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peacefulapocalypse · 3 years

Text

I Sexually Identify as an

Attack Helicopter

by ISABEL FALL

I sexually identify as an attack helicopter.

I lied. According to US Army Technical Manual 0, The Soldier as a System, “attack helicopter” is a

gender identity, not a biological sex. My dog tags and Form 3349 say my body is an XX-karyotope

somatic female.

But, really, I didn’t lie. My body is a component in my mission, subordinate to what I truly am. If I

say I am an attack helicopter, then my body, my sex, is too. I’ll prove it to you.

When I joined the Army I consented to tactical-role gender reassignment. It was mandatory for the

MOS I’d tested into. I was nervous. I’d never been anything but a woman before.

But I decided that I was done with womanhood, over what womanhood could do for me; I wanted to

be something furiously new.

To the people who say a woman would’ve refused to do what I do, I say—

Isn’t that the point?

I fly—

Red evening over the white Mojave, and I watch the sun set through a canopy of polycarbonate and

glass: clitoral bulge of cockpit on the helicopter’s nose. Lightning probes the burned wreck of an oil

refinery and the Santa Ana feeds a smoldering wildfire and pulls pine soot out southwest across the

Big Pacific. We are alone with each other, Axis and I, flying low.

We are traveling south to strike a high school.

Rotor wash flattens rings of desert creosote. Did you know that creosote bushes clone themselves?

The ten-thousand-year elders enforce dead zones where nothing can grow except more creosote.

Beetles and mice live among them, the way our cities had pigeons and mice. I guess the analogy

breaks down because the creosote’s lasted ten thousand years. You don’t need an attack helicopter

to tell you that our cities haven’t. The Army gave me gene therapy to make my blood toxic to

mosquitoes. Soon you will have that too, to fight malaria in the Hudson floodplain and on the banks

of the Greater Lake.

Now I cross Highway 40, southbound at two hundred knots. The Apache’s engine is electric and

silent. Decibel killers sop up the rotor noise. White-bright infrared vision shows me stripes of heat,

the tire tracks left by Pear Mesa school buses. Buried housing projects smolder under the dirt,

radiators curled until sunset. This is enemy territory. You can tell because, though this desert was

once Nevada and California, there are no American flags.

“Barb,” the Apache whispers, in a voice that Axis once identified, to my alarm, as my mother’s.

“Waypoint soon.”

“Axis.” I call out to my gunner, tucked into the nose ahead of me. I can see only gray helmet and

flight suit shoulders, but I know that body wholly, the hard knots of muscle, the ridge of pelvic

girdle, the shallow navel and flat hard chest. An attack helicopter has a crew of two. My gunner is

my marriage, my pillar, the completion of my gender.

“Axis.” The repeated call sign means, I hear you.

“Ten minutes to target.”

“Ready for target,” Axis says.

But there is again that roughness, like a fold in carbon fiber. I heard it when we reviewed our

fragment orders for the strike. I hear it again now. I cannot ignore it any more than I could ignore a

battery fire; it is a fault in a person and a system I trust with my life.

But I can choose to ignore it for now.

The target bumps up over the horizon. The low mounds of Kelso-Ventura District High burn warm

gray through a parfait coating of aerogel insulation and desert soil. We have crossed a third of the

continental US to strike a school built by Americans.

Axis cues up a missile: black eyes narrowed, telltales reflected against clear laser-washed cornea.

“Call the shot, Barb.”

“Stand by. Maneuvering.” I lift us above the desert floor, buying some room for the missile to run,

watching the probability-of-kill calculation change with each motion of the aircraft.

Before the Army my name was Seo Ji Hee. Now my call sign is Barb, which isn’t short for Barbara. I

share a rank (flight warrant officer), a gender, and a urinary system with my gunner Axis: we are

harnessed and catheterized into the narrow tandem cockpit of a Boeing AH-70 Apache Mystic.

America names its helicopters for the people it destroyed.

We are here to degrade and destroy strategic targets in the United States of America’s war against

the Pear Mesa Budget Committee. If you disagree with the war, so be it: I ask your empathy, not

your sympathy. Save your pity for the poor legislators who had to find some constitutional

framework for declaring war against a credit union.

The reasons for war don’t matter much to us. We want to fight the way a woman wants to be

gracious, the way a man wants to be firm. Our need is as vamp-fierce as the strutting queen and

dryly subtle as the dapper lesbian and comfortable as the soft resilience of the demiwoman. How

often do you analyze the reasons for your own gender? You might sigh at the necessity of morning

makeup, or hide your love for your friends behind beer and bravado. Maybe you even resent the

punishment for breaking these norms.

But how often—really—do you think about the grand strategy of gender? The mess of history and

sociology, biology and game theory that gave rise to your pants and your hair and your salary? The

casus belli?

Often, you might say. All the time. It haunts me.

Then you, more than anyone, helped make me.

When I was a woman I wanted to be good at woman. I wanted to darken my eyes and strut in heels.

I wanted to laugh from my throat when I was pleased, laugh so low that women would shiver in

contentment down the block.

And at the same time I resented it all. I wanted to be sharper, stronger, a new-made thing,

exquisite and formidable. Did I want that because I was taught to hate being a woman? Or because I

hated being taught anything at all?

Now I am jointed inside. Now I am geared and shafted, I am a being of opposing torques. The noise

I make is canceled by decibel killers so I am no louder than a woman laughing through two walls.

When I was a woman I wanted to have friends who would gasp at the precision and surprise of my

gifts. Now I show friendship by tracking the motions of your head, looking at what you look at, the

way one helicopter’s sensors can be slaved to the motions of another.

When I was a woman I wanted my skin to be as smooth and dark as the sintered stone countertop

in our kitchen.

Now my skin is boron-carbide and Kevlar. Now I have a wrist callus where I press my hydration

sensor into my skin too hard and too often. Now I have bit-down nails from the claustrophobia of the

bus ride to the flight line. I paint them desert colors, compulsively.

When I was a woman I was always aware of surveillance. The threat of the eyes on me, the chance

that I would cross over some threshold of detection and become a target.

Now I do the exact same thing. But I am counting radars and lidars and pit viper thermal sensors,

waiting for a missile.

I am gas turbines. I am the way I never sit on the same side of the table as a stranger. I am most

comfortable in moonless dark, in low places between hills. I am always thirsty and always tense. I

tense my core and pace my breath even when coiled up in a briefing chair. As if my tail rotor must

cancel the spin of the main blades and the turbines must whirl and the plates flex against the pitch

links or I will go down spinning to my death.

An airplane wants in its very body to stay flying. A helicopter is propelled by its interior

near-disaster.

I speak the attack command to my gunner. “Normalize the target.”

Nothing happens.

“Axis. Comm check.”

“Barb, Axis. I hear you.” No explanation for the fault. There is nothing wrong with the weapon attack

parameters. Nothing wrong with any system at all, except the one without any telltales, my spouse,

my gunner.

“Normalize the target,” I repeat.

“Axis. Rifle one.”

The weapon falls off our wing, ignites, homes in on the hard invisible point of the laser designator.

Missiles are faster than you think, more like a bullet than a bird. If you’ve ever seen a bird.

The weapon penetrates the concrete shelter of Kelso-Ventura High School and fills the empty halls

with thermobaric aerosol. Then: ignition. The detonation hollows out the school like a hooked finger

scooping out an egg. There are not more than a few janitors in there. A few teachers working late.

They are bycatch.

What do I feel in that moment? Relief. Not sexual, not like eating or pissing, not like coming in from

the heat to the cool dry climate shelter. It’s a sense of passing . Walking down the street in the right

clothes, with the right partner, to the right job. That feeling. Have you felt it?

But there is also an itch of worry—why did Axis hesitate? How did Axis hesitate?

Kelso-Ventura High School collapses into its own basement. “Target normalized,” Axis reports,

without emotion, and my heart beats slow and worried.

I want you to understand that the way I feel about Axis is hard and impersonal and lovely. It is

exactly the way you would feel if a beautiful, silent turbine whirled beside you day and night,

protecting you, driving you on, coursing with current, fiercely bladed, devoted. God, it’s love. It’s

love I can’t explain. It’s cold and good.

“Barb,” I say, which means I understand . “Exiting north, zero three zero, cupids two.”

I adjust the collective—feel the swash plate push up against the pitch links, the links tilt the angle of

the rotors so they ease their bite on the air—and the Apache, my body, sinks toward the hot desert

floor. Warm updraft caresses the hull, sensual contrast with the Santa Ana wind. I shiver in delight.

Suddenly: warning receivers hiss in my ear, poke me in the sacral vertebrae, put a dark

thunderstorm note into my air. “Shit,” Axis hisses. “Air search radar active, bearing 192, angles

twenty, distance . . . eighty klicks. It’s a fast-mover. He must’ve heard the blast.”

A fighter. A combat jet. Pear Mesa’s mercenary defenders have an air force, and they are out on the

hunt. “A Werewolf.”

“Must be. Gown?”

“Gown up.” I cue the plasma-sheath stealth system that protects us from radar and laser hits. The

Apache glows with lines of arc-weld light, UFO light. Our rotor wash blasts the plasma into a bright

wedding train behind us. To the enemy’s sensors, that trail of plasma is as thick and soft as

insulating foam. To our eyes it’s cold aurora fire.

“Let’s get the fuck out.” I touch the cyclic and we sideslip through Mojave dust, watching the school

fall into itself. There is no reason to do this except that somehow I know Axis wants to see. Finally I

pull the nose around, aim us northeast, shedding light like a comet buzzing the desert on its way

into the sun.

“Werewolf at seventy klicks,” Axis reports. “Coming our way. Time to intercept . . . six minutes.”

The Werewolf Apostles are mercenaries, survivors from the militaries of climate-seared states. They

sell their training and their hardware to earn their refugee peoples a few degrees more distance from

the equator.

The heat of the broken world has chased them here to chase us.

Before my assignment neurosurgery, they made me sit through (I could bear to sit, back then) the

mandatory course on Applied Constructive Gender Theory. Slouched in a fungus-nibbled plastic chair

as transparencies slid across the cracked screen of a De-networked Briefing Element overhead

projector: how I learned the technology of gender.

Long before we had writing or farms or post-digital strike helicopters, we had each other. We lived

together and changed each other, and so we needed to say “this is who I am, this is what I do.”

So, in the same way that we attached sounds to meanings to make language, we began to attach

clusters of behavior to signal social roles. Those clusters were rich, and quick-changing, and so just

like language, we needed networks devoted to processing them. We needed a place in the brain to

construct and to analyze gender.

Generations of queer activists fought to make gender a self-determined choice, and to undo the

creeping determinism that said the way it is now is the way it always was and always must be.

Generations of scientists mapped the neural wiring that motivated and encoded the gender choice.

And the moment their work reached a usable stage—the moment society was ready to accept plastic

gender, and scientists were ready to manipulate it—the military found a new resource. Armed with

functional connectome mapping and neural plastics, the military can make gender tactical.

If gender has always been a construct, then why not construct new ones?

My gender networks have been reassigned to make me a better AH-70 Apache Mystic pilot. This is

better than conventional skill learning. I can show you why.

Look at a diagram of an attack helicopter’s airframe and components. Tell me how much of it you

grasp at once.

Now look at a person near you, their clothes, their hair, their makeup and expression, the way they

meet or avoid your eyes. Tell me which was richer with information about danger and capability. Tell

me which was easier to access and interpret.

The gender networks are old and well-connected. They work .

I remember being a woman. I remember it the way you remember that old, beloved hobby you left

behind. Woman felt like my prom dress, polyester satin smoothed between little hand and little hip.

Woman felt like a little tic of the lips when I was interrupted, or like teasing out the mood my

boyfriend wouldn’t explain. Like remembering his mom’s birthday for him, or giving him a list of

things to buy at the store, when he wanted to be better about groceries.

I was always aware of being small: aware that people could hurt me. I spent a lot of time thinking

about things that had happened right before something awful. I would look around me and ask

myself, are the same things happening now? Women live in cross-reference. It is harder work than

we know.

Now I think about being small as an advantage for nape-of-earth maneuvers and pop-up guided

missile attacks.

Now I yield to speed walkers in the hall like I need to avoid fouling my rotors.

Now walking beneath high-tension power lines makes me feel the way that a cis man would feel if he

strutted down the street in a miniskirt and heels.

I’m comfortable in open spaces but only if there’s terrain to break it up. I hate conversations I

haven’t started; I interrupt shamelessly so that I can make my point and leave.

People treat me like I’m dangerous, like I could hurt them if I wanted to. They want me protected

and watched over. They bring me water and ask how I’m doing.

People want me on their team. They want what I can do.

A fighter is hunting us, and I am afraid that my gunner has gender dysphoria.

Twenty thousand feet above us (still we use feet for altitude) the bathroom-tiled transceivers cupped

behind the nose cone of a Werewolf Apostle J-20S fighter broadcast fingers of radar light. Each beam

cast at a separate frequency, a fringed caress instead of a pointed prod. But we are jumpy, we are

hypervigilant—we feel that creeper touch.

I get the cold-rush skin-prickle feel of a stranger following you in the dark. Has he seen you? Is he

just going the same way? If he attacks, what will you do, could you get help, could you scream? Put

your keys between your fingers, like it will help. Glass branches of possibility grow from my skin,

waiting to be snapped off by the truth.

“Give me a warning before he’s in IRST range,” I order Axis. “We’re going north.”

“Axis.” The Werewolf’s infrared sensor will pick up the heat of us, our engine and plasma shield,

burning against the twilight desert. The same system that hides us from his radar makes us hot and

visible to his IRST.

I throttle up, running faster, and the Apache whispers alarm. “Gown overspeed.” We’re moving too

fast for the plasma stealth system, and the wind’s tearing it from our skin. We are not modest. I

want to duck behind a ridge to cover myself, but I push through the discomfort, feeling out the

tradeoff between stealth and distance. Like the morning check in the mirror, trading the confidence

of a good look against the threat of reaction.

When the women of Soviet Russia went to war against the Nazis, when they volunteered by the

thousands to serve as snipers and pilots and tank drivers and infantry and partisans, they fought

hard and they fought well. They ate frozen horse dung and hauled men twice their weight out of

burning tanks. They shot at their own mothers to kill the Nazis behind her.

But they did not lose their gender; they gave up the inhibition against killing but would not give up

flowers in their hair, polish for their shoes, a yearning for the young lieutenant, a kiss on his dead

lips.

And if that is not enough to convince you that gender grows deep enough to thrive in war: when the

war ended the Soviet women were punished. They went unmarried and unrespected. They were

excluded from the victory parades. They had violated their gender to fight for the state and the state

judged that violation worth punishment more than their heroism was worth reward.

Gender is stronger than war. It remains when all else flees.

When I was a woman I wanted to machine myself.

I loved nails cut like laser arcs and painted violent-bright in bathrooms that smelled like laboratories.

I wanted to grow thick legs with fat and muscle that made shapes under the skin like Nazca lines. I

loved my birth control, loved that I could turn my period off, loved the home beauty-feedback kits

that told you what to eat and dose to adjust your scent, your skin, your moods. I admired, wasn’t

sure if I wanted to be or wanted to fuck, the women in the build-your-own-shit videos I watched on

our local image of the old Internet. Women who made cyberattack kits and jewelry and

sterile-printed IUDs, made their own huge wedge heels and fitted bras and skin-thin chameleon

dresses. Women who talked about their implants the same way they talked about computers,

phones, tools: technologies of access, technologies of self-expression.

Something about their merciless self-possession and self-modification stirred me. The first time I

ever meant to masturbate I imagined one of those women coming into my house, picking the lock,

telling me exactly what to do, how to be like her. I told my first boyfriend about this, I showed him

pictures, and he said, girl, you bi as hell, which was true, but also wrong. Because I did not want

those dresses, those heels, those bodies in the way I wanted my boyfriend. I wanted to possess that

power. I wanted to have it and be it.

The Apache is my body now, and like most bodies it is sensual. Fabric armor that stiffens beneath

my probing fingers. Stub wings clustered with ordnance. Rotors so light and strong they do not even

droop: as artificial-looking, to an older pilot, as breast implants. And I brush at the black ring of a

sensor housing, like the tip of a nail lifting a stray lash from the white of your eye.

I don’t shave, which all the fast jet pilots do, down to the last curly scrotal hair. Nobody expects a

helicopter to be sleek. I have hairy armpits and thick black bush all the way to my ass crack. The

things that are taboo and arousing to me are the things taboo to helicopters. I like to be picked up,

moved, pressed, bent and folded, held down, made to shudder, made to abandon control.

Do these last details bother you? Does the topography of my pubic hair feel intrusive and

unnecessary? I like that. I like to intrude, inflict damage, withdraw. A year after you read this maybe

those paragraphs will be the only thing you remember: and you will know why the rules of gender

are worth recruitment.

But we cannot linger on the point of attack.

“He’s coming north. Time to intercept three minutes.”

“Shit. How long until he gets us on thermal?”

“Ninety seconds with the gown on.” Danger has swept away Axis’ hesitation.

“Shit.”

“He’s not quite on zero aspect—yeah, he’s coming up a few degrees off our heading. He’s not sure

exactly where we are. He’s hunting.”

“He’ll be sure soon enough. Can we kill him?”

“With sidewinders?” Axis pauses articulately: the target is twenty thousand feet above us, and he

has a laser that can blind our missiles. “We’d have more luck bailing out and hiking.”

“All right. I’m gonna fly us out of this.”

“Sure.”

“Just check the gun.”

“Ten times already, Barb.”

When climate and economy and pathology all went finally and totally critical along the Gulf Coast,

the federal government fled Cabo fever and VARD-2 to huddle behind New York’s flood barriers.

We left eleven hundred and six local disaster governments behind. One of them was the Pear Mesa

Budget Committee. The rest of them were doomed.

Pear Mesa was different because it had bought up and hardened its own hardware and power. So

Pear Mesa’s neural nets kept running, retrained from credit union portfolio management to the

emergency triage of hundreds of thousands of starving sick refugees.

Pear Mesa’s computers taught themselves to govern the forsaken southern seaboard. Now they

coordinate water distribution, re-express crop genomes, ration electricity for survival AC, manage all

the life support humans need to exist in our warmed-over hell.

But, like all advanced neural nets, these systems are black boxes. We have no idea how they work,

what they think. Why do Pear Mesa’s AIs order the planting of pear trees? Because pears were their

corporate icon, and the AIs associate pear trees with areas under their control. Why does no one

make the AIs stop? Because no one knows what else is tangled up with the “plant pear trees”

impulse. The AIs may have learned, through some rewarded fallacy or perverse founder effect, that

pear trees cause humans to have babies. They may believe that their only function is to build

support systems around pear trees.

When America declared war on Pear Mesa, their AIs identified a useful diagnostic criterion for hostile

territory: the posting of fifty-star American flags. Without ever knowing what a flag meant, without

any concept of nations or symbols, they ordered the destruction of the stars and stripes in Pear Mesa

territory.

That was convenient for propaganda. But the real reason for the war, sold to a hesitant Congress by

technocrats and strategic ecologists, was the ideology of scale atrocity . Pear Mesa’s AIs could not be

modified by humans, thus could not be joined with America’s own governing algorithms: thus must

be forced to yield all their control, or else remain forever separate.

And that separation was intolerable. By refusing the United States administration, our superior

resources and planning capability, Pear Mesa’s AIs condemned citizens who might otherwise be

saved to die—a genocide by neglect. Wasn’t that the unforgivable crime of fossil capitalism? The

creation of systems whose failure modes led to mass death?

Didn’t we have a moral imperative to intercede?

Pear Mesa cannot surrender, because the neural nets have a basic imperative to remain online. Pear

Mesa’s citizens cannot question the machines’ decisions. Everything the machines do is connected in

ways no human can comprehend. Disobey one order and you might as well disobey them all.

But none of this is why I kill.

I kill for the same reason men don’t wear short skirts, the same reason I used to pluck my brows,

the reason enby people are supposed to be (unfair and stupid, yes, but still) androgynous with short

hair. Are those good reasons to do something? If you say no, honestly no—can you tell me you

break these rules without fear or cost?

But killing isn’t a gender role, you might tell me. Killing isn’t a decision about how to present your

own autonomous self to the world. It is coercive and punitive. Killing is therefore not an act of

gender.

I wish that were true. Can you tell me honestly that killing is a genderless act? The method? The

motive? The victim?

When you imagine the innocent dead, who do you see?

“Barb,” Axis calls, softly. Your own voice always sounds wrong on recordings—too nasal. Axis’ voice

sounds wrong when it’s not coming straight into my skull through helmet mic.

“Barb.”

“How are we doing?”

“Exiting one hundred and fifty knots north. Still in his radar but he hasn’t locked us up.”

“How are you doing?”

I cringe in discomfort. The question is an indirect way for Axis to admit something’s wrong, and that

indirection is obscene. Like hiding a corroded tail rotor bearing from your maintenance guys.

“I’m good,” I say, with fake ease. “I’m in flow. Can’t you feel it?” I dip the nose to match a drop-off

below, provoking a whine from the terrain detector. I am teasing, striking a pose. “We’re gonna be

okay.”

“I feel it, Barb.” But Axis is tense, worried about our pursuer, and other things. Doesn’t laugh.

“How about you?”

“Nominal.”

Again the indirection, again the denial, and so I blurt it out. “Are you dysphoric?”

“What?” Axis says, calmly.

“You’ve been hesitating. Acting funny. Is your—” There is no way to ask someone if their militarized

gender conditioning is malfunctioning. “Are you good?”

“I . . . ” Hesitation. It makes me cringe again, in secondhand shame. Never hesitate. “I don’t know.”

“Do you need to go on report?”

Severe gender dysphoria can be a flight risk. If Axis hesitates over something that needs to be done

instantly, the mission could fail decisively. We could both die.

“I don’t want that,” Axis says.

“I don’t want that either,” I say, desperately. I want nothing less than that. “But, Axis, if—”

The warning receiver climbs to a steady crow call.

“He knows we’re here,” I say, to Axis’ tight inhalation. “He can’t get a lock through the gown but

he’s aware of our presence. Fuck. Blinder, blinder, he’s got his laser on us—”

The fighter’s lidar pod is trying to catch the glint of a reflection off us. “Shit,” Axis says. “We’re

gonna get shot.”

“The gown should defeat it. He’s not close enough for thermal yet.”

“He’s gonna launch anyway. He’s gonna shoot and then get a lock to steer it in.”

“I don’t know—missiles aren’t cheap these days—”

The ESM mast on the Apache’s rotor hub, mounted like a lamp on a post, contains a cluster of

electro-optical sensors that constantly scan the sky: the Distributed Aperture Sensor. When the DAS

detects the flash of a missile launch, it plays a warning tone and uses my vest to poke me in the

small of my back.

My vest pokes me in the small of my back.

“Barb. Missile launch south. Barb. Fox 3 inbound. Inbound. Inbound.”

“He fired,” Axis calls. “Barb?”

“Barb,” I acknowledge.

I fuck—

Oh, you want to know: many of you, at least. It’s all right. An attack helicopter isn’t a private way of

being. Your needs and capabilities must be maintained for the mission.

I don’t think becoming an attack helicopter changed who I wanted to fuck. I like butch assertive

people. I like talent and prestige, the status that comes of doing things well. I was never taught the

lie that I was wired for monogamy, but I was still careful with men, I was still wary, and I could

never tell him why: that I was afraid not because of him, but because of all the men who’d seemed

good like him, at first, and then turned into something else.

No one stalks an attack helicopter. No slack-eyed well-dressed drunk punches you for ignoring the

little rape he slurs at your neckline. No one even breaks your heart: with my dopamine system tied

up by the reassignment surgery, fully assigned to mission behavior, I can’t fall in love with anything

except my own purpose.

Are you aware of your body? Do you feel your spine when you stand, your hips when you walk, the

tightness and the mass in your core? When you look at yourself, whose eyes do you use? Your own?

I am always in myself. I never see myself through my partner’s eyes. I have weapons to use, of

course, ways of moving, moans and cries. But I measure those weapons by their effect, not by their

similarity to some idea of how I should be.

Flying is the loop of machinery and pilot, the sense of your motion on the controls translated into

torque and lift, the airframe’s reaction shaping your next motion until the loop closes and machine

and pilot are one. Awareness collapses to the moment. You are always doing the right thing exactly

as it needs to be done. Sex is the same: the search for everything in an instant.

Of course I fuck Axis. A few decades ago this would’ve been a crime. What a waste of perfectly

useful behavior. What a waste of that lean muscled form and those perfect killing hands that know

me millimeter-by-millimeter system-by-system so there is no mystique between us. No “secret

places” or “feminine mysteries,” only the tortuously exact technical exercise of nerves and pressure.

Oxytocin released, to flow between us, by the press of knuckles in my cunt.

When I come beneath Axis I cry out, I press my body close, I want that utter loss of control that I

feel nowhere else. Heartbeat in arched throat: nipple beneath straining tongue. And my mind is

hyper-activated, free-associating, and as Axis works in me I see the work we do together. I see puffs

of thirty-millimeter autocannon detonating on night-cold desert floor.

Violence doesn’t get me off. But getting off makes me revel in who I am: and I am violent, made for

violence, alive in the fight.

Does that surprise you? Does it bother you to mingle cold technical discipline with hot flesh and

sweat?

Let me ask you: why has the worst insult you can give a combat pilot always been weak dick?

Have you ever been exultant? Have you ever known that you are a triumph? Have you ever felt that

it was your whole life’s purpose to do something, and all that you needed to succeed was to be

entirely yourself?

To be yourself well is the wholest and best feeling that anything has ever felt.

It is what I feel when I am about to live or die.

The Werewolf’s missile arches down on us, motor burned out, falling like an arrow. He is trying a

Shoot On Prospect attack: he cannot find us exactly, so he fires a missile that will finish the search,

lock onto our heat or burn through our stealth with its onboard radar, or acquire us optically like a

staring human eye. Or at least make us react. Like the catcaller’s barked “Hey!” to evoke the flinch

or the huddle, the proof that he has power.

We are ringed in the vortex of a dilemma. If we switch off the stealth gown, the Werewolf fighter will

lock its radar onto us and guide the missile to the kill. If we keep the stealth system on, the missile’s

heat-seeker will home in on the blazing plasma.

I know what to do. Not in the way you learn how to fly a helicopter, but the way you know how to

hold your elbows when you gesture.

A helicopter is more than a hovering fan, see? The blades of the rotor tilt and swivel. When you turn

the aircraft left, the rotors deepen their bite into the air on one side of their spin, to make off-center

lift. You cannot force a helicopter or it will throw you to the earth. You must be gentle.

I caress the cyclic.

The Apache’s nose comes up smooth and fast. The Mojave horizon disappears under the chin. Axis’

gasp from the front seat passes through the microphone and into the bones of my face. The pitch

indicator climbs up toward sixty degrees, ass down, chin up. Our airspeed plummets from a hundred

and fifty knots to sixty.

We hang there for an instant like a dancer in an oversway. The missile is coming straight down at

us. We are not even running anymore.

And I lower the collective, flattening the blades of the rotor, so that they cannot cut the air at an

angle and we lose all lift.

We fall.

I toe the rudder. The tail rotor yields a little of its purpose, which is to counter the torque of the

main rotor: and that liberated torque spins the Apache clockwise, opposite the rotor’s turn, until we

are nose down sixty degrees, facing back the way we came, looking into the Mojave desert as it rises

up to take us.

I have pirouetted us in place. Plasma fire blows in wraith pennants as the stealth system tries to

keep us modest.

“Can you get it?” I ask.

“Axis.”

I raise the collective again and the rotors bite back into the air. We do not rise, but our fall slows

down. Cyclic stick answers to the barest twitch of wrist, and I remember, once, how that slim wrist

made me think of fragility, frailty, fear: I am remembering even as I pitch the helicopter back and

we climb again, nose up, tail down, scudding backward into the sky while aimed at our chasing killer.

Axis is on top now, above me in the front seat, and in front of Axis is the chin gun, pointed sixty

degrees up into heaven.

“Barb,” the helicopter whispers, like my mother in my ear. “Missile ten seconds. Music? Glare?”

No. No jamming. The Werewolf missile will home in on jamming like a wolf with a taste for pepper.

Our laser might dazzle the seeker, drive it off course—but if the missile turns then Axis cannot take

the shot.

It is not a choice. I trust Axis.

Axis steers the nose turret onto the target and I imagine strong fingers on my own chin, turning me

for a kiss, looking up into the red scorched sky—Axis chooses the weapon (30MM GUIDED PROX AP)

and aims and fires with all the idle don’t-have-to-try confidence of the first girl dribbling a soccer ball

who I ever for a moment loved—

The chin autocannon barks out ten rounds a second. It is effective out to one point five kilometers.

The missile is moving more than a hundred meters per second.

Axis has one second almost exactly, ten shots of thirty-millimeter smart grenade, to save us.

A mote of gray shadow rushes at us and intersects the line of cannon fire from the gun. It becomes

a spray of light. The Apache tings and rattles. The desert below us, behind us, stipples with tiny

plumes of dust that pick up in the wind and settle out like sift from a hand.

“Got it,” Axis says.

“I love you.”

“Axis.”

Many of you are veterans in the act of gender. You weigh the gaze and disposition of strangers in a

subway car and select where to stand, how often to look up, how to accept or reject conversation.

Like a frequency-hopping radar, you modulate your attention for the people in your context: do not

look too much, lest you seem interested, or alarming. You regulate your yawns, your appetite, your

toilet. You do it constantly and without failure.

You are aces.

What other way could be better? What other neural pathways are so available to constant

reprogramming, yet so deeply connected to judgment, behavior, reflex?

Some people say that there is no gender, that it is a postmodern construct, that in fact there are

only man and woman and a few marginal confusions. To those people I ask: if your body-fact is

enough to establish your gender, you would willingly wear bright dresses and cry at movies, wouldn’t

you? You would hold hands and compliment each other on your beauty, wouldn’t you? Because your

cock would be enough to make you a man.

Have you ever guarded anything so vigilantly as you protect yourself against the shame of

gender-wrong?

The same force that keeps you from gender-wrong is the force that keeps me from fucking up.

The missile is dead. The Werewolf Apostle is still up there.

“He’s turning off.” Axis has taken over defensive awareness while I fly. “Radar off. Laser off. He’s

letting us go.”

“Afraid of our fighters?” The mercenaries cannot replace a lost J-20S. And he probably has a

wingman, still hiding, who would die too if they stray into a trap.

“Yes,” Axis says.

“Keep the gown on.” In case he’s trying to bluff us into shutting down our stealth. “We’ll stick to the

terrain until he’s over the horizon.”

“Can you fly us out?”

The Apache is fighting me. Fragments of the destroyed missile have pitted the rotors, damaged the

hub assembly, and jammed the control surfaces. I begin to crush the shrapnel with the Apache’s

hydraulics, pounding the metal free with careful control inputs. But the necessary motions also move

the aircraft. Half a second’s error will crash us into the desert. I have to calculate how to un-jam the

shrapnel while accounting for the effects of that shrapnel on my flight authority and keeping the

aircraft stable despite my constant control inputs while moving at a hundred and thirty knots across

the desert.

“Barb,” I say. “Not a problem.”

And for an hour I fly without thought, without any feeling except the smooth stone joy of doing

something that takes everything.

The night desert is black to the naked eye, soft gray to thermal. My attention flips between my left

eye, focused on the instruments, and my right eye, looking outside. I am a black box like the Pear

Mesa AIs. Information arrives—a throb of feedback in the cyclic, a shift of Axis’ weight, a dune crest

ahead—and my hands and feet move to hold us steady. If I focused on what I was doing it would all

fall apart. So I don’t.

“Are you happy?” Axis asks.

Good to talk now. Keep my conscious mind from interfering with the gearbox of reflexes below.

“Yeah,” I say, and I blow out a breath into my mask, “yeah, I am,” a lightness in my ribs, “yeah, I

feel good.”

“Why do you think we just blew up a school?”

Why did I text my best friend the appearance and license number of all my cab drivers, just in case?

Because those were the things that had to be done.

Listen: I exist in this context. To make war is part of my gender. I get what I need from the flight

line, from the ozone tang of charging stations and the shimmer of distant bodies warping in the

tarmac heat, from the twenty minutes of anxiety after we land when I cannot convince myself that I

am home, and safe, and that I am no longer keeping us alive with the constant adjustments of my

hands and feet.

“Deplete their skilled labor supply, I guess. Attack the demographic skill curve.”

“Kind of a long-term objective. Kind of makes you think it’s not gonna be over by election season.”

“We don’t get to know why the AIs pick the targets.” Maybe destroying this school was an accident.

A quirk of some otherwise successful network, coupled to the load-bearing elements of a vast

strategy.

“Hey,” I say, after a beat of silence. “You did good back there.”

“You thought I wouldn’t.”

“Barb.” A more honest yes than “yes,” because it is my name, and it acknowledges that I am the

one with the doubt.

“I didn’t know if I would either,” Axis says, which feels exactly like I don’t know if I love you

anymore . I lose control for a moment and the Apache rattles in bad air and the tail slews until I stop

thinking and bring everything back under control in a burst of rage.

“You’re done?” I whisper, into the helmet. I have never even thought about this before. I am cold,

sweat soaked, and shivering with adrenaline comedown, drawn out like a tendon in high heels, a

just-off-the-dance-floor feeling, post-voracious, satisfied. Why would we choose anything else? Why

would we give this up? When it feels so good to do it? When I love it so much?

“I just . . . have questions.” The tactical channel processes the sound of Axis swallowing into a dull

point of sound, like dropped plastic.

“We don’t need to wonder, Axis. We’re gendered for the mission—”

“We can’t do this forever,” Axis says, startling me. I raise the collective and hop us up a hundred

feet, so I do not plow us into the desert. “We’re not going to be like this forever. The world won’t be

like this forever. I can’t think of myself as . . . always this.”

Yes, we will be this way forever. We survived this mission as we survive everywhere on this hot and

hostile earth. By bending all of what we are to the task. And if we use less than all of ourselves to

survive, we die.

“Are you going to put me on report?” Axis whispers.

On report as a flight risk? As a faulty component in a mission-critical system? “You just intercepted

an air-to-air missile with the autocannon, Axis. Would I ever get rid of you?”

“Because I’m useful,” Axis says, softly. “Because I can still do what I’m supposed to do. That’s what

you love. But if I couldn’t . . . I’m distracting you. I’ll let you fly.”

I spare one glance for the gray helmet in the cockpit below mine. Politeness is a gendered protocol.

Who speaks and who listens. Who denies need and who claims it. As a woman, I would’ve pressed

Axis. As a woman, I would’ve unpacked the unease and the disquiet.

As an attack helicopter, whose problems are communicated in brief, clear datums, I should ignore

Axis.

But who was ever only one thing?

“If you want to be someone else,” I say, “someone who doesn’t do what we do, then . . . I don’t

want to be the thing that stops you.”

“Bird’s gotta land sometime,” Axis says. “Doesn’t it?”

In the Applied Constructive Gender briefing, they told us that there have always been liminal

genders, places that people passed through on their way to somewhere else. Who are we in those

moments when we break our own rules? The straight man who sleeps with men? The woman who

can’t decide if what she feels is intense admiration, or sexual attraction? Where do we go, who do we

become?

Did you know that instability is one of the most vital traits of a combat aircraft? Civilian planes are

built stable, hard to turn, inclined to run straight ahead on an even level. But a military aircraft is

built so it wants to tumble out of control, and it is held steady only by constant automatic feedback.

The way I am holding this Apache steady now.

Something that is unstable is ready to move, eager to change, it wants to turn, to dive, to tear away

from stillness and fly .

Dynamism requires instability. Instability requires the possibility of change.

“Voice recorder’s off, right?” Axis asks.

“Always.”

“I love doing this. I love doing it with you. I just don’t know if it’s . . . if it’s right.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“Barb?”

“Thank you for thinking about whether it’s right. Someone needs to.”

Maybe what Axis feels is a necessary new queerness. One which pries the tool of gender back from

the hands of the state and the economy and the war. I like that idea. I cannot think of myself as a

failure, as something wrong, a perversion of a liberty that past generations fought to gain.

But Axis can. And maybe you can too. That skepticism is not what I need . . . but it is necessary

anyway.

I have tried to show you what I am. I have tried to do it without judgment. That I leave to you.

“Are we gonna make it?” Axis asks, quietly.

The airframe shudders in crosswind. I let the vibrations develop, settle into a rhythm, and then I

make my body play the opposite rhythm to cancel it out.

“I don’t know,” I say, which is an answer to both of Axis’ questions, both of the ways our lives are in

danger now. “Depends how well I fly, doesn’t it?”

“It’s all you, Barb,” Axis says, with absolute trust. “Take us home.”

A search radar brushes across us, scatters off the gown, turns away to look in likelier places. The

Apache’s engine growls, eating battery, turning charge into motion. The airframe shudders again,

harder, wind rising as cooling sky fights blazing ground. We are racing a hundred and fifty feet

above the Larger Mojave where we fight a war over some new kind of survival and the planet we

maimed grows that desert kilometer by kilometer. Our aircraft is wounded in its body and in its

crew. We are propelled by disaster. We are moving swiftly.

#I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter by ISABEL FALL #I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter #ISABEL FALL #gender identity

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gureishi · 3 years

Text

Happy birthday, beloved Bee!

My dear friend @agent-bee—I can’t tell you how happy and honored I am to know you. I’m constantly in awe of you: you’re talented and smart and funny and strong and thoughtful and sweet and also extremely hot, and I’m so lucky to be your friend. Here is a little gift for you, babe ❤️

By midday, you are exhausted.

Everyone has been demanding your attention all at once today; you’ve hardly gotten a second to yourself. You make your way across the small office and sigh as you sink into your chair. It’s not that you’re not capable of all of it—you are; it’s not that you’re not appreciated for your efforts—you are.

It’s just that it’s a whole lot all at once and you’d sort of hoped that today would feel special.

Idly, you check your phone, which has been steadily buzzing throughout the day as messages trickle in from your friends and family. Each one gives you a little burst of joy—but they don’t solve the problem, which is that you’re here and you’re tired and you just need to stretch your legs or maybe have a nap or a glass of wine.

Your phone lights up as soon as you look at it—and you smile the way you always do when you see his name. He’s been strangely quiet all day; you’ve wondered if he went back to sleep after seeing you off this morning. He does that sometimes.

You unlock your phone—and have to put a hand over your mouth to stop from laughing. What has he done?

It’s not the first time he’s gotten into your phone remotely and messed with things, but this is a new one: all of your apps, it seems, have been replaced by little cats. Cats in birthday hats.

There’s a fluffy white cat in a bright pink hat. There’s a big black cat covered in streamers. There are pictures of your cats, which you suppose he’s just taken today.

You know you’ve got a message from him, but you can’t figure out how to open it—when you tap the tabby cat that used to be your messages button, it wiggles and purrs. Suddenly—seemingly of its own accord—text appears across your screen.

“Come outside, meow,” it says. It’s pretty obvious who it’s from.

“Uh,” you say, standing abruptly. “I’ll be right back.”

If your phone were working normally, maybe you’d scold him. You’re at work, after all—and you really do need your phone for more than just cats—and—

And it’s so cute you could cry. You cross the office and your coworkers wave vaguely at you—everyone’s busy today. You can feel your heart hammering against your ribs as you push open the door to the street, wondering—hoping, praying—that he’ll be waiting for you.

You step out onto the curb and—oh.

One of his cars—a sleek silver Porsche—is parked right in front of your building. But it’s different.

And there’s a familiar face framed by messy red hair beaming at you through the window.

“Welcome to my spaceship, sunshine,” he says.

“Saeyoung.” You’re not sure whether to laugh or roll your eyes or kiss him. “Saeyoung, what did you do to your car?”

He winks, leans across the front seat, and opens the passenger side door for you.

You shake your head. The car looks crazy.

On the outside, he’s mounted bright red fins and a matching nose cone. The seats inside are covered in red leather and there’s a glowing control panel hung next to the steering wheel, which—knowing him—probably works. His face is lit up by hundreds of little glowing LEDs. The thing is definitely not meant to be driven on the road.

He pouts when you linger on the curb.

“Don’t you trust me?” he whines.

You do. Of course you do.

“Are we gonna blast off or something?” you ask, slipping into the front seat and inhaling deeply. You love the smell of his cars: leather and gasoline and him.

“In a sense,” he says, reaching over the console to squeeze your hand.

You watch as Saeyoung starts the engine. He always gets this intense look on his face when he drives, like he’s really about to catapult you both into space; he pulls out onto the road and you can’t resist leaning over and kissing the spot where his neck meets his jaw.

He giggles nervously, merging into traffic.

“Um,” he says. “You’re distracting your captain, honey.”

You laugh and lay a hand on his thigh, smiling when he squirms. He turns off the main street and you know he’s heading for the highway—and you should stop him, because you’re really not supposed to disappear from work for so long, but he’s got a glimmer in his eye and the sun is bright through the windshield and you feel lighter than you have all day.

“Baby,” you say, slipping your hand into his jeans pocket and watching his fingers tighten almost imperceptibly on the wheel. “I am technically at work right now.”

He turns to you and his smile is radiant.

“Just a quick trip to space,” he says. “I’ll have you back before they notice you’re gone.”

And it makes no sense, but you don’t doubt him. You lean back in the soft leather seat and feel the engine hum beautifully beneath you. He’s exiting the highway already—turning onto a back road you’ve never seen before. He drives one-handed, reaching for you—and you intertwine your fingers with his and watch curiously as he maneuvers his car across an empty parking lot and up the ramp of what appears to be a loading dock for a warehouse.

“Don’t think I’m doubting you for a second, baby,” you say slowly. “But how legal is this?”

He grins and puts the car in park, and then he presses a button on the car’s “control panel” and the big, industrial door to the dock starts to close behind you.

“Let’s call it medium legal,” he says.

The door shuts with a clang. Saeyoung smiles, winks at you—and then turns off all the lights in the car.

“Oh,” you say. “My god.”

In the total darkness, stars come to life—thousands of tiny ones on the roof and sides of the car. They’re glow-in-the-dark just like the ones on the ceiling of the bedroom you share—but they’re sparklier and somehow more startlingly three-dimensional than those.

They almost look real.

“Welcome to space,” he whispers, tangling a hand in your hair and pulling you close. “I made it for you, sunshine.”

You look into his fiery eyes and want to cry. It’s absurd and impractical and absolutely excessive, just like him—and he’s done it all for you.

“You’re a very good space captain,” you say, knowing your voice sounds strangled and strange. He gives you a glowing smile and then kisses you tenderly, so soft and slow it makes your head spin.

“You wanna know why I did it?” he whispers, his breath tickling your lips. You nod and he brushes your hair off your face, looking at you with a sort of heart-stopping intensity. “I know this is only a teeny tiny sliver of the universe,” he says. “But I wanted to give it to you.”

You kiss him again and he shivers.

“Why, baby?”

“Because,” he says. “Because every morning I wake up and you’re still curled up in my arms the way you were when we fell asleep, and I listen to your heart and feel the universe expand a little bit.”

You know what he means.

“And why else?” you purr. It’s too easy to tease him when you’re in the dark like this—and you run a hand up his thigh and watch his pretty eyes go wide.

“Because your birthday is my favorite day and you deserve to spend it in zero gravity,” he whispers. You can see by the light of the glow-in-the-dark stars that his cheeks are pink; you nibble his ear and he hisses.

“Is that all?”

“Because you’re my Bee,” he says, his voice shaky now, his hands tugging hopelessly at your hair. “And I love you.”

You already know.

“I love you too, baby,” you whisper. You kiss him more deeply this time and his whole body seems to come to life—his skin is hot to the touch and you can practically feel him buzzing.

“Don’t you, uh…” he stammers, trying to focus on you. “Didn’t you—you know—work?”

Your heart pounds so loud you can hear it echoing. His makeshift rocket ship feels solid and steady beneath you and his eyes are as bright as the stars.

“It can wait,” you say.

“Yeah,” he whispers, his breath hot on your neck, his hands falling to your waist. “Today’s special, after all.”

#mystic messenger #saeyoung choi #707 #saeyoung x bee #birthday fic #i love bee!

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boys-wonder · 3 years

Text

make me feel something

Pairing: Tim Drake/Jason Todd

Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dominant Jason Todd, Top Jason Todd, Submissive Tim Drake, Bottom Tim Drake, D/s undertones, Anal Fingering, Oral Fixation, Frotting, Anal Sex, Emotional Sex, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, I think?, Biting

Desc: "Everything is just so.. empty. I can't feel anything anymore, Jay, not since.." he trails off, but resists the urge to look away. Jason's eyes are dark and unreadable, boring into his and he couldn't look away if he tried. But he doesn't want to, he wants, no, needs Jason to know. Jason doesn't flinch at the mention of his death, just keeps staring expectantly. Tim looks up at him from under those thick lashes, parting his mouth further to let Jason map his tongue with a gloved finger. It's intimate and erotic and controlling in a way that Tim knows he needs, he knows that only Jason can give him this. "Make me feel something, Jay."

Word Count: 4138

Ao3 Link: Here

- - -

The cold night air whips around him, the chill cutting into his skin with the sharpness of a knife, tousling his hair forcefully as he drives. But he couldn’t bring himself to care. By all points, Tim should be buzzing with anxiety right now. He hasn't seen Jason since… that night. He grits his teeth at the memory and revs the engine, hoping to leave the morbid thoughts on the empty highway behind him. Of course, it doesn't work; Tim still has nightmares about it. He's never spoken about that night to anyone. In fact, he's actually not sure that the others even know he was there. But everyone knows how Tim feels about Jason.

It was after an unfortunate series of long, difficult missions that Tim finally decided to see Jason for the first time since the newly-declared outlaw made his way back to Gotham after his resurrection. Tim had been waiting, hoping that Jason would come see him, or even Bruce. Just some sort of arrival, anything to let them know he's alive. But it's still been nearly a year - 10 months and two weeks, not that Tim's counting - and this week has been so fucking hard.

So he changes into civvies, not even bothering to wash off the grime and blood from the mission he just got back from, and tells Alfred he's going out. The butler nods knowingly, but the sympathy in his eyes makes Tim's face burn hot with - anger? shame? He's not sure. But he avoids Alfred's gaze, dipping past him to get his bike from the garage and make his way into Gotham.

Jason met Tim many years ago, when he was still working under Bruce's tutelage as Robin. The two had connected instantly; Tim's inappropriate fascination (or maybe a more fitting word would be devotion) with Jason (and Dick, and Bruce) which manifested in a bit of stalking, along with Jason's need to have something stable in his life. To have something normal and just his to ground him, and having someone look at him like that- look at him, not Dick, not Bruce, but him. They collided with explosive force, orbiting one another like twin stars, pulling each other along by sheer force of gravity.

Until Jay’s star blinked out.

Tim takes a hand off the handlebar and hits himself in the thigh a few times. The dull ache brought him back to focus on reality and clearing out the unpleasant memories.

It takes no time at all to break into Jay's flat - seriously, was he even trying? - and he flips the lights on, shutting the door behind him with a soft click. There's really no need to be stealthy; he wants Jay to know he's here.

He pads into the living room, looking around. Tim was expecting… he's not sure, maybe more like his safehouse when he was on the streets? But no, Jay had got himself a pretty decent place. There's a simple brown sofa, resting against the wall, and on either side are expensive looking speakers, which Tim now sees are plugged into an old record player. Tim smiles faintly; it's good to see something about Jason was still the same.

Tim sets the needle down on the record with familiar ease, relaxing visibly as the record begins to play.

With the music thrumming through him, he lets himself explore more of Jason's apartment, though he's not quite brave enough to go into the bedroom. He admires the few pieces of artwork that are strewn around the place, their presence in Jay's life bringing him a comfort he didn't realize he needed.

The lock in the door clicks, and it swings open slowly. Tim doesn't turn around, just rubs the petals of a baby succulent that he found sitting on the windowsill. His heart should be pounding in his chest, but it's not. He feels a complete calm wash over him. He feels Jason's eyes on him, but he's not in any hurry to break the silence. Jay waited almost a year to say anything to any of them. Tim may be in love, but he's also stubborn. He's not going to give Jason an easy out.

Jason takes his time to acknowledge Tim - that is to say he doesn't - he just walks past him to pull a bottle out of the liquor cabinet - which he keeps well stocked, Tim notes - and pours himself a glass. Tim makes a soft noise of surprise when he sees Jay set out a second glass, and pours a fifth of whiskey into that as well. Tim thinks maybe he imagines the way Jason's fingers tighten around the glass before picking it up, but it makes his pulse kick up anyway.

Now it's Jason's turn to be observed. Tim doesn't bother hiding the way he looks over every inch of the man in front of him, from the scuffed combat boots to the knife holstered at his hip to the way his jacket is bunched up around his elbows, exposing well built forearms. They're riddled with scars, Tim notices, and he looks each one over carefully, trying to map each one like pages in a book he hasn't been able to read in decades.

If Jason is bothered by Tim's discerning stare, he doesn't say anything, but then considering how they met… it's not something Tim expects Jason is ever going to complain about. He roves his eyes over those broad shoulders, making note of how they got even broader in their time apart, how it makes his jacket cling to him in ways it didn't before.

Tim's eyes lift to the back of Jay's neck now, and if he wants to let himself think he sees Jay stand up a little straighter, then well, he thinks he's entitled to that. The nape of his neck is scarred too, and his hair is buzzed short at the bottom, fading into a shaggy mop of black hair that manages somehow to also look so inviting it's unfair.

Jason keeps his back to Tim as he downs his shot of whiskey, and god, Tim can't help the scramble of heat that unfurls in his gut when he hears Jay rumble out a low, satisfied noise that seemed to charge the very air around them. Tim's been hard since the older man walked in the room, if he's being honest, and he has a suspicion it's the same for Jason.

Jay grabs the second glass, agile, scarred fingers rubbing around the lip of it like a caress and, oh - he's turning around and before Tim even knows it, their eyes are locked. Jason's eyes are dark, appraising him and Tim just can't breathe, god - there's a tinge of bright green around the pupils, that wasn't there before. But even further than that, Tim sees the heat in them, and it has him snatching the glass out of Jason's hand and tossing it back, the warmth chasing down his throat all the way to his core, where it ignites the already smoldering embers there, creating a quickly spreading wildfire.

Tim swallows, pinned in place with the intensity of Jason's gaze, and then those dark eyes dip down and back up, a smirk playing on the outlaw's lips as he clocks the motion. The younger man almost forgets himself, opening his mouth to speak, but he shuts it and just stares. He's drinking in every inch of Jason's face, the small lump on his nose from where it was recently broken in a fight, the J that still looks fresh as the day it was given to him, some scars across his cheeks and another that cut into the corner of his mouth. Years of pent up devotion, of adoration, of fierce and unyielding love covered Tim's entire expression, his entire being, and for a minute, Tim could convince himself that everything was perfectly normal, like Jay had never left.

But then something shifts, the tension between them driving up again as Jason takes a single gloved finger and uses it to tilt Tim's chin up. His eyes are still dark, the heat still there, but tenderness too and Tim inhales sharply, allowing himself to be moved. Jay looks at him intently for several long moments, and Tim's heart is thudding in his chest.

"You look tired, Timmy," Jason says, his voice soft and low and just a little bit sensual, and that has Tim's stomach twisting in knots.

"I am tired, Jay," Tim replies, leaning his cheek ever so slightly into Jason's grip, and his breath catches again when the finger on his chin is replaced with a hand framing his jaw, thumb brushing against his lower lip. It's intimate and tender in a way that Tim isn't sure Jason had learned how to be, before, and it makes his cheeks warm despite himself.

"What are you doing here, Tim?"

If anyone else had asked him that, in this situation, he'd punch them. But he knows Jay. He's asking what happened to bring him here tonight, when he's been back for 10 months and their paths haven't crossed yet.

He parts his lips to speak, and Jason brushes the pad of his gloved thumb over the tip of Tim's tongue, and well, sue him if he makes a soft, needy noise at that.

"Everything is just so.. empty. I can't feel anything anymore, Jay, not since.." he trails off, but resists the urge to look away. Jason's eyes are dark and unreadable, boring into his and he couldn't look away if he tried. But he doesn't want to, he wants, no, needs Jason to know. Jason doesn't flinch at the mention of his death, just keeps staring expectantly. Tim looks up at him from under those thick lashes, parting his mouth further to let Jason map his tongue with a gloved finger. It's intimate and erotic and controlling in a way that Tim knows he needs, he knows that only Jason can give him this. "Make me feel something, Jay."

"I'm not the same as I was before, Tim," Jason says, still rubbing his thumb over Tim's tongue. If Tim didn't know Jason the way he does, he would have taken that as a rejection, but he can tell Jason is mulling it over.

"I know, Jay. Neither am I."

Jason grips Tim's chin firmly at that, searching intensely for something in Tim's eyes. Tim isn't sure what, but after several long seconds, he nods. Tim's heart leaps into his throat, but before he has time to even think, Jay's fingers are in his mouth, mapping his tongue, his teeth, and god, Tim just groans.

Jason makes an appreciative noise and presses further, pressing his fingers down into Tim's throat, and the younger man's cock throbs as he gags around them. There's something unspeakably intimate about sucking Jason's fingers through the gloves, Tim thinks as he wraps his lips around leather-clad fingers, eyes never wavering from Jason's dark gaze. He can taste the sweat and dirt and just a little bit of blood and the thrill of it rushes through him with force, causing him to shudder as Jason's fingers brush against the back of his throat and his cock throbs painfully, leaking steadily into his underwear.

"Good boy," Jason purrs, and it's everything Tim has been waiting to hear again since that night, and somehow Jason knows and god, Tim's head is just spinning as Jason presses a third finger into his mouth alongside the other two, stretching his throat in a way that would be uncomfortable if Tim didn't need it so fucking bad.

A whine rattles out of Tim's chest as Jason grips him by the throat, fingers still stuffed in his mouth, and pulls him down with him to settle on the sofa, with Tim perched in his lap like a prize.

They don't talk for long minutes that seem to drag into hours, Jason's fingers fucking slowly into Tim's mouth while he uses his free hand to rock their hips together slowly.

"That's right, babybird, just let me take care of you," Jason murmurs into Tim's ear, and he isn't sure how the older man can make something like that sound dangerous, but fuck, he does, and Tim whines again, hips jerking up roughly against Jason's. It earns him a quiet groan, and his whole body feels like it's on fire just from that, but then - oh, god - Jason's fingers aren't in his mouth anymore, they're pressing against his entrance and - oh shit - he's not even sure how Jay got his hand into his pants, but he doesn't bother contemplating because then Jay slides two fingers in and holy fuck.

It burns, fuck, but it's exactly what Tim needs and he sags into Jason, whining in his ear while those fingers press slowly deeper, stretching him open and oh my god it's good. Jason's fingers are so fucking deep inside him, thrusting slowly but still not gently, and the friction and the burn is making Tim more than a little incoherent.

Jason mouths at his neck, and Tim keens, baring his throat in a gesture of submission that comes so naturally it would be startling if it wasn't Jay. He's rewarded with a deep groan pulled from somewhere deep in Jason's chest, and then Tim is crying out sharply, jerking his hips back into the older man's fingers as his teeth sink into Tim's slender neck.

"Oh god, Jay," Tim whines, clenching around the fingers inside him as Jason's teeth meet briefly between the flesh in his mouth, and Tim knows he hasn't broken the skin but god he needs him to, he needs it. Almost like Jay can sense his thoughts, he growls around the mouthful of Tim's neck and bites down harder, teeth penetrating skin as he fucks his fingers into the younger boy at a faster, rougher pace that has Tim screaming.

"Fuck, baby," Jason groans, dragging his tongue around the circumference of the bite, and oh god it aches in exactly the right way, and the combination of the filthiness of the action with the endearment on Jay's lips, the one Tim never thought he would be able to hear again, sends him hurtling over the edge so alarmingly fast he forgets how to breathe.

His spine goes taut, he's arched into Jason like a bow and his thighs are quivering so badly that Jay puts a hand on one to steady him as he spills into his pants, screaming Jason's name. Jason coaxes him through that orgasm and right into another one, fingers pressing hard and fast into that spot deep inside him that makes every nerve in his body light up like a forest fire. This time Tim comes so hard he can't even scream, he just gasps wetly into Jason's chest as he digs his fingers into the supple leather of the older man's jacket and yanks, just trying to steady himself.

Tim lays like that on Jason's chest for a long time, muscles trembling as Jay rubs his back with the most gentleness he's shown Tim that night. Jay presses soft kisses into Tim's hair, and the younger man nuzzles back into the affection.

When he finally feels capable of speech, he pulls back and gives Jay his signature troublemaker smirk and says, "What, is that all?"

Jason laughs and shakes his head, carefully pulling his fingers free and he strips his gloves before picking Tim up, carrying him bridal-style into the bedroom.

"Not by a long shot, princess, don't you worry."

Tim could literally care less about checking out Jay's bedroom, because the second he's placed on the bed Jason is on him, pinning his delicate little wrists over his head with one hand while he slots himself between Tim's legs and grinds. It's absolutely filthy, and even though he just came, Tim can feel himself getting hard again. His head falls back onto the mattress and he whines, trying to tug his arms free to wrap them around Jay's neck before he realizes, and - oh - white hot need has him arching off the bed and pressing into Jason's body.

"Fuck, baby, look at you," Jason breathes, voice rough and Tim's eyes flutter open to meet his gaze, his mouth falling open in a soft 'o' as he sees that piercing blue and green have been completely obliterated by black lust. "You look so fucking beautiful like this, Timmy."

Tim whines again and Jason's there, licking into his mouth and it's everything he needs and not nearly enough all at once, and god somehow Jason knows that too because his hand is around Tim's throat, squeezing as he sucks on the younger man's tongue. It's their first kiss since before, and it's fucking filthy and it's fucking perfect.

Jason's hips are grinding roughly into Tim's and it almost hurts because he's oversensitive from coming but he thinks he might actually die if Jason stops. Just then, Jason does stop, and Tim lets out a pitiful keen.

"Hey hey, patience babybird, I gotta get you undressed," Jason laughs as he climbs to his knees, pulling Tim roughly down the bed with him with a hand on each ankle. The sudden movement makes Tim yelp in surprise, and he would have laughed if Jason hadn't already removed his sweatpants and wasn't already digging his teeth into Tim's ankle.

"Oh, fuck, Jay," Tim pants out, looking up with heavy-lidded eyes as Jason sucks a dark bruise onto the inner divot of his ankle. "Jay please, fuck, I need you inside me right now."

Jason swears, movements stilling for just a heartbeat before he reaches down and pulls Tim's boxers off. There's no time for Tim to get embarrassed about being so exposed, not that he's ever really been shy about nudity, because Jason is slinging Tim's legs over his shoulders and pushing in - when did he even get his dick out of his pants? - and Tim loses the ability to breathe.

The last time they did this, they were both still awkward teenagers, not quite fitting into their bodies, still having growing to do. Now, Jason's cock is so thick as it presses its way inside him that tears start to form at the corners of Tim's eyes.

"Holy shit, baby," Jason grunts, kissing Tim's other ankle and Tim whines in response, not able to think about anything else except for the way he can feel Jason's cock stretching him out with each centimeter as it buries itself inside him. By the time Jay is fully seated, they're both trembling, and Jay's forehead is wrinkled with effort - presumably from holding back.

"Jay," Tim whines, rolling his hips up, and oh fuck it burns so much that he chokes out a gasp.

"Timmy, baby," Jason says in response, and starts moving.

"Oh," Tim says, his mouth falling open, and Jason brushes his thumb across the younger man's lower lip.

"Yeah, princess, just like that, open up for me baby," Jay groans, thrusting his hips a little harder and Tim whines so loudly that Jason wraps a hand around his throat. "Shh, baby, it's okay. Just let me take care of you like you need."

Jason sets a rough but slow rhythm, leaving open mouthed kisses across Tim's ankles as he fucks Tim open with almost brutal precision. Each thrust hits the same spot, going further and deeper, and it's driving Tim crazy in all the right ways. Every time Jason slams into him, he screams, the sound muffled by the hand wrapped around his throat and squeezing. Tim's head is fuzzy, and he feels like he's both less and more aware of the rough stretch of Jason's cock inside him around the heavy press of Jason's fingers pinching his arteries.

Tim is staring up slack-jawed at Jason, just watching him in awe. He takes the time now to memorize every expression, every sound, because now he knows that any time might be the last time, and he doesn't know what this means for them but he knows that Jason wouldn't do this without meaning it, not with him.

Jason's eyes flick up to his from where they were fixated on his cock disappearing inside of Tim, and he smirks at him. Tim is just about to try and slap his arm when Jason changes the angle again and holy shit -

"Oh yeah, babybird? Right there?"

Tim makes a strangled noise that's somewhere between a sob and a scream as Jason starts drilling into him, right into that spot over and over and he's not sure when he started crying but the tears won't stop streaming down his face and he really can't find it in him to care because he needs it, he needs Jason to see him bare like this, to know all of the pain and hurt and loss and to see how much he still needs him.

Jason is between his thighs pounding into him like he's never needed to do anything else more in his life, and still it's not enough. He's still got his fucking mask on - not the red one, no - he's still keeping a part of himself secret from Tim.

"Jason," Tim croaks out, and those dark eyes are boring into his again and it's closer, but not enough, not nearly enough. "Let me see you," he says, twining their fingers together. "Please."

Jason freezes for a moment, realizing he's been caught, and Tim can see the internal struggle play over his face like a teleprompter. He licks his lips and waits, and then he sees it. The shift is almost imperceptible at first but then it's more and more clear as Jason lets the mask fall away, stops pretending.

He can see now, why Jason was keeping the mask up. And god, he loves him. He sees into the heart of Jason now, and it's ugly and terrifying and it's the most beautiful thing Tim's ever seen, and he chokes out a pleading, "Jason," needing everything Jay had been holding back.

"Tim," Jay groans, only it's almost a growl, and he puts his full weight on Tim's body and starts rutting into him like it's the last time he's ever going to get to do this, - or maybe it's the first - and his thrusts are so rough that they occasionally scoot Tim up the bed a couple of inches, but neither of them care. Tim is clinging to him, crying and rambling and Jason has his face buried in Tim's neck, growling and grunting and murmuring sweet nothings right in between angry ramblings, and finally - oh god - it's finally exactly what Tim needed, what they both needed all along and Tim is coming, his toes curling as his heels dig into the bed.

He tightens around Jason's cock and comes between them, making Jason's shirt sticky but who fucking cares, who cares because Jason is drilling into him and oh, my god, he's coming inside. Jason groans low and deep, riding out the orgasm as he humps between Tim's legs and Tim just whines and stutters out his name over and over, so high on Jason that his eyes are glassy, his whole world narrowed to this, to him.

Jason finally slows to a stop and buries his face in Tim's neck, pressing soft open mouthed kisses there that Tim would try to return if he could move.

"I'm sorry," Jason says, his voice quiet with grief and regret, and Tim knows he's not talking about what just happened, but about that night. He kisses the shell of Tim's ear and whispers, "I'm sorry," and this one Tim knows is for ten months and two weeks. But he doesn't need an apology. He knows now, he understands why Jason stayed away so long.

"I'll never stop loving you, no matter how ugly or twisted you get. You're still Jason. You're my Jason."

Tim feels Jason relax at that, sagging into him with such fierce relief that tears prick the corners of his eyes again.

"Love you so much, Timmy," Jason mumbles into Tim's hair, and rolls them onto their sides, half-heartedly covering them with a bedsheet before wrapping an arm - when did his arms get so big? - around Tim's middle, pulling the younger man firmly into his chest. "So much," he mumbles, and Tim laughs quietly as he realizes that Jason is falling asleep around him. But, he's not much better off; between the mission just hours before, the tension between them, and the emotional catharsis of.. well, everything that just happened, his eyes were getting too heavy to keep open.

He nuzzles into Jason's arm and lets himself be dragged into sleep, knowing that finally, finally he wouldn't have to wake up without Jason again.

- - -

Thanks so much for reading! If you liked this work, please reblog, and if you’re feeling generous, please go to ao3 and leave a comment, or drop one off in my inbox here!

#jaytim #nsft #dc fanfic #boys-wonder

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keelywolfe · 3 years

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FIC: Someone to Drive ch.2 (standalone)

Summary: The road trip continues!

Tags: Spicyhoney, Melancholy, Hurt/Comfort, First Time, Developing Relationship

Part 1

~*~

Read Part 2 on AO3

Read it here!

~~*~~

That first day, Stretch slept through most of it. Curled up in the passenger seat, he didn’t bear witness to the movement of the sun overhead, traveling across the sky the same way they were traveling along the highway. Signs passed by, billboards for luxury apartments and advertisements for the closest fast food drive-thru, along with more esoteric restaurants offering old fashioned family meals and fun.

They stopped for gas twice. The first time Edge paid at the pump and the second, he went inside the convenience store where he ignored the stares of the other patrons as he purchased drinks and a selection of pastries and snacks with expiration dates that might well extend into the next decade. There wasn’t time to inspect them too closely. The car was locked but he was deeply uncomfortable leaving Stretch sleeping in it alone and surrounded by unfamiliar Humans.

In the brief time it took him to gather up supplies, Edge kept the car in sight, waiting impatiently in the line while the Humans in front of him purchased gas and cigarettes and lottery tickets. No one approached the car, or him for that matter, and the clerk at the register hardly stammered when she gave him the total.

The bag went into the backseat, except for the drinks that ended up in the holders in the middle console; unsweetened green tea for him and lemonade for Stretch. Both were room temperature before Stretch woke. By then, they were through the remainder of this state and well past the ‘Welcome to the Pacific Wonderland’ sign to the next one.

They were as far away from every place Edge considered home as he’d ever been when Stretch stirred in a waking up sort of way rather than the sleepy rearranging of the past few hours. He sat up, his hood sliding half-off, and blinked owlishly as he looked around at the car. When his eye lights landed on Edge, he seemed to wake up a little more, slumping back into his seat.

Edge only glanced at him out of the corner of his socket and kept his gaze on the road.

“where are we?” Stretch asked. His voice was hoarse from sleep, rasping dryly.

“Somewhere in Oregon,” Edge said. He picked up the lemonade from the console without looking at it and held it out in offering. “According to the sign, they hope we enjoy our visit.”

The lemonade was nearly snatched from his hand and he listened as Stretch drank thirstily. The bottle was empty by the time he sighed out a grateful, “thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” That passed as the only conversation between them. There was no questioning the direction they were headed, no wheedling requests to stop at the next exit to a ridiculous roadside attraction. Edge only drove on, keeping the radio low because it seemed like the thing to do when your not-really-a-friend looked to be on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

The only other sound was the occasional vibration of Stretch’s phone. He glanced at it a few times but never seemed to reply to any texts.

Edge already texted Undyne when they’d first stopped for gas, along with his own brother. Undyne replied with several obscenities and an agreement to feed the cat. Red did not reply at all and no one else tried to contact him. There weren’t many who would.

Mostly, Stretch sat slouched in his seat, watching the blur of passing landscape outside the window. His hands occasionally tapped on his knees to the rhythm of whatever was playing on the radio and he sometimes sang along under his breath, almost too soft to be heard.

Eventually he discovered the bag of food in the backseat and scrounged through its offerings, selecting a cellophane-wrapped cheese danish for himself. The banana nut muffin was given to Edge with its plastic packaging removed, carefully wrapped in a napkin from the bag to keep crumbs from scattering over the car interior. It was surprisingly thoughtful, and Edge took his eye lights from the road long enough to murmur a thank you.

Stretch didn’t reply, already wolfing down his own pastry, though he was careful to keep the crumbs contained.

When he finished, he tucked the wrappers back into the paper bag, bringing back out with him the bottles of water Edge purchased. They replaced the empty tea and lemonade ones and both of them settled back into a much briefer silence, broken when Stretch abruptly said, “advertising.”

Edge blinked, glancing at him, “I beg your pardon?”

Stretch nodded towards the window. “that billboard. it said ‘advertising.”

“Yes?” Edge asked, cautiously. “That is what billboards do.”

“uh huh. benefit!” Stretch said triumphantly. Edge was beginning to worry about what sort of chemicals the ‘Kum and Go’ station was adding to their pastries when Stretch added, “cold!”

The point of the game clicked and Edge looked out at the approaching signs, searching. “Diesel,” Edge said, firmly.

“aw, come on,” Stretch moaned. He flopped back dramatically into his seat or at least as much as the seat belt allowed. “street signs don’t count, only billboards!”

“If that was a rule, you should have specified before you began,” Edge said, then added, “East.”

The competition began in earnest after that and the next few hours passed in a flurry of exchanged words in careful alphabetical order, peppered with the occasional out of place curse and if Stretch used ‘Qdoba’ from the green exit sign rather than a billboard in defiance of his own rules, Edge was too relieved for the dreaded ‘q’ to be vanquished to offer any protest.

It was nice, in a way, the dappled green of the passing trees around them, the billboards, and the sunshine pouring in through the windows as they quarreled, only laughingly instead the real arguments they’d had in the past.

Edge still didn’t know why they were here at all, but he was finding it didn’t really matter. Not yet.

~*~

It was barely dark when Edge pulled off into the rest stop that evening. Normally he wouldn’t have considered sleeping before midnight, but then, normally he wouldn’t have been up at three am in the morning, nor would he have spent the entire day driving. The billboard game petered out with the encroaching darkness concealing far too many words, and Stretch was half-drowsing next to him, rousing as Edge put the car into park.

“huh?” Stretch asked, drowsily. Despite all the sleep he’d had, there were still darkened smudges beneath his sockers, as if the slumber only glanced over him instead of settling in. He scrubbed at his face with the back of his hand, blinking too hard and confused. “we stopping here?” Stretch sat up and got a better look at their surroundings. “a rest stop?” he asked doubtfully.

“Yes,” Edge agreed, unfastening his seat belt. “I may not need a bathroom, but I do need a rest.”

“a rest stop,” Stretch repeated. "we're gonna sleep at a rest stop?"

"I believe it’s traditional for road trips." Edge opened his door and stepped out into the cooling air, groaning as his aching joints basked in the chance to extend his long limbs to their fullest.

Stretch followed him, asking nervously, "isn't that illegal?"

"Not in this state. Besides,” Edge circled around to the back of his car and opened the hatchback, “no one will be able to see us back here.”

His brother had mocked him when he’d purchased an SUV, rambling on about soccer moms and incels. Edge had ignored him. Much as he would have enjoyed a convertible like Papyrus’s, practically demanded that at least one of them own something with more space and a bright red paint job was an invitation to police for a traffic stop. His face was already invitation enough, in Edge’s opinion, and when he’d bought the SUV, he’d gone with plain black.

In the back, he kept a small emergency kit stored away. Years of living in Snowdin taught him to be prepared and it was, with road flares, small traffic cones, and a neatly folded-up blanket. Edge moved the box of supplies to the front seat, out of the way, then took out the blanket and shook it out. He frowned at the size of it. “I’m sorry, I only have the one.”

Stretch only shrugged. He was gathering up the trash from the last of their snacks and the empty drink bottles, tossing them all into a nearby bin. “it’s fine, it’s not that cold.”

Very quickly they figured out that a larger blanket would have only been of minor assistance. The SUV was excellent for moving boxes and small furniture, less so for sleeping arrangements. Even with the back seats folded down, there was only enough room for them to both lay full-length if they stretched out at a diagonal. It meant sleeping far closer than he usually ever was to Stretch, both of them pressed up against each other with the musty shared blanket spread over them.

Stretch didn’t seem to mind, offering no protest to the close quarters. Point of fact, he settled in close with a sort of muted enthusiasm, as if craving the contact. Edge didn’t deny him, only sliding his arm under Stretch’s head in a very narrow makeshift pillow.

They lay together in the silent dark and as tired as he was, sleep was slow in coming. Headlights would cut through the windows as other cars pulled in and left, the traffic sounds too close, and the car interior too quiet, in a way his apartment was not, showcasing their mutual breathing. Stretch shifted next to him, his long legs bumping into Edge’s.

“i heard you moved out,” Stretch said suddenly. His voice was soft and still too loud in the quiet.

“I did,” Edge agreed and nothing more.

Stretch didn’t ask why, which was good because Edge was tired of not being able to explain, even to Red. Beneath his careless attitude and bluster, Edge knew his brother was hurt by him leaving, worried that there was no one to watch his back. Monsters often lived several generations in one home and Red surely wondered why Edge didn’t want to live in his. He wasn’t sure how to make his brother understand that he wanted a chance at something else, that simply being on the surface wasn’t enough to chase away the ghosts of Underfell. He wanted to live on his own, to figure out something that he didn’t have the words to express.

Not that he needed them, he supposed. Red always had more than enough words for both of them.

Stretch hummed curiously, “how’s that going? i mean, having your own place?”

“It’s—” Edge’s breath caught as Stretch’s pelvis shifted against his own, bumping up against his hip in what was certainly a deliberate little grind. It was distracting and not nearly as alarming as it should be. His mouth filled with soft magic almost unconsciously as it happened again. Belatedly, Edge finished on, “fine,” though he no longer remembered the question. His focus was on the slender body pressed close to his own, the surge of warmth rising underneath the threadbare blanket.

They'd kissed once before, a long time ago when they’d all still been underground. The self-proclaimed skeleton clan made up of, well, themselves, meeting for movie nights. On that night, his brother brought over a few jars of his latest batch of moonshine, the clear liquid deceptively tasteless and enormously strong. A small glass that would normally only ease the reality around them instead turned it into a blurred whirlwind, and by the next day Edge had a killer headache and few memories of the night before, save one.

Of him and Stretch, and as it turned out, their antagonism was easily muted behind the mask of hard liquor. They’d bumped into each other in the kitchen entryway, Stretch going in and Edge coming out, and their faces were so close together that to Edge’s alcohol-soaked thoughts, a kiss seemed to be the only reasonable solution.

He couldn’t recall if it was a good kiss or not, only that Stretch accepted it and that his mouth was as filled with honeyed sweetness as his words never were. But when Edge tried for another, Stretch held him back. He’d offered a lopsided smile and said with uncommon gentleness, “sorry, edgelord, i’m not really interested in sleeping with you tonight.”

Edge hadn't bothered to point out that he hadn’t offered to sleep with him. It seemed churlish when he'd already been rather kindly brushed off and neither of them ever mentioned it again. He’d long since written it off as a moment of drunken foolishness and nothing more.

He wondered if that statement still stood. The leg sliding up his own and the knee teasingly pressing almost between Edge’s femurs seemed to indicate it did not.

Edge didn’t move as a hand settled on his ribcage, beneath the blanket but over his t-shirt. He only inhaled sharply through his nasal cavity and waited. He wasn’t sure what to feel when that hand did not move, fingers only flexing, the tips briefly digging in as their warmth bled slowly through thin cotton.

"is this…all right?" Stretch asked uncertainly.

Edge closed his sockets, took in a long shaky breath and let it out in a hiss of, "Yes."

The word barely finished before a mouth caught his own. As sweet as his blurred memories, stuttering nervously before firming as Edge turned towards Stretch and their bodies slotted together easily, like pieces from the same puzzle.

Fumbling in the backseat of a car was a stage he’d skipped when it came to his sexual awakening, mostly for lack of a car. The environment lacked a great deal, room, comfort, privacy, and yet, it was difficult to care. How could he care when Stretch was shivering against him, little moans and pants escaping him as Edge let his hands wander, finding sensitive joints and cartilage to stroke and tweak, nibbling along his mandible to explore the delicate cavern of his audial canal.

It was less awkward than he might have thought, their past arguments were as distant as their home. There was only here in this car, with the occasional flash of headlights illuminating them and offering glimpses of barely exposed bone and wide sockets. Edge only tensed when Stretch fumbled with his belt buckle, wary when a hand wormed its way down the front of his pants. People were often surprised by his preference for a vulva over a penis, a few were even offended, acting as if he’d misled them or perhaps that it was beneath him to prefer being penetrated during sex. More than one sexual encounter had been ruined by the assumption that he would be the one using his cock and he couldn’t help tensing as he waited to see if this would be one of them.

But Stretch didn’t comment, his slender fingers moving with no emotion other than eagerness. When Stretch tugged impatiently at the waistband of Edge’s tight jeans, he helped shove them down, only to startle as Stretch followed their downward path, slithering lower with bony fingertips, then the wet heat of his mouth.

Edge clapped both hands over his own mouth, choking off a cry at the slippery touch of a tongue against bone and ectoflesh. He stared up the fabric ceiling of his car as it was briefly illuminated in the flash of headlamps, his pants caught around his knees and Stretch’s face buried between his femurs, only closing his sockets when the rising pleasure and that clever tongue became too much, sending him shuddering over a gloriously toe-curling peak.

All too soon Stretch crawled back up over him, his eye lights overbright and his mouth wet as he stuttered out, “god, you—you’re so—”

Edge never got to hear exactly what he was. He opened his mouth to the slick press of Stretch’s against it and tasted himself on his stroking tongue. There in the stuttering darkness, he never did find out why they were here, but he did learn a few things about Stretch and about himself.

He thought perhaps the soft, deep cry Stretch made when he came was his best discovery on this trip so far.

tbc

#spicyhoney #papcest #keelywolfe #underfell #underswap #underfell papyrus #underswap papyrus #standalone

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pipedream-parrish · 4 years

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Happy 34th birthday, Twinyards

read on AO3

It is Aaron’s 14th birthday and he has just found out that he has a brother - a twin brother, an identical twin brother, who looks exactly like him and might just understand him, too. His mom didn’t do anything for his birthday - she hasn’t since he was little, or maybe those long-forgotten memories were really just dreams that have managed to worm their way so deep into his psyche that he’s accepted them as truth. The kids at school sang to him, which was fine, but Aaron can’t help but think maybe now it will be different. Maybe once he meets this brother of his, then they can celebrate their birthdays together. Maybe they can give each other presents, and eat cake, and blow out the candles using the combined forces of their breath. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

(Andrew spends this birthday choking down cake that Cas got him, trying to hide the fresh marks on his arm, and thinking about the best way to keep his mysterious brother as far away from him as possible)

((one month later, Aaron receives a letter in the mail. He couldn’t tell you everything it said - he just knows that all of these maybes have just been thrown into the middle of a busy highway to be crushed under uncaring tires.))

Its Aaron’s 15th birthday and his mother has celebrated by beating the shit out of him and then throwing a random assortment of pills from the bottom of her purse in his direction as an apology, and Aaron cannot help but think that maybe it won’t have to be like this anymore. He thinks about what Andrew said (Andrew, who really does look just like him, and who seemed so angry about Tilda, and seemed to believe that Aaron didn’t deserve, that he deserved good things--) had said to him, thinks about how maybe when Andrew moves his mom will stop it, maybe it’ll be alright, maybe nothing will hurt anymore and everything will be okay and he’ll have a brother. It’ll be the two of them against the world, and Aaron may not know this other boy all that well, but he promised to protect him, so that must mean something, right? Even if before that he said he didn’t want anything to do with Aaron, he changed his mind, and thats what matters, right? Right? And so when Aaron blows out the birthday candles that he bought for himself at eh convenience store the night before, he wishes for his brother to come home soon, and for them to be a family like they were supposed to be. Like he deserves.

((Six months later, Tilda is dead and Aaron has stopped believing in family.))

iii

It is Andrews’s 16th birthday and he has not spoken more than two words to his brother for most of the year, but Nicky tries to force them to do something, to celebrate, to be normal teenagers for once. Andrew leaves halfway through the elaborate dinner that Nicky has prepared, and pretends not to see the sad look he aims at his retreating back. Pretends that he doesn’t care what Nicky thinks of him, what Aarons thinks of him. Pretends that he stopped caring about Cass, that actually he didn’t care about that, either. Pretends and pretends and pretends, and convinces everyone but himself.

((He’s not so great at lying to himself yet. He’ll get better with age.))

Late that night, after he’s heard everyone else going to bed, he sneaks downstairs and steals a slice of the double-chocolate cake that Nicky got them. There are already a couple of slices out from where Nicky and Aaron had some, so hopefully, this moment of weakness will go unnoticed.

(Aaron spends his 16th birthday sad and mourning, refusing to look his brother in the eye. When he blows out the birthday candles with no help from a magical brother, he wishes that he never met Andrew in the first place. Not that he believes in magic or wishes or anything good at all, anymore. He barely has a bite of his cake before leaving the table. He, too, pretends not to see Nicky’s teary eyes as he leaves him standing alone in the kitchen, the remnants of a wasted attempt at love scattered all around him)

((he, too, is not so great at lying to himself yet. He, too, will get better with age))

(Nevertheless, when he hears Andrew come downstairs in the dead of night, he creeps into the hallway to watch his petty theft)

((He never mentions it.))

It is Andrew’s 17th birthday and he is so high off the ground that he never even realizes the date.

Or maybe he does and just forgets.

The meds are still new, and he’s not used to them yet. Not used to the loudness, and brightness, and plastered on a smile. His cheeks hurt all the time now - he is constantly working muscles that have not had much use, the last couple of years

(the last couple of lifetimes)

Needless to say, it is Andrew’s 17th birthday and he does not even realize it, and instead, he spends it in his room, his precious room that has a lock that works, coming apart at all his frying edges. Boys like him were never meant to grow old. Boys like him were never meant to last. And so he lays there and shakes uncontrollably, and laughs, too, tells himself this is fine, he’s fine it’s all fine and knows better than to believes it. Perhaps it is a mercy, that he eventually gets used to the meds.

Perhaps it is not.

(Aaron doesn’t celebrate his birthday, either. Instead, he picks up extra shifts at Edens and goes to bed early.

He cannot wait to leave this fucking house)

It is Aaron’s 18th birthday, meaning that he is a legal adult. He finds this funny. He has always been an adult; he was an adult when he was four and creeping across the house on silent feet to steal crackers from the pantry because mom forgot to feed him; he was an adult when he was 10 and forging his mothers signature on school papers, and making excuses for why she couldn’t come into parent-teacher conference night; he was an adult when he was sitting across from his reflection in a juvenile detention facility, and promised protection. One more birthday doesn’t mean shit.

(Andrew agrees. He, too, has been an adult for as long as he can remember.)

((Still, when Nicky slips cards under each of their doors wishing them a happy birthday and telling them he’s proud of them, and that he hopes that adulthood treats them right, well. If Aaron squeezes his eyes shut as hard as he can to prevent the tears from escaping, and if Andrew tares it up into a million pieces because it almost makes him feel something, then no one needs to know))

It is November 4th, and the newly-coined monsters are in Columbia, just like they are most weekends. They make the same stops as always, go to the same club, the same restaurant.

Never once is the word birthday mentioned.

vii

It is Andrew’s 20th birthday and he is about to make one of the worst mistakes of his life. For now, he sits against the windowsill, watching his smoke dissipate into the afternoon air, absently listening to the sounds of Nicky and Aaron’s video game wash over him. He’s grinning, as is usually is these days, and if he was capable of having a long-lasting coherent thought, he would want to carve that grin off his face.

Alas, he is not capable of long-lasting coherent thought. Oh well. Perhaps it’s for the best.

Renee got him a gift. Silly Renee. Always so nice, so kind, even to monsters like him. Hasn’t she learned better than that by now? It seems not.

When Nicky receives a phone call that leaves him in a panic, it is almost enough to garner Andrew’s attention.

Almost.

When he leaves the room in a rush only to come beach with Neil, the enigma, the hallucination, the rabbit, in tow behind him, Andrew actually does start to pay attention. Only a little though.

When Neil pulls him aside, and asks for the unimaginable, and then manages to make it seem like a good idea, well. Andrew’s interest has been peaked, and he agrees. Why not? It might be fun. Might be, might be, might be.

(It’s not. It’s not fun at all, and if nothing else then Andrew is finally allowed to leave that smile behind for good. Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear Andrew, happy birthday to me!)

((Aaron spends his birthday playing video games and wondering why the new kid holds such sway over his brother. When he looks back on that day, he will not remember any of that. He will only remember that that was the day everything went wrong, and he was unable to fix it.))

viii

It is Andrew’s 21st birthday, and it might just be a good one. No alarm wakes him up in the morning, even though he’s sure he set it last night, meaning he gets to sleep in. When he wakes up it’s to Neil bustling about the dorm room, clearly searching for something.

“Practice?” Andrew asks and is told in no uncertain terms that they will be blowing it off for the day. Yes, today is shaping up to be a good one.

Instead, they go out driving, blazing down empty roads as fast as the mas will take them, eating up millage and gas money and caring at all. Neil rolls down the window and lets out victorious whoops into the still afternoon, the wind flushing his cheeks and tousling his hair. Andrew almost thinks something disgustingly sappy about that but is able to rain in his own brain just in time.

They got greasy diner food for lunch, and Andrew orders a massive ice cream Sunday that Neil doesn’t comment on. They go back to Fox Tower and lounge around their dorm, kissing and smoking and playing video games. They have pancakes for dinner, and Kevin doesn’t bother them once about going to tonight’s practice. Andrew goes to bed full and sated, and almost, almost, happy. It’s a good birthday.

((the next day at therapy, Aaron complains that he didn’t get to skip practice yesterday. Andrew shrugs and says that he should take notes for next year. It’s almost an invitation. Almost, but not quite.))

It is Aarons’s 22nd birthday, and he takes a leaf out of Andrew’s book and skips practice. He and Katelyn drive into town, and walk up and down the streets, popping into stores at random and picking out delightfully ugly things for the other to buy. In one shop, Katelyn shows Aaron a shirt made from a disgusting green fabric with the gaudiest floral pattern he’s ever seen. In another, Aaron finds shimmering, sparkle filled pink and purple shoes with a six-inch heel. They both nearly get sick from laughing. That night, they go out to the fanciest restaurant they can afford and get wine drunk. Aaron tells Katelyn that he loves her, which is something that he’s told her a million times before, but that doesn’t stop it from mattering. This will always matter. She will always matter. He looks at her, just looks at her, and thinks about how lucky he is to have this. And he thinks about Andrew, just for a second, curses him for keeping her from Aaron. But then, for an even shorter second, the thought occurs to him. I hope he’s as happy right now with Neil as I am with her.

((Andrew may not show it the same way, but he is. He is.))

It is their 25 birthday now (which it longer than either of them thought they would live), and after years of therapy and working through their issues, Aaron has decided once again that he wants a brother. And so he books a flight to Boston, and buys a ticket to Andrews game, and watches his brother play exy on their birthday. Their birthday. Sometimes he still forgets that they are a “they” now. He'll still say my birthday, my mom, my cousin, my family. But it's not just his, and so he meets Andrew at the player’s exit after the game and forces him to go to dinner with him. And they spend their birthday together, just the two of them, for the first time since they were born. And its-

Well, it’s not bad. It's kind of nice, actually. Stilted, at first, and undoubtedly awkward, but.

But they’re still brothers, even after everything. They share family and history and most of their DNA, so it seems right that they also share a dinner. And they talk, about Andrew’s pro team and Aarons residency, and about halfway through Aaron realizes that even though he was the one who forced this, Andrew isn’t trying to stop it. He came with him to dinner, and he’s talked more in the last hour then Aaron thinks he ever has before, and Aaron realizes that he wants this too. Andrew wants a brother too. They part ways outside - Andrew doesn’t offer to drive him back to his hotel or to let him stay at his apartment, but that’s ok.

Because Andrew wants this too.

Andrew wants this too.

epilogue

It is the Minyard twins’ 34th birthday, and as has become a tradition they are each awoken by a phone call from Nicky. Aaron only grumbles for a moment before Katelyn is handing his phone to him and he’s picking up. Andrew takes longer, turning over and burying his face in Neil’s neck for a second or a minute or a year, before finally grabbing his phone. To be fair, it’s about 2 hours earlier for him than for his brother. When he was younger he would hang up, and Nicky would call back, and he’d hang up again, until around the third call when he would finally give in and answer and phone. He doesn’t hang up anymore. He supposes that he’s grown. It’s a facetime call, so he’s greeted with Nicky’s over-enthusiastic smile and Aarons bedhead that looks so much like his own. He props himself up on some pillows so that he’s nearly in a sitting position, and gives a halfhearted wave. Beside him, Neil stays lying down, curling himself into Andrew’s side. Andrew absently starts carding his fingers through his hair. Nicky starts to talk, telling them about the business, and the adoption process, and the cute thing that his and Erik’s dog did. King jumps up onto Andrew’s chest, and then there’s a lot of cooing over how cute she is. She starts to lick at Andrew’s temple, which makes everyone laugh and Andrew rolls his eyes. It’s ok. He doesn’t really mind. Aaron talks about the hospital, and then his toddler (who is really more of a kid now, she’s getting so big holy shit) bursts into the room, climbing up onto the bed. She says hi to her Uncle Andy (Neil taught her to say that when she was a baby, and it tuck. Again, Andrew doesn’t really mind) and Uncle Neil, and her cousins Nicky and Erik. they talk more, Andrew waking up and partaking in the conversion, occasionally mouthing things to Neil in Russian to make him laugh. He loves it when Neil laughs (he’s not so concerned with not thinking sappy things anymore).

It’s a good start to a good day. They order take out and eat it on the floor, just like they do every year. Neil gets him a cake, and he sings happy birthday, just like they do every year.

A plane ride away, Aaron and Katelyn hire a babysitter and go out to dinner, just like they do every year. Katelyn gets him a loudly collared tie, just like she does every year.

It’s a good day for both boys (who are now much closer to men), but more than that, it is a good day for both brothers. For that is undoubtedly what they are now. Brothers.

That night, they both get a text from Betsy. It says Happy birthday, my lovely boys. I hope this year treats you well.

And then it does.

It does.

thanks for reading! if you reblog i’ll love you forever :)

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werezmastarbucks · 4 years

Text

mystic falls

word count: 2269

music: no one’s gonna love you by band of horses

honeymoon masterlist

You made a sharp turn, and Kai stretched out his neck curiously as if he was seeing the highway for the first time. His head must be going nuts now, you assumed, after his long struggle to get out, after he finally was free, only to go back again, and into exactly the same world.

“So, it’s ‘94, right”, you said, just to say something. Kai looked at you like you were just a little stupid.

“Yeah. Why are we going to Mystic Falls?”

“I want another car. This planet must be full of abandoned cars”.

“Why do you want another car?”

You squeezed Chevy’s reliable leather steering wheel and thought about how much you despised everything that reminded you of Damon now. The road was silent and empty, and at first sight, there wasn’t anything special about it. On your way to the town, you stopped several times just to listen to the lifeless wind, while Kai sat patiently in the car. He was suspiciously nice. He was clearly trying to behave.

“I don’t want to be endlessly driving this piece of shit”.

“I thought you liked Chevrolets”, Kai reacted immediately. You raised your brow and looked at your clean knuckles. Those healed overnight, just like there was no trace of suffocation neither inside nor on the outside of your neck. You were the same as yesteday, again. That’s how this world worked, you figured.

“How do you even know that?”

You stopped yourself from adding,

I’ve known you for two weeks.

“You’re my girlfriend”, he smiled like the sun itself. The sunrays really did fill the car and you looked at him, his face drowning in the shining. Then the sun got cast by a small cloud.

“I needed to know everything about you”.

“I became your girlfriend after that one date we had?” you clarified.

“Yeah”.

No point arguing it now. It doesn’t really matter what you are to each other. Spouses. Who gives a fuck. You’re stuck here.

You thought that probably this will be the butt of a lot of pondering now. Doesn’t matter, because you’re stuck here.

“So, they’re just scattered around, like in a zombie apocalypse?” you asked, “the cars?”

Parker fidgeted in his seat, clearly excited about sharing something about this world with a person. There was finally some ground he could stand on; he knew more than you in this. He had some sense of control.

“Not scattered. The spell consists of several parts, it’s very complicated. One of the aspects is putting everything in order after you’ve made a copy of the world. My coven made the copy of their world at about eleven at night, so that second in this world repeats it in everything. But at that moment, obviously, in different parts of the world, all the objects were in motion. It’s day somewhere, night in another country, someone is flying in a plane, some cars are on the roads, maybe a brick is falling from the roof somewhere. So, all the things in motion are put back into their closest resting places by the spell. Like, if a car was on the road at the moment, it’s put into the nearest parking lot. Somewhere it’s still messy though. The spell obviously has a field of influence, and it’s not omnipotent”.

“So, the further from Portland, the messier things are?”

“Yeah”, Kai nodded, raiding Damon’s gloves compartment restlessly.

“In Australia, all the cars are just like in a zombie apocalypse. But some are like that even here. In New Orleans, on the King Street, there’s a red SUV standing in the middle of the road, like it’s been abandoned. And I don’t know why it got from under the spell”.

The witch shrugged and looked out of the window.

“You’re holding up well”, you noticed, dispassionately. After what he’s done, you didn’t want to be cute with him anymore. Didn’t want to show any more compassion. You had to get over your own bitterness first.

“Well, you’re with me. And I will find a way to get out. Don’t worry. We’ll think of something. You don’t pin down Kai Parker and get away with it. I’m...” he suddenly yawned, like a child, stretching out his arms and knocking on the ceiling with his fingers. You looked at how his face changed, as he performed this simple human motion. He had a hook inside of you, very deep, and you now felt it vividly. Kai somehow won you over, and you didn’t even notice. There was no use asking yourself again and again why you went with him.

“I’m real tired of this place”, he slapped his hand on your lap, “we’ll get out”.

“Don’t touch me”.

He gave you a long look.

“Are you still mad?”

“What about other things? Except cars? Electricity? Lights? Amusement parks? How is all working?”

“You can turn it off and on. If the street lights are automatic, they go on by themselves, and shut down in the morning. If you wanna have a ride on a ferris wheel, I can do that. I know how to operate virtually everything”.

“And the other times of day? You said it’s a copy of eleven at night. What about then?”

“Then the midnight comes, and it’s the tenth of May again. Well, in our time zone. In places where it was the eleventh, it’s the eleventh again and again. At midnight, everything restores back to place. Just like you”, he gestured towards your hands that were burned yesterday. “Whatever was hurt, heals, and resurrects. All the things you destroy get back up together. And work like they worked during the day. Basically everything is fully working, only, there’s nobody to operate it”.

“What if, say, at one in the morning, somebody broke a street light somewhere in... Houston?”

"There’s no one to break it now. The spell just copied the basic functioning state of things, but it neglected human interaction with them. The light that was supposed to be broken is fine here. Everything that was spoiled on that day by humans...” Kai looked out of the car almost melancholically, but it was very unlikely he acknowledged the poetry of his statement,

“Is safe from them here”.

You turned your face away not to let him see your expression. What he said somehow made you feel vulnerable to feeling, and you hummed.

“Unless you wanna go to Houston, find that exact street light and snap it, of course”.

“I don’t know where it is”, you replied philosophically.

“You have time enough to find it...”

“So, I can just walk into someone’s house and the taps will be working”.

“Yeah. You can watch TV, but it’s all the television from one day in ‘94. At seven in the morning they put on...”

“I don’t wanna know”.

“You get how it’s all very frustrating, right?”

“What about other forms of life?” you demanded. Kai kept quiet for some time as you drove into the empty streets of Mystic Falls. You stared around, barely recognizing your own hometown.

“I don’t get it, are you mad or not?”

“What do you think, am I mad? I am mad, Kai. I am fucking mad”.

“Because you’re in prison, or because I tried to kill you?”

You moved your mouth with exasperation and didn’t manage to utter anything.

“I said I was sorry. How many times do I have to apologize? Do you realize how much it means if I apologize to you?”

“I don’t think rules of normal interaction apply, honey”, you barked sarcastically, and his face still lit with delight at hearing the term of endearment. “This is the planet where there’s nobody else but us, so you don’t have any choice, and you’ll apologize as many times as I need you to”.

“Yeah, or I could actually kill you or lock you away somewhere so that you don’t get on my nerves”, he said.

You bit your lower lip, laughing. You knew now you had leverage, and it was beautiful. No amount of cockiness would diminish the raw need he demonstrated last night. And he knew it was his own mistake. Kai’s cheekbones got sharp like rock tops.

“And be alone?”

“I can use you however I want”.

“I’ll run away from you”.

“You can’t run away from me”.

He wasn’t smiling anymore.

You stopped the car in the clearing looking like a prehistorical parking lot. There was a couple of decent looking rides.

“You want me to freeze you out? You’re not the only one who can be manipulative, Parker. I can make you very miserable here. More miserable than you were before. You want that?”

You really had no idea what you were saying, but you made a threatening face. Kai’s eyes were wandering on it as he thought. There must have been a reason he had his eye on you in the first place.

Instead of getting scared, he got horny.

“I won’t hurt you unless you ask me to”, he murmured. The air became dense all of a sudden.

You got out of the car, and he moved, like your own shadow, mimicking your movements almost synchronized. You slapped the door with force just to shake off the goose bumps from your skin. The street was completey silent once again. It must alter your mind to live in such silence all the time. No chatter, no voices, no tires screeching, no horns. No doors banging, no bells, only the lonely howl of the clock tower. The wind, and your own steps. Crazy.

“Which one do you want?” he asked energetically, turning to the wide spectrum of cars parked in front of a coffee shop. You did not remember Mystic Falls like that.

“Do you know how to start a car?”

“In ninety-four, people left the keys inside”.

“Like in the movies? Above the wheel?”

He chuckled.

“Exactly”.

“Get the things from the trunk”, you said, and Kai frowned. You could feel with the back of your head he didn’t like being told what to do.

He could turn it all into sport, of course. Let you go, hunt you down. Keep killing you, use you however he wanted. But it seemed this time he really was tired of being alone. Otherwise he wouldn’t go behing the car and open the trunk, and get out the bag filled with clothes you stole from the Salvatore mansion.

Perhaps, for the first time in his life, Kai was slowly agreeing to comply, and to cowork with somebody. Perhaps he had a bigger plan. But it didn’t matter just now.

You walked to the wine red Dodge Ram and looked inside. It looked like the interior of the car was heated in the sun. All of a sudden, you wanted a coffee.

“Why were all cars so ugly in the nineties?” you asked, opening the door and getting into the driver’s seat. You shuffled around the wheel and found the keys were sticking out of the ignition. Someone must have stepped out of the car to have a smoke, or it was a reckless car owner who went into the shop to get a coffee and wasn’t worried about their car being nicked. But then again, it was ‘94. Life was so so much easier. As you watched Kai crawl up next to you and sigh contentedly, you asked yourself if life had been easier for him. Sometimes you forgot he was the ultimate nineties guy.

You started the engine and looked at Damon’s blue Chevy left by you in the middle of the parking lot, right in the center. Kai didn’t even close the trunk.

“What happens to her?”

“She stays here”, Kai said, buckling up. He raised his eyebrows at your questioning look.

“What? You’re driving like you’re trying to get back into the future”.

“You don’t like my driving, you can walk to Ohio”.

“You don’t have to be so mean about everything”, he cooed peacefully. You scoffed.

“Why does she stay here? Aren’t things supposed to align back after midnight?”

“Nah. Only damage falls under the order spell. The things you misplace stay where you left them. Same happens with travelling. You’re an object, too. Imagine how much harder this whole thing would suck if I got away from Oregon during the day and suddenly teleported back home when the clock strikes midnight”.

Parker smiled darkly.

“That would be the real prison”, you thought out loud. Kai gave you a vague look.

“No, you can take things with you. But the window you break restores back the next day... which is the same day”.

“And what about animals? No birds, no cats?”

“No. Only the smallest fellas here. You wouldn’t be able to breathe without them and... well, you need the smallest microbes”.

“So, if I cut myself on rusty iron, it will get infected”.

“Yeah. But you won’t suffer long, you’ll be fine at night”.

You hummed.

You looked into the back seat, guiding the wheel with one hand. Suddenly, driving became so easy when you knew there was nobody to run over, or witness your disgraceful style. Kai and his backseat driver opinions didn’t matter. You pulled your belly bag onto your knees and took out your phone, still alive.

“Good news, I have the charger for my phone”, you said. The simplistic, flowerless yet streets of the old Mystic Falls were sliding by idly. You sped up a little, listening to satisfying Ram roar.

“Bad news, I can’t connect it to the car radio, because the iPhones are not there yet, and bluetooth...”

You looked at Kai.

“Was it invented in 1999 or 2000?”

“Are you asking me? I’ve spent eighteen years locked away”.

“But you learnt about the world pretty quickly though. I know you’re very savvy in computer shit”.

“I’m gonna miss that”, Parker muttered, looking forwards on the road in front of you. Although he knew this world, and the things in it, he agreed on going back the whole way to look for an escape route. Maybe he just didn’t care anymore, or was indulging you for the sake of it; he agreed to go look for ‘something’. This something had no shape or size, and you didn’t know how it worked. Maybe he just wanted to move to create an illusion of progress. All he knew was that he wanted to get out of here to gut Damon.

#kai parker imagine #kai parker #kai parker x reader #vampire diaries #tvd imagine

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one-true-houselight · 3 years

Text

A positive outlook can get you through anything.

But that doesn't mean you get through unscathed.

Welcome…

to Night Vale

Hello listeners. Teddy Williams is revealing a new attraction over at the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. An ad in today's paper says, "The last decision you'll ever need to make will be to come down to the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex and use my revolutionary Decido-Matrix, which uses quantum physics to help you make any decision. You can also enjoy twenty percent off all bowling games."

Well, looks like someone's taking advantage of the recent decriminalization of time travel to drum up business. What crass commercialization of science! I wonder if Carlos would want to discuss this growing problem in our society.

Over dinner, perhaps. Or coffee. Maybe I'll use this Decido-Matrix to decide.

Either way, we've sent Intern Rachel over to report, so more on that later in the broadcast.

Now, it's time for another edition of Children's Fun Fact Science Corner! This week, we are discussing Electricity: How do I avoid electrical Rip Currents? How does it turn our beautiful bread into even better, crunchier toast? How do I use my new found electricity powers I got after I stuck a fork in an outlet?

The answer to all of these, of course, is that electricity does not exist today. Today, all devices normally run by electricity are instead being powered by the screams of those who did not pay their monthly tribute to the Electrical Sprites, who normally provide the power our beautiful city runs on. All you kids need to worry about is to always pay your tribute when you grow up, lest you be made an example of next.

This has been Children's Fun Fact Science Corner.

Next, Traffic. There's someone driving a sedan through dark, twisted trees.

Someone else drives a bright convertible down a highway where there are a few too many streetlights.

A third person changes the tire of a minivan in the middle of an unfamiliar neighborhood.

All three of these people can see the flickering light of a wildfire on the horizon. They hope their various vehicles will carry them far enough to escape the choking smoke.

Returning to our main story. Intern Rachel is reporting that John Peters (you know, the farmer?) was the first person to get into the Decido-Matrix twenty minutes ago. He has not emerged yet, and the growing line to use the new machine is growing inpatient. I spoke to Teddy Williams about the device, and he explained that it allows the user to follow every decision they could ever make, so they can see the consequences.

Now listeners, I can empathize with the idea of indecision; every day, I have to decide where I will get my morning beverage from. Will I make it at home, to save some money? Will I go to the fancy new coffee shop downtown and treat myself? Or maybe I'll go to Old Woman Josie's and have some supposed tea from supposed angels? What about the not-fancy coffee shop across the street from the radio station?

I have spent countless minutes every day agonizing over this decision, and have frequently resorted to coin flips, or making time consuming offerings at a local bloodstone circle. This machine could save me and others so much time! Assuming, of course, we can get John Peter (you know, the farmer?) out soon.

More on that story as it develops.

In the meantime, let's go to

The Weather

https://wearetheunion.bandcamp.com/track/ordinary-life

Welcome back. An update from the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. John Peters (you know, the farmer?) has escaped the Decido-Matrix and, in the process, has violently destroyed it. One person was killed.

To the family of Intern Rachel, we are sorry for your loss, and hope Rachel's commitment to community radio will provide some solace.

It turns out that trying to map every decision a person can make in a lifetime creates an almost irresistible endless spiral of indecisiveness, as endless branches split off of the simulated timelines. When reached for comment, Teddy Willams said he thought he had accounted for this minor flaw when he invented the Decido-Matrix by having it only map out 'important' decisions.

Now, I'm no scientist, listeners, but I think I see the problem. Every decision is important. Every time you decide what shirt to wear, or who you're going to send that hilarious text to, or even where to go for drinks in the morning, you create a new branch on the decision tree that is the spine of our human-shaped timelines. They are as unique as fingerprints, and every whorl, every curve, is key to that.

And if we spend our lives frozen because we can't decide if we should get wheat or whole wheat bread at the sandwich store, then we'll miss out on the big decisions that can send our lives in new, hitherto unseen directions.

Machines and calculations can't replace the human experience of realizing this:

There are not always right choices.

There are not always wrong choices.

There are simply choices, and we must learn to make them, and let them float off into the past, watching as they reverberate through our lives.

And tonight, I'm glad you chose to spend this time with me, listening to your radio as the sun disappears, deciding when you'll try and go to sleep. Don't let past decisions keep you from it, dear listeners.

Stay tuned next for a community round table on how to prevent and treat illnesses caused by viruses, bacteria, or improper use of bloodstone circles.

And, as always, Good Night, Night Vale.

Good Night.

#welcome to night vale #wtnv #don't know how to tag #i write sometimes

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themuseic · 4 years

Text

Only Fools (Chapter 1)

Fic Summary: Sent to Boone County, West Virginia on an assignment, you find yourself engulfed your work. How could you possibly find time for anything else? Even if “anything else” includes the tall, kind, and handsome bartender from down the road?

Word Count: 2.2k

Read here on AO3.

Warnings: Use of alcohol.

Author’s Note: Hi everyone!! I started a fic! It’s the first fic I’ve written, so please, I would love any and all feedback. I want to grow and constantly get better, so if you have any advice, I will be more than willing to listen! But I really want to give a huge shout out to @mind-p0llution, who not only encouraged me to write and beta read this for me, but has been nothing but supportive and kind to me! I hope y’all enjoy.

Ten hours on the road today, and you had finally, finally, reached your destination. A small town in Boone County. You hadn’t seen another car in miles, and the lights of Route 64 had long since faded behind the horizon. A yawn overtook you, and you tilted your head to one side, and back, a satisfying crack sounding as you relieved the pressure in your tense neck. Straight to the hotel then, you thought, ready for a shower and a comfortable bed to sleep in. As much as you loved a long road trip coupled with the beautiful vistas of rural America, you could only listen to so many podcasts, playlists, and radio stations.

You turned off of the road, following the directions of the robotic voice to your hotel, when something caught your eye. A wood paneled building sat on the side of the road boasting a red and green fluorescent sign that read “The Duck Tape Bar and Grill”. It wasn’t an overly impressive building, but the amount of cars parked outside suggested otherwise. Vehicles spilled out of the asphalt parking lot and onto the shoulder of the road. Some were even parked half into the drainage canal and half onto the street in order to secure their spot. It seemed as if every person in a 50 mile radius had found themselves at this one bar all on the same night.

You bit your lip in consideration. The bed at the hotel still called you, but that voice seemed to diminish to a whisper as the prospect of a nightcap looked better and better. What’s one drink? you thought to yourself, as you pulled over and threw the car into park. Grabbing your wallet and a stick of gum to suppress the stale road breath on your tongue, you hopped out of the car and strode towards the building.

~~~

The tinkling of a bell and a gust frigid air followed you into the bar as you slipped through the door, spinning to push it closed behind you. You blinked as your eyes adjusted to the warm lights that lined the space. It was a welcome change from the harsh headlights that you had found yourself driving into on the highway, and you were happy for it. The air was filled with happy, lilting voices and soft music that made you feel at home almost immediately and the sounds of glasses clinking and… the strongest smell of apples? You inhaled deeply, warmed to the bone by the spiciness of the scent, and tilted your face slightly to take it in. Like a dog to a bone, you scurried to the bar, hoping to snag a glass of whatever it was you were smelling.

You settled onto a high backed barstool and leaned forward, chin perched on your palm. It most definitely was a busy night, but the one bartender in the place looked like he was handling himself just fine. You looked down the bar, taking in the face of every patron as they chatted away. Entranced by the mirth that each exuded, you didn’t realize the bartender had noticed a new face at the bar until he was standing right in front of you.

“Hey darlin’, what can I get ya?”

Your head snapped forward at the deep rumble and you locked eyes with the man. He was, in a few words, breathtaking. He had bright hazel eyes framed by long dark hair, and the kindest gaze you had seen this side of the Mississippi. He was freckled and scruffy and just about the largest man you had ever laid eyes on. He entranced you, and you found your eyes gently tracing his every feature.

“Uh, darlin’?” he cautiously asked again, as if he was trying not to scare you, and you snapped from your reverie. “Oh, god, sorry. I guess I’m a little tired from my drive,” you laughed.

“S’no problem ma’am,” he smiled shyly, “You lookin’ for something to drink?”

“Yeah you know, I think I am. I can’t help but smell those apples, what is that?” you asked, and his face lit up immediately. “That’s my mama’s cider, I’ve got a batch goin’. Wanna try it?” he offered. He was already reaching to grab a mug before you nodded, which you did eagerly. He smiled again - oh, did that look good on him - and he turned to ladle some of the steaming liquid into the mug. The nameless man handed it back to you, your fingers brushing softly as the mug changed possession. You felt your cheeks warm as they did, a reaction to the light touch and your embarrassment that you were so flustered by this man. At least, you assured yourself, anyone in your position would be too. How could you not be?

“Thank you…” you started to inquire, and he eagerly interjected, “Clyde! M’names Clyde ma’am,” as he reached his arm towards you in his haste, fingers splayed. You giggled as you offered up your own, your eyes softening. “Well Clyde,” you sipped the warm liquid, ”you and your mama have a really good recipe for cider.” He beamed back at you, his cheeks reddening and his eyes crinkling as his dimples pushed . “Thanks darlin’, I try to do the recipe justice. Threw some V.S.O.P. in tonight instead of the regular brandy.”

“Oh?” you asked. “Special occasion, or just wanting to spice up your Saturday night?”

He huffed the lightest laugh in response. “T’be honest, I ran out of the normal stuff. I don’t think it’s tastin’ quite right.” His eyes fell to the mug in your hand, and he nodded at it. “Well darlin, let me know if you need anything else tonight. I’ll be around.”

He turned away over his right shoulder as he moved to the next patron seated at the bar, and a glint of metal caught your eye. You saw how he kept that arm, the one with the robotic attachment, mostly below the top of the bar. He didn’t even use it to emphasize his words, though he didn’t seem to offer up too many to begin with. There was a quiet beauty to him, and you were entranced by it. But, you reminded yourself, this was a small bar, in a small town. There was no reason for you to try anything. He was probably involved with someone, or you assumed at least, because anyone that looked like that should already be committed to another. Anyway, once you finished up your job in Boone County, who knew where you’d be headed to next? No, better to keep your head down, your connections loose, and your job short. You exhaled softly, sipped your cider, and struck up a conversation with your neighbor as the comforting warmth spread through you.

~~~~

“No way, a puma in town? We haven’t had too much news since… well you know,” Mellie wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, and Clyde huffed a laugh, shaking his head slightly.

“Yeah, Earl was just tellin’ me that Brett lost another cow down the road. Looked like it was attacked by somethin’,” Clyde drawled, swirling the dark amber liquid in his glass.

“That so?” Mellie cocked her eyebrow. “Haven’t heard of anything like that happening round here before.” Seated next to her, Joe pulled Mellie flush to his body, tickling her side and making her burst out in giggles. “Seems like we gotta keep our ladies safe then!” he hollered, prompting an eye roll from Mellie, Clyde, and even Jimmy and Sylvia over in the next stools. Clyde leaned back against the bar, glancing over at you, the new girl in the bar tonight. You were making polite conversation with the person next to you, and he found it impossible to tear his eyes away.

“Clyde,” Jimmy hissed from his stool a few people down, “get yer ass over here.” Clyde sighed, set his glass down, and walked over to Jimmy. “Need another beer?” he asked, reaching towards Jimmy’s bottle.

“Nah I’m good, thanks though. But boy, I have seen you lookin’ at that girl all night. What are you gonna do about it?” Jimmy stared him down. It was never easy to escape the laser gaze of his older brother, and Clyde shifted uncomfortably. “Now, I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” he tried to deflect, suddenly very interested in the hem of his shirt.

Jimmy’s eyes narrowed at this. “Clyde, you ain’t gettin’ out of this that easy. Listen, I know it hasn’t been easy for you since your last girl, but look. If my eyes are right, she’s been lookin’ over at you too, and if that ain’t true, I’ll eat my hat.”

Clyde chuckled quietly, but his face dropped again straight away. “Nah Jimmy, I’m sure she’s just passin through. Ain’t no point in tryin’ to go about startin’ anything.”

“Clyde, you’re never gonna know if you don’t say anything right?” Sylvia interjected as she leaned in encouragingly.

“I don’t think so. What’s the point?” Clyde shook his head, subconsciously rubbing the junction of his prosthetic and arm. “Clyde, if you don’t go talk to her, I bet someone in here is going to snatch her up real quick,” Jimmy leaned back in his chair, shrugging. “It’s now or never kid.”

“No Jimmy!” Clyde insisted, glancing your way. The man seated next to you was messing with your hair a bit, and he couldn’t help how his ears flushed and his heart clenched.

“Clyde,” Jimmy insisted once more. “Cauliflower.” Clyde met eyes with his brother, who nodded in response. The bartender rolled his eyes again, exasperated. “Ya know sometimes? I really hate these cauliflower plans.” Clyde yanked his brother's empty beer bottle from in front of him, replaced it with another, and straightened his shirt. Jimmy hooted from behind him, whistling just loud enough for their immediate group to hear. Clyde shot him a dirty look, but grabbed a glass to wipe down nonetheless and made his way over to where you sat.

~~~

“So… why ya in Boone?” Clyde spoke up, lifting his eyebrow and gazing at the girl from under his mop of hair.

You choked on your drink as you tried to respond before realizing your mouth was still full. Smiling, you wiped off your chin. “You keep sneaking up on me, Clyde!” you laughed, and he flushed for the thousandth time that night. “Sorry. It’s just, we don’t have a lot of people passin’ through here.” He gestured around the room with his right hand. “I’ve known all these folks' names since I was five, but yours I learnt tonight. Why?”

You downed the remainder of your current cider, and Clyde automatically stuck out his hand to take the glass and switch it for a fresh one, complete with a refill. “I’m in town on a big cat chase. Eastern cougars. We’ve got some reports of possible sightings in this area. Oh, thank you,” you replied, accepting the steaming mug from Clyde.

“Well, round here we have been having some weird livestock deaths lately,” Clyde shrugged. “Maybe it’s got somethin’ to do with that?”

“Sounds like it. I’m gonna be in the area for a little bit seeing if I can get some documented sightings, some photos, and maybe even a tag on a cougar so we can keep tabs on them.” You shrugged, sipping on the cider.

“Well, if you’d like, I’d be more than happy to show you round some of the game trails near town?” Clyde offered, the glint in his eye shining bright as he smiled, almost bashful, back at you. Your heart skipped a beat as you stared into his eyes, and your soft smile widened, if anything in pity for him, given what you knew was coming out of your mouth next. “Thank you so much for the offer Clyde, but I think I’ll be just fine. Anyway,” you took another swig of your second drink. You could feel your heart racing, and you knew you had to remove yourself before you had full heart palpitations. “Looks like the bar here keeps your hands full. Thanks for the drinks!” You placed a few bills on the bar to cover the bill (and then some). Clyde looked like a deer in the headlights, trying to keep up with your nervous chatting.

“Oh no, no problem, I-I just thought, that ya know, if you wanted…” he stuttered. His eyes flicked down to the still warm, half drunk mug on the bar top. You could see his plush lower lip jutting out slightly as he chewed on his upper one.

“I appreciate the offer Clyde. Really I do! But I’ll be okay. Maybe I’ll see you around soon,” you said, and patted his hand. He looked up briefly and you made eye contact for a fraction of a second. It almost pained you to tear away, but you were on the precipice of being engulfed by them. A moment longer and you knew would be diving headfirst into a myriad of problems that would come with getting involved with someone you knew for certain you would have to leave in a few short weeks. So instead, you pushed yourself away from the bar with a small smile and a wave, headed towards the door, and left without even a second glance back.

Taglist: @mind-p0llution (comment or message me to be added!)

#clyde logan x reader #clyde logan x you #Only Fools #logan lucky #adam driver #clyde logan #my writing

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elsanna-shenanigans · 3 years

Text

June Contest Submission #12: Boom Boom Pow

Words: ca. 3,300 Setting: mAU Lemon: lime CW: sand, alcohol, beanbags, dash of lime, language

“Do you like the stars?”

“Anna it’s fucking noon, the sun is up, it’s bright as shit. Why are you asking about stars?”

“Yo, my dude, chill. The sun is a star… right?”

Elsa rolled her eyes and turned up the radio, blasting 80’s music, but only the good songs. “I don’t know why I agree to come with you on these things.”

At this Anna laughed and danced a bit offbeat to the song that was playing. She didn’t know the lyrics, but the bass line was nice and she could vibe with that. She let the whole song play out before answering.

“Because you loooove me” She sing-songed, earning another eye roll from the driver. “You love me and we’re going to the beach and it’s going to be a good time.”

“If I didn’t love you, would it still be a good time?” Elsa asked, smirking.

As a response, Anna reached over and changed the radio. A loud, bass-heavy rap song overtook the speakers. The signer immediately spitting out questionably appropriate lyrics for the radio. Elsa’s face reddened under her large glasses and she reached to change channels so quickly that she turned it off. Enveloping the small sedan in a brief silence till Anna’s laughter filled the space.

And it went on like this the entire car ride, bits and pieces of random songs rapidly changing. Anna would allow something Elsa liked to play out entirely but when it was her turn she either skipped around or Elsa changed the station for her. The older woman apparently hated both rap and country music. The first part Anna didn’t understand and the latter, she agreed with. She was desperately trying to find a gospel station, just to see her sister’s reaction, but she found nothing but commercials.

Finally, she heard what she was looking for and turned to see Elsa’s reaction just as the other girl reached over and turned the radio off again. Anna was going to protest when she realized they were in a drive-thru.

“What can I get started for you today?” a tired-sounding voice asked over the intercom.

Anna leaned over Elsa to get closer to the open window and thus the speaker box. Making sure to be just close enough to be annoying.

“We would like to get married please, with Elvis if you have him, if not we’ll take what you have.”

“Anna!” Elsa exclaimed, slapping her on the shoulder.

There was an audible sigh come over the loudspeaker, “Ma’am this is a Wendy’s.”

“Oh right, then I’ll take a cheeseburger and a medium Coke, no ice. Thank you!”

“Anything else?” the tired voice asked. “I’ll have the same thing.”

They continued driving towards the beach after the drive-thru. Cupholders full of sodas in flimsy paper cups, and Anna’s lap full of white paper bags of greasy food. She kept sneaking a fry when she thought Elsa wasn’t looking. But it was a small car and Elsa could see every bit of fried potato Anna took.

The closer they got to the beach, the darker the sky became. Tall looming clouds crept over the horizon. They couldn’t see the beach yet as it was the east coast, and most roads took you to the beach straight on instead of winding down cliff faces like the Pacific was famous for. But still, the clouds loomed. Elsa knew there was a storm somewhere off the coast, but it seemed far away last she checked, which wasn’t today. She refused to check the weather today for fear of bad news.

On the main highway, traffic was starting to get heavy, more tourists were headed for their long-awaited vacations and the road ahead was either congested to the point of slowing down. Or there was an accident and everyone had to slow to a crawl to creep a glance at the carnage.

Thankfully the girls weren’t tourists, unthankfully they lived close to this tiny town that became a major city in the summer months. Having to deal with millions of tourists every year meant that locals had a series of short-cuts. So when traffic started building, Elsa took the next exit rather suddenly, cutting across the solid white lines and nearly missing the crash barrier.

“Elsa! Shit! What the fuck!” Anna yelled and shot out her hands with nearly inhuman speed to catch the drinks before they spilled out of their too-small cupholders. “There’s a backup, I’m not sitting in that,” Elsa replied, taking the next turn so hard that the car nearly tilted on two wheels.

“But I saw flashing lights, it could have been a firetruck!”

“It could have been a police car…”

“But Elsa you don’t understand, the hot firemen! …and women.”

“Anna I’m not sitting in traffic for 30 minutes or even longer, just for you to ogle at people in uniform.”

Anna took another fry, “Not people in uniform, F-I-R-E-M-E-N and women. It is very different.”

Elsa let out a heavy sigh as they came to a stop at a red light. “If I buy you that stupid Australian calendar will you shut up?”

“Wow, harsh.” Anna dramatically threw one braid over her shoulder. “But, yes.”

Again, Elsa rolled her eyes and continued forward when the light changed. It was only a short while later that they left the main road and turned into a small, older housing development. The narrow street lead them all the way to the ocean, coming out on the far end of the main strip. Highrise condos and hotels dotted the skyline to their left, but right in front of them was the beach, concealed behind a short sand dune. Because life is a bitch like that sometimes.

Luckily for them, there was also free parking at this end if you didn’t mind a bit of a walk. Which, for the price of 17 bucks to park next to the beach, who wouldn’t mind the walk. 17 dollars could buy many cheeseburgers, Anna pointed out.

The beach wasn’t nearly as crowded down where they were, away from the boardwalk and the hotels. The sand also happened to be rockier, rough and pitted with long-forgotten footprints and broken shells. The beach groomers didn’t come this far. Which was fine by them, they would take a rough sandy beach with fewer people over a crowded hellscape any day.

There’s nothing more relaxing than simultaneously listening to eight different speakers all playing different music. While children screamed for no reason and the air was filled with a mix of sunscreen and cigarette smoke.

So yes they will miss out on the hot lifeguards and yes there will be fewer people to watch. But you can’t put a price on the quiet and the fresh air that this section of the beach had to offer.

After crossing the highway on foot, climbing the dune, and laying out their towels, only then did they pause to look out on the water. The ocean was angry, white caps dotted the surface as far as they could see. The horizon line was blurred with fog or rain and the dark clouds from before were more ominous than ever. Why the two women didn’t notice all these signs until now was some kind of act of God. Or stupidly. Probably the latter.

The beach itself was even more sparsely populated than normal. A smart person would have gone home after seeing all the warning signs. But this was Anna’s only day off for the next few weeks. And Elsa, well Elsa was too stubborn to admit her beach idea was a bad one.

They both laid down, on separate towels, choosing to ignore the warning signs and attempting to soak up as much sun as possible before it was swallowed by the coming storm. Elsa tried not to think about it too much. Neither was sure how long it had been before they were interpreted.

“What are you two gay ass losers doing?” Came a female voice.

“Ch’yeah it’s like gonna rain bruh.” Said a male’s.

Elsa opened one eye to see her cousin and her boyfriend, or so it fiancé now? Standing over them. The sky beyond them somehow looked even darker than before, which was very rude.

“Trying to enjoy the sunshine, obviously.” She mumbled in response.

“What sun?” their cousin asked, in a weird out of place, and badly performed accent.

“Wait but what is that voice?” Anna asked, sitting up and brushing the sand off her arms. How that girl could get sand everywhere, Elsa would never know.

“It’s like our new characters,” Eugene answered, earning not an eye roll from Rapunzel but a nod of approval.

“I’m New York and he’s Los Angeles. Both strong and independent cities that you could almost say are their own character. And those characters are us.” She added

“Why though?” Elsa was also now sitting up and confused, though nowhere near as sandy because she wasn’t a dirt gremlin-like her sister.

“Because we wanted to be unique characters, otherwise we’re just boring white people and where’s the fun in that?” Eugene or rather Los Angeles answered.

“Oh boring, like you watch Star Trek and try to fit it into everything even though it has no business being there?”

Eugene shot Anna finger guns, “exactly, this one gets it… bruh.”

A boom was heard in the distance and it sent a few people running towards their cars, towels billowing behind them. A long-distance away, over the water, there was a flash and with it, the wind picked up.

“Looks like our beach day is ruined, I’m sorry Anna.” Elsa stood and began to roll up her towel. Even with the limited sun, she was already red on her front, making a stark difference to the pale skin of her back.

“Nah we just getting started, come back to our place and play some ping pong. We just pulled the table out of storage.” Rapunzel aka New York offered. The two of them didn’t live far from the beach, having taken over Rapunzel’s parent’s beach house. It was very old and run down, but the pair was fixing it up in exchange for free rent.

‘Aye New York is right, and we can take my new whip… bruh.” Los Angeles gestured over his shoulder towards the dunes. They couldn’t see it yet because that dang dune was blocking things again. But everyone knew he was referring to his new golf cart.

Reluctantly the girls agreed and a few long minutes later they were rushing inside an old house to avoid the rain that had just started to fall. Their car was left abandoned in the free parking lot.

Inside was an odd mix of old and new. Brand new stainless steel appliances dotted a kitchen with dark wood cabinets and a yellow linoleum floor. A half-torn-down wall gave way to the living room with floor-to-ceiling wood paneling and floral print furniture.

“It ain’t much but it’s home.” Los Angeles said once everyone was inside. He walked beyond the torn-down wall and slapped his hand on the wood paneling. “New York over there hates this stuff, but it’s hella soundproof if you know what I mean.” With this, he wiggled his eyebrows and finally, earned an eye roll from New York.

“How did you know we were on the beach by the way?” Elsa asked as she took a step further into the kitchen to look at the collection of magnets on the fridge.

“Your sister posted about it on her tumblr of all places. Honestly, get an Instagram like the rest of us already.” New York said throwing her hands up dramatically. The drama ran in the family apparently.

The ping pong table was in the basement, a dimly light space with concrete walls and a tiled floor. Mix-matched chairs lined the walls and a mini-fridge sat in the corner next to a shelf full of liquor bottles.

The ping pong game quickly descended into beer pong with a twist. No one had to drink from the cups the ball landed in. Because that’s gross, don’t do that. Inside if someone managed to land the ball in a cup the other team had to take half a shot of vodka. Los Angeles had wanted to do full shots but Elsa and New York talked him out of it, if only for not dying reasons.

Even so after a few games with no true stand-out winner, just a bunch of dumb luck, they were all fairly buzzed. Flushed creeks and slurred speech. Outside the storm finally hit. Rain battered the small basement windows and thunder boomed overhead.

With each thunderclap, Elsa reached for Anna’s hand and wouldn’t let go till the other girl gave it a reassuring squeeze.

Finally, everyone seemed to have enough of the game and collapsed into bean bag bars that Anna and Elsa had both not noticed before. Elsa scooted her bean bag closer to Anna’s, the other two people didn’t seem to notice. New York was hanging all over Los Angeles. Her fingers tracing the curve of his jawline down, her eyes practically boring holes into his face. He acted like he didn’t see, but it was obvious he knew.

“You guys can stay here for the night if you want since the storm sounds so bad,” Eugene said, dropping his horrible accent.

“That’s very kind, but it’s just a little rain, we’ll be alright,” Anna replied, completely forgetting their car was many blocks away.

New York stopped messing with her man and turned to them. “Anna, it’s more than a little rain. It’s a hurricane, I mean it was a tropical storm and it was supposed to miss us. But you know how it be sometimes.” She said with amazing clarity for a drunkard.

Elsa’s hand shot to Anna’s and she let out an audible gasp. She had refused to check the weather before heading out the door today, figuring what she didn’t know, can’t hurt her. Which was stupid and out of character for someone who claims to be responsible.

Another boom followed by a bright flash of lightning illuminated the room for a brief second. Elsa looked terrified so Anna took it upon herself to change the subject.

“So we will be seeing you in two weeks right?”

Rapunzel playing New York smiled and clapped her hands together, “Yes! At the church!”

“For things better left unspoken,” Eugene playing Los Angeles groaned, covering his eyes with his forearm.

Another boom and the room was suddenly cast in darkness and accompanied by an eerie quiet. You never notice how much sound your electronics make till everything is off. Elsa grabbed Anna’s entire arm, holding it so tightly Anna was worried she would lose it.

“Ah fuck the power is out. We have some candles upstairs, I’ll be right back, Rapunzel can you see if the camping lantern is over on the shelf?”

“Um excuse me, it’s New York, but yes I will look.”

Two bodies moved away in the darkness, their paths illuminated by the small light on their phones. Next to Anna, Elsa’s breathing became rapid and she clung to Anna as if she was in danger of being blown away.

“Hey, it’s going to be alright,” Anna whispered, using her free hand to pet the top of Elsa’s head. The older girl shifted so in one fluid motion she was off her beanbag and on Anna’s before curling into the young girl’s side.

“I found it!” Rapunzel slash New York exclaimed. She turned it on and the room was partly lit up. She walked back to where the other two women were cuddled together and sat back down in her own beanbag.

“Wow, that’s like hella gay.” She said, pointing to the pair.

“Oh shut up, she just doesn’t like storms, you know that.” Anna quipped

Elsa let go of Anna’s arm long enough to extend a hand and flip off her cousin, earning her a laugh in response.

Eugene returned shortly after with the candles, a tray of food, and some cards. “Anyone up for a game of hurricane poker? It’s like regular poker only there’s a hurricane.”

He rejoined the group, placing the tray in the middle of everyone and paying no mind to the two women who now shared a beanbag.

Elsa lifted her head to look, the tray was adorned with a random assortment of food. Celery sticks, M&M’s, KitKat bars, Cheetos, Grapes, and some animal crackers. She made a face.

“What’s wrong uh bruh?” Eugene asked in a bad attempt to get back in character. Los Angeles would never quite be the character that New York was.

“I’ll only eat celery sticks if you pay me,” Elsa responded.

The next few hours consisted of Eugene completely wiping the floor with everyone. They played for the M&M’s, of which he now owned all of. With the power still out and the storm still raging on the decision was made for the sisters to spend the night over.

Their room was completely unrenovated, the same wood paneling from the living room made up the walls and the carpet was a thick green shag rug. Eugene was right about one thing though, the paneling sure did dampen the sound. Once the door was shut the two women could hardly hear anything, which was good because Rapunzel had started blasting Mandy Moore music for some reason.

There was only one bed, pushed into the corner, but it didn’t matter anyway. There could have been 80 beds and they still would have shared just one.

Anna laid down on her back and traced the grains in the wooden wall. “Really makes you want to carve something in this stuff you know? Something that would be around for hundreds of years.”

“Please don’t vandalize our cousin’s house,” Elsa said before sitting on the edge of the bed. She turned the lantern off so the only source of the light in the room was the candle on the nightstand.

“You alright?” Anna asked, propping herself up on one elbow.

“Yeah, I’m just worried about the storm, I can’t stop thinking about it.”

Anna reached out and gently grabbed Elsa’s arm, guiding her back to lay in the bed next to her. “Do you want to sleep or keep your mind off things?”

Elsa paused for a brief moment before removing her arm from Anna’s grip. “I don’t know…”

“It’s your choice, either way, I’m here for you.” Anna smiled at her, a flash of lightning lit up the room but no thunder.

It startled Elsa but she remained where she was, staring at Anna. Thinking, always thinking.

“It’s just a storm and this old house seems to be built like a tank anyway.” She made a fist and pounded the wall to prove her point.

Elsa started twirling the end of one of Anna’s braids but her eyes remained locked on Anna’s. The delayed thunderclap came and Elsa inhaled sharply. Anna leaned over and kissed the top of her forehead.

“You sure this is okay?” Elsa asked and Anna nodded, running the back of her hand down the other girl’s cheek. “Let’s get our mind off of things then.”

Elsa crawled till she was straddling Anna who gazed up at her with eyes that shown like stars in the candlelight.

“What’s your favorite constellation?”

“Hmm, probably Orion, because you can find his belt so easy,” Anna answered, “Yours?” “Your eyes”

“Ew, that’s so fucking cheesy.”

Elsa leaned down, her mouth slightly agape. Anna’s eyes fluttered shut as her hands found their way to the other woman’s shoulders.

The storm, the damage, their car, all these things could wait until tomorrow. Tonight they were out of their control so for tonight they didn’t matter.

Elsa blew out the candle, and they both plunged into the sinful escape of the darkness.

#elsanna #submission #June 2021 contest #prompt: storm #lime #cw: alcohol use

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clumsyclifford · 3 years

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“pull over, let me drive for a while” w malum if it strikes u :))

omg malum!!! i have missed them!!!! also your love your friends die laughing fic inspired me to write young boys malum so here they are

read on ao3

The concert is worth it, Michael keeps saying. Worth a three-hour drive each way. Calum likes All Time Low, but three hours is a long way to drive.

“It’s not even that long,” Michael insists. “It’ll be over before you know it. We’ll just listen to music the whole way and you won’t even notice.”

“But you’ll notice,” Calum says. “You’ll be driving.”

“I love driving,” Michael says dismissively.

“Really? Driving three hours after being at a concert for probably three hours, after having driven for another three hours?”

“Calum, this is the only opportunity we’ll have to see them,” Michael says. “They’re only doing one date in Oz. So if you don’t want to see them, then fine, but I do. If you don’t want to come then I’ll just ask Luke.”

“No,” Calum says quickly. “I want to come. I’m just making sure you’ve thought this through.”

“I’ve already talked about with my mum and she said it’s fine as long as we come straight back. Please, Cal?” Michael pouts a little, as if he thinks he needs to keep persuading Calum. If Calum hadn’t been on board straight out the gate, he’d have been convinced from “All Time Low concert” onward. “I don’t want to take Luke.”

“You’re going to have to spend time alone with him eventually,” Calum informs him. He smiles. “But if you give my ticket to Luke I will kill you. Yeah, fine. We can go.”

“Yes!” Michael punches the air in triumph. “Fuck yeah! Mike and Calum road trip! This is gonna be so much fun. And! All Time Low concert!”

Calum grins, infected by Michael’s enthusiasm as always. His attitude always spreads like wildfire, which can be a good thing or a very bad thing depending on Michael’s mood. A bad day means everyone in the room is automatically on edge, but a good day just means smiles all around.

At least, that’s Calum’s experience. But Calum has always been a little more attuned to Michael than anyone else, so maybe he’s over-generalising.

“Road trip!” he enthuses, matching Michael’s grin. “I call being in charge of the music!”

“You twat, we’re going to listen to All Time Low the whole way.”

“I know, but I want to choose what All Time Low.”

Michael rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. Maybe Calum is slightly taking advantage of his giddy state. “Yes, fine, you can be in charge.”

“Fuck yeah!”

“But!” Michael suddenly sobers up and gives Calum a very serious look. “If you play ‘Come One, Come All,’ so help me I will stop the car and make you walk.”

“You have no taste, Mike, that’s one of their best songs!”

“I’m not hearing it!”

“You hate fun! You hate happiness and fun!”

“Maybe I do!”

Calum sticks his tongue out. Michael sticks his tongue out in return. Calum shoves his shoulder, so Michael slaps Calum’s other shoulder, and before long they’ve devolved into a slap-fight, mugs of tea growing cold on the coffee table.

Michael is right. The concert is worth the drive.

It’s more than worth it. Calum’s seen his fair share of concerts, but nothing has ever topped the All Time Low spectacle, in his opinion. Looking at Michael’s face as Alex leads them into ‘Dear Maria,’ he suspects Michael feels the same.

They’re pumped on adrenaline as they spill out of the venue with the dispersing crowd, various snippets of songs arising from groups of twos and threes as everyone goes off in different directions. There will be a lot of traffic heading out of the venue, but Calum feels too alive to care. His limbs are full of electricity and he can’t stop smiling, and neither can Michael. One arm slung over Michael’s shoulders, they march to Michael’s (mum’s) car.

Calum pulls the passenger door shut and sinks into his seat. The sounds from the other concert-goers become a muted hum, and as Michael turns the car on, Calum says, a little breathlessly, “That was awesome. I know I already said that, but. Fuck.”

“Yeah.” Michael also sounds a little breathless. This adrenaline will wear off soon, probably, so they should head out. Stop for a coffee somewhere, maybe. The last thing Calum wants is for Michael to fall asleep at the wheel.

“You sure you’re good to drive? I don’t mind.”

“I’m good,” Michael promises. He might very well be lying — Michael is known to take on more than he can handle and lie about how well he’s handling it — but Calum scans his face and determines that, at least for now, he’s telling the truth. The ghost of a smile is still hiding in the corners of Michael’s mouth, one Calum’s face is probably mirroring.

“Okay,” he says. “We can stop to get some coffee if you want.”

“I’m okay for now,” Michael says. “Don’t worry.”

So Calum doesn’t worry. He leans back as Michael shifts into first and slowly, painstakingly, pulls out of the car park and into the streets.

The first hour of the drive goes without a hitch. Calum takes charge of the music, mostly because Michael can’t stop him, and puts on a playlist of pop punk classics. If Michael asks, he’ll call it a compromise (they have, after all, just spent a collective roughly five hours listening to All Time Low in various formats — enough is enough), but when ‘My Friends Over You’ comes on, Michael just smiles. Broadly.

Both their voices are hoarse and raspy from six hours of singing along, but that doesn’t stop them both bellowing, “I’m drunk off your kiss for another night in a row!” in unison.

By the time they hit hour two, Michael has reached to turn the music down. It’s still playing, just softly, which Calum thinks is a crime against pop punk. Listening to ‘The Rock Show’ quietly is probably worse than not listening to it at all. Mark Hoppus would not be pleased if he knew.

“You doing okay?” he asks as they hit the halfway mark.

Michael glances over at him for a second. They’ve been on the highway for a while now, but Michael’s hand is still wrapped around the gear shift like they’re going to change from fifth anytime soon. Calum’s known Michael long enough to know this is a sign he’s tired. A fail-safe, so he doesn’t have to move as much if he does have to shift gears. Normally Calum doesn’t mind, but they have another hour and a half to drive. He’d prefer if Michael were more alert.

“Yeah,” Michael says, with a very poorly-timed yawn. Calum raises an eyebrow. “I’m fine,” Michael repeats when he recovers.

“There’s still another hour and a half,” Calum says. “And that’s assuming we don’t hit more traffic.”

“I don’t mind,” Michael says. He jiggles the gear shift back and forth.

“Neither do I,” Calum says. “Pull over. Let me drive for a while. You drove the whole way here, and I’m not that tired.”

“Seriously, Calum, I’m doing fine.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have to drive. And I know you’re tired, I can tell. Your hand is still on the gear shift.”

Michael immediately pulls his hand away, settling it on the steering wheel. “It’s not that much longer.”

“You’re tired, I’m not,” Calum says. “Let me drive. I promise not to crash your mum’s car. You can pick the music.”

Michael hesitates, then looks over at Calum. If he’s looking for insincerity, he must not find any, because he sighs. “Okay. Fine. Let me just find a good place to stop.”

Calum nods and leans back, satisfied.

As promised, Michael pulls over as soon as they have a long stretch of empty road. It’s late, too late for busy highways; Calum doesn’t drive at this hour very often because Michael is usually territorial to a fault when it comes to driving. The fact that he’s yielding now either means he’s growing as a person or he’s more tired than he’s letting on.

Definitely the latter.

As they cross paths walking around the front of the car, Calum brushes Michael’s shoulder. He slides into the driver seat, taking a moment to check the mirrors and adjust the seat. They’re the same height, but Michael insists on moving the seat up as close as he can. Calum needs room to stretch, thanks.

When everything is sorted, he shifts into first and kicks the car to life.

“Thanks for letting me drive,” he says as he merges back onto the road.

Michael snorts a laugh. “That’s a weird thing to thank me for. But you’re welcome, I guess?”

“I thought if I framed it as you doing me a favour then you would feel better about the decision.”

Again, Michael laughs. There’s a tired undercurrent to it. “You mean as opposed to you doing me a favour by driving so I wouldn’t get us into a crash?”

“Yeah, basically.”

“I can drive while tired, you know.”

“Yes, you often do,” Calum says, rolling his eyes and smiling. “Doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Besides, driving tired for ten minutes in a neighbourhood you know is way different from an hour and a half down an unfamiliar highway.”

“Alright, mum,” Michael mumbles, but when Calum glances over he’s smiling, too.

“You want to put some music on?”

It had stopped when they’d turned off the car, so Michael unlocks Calum’s phone and scrolls through his playlists. A moment later, ‘Feeling This’ comes on.

“Get ready for action,” Michael says in a comically deep voice. Calum giggles, and so does Michael. They both have a contractual obligation to sing the song, though by now Calum’s voice is more scratch than sound, but Calum is not one to back down.

The car fills with mingling voices, indistinguishable from one another, and Calum thinks that if Mark Hoppus could see them now, he might actually smile.

(Even when Calum glances over during ‘Dammit’ and sees Michael fast asleep, head lolling against the headrest. But Mark Hoppus isn’t here, so Calum just smiles in his place and reaches to turn the volume down.)

#michael clifford #calum hood #malum #malum fic #5sos #5sos fic #fic #my fic #nowt to say just enjoy #writing malum again was fun #i missed these guys #young malum especially #there is something so spicy and magical about them #peyton i want you to know i'm listening to so close to magic as im posting this #and THAT is soulmate shit #escapesos #ask #answered

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haxorus-imp · 3 years

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Planet of the Megafaunas - Part 3 - Among Us & Reader fic

-Summary-

You work as a game warden and try to make sense of what you witnessed yesterday...however, you're about to get more than you bargained for. A/N: “ I also want to say that the rangers are equally gender neutral and you can make them look like anyone you want.”

-Chapter 3: The Warden-

You let out a sluggish yawn as you rub your eye and walk into your kitchen.The early dawn sunlight shines through your kitchen window as you finish your early morning warm drink to start your day off right. So far, everything seemed to be going okay today..The only thing that was bugging you were some nagging unresolved thoughts.

Yet, you couldn’t help it.You really couldn’t shake off what you witnessed yesterday morning.

At first, everything was as normal as it could be. It was just like any other day.You got up, began your routine for work, and due to you waking up a bit earlier than usual, you decided to relax in the rocking chair on your front porch until it got a bit closer to your shift..

Then, it happened.

A large flaming object descended from the sky, followed by a trail of inky black smoke and what appeared to be burning pieces of shrapnel. You nearly spit out your drink while you watched the spectacle on your lodge’s front porch.

You kept your eyes on it and it eventually fell out of sight somewhere over the darkened horizon, a distant ‘boom’ resonating from an unknown area some miles away.You remembered the incident vividly, as it went down somewhere over the range in the distance and you hurried to get dressed and go searching for the mysterious object.At the time, many thoughts were going through your mind. A fallen satellite, a meteor, even an alien spacecraft crossed your mind. Your curiosity and concern pushed you to search for it.You spent the most of yesterday searching for the crash site.Despite you finding no evidence of the object at all yesterday, you still had a feeling that you weren’t going crazy or that you weren’t hallucinating while half asleep.

Even while being stationed up in the mountains, you were not too far from civilization enough to go crazy within a few months...let alone go crazy at all.

Yet, what you had witnessed was nothing short of baffling.

Still, being a Game Warden, you couldn’t really dwell on such a thing for too long. You had rangers, land, animals, campers, and townsfolk to oversee.

You already wasted a day by searching for the object and finding no results nor conclusions on what it was. Unfortunately, the search for it would have to be postponed until you got a day to yourself again.

Until then, it would be an unsolved mystery.

‘I’m certain I saw SOMETHING fall out of the sky yesterday...but...maybe I am just imagining things. I haven’t really found any evidence for what I witnessed anyway. But it just seemed so...real.’

You mentally mumble as you slip on your belt and holster your gun to get ready for the day. With the finishing touches being you slipping on your badge, your logo embroidered hat, and snatching up your packed lunch for the day.

You walk out of your lodge’s kitchen and into the foyer. Finally finishing with grabbing your work files on the small desk by the entrance before heading out the front door.

You exit your home and stand on the porch for a moment. The soft morning springtime winds blow the small windchimes that hang from your patio around, providing a soft jingling sound to fill the atmosphere.

You smile and turn around and with a quick turn of a key, your lodge is safely locked up. You then face away and approach your government-provided vehicle with slight disinterest. You decide to take a moment as you open your car door to take a glance at the sky. You could already see the next sunrise coming up over the snow-capped mountains. Painting the snow on the peaks a bright orange while the surrounding forest were turned into bright golden pillars.

The sunbeams were cutting through the early morning mists and the cool breeze was filling your lungs with fresh crisp mountain air.

You let out a sigh of bliss as you get into the car.

With a quick few adjustments and a turn of the keys, the car starts up and you begin to pull out and away from your home. Going towards the little town at the base of the valley for some supplies and to visit the office for your daily share of paperwork.

The drive there was primarily uneventful.

The car radio was playing music on low volume, providing some background noise. Meanwhile, the radio that was provided by the administration that you work for remained silent.

Nothing really happens in the morning...especially since lockdowns were still in effect. It made your job easier and much less hectic.

While on the way, you quietly observe the scenery as you pass by. Despite seeing it multiple times a day, you doubt you would ever get tired of looking at it.There were large meadows that spread throughout the valley. With small lakes spotted all throughout. Glittering like melted gold as the sun scattered it’s light across the surface of the distant lakes.

The horizon was populated by a healthy amount of mountains and large forests. Showing the sheer distance and the beauty of this place that you happened to have the fortune to call your home.

Eventually, the winding roads cut right through a larger mountain ridge, the road having cleaved the gritty steep slopes into two. Driving through them blocked out most of the wonderful scenery, but once they passed and a slightly distant drive later, the valley town slowly came into view.

The distant radio tower shone like a beacon over the trees and the buildings in the distance, already beginning to be bathed in the growing sunlight.

You look at the visual of the small settlement and a sense of warmth fills you up from the inside.

It didn’t look like much, but this place was all that you needed in the world. No large obnoxious corporations, noisy highways, blinding neon signs, or any disruptive construction. Just a small local town with people living peacefully with nature.You just wished everywhere was like this little town.With your growing approach towards the town, you passed over a concrete bridge that had a large waterfall putting on quite the show this morning. With a large rainbow showing up in the mists that the waterfall provided. Glowing vividly as the early morning sunlight sparkled and danced along with it in the water droplets.

You smile at the sight as you drive past, continuing on your way.

Shortly after that, you finally arrived at the outskirts of the town.

You take a brief glance at a sign you’ve seen many times before while passing through on your visits to the local settlement. It’s decorated edges and wooden charm just heightened the colorful yellow and red flowers growing at the base and gave the words on the sign their true meaning.

‘Welcome to Emberwood: A cozy little town with a heartwarming populace.’

Ah. It was always such a sight to see when you pulled into town.

You drive down the streets you practically know by muscle memory and pull into the headquarters lodge parking lot.

Once parked, you gather up your equipment, work files, packed lunch, and necessary identification before getting out of the vehicle and closing the car door.

With a brief stretch and yawn, you pull out a pen from your vest pocket and begin to finish signing some papers and reading what material you have to finish before entering the office.While working, your remaining senses catch the atmosphere of the nearby surrounding environment.

There was the smell of fresh breakfast being prepared from the nearby local diner. Along with the scent of cozy campfires filling the morning air from the nearby campgrounds. The early risers were jogging down the sidewalks for their daily exercise. Some even had the decency to wave at you while they passed by. Which you reciprocated.

The morning birds sang their songs while the wind rustled the nearby tree leaves and cooled your skin from the rising sun’s rays.You could even hear distant children already playing near the community playground and the sound of a distant dog barking. Finalizing the sense of a community surrounding you.

You wouldn’t openly admit it. But sometimes, being up in the mountains all by yourself was kinda...lonely.You take a brief glance around as you finish sorting your paperwork before approaching the office door and going inside.

With a happy greeting to the receptionist at the front desk, you hand in your paperwork, show your ID, and go to your assigned office to pick up some more papers to work on.

However, the moment you go inside and see the large stack of papers on your desk, you let out an agitated huff before walking inside and sitting down at your desk.

Knowing fully well that this was caused because of your extended absence from yesterday. Already beginning to look them over, you could tell that a lot of these papers were going to need to be carefully looked over and filed appropriately.

‘So much for an easy morning...’

You internally grumble.

The day continued on as you filed and worked tirelessly to get the stack of papers dealt with and turned in. A couple of fines, ignorant trespassers, and about one unlicensed fishermen were documented and filed in the cabinet of your desk appropriately. Most of them were numerous litter reports and complaints from tourists and it was enough to whittle down your patience. To save you from your torment, the lunch bell on your phone finally went off and granted your reprieve. You let out a sigh of relief as you sit back in your office chair. You stretch and groan as it was lunch time and the stack of paper STILL wasn’t conquered. You look at the remaining files and decide to take a break and deal with them after your lunch break. You stand up, pick up your packed lunch that was sitting next to your desk and you decide to head outside to the picnic area to eat in peace. “I’m off for lunch! I’ll see you in an hour, Debra!” You call over to the receptionist, who nods in understanding as you head out the exit. With your lunch in hand, you walk out the entrance and away from the parking lot and to the picnic benches that were stationed in the grass next to the building. With a seat picked out, you sit down and begin to munch on your packed lunch. While you were eating, you pulled out your smartphone and began to idly click through headlines and various other media for any sort of news or entertainment to pass some time. Most of the news was typical political stuff, celebrity drama, and the typical conspiracy theory that is only believed by absolute nutjobs or gullible idiots. However, one headline did happen to catch your eye and stood out amongst the rest of the nonsensical boring titles. ‘Satellite mysteriously thrown off course and knocked offline. Space debris supposedly at fault.’ Huh. A satellite was knocked off course yesterday. Maybe that was the thing you saw falling from the sky? A falling satellite? It was kinda disappointing, really. It killed your hopes of anything interesting happening, plus that also meant that there was some litter left out in the forest somewhere. You huff as you just turn on your music app and decide to drown out your thoughts with some of your favorite music and a mouth filled with food. It was about a few minutes later that you then suddenly heard the sound of a car pulling up to the lodge. You turn your head towards the source and see a cruiser similar to yours pull up. Instantly, you recognized the numbers on the side as one of your own personal fleet. It brightened your day to see a car that was in your ranger's possession pull up to the hub. Despite being a leader of 8 different rangers at various points in this national park, you barely get to see them that often. Usually, you all meet up at least once every two weeks to exchange information and update each other on events that have been going on around the park. Over time, you’ve grown to know them. Maybe even bonded with a few of them. As if they’ve become almost like a family to you. Which you certainly didn’t mind. Judging by the cruiser's numbers, you figured that your youngest ranger was going to be the one to exit the car. Like clockwork, the familiar face of your most recent recruit steps out of the car, along with his unexpected taller partner. Both dressed up in their ranger uniforms and holding their own respective files while they got out. Both seemingly getting ready for their own respective lunch breaks. While you weren’t expecting your tallest ranger to be with the youngest member, it wasn’t uncommon for rangers to carpool or share rides around the park. It both saves gas and brings comfort in knowing that you have a partner watching your back. They both were quick to notice you and wave at you, which you returned wholeheartedly. They both approach as you turn down your music, then the youngest ranger engages you in conversation. “Ey, chief! How are you today?” The youngest ranger greets happily. “I’m good, Alex. I’ve just been swamped with work...as per usual. How are you and Dakota doing this afternoon?” You inquire, smiling at your two fellow rangers. “We’ve been good. The lakes have been quite deserted, so our neck of the woods have been rather peaceful over the last few days.” Dakota speaks up, his shorter partner nodding in confirmation. “Yep! Just a few adventurous canoeing campers and some licensed fishermen. Nothing too notable or worthy of reporting to you and headquarters.” Alex chirps. You smile at them both. “That’s wonderful. What about Kegan and Greer?” You continue. “Haven’t really talked to them much. But I bet that shorty, Kegan, is still watching the forest. Especially with the wildfires afoot more than ever. Meanwhile, I think Greer is still keeping their eyes on the plains. But they’re not very talkative. So it’s kinda hard to tell...” Alex replies. “And Paton and Sage?” You press. “Paton is carefully watching the fish with a crane’s discipline down by the rivers. They were the one that caught that fisherman trying to scoop up the shads and crayfish without a license recently.” Dakota answers. “And Sage is still at the repair shop fixing up some of our broken down cruisers. They’re working hard to get them fixed, though!” Alex pitches in. You nod. “What about the siblings, Shay and Clay?” You question. “Shay has been carefully watching the bird populace with a watchful eye, as usual. No signs of poaching and the breeding program seems to be going really well this year! Shay says we’ve been having our highest clutch of eggs ever laid since the last 3 years!” Alex happily announces. “And Clay has been taking care of the security and communication firms at the radio tower. Everything seems to be going well on their end too.” Dakota finishes. You let out a sigh of relief. Thankful that not a single problem has been reported as of yet. A rather favorable outcome compared to what you have to deal with on a spring break weekend. “Man, this lockdown has been a blessing. I haven’t had one death report or animal attack in the last year and a half, I shouldn’t get used to it though. I’m actually starting to have faith in humanity again.” You dramatically say, much to the amusement of your two rangers. “Hehehe! Yeah! Me and Dakota might as well be on vacation.” Alex jokes.Even Dakota lets out a brief chuckle before nodding along. Then, Alex takes a look at their watch before gasping. “Oh! Well me and Dakota were just coming by to drop off our papers and say a quick hello before we headed out to lunch. So we better hurry along before we have a late lunch! Sorry for such a short visit Warden!” Alex explains as the two of them turn away and begin to wave at you. You were about to wave them off before a sudden question came to your mind. “Hold up you two!” You suddenly say, causing the both of them to stop in their tracks as they turn to face you in slight surprise. “Uh...is something the matter, chief?” Dakota questions carefully. “I just wanted to ask you two something before you go to lunch.” You explain. “Did you two happen to notice anything... unusual yesterday morning?” You continue. The two rangers both looked at each other and shared a confused look before focusing back on you. Both of them shaking their heads in response. “Not really.” “Nope.” They both reply in near unison. You allow a downtrodden expression to cross your face. “Oh. Well, that’s alright. Just be sure to ask the other rangers if they saw anything weird yesterday morning if you happen to see them today, okay?” You say dismissively. Alex and Dakota share another glance. “Is...something bothering you chief?” The tall ranger cautiously inquires. “Yeah. You’re looking really worried about something. Do you need to talk about it?” Alex offers. “Well…” You sigh before continuing on. “Yesterday morning, right at dawn, I swore I saw something fall from the sky. It was on fire and I remember watching it fall until it disappeared out of sight. I spent all day looking for it to find out what it was...but I didn’t find anything. I don’t even know if what I saw was real or not. Nobody else seems to have seen or witnessed it either.” You confess. The two rangers look at you in silent astonishment. “Whoa, Whoa, Whoa...so was it like...a meteor or something??” Alex questions. You could only shrug from your place at the picnic table. “I don’t know. It was too far away for me to see, but I do remember hearing a distant boom shortly after it fell out of sight. I have a hunch that it landed somewhere. But, I also saw in the media that a satellite was impacted and compromised since yesterday. I just don’t know if it was a satellite, a meteor, or whatever. I just know that something landed out there… somewhere. ” You surmise. “Ooooh, maybe it’s a meteor that is holding an alien parasite or something and it’s gonna pick off our lovely townsfolk one by one…” Dakota says darkly, which earns them a punch in the shoulder from Alex. “Don’t say stuff like that, Dakota!” Alex chides as Dakota could only laugh in response. You could only roll your eyes at their antics. “Alright...just don’t worry about it for now. We’ll talk more about it later. Sorry for holding you two up. Go take your lunch breaks!” You softly order. Then, the two of them realize that they were probably now REALLY late for their lunch breaks and both turn and begin to walk away. With Alex waving back at you. “It was nice talking to you, Warden! We’ll be sure to ask the others if they have seen anything odd since yesterday morning! Have a good day!” Alex calls back to you, while both of them disappear into the lodge. You turn back towards your unfinished lunch and idle music playlist that was now playing a random song. Once more, you were alone with your thoughts. You got back to eating your meal while your mind focused on the strange event you witnessed once again. Those unresolved thoughts from this morning resurfacing.It was kinda strange how nobody else saw what you witnessed, but hopefully you didn’t come off as crazy to your rangers. But...what if what Dakota said had some truth to it? What if it was a parasitic-alien-carrying-meteor and life in this little town will never be the same ever again? What if some people really do die suddenly and without reason? What if something bad really does happen? How would you even be able to cope with a situation like that?? You decided to briefly close your eyes for a moment to clear your head a bit. Instead, you focused on your breathing. You focused on the warmth of the sunlight on your skin...the feel of the wind sweeping through your hair...the scent of smoke drifting through the air...the comfort of the picnic table...the flavor of the food in your mouth...everything else but what was going on in your head. A moment of blissful silence passes. Then, you shake your head from side to side slowly. No. That was silly. Not impossible ...but silly . What are the chances of that anyway? Dakota was just messing with you. For all that you know, it could’ve been just a hallucination. It probably wasn’t even real to begin with anyway. Instead, you open your eyes and hurry to finish your food and you check your phone. Just in time, your lunch break was going to be over in the next few minutes. And a stack of papers were still waiting for you to file them on their desk. You let out a disgruntled groan as you put your phone back into your vest pocket and begin to get up from the picnic table. With the trash cleaned up and the food eaten, you begin to head back inside the lodge. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take you too long to finish filing what you needed to do. Without any further delays, you walk back into the lodge to settle your remaining paperwork. And with every filing and every piece of paper read carefully through, the hours of the day quickly ticked on by.--You let out an exhausted sigh as you finally conquered the stack of paperwork. The piled up behemoth was finally filed away and that meant that you were ready to go back to your private lodge up in the mountains. You stand up from your desk and with a final stretch, you begin to gather up your things and head out the door to your assigned office. You wave at the equally tired Debra as you walk by, she looked as if she barely had the focus left to wave back, but it didn’t bother you much. The sun was beginning to sink over the horizon as you walked out of the lodge. The cool night breeze welcomes you as you approach your car and begin to get inside for the drive back home. With a similar routine to what you did that morning, you turn the car on and begin to head out towards the mountains. Watching as the pedestrians you saw awaken earlier that day slowly begin to make their way back home. The shops, local restaurants, and even the local clinic were shutting down for the night as your car passed by the welcoming sign. Your trip was the same as before or similar to any other day. You would get up, file paperwork some days, patrol on others, or sit at your lodge. Paperwork days were obviously the hardest. Thankfully, tomorrow you will be able to lounge at your lodge in peace or go for some small partrols. Maybe you would even go searching for that mysterious object. The drive back was similar to the drive over. Music softly plays on the nighttime radio as you drive back up the winding roads. However, once you were approaching the ridge that was divided into two segments, the setting sun illuminated something strange on the cliffside that managed to catch your eye.You lay off the gas and slow down to get a good look at the side of the mountain as you creep up on the divide. You worriedly eye the road ahead as you take notice of lots of loose gravel and distirbed rocks that remained askew on the cliff. There was even a noticeable trail in the gravel that went down towards the road further ahead. You stay focused and remain cautious as you continue on. At first, you figured that a rockslide occurred while you were down in the city. It was certainly not a rarity, but it was very uncommon for this road to be impacted by a rockslide…thankfully, this road wasn’t really traveled down that much. Finally, you gasp and halt the car while throwing up your caution lights as a fairly large log comes into view.It was laying on the road near where the shoulder of the road and hillside meet. Some stones, small boulders, as well as some other various debris lay around the impact sight.You quickly reach over and fish your flashlight out of your glove box and you set your headlights to high beams for better visibility. Then, you exit your car to investigate. You walk around the front of your vehicle and turn on your flashlight, shining it down on the pile of debris. At first, it looked like nothing more was amiss other than some large logs. No large boulders that would be proven a problem to the safety of the road, blocking the way, or anything else amiss. With a quick scan of your flashlight, you visually scan the mountainside and scope out where the log came loose. You hum to yourself as you look back at the pile on the road. Then something ominous grabs your attention suddenly… You didn’t notice it at first...but something was dripping out of the pile and forming a small and shallow puddle near the center of the heap...just right in between the gaps where your flashlight could shine through. Something… Red. You blink and realization quickly dawns on you as you approach the pile for a closer look...then you finally see it. A small human-like hand was buried under the log.You couldn’t hold back a surprised gasp. Someone was BURIED UNDER THERE!You react quickly, your rescue training rapidly coming into play. Setting your flashlight off to the side, you hurry over and begin to throw the smaller obstacles out of the way. Your fear grew more and more as the objects were continuously removed, the more of a small body you could see. Your anxiety increased drastically when you realized that this was most-likely a child, as well as if the possibility of the victim was still alive or not. Finally, with the branches and smaller rocks out of the way, you found a scene that made your blood grow cold. The small human child was pinned underneath the large log that fell from way up the mountain’s slope. Blood was pooling around their legs as the log could be seen pinning one of their legs to the sharp rocks that lined the bottom of the slope. With adrenaline beginning to flood through you, you could swear that you saw the head move slightly, but it quickly went limp again. You wasted no more time and rushed to grab the log. Using your strong legs, you manage to lift the log up and off the unfortunate victim and throw it off to the side with an impressive show of strength. Now that the object was removed, you could see the full extent of the damage to the victim’s leg. It was enough to make you visibly cringe. The wound that was present then began to gush blood as you hurry over and worm your way under their unconscious form. Carrying the victim fireman-style, you rush over to the passenger side of your car and open the door with your fingers. You set the victim in the passenger seat and then you open the glove box and fish out the emergency first-aid kit that you kept in there for moments like these. Popping it open, you snatch up the gauze, diaper pin, and scissors.With a quick flurry of moments, you wrap the gauze around the injured leg and begin to wrap it tight enough to slow the blood flowing from the wound.Finishing the wrappings with a hefty knot, you pin the wrappings in place with the diaper pin. The finishing touch was buckling the victim’s passenger seatbelt. After that, you rush around to get your stuff and flashlight from the shoulder of the road before rushing to get back into the driver seat. Your mind was racing as you tried to figure out what to do with the unconscious person next to you. What should you do in this situation?! This was completely unexpected! The drive back to town was quite a ways away and the clinic in town was closed for the day. I mean, you could radio your medical emergency crew, but would they even get here in time?! They were losing so much blood! The kid needed medical attention now!!With your options not good enough for the situation, you put your car in gear and punch the gas. Your tires let out a loud squeal as your vehicle rockets down to the road. With a flip of a switch, your emergency sirens come on and you race back to your lodge at near reckless speed. Not wanting to waste any more time from getting this ‘kid’ medical attention. Your unconscious charge sitting limply in the driver seat as you do so. Silently urging you to get back to your place as quickly as you could.--With your speeding vehicle and the blaring sirens, you arrived at your lodge in record time. The little fairy lights hanging from your porch and the garden in the front yard came into view as the lights of your front porch illuminated the way to your dwelling. Like a distant beacon of hope, you floor it and the revving of your engine could probably be heard from miles away. A quick few turns of your steering wheel and you enter the driveway that leads to your home. You finally lay off the gas and a sudden stomp on the brakes brought the vehicle to a stop in front of your lodge’s garage. You toss your seatbelt off and hurried to exit the car. Leaving your files and equipment inside. With a quickened pace, you race to the other side of the car and open the door. Unbuckling the small human, you carefully pick them up and take a rapid glance at their wound. Already seeing the bandages turning red, you grunt as you haul them up into your arms. A rough kick to the car door shut it and you rushed onto your front porch. With a bit of fumbling with your keys, you finally get the door unlocked and hurry into your home. Another kick to the door closed it as you hurried over to the den’s couch. You lay the victim on the furniture and speed off towards the bathroom. Ripping open your medicine cabinet, you grab the bottle of antiseptic, bandages, thick gauze, scissors, and a tweezer. As well as stuffing some clean towels under your arm. You quickly come back to the victim and set the stuff on the ground. You then adjust the position of the poor soul and you then kneel before them. You don’t even pay attention to what your injured charge was wearing, you just quickly take off the boot from their injured leg and wince at the ‘discoloured’ skin that was revealed. It nearly made you want to hurl, but you endured. Using the scissors, you cut off the ‘pants leg’ of the victim and finally reveal the wound. You grit your teeth tightly as the injury was covered in large splinters and dried blood. As well as fresh blood that continued to seep from the wound. You grab the tweezers and get to work. You pulled out thorn-like splinters from the main part of the injury. Even pulling some out that even the victim visibly whimpered to. You felt horrible that this little person had to go through so much torment for so long! This was probably going to be so painful when they woke up! With a quick and careful pace, you scraped, pulled, and removed as many splinters and debris as you could. Wiping down the afflicted with the antiseptic fluid to kill off any bacteria or growing infection. You even checked the depth of the wound, which didn’t go down to the bone. But the accident did injure some muscles and break some vessels. Thankfully, it missed the arteries. The wound was still seeping blood, however. But you were about to help alleviate that with a useful survival skill that was taught to you during your training. Instead of letting it continue to bleed, you got up and ran to the kitchen for some unique supplies. Coming back in with a soft-tipped butter knife and a lighter. For a moment, you heat up the knife with the flame from the lighter before kneeling back down to be level with the sore again. With the grace of a trained surgeon, you use the hot tip of the knife to press down on the bleeding vessels in the leg. The poor kid lets out an audible subconscious whine as you cauterize the wound. Thankfully they weren’t awake for this procedure. You didn’t really have any painkillers or morphine on hand. Which probably would’ve been a lot worse. With a bit of careful and tender care, the vessels that were leaking the precious blood were closed up and the blood loss was greatly reduced. You let out a relieved sigh as the ‘child’ was finally stabilized. You finish the process by disinfecting the opening again, checking for any more splinters, and finally wrapping the thick gauze around the area. Finishing up by wrapping the leg in bandages. With the emergency situation finally under control, you sit back and finally take a moment to breathe and allow the adrenaline that was coursing through your veins to dilute. Now that you are beginning to relax, you finally take in the appearance of the strange ‘child’. You didn’t pay any attention before, but now that you could look at them, they seemed to be wearing an astronaut suit. Which was strangely adorable, but didn’t really answer your questions. How did a child wind up at the ridge? What caused the log to come tumbling down and nearly crush them?? Where were their parents?!? You rub your temples with your thumbs as you observe the unconscious being in front of yourself...I mean...you think they’re unconscious. It was hard to see through their little helmet and visor... Speaking of which...you may need to see if anyone filed a missing person report lately. Maybe revealing their face will help give you a description and see if they fit any. And while you’re at it, you may give the parents a few choice words while you are at it! So, you stand up and loom over the much smaller figure. Reaching out, you grab their helmet and give it a twist. It popped off with no resistance and you removed it. . . . You were completely stunned as you suddenly dropped the cracked helmet in surprise as your eyes struggled to process what you were seeing.In front of you, was a little humanoid-like being with greyish skin, white speckled spots, sharp teeth, and green-colored ‘hair’ that almost seemed to sparkle in the artificial lights of your abode. You took a few steps back and your mind drew a complete blank. The only thing you could think of to say seemed to shoot past your lips faster than your brain could process. Despite the low volume of your voice, it carried all the surprise you were feeling at that very moment. “What the fuck?!” (First) (Part 2) (Part 3) (Part 4)

#Among Us #Among Us fanfic #Among Us fic #Among Us reader insert #AO3fic #Haxorus Imp #My Writings #Planet of the Megafaunas

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muse539 · 3 years

Text

Here We Lie in the Shadows

Chapter Three: BLT’s

Read on ao3!

....

Bellamy startled awake at the sound of a car horn being held for just slightly too long.

“Oh, fuck you too, buddy!” Clarke swore.

The bridge over the Mississippi River into St. Louis was busy, even so early in the morning.

“What time is it?” Bellamy asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The sky was dark.

“A little past two. I pulled over at a rest stop for a while to sleep.”

Bellamy’s eyebrows creased. “You could have woken me up, I would have driven.”

Clarke waved a hand dismissively, and began to merge off of the highway, the iconic arch to their right.

“I thought we were going to drive straight to LA?”

Clarke followed signs for the convention center, the smaller streets dark and quiet.

“I’m hoping Echo thinks that too. We’re better off driving only at night, and I have a friend who I’d like to talk to while we’re here.”

Eventually, Clarke pulled off of the street and into the parking garage next to a small hotel. Grabbing their meagre belongings and printing a ticket that promised parking would be entirely too expensive, they went inside.

The hotel was modest, but nice, and the man occupying the desk eyed them dubiously, no doubt surprised to see people coming in so late. Or early.

“We’d like a room, please.”

The man eyed them up and down. Bellamy could imagine they both looked worse for wear, in practically stolen clothes and only having slept for a few hours in a car. All after almost being blown up.

Bellamy was sure they looked the epitome of perfection and grace. Not. Internally, he snorted.

Regardless, the man turned to his computer and pulled up the available rooms. “One room or two?” he asked.

“Just one, thank you. One bed.” Clarke’s voice was polite, but her eyes suggested an intense impatience.

Bellamy’s eyes widened slightly before he remembered to school his expression. Clarke paid the man in cash, and within a few minutes, they had their keys and were making their way to the elevators.

Once they were inside and the doors rolled closed, Bellamy turned to Clarke. “Why did you-”

“Shhhh.”

Bellamy shut up and followed Clarke when the doors opened. It was only once they were inside their room - with the single bed - that Clarke turned to Bellamy.

“The wait staff at Arcadia thought you were waiting for your wife. If Echo did her homework, she knows that. It’s as easy of a cover to maintain as any. We’re certainly not related.”

This time, Bellamy snorted externally. Clarke’s lips lifted in a small smile. “Okay, fine. You take the bed then, you’ve barely slept.”

Clarke laughed then. “Bellamy, I think we’re mature enough to share the bed. You’re not scared of your wife, are you?”

That tore a laugh out of him. “No, I suppose not.” They smiled at each other. “Seriously though, go to sleep. I want to shower anyway.”

Shrugging, Clarke turned to the bed and opened her duffle bag. Bellamy slipped into the bathroom.

---

Clarke was asleep by the time Bellamy finished his shower. He’d forgotten to pack his razor, which was upsetting to him. He’d never had much luck pulling off facial hair, but he supposed it would make him look different. Maybe different enough to throw off their presumed tail.

Bellamy was musing over this as he made his way to the small desk in the room. Since Clarke was asleep, now was the perfect time to work on his Michelin reports.

Let’s give Arcadia that third star.

---

Clarke always rose with the sun, no matter how little sleep she’d gotten. Once, at Miller’s suggestion, she’d gotten drunk the night before, to see if she'd sleep later. In the end, she’d actually woken up earlier than normal.

It was a curse.

Clarke rolled over and saw that the other side of the bed was made, Bellamy sitting at the little table by the window. The curtains were open, and he was watching the sun rise.

Clarke was decidedly not admiring his profile.

“Did you sleep at all?” He was in his pajamas, but they didn’t look slept in.

“Hmm?” Bellamy turned to her, blinking slowly. “Ah, no. I wasn’t tired. I am hungry though. Breakfast?”

Clarke rose onto her forearms. Bellamy’s eyes briefly traced the way her hair flowed down her back. “Sure. We can order room service.”

Bellamy grunted like the idea offended him personally. Which it did. “Room service? Oh no, no. We’re in St. Louis! There are so many great options here, we’re not ordering room service.”

Clarke’s eyes rolled up to the ceiling. Great. I’m stuck with a foodie with no regard for his own safety. “Bellamy. Have you forgotten that there are people, at the very least, Echo, likely following us? And that those people blew up a restaurant the last time we were at one?”

He scoffed. “Of course I remember, Princess . We’ll keep it low profile. Obviously.”

If the NSA has taught her anything, it’s when to pick her battles. Bellamy’s posture told Clarke all she needed to know: he was not budging. She sighed. “Fine.”

“Great!”

---

They passed multiple restaurants while they walked before finding one that didn’t offend Bellamy’s apparently delicate sensibilities. Clarke made sure to let him know that she thought he was being ridiculous.

“Hey!” he laughed, her jibes were nothing compared to Octavia’s. “I don’t know when I’m ever going to get to be in St. Louis again, I want to enjoy it.”

They (meaning Bellamy) settled on a restaurant called BLT’s. Not the sandwich, no no, but rather “Breakfast, Lunch, and Tacos.”

“It’s such an interesting concept!” Bellamy was practically buzzing with excitement, curls jumping with each quick turn of his head; Clarke was barely holding back laughter. Bellamy ordered a chorizo and egg taco, as well as a sunrise taco, while Clarke ordered a veggie scramble.

“Come on, Clarke. Not even a taco? It’s in the name!”

“So is the word breakfast, Bellamy.” He scoffed.

When the food arrived, Bellamy pulled out some of his papers from the backpack he carried.

“What are you doing?” Clarke asked.

“Grading.” Bellamy pushed a paper towards her. It appeared to be a history report written by a student that didn’t understand punctuation.

“Yikes.”

“You have no idea.”

Of course, what Clarke didn’t know was that Bellamy had a small notebook open under the table, and while he appeared to be reading his student’s papers, he was actually writing a critique on the tacos.

The chorizo has a good amount of spice, but the taco itself is a little dry, despite the pepper jack cheese. What the taco could really use is a small amount of salsa…

When they finished eating, and Bellamy gave the offending paper he showed to Clarke a C-, they walked back to the hotel.

When their door closed, Clarke pulled out her phone. It was a burner that Harper gave her before they left Chicago. She dialed a number and held it up to her ear, holding out a finger before Bellamy could ask what she was doing.

Thankfully, he picked up. “Hello?”

“Murphy, are you in town?”

“Clarke? What the shit, Griffin, I’ve been trying to reach you for weeks now!”

“I know, I’m sorry. I’m on the run, you know how it is.”

“I do know how it is, which is why you should have picked up your fucking phone!”

“Lay off Murphy. Are you in town or not?”

“You’re in St. Louis? Why?”

“Murphy.”

“Fuck you. No, I’m not in St. Louis. I’m in Oklahoma City on an assignment. At the sister branch.”

“Well, I need to talk to you.”

“And I need to talk to you. When can you get here?”

Clarke scoffed. “Get there? Murphy, I’m on the run, with a civilian no less. I don’t have time to be making detours!”

“You have time for this one. Get here.” He hung up.

“That absolute bastard.”

Bellamy blinked at her, wide eyed. “Who was that?”

“John Murphy, another NSA operative. He’s a friend.”

“Some friend.”

Clarke shrugged.

Looking like he was about to poke a bear, Bellamy asked, “Clarke, why do you do this?”

“Do what?”

“The NSA.”

Clarke regarded him for a moment. He had sat down in the chair he’d occupied that morning, Clarke had perched on the end of the bed. His eyes were kind, and he seemed sincere, even if Clarke suspected he was hiding something. Not that she had any proof, but she can’t imagine why else he would have so easily gone along with playing her husband. That alone was far from normal behavior. But, she had no reason to hide at this point. He already knew too much for an apparent civilian, knowing her tragic backstory wouldn’t make him any more dangerous.

“My father was murdered when I was 14, and they never found the killer.”

Bellamy grew quiet, dark eyes widening.

“When I was younger, I wanted to be an artist, but when Dad got killed, I just wanted to figure out who did it. The case is long cold now - it’s been over 10 years - but while I can’t help my Dad, I can help other people. Stop other tragedies from happening. The government is so corrupt. I figure, by inserting myself into that narrative, I can help make things a little better.”

“I’m so sorry, Clarke.” His gruff voice was gentle.

She smiled weakly. “It’s okay.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Clarke cleared her throat. “Well, we shouldn’t drive during daylight hours, and we also shouldn’t wander around the city. So, I don’t know about you, but I’m going back to sleep.”

In the end, they traded off taking naps until early evening. By then. Bellamy’s stomach was making some truly obscene noises.

“I’ll go to the corner store and get us some food.”

“Bellamy, we really shouldn’t be going out - even this morning was a mistake.”

He huffed. “Well, I’m not going to eat fast food. So unless you’d like me to eat you, Princess, I’m going to get something from the corner store.” Bellamy flushed scarlet when his brain caught up with his words. He hoped Clarke didn’t notice.

She noticed. But, feeling gracious, she elected to ignore it. “It’s still a bad idea. With Echo tailing us-”

“Echo’s been tailing you, not me. She maybe got a glimpse of me in the restaurant, but I looked different. She’s not going to notice me.”

Clarke looked as though she was in pain, but she sighed. “Okay. Be quick, alright? If you’re not back in half an hour, I’m going to assume you were compromised, and I will leave without you.”

“Fine.”

“See you in half an hour then.”

---

Echo watched as the man traveling with Clarke Griffin, Bellamy Blake, walked into the corner store. He had a two day old scruff, but that did little to disguise the large man loping through the streets of St. Louis.

Echo could confront him, and demand that he take her back to Clarke, but Echo suspected that this man may be strong willed. She didn’t believe he would go easily, but he didn’t need to. Echo was content, for now, to keep following them, keeping her distance.

---

Bellamy made it back to the hotel room with time to spare, weighed down with multiple bags of food. He didn’t like that he was being forced to live on convenience foods, but, he reminded himself, even this was a step up from what he and Octavia had to eat as children. Namely, that he had anything to eat at all.

Clarke had already packed their bags by the time he returned, the sun slowly setting over the city. “It’s time to go,” she said, thrusting his bag into his arms. They made their way towards the parking garage.

Before setting out, Clarke opened the trunk and pulled out a license plate. She then swapped it with the plate that was already on the car.

“I suppose that’s better than grand theft auto.”

Clarke snorted. “That’s for the next town. For now, the plates are fine.”

Bellamy wasn’t sure if she was kidding. Clarke’s eyes said that she wasn’t.

And they were off.

As they turned onto the highway, Bellamy spoke. “Why did you save me?”

The when and where went without saying.

Clarke was quiet for a moment. “Would you have rather I left you?”

“You might not be in this mess if you had.”

Clarke was silent, waiting for an answer. She had wondered herself. It was true that things might not have gotten so crazy had she left Bellamy, but she also likely wouldn’t have deciphered Octavia’s note as quickly without him. And it was… nice. To have the company.

Eventually, Bellamy sighed. “No, I don’t wish you had left me. I probably would have died if you did.” Echo would have thought Bellamy was Agent Blake regardless of if he left with Clarke that night. “But, still, why did you? You were upset when you realized I wasn’t Agent Blake, but you had me come with you anyway.”

Again, Clarke was quiet. Bellamy counted to twenty before she said, “I’m tired of the death.”

What she didn’t say was that Clarke has likely condemned Bellamy to death anyway. He’s right, Echo probably would have killed him if I left him behind, but now he’s involved. Now Echo will kill him, if we get caught.

They were mostly quiet for the rest of the drive, Bellamy dosing until he saw Clarke’s eyes begin to droop. He insisted on driving the rest of the way.

They rolled up to a motel on the outskirts of Oklahoma City at 4 am. Paying in cash, they again got a room with one bed.

Clarke glanced at Bellamy. “Get some sleep.”

“Why?” Bellamy asked.

“It’s best to be as rested as possible when dealing with John Murphy.”

#writing #bellarke #bellamy blake #clarke griffin #echo #john murphy #the 100 #tw swearing #here we lie in the shadows

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femreader · 4 years

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A girl walks with the Dead - Apocalypse!Avengers

Summary: Zombie apocalypse AU! Y/N is a teenager who happens to run into a group of people while looking for supplies.

Pairing: Avengers x reader

Warnings: Uh... zombies? Zombie killing, language. This is like, so long

A/N: this has been in the drafts for so loooooooong....

The cities were a dangerous place for living right now. Well... the living who didn’t want to kill and eat everything that moved. It was much safer to stay up in the hills where you could see anything approaching. Or up north where it was so cold the dead couldn’t raise a finger let alone clamp their jaws around your leg.

Y/N was walking quietly over the rubble of dirt, feeling the sun warm her back. Her old white converses were more grey at this point. Her flannel and top were probably thoroughly covered in sweat and dirt, but she couldn’t throw away her thin jacket. It was the only thing keeping her warm at night.

The teenager stopped and raised her hand over her eyes to look around. The great city of New York, in pieces. The buildings barely intact and the streets flooded with cars. Y/N thought about it when her cellmate talked about driving there some time. They’d go to see the times square and maybe ride the Cyclone at Coney Island. He never shut up about it. Even when Y/N said it would be a death wish to turn on a color chaos like Cyclone. Y/N scoffed and wiped her forehead. The sweatdrops rolling down her skin made her eyes burn.

Her eyes caught a department store up ahead. No movement, she thought. Y/N quietly took out her machete and walked forward quietly, looking for any zombies coming for her.

The back door was rusted so it opened easily. Y/N was glad when it opened straight inside the store. Carefully she wedged a brick by the door, keeping it open.

She held out her machete and walked briskly but carefully towards the food isle. Her ear perked from the slightest sounds. Her hand shook from the exhaustion and hunger but it only made her more alert.

Once she found the canned food, Y/N opened her backpack and managed to take ten cans of beans. She smiled briefly to herself, feeling a sense of victory. The smallest things were the biggest these days.

Y/N closed her bag and threw it back onto her back. She wondered if there was any water. She bit her lip in thought and walked back to the main aisle, looking around. It would be a miracle if there still was something, anything drinkable but it would be worth it.

Damn, I’d kill for a Pepsi.

After checking the liquids and finding two bottles of water Y/N turned back to the backdoor. While walking past the robbed pharmacy aisle she noticed a white box witha green picture. Looking around once again she took the box in hand and read what it said.

“No fucking way,” Y/N mumbled as she checked the menstrual cup inside. Completely not touched. It was perfectly clean. She hadn’t used one before but you bet she was taking this with her.

“I could kiss you, you just saved me from so many problems,” She once again spoke to herself and put the box into one of the pockets of the bag. Y/N turned around and held out her machete.

She heard a sound, like a step. Quietly she pressed herself by the shelves and held her machete on her chest. Y/N listened carefully and waited for the walker to pass her by. Much to her surprise, the dead seemed to have a much brisker walking style than normal.

Y/N leaped around the aisle and kicked the person’s back, successfully making them fall onto their stomach. Her eyebrows furrowed as she went to strike the brain, only to notice this person was actually still a human. He turned around, swirling on his spot

A teenage boy to be exact.

“Woah Woah Woah,” His voice was quiet and high pitched as he held his hands up. “I’m not going to kill you I promise!”

Y/N placed a hand over his mouth and looked around, before moving the said hand over his chest.

“Is there anyone else with you. Lie and I’ll cut your jugular out,” Y/N hissed turning him around and locking the boy’s hands with her left arm and holding her machete on his neck. The boy shook his head repeatedly.

“No, no. I-I I’m alone. Well here anyway-” Y/N raised his chin with her weapon. The boy went to explain hurriedly.

“I mean, there’s a group! There’s a group, I’m with but they are not here. They are in the woods, behind the hills.”

“and you’re here?” Y/N raised her eyebrow.

“We got separated!” He exclaimed and Y/N shushed him again. “We came here to seek out supplies and the freaks got us. I-I don’t even know if they made it back.”

After debating, Y/N got off of the boy and got to her feet. Still keeping a tight grip on her weapon she watched as the fellow teenager got up and held a hand on his throat for a while.

“Wait you’re...” He stood still in his place. “You’re... You’re my age.” His eyes lowered to her shoulder and to the star symbol which was mostly scratched away on her jacket. Y/N noticed it and aimed her machete back towards the boy.

“I’m leaving. And if you’re stopping me-”

“Trust me I’m not,” The boy said holding out his hands and looking around. He seemed to have something to say but didn’t know how to phrase it. “B-but, we could try to find my group.”

Y/N scoffed. “Why would I?”

“They can help. And it can’t be fun to travel alone. We have a safe group, freshwater, and a camp. Everyone gets along,” He tried to reason and walked closer to the girl. “You wouldn’t need to be alone.”

“I can be alone,” Y/N said back.

“But the thing is... you don’t have to.”

Y/N felt her heart jump and her arm fell to her side from the familiar words. Her eyes widened.

“Where did you hear that?” She asked and held out the machete and walked closer to the boy. He squeezed himself against the shelf and looked at her with wide eyes. “Who said that to you?!”

“T-the guys at camp, they talk all this philosophical shit all the time!”

Y/N sighed deeply as she looked into the scared boy’s eyes. She bit the inside of her cheek and reluctantly put the machete back to its sheath. The boy relaxed immediately when he noticed her putting her weapon away. He sighed and chuckled quietly.

“How do I know they won’t snipe me when they see me?”

“They don’t do that. they really don't,” The boy said confidently. Y/N fixed her backpack to be more comfortable and nodded.

“Just to be clear,” she moved the hair from her face. “I’m just helping you to get back there. Nothing more nothing less.” Y/N said promptly and moved to walk back to the backdoor. The teenager boy was dumbfounded.

“So, you coming or not,” Y/N asked and he followed briskly behind her.

“So how long have you been alone?”

Y/N couldn’t help but smile a tad. The boy sure was annoying at times and too curious for his own sake. He’d get killed for that at some point. Y/N surprised even herself when she found his company is surprisingly enjoyable.

The girl sighed and held out a hand to pull Peter over a car. The highway was the fastest way to get to the hills. Y/N’s hand burned as they climbed over the useless vehicles.

“It’s a rather long story. Let’s just say I will rather be alone than where I was before.”

Peter didn’t say anything back but just continued to walk next to her. He eyes one of the cars.

“You don’t think we could hotwire one?” He nodded towards an old Volvo and walked over to it. Y/N pulled him back by his shoulder and shot him a look before glancing inside the car.

Just like she had suspected there was a zombie laying quietly in the backseat, it’s head on their side. Y/N opened the door and smashed it’s brains with her machete before the bastard could make a sound. Peter jumped back and watched as the walker fell onto the pavement. Y/N turned to him.

“You need to be more careful,” She opened the truck but found nothing.

“Aww, you concerned about me,” Peter joked and held a hand on his heart.

“Well, I don’t exactly like killing people,” Y/N said back, but shot a somewhat of a smile to the boy when noticing his frown. “Come on, I think you might be right.”

Y/N climbed inside the car, Peter to the shotgun. He drummed his thighs and waited for Y/N to do her magic. Both of their faces smiled thriumply as the engine roared quietly and the car turned on. They laughed along for a while.

“Do you know how to drive this?” Peter asked, suddenly. Y/N smirked and moved the gearstick.

“Well, we’ll see,” She did actually know. Once before she had found a car and learned to drive with it.

The journey went much more smoothly after they got the car. Peter even managed to turn on the radio but they agreed not to listen to it as the only thing they could hear was static. Couple of times they had to stop and get out of the car to move vehicles out of the way, but other than that it was smooth sailing.

“How did they even leave you out there alone,” Y/N asked and glanced at the reviewing mirror. The city was now barely in her line of vision anymore. “I just mean, if they are such good people I thought they would come back for you.”

“We got jumped on,” Peter sounded irritated but lowered his voice as soon as he heard it himself. “It all happened fast, and like I said, I don’t know if the rest even got back.”

Y/N nodded and cursed silently under her breath. The old road ended and the only thing left was a path leading towards the woods and going up towards the hills. She stopped the car and pulled the handbrake up. “I guess it’s moving on foot again.”

Peter whined quietly, his feet were just as tired as Y/N’s. She was glad her shoes were comfortable so they didn't give her any chafe on her feet.

“C’mon,” She hauled her backpack on and walked alongside the path. Peter was close behind her, at times taking hold of Y/N’s backpack strap to steady himself. Y/N took a grip on the nearby trees while they walked, the path was surprisingly narrow and steep making it harder to move fast.

“Uh, god,” Peter mumbled as they finally managed to walk up the hill. Peter and Y/N both held their sides and breathed heavily even though both of them were actively sporty. They shared a look.

“If I could conquer that, I can do anything,” Y/N said, gulping down some water and turned to help Peter. He took the water flask and brought it to his mouth. An arrow flew from the bush, making him drop the flask and spill all the water. Y/N tensed momentarily from surprised and pulled out her gun, aiming it at the bushes.

A figure came at her from behind her. Y/N felt a rock hit her shoulder, she groaned from the pain. Quickly she reacted to the assaulter and bit their arm which was placed around her throat. They groaned from pain, from somewhere Y/N heard a shout. She turned on her back and head-butted the man on top of her. Once he leaned backward Y/N crawled back and kicked him to his nuts.

Y/N grasped at her gun and aimed it at the man on the ground, breathing heavily and left side of her face covered in dirt.

“Drop the gun. Now,” Someone held a cold metal against the back of her neck. Y/N clenched her teeth but kept her aim at the man with a mohawk. The woman cocked her weapon.

“Drop it.”

Y/N dropped her handgun and held up her hands. She went to see Peter, but noticed him already talking to one of the men. One with a goatee.

“Peter what the hell?!”

“You stay where you are!” The man said and pointed at his gun at Y/N too, once she tried to take a step. Peter looked around eyes wide and jumped in between the gun and Y/N.

“Peter!”

“Everyone stop!”

“Peter you get the hell away!”

“Stop!” Peter’s voice was high pitched as he frantically waved his arms. Y/N felt the barrel of a gun being pushed further into her head. She bit her lip and thought if she’d be fast enough to disarm her.

“She helped me. C’mon guys, she’s my age. She’s not a threat,” Peter reasoned. Y/N couldn’t help but raise her eyebrows. The man with a goatee scoffed and changed the gun into his other hand so he aimed it over Peter’s shoulder.

“Peter, move along.”

“No. She helped me,” He said sternly. Peter glanced at Y/N and Natasha who was pointing the gun. “She’s not a threat. I-... Wouldn’t you think she would have killed me already if she wanted to!?”

“Yeah right headbutting Clint’s teeth in-”

“Well, to my defense you attacked me,” Y/N piped up. Peter gave her a look to just stay quiet. The goatee man sighed and moved closer.

“Is she bitten?”

“What- No! I’ve been with her all this time,” Peter exclaimed and turned to Nat. he raised his eyebrows and Y/N felt the barrel move away from her head. Carefully and slowly she stood up from her knees. The man she fought chuckled.

“Well, that’s definitely the first time getting my ass beat by a kid.”

Y/N sighed and put on her backpack. The goatee man put his gun away now too.

“Sorry for the hustle,” The teenage girl said and moved to take her gun and machete, swiftly wiping out most of the dirt. “I’ll take my leave now.”

“No, no, no,” Peter said as the three tensed from Y/N picking up her weapons. “You’re coming with us, right? Please,” He looked at her pleadingly. Something about his eyes almost made Y/N want to stay.

A rustle from the root of the hill caught their attention. Tony groaned and rubbed his face.

“A walker. I think it’s the best we continue this conversation at the camp,” He patted Peter’s back and looked at Y/N pointedly. She knew they didn’t really leave her with a choice, so reluctantly she turned towards the way they were walking but kept a tight grip on her machete. Something, probably her old experiences of groups, made a shiver run down Y/N spine.

The walk wasn’t even the most awkward part of the journey. As soon as they got to the camp, which looked like a real camping area with one big van, there were more people waiting for them. Peter went to hug a brunette woman who gladly accepted him with a smile. A big muscular blonde guy and a lot smaller looking man with glasses walked up to them, Y/N noticed the weird looks the gave her.

“She helped Peter to get back here safely,” The mohawk man said casually while walking towards one of the tents. Y/N heard giggles of children from the inside and her stomach twisted slightly. She kept a strained eye on the blonde man who stood in front of her, scanning her like she was a predator. There was a pregnant pause.

“Well,” He started and moved forward. “I guess we own her a thank you then.” He gave her a hand to shook which Y/N looked skeptically. Slowly she moved her machete into her left hand and shook his hand steadily.

“I apologize for being nosy but,” The eyeglasses man asked Y/N. “But are you alone. Is there someone looking out for you.”

Y/N shook her head as a ‘no’ and everyone silently agreed. This kid, no matter how talented she was, wouldn’t be left out there alone again.

“What’s all this ruckus about,” Someone emerged from the bushes wiping his hands from dirt. Y/N squinted her eyes, trying to make clear of the man’s face. Something about him was familiar. Half of his face was shielded by the shadows of the trees and the long brow hair.

“Hey, Buck. How’s the fish?” The blonde guy asked, turning to the long-haired man. Y/N’s eyes widened and her machete fell onto the ground, with a clank. She opened and closed her mouth like a fish n dry land trying to breathe.

“It’s ready in 10 minutes...” His voice lowered by the end when he looked at Y/N.

“Bucky?” Her voice was quiet. She took a couple of steps forward before breaking off into a sprint. Someone shouted after her but Y/N didn’t care. She threw herself into his arms and squeezed tightly. His arms gathered her into his embrace quickly.

“Y/N? What? How are you here?”

“How are you here?!” Y/N said and punched his arm. “You just disappeared!”

“I know, I know... shush,” Bucky calmed her and let her stay in his arms. The rest of the gang looked at the two.

”You just left,” The teenager mumbled into his shoulder and felt her eyes burn. Bucky patted her hair in a calming way.

”I’m sorry.”

“You have some explaining to do,” Stark said.

As they all got their fish and sat around the small fire Y/N had helped built, Bucky and Y/N began to explain where they knew each other.

”A year or so back I escaped a group of people, they had their own small community run by nasty people,” Y/N bit some of her fish. Bucky looked at her empathically.

”Bucky was the first person to ever escape the place, around six years ago. I was the second. Though they did upgrade their defenses after you,” she nudged Bucky’s side. ”Didn’t make my job any easier.”

Y/N bit her fish and munched on it, noticing how closely everyone was listening to her, waiting for her to continue. Slightly uncomfortable she swallowed and rolled her lips together.

“Who were they,” Steve asked, his already well-sculptured face illuminated and highlighted by the flickering flames of the fire. Y/N saw from the corner of her eye Bucky shifting uncomfortably and eating his fish, trying to distract himself.

“Hydra,” She said grimly and set her plate aside, hugging herself suddenly having no appetite. “They were very, very strict on what we could do and when we could do it.”

“You’ve been alone since the shit went down?” Y/N nodded, not bothering to look up who asked. She blew a hair out of her face.

“My parents died quickly, they were at work when it happened and got locked in. I was at home, just got out of school when the first walkers appeared.” She thought of the day she was forced to kill her own parents with a blunt baseball bat. Suddenly she felt sick and she placed the fish next to her, focusing her attention on her fingerless gloves instead.

“Long story short; I met Bucky there, we thought of escaping, we disappeared and I was left to fend for myself again,” After hearing how defensive that sounded Y/N shot a reassuring smile to Bucky next to her. “It’s alright though, at least we both got out.”

“What happened to the place,” He asked her, noticing the star on her shoulder. It was clawed off almost. Y/N shrugged her shoulders and made a face.

“Up and at it as far as I know. But I did blow up one of their generators while leaving, so probably with less power,” The circle chuckled and Y/N felt a blush rise to her cheeks. She noticed the brown-haired woman look at her form the other side of the fire. She wasn’t many years older than Y/N. She was really pretty.

“The star... Bucky has the same one.”

“Uhhh... yeah,” Y/N lifted her jacket sleeve and looked at the star with multiple white lines over it which she had scratched on it with a blunt key.

“It’s better you don’t know what sick shits worked at Hydra,” She ended up confessing and took some of the fish again. Y/N glanced up and noticed the uneased looks around the flame and a dry chuckle came out of her mouth.

“What’s with the long faces,” She slightly bumped Bucky’s knee with her own. “Those days are long gone,” She said dramatically and the conversation slowly slid into a bit more casual one. Y/N leaned over to Bucky.

“I’m still beating your ass,” She lowly whispered with a slight smirk tugging her dry lips.

The night slowly came upon them and Y/N found herself laying in the same tent as Bucky. the blonde man and the redhead woman were on patrolling duty while everyone else could rest.

“Bucky,” She said quietly, turning to her left side, her hand under her head. Bucky put down the Great Gatsby book and looked at her with that same parental reassurance as always.

“What’s it kiddo?”

Y/N pursed her lips, trying to hide her smile. “Was that a cheek kiss Steve gave you before you came here?” She asked and Bucky immediately flushed red. He fumbled with the book and cleared his throat.

“I- uh, it’s... I don’t-”

“Hey, It’s alright,” Y/N chuckled and nudged his leg with her arm. Bucky turned off the oil lamp and laid down into his sleeping bag also, facing Y/N.

“I mean he isn’t that bad looking-”

“Shut up,” Bucky chuckled and pulled the blanket a bit better on Y/N. He smiled slightly, his ears still slightly red.

“I’m not going to leave you again,” he promised and held up his little finger. Y/N smiled, hooked her little finger with his and nodded.

“Never ever.”

#avengers x reader #avengers imagine #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barns imagine #Bucky Barnes #the winter soldier x reader #the winter solider x reader #the winter soldier imagine #the winter soldier fanfic #steve rogers #peter parker x reader #tony stark #zombie apocolypse au

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werezmastarbucks · 4 years

Text

portland

honeymoon masterlist

word count: 2731

music: silently by axel flovent, tear in my heart by twenty one pilots

You got tired of driving at around two in the morning. Somehow Kennewick did not satisfy neither of you in terms of sleeping. Perhaps it was the road, nervousness of traveling, and Kai’s indifference about the current situation you got stuck in, but as soon as he snuggled against you at eleven o’clock, you felt all the sleep has escaped you like a butterfly that leaps away. He was already deep in sleep, when you decided you wanted to drive at night, and Parker was sorely unhappy about getting out of bed. While you still had moral high ground as leverage on him, while it worked, you elected to use it. Then, a couple of hours later, the tiredness returned in full swing, and you stopped in the middle of the highway (the liberating truth was that you could now stop at any point while driving, without even thinking) and made him switch seats with you.

The portable loudspeaker he had manufactured out of a big boombox was incredibly loud and workable, and you prepped it just below the windshield. As you drifted into sleep you were thinking about how practically useful this boy can actually be, and how underrated his skills were back in the real world. Even without magic he was extremely handy. He was an amazing cook, he was insanely masterful with electronics, he was more savvy about the internet than you, the child of the web world...

You woke up because he whispered right into your ear, the most gentle order you’ve ever received in your life,

“Wake up now”.

Your neck ached, crooked unnaturally, but, as you opened your eyes, you saw what he woke you up for. Kai seemed relatively unaffected, probably having seen this a million of times; perhaps there was already an alarm clock in his head going off when it was the time for sunset. It was a first for you, though. You were already in Portland, and the car was lazily crawling along the street as the sleepy houses passed you by. Bright pink and raspberry was blooming in the sky indicating the new day, again. The light was so intense that, when you caught the reflection of yourself in the rearview mirror, you saw the shade of red on your own face. Your eyes looked sleepy and foggy.

“Are we there yet?”

“Yeah. Are you hungry? It’s almost time for breakfast”.

You looked at the electronic wristwatch you nicked from an Epson store. It was a real nineties neat cute wrist watch, and it had lighting button which drove you insane.

“It’s not even five yet. You’re always hungry”.

“I’ve been driving for nearly three hours. It’s draining. You fell asleep in my car, I drove the whole time, but that’s okay, I’ll just avoid the holes, so you sleep fine”, he declared. You couldn’t hold back a chuckle. He gestured towards the speaker.

“That was a good song”.

“It’s my car”, you argued benevolently, feeling very kind after three hours’ sleep. Due to the fact that Kai has been decent enough to just drive the car without waking you up. And the fact he even turned down the music a little.

“I stole it”.

“You didn’t steal it. It had no owner”, Kai replied.

He stopped the car in a romantic gesture, and you two drowned in the morning silence, ever quieter than it even was before. The wind lay still, and no bugs buzzed in the grass. You left the car just to be in the moment, to step on the ground and feel its matter, and raised your face to the sky. This was all for you and you only, and that was the first time you asked yourself,

why do they even consider this torture?

The Parker house turned out to be more like a palace. Your head swung back and forth comparing Kai with the wedding cake looking family dwelling, trying to picture him on the porch. There was a traditional old oak that yearned swings, and the big lawn, greener than that of the Salvatore’s possession. There was whiteness of the façade and the depth of the invisible basement.

Soon Kai crawled up the stairs, and sighed, in the yellowish glow of the waking skies.

“Welcome back home”, he murmured. You tried reading his face to see if it’s hard for him, but then reminded yourself he’s been here already, probably many times.

He’s been suspiciously tolerable these first days, you thought to yourself quietly as you wandered wordless through the living room. The first red flag fluttered in your mind when you threw a look at the banisters of the stairs leading up, and saw two ropes tied to them; they hung down, empty, with loops, like dead cat tails.

“Kai, why is it here?” you asked. The boy was already head first into the fridge in the kitchen.

He walked back to you, and sighed knowingly.

“Oh, yes. They kept the house as I left it at night. As a reminder. Go up the stairs, there’s still blood on the walls, and everything. Let’s go”.

He suddenly grabbed your hand with determination, and you sensed, on the run, like he needed to hold it. Not to guide you. You ran up the stairs, and you threw a quick look at the living room, amazed at the normality of it. One would think Malachai Parker’s house would look horrific, but his tragedy was very American. Pretty cover, bloody insides. The living room had two big couches (big family, it used to be), a very curious L shaped coffee table, and a fireplace. On the shelf above, there was a neat row of photographs of the family: everyone but Malachai, of course. They wished to forget he existed, for one reason or another. Kai’s hand led you on and you went into the long, spacious wooden hall of the second floor out of three: the blood on the walls was fresh, it glistened in the first cloud light. The patterns were thick and wide, like Kai’s been deliberately pouring it around; on the floor, there was a faint trace of his bloodied steps and something else, like he was dragging... a baseball bat? with him.

You tried not to step on the blood. The little window at the end of the hall was covered with a curtain, so it was bleak.

“Here”, he said enthusiastically. It was obvious Kai has been psyched that someone would share the whole thing with him. No matter what part of prison it was: whether the beautiful sunrises of Washington, or the evidence of the massacre he conducted in his own house.

“Wow, whose room was it?”

“The twins. Luke and Liv”, he pushed the door to let you in. The bed was turned on the side, and there was a puddle of blood under it. The wardrobe was thrashed.

“This is where I stabbed Jo. She hid them from me with the cloaking spell. I made her talk...” Kai muttered. His eyes were opaque, and he was focused on the memory. His sight shifted under the window.

“The-ere it is”, the witch stepped to the dark spot and picked up the bat, wrapping his fingers around the handle. There was blood on the tip of it. He swung the bat in the air in a motion that made you understand he could be a baseball star. Could have been.

“And the banisters? Who was there?”

“I hung Ashley and Sam”, he said, putting the bat back against the wall. You observed the room. His siblings, they all had names. Ashley, Sam... those who made it to the future, the twins and his own personal enemy, Josette, felt more real because you have met them. You were there when Kai merged with Luke, you witnessed his death. But to think that some of the Parkers were left in the ninety-four, hung down from the stairs, and they were children who had names... Ashley and Sam. You didn’t even know whether Sam was a boy or a girl. You asked him.

“They were best friends, Sam and Ash. Samantha was two years older than Ashley, and she was so uptight I think somebody would have killed her one way or another. She was unbearable. So bitter she didn’t have a twin, she told everybody Ashley was her age, and that they were twins, although everyone in the coven knew they weren’t”.

“She was just a child, Kai. She wanted to be a part of this important thing, too”, you shrugged.

“Yeah, so did I. You wanna see my parents’ bedroom?”

He probably saw it in your eyes that you were slowly growing anxious about the whole murder night replay.

“What did you do to your mom?”

“I stabbed her in the throat. She had to go first, she was a very powerful witch”, Kai said quietly, watching you closely. He was cruel in a way, leading you deeper into the bleak reality of his, trying you, curious as to how much you can take.

“I made a mistake with dad. Should’ve stabbed him, too, but I thought I’d be untrivial, and I poisoned him. Which obviously backfired right into my face”.

Kai put his hand through his dark hair, and you realized his eyes are glowing nervously.

“What made you snap?”

“When our birthdays were coming up, I realized they’d never let us merge. Even Jo herself didn’t want it. Just so you understand, merging and even dying, as a Gemini twin, is the biggest event of your life. Even if you lose, you’re not gone. You live through your twin. You give them your power”.

You weren’t saying anything. He went on,

“You think I’m inherently evil?” there wasn’t a trace of indignation in his voice; just sheer curiosity. He never had a chance to ask that anybody. He never had this conversation. He just didn’t know at all. “They always told me I was”.

“There’s no such thing as evil, Kai. It’s a tale created for kids, to make them afraid of giving in to their instincts. There’s only pain and its consequences”.

You looked away not to seem too invested. You wondered how one can let a fellow human go on for nearly fifty years with such a grave misconception about themselves; how one can allow such violence upon their own child. Violence and negligence so intense it makes them act out so aggressively, so loudly. Every single blood stain, every broken wooden thing, every swing of a bat in the hands of now twenty-two year old Malachai, was a cry, not a roar of evil deed. He was so disfigured. He was so wounded he had to inflict pain on others to be heard. And yet they didn’t hear anything except their own screams.

You wanted to ask him the same question, am I bad for liking you so much? But you knew he had no answer. Kai was very knowledgeable about many things; he understood many things you didn’t, but he knew nothing about the philosophy of morale. He had no deep feelings, he had no deep core in him. It was burnt clean long time ago.

Am I evil for not feeling sorry for the kids you hung from the banisters?

Am I bad for rooting for you when you were merging with Luke?

Am I bad for siding with you against my oldest friends?

Am I bad for being the only one who gave you the benefit of the doubt, just for the sake of being the only one?

After all, it takes just one person to keep someone from breaking. But when Malachai finally killed his family, when he reached the breaking point to never be innocent again, you were still a month away from being born.

“Take the books outside”, you asked him.

Kai looked up from the table. He was reading diligently, not skipping pages, and watching him got tedious after three hours. While he was on it, you trod through the front and back yard; made sandwiches; studied the pictures of the kids; sneaked into the basement and got horrified at the sight of Kai’s ‘room’ there.

(Yeah, it became my room for a while, he yapped from the kitchen. He laughed at your eyes, widened in horror, yeah, it was real pain. They kept me there when they had people over... pretended I don’t exist)

His real room used to be upstairs, underneath the roof, but it became Jo’s space eventually, and there was no trace of Malachai there. It was sad how there were so very few signs of the oldest child in the house. No posters, no shoes at the door, no jackets, no used tissues, no sports awards. No clothes, no mess, no boy things, no magazines, no CDs, no skateboard. There was a TV in the basement, and a bed, a nightstand, and a couple of comic books in the drawers of it, and you felt there was a huge chunk of Kai missing, as if they had got rid of all the things reminding of him, as if it was him who died.

“Take the books outside”.

“Why?”

“I’m tired. I want to sleep. Let’s go into the city, find a hotel or a big house, and you can read there”.

Kai looked around as if saying, isn’t it the house enough?

You didn’t know how to explain to him that staying in this place was terrible. Kai clearly missed this place although you didn’t know what he was holding on to. The family he missed was clearly an illusion. He craved the real bond, the concept of loving community, not the actual Parker people.

“I want to burn down this house”.

He tilted his head and his mouth twitched.

“Have you ever done it?”

“Why would I burn my own house?”

“You’ve spent eighteen years here, and...”

“Look”, he put up his palms defensively, “obviously, you are a very creative individual with a different way of thinking, and I haven’t done half of the things you come up with, while I was here, but if you’re gonna ask me this question every time you have an idea...”

“You know fire is cleansing, right? You should know, you’re able to control it. Isn’t fire an important element of witchery?”

“Mhm”.

He wasn’t offended by the idea. He was just a little susprised.

As Kai stepped outside, bringing the last books into the trunk of the (ugly) Buick parked in the driveway, you watched him there on the lawn. Maybe he really was the cancer his family made him to be. He looked like a hyena looking around for a dying animal to chew on. He despised this place, and its lightness, and the fact his surviving relatives thought of the exquisite way of reminding him about what he’s done. And he went around busily, like a bee mama, at the same time.

The house still reeked of blood, and frankly, you didn’t know how he could even think about sleeping here.

You threw a match on the couch, and another one down into the basement. You knew the house would restore as soon as midnight comes, but by that time you’ll be far away from here. Wherever the books send you to.

You’ve never seen a house on fire so close. The heat was burning your face, and you knew it burns Kai, too, so you pulled on his hand to make him step away.

“What sucks the most is that I had every right to merge with her”, Kai said suddenly. You had to step closer to hear him over the immense screech and cracking of the house.

There was deep, pure hatred in his voice as he spoke about his sister. You realized that his bitterness about her betrayal is still fresh, and the merge did nothing to heal it. It was personal. She was his to kill.

“I would’ve shown her if she only had given me a chance. You know? Nobody believed I could win, because I’m a siphoner. But if they only gave me a chance, I would’ve tried my best and I would’ve been a good coven leader”.

“You are already”, you said. Kai squeezed your fingers with his stiff palm.

“Once we get out”, he said, dead eyes staring into you, “there’ll be no coven. I will end every single one of them”.

#kai parker #kai parker imagine #kai parker x reader #vampire diaries imagine #tvd imagine #vampire diaries

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