gold turned around. Was that a sign that she was even crazier? This was an offer of help and her subconscious or whatever was reacting like the Mayor was holding a dagger to her throat.

“I--” Mrs. Gold began. But it was hard to even speak over the racket in her thoughts. “I need to go.”

“Oh, let me give you a ride back into town.”

You made me walk barefoot through the snow, you merciless bitch!

These fucking thoughts would only get worse if she got into the Mayor’s car. And she had enough of a headache as it was.

“No, thank you, Madame Mayor. I don’t want to trouble you.”

“Why, it’s no trouble at all! I’m happy to help someone in need.”

Get away from me, you monster!

“I’m sorry.” She began to back away. “Mr. Gold doesn’t like me to get in cars with anybody but him.”

The lie worked. The Mayor’s expression changed from insistent concern to sympathetic understanding.

“Well,” she said, more huskily than she had been speaking before. “You’re a good girl for doing what Mr. Gold tells you to. Will you tell him that you saw me here? Let him know I’m always around for you, whenever you need me.”

The Mayor smiled, all red lips and white teeth.

Burn in every hell, you lying, murdering--

“Yes, of course.” Mrs. Gold said loudly. She didn’t have time for the bullshit ramblings of her own head. “Have a good day, Madame Mayor.”

“And you as well, Mrs. Gold.”

#golden rings #rumbelle #rumbelle fic

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system76 · 4 years ago

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System76 Spotlight with Adam Balla

Welcome to the first of an ongoing series where we get to know some of the amazing people behind System76! This week, we kick things off with one of our newest members, Adam Balla (AKA chzbacon), who has just joined the Marketing Team as our Content Producer. Learn what makes his content creation heart go pitter-patter, and why his electric smoker is his must-have cooking appliance.

When did you first become interested in Linux computer systems?

When my roommate introduced me to Slackware in 1999, he was working as a Linux system admin and he really got me interested in Linux. I was going to the Art Institute of Houston at the time for a Multimedia Design degree, and the thought that you could create your own desktop operating system really appealed to me. I didn’t need to stare at the same old tacky operating system I’d used for years.

I found myself, like many nerds of the era, at a Micro Center in the early 2000s rummaging through the discount software bins, trying to snag up multi-CD Linux distributions. This journey exposed me to several of today’s most popular Linux distros. One of those was SUSE Linux 5.3, of which I still keep the tattered book on a bookshelf as a reminder. I did however finally find my place in the world of Debian, which is where I essentially live today. Honestly not much has really changed other than using Pop!_OS as my main distribution—though like any Linux diehard, I still love to download, test, and sometimes install all the Linux.

When did you start becoming a champion for open source hardware and software?

It was a few years after that. Once I got back from the Art Institute and I was working in the area, we needed a server for the screen printing shop that I worked at. Knowing about Linux at that point, I was able to set up a server using consumer-grade gear that we could store all of our artwork and assets on. Moving forward, I set up a server for the newspaper that I worked at for a decade, which I know is still running to this day. After using Linux in that sort of environment and knowing it was good enough for a business, I knew it was good enough for me and my needs.

How did you get involved in content creation as a career?

My father was an engineer. When I was young I was always, like most kids, into drawing cars and doodles and cartoons, but I was used to having a drafting table at the house. Computing came around, and my father bought an IBM 486 and one of the original digitizing tablets, and so I got to play around with that. Eventually, he got upset because I was on the computer more than he was, so he bought me an IBM 386 to use.

Around 1995, my dad learned from a coworker about Photoshop. I begged him to get me a copy, and he finally did for Christmas. That’s when I started playing around in Photoshop and really fell into wanting to create for a living. Similar to what my father does, but maybe not as stringent in the decision that I make—no building is going to fall down from my creative process.

And that’s how I got into the whole content creation piece. I created a cover for the album of my high school bands and then started doing work for more local bands. Back then, there were no digital art courses, so I learned a lot by doing and trial/error.

What is your favorite part of the creative process?

Working together as a team during the initial brainstorming process. Going through all of the ideas and details, sometimes writing them down, sometimes not, and even laughing at myself at how ridiculous an idea may sound. I love the process of the very first step. I love to set the vision for the project work from there to turn that vision into reality.

How did you first learn about System76?

I first learned about System76 through Chris Fisher and Jupiter Broadcasting. I believe they were reviewing the Leopard Extreme in 2012, on what at that time was the Linux Action Show. That’s when I started to look at System 76 and their offerings and wondered if it would be better for me to build my own Linux desktop, or adopt something and support the open source community. It’s been a little while since then, and I’ve always kept my eye on System76. Then with the release of Thelio, that really pushed me to the point of, “Wow, these guys are creating their own beautiful custom chassis and they’re incorporating different materials together. What a beautiful machine.”

I was speaking to my wife (financial advisor) about purchasing one in 2019, and I spoke to Emma and some other people at System76 about my desire for one, and I don’t know how, but Emma encouraged me not to buy one! And then I was given the opportunity to come to System76 for the Superfan event, where I was fortunate enough to be one of a dozen people who were gifted a Thelio desktop. It sits on my desk to this day; I even bought a larger desk just so I could put it up there and see it every day. I really appreciate the humble beginnings of System76, and I’m so glad to finally be a part of this amazing team.

Let's get into that creative brain. What is your favorite viral video and/or ad, and why do you love it so much?

I have a few ads that I like. I’ve always liked Honda’s messaging and their ads.

I like these ads because of the way in which they go through their history and lineage and the way that Honda itself has marketed its products as “People First” products—very similar to when they introduced their motorcycles to the US with their “You meet the nicest people on a Honda,” campaign. I think that was in 1962, so this was during the height of the motorcycle gang craze. Then comes this little Japanese motorcycle company and markets their products in a completely opposite image from the rest of the industry. They dared to be different and it paid off for them. Selling over 100 million Honda Cubs since 1958. Being given the title of most produced motor vehicle in the world.

This may come as a surprise to some, but I also really love the original Orwellian-inspired Macintosh commercial, which only aired once during the 1984 Super Bowl. Created by Steve Hayden, Brent Thomas and Lee Clow. In my opinion, these guys really created disruptive advertising, so much so that the ad still resonates today as much as it did then. While I don’t think you need to incite fear to sell a product, it showed that Apple dared to be different.

I’m not sure what constitutes a viral video these days. I’m not sure if it’s having a billion trillion views or just simply infecting one person who saw your video. One that always gives me a chuckle has to be “News Anchor Laughs At Worst Police Sketch Fail”. The honesty on the anchor's face makes me lose it every time.

When you’re not helping to lead the Open Source revolution, what do you like to do with your free time?

I really like going on walks and taking photos. Photography to me is one of the last honest art forms. What you see really is what you get. I love to tinker and make things, I have a 3D printer that my wife and I purchased as a joint valentine’s gift to each other last year. We started using it right when COVID broke out, so we made around 900 face shields which we distributed to schools, day cares, dentist's offices, anyone who needed one. That’s what we did for about the first 6 months when we first got it. Now, my wife loves to print earrings, for example, and I like to build different fun electronics projects.

I also love to cook, especially for large groups. I just got done with an Easter Weekend + Birthday celebration where we cooked 100 lbs of crawfish, 10 lbs of pork shoulder, sausage, and boudin (which is basically rice and pieces of pork that have been mixed together with seasonings and then put into a casing like sausage). One of my main requirements actually for a place in Denver is somewhere I can bring my electric smoker. It’s a must-have for any Texan.

What are you most excited about with your new role here at System76? To help change the computing landscape as we know it today. Into a future where technology is free and open. A world where you're encouraged to break things, fix things, and learn how they work. Aside from changing the world and stuff, I'm really excited to have a chance to work with such an insanely talented group of people.

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suncityblues · 4 years ago

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Bad Luck and Sunshine

Part 1/5 - SPN - 3k words

read on AO3

He can fit all his worldly possessions on the passenger seat of his car.

Car keys, red bic lighter, a toothbrush in a ziplock bag. Cellphone, charger, brown faux leather wallet. A maxed out credit card with the name James Ledbetter on it, and a fake ID to match the card. Fourteen American dollars, one Canadian quarter, a Blimpie’s buy-one-get-one coupon.

A pen with the name of a bank on it, a tin of salt. A paperback with a four leaf clover carefully pressed into the pages between the title and the acknowledgments, and that’s it.

Castiel taps the book in the spot where the clover is pressed. He can feel the slight bump of it.

“They’re supposed to be good luck,” Dean had told him with a shrug when Cas asked why he was rooting around in the grass that day. Dean had handed Cas the book with the clover inside and said, “I used to search for them sometimes when I was a kid. It’s dumb but, hey, I figure we could use all the luck we can get.” Dean had smiled softly then, a bit sheepish. The tips of his ears had gone red.

Back then the world had been ending, so Cas supposed Dean was right, they could use luck.

He remembers trying to be encouraging, saying something about the placebo effect that made Dean roll his eyes and laugh at the same time. He can’t quite recall the specifics of it anymore.

A while later he had reached out to the clover with his grace and found nothing particularly special about it, but kept it and the book anyway. He reaches out again, now, with what little of his power he has left. It’s still just as lucky as any other dead plant.

He takes stock of his possessions again, focusing in particular on the fourteen American dollars and the one Canadian quarter. He checks how much gas he has left in his car and it’s not much. If he keeps going he’ll have to choose between food and gas, just to run out of it again anyway.

He needs to eat sometimes now, and drink water. He needs a shower and a bed if he can get them. Clothes, shoes, soap, toothpaste. All of it costs money, and to get money you have to trade time. Castiel has always found that a little ridiculous but it’s not like he makes the rules anymore.

He’s been pulled over in a dark parking lot in a truck stop town called Laurel for a while now thinking about what to do. Sam and Dean had set him up with the card and the fake ID before he left and Cas doesn’t want to ask them for any more help. He decides Laurel is as good a place as any other to get stuck in.

It’s 9:52 on a Tuesday.

A day and a half later Castiel is once again employed at a gas station. He’d tried a diner, a vegetable canning factory, a hardware store, and a rundown CVS but the gas station is the first place that got back to him. They were short staffed after someone named Ricky had walked out, and desperately needed a replacement. Kendra, the manager, had said “it’s like you were sent by an angel!” When she read through his mostly fictional work history. It had made Cas laugh.

This one is called Sunshine Gas and Go. They have to wear ugly yellow polo shirts that say “Let me know how I can help make your day sunny!” On the back. They keep the beer on the left side of the cooler bank instead of the right and the jerky next to the self-serve coffee but aside from that it’s remarkably similar to a Gas-N-Sip.

He wonders bleakly if he should have been the patron of gas stations while he had the ability.

The angel of Thursday, the angel of gas stations, that’s Cas. The guardian of the spaces you have to pass through on your way to better days, better places.

He sometimes wonders how Nora’s doing; if her kid’s okay.

It takes Sam and Dean five weeks to cave and check in on him. Cas has been in Laurel for the last three.

They pretend to be on their way back from a hunt, a totally routine salt and burn, and just so happen to be refueling at that particular gas station in this particular truck stop, exactly fifteen minutes after his coworker leaves Cas alone to cover the overnight shift. It’s an obvious and flimsy excuse to make sure he’s okay, but he’s known them long enough to understand that obviousness and flimsy excuses to see one another are gestures of affection in the Winchester family. He finds it somewhat exhausting to witness, and even more so to experience but he doesn’t call them out on it.

He does, however, make pointed eye contact with Sam who waves his hands in a placating gesture behind Dean’s back and excuses himself to go stare at the overpriced air fresheners on the other side of the store. He had hoped Sam, at least, would have had the sense to text first.

On the counter next to the cash register there’s a plastic bin with a picture of a bald child in a hospital bed taped to it and some loose change inside. Dean picks the can up, looks inside it, shakes it a bit, puts it down. It’s mostly empty.

“You’d think people’d be a little more generous, what with the cancer kid at stake and all,” he says. When Cas doesn’t immediately reply Dean continues, “Or is this one of those, uh, charity scams? You know, where the evil mega corporation asks you to pretty please donate so they can use it as a tax write off?”

Castiel shrugs, he doesn’t know what the Sunshine Gas and Go does with the money. Says: “I’m not sure, Dean.”

He pretends not to see Dean stick some gum from the display under the counter into his coat pocket. He’s watched Dean do this before to other casheers, leaning close to flirt and making off with what he can. Cas supposes old habits die hard. The gum is sugar free cinnamon.

Dean sees him pretending not to see. He smiles big and bright, his nose does a little crinkle that Cas always liked. The term “shit eating grin” comes to mind, Cas must have heard it somewhere, probably about Dean that time too. He rolls his eyes and says, “How was your hunt? Were you or Sam hurt at all?” He can’t do much besides heal minor cuts and bruises these days, but for the Winchesters he’d still offer what he can.

Dean waves him off, “Fine, fine, got shoved around a bit but it’s nothing a cold compress and a good night’s sleep can’t fix.”

“Speaking of,” Dean segues in a breezyl tone Castiel knows is dangerous territory, “Where are you sleeping these days? You gotta sleep now right?”

The ghost of Rexford sits heavy between them, though it’s been years since then. Cas realizes being back at a gas station might have caught Dean off guard, or felt like some kind of dig at him. He doesn’t know how to explain that it’s just bad luck, and he’s not sure Dean would believe him if he did.

This time around he’s not squatting in the back room with the cleaning chemicals but he is sleeping in his car, just until he has enough money for a place to stay or decides to hit the road again. He knows that’s not anything Dean wants to hear.

“Yes, Dean, I need to sleep” he answers, then pauses. He considers lying but it never works out when he does, and this isn’t life or death; just embarrassing.

Besides, Sam and Dean are observant and thorough even during a glorified social visit, so Cas figures they’d put two and two together as soon as they walked in the door. There’s no way they hadn’t clocked his too-big thrift store jeans under the uniform shirt, or the circles under his eyes. The way his beard is a little patchy from shaving in the bathroom mirror in the truck stop visitor center. It’s likely they’d found his car in it’s discreet parking space at the edge of the lot before coming into the Sunshine Gas and Go.

Cas tries tactful honesty: “I’m saving up.”

And it’s true, he is, though he’s not sure what he’s saving up for. But every Friday he gets a paycheck and brings it to the check cashing place in town. After the fee, and groceries, and little necessities he carefully stores what little he has left in the locked glove compartment of his car, under the book with the clover in it.

Dean’s lips press flat together. He stops leaning over the counter and stands at his full height. He makes an aborted head shaking gesture. He speaks like there’s an awful taste in his mouth.

“So,” he says, slightly too loudly to pay it off as cool. Out of the corner of his eye Castiel sees Sam’s head wip towards them, no longer pretending he’s not eavesdropping.

“So, ah—“ Dean repeats, “you’re gonna, what? Drift around? Lay low in some podunk shit hole for the rest of your life?“ he stops, puts his hands on the counter to steady himself, or to keep from reaching over and grabbing him, Cas isn’t sure. A beat.

“You know what?” Dean says, “Nevermind.”

Cas deflates. He knows Dean disagrees with him leaving so soon after becoming human again, and feels guilty about so many things it’s hard for Cas to keep track of them all, but he knows he couldn’t stay either. Just like lying to the Winchesters, it never works out in the end. With almost no power, he’s no help to anyone, not Sam and Dean, not heaven, not even himself. It hurts to think about but maybe that’s just part of being human.

“Dean—“ he starts to say but he’s cut off.

“Don’t worry about it, man” Dean says, he taps the counter twice with his knuckles, “nice place you got here. I’m glad you’re doing alright.”

Dean swallows and abruptly turns to leave, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket. Cas watches him go until Sam comes to the counter with two bottles of water, a coffee, and an energy bar.

He puts a twenty down, says apologetically, “For this stuff and whatever Dean stole on his way out.”

“Gum,” Cas supplies, and slides the twenty back towards Sam. “Don’t worry about it,” he says.

The cameras don’t work inside the store, and according to Joanna, the only reason they’re still up at all is to deter would-be armed robbers. Castiel watches less deserving people steal from them all the time, so it doesn’t seem worth it to take Sam’s money.

Sam shakes his head and gives him a flat smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He takes his things but leaves the twenty. Says, “See you around, Cas.” He pauses for a moment, and seems to debate something with himself. Then: “Check in sometimes if you can, okay? You know how Dean can be when he gets worried.”

Castiel knows. He waves to Sam as he walks off into the dark.

Cas checks the gum display, then manually rings up the items Sam bought. He puts the change into the plastic jar with the kid in the hospital bed on it.

A few days later a woman comes in with a ghost behind her. Cas checks the time to keep from gaping. 11:27 AM.

The ghost is a man, perhaps in his mid forties. Too young to be dead, but Cas supposes most people feel that way when they die, no matter how old. When the woman comes to the counter and gives him thirty dollars to put on pump six he sees a wedding ring on a chain around her neck. He puts two and two together.

“That’s a lovely necklace” he says, he looks directly at the ghost when he says it. They make eye contact. The ghost does a sharp inhale for a moment and the lights flicker. The ghost disappears.

Cas frowns, “Sorry about that. It happens all the time,” he lies. He wonders if he could purify the ghost with what powers he has left, that way she wouldn’t have to burn her wedding ring.

The woman seems caught off guard, then smiles politely.

“No worries, it happens all the time at my house too. Must be a faulty power grid in this town or something, my kids swear it’s a ghost or something,” she says.

There’s an apprehensive edge to her voice then, hastily: “have a good one.”

“You too,” Cas says. He thinks about following her out, trying to explain. He thinks about texting Sam and Dean.

The slushie machine makes a mechanical crunching sound and suddenly there’s red goop all over the ground.

Joanna starts yelling and runs for the mop. He goes to unplug the machine and gets sticky pink syrup all over his last clean pair of pants. The ghost slips his mind.

Two days later Dean shows up by himself. It’s 6:43 in the morning on a Tuesday.

Cas has been finished with work for fifteen minutes already but there’s a rush at the end of his shift so he says on to help Javier and Kendra out. It’s mostly people stopping for gas on their way to work, or truckers picking up breakfast before heading back on the road. He doesn’t mind sticking around in the mornings, everyone’s usually too tired to be angry and it’s a nice break from the drunks and the sad eyed kids he usually meets on overnights. The extra money doesn’t hurt, either.

Cas doesn’t notice Dean until he’s placing two coffees on the counter in front of them.

His first words are a surprised, “Oh, hello Dean. Where’s Sam?” Which makes Dean huff, and shift from one foot to the other.

“Not here,” he says, then points at the coffee closest to Cas, “That one’s for you. Milk, no sugar still, right?” Cas nods. He knows this is Dean Speak for an apology. He can feel Javier and Kendra look over at them from behind the other register and the cigarette display, respectively.

Dean smiles, all charm but Cas can tell his face looks a little more drawn than usual, like he’d been driving for too long without a break, “You get off work soon?”

Kendra answers for him, “Yes, he does.” She has a maternal look on her face when Cas turns to her. Javier rolls his eyes but doesn’t say anything.

“Shoo,” she says, with a smile. She points at the slogan on his uniform shirt, “Go have a sunny day, James.”

Dean nods, “Yeah, James. Have a sunny day.” There’s that smile again.

Cas closes out his register and gets his coat from the back room. Dean’s waiting for him outside, drinking his coffee and leaning against the Impala. The lighting is the soft grey-blue of the morning, and it feels nice compared to the white fluorescents of the store.

Before Cas can say anything Dean scrubs at the back of his neck, then says, “This coffee tastes like piss. Let’s get breakfast.”

There’re a few diners in town but Cas has never been to any of them. Dean picks one on a whim, because the sign has a 1950’s pinup girl in a skimpy waitress uniform.

It’s warm inside and smells nice, like syrup and strong coffee. Dean orders something called The Lumberjack Platter and when Cas tells the waitress, “Just coffee, thanks” Dean overrides it and orders him scrambled eggs with a side of sausage and toast.

“My treat,” Dean says. Cas shakes his head but doesn’t fight him on it.

Dean avoids talking about anything personal. Instead they mostly chat about the case Sam and Dean are currently working on. Apparently they’ve hit a wall with the research and Sam’s been holed up at the bunker for days pouring over blueprints and hacked security footage. There’s a cursed object in a locked bank vault in Little Rock that’s making people have violent outbursts. The questions are: why did it start acting up now, which lock box it’s in, and how to get to it.

Cas wishes he could still fly, then at least he’d be able to solve two of their problems. He runs the idea of trying to find a spell to make the object useless by Dean and Dean types it into his phone to send to Sam. A moment later it lights up with a call but Dean mutes it and sticks the phone back in his pocket.

Dean changes subjects and tells him about the latest Dr. Sexy storyline, about a vampire nest he took out a few years back, about running into Garth in Topeka. Cas talks about the gas station a bit but mostly just listens. He always likes listening to Dean talk.

When they leave the diner and get back into the Impala, Cas realizes this is the first time he’s enjoyed himself in a long while. He smiles over at Dean, expecting to be asked where he’d like to be dropped off. He’s thinking about the park by the river on the far side of town, it’s a long walk back to the truck stop but he likes to watch the trees shift in the wind and the fresh air there is a nice change from diesel fumes. Instead Dean says, “You still don’t got a place to stay right?”

Cas nods cautiously. He puts his hand on Dean’s upper arm and, not willing to let the day go south, says sternly, “I assure you Dean, while I’m not strictly an angel anymore I still don’t need nearly as much rest as you or Sam do…”

Dean nods at the steering wheel, his jaw moving. Cas can tell he’s also trying to not turn this into a fight.

Dean shifts towards him, Cas keeps his hand firmly on Dean’s arm. The energy in the car changes and suddenly Cas realizes where this is going. Dean puts one hand on his waist and the other comes to rest on Cas’ neck behind his ear. Cas breathes in sharply.

“Dean,” he says, then he broaches the subject he’d been painstakingly avoiding all morning: “Why did you come here today?”

Dean blushes and goes still for a moment, he swallows but doesn’t say anything. After a moment tugs him in gently and Cas takes pity on him. Dean tastes like maple syrup.

It’d been a while since they’d done this, but they fall back into it easily. After a few moments of kissing Dean pulls back. Their foreheads and noses are still touching and they’re breathing hard.

“What I was trying to say was, uh,” his ears get red at the tips, “that I got a room at that Budget Motel by the gas station.”

All Cas can think of to reply is, “Oh, I’d like to see it.”

It makes Dean laugh and wiggle his eyebrows.

“Yeah, yeah wanna come up and see my art collection?” He says. Cas doesn’t know what he’s talking about but he likes that Dean keeps his hand on his thigh while they drive.

By the time Cas wakes up for his next shift Dean is gone. There’s a text on his phone that says Sam finally had his breakthrough based on something Cas had said. Then a second one that tells Cas the room is paid through till the end of the week. He can stay in it or not, doesn’t matter to Dean one way or the other. A third one that just says: Thanks.

Cas lays in bed for a moment enjoying the soft sheets and suddenly remembers the ghost.

++++++++++

Thanks for reading :)

#spn #supernatural #destiel #deancas #Dean Winchester/Castiel #supernatural fanfic #my fic #dean winchester #castiel

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daybreak-delusion · 4 years ago

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Chapter 9

Introduction: Whitney Goodwinson was planning on inheriting one of her deceased grandmother's properties, but not a little house off the coast of North Carolina. As she struggles to meet new people, fix up her new property, deal with troublemaker JJ Maybank, and perfect her grandmother's infamous lemonade, she might just find that the Outer Banks has more to offer than it seems.

Series Masterlist

Previous chapter

I want to say that on Sunday I was totally independent and was totally not missing the presence of a certain golden boy at all, but I’d be lying to myself. It wasn't a complete waste of the day though. I did manage to drive the Bee (my new nickname for the Volkswagen) to the hardware store that I saw yesterday and picked up some essentials for fixing up the house. Blue tape, a bunch of paintbrushes and rollers, a couple of gallons of primer and white paint, drop cloths, this anti-rust spray for the garage, about a million trash bags, and some other items that I had to pre-order. The store had limited options for paint so I had to order some from a manual and it would be coming later this week. I figured I would stick to the yellow/lemon theme that she had going on and picked a shade of light yellow. Since the paint should be arriving in a week I had time to get everything situated. Somehow I managed to shove everything into the Bee and make it home. I mean back to the Lemon House. Back at the house, I placed all of my new equipment on the back porch and then headed to the garage. My task for today was going to be cleaning out the garage. I parked the Bee closer to the house so I could have more space and started to realize the trouble I was in. There was just so much junk and the last thing I wanted to do was find the pests that had made a mess of the place. I decided to change into a more suitable outfit for the deep cleaning I was about to do. After switching my sandals for some sneakers and putting on some leggings I made my way back to the garage with a trash can, recycling bin, and a box of trash bags. It was gonna be a long day.

The boxes were filled with all kinds of things. There were old suitcases filled with clothes, rusty pans with ancient stains on them, old fashioned jewelry, and a bunch of old photographs that were in good shape. I was really conflicted about what to get rid of and what to keep. I decided to ditch the pans and pots seeing that they were out of shape. I kept the clothes in case there was a thrift store I could donate them too. Most of the stuff could also be given to thrift stores or antique shops, but there was one box underneath this ancient-looking blanket that seemed different from the others. First of all, it was an actual wooden box, not like the cardboard boxes that had held all of the other items. Unfortunately, there was a lock on the box and it wouldn't open. I didn’t want to break it in case I broke something in the box. Then I remembered the bulletin board where I found the car keys. Walking over to it there were a bunch of different labels for different keys, but one of them didn’t have a label. I figured it was my best bet. Thankfully it was a pretty good bet. When I opened it, a disgusting spider the size of one of Grandmother's lemons crawled out and I bolted out of the garage screaming, knocking over a few boxes in the process. It took me a couple of minutes to calm down and I reluctantly walked back into the garage with a baseball bat I found in my hands. I was shaking as I started to open the box again until I was sure the spider had disappeared. In the box were a bunch of misshapen things covered in old linen cloth and unfortunately spiderwebs. Not wanting to be in the pest infested room anymore I decided to take a break and bring the chest on to the porch. It was a lot lighter than I expected and stained my gray shirt with dust. I placed it on the porch and went inside to grab a damp cloth to clean off the dust. Sitting on the porch I cleaned the box and opened it again. The first misshapen item was a gold locket in good condition, I was excited to see what was in the compartment only to find it empty. The next item was a silver ring with a crop of wheat engraved on it. It was a bit bulky for my taste and definitely had belonged to a man at one point. I slipped it onto my thumb and thought it looked nice with the rest of the rings that I had on. Then at the bottom of the box was an old cracked leather journal with yellow pages. On the bottom right-hand corner the name Elenora Stanton was engraved in gold letters. I instantly knew this stuff belonged in a museum or something the date on the first page was from April 1843.

“Holy shit,” I whispered to myself stroking my hand across the faded ink. The writing was in a small cursive that I could barely make out. It would be easier to read with a magnifying glass. I carefully wrapped the leather-bound book in the white cloth and placed it back into the box. Walking inside I cleared a space for it on the table and set the box down. Thankfully from my knife search when I was making lemonade I got an idea of where everything was in the kitchen and I remembered seeing a magnifying glass in a drawer with a bunch of other random items. I brought it over to the table and opened the old book again. Thank god Mother made me practice writing in cursive or this would have been a nightmare.

23 April 1843

Dear friend as of today, I am eighteen years of age and now get to embark on the responsibilities of an adult. I had received many good wishes of health and good tidings for my birthday and my dearest younger sister Juliana gifted me my most favored gift, this diary. I was also gifted a new church dress from Mother and Father and Aunt Alice promised to take me into town to buy a new corset. She said that all adult women should own a suitable corset and if I am to live with her and Uncle Harry this summer it would be an absolute necessity for me to own one. Mother wishes I would stay home and help care for my younger siblings, but I find it absurd that she puts the task of looking after them on me. If Mother feels too overwhelmed with her offspring then she should simply just hire a nanny. I pray that whoever she hires will be able to keep her sanity after a week of working with my siblings or perhaps Juliana will have to bear my burdens. No matter I mustn’t worry about my family anymore. I am an adult as of today and now am able to focus on the wishes of my own heart. In all truthfulness, my wishes are few in number, but this summer I hope to make more. Aunt Alice says that Outer Banks is a marvelous island and I count the days until we depart. Nonetheless, I still have time to prepare for my departure, till next time dear friend!

30 April 1843

Dear friend this week has been excruciating. Father is beginning to go back on his promise to let me live with Aunt Alice this upcoming summer. He is skeptical of the owner of the island being a colored man and all, but Aunt Alice says that to be truly Christian we must see and treat all people as the children of God and that my father is little-minded. I would never speak to Father with such forwardness so to help my case I have been taking on extra tasks and duties around our home. Juliana has been accompanying me in my tasks as she will be taking over my responsibilities as I predicted. She is quite a quick learner and I’m sure she will be able to manage all of my duties when I leave for the summer. Today we-

The rest of this entry was just explaining all of the chores that Elenora and Juliana had to do on a daily basis. I was incredibly fascinated with the diary and was confused as to why it was in Grandmother's garage? I am interrupted from my thoughts by a buzz coming from my phone on the table. I placed a stray piece of paper where I left off and reached for my phone. Checking my phone I noticed a text from an unknown number.

U/N: Hey Whitney it’s Sarah! My friends and I are going to the beach tomorrow afternoon! I remember you said your board was coming in tomorrow, but if you don’t have it yet John B has an extra one you could borrow! BTW this is nonnegotiable you are coming! We’ll be by at 1. See ya then!

Oh thank god, I was so scared it was going to be Rose Cameron inviting me over for brunch or something.

Also, my mom wants to know if you can do brunch sometime.

Great. Oh well, I guess there could be worse things than free food.

Me: Tell your mother that brunch this Saturday will be fine and I would love to go to the beach with you guys! About the board, I’ll be sure to let you know if I need it or not.

Sarah: Sounds like a plan and be by your dock at 1

Me: Got it see you then!

I was excited to finally have plans that didn't involve me having to wear a dress. I just hope that my board would get in before the afternoon, I’d hate to have to be a bother. I eyed the journal and decided to continue reading. What else did I have to do?

The next few entries were about Elenora’s daily life. Taking care of her siblings, washing the laundry, having tea with her mother’s sewing group, and walking through town with her friends. It was starting to become boring until an entry from June 3rd.

3 June 1843

Dear friend today is the day! I am finally leaving this simple town and am leaving with Aunt Alice and Uncle Harry to The Outer Banks of North Carolina. My soul has reached happiness beyond my comprehension. All of those days of labor around the house finally served a purpose in my measly life. Now I will be embarking to a new place where hopefully anything can happen. Nonetheless, I will not be staying there without a purpose, I am to work in Uncle Harry’s tailor shop mending minor rips and sewing on buttons and such. Mother and father are still reluctant for me to leave our household, but Aunt Alice is most persuasive especially when her favorite niece is involved. We will leave today at noon and then will stay in a tavern closer to the ferry we will take tomorrow. I am just jittery with excitement, this will be a new area for me to explore and I cannot wait to see where it takes me! Till next time dear friend!

It was so strange that this lady, Elenora, was so excited to come to Outer Banks, and just two days ago this was the last place I wanted to be. Maybe I was being a bit ungrateful, maybe this place had more to offer than it seemed. I was absolutely fascinated with the diary, but for real why did Grandmother have it? Maybe she bought it in an auction or it was a gift or something. Looking at my phone for the time I realize it’s a quarter past 1 and I still need to clean out the rest of the garage. Sighing, I closed the diary with a makeshift bookmark and left the house. Bagging up the clothes took the longest, but with the music playing, I didn’t really mind it that much. I had also gotten used to the heat, kind of, so it wasn't completely unbearable. After cleaning everything out and dusting some of the hard to reach corners I decided to power wash the garage. It was disgusting, but it had to be done. The garage was still wet so I decided to bring the remaining boxes to the porch. I was definitely done cleaning for the night and needed some relaxation time. So I cooked up some pasta and steamed vegetables and sat down for dinner. As I was eating my lonely feelings were coming back to me. I was craving company and turned to the diary for something to do.

10 June 1843

Dear friend, I have been staying with Aunt Alice and Uncle Harry for a week now and it has been a thrilling experience. On the ferry ride to the island Uncle Harry let us sit on the top deck and it was exhilarating leaning over the edge to see the water. The shop that Uncle Harry owns is the only tailor shop on the island so they are always busy. We stay in the apartment space above the shop and one of the windows in the parlor gives the most breathtaking view of the ocean. It is so vast and wide that I feel as if I am a small button on a white collared shirt. The apartment is quaint, but I have my very own quarters! There is so much space that I felt quite foolish when I only had my small bag to fill up the drawers. However, Aunt Alice says that if customers are satisfied with their work they sometimes pay extra and that I can keep the excess money for myself! Me owning my own money! It will truly be thrilling I know it. I pray that my skills will be adequate for the shop and that I will exceed my skills. There is still more work to be done, so until next time dear friend!

19 June 1843

Dear friend, I thought that my experiences here on this island could not have been better, but I was proven wrong! This week has been most eventful. It all began on Monday the 13th in the tailor shop. Denmark Tanny, the owner of practically the whole island, came into the shop. He was accompanied by his eldest son Robert Tanny and as they were discussing business with Uncle they mentioned the expertise work on the stitching of a new suit and it was my own work! Thankfully Uncle gave me the credit and I had the pleasure to make their acquaintances. They were truly delightful people and invited us to tea that coming Wednesday at their residence at Tannyhill. Their home was the most gorgeous sight I have ever seen in my existence. It was a mansion. I felt so quaint in my three-year-old Easter dress compared to the lavish home. The Tanny family was most welcoming and tea went by too fast. The conversation was most interesting, although I did not speak much. They talked of the economy and politics and I was too mature on the subject. However what was most interesting was during the conversation I prayed my mind was not presuming it, but Robert kept looking in my direction. Looking back on the occasion I should not be assuming such things, but one cannot help themselves when the presence of an attractive male is in the room. When he smiles I feel nothing, but sunshine and complete bliss. The feeling magnifies when he smiles in my direction. I was anticipating our next meeting, however, Mr. Tanny did not come into Uncle’s shop for the rest of the week. Not all hope was lost however because today after our church services Robert Tanny asked to accompany me on my walk home. I almost fainted with excitement, however, I kept up my studious facade and accepted. On the pathway home, we talked of nature and the ocean. To my disappointment we arrived at the shop rather quickly however, Robert promised to take me to the beach to search for shells so that I may decorate my quarters. I am counting the second until this Thursday comes along. Until next time dear friend!

I wanted to keep reading, but I noticed it was past midnight and I still had a lot to do tomorrow. JJ would be by and I had a list of things for him to get done. I also needed to get enough rest if I was going to go surfing and I didn’t want to be the one lagging behind. Elenora’s diary was just gonna have to wait. As I fell asleep I tried to imagine myself in Elenoras place, wonderstruck about Outer Banks, and starting a relationship with a true gentleman. Oh, how things have changed. Still, the name Tanny sounded really familiar to me, especially their house, Tannyhill. This all did take place on Outer Banks, so maybe some of the places Elenora was talking about still exist. I would have to save it for another day because for now, I needed as much beauty sleep as I could get.

a/n: Hey guys sorry I haven’t updated in a while I am on vacation and have been going through a bit of writers block. But I am revived and am so excited to finish this story. Also like PLOT TWIST can’t wait for you guys to read what’s next! I’m still on vacation so I’ll try to update when I can.

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ventcovers · 4 years ago

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Upgrades to 10 Hideous Air Vent Covers: Advantages of New Pacific Register Company

Don't let unsightly air vent covers distract from your home's aesthetic. Take a look at these great-looking improvements that you can buy or build yourself.

Marble it to the gills If your old air vent covers are detracting from the charm of your new marble floors, Metro Marble Repair is here to help. Custom floor signups are available in tile, glass, granite, porcelain, and limestone. Simply give them your supplies, and they'll create the ideal vent shroud for you. Sheet Metal with Designs Purchase some patterned sheet metal to take a more innovative approach to repairing an unsightly air vent shroud. Measure the vent openings then cut them to fit over the vent with caution. Bear leather gloves when chopping, then file down any rough edges with tin snips. If required, paint the covers, fasten the metal to thin wood strips, and seal the cover with small screws.

Using a Fiberglass Plastic Air Vent Shroud.

This air vent shroud option is only for use on walls and ceilings, and it is a luxurious and sleek upgrade to standard covers. Installing the device is as quick as sticking it to the wall or ceiling with self-adhesive silicone. Attempt a Butterfly Although this is not a cost-effective choice, you might hire an artist to make air vent covers for you. Jerzy Sanecki of SaneckiArt, an Etsy customer, designs one-of-a-kind air vent covers, such as this butterfly style.

“I purchased five complete vent covers from Jerzy and am incredibly satisfied with the results. They are simply gorgeous and lovely, and we have already got compliments on them in our new home,” one reviewer says.

Check out these 100 stunning before and after home makeovers that will astound you.

Make an attempt at a minimalist style.

Through using the Aria Vent, you will achieve a minimalist look. When they go about making "seriously beautiful air vents," this maker has DIYers and industry pros in mind. With drop-in mounting technology, the original Aria Vent has a sleek, futuristic appearance. Minimalism is one of the 15 home patterns that Millennials are embracing.

Make Use of an Ancient Shutter

Consider converting an air vent that is prominently placed on a wall into a piece of art. Find an old interior window shutter and hack it down to size for the air vent. The shutter should be completed with trim before being primed and sprayed. Attach some D-rings to the shutter and hang it on the wall. Here's an example of how it'll look when it's done. You can find a lot of antique window shutters on Etsy. Check out these 12 easy-to-make room dividers, one of which is made from repurposed shutters.

It's a Tile Matching an air vent to the rest of the architecture will prevent it from being an eyesore on your floor. Custom tileable in-floor vents with a welded aluminum frame and reversible insert are accessible from Tile Lines. You have the option of cutting your tile to match! Here's how to tile a DIY backsplash, when we're on the subject of tiles.

Consider a mirrored finish.

Install mirrored finish air vent covers for a streamlined look that blends in with the surrounding fabrics. This option was designed to replace old louvered grilles and is a perfect match for walls and ceilings. Big mirrors are among the 52 objects that will make your home seem more expensive.

Air Vent Mask in Brushed Nickel, Art Deco

Install these chic air vent covers to bring more Art Deco flair to your house. These covers, which come in a range of sizes and finishes, are simple to install—just drop it into the opening with no tools needed! Taking a look at these 15 retro home patterns that are resurfacing. Use a period-style air vent shroud to add some style to your room. You'll enjoy this period-style scroll pattern air vent shroud if your home decor is more Victorian. It's made of cast aluminum and has a luxurious black finish due to a baked-on powder coating. It's also rustproof and needs no repair! Do you want to give your home a Victorian feel? The following directions will teach you how to build a Victorian screen home.

Ground Air Vent shroud (DIY)

Okay, I understand that this DIY floor air vent shroud isn't for everybody, and that's good. This idea would not have been my cup of tea if it hadn't been thrust upon me. We have kittens, you know. There are ten of them. Cats can also be jerks at times. And cats have a history of peeing on things when they're feeling extremely jerky. They pee down stuff, in this situation. And that's just what our cats did: they peed down the vents in our floor.

Now, I understand how revolting it is. I debated not posting it and our eventual patch on the site because it was so revolting. But, as you know, I tend to keep it real around here, and I think that if I'm having this dilemma, there must be other pet owners out there who are as well. So, if I can help any fellow feline lovers out there fix this heinous dilemma, I'll take the risk of missing a few readers in the process. Anyway, this concern began when we first moved into the house where we now live. We didn't have this problem in our old house because it didn't have floor air vents, so we were surprised to see our cats piddling down our cool, clean air vents in our new home. We did everything a cat owner could do in this situation—made sure there were enough clean litter boxes open, using feline pheromone diffusers, etc.—and it helped a bit, but we still had the problem on occasion. I ultimately decided to strategically position furniture to cover as many air vents as possible, but some air vents stayed exposed. We searched for floor air vent covers to buy to fix our dilemma, but the only ones that looked like they could fit were made of plastic and would crumble into a million pieces if stepped on. We had to come up with a plan because there was no way I was going to put up with this and keep our house smelling like we had so many cats, even if we did have too many cats. These are designed to go over regular 4 x 10 and 4 x 14-inch floor air vent signups. Since signups come in a range of sizes, if you don't have the same sizes as us, you'll need to do some weighing and estimating to ensure a decent match. We built them to fit snugly in the back and front so they wouldn't slip around, but we made the cover 3′′ wider than the floor openings to prevent pee from getting under the sides of the air vent, which are open to allow air movement.

“But people are going to fall right over these!” I can hear some of you shouting at the computer screens now. Let me ask you a question: how much do you walk on your house's floor air vent signups? Floor air vents are usually positioned in inconspicuous areas and/or parallel to a wall. When wandering around indoors, people naturally leave a foot or two between themselves and the walls. And as long as you don't make them the same color as the floor you're going to use them on, they'll be easy to find.

• Timber planks 10′′ x 3/4′ for the top of the air vent sheet. They usually come in 6-8′ lengths, but do the calculations to work out how many you'll need based on the number of air vents you want to protect. These are made of Pinewood, but any heavy wood would do (softer wood might split if it does ever get stepped on, but I still think the chances of that happening are pretty slim). • 1′′ x 3/4′′ wood planks for the air vent cover's foundation These may be difficult to come by, so you can have to break a wider plank down to size. If you do buy them, they usually come in 4-6′ lengths, so do the math and work out how many you'll need based on the number of air vents you want to protect. These are made of Pinewood, but any heavy wood would do. • Finish screws, 16 gauge, 1 1/2 inch • Weathered Gray Varathane wood polish (buy at Lowes) • Baby Gloves with Valspar Chalky Coating (buy at Lowes) • Uncolored Valspar Sealing Wax (buy at Lowes) Please note: I'm sharing the type and dimensions of the wood I purchased so you'll know what I used for this project, but you can use different types/sizes of wood if you can't find the same type/size wood at the hardware store or if you have scrap wood.

Instruments:

• Saw with no rope

• The Nail Gun

• Paint Brushes

• Cotton Rags

• Palm Sander

Directions: Cut the top and sides of the wood to match your floor air vent register's dimensions. For the 4′′ x 14′′ air vent register, we used dimensions of 17′′ x 9′′ for the top of the air vent shroud (two pieces of 10′′ x 3/4′ wood plank cut to fit) and 17′′ x 3/4′′ x 1′′ for the sides of the air vent shroud (two pieces of 3/4′′ x 1′′ wood plank cut to the 17′′ duration for the wide air vents). The top of the air vent shroud (two pieces of 10′′ x 3/4′ wood plank cut to fit) and 13′′ x 3/4′′ x 1′′ for the sides of the air vent shroud (two pieces of 3/4′′ x 1′′ wood plank cut to the 13′′ length for the large air vents) are the dimensions we used for the 4′′ x 10′′ air vent sing-up.

As seen above, nail the two top pieces to the two side pieces. Now comes the exciting part! Apply a wood polish and brush away the excess with a towel. Give at least a couple of hours for the paint to dry before going on to the next stage. Allow at least a few hours for the chalk paint to dry before going on to the next stage. Using the palm sander, distress the soil. It's completely up to you how much or how little you distress (or even whether you do it at all)! Using a wet towel, clear some pollen.

Apply a layer of sealing wax to the surface and brush away any residue with a towel. There's a lot of discussion on whether you can wax before or after distressing; I usually do it after because it covers the exposed wood as well as the chalk paint (and these will use all the protection they can get if my cats try to poop on them, which they haven't yet). Both of our air vent covers have been assembled and are ready to be mounted in the building! If you're having a similar issue with your cats as we were, I hope this DIY floor air vent shroud will come in handy! Our cats have been avoiding the freshly protected vents so far, and it's awesome to have them back in operation, particularly with the 100+ degree temperatures of our summers approaching! Thank you for coming, and please let me know what you think or whether you have any questions!

Pacific Registry Company sells decorative wall grilles and overhead registers.

And the tiniest information will make a huge difference. Decorate a mundane and uninteresting region of your home with something amazing. Most vent covers are dull and unknown, and they frequently neglect beauty and appearance in favor of functionality. Air vents, which are used to limit or re-direct airflow in your house, are frequently ignored by homeowners, resulting in missed opportunities to add elegance and decorative appeal to every room. Request decorative register and vent shroud made of aluminum, brass, wood, plaster, resin, and stone from our vast inventory of completely customizable decorative sign-up and vent covers. It's never been easier to fit vent grilles to your unique style; use our range of vents to accent all of them. If you've been unimpressed or otherwise uninterested in the vents in your house, it's time to think about how this frequently neglected detail will relate to the overall design and décor you're striving for.

CHECK OUT OUR INVENTORY OF DECORATIVE REGISTERS AND VENT COVERS, CEILING REGISTERS, AND FILTER GRILLS ONLINE.

COVERS FOR VENTS Our high-quality heat signups and grilles are simple to customize to suit your room, from unusual old homes to renovated houses. When a heat vent consumes a large amount of space on your floors or walls, it's important to balance it with a sophisticated, long-lasting heat sign-up or grille. Below, you'll find a range of refined types and sizes. Rejuvenation has vent covers and floor signups for your house.

When it comes to home decor, the slightest specifics will make all the difference, so consider replacing your old covers with one of our waterproof styles. The Classic Brass grille, which measures 4 x 12 inches and is made of sturdy cast brass, is one alternative. This grille brings refinement to the space with its sleek Revised Classic style and low profile. Combine it with other home accents like a BRASS PLANTER or a wall sconce. Wood floor signups are also available from Rejuvenation, and are suitable for having a Northwest Contemporary design look. The Wood Slat floor register is available in three sizes to fit your needs. To fit your furniture, pick from oak, maple, or cherry wood. Consider one of the Traditional Aluminum grilles in black enamel if you choose a Sleek Industrial look. Rejuvenation has all the home hardware you need in a range of classic designs in addition to these vent covers.

New vent covers and a floor register have a range of advantages.

Changing minor details inside the space will go a long way toward changing the overall appearance of the room, as previously described. Space is automatically updated when you swap your old vent covers and floor signups with one of this brass, aluminum, or wood alternatives. Change the switchplates to create a unified look; Rejuvenation has switchplates in a range of finishes to complement these floor signups and vent covers, as well as other fixtures and drawer, pulls to accommodate your house. Look through the collection for beautiful and long-lasting pieces for every room.

With registers and grilles, you can monitor the airflow in your house.

Airflow to and from the HVAC unit in your home is controlled and directed by signups and grilles, which keep your living room comfortable while concealing the ductwork. Lowe's has a large range of grilles, signups, and air deflectors to ensure that ventilation is directed where it is required most. Take a minute to calculate the size of the duct opening so you know what will work, and take note of the covering so you can find a fitting piece for the opening before you go shopping.

Inventories

The distinguishing feature of these usually slatted covers, which can be found in the floor, wall, or ceiling, is a lever that allows you to open or close the air vent to alter airflow into the room. Floor signups come in a variety of materials, designs, and finishes, allowing you to use them as a decorative feature that often blends in with the rest of the room's hardware and fixtures. From scroll styles and oil-rubbed bronze finishes to light oak choices that blend in with hardwood floors, you'll find one that suits your room perfectly. Is your vent in your baseboard rather than on the floor? Lowe's also has baseboard signups that can match these gaps.

A grille's task is to draw air out of a room and return it to the heating or cooling system. It varies from a sing-up in that it lacks a damper to regulate airflow. Many small grilles will be mounted in the building, or a single wide grille will be installed throughout the ceilings or walls. They are available in a range of fabrics and finishes to match your personal taste.

Controlling the passage of air

Will you need to steer incoming air in a certain direction? Air deflectors mount to your vents to divert air, whether you're shielding plants put under vents or need to force air away from seating in the living room. These options vary from magnetically connecting to the sign-up to designs with multiway deflection, allowing you to quickly construct a calming environment. Are you looking for a way to help spread air more uniformly in a room? Ceiling diffusers are an excellent alternative. Want to monitor the temperature of a room without using the thermostat? Air vent covers prohibit air from accessing signups, causing it to reroute to other regions. A vent shroud can also help save electricity, and some come with a magnetic feature for simple installation.

Lowe's has the goods you need for efficient ventilation in your home when it comes to the air conditioning vents. Reggio sing-up and other brands are available to equip your home in both feature and design. With our Purchase Online, Pick Up in Store option, you can easily complete your heating and cooling project.

Visit Our Official Website

Additional Resources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_(air_and_heating)

Location: https://goo.gl/maps/45C2MV4Tbo9hwKuA8

#Vent Covers #Register

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redwoodwrites · 5 years ago

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Relativity Falls Season 1 Episode 1: Tourist Trap

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12579416/chapters/28652568

A/N:Welcome, one and all, to Relativity Falls! Here you will find the adventures of a certain dynamic duo as they spend the summer at their Grauntie Mabel's utterly tacky tourist trap. Updates will be every Friday, and after each episode there will be a “Short”, a much shorter original fanfiction which occurs in the time between the episodes. See you in a few days, and enjoy All Hallow's Eve! Warning: *This fanfiction may trigger feels, warm fuzzies, and certain amounts of deja vu. *May cause minor amounts of time travel (forward only) *Author does not claim responsibility for any sightings of ghosts, triangles, or woodpeckers that may or may not occur during or after the reading of this text. Enjoy!

“AAAAAAAH!”

The golf cart plunged over a cliff, punched straight through a billboard, and landed with a squeal on the road below. The two boys in the cart held on for dear life.

“WE'RE GONNA DIE WE'RE GONNA DIE WE'RE GONNA DIE!” Stanley screamed.

Ford jerked the wheel, fishtailing around a hairpin turn. “Hold on!”

The ground shook with an ominous thumping.

Stanley twisted around, gripping the seat's back so hard his knuckles went white. “Floor it, Ford, it's gaining on us!”

A huge monster rose behind them, throwing a massive shadow over the road. The thing was over thirty feet tall, a crazy conglomeration of glaring eyes, sharp teeth, and bright red hats.

It ripped up a redwood as easily as a dandelion, took aim, and threw. Ford looked up and gasped as the tree soared right over their heads, landing so hard it bounced on the road in front of them.

“Look out!”

Ford jerked the wheel. The golf cart careened, tipping left, then right, skidding crazily. The tree's huge trunk loomed like a brick wall. They braced themselves against the dash and screamed.

A few days earlier...

The bus pulled away from the stop sign, leaving Ford and his brother standing alone on the sidewalk. Stanley had his sleeves rolled up, revealing the superhero-themed band aids on his arms, and the suitcase sitting next to him was covered with half-chewed gum.

Ford was wearing his signature aviator jacket, his notebook sticking out of the back pocket of his jeans. His suitcase was covered with stickers of ghosts and monsters.

Ford shoved his hands in his jacket pockets, looking around expectantly. The town's main road was lined with a few stores, most of them restaurants, plus some arcades, a couple of hardware stores, and a grocery store. Aside from a few random pedestrians, the street was empty.

“She does know we're coming, right?” he asked anxiously.

“Dude, who cares?” Stanley put a foot on his suitcase and struck a heroic pose, shading his eyes like an explorer in a new land. He peered at the redwoods that surrounded the town. “Did you even see this place? It's got nothing but forest for miles! It's the perfectly place for buried treasure!”

Ford rolled his eyes, grinning. “Stanley, we don't have treasure yet.”

“Not yet we don't, but I'll bet you anything we'll find it!” Just then Stan's stomach rumbled. He looked down at it. “Right. First things first. Food time!”

Ford opened his mouth to say they should wait to be picked up, but his stomach cut him off. It had been an eight-hour bus ride and he was seriously hungry. He looked around.

“I think I saw a diner around here...”

“There!” Stanley pointed. There was a restaurant set back against the woods, with a flickering neon sign that read Greasy's Diner.

“Sounds...greasy. We don't even have any money,” Ford pointed out. “You spent our food allowance buying those dumb scratch cards. And all they had on 'em were football players with omelets.”

Stanley shrugged cheerfully. “Don't worry, Sixer, the puppy-dog face works every time! Race you to the door!” He ran into the street.

There was a roar and a screech of tires. Ford yelled. Stanley jumped back, narrowly avoiding a bright purple motorcycle. Stan lay on the ground, shaking a little, and Ford ran to help him up. He glared at the driver.

“Hey, watch where you're going!” he growled.

The rider, a heavy-set woman in a blue blazer and pink skirt, revved the engine. “'Scuse you,” the lady grumped, her voice muffled. “What were ya tryin' to do, kid? That is not how you paint the town red.”

“Guh-guh-guh,” Stanley stammered.

The rider paused, then flicked up the visor. She blinked. “Stanley?”

He stared at her. “Huh?”

“It is you!” She whipped off the helmet. Her gray hair was pulled back in a messy bun, and she had a heart-shaped face with light green eyes that glowed with warmth. “And you must be Stanford!” she said to Ford. “You two have grown so much I didn't even recognize you!”

The twins gaped.

“Grauntie Mabel?” Ford finally asked.

“The one and only! Hop aboard, kids, we got a lot of work to do at the Shack!”

They looked at the bike. It wasn't just purple. It was glittery purple, with a chrome finish and a matching side car so rusted it looked ready to disintegrate on the spot.

“Um, there's just one seat,” Ford said.

“Meh, you're each, like, half of an adult! So together you'll be fine!”

A slow grin spread across Stanley's face. “She's got you there, Sixer!” He scrambled to his feet. “So you're really Grauntie Mabel? I don't remember you being so fat.”

“And I don't remember you being so ugly,” she said cheerfully. “Now grab your gear and get in, time is money!”

They hauled their suitcases into the sidecar. It was so small they had to sit with their knees pressed to their chest and they couldn't even take a deep breath. She tossed them a couple of helmets and then took off with a roar, tearing down the quiet road at a decidedly illegal speed.

The bike's engine was too loud for talking, but the town had sights enough to keep them occupied. There was a church, a deserted convenience store, a junkyard, and a gigantic mall. Ford caught his brother staring at the mall, mouthing “babes” with a familiar gleam in his eye. Ford laughed.

The buildings petered out as they turned onto Gopher Road. The forest, which was always in the background of the town, now loomed up around them. The redwoods spiced the air with a sharp, earthy smell. Beams of sunlight sliced the forest with bars of yellow light. Motes of dust and quick-winged birds darted through the canopy, and wind rustled the treetops, which were high enough to touch the clouds.

But the trees grew so thick that they cast deep shadows starting just a few feet from the road. More than once Ford thought he saw movement in those shadows – things that scuttled and creeped and seemed to be watching them as they passed. He shivered.

The sudden appearance of the clearing drove the thought from his mind. Mostly because of what was in the clearing.

A two-story, steeple-roofed cabin stood in the middle of the lawn, completely covered in hot pink glitter, right up to the weathervane (which, instead of the cardinal directions, had the letters W, H, A, and T). Under the gaudy sparkles, he could make out a large sign reading “MYSTERY SHACK” positioned on the roof, with a dozen smaller advertisements above the front and side entrances. An enormous pig lounged on the front porch. A sign next to it read, 'Picture With Pig - $50!' A Native American totem pole was rose a few yards away, but it was hard to tell what the animals were, since all of them were wearing sweaters of various neon colors.

“Um, wow,” Stan said dubiously, as soon as the engine died.

“Don't mind the glitter,” Mabel said cheerfully. “The girls and I just went a little nuts on our last sleepover.”

“Sleepover?” Stanley muttered to Ford. “But she's, like, grandma-age.”

They got out of the sidecar, grabbed their suitcases, and followed their great-aunt. The pig opened one eye and oinked at them, but otherwise didn't move.

The inside, at least, was less sparkly. They'd entered through the Mystery Shack's Gift Shop. Wood floors, wood walls, and a wood ceiling gave off a definite 'cabin' vibe. Most of the walls were covered in overpriced merchandise and taxidermy monstrosities. There were some clothing racks on the right, next to some tables loaded with snow globes and Grauntie Mabel bobbleheads. The back wall had a vending machine and two doorways, one marked “Employees Only” and the other marked “Museum”. The cash register was on their left, under a stuffed bear head with a narwhal horn glued to its brow. A red-haired teenager in a flannel shirt sat behind the register, his face jammed into a Manly Muscles magazine.

Their great-aunt stood in the center of the shop, legs planted wide and hands at her hips. “Alright, kids, welcome to the Mystery Shack!” she said, gesturing grandly. “Meet our first underpaid employee: Flannel Man!”

“It's 'Boyish Dan',” the teen grunted, without glancing up.

“I'll call you that when you stop reading at work!” Mabel sang. “Flannel Man, meet my great-nephews...my grephews?...Stanley and Stanford Pines!”

“Just 'Ford,'” Ford said, at the same time Stan said, “Just 'Stan'.”

“We also have a mechanic around here somewhere,” Mabel told them. “She's usually fixing things, or breaking them, or both at the same time...oh, Maria! Perfect timing!”

The Employees Only door opened, and a woman in her early twenties stepped through. She wore a faded green hat over her curly dark brown hair, a size-XXXL Mystery Shack shirt, and khaki shorts. One hand gripped a tool box, and the other held a broom.

Grauntie Mabel smiled. “Ria, this is Stan and Ford! My grephews! I told you they'd be coming today.”

“Nice to meet you,” Ria said politely. “Mrs. Pines, I fixed the pipes, but I might've broken the copy machine.”

“Oh, that wasn't you, it's been broken for ages,” Mabel assured her. “Anyway, you two boys go throw your stuff in the attic, and then come back down. I've got a tour bus coming at eleven hundred sharp and I need this place to look spic 'n' span!”

“Wait-wait-wait,” Stan said quickly, holding up his hands. “You mean we're gonna do chores?! But we're on summer vacation!”

Their great-aunt pulled two orange coveralls from behind her back. They had black letters on the front reading “Unpaid Intern #1” and “Unpaid Intern #2” on them in big black letters. She grinned mischievously.

“Not anymore! Now get to work, suckers!”

Stanley managed to talk Grauntie Mabel out of the overalls, but she wasn't kidding about making them work. In the first two days of their stay, they scrubbed the Shack from roof to lawn, swept the house, cleaned out the fridge (Ford swore that was actual glitter in that chicken casserole), and reorganized practically the entire Gift Shop. The only thing they didn't clean was the vending machine, which Mabel declared off-limits after she caught Stan stealing twelve candy bars at a time. They'd even had to re-sew some of the taxidermic monstrosities in the Museum.

The exhibits in there drove Ford crazy. It was all he could do not to shout out corrections when she guided tourists through, calling jackalopes “Antelabbits” and introducing them to bizarre creatures like the “Centaurtaur.” Ford was pretty sure she'd just made that up.

Stan, however, loved it. There was at least one hot babe per bus, and he was determined to make a move on every single one.

Ford watched his brother approach a blue-eyed brunette who was browsing through the shirt rack.

“Do you know a good dentist?” Stan asked, leaning casually on the rack and grinning. “'Cuz you're so sweet I'm gonna get cavities.”

She leaned away from him. “Um, ew.”

Stan didn't give up. “So do you have a name, or should I just call you 'mine'?”

“You can call a lawyer, 'cuz I'm about to sue for harassment,” she snapped, and stalked out of the shop.

This had happened so many times that Stanley didn't even look fazed. He scoffed, turned to the window, and eyed the next busload of tourists shuffling around the lawn.

“Welp,” he said, “one babe down, thirteen to go!”

Ford rolled his eyes. “Stan, some of those girls are like, Mom's age.” He wiped off a jar of eyeballs (which he was convinced watched him when he wasn't looking). “I know you're getting all girl-crazy, but could you turn it down a notch?”

“Not until I get a girlfriend,” Stan said with determination. “All those girls in Jersey were stupid-heads. Now that we're here, I'm going to find the perfect girl to date me.”

“That doesn't mean flirting with every girl you see. Remember when you hit on that lady with a pet turtle? She looked ten years older than you!”

“So I have a thing for older women.” Stan threw one arm around his brother. “Come on, Sixer, I need a wingman! We can both land a hot girl this summer!”

Ford glanced reflexively at his hands, but Stan didn't notice.

“Besides,” he went on, “I got a good feeling about this summer! I wouldn't be surprised if the girl of my dreams walked through that door right now!”

The second Stan pointed to the front door, Grauntie Mabel walked through it and belched up a handful of glitter.

“Ugh, eating actual glitter, not good, ow,” she grumbled.

“Ew, why?!” Stan yelped. Ford laughed.

“Alright, people,” Mabel announced, “I need someone to go hammer these signs in the spooky part of the forest!”

“Not it!” Stan yelled.

“Not it!” Ford echoed.

“Uh, also not it!” Ria called, nailing up a new shelf on the wall.

“No worries, Ria. Flannel Man, I need you to put up these signs for me, please!”

He glanced up. “That's a left-handed hammer. I only use my right hand! The manly hand!” He leaped to his feet. “I'm gonna go make a right-handed hammer right now! HYAAAH!” He ran out the door.

“Oh, not again,” Mabel muttered. “Alright, let's make it eenie, meenie, miney...you.” She pointed to Ford.

He flinched. “What? But Grauntie Mabel, whenever I'm in those woods I feel like I'm being watched.”

“I've been in those woods a hundred times, kiddo. How many times do I have to tell you there's nothing scary in there?”

“Except maybe bears,” Stan added.

“Why don't you do it?” Ford demanded, looking at Stan. “You're the one who wanted to hunt for buried treasure!”

“Nope, she picked you, sucker! See ya!” He dashed out the door after Boyish Dan.

“But it's creepy!” Ford insisted. “I'm telling you, there's something weird about this town. Look – yesterday my mosquito bites spelled out 'BEWARE'!” He pulled up his sleeve to show Mabel.

She peered at it. “First, that says 'BEWARB.' Second, there's no such thing as the supernatural. And third, the longer you wait, the darker it'll get, so hop to it!” She dumped the signs into his arms and moved past him to handle the tourists.

“This is so not fair,” Ford grumbled, hammering up another sign. This deep into the forest, the thick trees cast an eerie shadow over everything. Even the sky looked tombstone gray. “Why doesn't anyone believe me when it comes to the supernatural? I know something's not right here...”

Clang.

Ford blinked. The tree he'd just hammered sounded...metallic. He leaned closer and tapped it again with the hammer.

Clang, clang.

“...huh.”

He ran his fingers over the bark, leaving trails through the dust and dirt. His fingers caught on something and he pulled.

A portion of the tree trunk swung open.

There was a rectangular compartment lined with metal recessed into the tree. Centered on the bottom was some kind of control box, with a dusty screen, a few weird buttons, and a couple of levers. With growing fascination, Ford leaned forward, tapping the buttons and toggling one of the levers.

WHIIRRRR!

Ford spun around. A section of the grass had retracted, revealing another compartment set into the ground.

Grauntie Mabel's pig, which had apparently followed him out here with surprising stealth, gave a startled oink and waddled quickly away.

Ford hurried over.

The compartment was full of cobwebs, millipedes, beetles – and one very old, very filthy book, covered in layers of dirt and dust. Ford picked it up carefully and blew the dust away.

The book was bound in deep blue leather, the corners reinforced with a dull bronze-colored metal. In the middle of the cover was a gold pine tree with the number “3” written on it, shimmering against the blue background. The book looked very old, and very strange, like an ancient tome from some kind of secret society.

“Whoa,” he breathed. He laid it carefully on the grass. His head was spinning with questions. Who would hide a book way out here, in such an elaborate hiding spot? Who built the mechanisms? What amazing secrets were written on these very pages?

He opened the book.

The inside cover had an owner's label, but the name had been ripped off. There was a monocle attached to the binding. He picked it up for a moment, weighing it in his hand, before he turned the page and began reading aloud.

“'It's hard to believe it's been six years since I began studying the strange and wondrous secrets of Gravity Falls, Oregon.'”

Secrets? Ford was right – there was something going on in Gravity Falls!

He flipped eagerly through the pages. They were filled with illustrations of strange beasts – eyebats, gnomes, gremloblins, with notes taken in precise cursive. There were also several lines of strange symbols and numbers, obviously some kind of code.

“What is all this?” Ford whispered.

He stopped flipping the pages and started to read again. A bold subtitle had caught his eye: Trust no one.

“'Unfortunately, my suspicions have been confirmed. I'm being watched. I must hide this journal before he finds it. Remember, in Gravity Falls, there is no one you can trust!'” He picked up the book and stared at the words. “No one you can trust...”

“HELLO!”

“GAH!” Ford jumped and nearly dropped the book.

Stan sat on the log behind him, grinning from ear to ear. “I swear, Sixer, I shoulda pretended to be a bear. Betcha woulda peed your pants! Hey –” He caught sight of the book in Ford's hands. “Whatcha readin' there, some nerd thing?”

“Uh – uhhh, it's nothing!” Ford said, hiding the book under one arm.

“'Uhhh, it's nothing!'” Stanley mimicked, laughing again. “What, are you actually not gonna show me?”

Ford felt a slight tugging on his book. Grauntie Mabel's stealth pig had come back and was chewing the cover.

He tugged it away. “Let's go somewhere private.”

Stan raised an eyebrow. “We're in the middle of the forest, bro,” he pointed out. But he followed Ford back to the Shack.

Since the pig wasn't allowed in the house, Ford went to the Shack's living room to show Stan the journal. There was a tour bus out front, so he figured their great-aunt would be busy for a while. He didn't really want to share the journal with her. She didn't believe in the supernatural, anyway.

“Ok, so what's the big thing with some dumb book?” Stan asked impatiently, jumping onto their Grauntie's orange chair.

He took the book out of his jacket, smiling down at it. “It's amazing – Grauntie Mabel said there's no such thing as the supernatural, but according to this book, Gravity Falls has a secret dark side.”

“Whoa, shut up!”

“And get this! After a certain point, the pages just – stop, like the guy who was writing it mysteriously disappeared!” He held up the blank pages to show his brother.

“Do you think he was eaten by one of those monsters?” Stan asked.

“Hey – maybe!” Ford said. He hadn't thought of that. “But he hid it first, so I don't think he got eaten. Plus, the author says he was being watched, so I don't think it was a random monster.” He started pacing as he talked. “If he knew he was being watched, did he take steps to protect himself? Is the author still around somewhere? Could he be someone in town? There are some coded parts of the journal in here. I bet if I could crack them, I could figure out what happened, maybe who the author really is!”

Stanley grinned at him. “If anybody can do it, it's you! You're the smartest guy I know!”

Ding dong.

Ford looked up. “Who's that?”

His brother grinned. “Welp, time to spill the beans!” He reached over and flicked an empty can of beans sitting on Mabel's stack of romance novels. The can tipped over. “Haha, beans. This guy's got a date with destiny!”

Ford raised his eyebrows. “Let me get this straight. In the thirty minutes I've been gone, you've already managed to find a girlfriend?”

“Well, not exactly.” Stan ran off to answer the door. Ford hopped up on the chair and sat down to read.

Grauntie Mabel walked in. “Whatcha readin' there, kiddo?” she asked.

He jumped. “Oh – uh, uh –” Ford hid the book behind him and grabbed a novel from the stack. “Just reading, um...Wolf Man, Big Chest?”

“That's a good series,” she commented, taking a swig of Pit Cola.

“Alright, family!” Stan announced, marching proudly into the room. “Say hello to my new buddy, Norman!”

A slouching, black-hoodied teenager shuffled into the room. He wore dark pants and a black hoodie, all covered with bits of dirt and grass, with an actual tree root sticking out of his hood. When he turned to greet them, his face was paper-white, and his eyes were round and bloodshot.

He looked at them. “'Sup.”

“Hey,” Ford said, just as Mabel said, “Hi there!”

“We met at the cemetery,” Stan said. “He hangs out there all the time. Isn't that cool?”

“Um, are you bleeding, Norman?” Ford asked, pointing to something red and drippy on Norman's chin.

Norman's eyes darted nervously. “It's jam,” he rasped.

“Anyway, we're going treasure-hunting!” Stan declared. “You wanna come, Ford?”

The journal pressed into Ford's back. “Um...maybe later,” he said.

“Aw, come on! We were gonna go hunt for treasure! You know you're gonna love it.”

“No thanks,” Ford said, a little more firmly. “I've got...summer reading to do.”

“Oh...” Stan looked dubiously t the book's hiding place. “Fine. Come on, Norman!” he yelled, racing for the door. “Last one out's a rotten egg!”

Norman raised a hand in farewell, walked into a wall, and stumbled after Stan.

Ford got up from the chair, hiding the journal in his jacket, and went to the window. He frowned, watching them leave. “Did Norman seem...normal, to you?” he asked Grauntie Mabel. But he wasn't really expecting an answer. She'd already started rereading that lame romance novel.

He touched the journal, thinking hard. If there was something supernatural about Norman, maybe it could give him some clues.

Half of the upstairs attic was taken up by his and Stan's bedroom. The other half was empty, utterly devoid of furniture with the exception of a single bay window, with stained red glass decorated with a triangular design. Ford sat on the cushioned seat, scooting close to the window to make the most of the light.

He flipped through the book until he found something that caught his eye. It was a hunched figure with its limbs held out stiffly, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Norman.

He started to read. “'Known for their pale skin and bad attitude, these monsters are commonly mistaken for teenagers. Beware of Gravity Falls' notorious –’” he gasped. “ZOMBIE?!”

Grauntie Mabel looked up from the bathroom mirror.

“What was that? 'Crombie'?” she wondered. “No, maybe it was chompy. Or maybe hungry. Hey, I should finish off that Chicken-Glitter Casserole!”

Ford jumped up to a kneeling position and pressed against the glass. There! Stanley was sitting on the picnic table, concentrating on a piece of paper spread out before him. Norman was stalking towards him, arms outstretched, grunting with every step. Stanley was so focused that he was utterly oblivious to the danger.

“Oh no – Stanley!” Ford shouted, but his brother couldn't hear him.

Norman came closer. He loomed over Stanley.

He grabbed him –

Ford yelled –

And Norman pulled back, a miner's helmet on Stan's head. Stanley turned around, grinning and feeling his new hat.

“Is this a real miner's helmet?!” he asked, reaching up to flick the light. It blinked on and off, visible even in the bright sunshine. “Wow! Where did you get this? It's so cool!”

Ford slumped with relief, watching for a few seconds longer as the two of them started pointing to stuff on the paper. From here, it looked like it was some kind of map.

He drew back, shutting the book and sticking it under his arm. For all he knew, the teen was just another emo teenager. But he couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right. He held the journal more tightly.

“Is Norman really a zombie,” he muttered, “or am I just going nuts?”

“It's a dilemma, to be sure.”

Ford jumped and spun around. Ria was on a step stool, changing the bulb in the attic's ceiling lamp. Ford hadn't even heard her come in.

He hesitated, but he needed to think this through with someone. “Ria, you've seen Norman, right?” he asked. “He's gotta be a zombie!”

“Hmm. How many brains have you seen him eat?” she asked politely.

He sighed. “Zero.”

She stepped off the stool, wiping the dust from her hands. “Don't fret, chiquito. I do believe you. There are many strange things that happen in this town. The florist, for example. I am almost certain that he is a satyr.”

Ford knew who she was talking about. The florist's shoes made weird clopping noises, he always wore a hat even indoors, and he had flower petals everywhere – even between his teeth.

“But you must have evidence,” Ria continued. “Otherwise, people will simply believe that you are one piece shy of a chess set.”

“I guess you're right,” Ford conceded.

She nodded sagely. “Wisdom is both a blessing and a curse.”

Grauntie Mabel's voice called up to them. “Ria! The portable toilets are clogged again!”

Ria straightened her hat. “I must get the special vacuum.” She held the step stool like a shield and marched out of the room.

Ford looked after her, thinking hard. Ria was right. He'd need some actual proof that Norman was a zombie...hadn't he seen a camera left in the Lost 'N' Found box in the Gift Shop? Grauntie Mabel always waited until the end of the day, then emptied the box, stuck price tags on everything, and resold it as “haunted merchandise”. He could borrow the camera and return it later for her to sell. If he followed Norman around, he'd be able to film actual proof that Norman really was a zombie.

A slow smile spread over his face. He'd be a hero – he could protect his brother, prove the existence of the supernatural to his great-aunt, maybe even get an article published in the newspaper. This was definitely a good plan.

It was time to collect some evidence!

“Here, let's take this one, too,” Stanley said. He and Norman had gone straight to the closest hardware store and begun stocking up on supplies, using Norman's zipped-up jacket as their shopping cart. He shoved a second flashlight down Norman's collar and stood back to admire the effect. With all the stuff they'd packed in, the jacket bulged in unlikely places, but they could just say he'd broken both arms or something. “Perfect,” he decided. “Man, how do you fit all that stuff in there?”

Norman eyed the next item doubtfully. Stanley was holding a shovel almost as tall as himself – three and a half feet long with a wide, pointy steel blade. “Uh, I don't know about the shovel...”

“Well I'm not paying for a perfectly stealable shovel. Are you?” Stanley twirled it like a baton. “Won't we need two of these?”

Norman grunted. “You dig it up, you get 80% of the gold.”

“Well hot dog! You got yourself a deal!” Stanley practically danced with glee – then remembered not to do that. Ford was the only one who didn't laugh when he danced.

Thinking of Ford made his chest twinge. If his brother hadn't found that stupid book with its stupid mysteries, maybe they'd be doing this together...

He gave himself a good mental shake. So what? He and Norman would dig up the gold using the treasure map they'd found, and they'd get filthy rich and Ford would be incredibly jealous, and then Stan could use the gold to buy all the fancy monster-hunting equipment Ford wanted and they'd go exploring the forest together for the rest of their natural lives. In a limo. In two limos!

“C'mon, c'mon, let's get out of here!” Stanley whispered excitedly. “We got some gold to find!”

They picked the lock on the Emergency Exit door and snuck out. Norman insisted they pick up provisions at “the place with ingredients for pie”, which Stan guessed meant the grocery store. But first they decided to dump their equipment at the cemetery. There was a tombstone with a winged angel pointing at something, and her wings were big enough to hide their stuff behind.

Stan threw the shovel in the dirt like a harpoon. A pile of blankets was already stacked there, plus a wagon loaded with a pickaxe and a coil of rope from their previous tool heist.

“Dude, you're like, an expert at this,” Stan said. “By the end of the day, we're gonna be filthy ri–”

“WAGH!”

Stan turned right as Norman did a face-plant in an open grave, spraying him with dirt and gravel. After a second, Norman crawled his way to the surface. Stan burst out laughing.

“Oh, man, that was hilarious!” he gasped, bent double from laughing so hard.

Norman laughed along with him. Stan knelt by the edge of the grave. “Dude, you are covered in dirt. You look like a zombie! Wait – it's like a zombie swimming pool! Swim through the dirt!” He started chanting. “Swim through the dirt! Swim through the dirt!”

Norman grunted and tried to pull himself out. Tools fell out of his jacket and pants. Stan looked down at the grave in dismay.

“Aw, man, you dumped it all.”

Norman handed him the shovel. “Here. Practice.”

“Uh, you're the one who dumped it.”

“I'm...like...not crawling back into an open grave.”

Stan scoffed. “Chicken.” He jumped in feet-first. The dirt was all soft on top, soft enough to move with his hands, so digging was no problem. He brought up their flashlights, thermoses, and a waterproof watch before he noticed Norman watching him. There was a hungry kind of look in his eyes.

“Um...dude. You're freaking me out.”

“Sorry. You're really good at digging.”

“Whatever. Get the stuff and pull me out, would you?”

Norman put a hand down, but when Stan went to grab it, he somehow lost his grip and went tumbling back in the grave. He banged the shovel on his knee.

“Ow!”

“You okay?”

“Ugh...” Stan rubbed the back of his head. “I swear I'm gonna have, like, three concussions and amnesia by the time this summer's over. Get a better grip this time, okay?”

Norman helped him out of the grave and they piled all their stuff in the wagon. By that point, they both looked so filthy that Stan knew they'd never make it in and out of the grocery store without getting caught. You had to look nice and respectable for people's eyes to glaze over you, and somehow grave dirt just wasn't the fashion style of the season.

Fashion style? Ew! Grauntie Mae's rubbing off on me. Definitely time for some manly gold-digging.

Aaand that sounded wrong.

“Let's just get back to the Shack,” Stan said angrily, scowling at the wagon. “You pull, I'll push. We can just grab some stuff from the kitchen and fill up our thermoses there.”

Ford paced the living room angrily, the camera in his hands, disgusted with the wasted day. He'd followed Stan around for the past five hours, and while he'd gotten plenty of evidence of Stan's sticky fingers, there was absolutely nothing to suggest that Norman was anything other than a very awkward teenager.

He heard Stanley slam the back door. It was easy to tell who it was, since he grumbled under his breath the whole way up the stairs. Ford headed up as well and entered their bedroom just as Stanley was putting on a fresh shirt.

“Stanley!” Ford said. “We've gotta talk about Norman.”

“Isn't he the coolest?” Stan asked. He held up his right forearm and pointed. “Check out this neat scar I got!”

“Gah!” Ford stared, alarmed. The scar was at least a foot long and bright pink, the skin around it mottled and purple.

“Haha! Gullible.” Stanley put his arm down and rubbed it. “It's just some paint, see? We painted the wagon we're using. I called it 'The Stanleymobile!'”

Right. Ford had seen Stan and Norman outside earlier, messing around with paint and a rickety-looking wagon. They'd tried to use a leaf blower to make it dry faster and ended up having a sword fight with the blower and a shovel.

Stanley smiled. “That was fun, Sixer, you shoulda joined us!”

Ford shook his head. “No, Stanley, listen – I'm trying to tell you that Norman is not what he seems!” He pulled out the journal, its gold-leaf pine tree glinting ominously.

Stan thought for a second. “Do you think he could be a werewolf? That would be so awesome!”

“Guess again, Stanley,” Ford said, and flipped quickly through the pages. He held it up dramatically. “Sha-BAM!”

Stan yelled in surprise, then frowned. “Wait, what?”

Ford checked the page. “Oh, oh wait, hang on –” He had flipped it to that page about gnomes, all chubby-cheeked and starry-eyed. He turned the pages back until he found the one on zombies. “Okay, sha-BAM!”

Stan was not impressed. “A zombie? That is not funny, Ford.”

“I'm not joking!” Ford started to pace the room. Why didn't anyone believe him? Not Grauntie Mabel, and now not Stan?! He knew what he was talking about! “Look, it all adds up – the bleeding, the limp... He never blinks! Have you noticed that?”

“Maybe he's blinking when you're blinking,” Stanley said.

“Stanley, remember what the book said?” Ford whispered urgently. “'Trust no one!'”

Stan rolled his eyes. “Well what about me, huh? Why can't you trust me?”

Ford grabbed his brother by the shoulders. “Stanley, he's gonna eat your brain!”

Stanley frowned and pushed his hands away. “Stanford, listen to me. You can join us or not, but Norman and I are going treasure-hunting at five o' clock.” He started marching toward Stanford, who was forced to back up a step at a time. “And we're gonna find an awesome pile of gold,” Stan continued, “and we're gonna spend it however we want, and I'm not gonna let you ruin it with your crazy conspiracies!”

Stan slammed the bedroom door in Ford's face.

Ford sighed and slid to the floor, sitting against the door. “Oh man...what am I gonna do?”

Eventually he pulled himself to his feet and dragged himself downstairs, where he flopped on the yellow armchair. He pulled out the video camera and flipped open the viewing screen, glumly rewinding and fast-forwarding various moments of the day. There wasn't even a shred of proof...

The doorbell rang.

“Coming!” Stan yelled.

Ford glanced over the arm of the chair. He had a pretty good view of the front door. Norman was standing in the entrance, as pale and creepy as ever.

Stanley ran to the door, wearing clean(ish) clothes and his miner's helmet. “How do I look?” Stan asked, adjusting the hat. “Do I look like a real treasure-hunter?”

“Cool,” Norman grunted.

“The map's on the picnic table. Let's grab it and get hunting!” He grabbed Norman's sleeve and yanked him outside. Ford kept watching as they grabbed a wagon loaded with food and tools and started lugging it into the forest.

Ford turned away from the door with a groan. “Ugh, maybe Ria was right. I don't have any real evidence...” He watched a brief clip of Stan teaching Norman how to play cards while they ate stolen candy bars. He thumbed the fast-forward button absently. It reached the part where he'd been spying on the two of them in the cemetery. Ford watched as Norman fell into the grave, then climbed out. Totally creepy, but nothing supernatural about it at all. He sank a little lower in the chair. “I guess I can be kind of paranoid sometimes and...”

On the screen, Norman try to pull Stan out of the grave. Norman pulled and his hand popped off just as Stan slipped, falling back into –

“Wait. WHAT!?”

He rewound it again, watching closely. Just as Norman started to pull Stan out of the grave, Norman's hand fell off his wrist! Norman quickly popped it back on when Stan wasn't looking!

Ford yelled in triumph and actually knocked over the chair.

“I was right!” he shouted, scrambling to climb over the seat. “I was right, I knew it, I was –” He stopped short. His brother was out there right now, in a creepy forest with a zombie who wanted to eat his brains!

“Omigosh, omigosh!” He darted for the door. He had to get help! “Grauntie Mabel, Grauntie Mabel!”

He sprinted around the Shack. His great-aunt was giving a tour to some sweaty-looking tourists. She led them to a rather large rock set atop a thick pole, sitting in front of the Shack.

“And here we have Rock-That-Looks-Like-A-Face Rock,” she said proudly. “'The Rock that Looks like a Face.'”

One of the tourists raised his hand. “Does it look like a rock?” he asked, his accent twanging.

“What?” Mabel frowned at him. “No, it looks like a face.”

“Is it a face?” asked another tourist.

“It's a rock that looks like a face.”

Ford rushed up and tried to get around them, but there was no room. He jumped up and down, waving his arms from the back of the crowd. “Over here! Grauntie Mabel!”

She was too engrossed in her argument with the tourists. “For the fifth time, it's not an actual face!”

Ford ground his teeth in frustration.

Stan wiped the sweat from his forehead, leaving a long streak of black dirt on his face. The hole he'd dug was five feet wide and just as deep, with one side of it slanted so he could go up and down like a ramp. The sun was slowly going down, so half of the hole got some good shade, but the other half was right in the sun's path. Every time he stood on that side he got blinded. Sweat rolled down his face and back, making his shirt stick to him like the wrapper on a pastrami sandwich.

“This is taking forever!” Stan complained. He glared up at Norman. “Why aren't you helping more?”

Norman knelt at the side of the hole and handed him a water bottle. “I am helping. Besides, you're almost there.”

“Where, the center of the earth?” Stan threw down the water bottle and stabbed at the ground with the shovel. “Come on! I've been digging solo this whole time, and there's nothing even here –”

TWANG.

The shovel bounced back in Stan's hand. They both stared at the ground.

Stan's eyes went wide. “Is that...?”

“Grauntie Mabel, Grauntie Mabel!” Ford shouted, but he still couldn't get her attention and he knew time had to be running out!

A sudden movement caught his eye. Boyish Dan was parking the golf cart next to the “Pet the Pig” sign.

“Boyish Dan!” Ford ran over to him. “Dan, I need to borrow the golf cart so I can save my brother from a zombie!”

Dan squinted at him. Then he shrugged and dropped the keys into Ford's hand. “Don't hit pedestrians!” he barked, stalking toward the Gift Shop. Ford smiled with relief. Dan was pretty cool.

He hopped in the cart. It was almost exactly like that bumper car he'd ridden at the fair when he was six. He turned the key, shifted the gear stick, and hit the gas, heading straight for the forest.

“Chiquito, it's me, Ria.”

Ford hit the brakes. What was Ria doing just standing in the middle of the lawn?

“This is in case you see a zombie,” Ria said, handing him a large shovel.

“Thanks.” He stowed it in the back seat of the cart.

“And this is in case you see a pinata.” She handed him a baseball bat.

“Uh...thanks?” He put it by the shovel and hit the gas.

“Better safe than sorry!” she called cheerfully, as he zoomed towards the forest.

“Oh, man, I've never seen this much gold in my life!” Stan laughed. He'd dumped the treasure chest out on the bottom of the hole and was digging through the pile of gold coins, running them through his fingers. They glittered in the orange light of the setting sun. He grabbed two fistfuls and threw them up in the air, yelling with delight until they fell back down and pummeled him on the head. “Ow!”

“This is amazing!” Norman said. “I can't believe you dug this up all by yourself!”

“I know, right!” Stan paused, squinting up at Norman. “Yeah, I did do all the work myself. You know, I'm thinking we may need to renegotiate our shares, here.”

“Oh, you can hang on to all of it.”

Stanley stared at him. “Huh?”

Norman seemed not to hear. “Man, look at this! And this was supposed to be one of the harder ones to dig up, too. You did it in an hour flat!”

“...Yeah...” Stan looked from the gold to Norman and back again. Norman really wasn't making any kind of grab for it. He'd just said Stan could have it all, just like that. Something was definitely fishy here. Was it possible Norman had tricked him?

He picked up an old-looking coin. It was worn smooth on one side, but the other side had some kind of sketchy engraving he couldn't quite make out. He knew better than to bite it – if it really was gold, he would dent the metal and decrease the coin's value. He weighed it in his palm. He'd gotten pretty good at that while working at the family pawn shop, and this felt like real gold.

So why would Norman just...?

He looked up. A bunch of foot-high men in bright red caps were standing exactly where Norman had been.

Stan shrieked and fell back on his butt.

“Relax, kid, wouldja?” one of the short guys said impatiently. It was Norman! Or at least Norman's face and voice.

“You – you –” Stan sputtered.

“Right, right, I'll explain.” Norman brushed the hair out of his eyes and smacked one hand with the other. “So! We're gnomes! Got that one out of the way.” He nodded at the other gnomes, all of whom were standing on stilts or carrying fake plastic arms. “I'm Jeff,” he said, “And that's Carson, Steve, Jason, and...I'm sorry, I always forget your name.”

The last gnome, who looked like a wild-eyed Santa Claus, blinked slowly. “Schmebulock,” he said, with a voice like a bunch of falling gravel.

Jeff snapped his fingers. “Right! Schmebulock! Yes! Anyway...” He turned back to Stan.

Stanley blinked rapidly, trying to put it all together. If that was Norman's face...then...Norman had really been a bunch of gnomes the whole time?!

“I still keep the gold,” Stan said flatly. “You said I could, and I did all the digging, and you didn't even pay for the stuff we stole, so –”

“Relax, kid, you can have all that and more!”

Stan blinked again, stunned. “There's more?”

“Sure!” Jeff pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and waved it around. “Us gnomes got into a fight with a giant hellhound a while ago, and long story short, it buried all our treasure. We've got whole boxes of the stuff buried all over the forest!”

Stan's eyes gleamed. “More gold, huh? You don't say.”

“Yep! But we're not exactly cut out to be diggers, and any tools we steal are definitely not gnome-sized. That's why us gnomes have been looking for a new servant!”

“Say what now?”

“Well, more like slave-labor, really. But it's a great deal!” Jeff nodded enthusiastically. “We offer full medical and dental coverage, plus all the pie we can steal. All you have to do is dig up all of our gold and guard it for the rest of eternity!”

“Are you crazy?” Stan demanded. “I get enough of that child labor stuff from Grauntie Mabel. You're lucky I don't sue your red-capped butts right now! I'm takin' my gold and I'm outta here.”

“We understand.” Jeff and his gnome friends glanced at each other. “Well, Stan...we tried it the easy way.”

Stan backed up. “Huh?”

All five gnomes bared teeth as sharp as a shark's. Stan yelled and threw up his arms as they jumped into the hole, their beady eyes glittering with greed.

“Don't worry, Stanley!” Ford shouted, his foot pressed to the gas. “I'll save you from that zombie!” Luckily, he'd seen the map they'd been using from the window of the attic. He had a pretty good memory. He knew he was to be close to wherever Stan and that zombie were trying to go.

Suddenly Stan's voice echoed through the trees to Ford's left. “Help!” he cried.

“Hold on!” Ford veered off the trail and drove into the trees, heading deeper and deeper into the shadows. The farther he went, the more he noticed an odd bluish light that seemed to come from the forest around him, tinting the foliage mint-green and aqua. The pine-needle carpet was swiftly replaced with odd blue mosses dotted with pink flowers and the occasional clump of mushrooms. There was an off-road path through the trees wide enough for the golf cart, and Ford pressed the accelerator, listening for his brother.

There was a clearing of sorts up ahead. A bunch of tiny red-capped creatures were swarming around a pile of gold. To the left, the rest of the creatures were clustered around Stanley, who was trying to fight them off, throwing punches left and right.

“The more you struggle, the more awkward this is gonna be for everybody!” warned one of the tiny creatures. “Okay, just – get his arm, there, Steve!”

A creature jumped up and tried bite Stan's arm. “Gah! HEY! Let go of me!” he shouted angrily. Another one attacked his midriff and he caught it mid-air with a strong left hook. The thing flew four feet, bounced twice, and landed on its feet next to a tree. It immediately vomited a viscous multicolored bile.

Ford hopped out of the cart and stared. “What the heck is going on here?!”

One of the creatures – men, they looked like little men – scuttled passed and hissed at him. Ford flinched back, dropping the shovel.

“Sixer!” Stanley called. “Norman turned out to be a bunch of gnomes! And they're total jerks!”

Three gnomes stacked themselves up and grabbed Stanley by the hair, swinging from it like monkeys. He yelped and went down.

“Gnomes?” Ford repeated, pulling out the journal. He flipped to the right page – ironically, the same page he'd accidentally shown his brother earlier. The same chubby-cheeked, starry-eyed drawing stared up at him. It was adorable in a creepy, infest-your-grandma's-lawn kind of way. “'Gnomes,'” he read aloud, “'Little men of the Gravity Falls forest. Weaknesses: Unknown.'”

Well that was unhelpful, Ford thought. When he glanced up, the gnomes had tied Stanley to the ground with a bunch of string, like a miniature Gulliver.

“Oh, come on!” Stanley shouted.

“Hey, hey!” Ford marched up to the lead gnome, shovel in hand. “Let go of my brother!”

“Oh, hehe, hey there!” The gnome smiled a little too stiffly. “You know, this is all just a big misunderstanding! Y'see, your brother's not in danger. He's just enslaved to all one thousand of us to become our gold miner for all eternity! Isn't that right, Stan-O?”

“You guys are butt faces!” Stan shouted. A gnome slapped his hands over Stan's mouth.

“Let go of him right now, or else!” Ford threatened.

Jeff glared at him, his face growing darker by the minute. “You think you can stop us, boy? You have no idea what we're capable of. The gnomes are a powerful race! Do not trifle with the –”

Ford scooped him up with the shovel and dumped him to the side.

He yelped indignantly. Ford ignored him and headed straight for Stan, lifting the shovel high and bringing the edge of it down on the strings. Stan jumped up and lashed out at the gnomes, knocking them down and giving them enough time to get away. He stopped to pick something up and Ford grabbed his arm, pulling him towards the golf cart.

“Forget it, Stan, just go!” Ford said.

“He's getting away with our servant!” Jeff yelled. “No, no, no!”

They scrambled into the golf cart. “Seat belt!” Ford barked.

“Mama's boy!” Stan barked back, but he put on the belt and Ford threw it in reverse.

Jeff watched them go, a dark fire burning in his eyes. “You messed with the wrong creatures, boy,” he growled. “Gnomes of the forest, ASSEMBLE!”

Instantly, gnome faces popped out from every nook and crevice in the clearing, crawling from the shadows, literally popping out of the woodwork in the trees. They scuttled towards him, linking arms, climbing onto each other's shoulders, as their collective shadow grew and spread over the ground...

Stan gripped the seat so hard his fingertips went numb. “Hurry, hurry, before they come after us!”

Ford grinned at him. “I wouldn't worry about it. Did you see those little legs? Those suckers are tiny!”

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

Ford braked as the whole ground shuddered under their wheels. A shadow fell over the cart and they turned.

Stan gaped. “Dang.”

A thirty-foot conglomeration of gnomes loomed over them, with fingers as thick as telephone poles, arms and legs as thick as train cars, and a huge, sharp-toothed face that came to a hat-shaped point.

Jeff sat at the very top of the point. “Alright, guys, like we practiced!” he called, and yanked a gnome's hat. The giant roared and lifted a huge fist.

“Go go go!” Stan yelled. Ford floored it just in time, and the fist hit the ground where they'd been just a split-second earlier. The fist smashed apart into a pile of angry gnomes. Stanley grabbed the seat for balance and watched, still looking back, as the gnomes quickly regrouped and thundered after them.

“Stanley what's happening?” Ford shouted.

“COME BACK WITH OUR SERVANT!” Jeff howled, his black eyes madder than ever. The gnome giant ran with incredible speed, closing the gap between them in a matter of seconds.

Stan blanched. “Hit the gas hit the gas!”

The giant whipped its arm at them and several razor-toothed gnomes snapped off its fingers and went flying straight for the cart.

Stan grabbed a bat from the back seat. “We got incoming!”

He unbuckled and stood in one smooth motion, hitting the first gnome in the gut with a perfect swing. It went flying into the trees.

“Home run, suckah!”

“Stanley!”

He turned. His brother was fighting off the rest – they were tearing through the cloth roof and climbing down the sides of the cart, shredding whatever they could reach with their teeth. Stanley grinned and wielded the bat like a spear, punching the stupid gnomes flat in the face with the blunt end. One of them tried to bite the bat and Stan smashed the end of it against the hood of the cart, squishing the gnome, which let go and bounced off into the road.

Another gnome swung down from the roof right next to Ford. He yelled, but before Stan could get to it Ford grabbed it by the back of its stupid little jacket and banged it several times against the steering wheel.

“Schmebulock,” groaned the gnome.

Ford smashed it one more time and let it go, and it rebounded off the cart and went tumbling in their dust.

Stan grinned at him. “Way to go, Fo–”

“SCREEEEE!”

A gnome came flying out of nowhere and landed right on Ford's face, squeezing Ford's ears in its vice-like grip.

“I'll save you Ford!” Stan dropped the bat and pummeled the gnome with both fists until he dislodged it with a killer left hook.

“Th-thanks, Stanley,” Ford stammered, swaying slightly and blinking several times.

“Don't mention it.” Stanley had been standing on the seat, but now he crouched down and peered out the back of the cart.

The gnome giant had been gaining all the time, but now it paused and grabbed the nearest tree. It was a redwood at least four stories tall, looked like it had been growing for over a century – and the giant just grabbed it and pulled it up like it was picking daisies! It took aim and threw the tree like a javelin.

“WATCH OUT!” Stan shouted.

Ford glanced back over his shoulder and the two of them yelled with fear as the tree sailed towards them – and then over them. It landed with an incredible BANG in the middle of the path ahead, completely blocking the road.

Stanley threw up his arms as Ford swerved, desperately trying to avoid the tree, screaming as it loomed closer and closer.

The tree had landed with one end propped up on a boulder, with just the smallest gap between the tree and the ground. Ford yanked the wheel hard to the right and the cart skidded under the tree, scraping off bits of bark with the roof of the cart. Ford lost control and the cart started tipping, zooming down the road on just its two right wheels. Stan grabbed the seat – he couldn't reach for the seatbelt or he'd fall out – and Ford pumped the brakes and the gas, trying to regain control. The cart fishtailed, skidding over the road, and finally tipped over, sliding the last ten feet to the Shack.

It took a full minute for Stanley to realize they weren't moving. His head was pounding and the ground spun underneath him. He pulled himself, groaning, from the wreckage of the cart. He glanced over to see his brother standing up shakily, grabbing the bent metal poles of the cart for balance.

The giant gnome stomped towards them, its huge shadow swallowing them up. At its top, Jeff's eyes glittered maliciously. The boys backed up until they were pressed against the wall of the Shack.

“Uh, stay back, gnomes!” Ford yelled shakily. He grabbed the shovel from the back of the cart and threw it.

The giant hit it in mid-air and punched it to the ground.

“AGH!” Ford and Stan jumped.

“Wh-where's Grauntie Mabel?” Ford squeaked.

Inside the Gift Shop, Mabel Pines was demonstrating the newest merchandise to a trio of slack-jawed visitors.

“Behold!” she declared, holding up a toy that looked like a plastic lollipop. It had a swirl pattern decorating the candy part and a string dangling from one side. “The world's most distracting object!”

She pulled the string and the swirl began to turn.

“Ooooh,” the tourists said in unison.

Mabel grinned. “Just try to look away, you can't!” They all stared at the toy, including Mabel. “...Wow, I can't even remember what I was talking about.”

Stan and Ford were trapped between the trash cans and some bushes at the side of the Shack. There was nowhere for them to run, and nothing they could use as a weapon. Stan stood partly in front of his brother, one arm thrown out to protect him. How the heck was he supposed to get them out of this?

“It's the end of the line, kids!” Jeff yelled, looming over them. “Stanley, get over here before we do something crazy!”

“There's gotta be a way outta this,” Ford whispered. He slid the journal partway out of his jacket.

Stan set his jaw. “I gotta do it.”

“What?” Ford grabbed Stan's shoulder. “Stanley, don't do this, are you crazy?”

“Trust me.”

“What?”

“Sixer, just this once.” He turned to look his brother in the eye. “Trust me.”

Ford looked from the monster to Stan and back again. He slowly released Stan's shoulder and backed up.

Stan strode forward. “Alright, Jeff,” he said loudly. “I'll sign your contract.”

Jeff frowned at him. “Contract?”

“Well sure. This is like, a legal agreement, right? I'm going to work for you for eternity and all. Any good boss knows we need a contract to make it legally binding, so I can't run away.”

Jeff rubbed his chin, considering. “I like the way you think, kid!” he said finally. He clapped his hands and started climbing down the giant. “Help me down there, Jason, thanks Andy, whoops – hey Jorge – whoa, watch those fingers, Mike.” He reached the bottom and headed for Stanley, practically strutting, while the gnome-giant stood silently behind him. Stan was thinking furiously, but it looked like he was right – the other gnomes were all staring at Jeff like they didn't know what to do without him. That's what he was counting on.

“Alright kid, where's the contract?”

“You're in luck! We can use the map we left behind earlier,” Stan said. He reached behind the trash cans. “I've got the map and a pen right here...”

He whipped out the leaf blower and switched it on in reverse. Immediately the suction began drawing Jeff towards the blower.

“H-hey, what's going on?!” Jeff tried to back up but slipped on the grass. He grabbed for the ground with his fingers, but the wind was too strong. It yanked him up and he was sucked straight down the pipe. The other gnomes gasped.

“That's for lying to me!” Stan shouted.

He cranked the suction to full. Jeff's body got sucked in until only his cheeks bulged over the rim.

“Ow, my face!”

“That's for taking my gold!”

Stan aimed the blower at the giant gnome monster. It grunted in surprise.

“And this is for messing with my brother!” He glanced at Ford and grinned. “Care to do the honors?”

Ford smiled back. “On three!”

“One!”

“Two!”

“Three!”

Ford flipped the switch to 'blow'. Jeff shot out of the blower like a high-powered rocket. He crashed straight through the giant's chest and out its back.

“I'll get you back for thiiiiis!” he howled, flying at high speed over the treetops and out of sight.

The impact shattered the giant gnome to bits. They broke apart, gnomes falling around them like very ugly confetti. In seconds the lawn was covered with battered gnomes. Their red hats were bent and grass stuck to their sweaty hands and faces. They blinked and looked around blearily, groaning and rubbing their arms and shoulders.

“Ugh...”

“My arms are tired,” one mumbled.

“Who's giving orders?” whined another gnome. “I need orders!”

Stanley shoved the blower at Ford and grabbed his bat. “Anybody else want a piece of this?!” he demanded, swinging the bat like a golf club. He smacked quite a few gnomes on the butt. Ford joined in on the fun, cranking the blower to maximum.

“Yeah, come on!” Ford shouted, laughing.

The gnomes squealed and fled, most of them scampering on all fours into the forest. The twins ran after them, whooping and hollering like maniacs. Even Waddles got in on the action, showing up just in time to drag the last gnome off by its hat.

Ford headed back to the house to replace the leaf blower.

Stan bit his lip. “Hey, Ford.”

His brother turned. Stan shouldered his bat and shoved his free hand into his pocket. “Um. Sorry for getting on your case earlier. I know you were just looking out for me.”

“Come on, don't be like that!” Ford said, smiling. “Did you see what a great team we made? That was awesome!”

Stan grinned a little. “Yeah...hey, wanna see something?” He brought his hand out of his pocket. Resting on his palm was an old, misshapen, yet unmistakably gold coin.

“Whoa, neat-o!” Ford said, bending for a closer look. “You think it's real gold?”

“You bet! I bet you could do some science-y thing to check the weight, but it definitely looks real. The gnomes said there was a ton of it buried all around the forest, but they couldn't dig it up. That's why they wanted me in the first place.”

“You know, I bet we could find it on our own,” Ford mused. “We could get a metal detector or something and go exploring in the woods. We could even make maps like real explorers so we'd know where we'd already checked.”

Stan looked up hopefully. “You mean it? We'll go hunting together?”

“Sure! I bet we'll find a ton of treasure.”

Stanley's smile widened. He felt like fireworks were going off in his chest. “Alright! High six?”

Ford grinned back. “High six.”

They smacked hands.

Grauntie Mabel was counting the day's profits when they walked in. She took one look at them and laughed.

“Whoa, what happened to you?” she asked. “Didja get hit by a bus or something?” She chuckled at her own wit.

Stan grunted for the both of them and the trudged towards the kitchen. Normally he shared her love of terrible jokes, but at the moment he was too beat-up and tired to care. For once he would probably go to bed almost willingly.

“Uh – hey!”

He and Ford turned back. Their great-aunt was rubbing the back of her neck like she was anxious. “W-wouldn't you know it, I accidentally overstocked some inventory!” she said awkwardly. “So, uh, why don't the two of you take one item from the shop. On the house, you know?”

Stan's eyes widened. “Like, for free?”

“What's the catch?” Ford asked, folding his arms.

She frowned at him. “The catch is do it before I change my mind. Now take something.” She smacked the register with her elbow and started organizing the bills.

Stan sped straight for the priciest items in the shop. A talking fish on a plaque? A stuffed frogadillo riding a unicycle? He could take whatever he wanted for free!

“Neat-o!” Ford said.

Stan looked over. His brother had found a keychain shaped like a flying saucer. Ford clicked a small button on the side and the whole thing lit up light blue, making the perfect paranormal-themed flashlight. He slipped a finger through the keychain's ring and spun it, making a circle of light shimmer in the air.

“This is so cool!” Ford turned to Stan. “What did you get, Stanley?”

Stan looked around. “Um...I think I'll get...”

Something caught his eye. A glint of metal from the Bargain Box, shoved to the back of a store. He leaned closer to check...and a smile spread over his face.

“I will have a...grappling hook!”

He aimed the weapon around the shop, pretending he was a fighter in the Ol' West. “Pew, pew, pew! Take that!”

Ford and Grauntie Mabel glanced at each other in surprise.

“Wouldn't you rather have, like, a T-shirt or something?” Grauntie Mabel asked.

“Are you kidding?” Stanley aimed at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. The hooks shot up, latched onto the roof beam, and yanked him ten feet in the air, where he dangled one-handedly from the ceiling. “GRAPPLING HOOK!” he shouted.

She laughed. “Fair enough!”

Ford sat in his bed later that evening, the blankets pulled over his knees as he wrote in the journal. He'd already filled in the “Weakness” areas of the gnome page: Leaf blowers and baseball bats!

He flipped to the first blank page, halfway through the book.

This journal told me there was no one in Gravity Falls I could trust, he wrote. But when you battle a hundred gnomes side-by-side with someone, you realize they've probably always got your back.

“Hey, Stan, can you get the lights?” he asked.

Stan had been bouncing energetically on his bed, grappling hook in hand.

“I'm on it!” he said. He'd already impaled a stuffed bear with it earlier, and its cotton innards clung to the hooks. He aimed at the lamp and fired.

The hook shot straight through the lamp and smashed the window behind it. The lamp sparked and died.

“It worked!” Stan shouted, and they laughed.

Ford slipped the journal under his pillow and laid back, his arms crossed under his head. He heard a rustling and knew that Stan had taken up an identical pose.

“This summer's gonna be awesome, Stan,” Ford said.

“Duh!” He could hear his brother's smile in his voice. “We're gonna find tons of buried treasure.”

“And monsters.”

“And babes!”

Ford threw a pillow at him. He heard a fwump and muffled laughter.

Ford closed his eyes, still smiling, thinking back to the last thing he wrote in the journal.

Grauntie Mabel told me there's nothing weird going on in Gravity Falls, but who knows what other secrets are waiting to be unlocked?

#gravity falls #relativity falls #smoll stan #smoll ford #grauntie mabel #gnomes #schmebulock #tourist trap #ria #ria ramirez #boyish dan #mystery shack

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onthevirgeofdestruction · 4 years ago

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Plea for My New Self

Sanders sides Vampire College AU - it’s gay - it’s full of fun fluffy tropes - a bit o’ hurt/comfort - mostly fluff

Words: 5,141 Warnings: Arguing, Violent thoughts Characters: Virgil, Roman, Thomas, Elliot, Kai Mitchell, Seth Ships: Prinxiety, Eventual clam’d Universe: Plea for my New Self Rating: T Genre: Vampire Nonsense

Chapter 30: We Only Come Out at Night

Chapter 1 for New Readers - ffn mirror

Roman was on stage running through his lines with the rest of the cast. They were told not to put too much emphasis on delivery and focus on learning the script today, but Virgil knew that Roman already knew how he wanted to deliver it. Like Septimus was a scoundrel and he would run in through. Which wasn’t unreasonable for the play, honestly. The action does get threatened, and all.

Virgil and Elliot were putting together a list of things they needed to go out and retrieve. Virgil thought a period-reasonable wallpaper would be nice, but finding one at a modern hardware store would be unreasonable at best. The plan was to check, but they weren’t to get their hopes up and focus on grabbing the other supplies.

“I don’t know if my car would fit this stuff,” Elliot muttered, looking over the list.

“Mine wouldn’t either. How about we catch a ride over and rent one of those trucks to bring it all back?” Virgil said, leaning back on the floor next to Elliot. He looked over to the storage pile and fought the urge to go organize it again. If he didn’t look at it he could pretend it wasn’t a nightmare he longed to fix.

“Oh, can I use the truck afterword?” Mitchell perked up after a moment. Ugh, well, at least Virgil had something to hate more than the disorder in here.

“No, my insurance doesn��t cover other drivers,” Virgil glared. The only favor Virgil was doing Mitchell was not draining him and throwing the husk in a river.

“Ugh,” Mitchell flopped back on the chair, returning to clicking around on the laptop in his lap.

“So do we want to make frames or just buy some?” Virgil asked curiously, getting back on the subject.

“It depends on if you can find some frames that are lightweight enough,” Kai shrugged noncommittally. Virgil hummed in annoyance.

“Well, we shouldn’t go into the store without a blueprint for the windows we want to use, in case there are no pre-fab frames that work,” Elliot said a little meekly. Virgil raised an eyebrow at him.

“I’m looking it up, don’t get your panties in a wad,” Mitchell clicked with his tongue and shot what only could be described as a smug glower over the top of his laptop screen.

“Oh, I thought you were just being a lazy asshole,” Kai chuckled and picked up a packet of papers off the table, flipping his hair out of the way. Kai had dyed half his hair magenta to go with the teal since Virgil last saw him, and it was cool. Virgil wouldn’t have thought those colors went together until Kai pulled it off. But Virgil’s probably just pro dark colors and maybe other people liked them together, too.

“Any luck finding that last chair, yet?” Mitchell called out to the storage room. Three ‘no’s piped up from various areas of the room. If they would let Virgil organize the room after hours they wouldn’t have this problem. Virgil chewed on his nail and glanced at the disorder again, bouncing his foot restlessly. “All right, I’ve got two options here of period stage window blueprints,” Mitchell said, flipping around his laptop to show the others. There were some large square windows and high arched ones.

“I love the look of the arched ones, but they’re probably too hard to make,” Kai said, sounding a little disappointed.

“I think it’s doable,” Virgil shrugged. “We can get the arch pre-fabbed at a big hardware store. We just have to put it all together evenly. We don’t have to make them perfect enough to actually fit window panes, just lined up properly,”

“Sawing an even arch in the plywood is the problem. We have to slot them into the backdrop,” Elliot pointed out.

“I have a pretty steady hand. I just need a practice piece of plywood first. I haven’t used a reciprocating saw in a little while,” Virgil offered to try it.

“We don’t have a reciprocating saw,” Mitchell rolled his eyes. Virgil just raised his eyebrow at him.

“You have the sawhorses, right?” Virgil asked, glancing around the storage again. Ugh, it made him nuts in here when he wasn’t doing anything about it. Even if he helped him look for the chair he’d be much happier. Virgil drummed his fingers on his thigh, miming playing a piano song he liked to pull his focus back.

“Yeah, We’ve got 3 or 4. They’re in the outer storage, we’re not allowed to get sawdust in here. Something about the ventilation,” Elliot replied, motioning to the room with the back of their pen. Virgil reached into his hoodie pocket and squeezed Vladimir.

“So, the wood glue is dried up and we’ll need some more. We also need more sandpaper and masks. And that practice piece of plywood for Virgil. We’ve got nails and staples for the staple gun already. We might need more eggshell for the windows, but probably just a pint or two,” Kai said, and Elliot double-checked the list in their hands.

“You’re seriously going to let him do the cutting? You’ve never seen him work!” Mitchell groaned, flipping his hand dismissively in Virgil’s direction.

“He has extremely out there hobbies, dude. It’s not that unbelievable he’s used power tools before,” Elliot muttered, shooting a nervous glance at Mitchell but mostly pretending to focus on the papers in front of them. “He could tune and fix the organ out there, at least, that’s a trade skill,” They added quietly and his eyes returned to actually scanning the paper.

“It’s a surprisingly old organ, it’s a shame nobody was doing maintenance on it,” Virgil casually commented, lolling his head to the side.

“I think it was donated by a grandparent of an alumnus,” Kai offhandedly offered in explanation. “Listen, if he fucks up too much on his practice piece, we have someone else do it. It’s not that hard to actually confirm if he can without damaging the sets. Hell, he can pick up two practice pieces for other people to try,” Kai rolled his eyes. “It’s not like anybody here is a master carpenter,” He added after a pause, flipping through the pages again and chewing on his lip in annoyance.

“Let’s get the sundries stuff with the budget and just let Virgil cover all the wood and saw. Then we’ll have plenty of money leftover for altering the costumes and making a new gown for Thomasina,” Elliot suggested. Virgil shrugged, he didn’t actually care if he paid for the whole thing or not, but he wasn’t pushing it.

“Have somebody take my laptop and get these blueprints and the list of woodcuts to go get printed out in the printer lab,” Mitchell said, closing his laptop lid.

“It’s your laptop, don’t you want to do it yourself?” Kai huffed, writing on the paper.

“I don’t have the money for copies. Send Virgil,” Mitchell shrugged with a little self-important smirk.

“I’ll give somebody else the money,” Virgil shook his head shrinking back.

“What, you can move a solid oak table alone but you can’t walk to the library?” Mitchell rolled his eyes and clicked his tongue again.

“I’m not going in the printer room,” Virgil objected, remembering how claustrophobic it was in that tiny room with the printers. It was also particularly bright today and he’d rather not go out until he had to go to the store.

“Afraid of printers or rabid seniors?” Mitchell asked derisively, grinning darkly.

“Don’t be an asshole, Mitchell,” Kai tried to shut Mitchell down, but he didn’t seem fazed.

“But it’s my most charming attribute,” Mitchell crossed his arms. Drinking from Roman did not stop Virgil’s desire to break Mitchell’s spine and throw him off a roof. He’s had that one a lot lately. Maybe he should be drinking from Roman more. Not that vampires weren’t naturally violent assholes in the first place. Virgil tried to shake it out of his head. “Of course it is,” Mitchell hissed haughtily. Mitchell must have misunderstood the head-shaking motion.

“That was unrelated. I don’t think you have any charming attributes. I’ll seriously give somebody $20 to go print it,” Virgil called out to the room. One of the new techs, Seth popped out from behind a backdrop excitedly. Virgil liked his audition for Gus, but he seemed just as happy back here, unlike the other two. They would probably get over it, though.

“Is that including the printing cost or a separate $20?” Seth asked, quickly jogging up.

“Damn, Seth, I’ll give you $40 if you’re that desperate, take his laptop and print out the pages he’s got open,” Virgil pointed to Mitchell’s laptop.

“Thanks, V!” He smiled and held out his hands for the laptop.

“I’ll take it for forty bucks,” Mitchell held his laptop close, not giving it up.

“The $40 offer is for Seth only, you’d get 5 bucks and a lollipop,” Virgil smirked maliciously at Mitchell, resisting the urge to flash his fangs.

“You’re a fucking prick, V,” Mitchell glowered down at him, flipping Virgil off quickly.

“And I’m fine with that,” Virgil reached into his wallet and pulled out $40 for Seth, who beamed like Virgil was his savior.

“Shit, how much do you have in there?” Elliot hissed in surprise when they caught sight of his wallet.

“Enough for the supplies,” Virgil said dismissively. He grabbed some extra cash in case supplies got expensive.

“I think you can also order pizza for the whole theatre,” Kai whistled, glancing at Virgil’s wallet before Virgil slid it back into his pocket.

“Probably not that much,” Virgil shrugged. That was a lot of college kids.

“V’s ordering pizza!” Mitchell called to the room and got some cheers as he handed off his laptop to Seth. He shot Virgil a shit-eating grin. Virgil just shrugged and pulled out his phone.

“What’s the address here? Is this building E or F?” Virgil asked nonchalantly. He could pay for this digitally. He wasn’t taking Mitchell’s bait to try to make Virgil look like a prick to everybody else by backing down. He knew this bullshit well enough. He’d order it for everybody, too, not just crew. Virgil would not give Mitchell fucking room to try to make him out to be a bigger asshole than he actually was. Virgil was perfectly aware he was an asshole, but he wasn’t allowing even an iota of it to be unearned. Deceit supports spite purchases even if Virgil didn’t have the money.

“It’s G, actually,” Elliot provided. “Are you serious?” They glanced curiously between Virgil’s face and his phone.

“Yeah, sure. Building D is next door. This campus is laid out so screwy,” Virgil grumbled, punching in the address. “How many vegan pizzas should I get?”

“I think one vegan and one gluten-free,” Kai suggested. “I think I remembered somebody having an intolerance,” He added, tapping his chin and looking up.

“So three pepperoni, three cheese, one vegan, and one gluten-free?” Virgil confirmed.

“I think we’re unintentionally throwing a party at this point,” Kai laughed. “Get one specialty one, too. And some soda,” Kai grinned.

‘Hey, I’ve just been heckled by an asshole to buy pizza for the whole theatre and I’m not backing down. Does the cast want anything?’ Virgil asked Roman mentally.

‘Mitchell, again? What’s his deal with you? God, throw him off a roof,’ Roman thought back bitterly. Aw, same murder thought. How sweet.

‘Yes, sir,’ Virgil snickered quietly while he added things to the cart.

‘I’m kidding. No murdering anybody in theatre. Shit, okay hold on, they’re hounding me,’ Roman thought, sounding a little panicked. Virgil could vaguely make out a cacophony from on stage through his headphones and felt bad for Roman.

“Don’t be so smug about it, fucker,” Mitchell whispered.

“I won’t fall for those tricks and that is a threat,” Virgil whispered back, glowering at him. Mitchell looked surprised, maybe that Virgil could hear him, or maybe he wasn’t used to being challenged. Virgil wasn’t sure of anything other than the fact Mitchell’s blood was just as red as the rest of Virgil’s prey.

“Guys, cut it out,” Kai rolled his eyes. It looked like he was going through the paper inventory again. Virgil exhaled in annoyance and tried to let it go.

‘Okay, like 5 orders of breadsticks, lots of pepperoni, a supreme, some apps, and basically every kind of soda they have,’ Roman thought back. ‘Also I think they might have undying gratitude to you, someone out here looks like they’re about to cry from relief. I heard someone offer their firstborn for cheese bread,’ Roman seemed amused.

‘College be like that sometimes. I’ll let you know when they get here, do you have the cash to tip the delivery guy if I’m still at the store?’ Virgil asked Roman in his head.

‘Yeah, no problem Virgil. Aggressive altruism is your kink, I got it,’ Roman’s grin was almost audible in his thoughts.

‘Speaking of, have I had any luck with Pat yet? They’re still being kind of distant,’ Virgil asked curiously.

‘I think so. Mostly because Pat’s so tired after work they’re starting to get sick,’ Roman thought.

‘Shit, really? I feel so bad for them. Nobody tells me these things,’ Virgil grumbled slightly.

‘Because you’re aggressively altruistic and it scares people,’ Roman thought back. That was probably fair. ‘Maybe some venom would help them out,’ Roman added teasingly.

‘Enough shoulder-deviling out of you, that’s Pat’s choice alone, and we haven’t talked about that yet,’ Virgil huffed.

‘I’m just saying,’ Roman thought in a sing-song tone.

‘You’re talking to D too much,’ Virgil sighed and started adding random appetizers. Somebody would probably eat chicken wings. They’re college kids, somebody would take home leftovers of anything. He once saw a guy eat cold meat and bean chili on those fake nacho cheese chips for breakfast in the dorms. Virgil didn’t get human food, but that couldn’t have been all right. It smelled like death. Virgil had smelled some shit in his lifetime, but the ‘food’ in that styrofoam bowl still haunted his smell memory. And that fucker chased it with a fruit strip. Nightmare material.

‘You’re right, I am. You should order a Hawaiian and see if anybody throws down,’ Roman thought back teasingly.

‘I should have known to never put you two in the same room together,’ Virgil rolled his eyes. He was interested, though. ‘I’m going to do it,’ Virgil added a large Hawaiian pizza to the cart. ‘Don’t tell anybody, I want to see how this plays out,’ Virgil smirked inwardly at the idea.

‘You shouldn’t be allowed in the same room with him, either. If they do fight, we’ve got to record it, D would cry with laughter,’ Roman laughed mentally. D actually might. ‘Shut up now, we’re getting back to running lines after you derailed rehearsal,’ Roman thought, dismissing Virgil.

Virgil finished his order. It was pretty large and had way over two hours till it was even ready for delivery, which meant it would probably arrive after they finished running lines, and hopefully just in time for Virgil to get back.

“Back!” Seth called, jogging back up with a handful of pages and holding Mitchell’s laptop tight. “Here’s your laptop back,” Seth passed it over and Mitchell took it sourly. Kai took the pages, separating the supplies and blueprints and handing off the page with the listed cuts to Virgil. Virgil scanned the paged and passed them to Elliot to slide on his gloves.

“It’s not that cold out, you weirdo, why are you putting on gloves?” Mitchell pulled a disgusted face.

“They’re my bitch slapping gloves. Did you want to volunteer to be the bitch?” Virgil hissed and glared intensely at Mitchell. God, he just wanted any excuse to rip that kid’s throat out. It felt like Mitchell had been harassing him nonstop since auditions.

“All right, V’s reached his Mitchell tolerance for the day, you guys are barred from each other when Virgil and Elliot get back from the hardware store,” Kai rolled his eyes, holding out the papers he was holding between their glaring eye line.

“Fine by me,” Mitchell shot. Kai pulled his papers back.

“I hope that means he can’t have any pizza,” Virgil smiled impishly and Mitchell scowled at him. Oh, that’s the face of a man who would eat too much pizza out of spite. Virgil considered that a victory.

“Go buy wood you catty motherfucker,” Kai groaned. Virgil shrugged and tilted his head to express he was letting it go and summoned a rideshare to head to the store.

“You ready to go, El?” Virgil stood up off the floor and held out a hand for Elliot. Elliot took it to get up with a small smile.

“Oh, I like the magenta, Kai. I don’t think I mentioned it earlier when we got here,” Virgil added, checking to see when the car would get near.

“Thanks. I like your ridiculously long wig. That thing must be heavy as fuck,” Kai commented and pointed to Virgil’s hair.

“I can head-bang with the best of them, now,” Virgil chuckled. “The car’s almost here, already. Let’s get going,” Virgil smiled and waved to Kai and scowled quickly at Mitchell before heading out of the storage room to go meet the car. Mitchel grimaced in return and flipped him off.

—

“I think I ate too much pizza,” Roman whined, holding his stomach as they walked out of the theatre with Thomas.

“It did smell good. I lived vicariously through you tonight,” Thomas chuckled a little bitterly. “Things got off track when the pizza got there, I never found out the set plans. What did you find?”

“We’re making a new set backdrop with windows from a blueprint. There was no frames lightweight enough. Everything the store had was modern, anyway, and El and I didn’t like that,” Virgil lazily slid his hands into his pocket and glanced around in the dark. Other than other people exiting the theatre hall they were mostly alone.

“It’s good you only have to make one backdrop, then, that will probably take a while,” Thomas folded his arms and nodded.

“Yeah. Humans do stuff so slow,” Virgil chuckled.

“It’s a part-time club, Virgil,” Roman rolled his eyes and lazily punched Virgil in the arm. “We can’t all have vampire insomnia,” Roman huffed angrily and threw up his arms in Virgil’s direction.

“All right, that was unfair of me,” Virgil apologized and planted a kiss on Roman’s check. He paused because something felt off when he felt Roman’s skin.

“What?” Roman asked, stopping. Thomas also stopped and turned around. Virgil reached up and felt Roman’s cheek with the back of his palm.

“Hey, Thomas, does Ro feel hot to you?” Virgil asked, reaching out for Thomas’s hand and putting it on Roman’s forehead.

“Yeah, kind of. We’re probably not the best judges, though,” Thomas chuckled. Roman felt his face after Thomas dropped his hand.

“I feel normal. I also don’t feel sick other than maybe one too many breadsticks,” Roman said and rubbed his stomach lightly. “It’s probably nothing,” Virgil shrugged and wrapped his arm around Roman’s shoulders and they returned to walking together, Thomas also resuming his walk with them.

“So what are you doing tonight?” Virgil asked, lazily petting Roman’s shoulder.

“Oh, hanging out with Joan and Talyn. Maybe Remy and Emile if they decide to show up. Sometimes they do or don’t. We’re watching horror movies. Do you want to come? My couch is pretty huge,” Thomas offered, slipping his thumbs in his belt loops as they walked ahead.

“That’s a lot of people in one apartment,” Virgil muttered. Roman slid his hand in Virgil’s back pocked and leaned into his arm.

“Oh, yeah, claustrophobia. Sorry,” Thomas said, sounding contrite.

“It’s a shame you can’t just rent out a theatre or something. That’d be cool,” Roman mused, smiling at Virgil.

“I think Daddy Warbucks only pulled it off because it was the great depression and the theatre would have gone under, otherwise,” Virgil laughed under his breath. “Nah, this last-minute the best I could do is a hotel suite or something,” Virgil shrugged.

“Oh, that would be fun!” Roman grinned deliberately at Virgil, raising his eyebrows impishly.

“I’m not getting you drunk again, Roman, your inner evil siren comes out too much,” Virgil groaned sourly, rolling his head.

“What did he do?” Thomas asked, sounding intrigued and raising his eyebrow.

“We got a video of Virgil and D doing a fancy Spanish bullfighting dance,” Roman said proudly, shooting Virgil a mischievous grin.

“Among other things,” Virgil grumbled under his breath.

“Oh, I want to see that!” Thomas said, and Virgil wasn’t excited about how hopeful he sounded.

“Well, we haven’t shown Pat or Specs, either. Maybe we should get a hotel suite and we can show the video before watching some movies! It’s Friday night, it’s the best time for chilling,” Roman suggested, still smiling like a kid who snuck a ton of cookies from the cookie jar.

“Hecate, please strike me down,” Virgil moaned, running his hand through his hair.

“You loved dancing with him, you dork,” Roman smacked Virgil playfully and rolled his eyes.

“I did, but you guys watching is embarrassing. I didn’t know any of those people at the parties and I cannot stress how drunk I was,” Virgil grumbled, feeling incredibly self-conscious. “Going to parties where people were drunk was the best way to feed at the time,” He added under his breath.

“It’s fine, you love us. You’ll deal,” Roman dismissed him, fluttering his eyebrows flirtatiously. Virgil sighed dramatically.

“He does have an inner evil siren, huh?” Thomas laughed. “I’d be fine with switching to a giant TV at a hotel, just let me know if you actually want to and I’ll ask Joan and Talyn if they’re cool with that,”

“Hm, yeah, I do want to meet Joan and Talyn. May as well get it over with. At least I get to see some guts get ripped out to distract me from wanting to die in a fire out of mortification,” Virgil sighed in resignation.

“Ugh,” Roman huffed. “Your interest in the material is almost more disturbing than the content,” Virgil took his hand off of Roman’s shoulder and Roman separated so Virgil could open his phone to hunt down a large hotel suite.

“All that murder instinct has to go somewhere,” Virgil chuckled as he started looking for roomy suites and large TVs.

“Being scared is half the fun, Roman. It’s not real. I’m sure Virgil is happy to hold you if you get scared,” Thomas said with a lilting laugh. Virgil smirked at Roman who rolled his eyes.

“Ro, invite Pat and Lo while I find someplace big enough for this,” Virgil requested. Roman nodded.

“Cool, I’ll see if Joan and Talyn are willing to move locations,” Thomas said, sliding his hands into his pockets. Virgil watched him not get his phone out in confusion.

“Are you in a clan with them or something?” Virgil asked curiously.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Didn’t I tell you? Joan’s my sire,” Thomas shrugged.

“Isn’t Joan one of Remy’s betas? I mean, I’m still cracking the Emoji code, but I think he is,” Virgil was pretty positive at least.

“Yeah, Remy’s our alpha. Why do you think he hangs out with me sometimes?” Thomas laughed airily. “I don’t think he’d give me the time of day otherwise, he’s got lots of things going on,” Thomas tilted his head considerately.

“He’s a complete mystery to me. I couldn’t assume his motivations for anything,” Virgil said, almost in awe of the situation. “Wait, you’re an omega?” He realized, looking up from his phone to Thomas in surprise.

“Yeah,” Thomas said dismissively, sounding distracted. Probably still talking to his clan.

“Oh, that’s why you seem to handle the sun so well,” Virgil mused. “I was wondering about that. Omegas didn’t normally survive that long back in the day, I don’t see lots of them. It’s mostly Betas out there,” Virgil explained his confusion with the situation.

“Oh, thanks for that vote of confidence,” Thomas said sarcastically and shot a grimace to Virgil. Virgil thought Thomas had a surprisingly similar face to Virgil’s when he was grimacing.

“Things aren’t as gut-throat as they used to be before bags got big,” Virgil offered in consolation. “I’m sure you’ll be fine. Remy seems like he’d throw down at the drop of a hat, he’d probably protect you,” He added confidently.

“Don’t you mean cut-throat?” Roman asked, looking kind of disgusted.

“No,” Virgil and Thomas said in unison and Roman shivered.

“He would, Remy’s super protective. It’s just a little too real,” Thomas said, sounding a little dour.

“Sorry, Thomas,” Virgil pulled Thomas in for a side hug.

“Eh, I know you didn’t mean I wouldn’t survive long. Thanks, though,” Thomas shrugged, looking a little less upset.

“Why are omegas more at risk than betas?” Roman asked curiously. “Pat’s down, they’re trying to convince Logan to come out, by the way,” Roman added, sounding eager.

“They’re the closest to still being human. Fewer vampire weaknesses, but not as much of the strength either. A beta is kind of like three-quarters of a vampire and an omega is half. Metaphorically, anyway, it’s a little more complex than that, physically. Lots of little trade-offs and things,” Virgil tried to explain.

“So you can be in the sun and stuff?” Roman asked curiously.

“Yeah, I can get a little sun and be okay. I get less sick if I eat human food, but it still happens. Silver is more like a severe allergy. Still can sleep and stuff. I can’t flit, just run fast. I’m significantly stronger and faster than a human, though, and I stopped aging. I do also need to breathe. Remy creeps me out when he stops,” Thomas stuck out his tongue in distaste.

“Woah, Virge, you don’t have to breathe?” Roman shot, looking and Virgil with wide eyes.

“I can go a few hours without oxygen, yeah. I don’t stop unless I’m underwater, though. Remy’s just weird, I think. There’s no reason not to unless there’s an awful smell,” Virgil said, furrowing his eyebrows. Maybe he just enjoyed freaking people out?

“That’s wild,” Roman whistled. “That explains how you jammed with a mermaid,” Roman muttered. “Thomas is safe, though, right?” Roman asked, looking concerned.

“It wasn’t that long ago when territory stuff was a bigger deal. Technology made it easier to coexist and it’s easier for omegas. Like I said, we’re territorial bastards. Vampires don’t normally get along in the same room, or square miles, after a while. Instincts start kicking in,” Virgil shrugged dismissively.

“Wait, then why are we putting two clans together in a hotel room?” Roman stopped, looking extremely concerned.

“We’ll probably just involuntarily hiss at each other at worst, Roman, don’t worry about it. Remy and I can leave and duke it out until our instincts settle down. If the alpha’s instincts settle down, the turned will, too,” Virgil explained. It really wasn’t a big deal as long as everyone agreed to be civil, and Remy seemed to like Virgil for some reason, so he wasn’t worried about it. If anything, he looked forward to punching Remy square in the jaw.

“That’s still terrifying as a human in the room,” Roman shuddered. “Logan just agreed to it, though, so it’s too late to back out,” Virgil pulled in Roman’s head to kiss it to help him calm down.

“Joan and Talyn are down. Remy said he’d probably show up, too,” Thomas added cheerily.

“How about Emile?” Roman perked up.

“Emile says he wants to meet Virgil, so probably. He didn’t respond, he’s probably out of range. I’m just barely in range of Remy myself to use the link,” Thomas shrugged.

“Pat would love Emile,” Roman smiled.

“As long as he keeps his psychoanalysis to himself,” Virgil grunted in distaste.

“He’s an amazing guy, V, don’t be like that,” Thomas huffed, flipping his hand.

“I’m sure he is, but I am a sleeping bear that doesn’t like to be poked,” Virgil grumbled. Roman patted Virgil’s back, and Virgil wasn’t sure if it was affectionately or patronizingly.

“He might be too busy screaming into somebody’s chest to poke the bear,” Thomas laughed. “Emile always eventually ends up shrieking cartoonishly and sometimes tries to hide in Remy’s clothes,”

“Well, that’s pretty damn cute actually,” Virgil snickered a little. “D loves slasher films, and he probably wants to be there for accolades for the dancing video. Let me pester him, too,” Virgil shot D a quick text and went back to his hotel hunt. He’d found 3 suitable options from the photos, but finding literal square footage for rooms is hard. They list the TV, sizes but not how big the room is. It’s fucking dumb. He should just pick the one with the biggest TV and a surround system. It also had a hot tub that almost looked like a little pool, so the room was probably big to house that. Virgil placed the reservation and sent Thomas the address.

“Pat’s mad we had pizza without them,” Roman stated and smirked.

“We can pick up a pizza and salad for Logan on the way over. I just found one. We can head over there as soon as we pack some stuff from our dorm, and Pat and Logan are ready to go,” Virgil said. “We can get pick up or just go to a grocery store. This room has a full kitchen,” Virgil pointed out.

“Text me when you’re checked in so we can come over,” Thomas waved.

“Pick out something horrible for me,” Virgil saluted him as he pivoted away.

“Are you going to flit us over?” Roman asked brightly.

“Three people? Are you nuts? I have only have two arms, Ro,” Virgil groaned. “We took my car back from D’s apartment, remember? I can just drive us there,” Virgil said, flicking his thumb across Roman’s cheek.

“No, I was half asleep and still kind of drunk,” Roman chuckled. “I don’t even remember getting back to the dorm,” Roman added thoughtfully.

“That’s because I carried your ass upstairs while you slept. Speaking of that night, try to keep your evil temptations at a minimum tonight,” Virgil warned Roman. Roman just pulled an innocent face at Virgil, clearly pretending to have no idea what Virgil was talking about. Virgil sighed and wrapped his arm back around Roman as they walked. Roman laughed and put his arm around Virgil’s waist and squeezed slightly as they headed back to the dorms.

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