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abbysfrenchbraid · 3 years

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Beach Day Imagine

alright I give up on trying to find a header for this one, there are no nice pictures of Abby with short hair.

anonymous said: I have a request for a beach day imagine? It could be after the end of the game, just a nice day on the beach heh :)!

This is set after the end of tlou2, Abby and Lev have arrived at the Firefly base on Catalina Island and the reader has gotten to know them over the last weeks. Today they’re taking the two newly healed outsiders to the beach.

This is the first thing I’ve written in a while so I apologize if I’m not fully back in my best form, feedback is very welcome!

Warnings: light swearing, pushing someone under water playfully, mention of injury by being crushed under something heavy (ask to tag!)

about 5.6k words of pure fluff :)

“Hey, look what I got!”

You looked up from the gas canister you were currently using to fill up a truck’s tank and felt a warm rush of happiness fill your chest. Lev had just entered the garage and was holding out a red backpack.

“The teacher gave it to me so I finally have my own. And it’s even my favorite color!”

You stopped pouring the gasoline and screwed the lid back on the canister.

“Hey, you. So what are you bringing in your new backpack, then?”

The scrawny boy jumped on the back of the truck and crouched down, flipping the bag over and dumping its contents on the platform. With quick fingers, he arranged all the items to lie in a neat line, tapping them as he listed: “Water bottle, sandwich, apple, lighter, knife, towel, swimming trunks. Abby said not to take the bow because it’s a secure area.”

You nodded. “Good job, you’re fully equipped.” Catalina Island was a completely safe zone, the Fireflies had made sure of that. During the last few years, patrol teams had combed through the entire island killing infected and now anyone coming in from the mainland had to spend two days in quarantine to ensure their health. Carrying around a knife or gun at all times was just a habit none of the people who had ever fought infected or other groups would ever let go of.

“Lev? You in here?” Lev had been concentrating on putting all his supplies back into the backpack and you both jerked up when you heard the familiar voice in the corridor. It had been weeks and she still had the same effect on you. The tall blonde stepped through the doorway and your breath caught in your throat. She was wearing green cargo pants and black combat boots as always, but you could see the blue fabric of a swimsuit peeking out at the neckline of her grey t-shirt.

“Oh hey, there you are. Are we ready to go?”

“Your hair!” you exclaimed, in awe at the beautiful freckled face that was looking at you with excitement. Abby smiled and instinctively rubbed the back of her head that was now cut short. When she and Lev had arrived three weeks ago, they had looked horrible, dehydrated and full of bruises and cuts, their faces marked by the sun and the pain they had had to endure. Abby hadn’t said a word about her obviously violently cut hair but Lev had told you that she had always worn it in a long braid before the rattlers captured them. You tried to imagine her with long hair but it just didn’t seem fitting for the woman standing before you.

“I got it done today, Mario is a saint. Do you like it?”

Lev squinted at her for a moment, then he solemnly said: “It suits you very well.”

She had apparently finally gotten around to visiting your colleague, another mechanic who also worked at a barber on the side. Most men and some women just pragmatically shaved their heads themselves, but there were always a few people who wanted something more complicated. When Mario had visited you at the medical station after your accident and gotten to know your two new roommates, he had immediately offered his services if they ever wanted a haircut. Lev had declined, explaining that he always shaved his head himself, but Abby had thanked him and promised to come around when she was allowed to leave medical.

You smiled at her and before you could stop yourself you blurted out “You look hot.”

The blonde laughed and even though you felt yourself blushing, you knew you had said the right thing. She really did look hot. Mario had shaved her sides short and fluffed up the top, letting a few strands fall into her face. You wanted to reach out and gently brush them back, but you stopped yourself and snapped out of your daydream.

“Okay, my bag’s already in the front. You all set?”

Abby nodded and put her backpack on the back of the truck, positioning herself to jump on.

“Wait, can I sit in the back? I’ll be careful, I promise. I’d just really like to see what it feels like,” Lev pleaded. You looked at Abby who just rolled her eyes and grinned.

“Alright, kid. But no standing up, and if it gets bumpy you hold on tight!”

She squeezed the boy’s shoulder and grabbed her bag, circling around the back of the car to get into the passenger seat. Lev gracefully jumped in the back and closed the hatch, looking at you with a glint in his eye you had never seen on him before. For the first time since the two had arrived here, he seemed genuinely happy and excited.

You sat down in the driver’s seat and started the truck, maneuvering out of the parked cars around you and giving the porter a signal to open the garage door. Your hand still felt weak and fragile as you switched gears and drove through the two front gates or the base, absentmindedly clenching your fist and stretching out your fingers to get rid of the sensation.

In the corner of your eye, you could see Abby giving you a slightly worried look.

“You okay there? I can drive, too, if you want me to.”

You bit your lip in frustration and shook your head.

“Thanks, Abby. I just need to get used to using this stupid hand again.”

The blonde rolled down her window and let in the salty breeze, leaning her head against the frame and closing her eyes as the sun kissed her face.

“Alright. Just let me know.”

Turning onto the road down to the beach, you sighed and tried to let go of all of your anger and discontent with one long exhale. It would get you nowhere.

You had been lying underneath a car to fix some spots that had rusted through when your lifting jacks had made a weird noise. Even though you had been quick to try and slip out from under the car, you hadn’t been fast enough. The wheels had been taken off to change the tires and as the jacks collapsed, the side of the vehicle crushed your arm, your ribs and left you with internal bleeding.

It had been no one's fault, just a terrible misfortune. After undergoing several surgeries and spending four weeks in a hospital bed, two battered strangers had been carried in and kept you company for the next few days.

The WLF soldier also had a few broken ribs, several cuts and stab wounds. Other than a few bruises, dehydration and the extreme sunburn they had both suffered, the small Seraphite was surprisingly well off, and while you two older women had been laying around in your own misery, he had started trying to cheer you up, help your recovery and motivate you to look forward to the days to come.

Both of you had started carefully training your injured limbs again and encouraged each other on the tiresome, difficult journey back to health while Lev had explored the base, made some friends and working with a trainer to teach others how to shoot with a bow and arrow. Now that you were finally out of the medical wing and able to move without being in excruciating pain, you had decided to take the two out for a deserved day off.

You rolled your window down and inhaled the fresh sea breeze, immediately smelling the salt and hot sand, the earthy aroma of the bushes lining the road and the sun warming up the air and promising you a wonderful day. Without thinking, you let out a scream of joy and laughed into the wind that pulled on your hair and invited you to play. You turned to beam at Abby, who looked amused and a little surprised. Before you could say anything, you heard an attempted wolf howl from the back of the truck and looked in the rearview mirror. Lev was kneeling in the middle of the platform, his head thrown back and his hands at his mouth to amplify his cries. He took a big breath and howled a second time, laughing afterward and stretching out his arms to the side.

A small noise drew your attention back to your passenger. Abby was looking out of the window and her torso was shaking slightly. For a split second, you thought she was crying, but then her little chuckle grew into loud laughter and she whooped, also stretching out her arm and making wave motions with her hand.

“Jesus, Y/N, you’re amazing! This is amazing!”

She looked at you, eyes wide with excitement and a grin stretching across her entire face. You felt like your heart was going to explode. This really was amazing. You took another turn and there it was: the sea. Blue and wild, sparkling like millions of diamonds and dancing in the sun, calling out for you and inviting you to jump into the waves and join the celebration.

You decided to just drive down all the way onto the sand; the truck was made for the terrain and there was no reason to walk if you could just drive up to the perfect spot.

“Lev,” you yelled, “wanna choose a good spot?”

“Yes,” he screamed back, “over there by the palm tree?”

“Got it, boss!” You geared down and drove onto the sand, carefully testing the terrain. The car seemed to have no problem with the ground and you pressed down the gas, whirling up the sand behind you and making Lev scream with excitement. You came to a halt next to a sturdy palm tree and the boy had jumped off the back before you had stopped the engine.

He had taken off his shoes and immediately started hopping to the patch of shade, cursing about the hot sand and letting himself fall onto the cool safe haven provided by the tree. Abby laughed and got out herself, opening her backpack and throwing him a big blanket.

“Here, make yourself useful.”

Lev jumped up and started stretching out the fabric to make room for everyone, then he unpacked his towel and swimming trunks. You grabbed your bag and went over to the two of them, putting your towel down and stopping in your tracks when Abby suddenly pulled her shirt over her head, revealing a sporty blue bikini top. Her abs had practically exploded in only a week; the last time you had seen her stomach had been when she had gotten rid of the hospital gown and announced she was going back to training. Her skin was ivory, a ton of freckles spreading over her shoulders and arms. There were still a few bruises on her ribcage, already yellow and almost completely faded, and her upper arm was marked with a fresh, pink scar.

“What are you staring at? Don’t you wanna go swimming with us?”

Abby laughed at you and hopped around as she tried to take off her tight pants without falling over. You shook your head to get your brain running again and side-eyed her, trying to hide a grin.

“Sorry. You’ve already built so much muscle, it’s amazing.”

The blonde looked down and lightly slapped her stomach.

“Thanks, must be the food here. I’m getting back on track.”

You had already slid out of your pants and quickly took off your shirt now, a little shy about your black bathing suit. But there was no need to worry, now it was Abby’s turn to stare. Her mouth was slightly ajar as she looked you up and down, her hand hovering about her abs as if she had frozen for a second. Finally, she snapped out of her admiration and raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t look too bad yourself, without the bandages and all.”

While you two had been busy drooling over each other, Lev had already changed into his swimming trunks and now seemed to be calculating how many steps it would take to get to the water and cool his burnt feet.

Abby stepped closer to you.

“You ready, Lev? Bet I can beat you both to the water.”

The boy didn’t hesitate one second. He started like lightning, his red pants blown up by the wind as he yelled “ouch, fuck, ow,” trying to lengthen his jumps. Abby winked at you, then she started sprinting after him.

“Come on, Y/N!”

You quickly took off your socks and ran after them, loosening your ponytail and enjoying the feeling of the warm, soft hair dancing on your skin. Lev had beat Abby and was squealing as he jumped into the waves. The ex-WLF reached him a few seconds later, running into the sea and immediately diving under just to come up again with a scream of joy. She opened her arms as you came running towards her, cursing the hot sand and ready to tackle the blonde with full force.

She turned to the side and dodged your blow at the last second, letting you crash into the waves and jumping on top of you, pushing you under the surface for a second before pulling you up and blowing a mouthful of water into your face. You gasped for air as the two laughed at you, already plotting your revenge.

You slapped Abby’s shoulder but her rock-hard muscles easily took the hit. She raised her eyebrows at you and gave your shoulder a seemingly light push that made you topple back into the water. How was she so fucking strong?! You let yourself float on your back for a second, then you dove under and grabbed the surprised soldier by the ankles, digging your fingernails into her skin and pulling her feet out from under her. Pushing off the sand with your feet, you dragged her legs with you so she was pulled underwater. She managed to free herself and you both came up at the same time, laughing and coughing.

“That’s what you get, shark,” you grinned at her.

“Wait, are there sharks here?” A half-panicky, half-excited voice from further out told you that Lev had swum quite a bit and was now suddenly overcome by the realization that you three weren’t the only ones in the sea.

“Yeah, big ones,” Abby yelled, “you better watch out.”

She winked at you, then she took a deep breath and dove in Lev’s direction, who was facing the opposite direction and didn’t notice the big figure swimming towards him. As expected, he suddenly shrieked, started flailing his arms and fought with something that was pulling him under. When he realized what was going on, he couldn’t stop himself from laughing as he yelled Abby’s name over and over, trying to get her off. Her head broke the surface next to him and she shook her head, water spraying in all directions as her hair danced in the sun.

She was roaring with laughter and held out an arm for Lev to hold on to while he caught his breath.

“Believe me, kid, as much as you love them, you don’t wanna meet sharks face to face.”

He sighed and turned to look at the open water.

“I know. Maybe we can drive out with a boat sometime and try to see them.”

Abby rubbed his shaved head.

“You are unbelievably okay with danger, young man.”

He smiled at her with so much love and admiration in his eyes it made your heart feel like it was going to explode. These two had found each other. You slowly swam towards them and turned on your back again to float, Lev immediately copying you and looking at Abby to do the same.

“We shouldn’t be in the sun for too long, you two are still not fully healed.”

Abby groaned and splashed some water in your direction.

“Let me just have this for a moment, please.”

You felt a twist in your stomach. She had just been having fun for the first time in forever and you had to ruin it by reminding her of what she had been through. Why couldn’t you just shut up and let her be? You turned to look at her and were surprised to see her smiling at you, nothing but warmth and appreciation in her face.

“You’re right, Y/N, I know that. Thank you for taking us here and worrying about us.”

Lev had his eyes closed, but he nodded and mumbled something in approval.

“Come on.” Abby lightly tapped your arm and nodded in the direction of the beach.

“Let’s head back.”

“Can I stay here a little longer?” Lev sounded far away, completely at peace as he soaked up the sun and the salty air.

“Of course, but make sure you don’t swim further out, okay?”

The boy just hummed happily. Both of you didn’t say a word as you and Abby swam back, your mind spinning faster again as she took her last steps out of the water in front of you. Droplets were running down the back of her neck, the curves of her back muscles, butt, and thighs highlighted by the reflections of sunlight on the wet skin.

She turned around and absentmindedly slicked her dripping hair back, showing off her biceps and abs as she stretched and waited for you to come out of the water.

“You think the sand is gonna be less painful under wet feet?”

You stumbled out of the waves with little elegance but managed to stay standing up as a wave crashed around your calves.

“I don’t know, I think we should make a run for it.”

“Fair,” she nodded and held out her hand. “You ready?”

Ignoring the jump in your chest, you took her hand and she held yours tight, encasing it completely with her cool fingers.

“Let’s go!” Both of you started running, squealing and laughing as the sand burned your soles once more. You almost fell several times but Abby’s steel grip caught and held you up every time. Slightly out of breath, both of you reached the shade of the palm tree and let yourselves fall on the towels. Abby still hadn’t let go of your hand and you tried to hold your fingers completely still so she wouldn’t notice and let go.

You were both lying on your backs next to each other, panting and looking up at the green branches above you dancing gently in the sea breeze. Watching Abby out of the corner of your eye, you promised yourself you would always remember this moment. The heat of the sun peeking through the branches, the last drops of saltwater running down your torso, the stickiness of your skin as it dried and left behind tiny salt crystals, the rushing of the waves and the cries of the seagulls. The beautiful blonde next to you, her chest moving with every breath, the little specks of sunlight on her face and her mouth, slightly open as she looked at the sky, deep in thought.

It felt like this was the first day of your life, like you had been somewhere else every day before, somewhere grey and bitter and hard with little joy and too many worries. You never knew life could feel like this, like riding a wave, like soaring through the summer air, easy laughter, and warm touches. You were free.

You suddenly noticed that Abby had turned her head to face you, her eyes burning into your skin like the salt that was prickling your cheek with tiny needles. Holding your breath, you slowly turned towards her and were immediately pulled in by her gaze.

This woman had been by your side almost constantly for three weeks and you had known for a while. What you felt for her was deeper than any connection you had ever had with anyone. She understood you without words and she was never too much for you, as others often were. The blonde made your heart skip beats and your brain often stopped working when she was around, but you still wanted to be by her side every possible second. Through all the pain and trauma and all the terrible things that had happened, you two always found something to laugh about and a way to forget everything for a while, just enjoying each other’s company.

As you finally released the air from your lungs, you could hear the shakiness in your breath and the rush of your own blood in your ears. It was so loud that you were sure Abby could hear it, too. Your fingers twitched slightly and she immediately tightened her fingers around yours. Slowly, her eyes wandered to your lips and now it was you that could hear her breath catch up in her throat. The distance between your faces was small, maybe a hand’s width, but it felt like miles. It was the feeling before doing a handstand or jumping off a high platform, a move you had seen others do countless times but felt impossible to you, like an invisible wall in your chest stopping your breath and movement at the same time.

Abby softly ran her thumb over yours, her hazel-green eyes piercing yours. Your racing thoughts came to a halt. You could count every freckle on her face, every tiny salt crystal on her lashes, the faded scars from past battles. She was breathtakingly beautiful.

Just as she lifted her head ever so slightly to move even closer, there were distant thumps on the sand and you could hear Lev crying out in a mix of joy and pain. You expected Abby to snap back and let go of your hand, but instead she just smiled, sat up and yelled: “Come here, quickly! You don’t want me to have roasted children’s feet for dinner, do you?”

Out of the corner of your eye, you could see Lev speeding up towards you.

“I’m not a child, Abby!”

He came to a halt in front of Abby, quickly glancing at your intertwined fingers before frowning at her. She patted the towel next to her.

“Alright then, sir. Come sit with us, we’re currently being hypnotized by the palm branches.”

“What’s hypnotized?” he asked as he let himself flop on the towel.

“Lay down and you’ll see,” Abby said as she lifted her free arm and rested her head on her hand, staring up at the sky again.

“It’s the feeling of watching something - or someone - and completely getting lost in what you see. Your head gets all quiet and you’re willing to do anything the person hypnotizing you says.”

Her thumb was drawing circles on the back of your hand.

Lev let out a big breath as he solemnly folded his hands over his stomach and looked up at the leaves waving back and forth.

You all lay there for a while, not speaking, just soaking in each other’s presence and the untainted beauty of the world in this very moment. Abby’s touch sent electrical waves through your arm right into your heart, filling your chest with liquid gold and having you fight down an ecstatic squeal of happiness. Did this mean she actually felt the same way?

In the midst of all the joy you felt in that moment, there was a tiny voice in your head telling you that this was just an exceptional situation and things would go back to the way they were once you returned. Abby liked you, that much you were sure of, but was she really willing to go a step further and open up to you like that? Trust someone with that kind of vulnerability?

You swallowed hard, trying to fight down the tiny storm of panic brewing in your throat. There was absolutely no reason to ruin this moment for yourself. You let go of Abby’s hand to prop yourself up on your elbow, turning your body towards her.

There was confusion in her eyes and a slightly worried look.

“Everything okay?” she whispered.

Looking up over her shoulder, you saw that Lev had fallen asleep. He looked like a little vampire, pale from the lack of sunlight on his newly recovered skin over the last weeks, lying stone still in a perfectly straight line with his hands still folded.

You lay back down just a little bit closer to Abby than before, this time facing her completely. You could feel her breath on your lips and couldn’t stop yourself from raising a hand to push a strand of hair out of her face. She closed her eyes for a second at your touch, then she leaned into your hand. You cupped her cheek, drawing your thumb over her cheek and her bottom lip.

“More than okay,” you breathed as you ran your fingers through her hair and down the back of her neck, making her shiver despite the heat.

Slowly this time, you sat up and whispered “Come with me.”

Both of you stood up and now it was you that held out a hand. The Firefly took it and you both hurried towards the water again, trying not to be too loud and wake up the boy in your care.

Finally on wet sand, you sat down and pulled Abby down with you as the water lapped at your ankles.

You took a deep breath, glancing at the blonde’s questioning look and quickly looking down at your feet.

“I’m so glad we finally got out of the base and came out here. You guys haven’t even seen all the beautiful places on Catalina. We could do this more often, I know my way around the Island.”

Abby drew circles in the sand, the tracks of her fingers immediately washed away by every new wave. Squinting against the sun, she softly said: “Yes, I’d like that. It really is beautiful here.”

Your heart was pounding again. What were you thinking, taking her away alone without even knowing what to say? She was obviously waiting for you to tell her something Lev shouldn’t hear. You wanted so badly just to tell her how you felt, but your head was just completely devoid of words.

She had mercy with you. “Where else would you like to take me?”

Her? Alone? You bit your lip, trying frantically to come up with something good.

“There is a bay called Little Harbor, the water is bright turquoise and it’s on the west coast, so you get some amazing sunsets there. There’s a hunting cabin there, too, back from when we hadn’t fully secured the island yet. I could get a friend in admin to give us a check-up mission, let us check the electricity and stock up the hut. Only if you’d want to, of course.”

Abby nodded. “That sounds amazing. I’m cleared for missions starting next Monday, I need to start doing my part anyways. We could go whenever it fits your schedule.”

You smiled at her. “Great. I’ll let my friend know.”

“Are we going to stay there overnight, then?”

You could hear the amusement in her voice. She knew she was making you all flustered and nervous and was just teasing you now so you elbowed her, stifling a laugh.

“It could be arranged.”

She placed her hand on your knee, looking at you to catch your reaction. You couldn’t help but blush and pressed your lips together, trying to hold it together.

“Y/N.”

Her face was now directly next to yours, her breath warm on your cheek again. It took everything in your power to turn your head and look her directly in the eye. Well, you tried to, but her eyes were on your lips again, her tongue quickly running over her bottom lip only to disappear again.

And finally, after weeks of uncertainty, of pining and yearning and trying to get her out of your head, she grabbed the back of your neck and gently pulled you in. Her lips were incredibly soft, cushioning your movement as you pressed your mouth on hers, desperately trying to stay in this moment forever. She tasted like the sea, but her warm skin still smelled like the forest. It always did.

You leaned into her, deepening the kiss as she put her arm around your shoulders and ran her hand over your thigh. Nothing had ever felt better than this.

The blonde pulled away slightly, peeking at you through long eyelashes and licking her lips again.

“I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time,” she confessed, never releasing your gaze.

“Me too,” was all you got out under your shaky breath before she kissed you again, sweet and smiling, placing tiny kisses on your cheeks and jawline before moving up to graze her lips over your nose and forehead.

“I’m so lucky,” she mumbled against your temple. “After everything Lev and I have been through and of all the places in the world…”

She wasn’t the type to speak much about her feelings and this was probably the most you would get from her for now, but it was more than enough for you to understand. You rested your head on her shoulder as you both stared out to the open water.

“I’m not going anywhere. I’ve never felt like this with anyone before.” It felt like a weight had been lifted off your chest. You knew this was a lot to reveal, but you trusted Abby to not get scared away easily.

“You know, Lev is going to be so relieved.” Abby snorted and turned around to see if there was any movement in your little camp, but the little Seraphite seemed to still be enjoying his afternoon nap.

Your brows almost hit your hairline. “You’re gonna tell him right away?”

She laughed and slapped your thigh before tightening her grip around it.

“Sure, he’s been listening to me debating my next step for the last week. He was so excited for today because he thought you’d make a move.” You couldn’t believe what you were hearing.

“He has zero faith in me, you know. He knows I easily face any kind of danger and I always win my fights, but he thought I didn’t have the guts to kiss you.”

You rolled your eyes. “Okay, Miss Warrior, you’re the toughest. I remember Lev telling me something about crane bridges?”

She acted shocked. “I trust him with all my secrets and he just goes and tells you about them? What a little brat.”

You both had to laugh; it was clear that no one loved Lev more than Abby and no one could ever really be angry with him.

“No seriously, I tell him everything. He’s all I got left.” She looked down and smiled to herself, no bitterness or sadness in her voice but a deep appreciation and nothing but love for her partner through thick and thin.

Her last sentence stung a little, but you knew it was going to be a while before Abby would know just how much she could count on you to be there for her. Trust had to be earned.

You spent the rest of your day in the shade with Lev, eating the fruit you had brought, playing cards, reading, and stealing kisses while the boy went for another swim in the ocean. Lev was sad you couldn’t light a bonfire as it got dark, but you had to get back in time for dinner.

Both you and Abby promised him another beach day with stick bread at the campfire as soon as you both found the time again. Meanwhile, he could try to find some friends to come along.

As you packed up your things, the sun was setting behind the green hills of the island and painting the sky pink, orange and purple, delivering a spectacle almost as wonderful as the one going on inside you.

Lev jumped on the back of the truck without asking this time and both of you got in the front. The drive was quiet, all of you deep in thought, reminiscing about the day you had had.

“Thanks again for doing this,” Abby said, playing with a strand of your hair. The windows were rolled down and the cool evening air was dancing through the cabin, filling your lungs and clearing your mind.

“You’re very welcome.”

“I can’t wait for our cabin trip. A sunset just for the two of us,” she remarked, looking at you from the side.

Finally back on the main road, you placed your hand on her thigh. You had wanted this for so long and now you would do everything in your power to win Abby’s heart entirely.

“When do I see you again?” you asked, scared to hear the answer.

“Tomorrow morning? You could pick me up from the gym for breakfast if you want. I’d offer to train with you but I think your doctors would feed me to the sharks.”

You laughed at the thought; it had taken forever to convince the medical staff to let you go today. It was going to be a few more weeks of physiotherapy to get your body back on track.

“Okay. I’m pretty sure they’re making pancakes tomorrow. A commander’s birthday, I think. Pick you up at 8?”

She placed her hand on top of yours and squeezed it.

“I’ll be waiting.”

#abby anderson #abby anderson fic #abby tlou #abby tlou2 #abby fluff #abby anderson fanfiction #tlou2 fanfiction #tlou2 #lev tlou2 #catalina island #abby anderson x reader

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daily-dose-of-imagines · 3 years

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ʟᴏᴠᴇ ɪꜱ ɢᴏɴᴇ | ʟᴇᴠɪ ᴀᴄᴋᴇʀᴍᴀɴ x ꜰ!ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ | ᴏɴᴇ-ꜱʜᴏᴛ

After thinking about it and reading Admin T’s angsty fic, I too, have decided to post my own angsty fic, and why not a Levi one? SKSKSK He’s the one that comes to me the easiest when it comes to writing anything, so I hope you all enjoy this as much as I did with writing it~!

Please note there will be canon divergence (mainly as I haven’t caught up in the manga or anime in a hot second)

And yes, I listened to Love is Gone by Slander & Dylan Matthew to get in the mood LOLOL

PLEASE READ AT YOUR OWN RISK

TW: Major Character Death ; Depressive episodes ; PTSD ; Mental Instability ; Body Mutilation

» » Admin Ko

“Levi! LEVI! GET OUT OF HERE! PLEASE! GET AWAY---”

A sharp inhale and the bright white light of the morning sun was all that welcomed the ex-corporal as he sat rigidly in his bed. Slowly, frantic metallic blue eyes skimmed down to battered and scarred hands as he watched his body move in an odd state of delirium. Oddly fixated on the way his knuckles paled and how tightly he grasped his sheets, Levi hadn’t even realized the painful sting in his lungs as the cool slick of sweat dripped down the nape of his neck.

It was a barrage of movements from there, his eyes remaining unfocused as he watched the chaos that spilled in his bedroom from an out of body perspective. It was...odd to say the least. He watched familiar faces come to calm his body down, easing him back into a sense of reality as he watched the cogs in his own face work to ease up the grip he once had on the sheets and the trembling he had ceased.

Another flash and he found himself back in his own body, blankly staring down at his scarred hands once again. The room was left barren all over again as he found himself staring out the window and into the gorgeous scenery before him.

It hadn’t been that long since they had discovered the truth behind the entire catastrophe they found themselves in, yet it felt as though it was ages ago since he’s stepped forth outside. Or had it? If Levi were being honest, he couldn’t remember shit, and that itself only added to his agitation as he glared at the empty walls he was trapped in.

“Fuck...”

Clenching his teeth, the ex-corporal forced himself to get out of bed. A strange tug in his heart drew him towards the desk hidden within the corner of the room. Strewn across the poorly put together desk were notes, plans, letters, photographs, and...a locket?

Perhaps it was his age that was getting to him, or maybe it was the heat, but what was so important about this shitty piece of jewelry? Slowly picking up the accessory, Levi gave a brief once over to it before feeling a scoff build in his throat.

“Tch, it’s probably Lt. (L/N)’s.....”

Slowly, the words faltered from falling out of his throat as he felt his heart skip a beat. Cool metallic blue hues suddenly vibrant with evident fear as flashes of red and torn limbs flashed in his eyes. The quickening of his breath went unheard as he suddenly leaned over the table. Those scarred hands that have seen days of combat suddenly felt numb as the telltale sign of pins and needles crawled their way down to his fingers.

“Levi? Levi~~ Levi! LEVI!”

Flashes of her face swam through his vision as the once clear image of his desk became fragmented as he dropped to the floor. He didn’t even feel his knees dig into the floor-- rather he couldn’t care less as he desperately clung onto the locket as the memories from a week ago resurfaced into his mind. The tears that he once thought had dried up began pouring down his cheeks as the ache in his chest multiplied.

»»————- ♪ ————-««

The rustling of leaves caught his attention. Despite the cool weather they’ve finally been given it still brought the ex-corporal a sense of unease as he watched the small party work around in gathering materials whilst discussing their next plan of action.

It hadn’t been long since they’ve dealt with Kenny and his gang, but if Levi was certain of one thing it was that he didn’t want to cross paths with that man ever again. Already he barely managed to scrape by whilst making sure their original plan had worked.

“Oi, dipshit.”

“Tch.”

No matter how hard he sought to smack that cheeky smile off of her face, he never found the heart to do it. Not when she held his with such a pretty smile.

“You’re spacing out again. Kenny’s bullshit still getting to you?”

“...”

“Oh come on, you can tell me~.”

“Fuck off.”

“Oooh~ Touchy touchy. Look, if it makes you feel any better, I thought you were pretty badass!”

A skip to his heart. Something that wasn’t uncommon when he found himself with her. Of course he’d never let her know, instead he gave her a roll of his eyes before kicking her away.

“Get back to work.”

“Fine fine~. Oh! But in all seriousness, whatever is looming in that brooding mind of yours, just remember we still got the plan done. Whatever happened in the past is whatever. We just gotta look toward the future, yeah?”

“...tch. Hurry up and get the fuck over there already. Those damn shit wads look like they’re going to break their backs.”

A mock salute, one that he found endearing in her own quirky way though when he least suspected it she was right back up in his face. A cocky little smirk graced her lips before those chapped yet soothingly familiar feel of her lips brushing his own registered in his brain, and before he could react she was merrily skipping towards the struggling ex-cadets.

“...you’re damn lucky I love you shitty (y/n)...”

➽───────────────❥

BANG

“Fuck! Fuck! What the fuck!”

BOOM BOOM CRASH

“HOW THE FUCK DID THEY GET HERE?! WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!”

SCREEEEEECCHHHHHHH

Hell on earth, better known as the mass migration of Titans. One minute he was seated with Armin. Easily discussing strategies and the next movement for their plans. The moment he blinked the makeshift tents they had were on fire. Smoke was rising to the skies and the screams of people filled his ears. Immediately, Levi reacted. Rushing to grab his swords he mentally checked off a list of what needed to be done. Yet before he could even reach his own gear the hissing telltale sign of someone whisking into action caught his ears.

The reaction was immediate as he looked up to see fierce (e/c) hues. Calloused hands he’s held plenty of times underneath tables were now clenched tightly around her swords as she went about luring as many titans away as she could.

“...evi, Levi, CAPTAIN LEVI!”

Shocked out of his stupor he turned to face Connie who was frantically grabbing at his arm as he finally took the chance to take in the scene before him.

Whatever carts they had salvaged were packed away with what little they could save. The bodies of those who had already fallen were hanging from the trees and already in the distant background he saw the revolting sight of a wretched up human meatball.

“Status?”

“We’ve lost at l-least a couple of hands. Captain (y/n) told us to gather as much as we could and to gain distance while she distracts them--”

“Is there back up with her?”

“..N-No sir...”

“Are you fucking STUPID? Tch, get moving Springer. (y/n) and I will catch up shortly.”

“B-But”

“Did. I. Stutter.”

“N-No sir...”

“Then get moving!”

Not even taking the chance to watch the male rush back to the small party of cadets, Levi hurriedly put his harness and gear on in record time before whisking himself towards the sound of gurgling and inhumane sounds.

“Just stay alive....please, I can’t lose you too...”

➽───────────────❥

Horrific. That’s the best that he could describe the sight before him. The carcasses of fallen allies and titans alike littered the ground as the once distant storm clouds drew in close. The light sprinkling of rain undoubtedly triggered a wave of unnecessary deja vu as he trudged on until he saw a lone figure standing a top the last titan from the herd.

Suddenly, the once tight hold around his heart loosened as a breath he didn’t know he was holding finally escaped his throat as he relaxed his stance.

“Oi shit for brains. What the fuck were you thinking?”

“Oh! Levi! I thought you were with the others?”

“And leave a shitty captain like you to half ass the job?”

“Heh, you know it’s okay to admit you were worried about me stupid. It’s just us.”

Another roll of his eyes was given as he begrudgingly made his way towards her, a half assed smile gracing his features as he held his hand out towards her.

“Tch, you’re lucky I fucking love you shit for brains.”

The smile she gave was blinding. One that he surely could never find an immunity to as he savored the warmth of her calloused hand in his own scarred and tainted ones.

“Heh~ I love you too shitty corporal~.”

With that, the pair began their journey towards the base. A brief conversation in regards to how much compressed air was left in their tanks being their main worry as they walked. Though as that continued the rain that had once sprinkled began to heavily pour down. A sound of irritation left his lips as she lightly laughed, easily scooting herself closer to him as he begrudgingly wrapped an arm around her waist.

“This rain makes things just as bad, doesn’t it?”

“Yea---”

“....Levi?”

“Sh!”

Immediately a sense of dread filled his chest as he tugged her towards a tree, quickly hiding by the base as the loud crashes and thumps of footsteps prevailed throughout the lands.

“...dammit....how much gas do you have left?”

“....Enough to swing by two of those big ass trees.”

A grimace. Again, that pool of dread seemed to fill faster as he subconsciously held onto her tightly. He had enough gas to swing back to at least the vicinity of the planned meet up spot, but with an additional body? He wasn’t sure. Perhaps if he were able to split it.

“We’re switching tanks--”

“No we’re not. You are going to keep your goddamn tanks and I’ll keep mine. Worse comes to worse you leave me here.”

“I’m not leaving you--”

A quick kiss to his lips as her fists bunched up his dress shirt. If he felt a tremble in her hands or the way her lips wobbled he didn’t mention it.

“Look. We both know that between the two of us you’re the one who has the best deduction and quick thinking. If it had to be one or the other....it has to be you.”

“Shut the fuck up. We’re going back together.”

“Levi...”

“No! shut the fuck up. I’m not leaving you behind. I’ve lost too many fucking people! I can’t lost you too! You’re....you’re all I have left in this shitty world...please (y/n)...”

Though before she could even reply a sharp scream came from her as he was roughly pushed to the side. On instinct her hands moved to hold the swords attached to her hips before jetting off for a nearby tree.

In response, the large titan moved for her. It’s large beady eyes leering at it’s new prey as she tightly grasped her blades.

“(y/n)!”

Levi didn’t even recognize his own voice as he went to grab his own swords. His fingers itching to press the triggers for the canisters, yet he was cut short at her voice and the shaky glare she gave him. One that only further plummeted his heart into his stomach as she gave him a trembilng grin.

“I got this! Just go and don’t turn back okay? I’ll be right behind you!”

“BULL SHIT. YOU BARELY HAVE ENOUGH GAS IN THOSE TANKS--”

“WELL I WAS LYING OKAY? NOW GO! I CAN HANDLE THIS ONE!”

“THEN LET’S---”

ROOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR

As if the distress wasn’t enough, the quick rumbling of earth and stone had both captains pale as (y/n) tightly held onto her blades. Her gaze no longer on the titan before her, but rather the hoard that was nearing their now disclosed location.

“...Levi you have to go.”

“No. We’re doing this together.”

“FOR FUCK’S SAKE PLEASE LEVI! JUST GO. YOU WON’T HAVE ENOUGH GAS BY THE END OF THIS JUST PLEASE GO!”

“WHAT IF I DON’T GIVE A FLYING FUCK? I’M NOT LEAVING YOU SHIT FOR BRAINS!”

Gritting her teeth, she mustered up as much strength as she could as she hurriedly reached for the smoke gun. Without a moment’s notice, she shot the pellet. A trail of black littering the skies as she gave the other a glare.

“THERE. THEY’LL COME HERE TO HELP SO PLEASE GO AND BRING THEM HERE. I CAN HANDLE THIS ONE MYSELF AND THEN I’LL SWING UP.”

Gritting his teeth, he could only give her a stern glare as he reluctantly did as he was told. Without a moment’s delay he shot forth, desperate in tracking the familiar wagon to bring back reinforcements as the sound of a titan hitting the floor brought him a sense of ease.

“Damn you (y/n) you better keep your fucking word!”

. . .

“I’m sorry Levi...I lied...I don’t have enough to swing up...”

Teary eyed, she let her tanks drop to the grounds below as her racing heart seemed to be in beat with the thundering steps of the hoard of titans on their way towards the sound of the fallen one’s cry. Subconsciously, she pressed her fist to her chest. Why? She wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she just had to keep it safe for him.

➽───────────────❥

Upon spotting the rickety wagon, Levi jetted straight for the reins. His eyes frantic as the leftover cadets near him seemed shaken by his brutish actions. He didn’t necessarily care though. What mattered to him was reaching (y/n)’s side with her seated on one of the thick branches with that cheeky grin he adored while he and the rest of the moving cadets could annihilated the hoard of titans.

Yet when he returned the pit in his stomach formed into that of utter despair. Where he should’ve seen (y/n) he found nothing. Instead, he saw the tattered remains of her cloak pinned to the tree as the hoard of demons fought over something...some...thing...some...one.

He didn’t know what happened next. Rather he couldn’t. As if his lungs had suddenly malfunctioned and stopped working. He hadn’t even realized he had jetted out from the wagon. All he saw was a glimpse of her bloody face and suddenly he saw red.

It was an utter rampage. Sounds of desperation, anger, and hurt filled the skies as the rain continued to pour down relentlessly. The titans that had once stood tall now laid in horrifying dismembered piles. (y/n)’s body-- rather what was left of it.

Ripped from the torso down, her legs were practically disintegrated. Most likely stewing away in one of the fallen titans’ bodies. A brief flash of her spine had most turning away to vomit, yet Levi stared lifelessly. His body trudging slowly to her as his lower lip wobbled. The pain in his chest multiplied tenfold as those warm (e/c) were glassy and unfocused.

I'm sorry, don't leave me I want you here with me

Dropping to his knees, he gently cupped her cheeks as he pressed his forehead to hers. A shaky breath finally escaping him as he struggled to take in another breath of air as the rain continued it’s assault on him.

I can't breathe, I'm so weak

“Fuck... come on shit for brains... open those beautiful eyes for me...come on...yeah? You said we were gonna go see those damn pink trees...right?”

No response. Not that anyone had expected one. Forcefully breathing in he forced a weak smile onto his trembling features as his sight began to blur.

“C’mon (y/n)...stop playing these fucking games and look at me...c’mon.... I know you can dumbass...”

The pain in his chest amplified as the lack of response continued to shake her. An attempt to wake her up as he blatantly ignored the lack of legs and the disgustingly slow plops of viscera staining the grassy floors.

“Fucking shit (y/n) wake the fuck up. I’m tired of these fucking games. If you keep doing this bullshit I wont take you to see those damn trees you’re obsessed with when we fix this shit...”

Flashes of bodies. Each familiar to him in their own sickening way as a wretched sob came out of his chest. Desperately, he held her close. The care he had for his clothes now out the window as he buried his face into the crook of her neck as he shook with rage and absolute pain.

Don't tell me that your love is gone That your love is gone

➽───────────────❥

The ride was silent. Just the clopping horseshoes whilst he tightly held onto the bundle that was, in his words, a sleeping (y/n).

“...Captain?”

“What is it Arlert?”

Despite the clear hoarseness in his voice, Levi still held a bite to his voice. The lack of emotion in his eyes was pitiful, especially knowing how many loved ones the man has lost.

“...As we were cleaning Captain (y/n) up...we...found this.”

A tilt of his head was given, and before he could ask any questions the glittering of metal caught his attention.

“It’s a locket...I apologize I peeked inside...but I feel as though she would want you to have this.”

»»————- ♪ ————-««

Red rimmed eyes stared at the photo. It was something she had suggested-- stupid if you had asked him in the moment, but at this moment he couldn’t help but tightly hold onto the only photo of her left. Bringing the locket to his chest, the strong captain curled up into a ball as a new wave of emotions overcame him.

Having cried all his tears out, all that came out of him left were weakened whimpers and desperate heavy breaths as he tightly curled around the locket. The demolished state of the room proved to be a perfect depiction of his mind as the letters she wrote for fun back then were sprawled all around him. The sheets from the bed now in a makeshift nest around him as bloodied hands cupped the locket.

“Why was it you...why couldn’t it have been me?”

A flash of her smile. The sweet harmonies of her laughter. Adoring warm (e/c) hues.

“...why couldn’t it have been m e?”

#attack on titan x reader #aot x reader #snk x reader #levi ackerman x reader #levi x reader #levi ackerman #aot levi #tiny bit of angst #oops i meant a fuck ton #tw; major character death #tw; depression #tw; ptsd #tw; mental instability #tw; body mutilation

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just-call-me-the-intrusive-thot · 4 years

Text

Soulmate September - Day 16

Day 16 - When your soulmate listens to music or is singing, you hear it in your own head as well. (Songfic, Crazy = Genius by PATD)

Pairing(s): Romantic Intrulogical, Ambiguous/Romantic Analomus, Background Roceit [the Janus part is ambiguous but whatever], Familial Logicality, Familial Virremile, Background Remile [again hinted]

TWs: swearing, sexual themes [light but they’re there], makeouts, Remus being Remus, drunken behaviour, pyromania, vomiting [not graphic just mentioned]

–

“Either of you pyros got a lighter I can borrow?”

Logan sighed, not making much in the way of eye contact with the emo sitting in the cell next to him and his soulmate. He dug into his jean pocket and lazily tossed the lighter to the boy clad in so much black and purple he looked like the sapient embodiment of a bruise.

“Keep it.”

“Oh. You sure? This is a pretty sweet lighter-”

“I insist.”, Logan groaned, running his hands down his face, “It’s not like I’ll be needing it ever again after this.”

From beside Logan, Remus slung his arm to the side, flopping it about limply to swat at his soulmate, “Shuddafuckup”, he slurred, hauling himself upright from his slumped over position, “S’gonna be fiiiine. Roman said he’d bail us oooouuuut, so fuckin’ chill-”

“Your brother told you last week that he would give us a ride to Dairy Queen but instead he was too fucking busy getting to third base with his boyfriend!!”, Logan snapped. Ugh, he would regret that in the morning. He ran his hands through his hair anxiously slicking it back. How had the night gone wrong so fast?...

‘You can set yourself on fire! You can set yourself on fire!’

Logan wasn’t sure what it was about the glowing ember embrace of a flame that drew him in toward it like a moth with a death wish, but as he allowed his soulmate Remus to haul his ass towards their usual hangout with the promise of some pretty choice items to burn, he found that he couldn't care less.

As he approached the overpass with his soulmate chugging a whole half a bottle of tequila without blinking, Logan wondered how he ever survived before without this whirlwind in human form.

‘She said at night in my dreams

You dance on a tightrope of weird

Oh but when I wake up you're so normal that you just disappear

You're so straight like commuters with briefcases towing the line

There's no residue of a torturer inside your of eyes’

“Check it the fuck out, babe! Did I bring the goods or what?”, Remus grinned nearly as brightly as the shine on the rather expensive looking crimson car - he guessed it might have been a Mercedes, but car brands all looked the same to him really - parked under the overpass. Logan didn’t have a particular favourite item to burn, but when Remus walked over in his lime green hoodie that barely covered his black leather shorts and fishnets to pose seductively on top of the hood? Logan hadn’t wanted to incinerate anything more in his life.

“You… How on Earth did you come by this?!”, he ran his hand along the curve of the hood, unashamedly letting his hand roam over Remus’ thigh.

His soulmate hummed, leaning in to steal a kiss, murmuring softly against Logan’s lips, “If I told you I might’ve hotwired it just this afternoon? Is that a turn off or a turn on?”

Goddamn him, Remus knew just how to speak right to Logan’s soul.

“The latter, and you know it.”, Logan all but growled into their kiss.

‘She said you're just like Mike

Love but you wanna be Brian Wilson, Brian Wilson

Said you're just like Mike

Love but you'll never be Brian Wilson’

In the back of his mind, Logan did wonder what his father and morally conscious little brother would think; if they knew he snuck out to satisfy his pyromania, make out with his feral cryptid of a boyfriend, and engaged in petty acts of vandalism and thievery from time to time. What would Thomas and Patton think of their stoic, orderly son and big brother who - instead of studying for his undergraduate degree in astrophysics - would rather spend the night getting dangerous and dirty alongside his soulmate who had literally just admitted to auto theft to acquire a ridiculously expensive car for him to burn?

The thought was there for all of two seconds until Remus’ tongue licking into his mouth banished it away. The only thot he needed tonight was the one driving him crazy with a kiss alone.

‘And I said (hey ay, ay)

If crazy equals genius (hey ay, ay)

If crazy equals genius

Then I'm a fucking arsonist (hey)

I'm a rocket scientist (hey hey)

(Hey ay, ay)

If crazy equals genius (hey)

You can set yourself on fire (hey ay)

But you're never gonna burn, burn, burn (hey ay)

You can set yourself on fire (hey ay)

But you're never gonna learn, learn, learn hey!’

Knowing they came here for a reason, Logan reluctantly ended their makeout session and grabbed for his trusted blue lighter.

“How full is the gas tank?”, Logan made sure to ask, popping open the door to the driver’s side to see what was left in the car. Might as well keep anything worth selling.

“Not sure.”, Remus shrugged, twirling the keys around his finger excitedly while he finished off their first bottle of the night, “Wanna help me make sure there’s nothing left?”

‘She said darlin' you know

How the wine plays tricks on my tongue

But you don't seem to change when you stuff all of

your feelings with drugs

Other boys you may have dated serrated your heart with a slice

But the cut of your love never hurts baby, it's a sweet butter knife’

Logan wasn’t sure how Remus managed to look even more majestic every time he looked at him, but as he clung tight to the hand rest above the passenger window while his soulmate pulled off his sixteenth donut in a row, all he could think about was how lucky he was to have him. Like a trickle of water turning into a river, Logan recognised the beginning of Na Na Na starting to play in his head. Of course. He knew Remus well enough by now to know that was coming. The humming under his soulmate’s breath also gave it away somewhat.

While Remus kept trying to empty the tank, Logan couldn’t help but feel nostalgia for their first meeting; Remus’ older brother Roman had asked Logan to stand in for the theatre department’s regular dramaturge when Logan began to hear the beginnings of Avenue Q’s The Internet Is For Porn begin to invade his mind. Luckily for him, it hadn’t taken long for Remus to saunter over and try to flirt with him, humming the exact tune Logan had been hearing the whole time.

From there, they’d begun dating though it took a good few months before Logan would join Remus in his fantastical ramblings. He lamented on how he felt trapped by a father who meant well but expected so much from him, how stifled he felt having to be a role model to his living marshmallow of a little brother. How Logan just wanted the fun, exhilaration of doing something extreme for a change.

With Remus’ encouragement, Logan opened up about his pyromaniac tendencies which his soulmate was 110% onboard with. Ever since, the underpass had become their dirty, out of the way, graffiti scarred home away from home. Where Logan could indulge the urge to burn away his stresses and lose himself in Remus’ mantra of doing whatever the fuck they wanted.

‘She said you're just like Mike

Love but you wanna be Brian Wilson, Brian Wilson

Said you're just like Mike

Love but you'll never be Dennis Wilson’

With the car finally seemingly out of gas as it shuddered to a stop, Remus fluidly slid out of the open window - you know, like a normal functional human being - and slid across the hood of the car to open the door for Logan, “Alright, time for this bitch to burn!”

Logan was more than happy to get down to the main event after doing a last quick sweep of the car. All he’d found worth keeping was the planet shaped air freshener; so sue him, the sweet scent of mixed berries was delightful. Whipping out his lighter, Logan escorted Remus a safe distance away and pulled out the hairspray he’d swiped from his room earlier. He aimed the spray towards the car - making sure it wasn’t against the wind or pointed back at himself, he preferred to keep his eyebrows, thanks - and watched as the plume of fire engulfed the car’s seat cover.

Crackling flames. Straining metal. Hissing fabric burning to a plastic like mess. It was a symphony and Logan was it’s conductor.

With his boyfriend wrapping his arms around his shoulders, Logan tilted to kiss him once more as the heat of the fire caressed their skin. Remus’ eyes never once left Logan, seeing his soulmate delight in an act of pure mindless vandalism, watching the way Logan looked truly free, sent his heart racing. In compliment, Logan turned back to Remus, grinning already at the shades of orange and yellow that painted his handsome features. He always thought Remus was at his most beautiful that way.

‘And I said (hey ay, ay)

If crazy equals genius (hey ay, ay)

If crazy equals genius

Then I'm a fucking arsonist (hey)

I'm a rocket scientist (hey hey)

(Hey ay, ay)

If crazy equals genius (hey)

You can set yourself on fire (hey ay)

But you're never gonna burn, burn, burn (hey ay)

You can set yourself on fire (hey ay)

But you're never gonna learn, learn, learn hey!’

Logan couldn’t tell you what happened next; one minute the two of them were watching the flames while his soulmate continued his campaign to destroy his kidneys with alcohol, the next Remus was sitting in his lap leaving hickeys all over his neck while Logan let his hands roam around under Remus’ hoodie. In the back of his mind, Logan could make out the beginning of a song he didn’t recognise at first, but as the lyrics kicked in, he let out a breathy chuckle. Of course, trust Remus to pick a thematic piece of music for the night’s events. As the song got louder - and Remus marked him more needily - Logan found he rather liked the song. He’d have to ask Remus what it was called later.

‘You can set yourself on fire (hey)

You can set yourself on fire (hey)

You can set yourself on fire’

The next thing either of them knew, there was a vague clattering noise followed by a thunderous metallic bang. Followed by another, then another. One after another for a total of seven times before it finally quieted down. No music, no bang, just the fire crackling away. Thoroughly shaken, Remus and Logan untangled themselves from each other, the former demanding all too loudly, “What the creme fresh fuck was that?!”

“I-! I have no idea-”, Logan began. There wasn’t anything that would’ve done that inside the car, he’d checked. However, as he rounded the car, giving the flames a wide berth, Logan noticed someone laying on the ground on the other side of the car; dressed in a dark, patchy hoodie and ripped jeans, a plume of purple dyed frizzy hair poking out from the hood. He looked like your run of the mill emo. For a second, Logan was worried he and Remus would have to dispose of a body, but fortunately the young man groaned and began to sit up. To his side, Logan winced at a metallic glint blinding his vision.

The spray can doing so had clearly rolled out of the bag full of other cans, all in different colours. At least now Logan could put a face to the rather beautiful graffiti that tattooed the underpass as well as what had exploded in the fire as he noted the burst open paint cans under the car.

“Are you alright? What the hell happened?”, Logan questioned firmly, though he knew the disoriented emo on the ground likely couldn’t answer right away. He assumed from the way the young man rubbed the back of his head that he’d taken a rather nasty fall. The anxious artist seemed to remember exactly where he was, eyes blown wide in fear,

“Dude, get outta here quick-”

“There he is!”

Three officers rushed towards the two of them prompting the emo and Logan to make a break for it, being sure not to run into the inferno. Remus pretty quickly got the idea and joined the two of them. It seemed neither of the three of them knew exactly where they were trying to run to, but a silent, unspoken agreement saw them all heading for the same direction. Looking back on it, Logan wondered if parting ways and heading for his car with Remus could’ve at least seen them with a better chance of getting away.

But hindsight is a bitch that wakes up seven hours late and didn’t even bother to bring Starbucks.

‘And I said (hey ay, ay)

If crazy equals genius (hey ay, ay)

If crazy equals genius

Then I'm a fucking arsonist (hey)

I'm a rocket scientist (hey hey)

(Hey ay, ay)

If crazy equals genius (hey)’

Before long, all Logan could hear was his sneakers scraping the ground and his own breathing competing against his heartbeat to dominate his ears. The urge to stop and breathe was intense but it felt as though doing just that would send the world crashing down around them.

Of course, prolonged exercise and a stomach full of alcohol wasn’t the best combination.

“‘M gonna fuckin’ puke-!”, Remus huffed, trying to cover his mouth with his hand.

“Just hold on, Remus, we’re-!”

Logan watched in horror as his soulmate stopped to empty his stomach, unintentionally doing so in a way that blocked off the hoodie clad young man trying his best to keep up.

“Ah sHIT-!”

He didn’t need to look back; the clattering of the satchel, the mutual yelps of surprise and pain, Logan kept running even as two of the officers apprehended his soulmate and the hooded lad. The guilt would catch up to Logan before the third officer did, or it would have if he didn’t mistime his turning around the next corner only to end up nearly getting run over. How poetic; from making out on a car hood to being cuffed against one. Had Remus not been busy insulting the officers’ mothers rather colourfully, Logan theorised he would’ve no doubt made some innuendo about it.

Exhausted from their chase and thoroughly cuffed, all Logan could do was let himself be loaded into the back of the cop car with Remus and the anxious emo.

‘You can set yourself on fire (hey ay)

But you're never gonna burn, burn, burn (hey ay)

You can set yourself on fire (hey ay)

But you're never gonna learn, learn, learn hey!’

“Mmm… Logan, can you-”, Remus burped a little too wetly for it not to make Logan feel as queasy as Remus looked, “Can you stroke my hair? Pleeeeeease?”

Sighing in that playful kind of annoyance only true love can allow, Logan did as asked. The night may wind up with him being harshly reprimanded by his father and possibly losing his come-and-go privileges, but at least for now he had Remus.

“...... I’m sorry.”, came the rough voice of the emo in the cell next to theirs, “You both wouldn’t be stuck here if it wasn’t for me.”

Remus just gave a dismissive grunt in reply while Logan assured their cell companion, “While you may have led the police to us, I doubt our proclivity for fiery vandalism would’ve kept going undetected forever.”, he looked the emo up and down, “Might I ask,...?”

“Virgil.”

“Virgil,”, Logan repeated, “Might I ask how you ended up stumbling across us?”

Virgil shrugged, “I’ve been painting the underpass for years. Pretty much everything down there’s something I’ve done.”.

He chewed the inside of his cheek, “I had a shitty night so I came down to paint something when I walked in on you two getting all ‘friendly’,”, he airquoted, “So I went to go home but I got stopped by an officer and started panicking. So I just…. ran.”

His posture curled a little while he twirled Logan’s lighter between his fingers in a stimming action, “Then I realised I was way too fucking close to the fire and I blacked out.”, Virgil embarrassedly pulled his hood up, “Fire scares the shit outta me, always has. Next thing I knew, I woke up with you staring at me. You both know the rest.”

Logan nodded quietly. It really did fill in a few gaps, “I can’t blame you for not wanting to stick around. I do apologise that we inadvertently ruined your night.”

Virgil shrugged, “Eh, it’s alright, it’s just gonna suck having to have my dads bail me out again. Not that dad would mind but pops will probably gimme another lecture about ‘unhealthy coping habits’ again....”

At that, they sat for the most part in silence. Then that song began to trickle into Logan’s brain again. As nice as it had been in accompaniment to their antics before, Logan found it almost grating now. He sighed and gently nudged Remus,

“Re-”

“Logan, babe,”, Remus groaned, beating him to the punch, “Can you fuckin’ give it a rest with the music? M’fuckin’ head hurts.”

“....But you’re the one who’s been thinking about that song, right!?”, Logan’s concern was obvious. Remus caught on as well.

“No!? I thought it was you!?”, he sloppily hauled himself onto Logan’s lap, pressing their foreheads together, “Issokay babe, I won’t let-”, he stifled a burp though it did nothing to save Logan from Remus’ drunken breath, “Won’t let fate change our soul bond! I’ll fuckin- I’ll whip out my brain surgery skills right here if I gotta-”

“Remus!”, Logan sternly held him back a little, “Calm down, let’s just try and think rationally, okay!?”

“.... Have you ever MET me, you stupid sexy science bitch?”, Remus cackled at the alliteration.

“Please be serious for once.”, Logan sighed, fixing his glasses in a self calming gesture, “Do you know the name of the song in your head?”

“Yeah, iss fuckin’ um...”, Remus clicked his fingers in thought, trying to place it, “S’fuckin Scream In The Club, or some shit who sings it...”

“..... You mean, Panic At The Disco?”, came Virgil’s voice from the neighbouring cell.

Remus pointed dramatically, “THATS THE BITCH!”. He put his fist to his chest to stifle another burp, instead taking a second to turn and spit out some of the awful taste on his tongue, “Fuckin’... the lyrics were like…. “You can set yourself-””

“- On fire?!”, Virgil finished, looking rather interested in the conversation now.

Logan nodded between the two of them, “Yes, that’s the same opening line I remember. Virgil, I take it you’re familiar with the song?”

“Well yeah, and I’ll do you one better. Uh,....”, he rubbed the back of his neck nervously, “I’ve had that song stuck in my head all night.”

Remus and Logan shared a look of shock. Could Virgil really be their soulmate? It would explain the times when they would hear music that didn’t seem to line up with each other’s tastes. Before Logan could propose a test, Remus was way ahead of him; he rolled his eyes as the music flooded into his skull.

Virgil brightened up, “Ashnikko, huh? Good choice-”

“HOLY SHIT, LOGAN, WE GOT-! WE GOT ANOTHER ONE!!”, Remus screeched, wriggling excitedly in Logan’s lap, almost causing his boyfriend to drop him.

“Indeed.”, Logan sighed fondly as he tried to get Remus to sit back down on the bench instead of his lap, “So now you better call Roman and see if he can bail us ALL out..”

----------

... I know I won’t probably be able to catch up but hell with it, I love some of the prompt ideas, I’ll just stop tagging the blog if I run over at this point.

A big thanks to @accidental-sanders for the idea for this one, it was really fun to do.

@tsshipmonth2020

Taglist: @somehow-i-got-an-account @cateye-glasses @fandomsofrandom

#analomus #intrulogical #logan sanders #remus sanders #virgil sanders #my fics #fanfics #logan #virgil #remus #crazy = genius #songfic #soulmate september #I'm still going I s2g #I miiight put these all up on my ao3 tbh

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random-thought-depository · 3 years

Text

A short vignette I wrote as part of a discussion on a forum I post on, with past/present tense and other grammar and formatting and math somewhat cleaned up from the rough version I posted there, and I’ve given it a title; it is a stand-alone piece and is not connected to any of my main SF settings; I took the liberty of re-using some relatively generic planet names and taking a little inspiration from John M. Dollan’s Arcbuilder Universe (if you’re interested you can find links to a little of John M. Dollan’s more recent writing on his Twitter):

----------

Advantages of Specialization

As I departed Cordillera, I passed a sign of the times. There was one of the big Hegemony freighters, on its leisurely upward fall toward minimum safe distance. It was much too far away for unaided eye visual contact, of course, but Mariposa's telescope gave me a fine view of it. And Cordillera space traffic control had supplied all the relevant details, of course; planned trajectory and burn timing, alpha-numeric designation - and a name; the Humbolt. Humbolts are whales that sing. Appropriate, I guess; it was big. Next to it little Mariposa would look - well, like a butterfly flitting around a whale, I guess. Mariposa is 50 meters long and masses 100 tons, 500 tons fueled up, with space for about an elephant's mass in cargo. Mariposa could fit inside Humbolt's fuel tank. Mariposa could fit inside the nozzle of Humbolt's fusion rocket.

Humbolt had finished its escape burn from Cordillera two days ago and it was just falling up now, not very fast. Its orbital rockets had burned at a leisurely .5 MSS, only a twentieth of a G, and hadn't burned very long. It hadn't even reached escape velocity from Cordillera's sun. Mariposa had burned hard, 3 G on the way up from Cordillera's surface, then 1.2 G the rest of the way to outbound flight velocity. Mariposa passed Humbolt quickly; the velocity differential was huge. Mariposa hadn't just reached escape velocity from the local sun, Mariposa had reached escape velocity from the galaxy! If I never burned her rocket or did a hyperspace jump again Mariposa would fall up very long and very far, into intergalactic space, where she'd fall up until her atoms evaporated by proton decay or the Big Rip tore her apart or she disintegrated from the slow sandpapering of the intergalactic medium, whatever came first. Of course, that wouldn't happen. I'd reach the local hyperlimit and jump to hyperspace in three months or so, then it'd be a few days in hyperspace, then another two months to get from the 82 Eridani hyperlimit to Hyannis. Funny; a few months to cross a few dozen AU, a few days in hyperspace to cross dozens of light years, a light year is more than 60,000 AU. Our-space distances aren't applicable to travel in hyperspace, of course, but I still think it's funny. Lots of people do.

As I passed Humbolt I studied telescopic images of it, studied its weaknesses, and thought maybe a whale wasn't the right analogy for it after all. Something from an ocean was, but not a whale. It was more like one of those deep sea fish that explode when you bring them to the surface, into the light.

Humbolt hadn't landed at San Ysidro Spaceport. It couldn't have. It wouldn't have survived trying. Humbolt is a pure creature of the void, that will never know the kiss of air or the touch of ground. It unloads and loads cargo at space stations, leaving transport to and from planetary surfaces to specialized local surface-orbit shuttles.

Humbolt is long thin pillar more than a kilometer long, with the fusion rocket at one end, a spherical fuel tank and the cargo and a small crew section spun for centrifugal gravity at the other end, and huge radiator wings between them. The long pillar is to protect the rest of the ship from the heat and radiation of the fusion drive. The fusion drive has a maximum rated acceleration at full cargo load of 2 MSS - one-fifth of 1 G. If Humbolt tried to accelerate much faster with a full cargo load, its engine would melt with waste heat. And if by some miracle it got itself up to 1 G that long pillar would snap and crumble. Put Humbolt on the surface of an Earthlike world, and it would disintegrate into a mass of rubble. If Humbolt tried to land like Mariposa, it would have the aerodynamics of a brick, and pieces of it would snap off from air friction, and its great rocket wouldn't have the thrust to control its own fall, and its own weight would break its back before it even touched the ground.

Maybe a whale isn't a bad analogy after all. The blue whale is the biggest animal to ever live on Earth; it's easier to be big in the water.

It's about efficiency, see. Humbolt should never experience a force of acceleration much above 2 MSS, so it's not built to take more than .5 G or so. That's a good safety margin, given the gentle acceleration its drive maxes out at. Building it fragile like this is efficient. Saves mass. Saves construction material. Saves fuel. Saves money.

It doesn't even really have a cargo hold. They just attach stuff to the front. Lots of different configurations are possible. On that trip Humbolt's front end was a greebled sphere of snapped-together rectangular cargo containers half a kilometer across, with a sort of tarp draped across it to protect it from high-velocity dust. There must have been hundreds of thousands of tons of cargo in that greebled sphere of cargo containers. It must have been a non-trivial fraction of Cordillera's yearly offworld trade. Cordillera isn't a big colony; it's a dusty dry world with only a few small seas, marginally habitable, only 160 million inhabitants. The sphere is the most efficient shape for a container, and the protective tarp is light, and Humbolt doesn't need to worry about streamlining. Trucks and trains and planes and boats and Mariposa are long and narrow because if you have to worry about streamlining you want to minimize frontal area. Humbolt doesn't have to worry about friction, so its cargo can be gathered into a sphere, which is efficient.

Free traders like me with ships that can take off and land like Mariposa are still a lifeline on Cordillera. Until a few years back Cordillera had just one orbiting space station to service big cargo ships like Humbolt. The Hegemony gave them another one a few years back though. Gave them another space station. A whole space station. Just dragged it in all the way from Alpha Centauri. The Hegemony must have plans for Cordillera.

Humbolt fell behind quickly. After they'd passed a few million kilometers behind they sent a text message telling me they were about to fire up the big fusion rocket. The burn timing was already registered with Cordillera space control who'd passed it on to me, of course; it was just standard procedure. The Hegemony were sticklers for this kind of thing. The contents of the message were very standard too; if it hadn't been composed by a computer it might as well have been. I wondered if it was AI composed or some sort of standardized form they had a human fill out. There'd be an audio warning and check-in too.

The audio warning was less standardized. A male voice, with an accent that might have been Tolimanish, saying, "This is the Kentauric Hegemony nationalized transport KDY-442-A74F, the Humbolt, calling free trader Mariposa. Hello, Miss, uh ... Miss Cherinise? Did I pronounce that right? Just as per standard procedure we're giving you a redundant warning that we're going to fire up the big atomic flashlight in 600 seconds. Please acknowledge."

Mariposa and Humbolt were almost seven light seconds apart at this point; far enough apart for light lag to noticeably influence conversation. I could have fired up the subspace radio, but Humbolt hadn't bothered, and I wasn't going to spend power on it if they weren't.

I sent back, "This is free trader Mariposa, I understand and acknowledge your message. I see we have the same destination. Does that make this a race? Seems to be going pretty well for me so far if so; I left after you and I'm already ahead of you."

I couldn't resist the dig, even though I knew it was lame and wasn't even an effective one, it just drew attention to my own weakness. I made it sound happy, like I was joking and saying something to have an excuse to talk to somebody for a few minutes.

The voice from the Humbolt said back, "You'd lose. Might want to make sure any un-hardened electronics are protected before we fire the big rocket, and maybe put your fuel tank between your crew and cargo compartments and us, just to be extra safe. You should be OK at that distance, but it's gonna be some real Manhattan Project hours out here when we fire. KDY-442-A74F over and out."

I said back, "Mariposa's been in battles and flare star megaflares and I've had to navigate more than one particularly nasty gas giant and brown dwarf magnetosphere. My ship's built tough, I'll be fine. Free trader Mariposa, over and out."

For some minutes Mariposa and Humbolt fell up away from Cordillera's sun, glowing only with the warmth of life support and radar and power reactor standby power and cargo environment maintenance. Then Humbolt's main rocket fired.

Mariposa can do 4 G at a steady burn, more in a sprint. The big limit is my own tolerance. Compared to Mariposa's muscular rocket, Humbolt's great rocket is weak in thrust. It imparts the gentlest of pushes. Humbolt's great radiator wings soon sizzle with heat at a fifth of a G. It ejects less than 200 kilograms of fuel per second, for a ship that masses hundreds of thousands of tons fueled and loaded. It's built for fuel efficiency, endurance, not thrust. The big rocket fires continuously for more than two weeks, compared to Mariposa's 22 hour 1.2 G burn.

And that efficiency implies its own sort of power. That 200 kilograms flies out of the rocket nozzle at more than two percent the speed of light. Humbolt's big rocket is a butterfly's sigh in terms of thrust, but in terms of energy it's a nuclear bomb that explodes continuously for more than two weeks. Ships like Humbolt have to maneuver near planets using weaker secondary orbital rockets because of the damage that storm of radiation and high-velocity charged particles might do. Alerts squawked nervously as Humbolt became a dark speck at the end a brilliant comet of charged particles and radiation thousands of kilometers long, the brightest thing in Mariposa's sky except for the local sun.

Mariposa uses not a lot of energy to eject a lot of fuel not very fast. This gives it the thrust to blast off the surface of a world. It's like one of those gasoline-powered SUVs you see on a lot of low-population worlds with big stretches of hostile terrain; go anywhere no matter how bad the road, power over rocks and through sucking mud puddles. But it's like an SUV; it guzzles fuel. And fuel-guzzling, in space, ultimately means slow. Humbolt uses terawatts of energy to eject a little fuel very fast, and this makes it fuel-efficient, and fuel-efficient in space ultimately means fast.

The man was right. If it's a race, Mariposa will lose, I'll lose. Humbolt will reach the hyperlimit of Cordillera's system in a little over a month, reach Hyannis in a little over two months, well ahead of me. And with ships like Humbolt the Hegemony can charge shipping prices half of the minimum I can charge to stay in business and come out with a 20% profit. And they can ship high-bulk goods that are just out of reach for me. Mariposa is a flying fuel tank with an engine and a crew quarter and a cargo compartment attached, stuffed into something shaped like a delta-winged aircraft. Humbolt gets almost three times my delta V while being less than half fuel by mass.

Free traders like me kept trade flowing through the age of fragmentation and economic contraction after the disintegration of the Terran Empire. Our tough versatile little blast off from anywhere land anywhere rockets were just what human space needed back then. But it's getting tough for somebody like me to stay in business nowadays.

#my writing #stories #speed fiction #fiction #my fiction

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claryxjackson · 3 years

Note

“Do you have a problem with me?” for Juno and Sarah

this was so freaking fun. and I've had this exact scene planned for ages, so really this was the perfect prompt for them skkssk.

Juno winced as her earbud was yanked roughly from her ear, the music sputtering out to static. Maria stood in front of her, eyebrows knit together, and altogether unimpressed expression on her pointed face. Her lips were pinched in a thin line, and a cloud of confusion welled in Juno. “You gotta turn that damn music down, alright? I need to be able to talk to you.”

Juno dipped her head once in understanding, eyes pinned to her dangling earbud, which swiveled aimlessly through the air.

“Ward Cameron’s girl is here to see you,” stated Maria, her words clipped. Juno blinked at her once, which seemed to suffice for an answer since Maria turned on her heel and marched back into the shade of the marina. The screen door snapped shut behind her. Juno’s eyes travelled along the docks before catching on the slight frame of Sarah Cameron. She darted her eyes away and nestled the earbud back into her ear (careful to lower the volume, as Maria had requested). She wasn’t the least bit interested in whatever the other girl had to say to her. The gentle tunes of The Beach Boys Surfin’ U.S.A drowned out all other noises from the harbour, including the pattering of Sarah’s footsteps as she drew closer. Juno busied herself with unscrewing the cap of the gas tank—the orange plastic kind that seemed to attract grime no matter where they were kept. The plastic was hot beneath her fingers, warmed by the scorching sun undoubtedly, and she hissed in pain as her fingers came into contact with it. The cap fell away with little resistance.

“I can help you with that if you want,” Juno swiveled around. Sarah Cameron stood beside her, hands outstretched in a universal symbol of helpfulness. Juno removed an earbud but otherwise made no motion to acknowledge the other girl. Though she supposed she was trying extra hard not to look at that particular section of the dock, but that didn’t really mean anything. The cap fell away with little resistance as she tightened her hand around it and turned, tuning out the discomfort as much as she was able. A skill she supposed she probably shouldn’t possess.

“Do you have a problem with me?” Juno spared a glance at Sarah Cameron as she spoke, noting the way her hands had hitched on her hips. A sure sign of displeasure—one she was familiar with.

“So, you noticed that?” she asked, more rhetorically than not. Juno reached up with her free hand, adjusting her baseball cap—technically it was JJ’s, she had snatched it off his head before slipping out of the Chateau to head to work, he’d been so enraptured in a conversation with Fallon he hadn’t so much as blinked—to shield her face against the sun. She was careful to keep her expression neutral. Anything too much would give everything away.

“It’s kind of hard to miss,” stated Sarah bluntly. Juno raised her shoulder in a lazy half shrug. Gasoline sloshed through the funnel and splashed against her bare feet at the movement.

“Look. It’s not you. I just don’t like Kooks on principal,” she replied, keenly aware of the distaste leeching into her voice as her thoughts strayed to Sarah’s brother, Rafe. A grade A douchebag if you asked her—not that anyone ever did. The general dislike of Rafe Cameron was one of the few things all the Pogues had been able to agree on since the most definitely not at all unanimous addition of Sarah Cameron to their treasure hunt. Truth be told, Juno didn’t mind Sarah—if anything she liked her, but the last thing any of them needed right now was a Kook butting in on their chance at a fortune. And it would be a hell of a lot easier to ignore the fluttery churning in her that only seemed to pop up when the blonde was in her eyesight—or if her name was mentioned. Okay, so maybe the problem was deeper than just seeing her, but it wouldn’t hurt to not have to deal with whatever this was every damn day.

“You don’t seem too bothered by Kiara,” said Sarah, settling herself onto the dock beside the gas tanks, her blonde hair shone golden in the sun. Juno turned away, pouring her attention into funneling the gas into the chamber of Guffy’s boat; the Ellie May.

”Kie is my friend, she earned her place with us. You’re just John B’s girlfriend," she hated how cold her words sounded, she was too harsh, but JJ had rattled on and on about what was so very wrong about allowing her in on the great big worst kept secret in the Outer Banks, and evidently some of it had stuck. Sarah scoffed.

“So it is me?”

“Maybe it is. Look, I have work to do. Do you have something important to say?” inquired Juno, narrowing her eyes as she paused her work to focus in Sarah. It occurred to her then, the strangeness of her situation. Sarah Cameron—the Kook Princess—came looking for her of all people.

“You’re John B’s best friend, I wanted to get to know you,” Juno’s gaze softened at those words, her iron grip on the gas tank loosening. She ran her free hand through her hair, painfully aware of the silence stretching out between them. Her bracelets clattered together in a quiet jangling sound. Her eyes caught on Sarah. Golden Kook Princess Sarah Cameron, and something within her chipped free. Her lips quirked up in half a smile, even as the little voice in her head—which sounded shockingly like Fallon—screamed at her to stop. Stop and consider the consequences, quit while you’re ahead. She did neither.

“Well, tell me, Sarah Cameron. Have you ever seen Footloose?”

#tHEY #will hope ever stop mentioning 80s pop culture while writing? you ask #no i never will #ever #juno banks #such a fun prompt!!#idk what this even qualifies as #angst?#fluff?#nothing?#my writing #ask: juno #malyenoretscv #fic: all the right moves #juno x sarah #and yes i listened to surfin' usa on repeat while writing this #which took approximately 2 hours #if i ever hear this song again i will fistfight someone #fic: caution

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snarkwrites · 3 years

Text

02 pt 2 | m i n e | tim speedle | csi miami

Notes:

I’m not even gonna lie... This chapter took several turns on me. Several. I wanted to post this a day ago, but something felt.. Incomplete. Amiss. Then it clicked as I wrote the smutty oneshot for these two so I banged this out. Any errors in grammar are mine and I own that shit. We fly blind in this house, no betas.

I hope you guys are all enjoying this so far!! It’s been a fun time to write. I think that’s largely due to the fact that it’s kind of..action-y, suspense and still fluff and romance eventually?

Summary:

You never forget the one that gets away. When Sylvie and Tim are thrown together again upon her arrival in Miami, will things finally work themselves out? Can Tim keep her out of danger?

Pairing:

Tim Speedle x OFC, Sylvie.

Warnings:

Stalker tw. Huge stalker tw. Because Sylvie has herself one. There may or may not also be other crime related topics raised here, such as injury/blood, etc.. I’ll try to warn as they come, loves. I’m going to try not to be too graphic so that people can still read this, but given the way this has surprised me thus far, I make absolutely no promises as to what the future holds.

Other Parts:

[ one - two part one - soundtrack ]

Tagging:

@chasingeverybreakingwave

@twistnet

Other Links:

[ faq & tag list doc ]

TWO PT TWO

The wind in my hair, the Florida sun beating down on me and Billy Idol on the radio full blast. I almost felt relaxed as I drove aimlessly along the Keys. I could almost forget for a few moments that I was currently being stalked by some unknown asshole who liked to write me ten page letters detailing his disturbingly vivid fantasies about me. Bragging about what he’d do when he finally managed to get me all alone.

I was coming back from an open air flea market, the spoils of my trip flung carelessly into the backseat. In my cupholder, my cell phone started going berserk. When I saw that it was Rex calling me, probably pissed because I’d stood up a gig he spent two weeks booking after I explicitly told him I wasn’t taking said gig in as many different but firm ways possible, I let it go to voicemail.

The gas needle was getting lower and bearing the thought in mind, I pulled into a little gas station, parking the red Porsche at the pump and reaching down, grabbing my clutch. Taking my card out to swipe at the pump.

I felt eyes on me and almost immediately, I tensed. My eyes darted around and they settled on a man two pumps over. Gaping at me.

I managed a tight smile, a little nod. Because I didn’t want to seem rude, but the way he was staring at me had me immediately getting paranoid all over again. And just like that, my earlier good mood was rapidly vanishing. I sighed and reached for the unleaded pump, inserting the nozzle into the Porsche’s fuel tank opening. Swiping my card and waiting. Tapping my foot because the clerk inside the station wasn’t even paying attention and the man two pumps over was now leaned against his silver BMW, arms folded over his chest, watching me like a hawk.

I realized that I wasn’t going to get away from the situation any faster unless I made my way inside to let the clerk know I needed the pump turned on, so I grabbed my cropped jacket and slipped the hood over my head and pocketed my keys after raising the convertible top on the Porsche, ducking my head as I quickly walked right past the staring man and disappeared inside the station.

“I need you to turn on pump 3.”

“Yeah, let me do that. I’m so sorry. Do you know that guy?” the clerk nodded towards the man who’d been staring at me. I shook my head. “Never seen him before in my life.”

,, he kind of resembles Rex. It’s unsettling.” the thought came but I shoved it out. The little I knew about Rex, he didn’t have any family. The man was far too selfish for that.

“He’s lurking around your car. You might want to stay in here.” the woman said it in a concerned tone that caught me by surprise.

I swallowed hard, taking a few deep breaths. I could feel the panic starting to build just a little more. I tried to convince myself that maybe the man was just someone who had seen one of my ads or something. Trying to make myself ignore the weird vacant look in baby blue eyes as they roamed over my body, like he was enjoying his view. Way too much. It was almost lewd.

My eyes settled on my Porsche and I gulped when I saw him walking around it, kind of trying to covertly peer in. I took a few deep breaths. Maybe he was just a fan. Maybe Rex was right, maybe I really am paranoid. ,, with every good reason to be, hello, ten page explicit letters? Last month in Paris when the stalker writing said letters actually tried to grab me?”

The woman behind the counter gave me a sympathetic smile and shook her head. “I’ll go wrangle up my husband Clay. He’s real big, looks mean as hell. Maybe we can get this man outta here and you back on the road, okay, dear?”

I nodded, thanking her. Grateful.

She disappeared to the little garage attached to the back of the station and minutes later, a very tall and menacing looking man wearing a local MC’s cutte stepped out. “We’ll have him outta your hair in no time, hon. You just wait right here with the little missus and don’t worry, alright?”

I nodded, again, grateful.

“ The world’s gone insane these days, I swear.” the clerk spoke up after a few seconds. I don’t know what her husband said to the man with the staring problem, but a few seconds later, all I could see of that silver BMW was it’s tail lights as it made a hasty retreat, going the opposite way that I had to go to leave and that knowledge only relaxed me.

After thanking them both again, I hurried out of the station and got into my car, just thankful to be getting back on the road again. My cell phone showed 3 missed calls. All from Rex. None of which I had any interest at all in taking.

Almost the instant my hotel came into view I relaxed. But only slightly.

Rex was pacing the parking lot, glaring at me when I parked the Porsche and killed the engine.

“Where the entire fuck were you, dollface? I told you specifically, the meeting to discuss the gig I got ya was 8 am sharp.”

“And I told you I wasn’t taking it.”

I side-stepped him and after grabbing my bags from the backseat, I made my way into the hotel and up to my room. Dumping off all my stuff. Digging through one of the shopping bags until I found the red bikini I’d gotten on a whim.

Once I had that on and I’d found a pair of cut offs and a cropped shirt to go over it, I grabbed my phone and the book I’ve been reading and I made my way out the back of the hotel. Wandered down the street until the smells from a local diner wafted to my nose, lingering on the air and reminding me exactly how long it had been since I truly indulged myself.

I wandered in and up to the counter.

And when I heard his laugh from somewhere closer to the back, I found my gaze wandering around the diner.

Settling on Tim.

His back was turned to me. But even without looking at him, I knew it was him. It had to be. I haven’t forgotten the sound of his laugh.

I froze for enough time that the cashier cleared their throat. “Did you know what you wanted to order?”

“I think I’ll actually go grab a booth. If that’s okay?”

The cashier nodded and grabbed a menu for me and I turned, scoping out the diner.

The booth right behind Tim was empty. Did I dare sit there?

My heart was pounding, about to beat right out of my chest. Just like this morning at the gas station, but different.

Excited.

Hopeful, even though I knew in my bones I had no cause to be. Too much time had passed.

Steeling myself, I slunk right past the table Tim and two other men were sitting at, sitting down at the booth of the empty table directly behind his.

I buried my eyes in the menu, pretending to be engrossed. Ordering a soda when one of the servers came around. Then on a whim, ordering the double cheeseburger and a large plate of fries.

And I gazed out the window.. Heart still pounding. Trying to figure out whether or not to say anything. Did I have the right to?

XXX

Almost as soon as the blonde wandered in off the streets, Eric spotted her and nearly choked on his soda. Knowing how the fact that she was in town and it was eating Speed alive was probably the only reason he took it easy on the guy, choosing not to point her out. But his staring so intently at the front of the diner drew Tim and Walter’s attention, and naturally, Tim turned around.

He went quiet, words trailing off mid-sentence.

Eric cleared his throat. “There she is, man.”

“I fucking saw her, Delko, I’m not blind.” Tim muttered, taking a deep breath. It felt like the wind got knocked right out of him. Like slamming into a wall full speed. Everything around him just froze and all he could do was watch her. When she glanced their direction, he looked away quickly. Pretending to laugh, to be caught up in conversation.

Painfully aware of her presence, he gripped the edge of the tabletop. Walter cleared his throat as Sylvie started to make her way right towards them.

“She’s walking towards that table behind us.”

“If you don’t say something, Speed, I swear to God.” Eric muttered. Tim shook his head.

He didn’t even know where to start, for one thing.

She’d settled in the seat right in his line of vision. She was literally almost close enough to touch if he were to stand up and walk over, sit down on the bench opposite the one she currently sat on. But Tim was frozen.

“Ryan was saying that stalker’s still an issue earlier.”

Eric mentioning it had Tim’s eyes darting around the diner. Just wanting to be sure she was okay and that no one followed her in.

Tim took a deep breath.

“One of you has to say somethin, man. This is stupid. Tell him, Walter.”

“Eric makes a good point.” Walter muttered, gazing at Tim. But Tim was totally dazed. Watching her as covertly as possible.

And then, he thought back on the last time he’d seen her.

The day he left New York to take the job here.

“You know what, Delko? You’re absolutely right… But fuck if I know where to even begin.”

“You walk over, sit down and say hi. Pretend like you’re not sure it’s her if it helps, buddy.” Eric shrugged as he dispensed the advice. “Otherwise, Walter and I are gonna shove you into the booth when we all get up to go.”

Tim took a deep breath and stood. Making his way over to her table.

Right past her. Towards the bathroom.

Eric grumbled and shook his head. Walter chuckled, amused by the whole thing.

As Tim came into sight again, Eric watched intently. He’d moved to Tim’s vacant spot, finishing off as many fries as he could, chuckling to himself, shit eating grin on his face as he nodded to the table Sylvie happened to be sitting at.

Tim glared at him.

But he kept walking.

Right as he went to walk past her booth, Eric saw her hand shoot out. Wrap carefully around Tim’s wrist. Effectively freezing Tim in place.

“I didn’t see that comin.”

“Neither did I, man.” Walter mused, taking the final sip of his milkshake as he and Eric shared a look and both got up, leaving Tim behind.

XXX

I’d seen him walk past. For a few seconds, my heart raced. I pouted to myself as he kept going… Not even a glance my way. Disappearing into the bathroom.

I’d pretty much resigned myself to him not noticing me, but then I saw him walk out of the bathroom and knowing he was close enough to touch was too much for me. I snapped. I reached out, tentatively grabbing his wrist.

“Tim?”

“Sylvie?” he raised his other hand and dragged his fingers through his hair. I managed a smile, took a sip of my soda. “You can sit. I mean if you want to..” I trailed off, going quiet.

Heart still a little fluttery.

Not sure at all what I was going to do now that I’d gotten his attention.

,, it’s been years. Ease back into this. There’s a lot of old stuff there, things that didn’t get said. Hurt.” the thought lingered heavily in my mind.

I honestly didn’t think he’d sit down, but he did. My food came and the waitress put it all out on the table in front of me. I inhaled the greasy deliciousness and smiled a little, thanking her as she walked away, my drink in hand to refill it.

Tim eyed my order.

“You realize that’s 3 pieces of meat.. And a ton of grease.”

“Mhm. And I’m about to practically inhale every single bite, okay?”

Tim chuckled, smiling. Muttering something to himself about some things never changing.

“When did you get to Miami? I didn’t even know you were in town.”

“Last week, I think. It was supposed to be my vacation. My manager didn’t get the memo so I’m hiding from the asshole right now.” I frowned, shrugging. Reaching out to grab a few french fries. I pushed the plate closer to him.

“Is this where you get lunch every day?”

“Sometimes, yeah.” Tim shrugged. “The view of the beach is kinda calming. Plus, the cook’s a good friend of Eric’s.”

My eyes wandered out, gazing at the beachfront view in question.

“It’s been a long time.” I muttered, gazing at him. He nodded. Mouth opening and closing like he wanted to say something and then he just didn’t.

“Too long.” I continued, taking a huge bite of my burger almost immediately after having said it.

I was dying to tell him I missed him. That I still loved him, that at least twice a week I found myself either re reading our old texts or dialing his number only to hang up just before hitting the call button.

But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

“It has been too long.” Tim admitted, snagging himself a few more fries. “How long are you in town?”

“I’m actually going to talk to an agent about a beach house tomorrow? It’s just… So much more relaxed here. Plus there’s a school hiring…”

Tim eyed me.

“Thought you were happy with that whole modeling thing?”

I shook my head. “Honestly?”

“I’d prefer it.” Tim answered as soon as I asked.

I took another sip of my Pepsi and answered quietly, “I’ve been miserable for a while now, actually.”

His next question had me nearly choking on the sip I’d taken. “The stalker situation, right?”

I gazed at him and he explained with a shrug, “It was all over the news. Not to mention our moms are always on the phone callin each other.”

“And then us.” I gave a soft laugh. Taking a deep breath, I nodded yes to answer what he’d asked about my situation. “It started before that though. I never actually wanted to get involved with this but then I started and the money…” I trailed off.

“Yeah. I mean I don’t blame ya.” Tim shrugged, going quiet.

The tension settled in all around us. Thick to the point I felt like you could cut the way it lingered with a knife.

“I hate to but I gotta get back to the lab…” Tim spoke up after a few minutes of us just sort of sitting there… staring at each other, deep in thought. He stood and I asked quietly, “Would it be okay if I called you later? Is your number still the same?”

“I’d like that. Yeah.. you know me. Predictable. My number’s still the same.” he gave me that smile and I felt myself smiling back, nodding.

“Maybe you can show me around sometime…” I trailed off because there I went.. Rushing in all over again. I took a deep breath, making myself meet his gaze. Fully prepared to laugh it off and say that he didn’t have to.

Tim chuckled, nodding. “I was about to say that. I see you’re still a mind reader, baby girl.”

“Just yours, Speed.” I wanted to kick myself because the words left my mouth just a shade too flirty.

And I knew it was much too soon for that.

XXX

“Now who in the hell is he?” the man stood outside the diner, leaned against one of the streetlamps. Watching Sylvie intently through the window as she talked to some guy inside the diner.

When the guy sat down at her booth, his blood began to boil. His hands clenched to fists at his sides and he gave an angry laugh, shaking his head.

“Now this just won’t do. Not at all. Nothin’s comin between me and her. Nothin.”

#tim speedle fanfiction #tim speedle imagine #tim speedle fanfic #tim speedle imagines #my writing ; tim speedle #my fanfiction ; tim speedle #my fics ; tim speedle #// this took a turn on me ya'll not even gonna lie #// stalker tw #// these two need to just get their shit together i swear to god

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drcaligostoloboto · 4 years

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Hi guys! In this post, I will tell you why I find the relationship between Dr. Loboto and Coach Oldeander very interesting. And no, it's not just because they worked together in the first game that I find it interesting. I have many other reasons that I will mention. This analysis will also have spoilers related to Psychonauts 2 so don't read if you don't want to be spoiled... Let's go!

First I'm going to talk about the similarities between them two:

• They have the same voice actor who is none other than Nick Jameson. This one also makes the voice of Mr. Pokeylope in the first game and the Psychonauts Operator in Rhombus of Ruin. And I find it just great. Their voices are so different. Loboto's voice is high, while Oleander's is low. Nick Jameson is really talented and I think it's great.

• Loboto is blue and Oleander is orange. And we all know that blue and orange are complementary colors.

• Loboto is tall and Oleander is small. This honestly goes well together in terms of "partner in crime".

• They both have a scar on their face.

• Loboto lost his right arm and Oleander lost sight of his right eye.

• They both wanted to be a sailor. In Rhombus of Ruin, we can see that Loboto clearly wanted to be one. Part of his mind is a giant bathtub with a boat and in this boat there is First Mate Loboto who is none other than a sailor. When he was a child, he literally wore a sailor outfit. And he did a lot of experiments on fish. Linda in the first game and all the fish guards in the midquel game. All this is related to the marine world. And his skin is just blue as the sea. Just saying.

Oleander talks about the Navy a lot. So much so that in Rhombus of Ruin, he is very happy when he has a mermaid tail and says he would like the Navy to see him now. Being a sailor would certainly have been his dream job but alas, he was too short. And he also can’t swim because of his stumpy legs.

• They both have a problem with their parents. (But who doesn’t in the Psychonauts world, honestly?) Loboto's parents outright lobotomized their son just because he was psychic and Oleander's father slaughtered his precious little bunny right in from of him. These events are truly tragic.

• The Whispering Rock Pamphlet. Oleander wrote this pamphlet. And this pamphlet says "You were born with a special gift. But the people around you treat it like a curse. Your mother is afraid of you, and your father looks at you with shame in his eyes." And it makes me think so much of Loboto. Because that's what happened to him. His mother was afraid of him and his father most certainly looked at him with shame in his eyes. And Oleander wrote that. And in my opinion, it seems very personal. Oleander's family surely saw him too this way. And so it's a big point in common between Loboto and him.

• They are both at least into men. Let me explain.

In Rhombus of Ruin, we learn that Oleander likes the boy band "All Paul". Three male mermaids singing love songs. And he's a big fan of them. He even sings one of their songs which is “Drag Me Down”. The fish guards draw each characters during the game. And they drew Oleander with the members of All Paul with hearts all around them. As you can see in the picture below.

In Psychonauts 2, there is a small detail that we can miss if we are not careful. But in his mind, there are a lot of posters and one of them shows two male teeth in love. And the elements of an individual's mind say a lot about his personality.

So, Oleander and Loboto are either gay or bi. And it’s wonderful to think about it.

• The song Drag Me Down. This song is sung by Oleander but did you know that this song is also found on Loboto's computer in his laboratory in the Rhombus? It would mean that Loboto is a fan of All Paul too and it's fun to think about it. It's also a song about a breakup. In my opinion, this could be related to the fact that Oleander and Loboto no longer work together. If we analyze few lyrics from it, it can really be about them. “ When we met it was the best thing that I've known “, “I gave you everything you asked” (Reference to Loboto giving Linda to Oleander?) and “Never worried it wouldn't last but we are”. Oleander probably never worried that it could end but alas... A turtle named Pokeylope decided otherwise by blasting his partner. A tragic and true story.

• They both like to dance. Loboto always takes those little dance steps that we see in the first game and Ror, when he turns on himself. And Oleander dances when he sings "Drag Me Down", proving that he likes it as well.

• Raz saw them both when they were young children in their minds. Also, the first level in Psychonauts is Oleander’s mind and the first level in Psychonauts 2 is Loboto’s mind.

That’s all about the similarities, now I’m going to talk about the three games.

Psychonauts:

• In the first game, they worked together and they had a lot of fun together.

Just... Look at them.

They are just completely evil together. Partners in crime, after all.

• Loboto was very excited about taking over the world, too. In this cutscene where we see him talking with Lili we can clearly see his excitement over this. So, Loboto also wanted to be a part of it. Imagine, if he and Oleander had succeeded... The world will be complete chaos! Full of teeth and brains!

Rhombus of Ruin:

Although they do not interact in the midquel game, there are still some crisp info.

• Loboto talks about Oleander saying he has "a touch of halitosis". Halitosis is bad breath. Given their size difference, how does he know? Loboto is like... Twice Oleander’s height as you can see in the picture below.

To be realistic, I think that since Loboto is a dentist he most certainly wanted to check the condition of Oleander's teeth and realized that it was a complete mess. Or maybe he kissed him and that’s how he knew.

• Loboto will say that he doesn't want this "little fellow" (Oleander) to learn about his new client. He thinks he wouldn’t like to know he was moonlighting. Why does Loboto care about it? Suspicious.

• If you don’t enter his mind at immediately, Loboto begins to speak by himself by saying dialogues of events he has experienced from the past. And he talks a lot about Oleander. He says: “That army man... What was he thinking? Psychoblaster Death Tanks?” and he laughs. But his laugh is natural, it’s not an usual crazy laugh like he always do. He also says: “Are you trying to impress girls... OR TAKE OVER THE WORLD? And you do NOT want to know what kind of gas mileage those things got.” which is... very funny to me.

• Oleander is the one who will come with his psycho-portal to give it to Raz. So in a way we can say that it is thanks to Oleander that Loboto has his moral compass back.

Psychonauts 2:

We don't know a lot about the game yet but a demo was released last summer, in June 2019, I absolutely love it. Loboto and Oleander interacted in it.

• As you can see in the pictures above, Oleander put his arm around Loboto. (Did he touch his butt?!) And he is very friendly towards him. I know they're supposed to be "acting" for Loboto to reveal who his boss is. But let's agree... Oleander is way too friendly with him.

• Oleander calls Loboto "Cal", not even Caligosto or Loboto like the others do. He calls him by a nickname. First name basis is a very friendly thing.

• He says to Loboto that he is going to love that vacation package and that he’s jealous. And then he looks at him and his eyes shine. I honestly think he’s the one who make this little package, by the way. He also looks very proud of him.

• He also says “Maybe he doesn’t want those tropical vacations after all!” and “Hurry up or I”ll take those vacations myself!” he teased him at least twice.

• And he acts very “gentlemanly” toward him. Just look at the pictures above.

Oleander is a true, a real... GENTLEMAN! A man of good manner, I see.

• Bonus: Loboto vision. Oleander is... SO SMALL!

• In another scene, Oleander and Raz face a censor. Oleander begins to explain to Raz what a censor is and what they do, everything seems to be fine until he gets to the "Don't belong" part. Oleander realizes this and displays a sad face. He even looks at the ground, for a second, in silence as if he was thinking of something. Maybe he feels sad because Loboto doesn't see him as a friend but a threat and that's why he looks so... thoughtful.

• In this same scene, he begins to flee. (Colliding with a chair, by the way) He is certainly fleeing because he does not want the censor to expel him. Leaving Raz to take care of all the work.

Name a better duo than Oleander and this chair, I’ll wait.

That’s all about the games. Now mind if I share two... Headcanons?

Headcanons:

• I think Loboto and Oleander are the same age and that they were born in the 50s. Which would mean they lived their childhood in the 60s.

Let's talk about their parents.

First of all, Oleander’s dad.

When I did my research, I wanted to find out what a butcher looked like in the 60s and this is the image I found.

Pretty similar clothes to the ones Oleander’s dad wears.

See? It honestly looks very similar.

Now let’s talk about Loboto’s parents and especially about his mom.

Image below is how dresses looked in the 60s.

And this is Loboto’s mom:

It’s the same kind of dress...

...So, Loboto’s parents and Oleander’s dad are from the same time.

And by "time", I mean the 60s.

Even the clothes Oleander and Loboto wore when they were kids, have 60s vibes, in my opinion... So! This would mean they’re the same age or around the same age. If we assume that the events of Psychonauts are in 2003, it would mean that in the events of the games, they are either in their early 40, or in their mid-40. Even late 40 or early 50 if they were born before 1955.

• My second headcanon is that I think they know each others for years. The legend of the monster in the lake (Linda) is apparently very old. And we all know who made Linda looking this way. It was Loboto. So, it would mean that Loboto and Oleander have worked on that for a very looooooooooong time. That would also explain why Oleander calls Loboto “Cal” in the PN2 demo. Because they were friends since a very long time. Maybe they even knew each others before that. Could be honestly cute if they were childhood friends, to be honest.

...Well! That’s all about my analysis. Their relationship sure is interesting and if you’ve read the whole thing then... Thank you! I wonder what will happen to them exactly in the second game. I could see them being a team again honestly. They fit so well together and not especially in the romantic way. I think that they could be a great team. Maybe they will both win the employee of the year award in Psychonauts 2 and going to tropical vacations together? Maybe even they will explore the world instead of taking over it? We’ll see!

#Psychonauts #dr. loboto #coach oleander #caligosto loboto #morceau oleander #my post

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cathygeha · 3 years

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REVIEW

New Girl in Little Cove by Damhnait Monaghan

Small conservative Catholic community in need of a teacher

Novice teacher in need of change seeks it in new community

Will she be welcomed?

Will she fit in?

Will she find what she needs?

And how will the community react deal with this new person from away?

Filled with community, culture, and so much more – this story drew me in, made me care, and hope for happy endings for more than one character in the story.

What I liked:

* The setting – having never been to Newfoundland it felt as if I was making the trip with the main character.

* The writing: skillful, friendly, descriptive and immersive.

* Rachel O’Brien: newly graduated, early twenties, grieving, modern, giving, good friend, caring, kind, immersed in a new culture, grows a LOT during the story, someone I admire.

* Doug Bishop: teacher of science and phys ed, probationary teacher, from Little Cover, loving son, caring, kind, intelligent, intriguing.

* Lucille, Biddy and the rest of the hookers – wonderful, caring, giving, creative, strong, community minded women that provide social and emotional support for one another (and others)

* Patrick Donovan: Principal, knowledgeable, patient, kind, a good man, there for his teachers and students

* Students with their individual needs, problems, and potential

* The ways Rachel ended up connecting with her students and others

* The romance that slowly developed between Rachel and Doug

* Sheila: Rachel’s BFF

* Rachel’s backstory

* Feeling like I was becoming part of the community/story

* The music and art elements of the story

* All of it really, except…

What I didn’t like:

* Thinking about the sadness and loss experienced by more than one character in the story

* Knowing that too often the best option for individuals is overlooked due to moral, religious, educational or societal values.

Did I enjoy this book? Yes

Would I read more by this author? Yes

Thank you to NetGalley and harper Collins-Graydon House-HQN for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars

Book Summary:

Take a literary trip to Newfoundland: the island of the world’s friendliest people, the setting for the award-winning musical Come From Away, and home of the delightfully quirky and irresistibly charming debut, NEW GIRL IN LITTLE COVE (May 11; $16.99; Graydon House Books) by Damhnait Monaghan! After being utterly scandalized by the abrupt departure of their school’s only French teacher (she ran off with a priest!) the highly Catholic, very tiny town of Little Cove, Newfoundland needs someone who doesn’t rock the boat. Enter mainlander Rachel O’Brien —technically a Catholic (baptized!), technically a teacher (unused honors degree!)— who is so desperate to leave her old life behind, she doesn’t bother to learn the (allegedly English) local dialect. Stuck on an island she’s never known surrounded by a people and culture she barely understands, Rachel struggles to feel at home. Only the intervention of her crotchety landlady, a handsome fellow teacher, and the Holy Dusters – the local women who hook rugs and clean the church – will assure Rachel’s salvation in this little island community.

Buy Links:

BookShop.org

Harlequin

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Amazon

Books-A-Million

Powell’s

EXCERPT

Chapter 1

September 1985

Little Cove: Population 389

The battered sign came into view as my car crested a hill on the gravel road. Only 389 people? Damn. I pulled over and got out of the car, inhaling the moist air. Empty boats tilted against the wind in the bay below. A big church dominated the valley, beside which squatted a low, red building, its windows dark, like a row of rotten teeth. This was likely St. Jude’s, where tomorrow I would begin my teaching career.

“You lost?”

I whirled around. A gaunt man, about sixty, straddled a bike beside me. He wore denim overalls and his white hair was combed neatly back from his forehead.

“Car broke down?” he continued.

“No,” I said. “I’m just … ” My voice trailed off. I could hardly confide my second thoughts to this stranger. “…admiring the view.”

He looked past me at the flinty mist now spilling across the bay. A soft rain began to fall, causing my carefully straightened hair to twist and curl like a mass of dark slugs.

“Might want to save that for a fine day,” he said. His accent was strong, but lilting. “It’s right mauzy today.”

“Mossy?”

“Mauzy.” He gestured at the air around him. Then he folded his arms across his chest and gave me a once-over. “Now then,” he said. “What’s a young one like you doing out this way?”

“I’m not that young,” I shot back. “I’m the new French teacher out here.”

A smile softened his wrinkled face. “Down from Canada, hey?”

As far as I knew, Newfoundland was still part of Canada, but I nodded.

“Phonse Flynn,” he said, holding out a callused hand. “I’m the janitor over to St. Jude’s.”

“Rachel,” I said. “Rachel O’Brien.”

“I knows you’re staying with Lucille,” he said. “I’ll show you where she’s at.”

With an agility that belied his age, he dismounted and gently lowered his bike to the ground. Then he pointed across the bay. “Lucille’s place is over there, luh.”

Above a sagging wharf, I saw a path that cut through the rocky landscape towards a smattering of houses. I’d been intrigued at the prospect of a boarding house; it sounded Dickensian. Now I was uneasy. What if it was awful?

“What about your bike?” I asked, as Phonse was now standing by the passenger-side door of my car.

“Ah, sure it’s grand here,” he said. “I’ll come back for it by and by.”

“Aren’t you going to lock it?”

I thought of all the orphaned bike wheels locked to racks in Toronto, their frames long since ripped away. Jake had been livid when his racing bike was stolen. Not that I was thinking about Jake. I absolutely was not.

“No need to lock anything ’round here,” said Phonse.

I fumbled with my car keys, embarrassed to have locked the car from habit.

“Need some help?”

“The lock’s a bit stiff,” I said. “I’ll get used to it.”

Phonse waited while I jiggled in vain. Then he walked around and held out his hand. I gave him the key, he stuck it in and the knob on the inside of the car door popped up immediately.

“Handyman, see,” he said. “Wants a bit of oil, I allows. But like I said, no need to lock ’er. Anyway, with that colour, who’d steal it?” I had purchased the car over the phone, partly for its price, partly for its colour. Green had been Dad’s favourite colour, and when the salesman said mountain green, I’d imagined a dark, verdant shade. Instead, with its scattered rust garnishes, the car looked like a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Still, it would fit right in. I eyeballed the houses as we drove along: garish orange, lime green, blinding yellow. Maybe there had been a sale on paint.

As we passed the church, Phonse blessed himself, fingers moving from forehead to chest, then on to each shoulder. I kept both hands firmly on the steering wheel.

“Where’s the main part of Little Cove?” I asked.

“You’re looking at it.”

There was nothing but a gas station and a takeout called MJ’s, where a clump of teenagers was gathered outside, smoking. A tall, dark-haired boy pointed at my car and they all turned to stare. A girl in a lumber jacket raised her hand. I waved back before I realized she was giving me the finger. Embarrassed, I peeked sideways at Phonse. If he’d noticed, he didn’t let on.

Although Phonse was passenger to my driver, I found myself thinking of Matthew Cuthbert driving Anne Shirley through Avonlea en route to Green Gables. Not that I’d be assigning romantic names to these landmarks. Anne’s “Snow Queen” cherry tree and “Lake of Shining Waters” were nowhere to be seen. It was more like Stunted Fir Tree and Sea of Grey Mist. And I wasn’t a complete orphan; it merely felt that way.

At the top of a hill, Phonse pointed to a narrow dirt driveway on the right. “In there, luh.”

I parked in front of a small violet house encircled by a crooked wooden fence. A rusty oil tank leaned into the house, as if seeking shelter. When I got out, my nose wrinkled at the fishy smell. Phonse joined me at the back of the car and reached into the trunk for my suitcases.

“Gentle Jaysus in the garden,” he grunted. “What have you got in here at all? Bricks?” He lurched ahead of me towards the house, refusing my offer of help.

The contents of my suitcases had to last me the entire year; now I was second-guessing my choices. My swimsuit and goggles? I wouldn’t be doing lengths in the ocean. I looked at the mud clinging to my sneakers and regretted the suede dress boots nestled in tissue paper. But I knew some of my decisions had been right: a raincoat, my portable cassette player, stacks of homemade tapes, my hair straighteners and a slew of books.

When Phonse reached the door, he pushed it open, calling, “Lucille? I got the new teacher here. I expect she’s wore out from the journey.” As he heaved my bags inside, a stout woman in a floral apron and slippers appeared: Lucille Hanrahan, my boarding house lady.

“Phonse, my son, bring them bags upstairs for me now,” she said.

I said I would take them but Lucille shooed me into the hall, practically flapping her tea towel at me. “No, girl,” she said. “You must be dropping, all the way down from Canada. Let’s get some grub in you before you goes over to the school to see Mr. Donovan.”

Patrick Donovan, the school principal, had interviewed me over the phone. I was eager to meet him.

“Oh, did he call?” I asked.

“No.”

Lucille smoothed her apron over her belly, then called up the stairs to ask Phonse if he wanted a cup of tea. There was a slow beat of heavy boots coming down. “I’ll not stop this time,” said Phonse. “But Lucille, that fence needs seeing to.”

Lucille batted her hand at him. “Go way with you,” she said. “It’s been falling down these twenty years or more.” But as she showed him out, they talked about possible repairs, the two of them standing outside, pointing and gesturing, oblivious to the falling rain.

A lump of mud fell from my sneaker, and I sat down on the bottom step to remove my shoes. When Lucille returned, she grabbed the pair, clacked them together outside the door to remove the remaining mud, then lined them up beside a pair of sturdy ankle boots.

I followed her down the hall to the kitchen, counting the curlers that dotted her head, pink outposts in a field of black and grey.

“Sit down over there, luh,” she said, gesturing towards a table and chairs shoved against the back window. I winced at her voice; it sounded like the classic two-pack-a-day rasp.

The fog had thickened, so nothing was visible outside; it was like watching static on TV. There were scattered cigarette burns on the vinyl tablecloth and worn patches on the linoleum floor. A religious calendar hung on the wall, a big red circle around today’s date. September’s pin-up was Mary, her veil the exact colour of Lucille’s house. I was deep in Catholic territory, all right. I hoped I could still pass for one.

Published by Graydon House Books

AUTHOR BIO

DAMHNAIT MONAGHAN was once a mainlander who taught in a small fishing village in Newfoundland. A former teacher and lawyer, Monaghan has almost sixty publication credits, including flash fiction, creative non-fiction, and short stories. Her short prose has won or placed in various writing competitions and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfictions. New Girl in Little Cove placed in the top six from more than 350 entries in the 2019 International Caledonia Novel Award.

Social Links:

Author Website

Twitter: @Downith

Instagram: @Downith1

Facebook: @AuthorDMonaghan

Goodreads

#Damhnait Monaghan #Harlequin #Graydon House #Harper Collins #NetGalley #Newfoundland #Romance #Fiction #Historical Fiction #Small Town Fiction

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yourdeepestfathoms · 4 years

Text

The Crucible (part ten; finale)

[UK Tour; Carrie AU]

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

Word count: 8463

TW: Blood and gore, mentions of rape

-------------------

-Don’t Waste The Moon-

“When did you first realize something was wrong?”

“When I heard the sirens.”

Katherine remembered all her fears coming true when dozens of police sirens, fire truck sirens, ambulance sirens began to blare so loudly in unison that she could hear them from her neighborhood. She had ripped open her front door, Isabel hovering right behind her, and stared in horror at the golden-orange light illuminating the night sky from miles away.

“And then the fire.”

“And when was the last time you saw Joan Seymour alive?” Mulaney asked.

Katherine looked at him skeptically. “At school on Friday. Before the prom.”

“You told Sheriff Doyle you saw her after the prom. Right before the Shell blew up.”

Katherine bit her tongue, remembering that interaction. She had just sped down in her car to get to the mayhem, but stopped at a gas station that was swarmed with police cars. When she launched herself out of the driver’s seat, she heard one of the officers saying into his radio how a fuel tank had just “went up” and the “gymnasium was gone.” She asked him what happened at the gym, and he told her to go home, that there was nothing she could do. But she didn’t listen, instead swerving around the gas pumps to get a better look at the school, which was completely engulfed in flames on one side.

That was when she heard the explosions. And saw the bursting pillars of fire in the distance. And noticed that the telephone poles lining the road were starting to rattle and rock.

And Joan Seymour emerged from the smoke and fog rolling down the street.

“It was dark,” Katherine said. “I saw a girl in a dress.”

“You said you saw Joan Seymour.”

“I was wrong.”

But she wasn’t. She knew it was Joan.

Joan, covered in a slick of blood.

Katherine had tried to call out to her, but Joan didn’t answer or even look in her direction. She just kept walking, arms flat at her side, fingers splayed open, eyes wide and shiny and blank.

The Shell gas station blew shortly after. Something had wormed into the gasoline deposit and ignited the entire thing, sending the pumps into a blaze. Katherine’s ears didn’t stop ringing for a few hours.

“What’s it matter, anyway?” Katherine said. “Joan is dead.”

I would know...

------

The sound of frantic knocking on Anne’s front door and the sound of her cousin shouting interrupted the heated makeout session between Anne and Cathy. She had been trying to ease her girlfriend up, who has looked sick ever since the blood dump, and it was just starting to work when the panicked banging and yelling started. Rolling her eyes and groaning in annoyance, Anne peeled herself from the couch (nobody was home, so they had the house to themselves, making this interruption even more irritating) and walked to the front door.

“What?” She growled at Thomas. “What’s your problem?”

“Oxford.” Thomas gasped out, clearly out of breath. His eyes were round holes of horror, like he had witnessed something awful. “It’s burning up, Anne.”

On the couch, Cathy shot up from her reclined position instantly and began to put her shirt back on, much to Anne’s dismay.

“Whole damn city,” Thomas went on, breathless. “The school’s gutted.”

“What?” Cathy stood up and hurried over beside Anne. Regret, guilt, and terror was twisted all over her face.

“They said people at the prom were trapped.” Thomas continued. He wore the same expression as Cathy, realizing that this alleged destruction was partially because of him. “Only, like, eleven of them got out. The rest were cooked.”

Anne and Cathy exchange looks. Cathy looked ill all over again. She began to pace back and forth with her hands to her head, fingers knotted in her hair.

“Anne,” Thomas whispered, shuddering. “The ones that got out told the police something about a prank.”

Anne pressed her tongue against the inside of her lip, feeling embers of anger flicker through her. She shook them off for now and stepped closer to Thomas, noting the way he flinched away from her slightly. She placed her hands on his shoulders.

“Go home.” She said. “Don’t talk to anybody.”

Thomas took a deep, shaky breath and nodded. He hurried down the driveway and back to his car. Anne closed the front door after he drove off into the night.

“And what are we going to do?” Cathy asked. She sounded like she was close to tears.

Anne turned to her with a thin smile.

“We’re going to go into town and watch the fires.”

------

The street is thick with mangled cars and billowing smoke. All around, the cries of the dying form brief, unsettling harmonies with the cracks and booms of exploding pavement.

A red double-decker bus tilted over at an alarming angle, tires punctured, emergency exit door hanging open. Its driver laid slumped across the steering wheel, sightless eyes staring ahead to a junction he would never reach. The limbs of luckless late night passengers trail from broken windows.

A water main has ruptured. Its flow was tainted with blood; dark swirls in a new river that headed for the oblivion of black drains. Soon those drains will fill beyond capacity and the street will begin to flood with the remnants of the dead and broken.

It’s the most magical place on earth, and everyone seemed to have it all there—the drugs, the drama, the unabashed violence, and the harm it’s done to Joan and everyone she’s ever loved.

This old, mysterious city lured her in a long time ago and numbed her with a fix for her every desire. Against this landscape, she’s carved out a prosperous career as the resident freak. Through the sheer force of her will, the city had molded and bent before her very eyes, covering everyone’s every potential insecurity with false confidence and gaudy excess.

In return, the city has jaded her, stripped her of her humanity, and warped her into an unrecognizable shell of noir-esque dysphoria, washed up on the filthy banks of the city’s canals. It has brought her to this very moment, shambling down one of the streets like a zombie, coated in coagulate blood and guts, leading a path of utter destruction in her wake.

The air around her was crackling. Every step she took broke the asphalt beneath her feet. Pillars of fire roared out of the ground behind her, spewing chunks of fiery rocks into the sky, which then landed with tremendous explosive force.

She was wrecking this city the way it wrecked her.

And every sinner who ever hurt her or wronged her was going to perish in her act of purification.

Rapture was nigh, and Judgement was upon them all.

Joan slowly continued down the road. The earth began to shake without stopping, a continuous tremor that jarred her teeth in her head and made her feel as though the ground was about to drop out beneath her. Another fountain of fire shot out into open air and the asphalt melted into magma, slithering slowly down the pavement alongside Joan like a benevolent bituminous companion.

A big black truck rattle up a side street, swaying into the other lane and jerking back over and over again. Music was blasting from the open windows and the stench of alcohol and weed could be smelled even from where Joan stopped. She watched the truck screech to a halt and the passengers peer over at her curiously, slurring among themselves. Then, they’re getting out and walking over.

“Damn girl,” One said, noticing the blood all over her. He stumbled when he walked and kept mixing his words together. A brown bottle was clutched tightly in his right hand. “You look FUCKED!”

His three friends, all red-faced and either drunk or high out of their minds like he was, roar into loud peals of laughter. Joan stared at them blankly.

“What’s with all the pyrotechnics?” Another asked. “You a performer?”

“Yeah, yeah,” A third nodded. “What kind of show is this? ‘S not even close to Halloween!”

“I’d still go down on ‘er, though,” Piped up the fourth with a lusty smile.

(dogs)

Joan continued to stare at them absently as comments about the blood all over her and the fire burning around them were bounced off each of the men. What they don’t realize is that she’s sending her powers through the ground and into their bodies, and by the time they do realize, it’s too late.

A shrieking fit of screaming broke out when the fourth man’s head suddenly popped like a balloon, spewing shards of blood and bone and brains all over the place. One of them got a chunk of stringy tissue caught in their mouth and he immediately doubled over, gagging and vomiting. The other two continued to howl like babies.

“WHAT THE FUCK?!” The first yelped.

“WH-WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM?!” The second added.

“HE’S FUCKING DEAD, MAN!!” The first cried.

The second whirled around to Joan, pointing and blubbering.

“You-you fucking did this, didn’t you?” He stammered.

“How?!” The first said.

“I-I don’t know! But she killed Danny!”

The second man bent down and grabbed a long, thin shard of glass that had been broken when all the bottles of alcohol had been dropped. He swung it at Joan, and she was much too dazed to properly react.

“What...what the fuck…” He backed away from Joan, who had the shard now pierced through her cheeks. It entered through the right and came out from the left, wedged in place by her flesh. When she opened her mouth, the brown glass could be seen glistening in the firelight. Blood dripped over her bottom lip.

“What...what are you…?” The first whispered.

Joan flicked her tongue and felt the piece of glass in her mouth. It was cold and slick, but the blood it drew was hot and sticky. She didn’t like the taste.

She jerked her head and the man who had stabbed her went flying. His spine snapped loudly against a telephone pole, his body folding like a bent card upon impact. He slumped to the ground, lifeless.

“Oh fuck! Oh god!” The first man panicked. He grabbed his other friend’s arms, who had gone into shock. “Fuck! Jack, let's go!! We need to go!”

They didn’t get very far.

The ground below the men exploded into towering flames, incinerating them. The smell of burned flesh filled the air. Charred body fell to the asphalt, blackened and indescribable.

Joan moved on in silence.

She passed the plaza where she had been harassed by those college kids just a few days ago. She remembered the way nobody had done anything to help her and ignited the pavilion into a golden-orange blaze.

The fish and chips shop went next. She stomped her foot and a crack shot across the earth. A giant chunk of rock ripped through the building, turning it to rubble. She turned to the hair salon next.

No matter what time of day she went there, "Cut and Colour" was full of women who talked too loudly. The exact composition of the group changes from hour to hour but there were always familiar faces, and their tone is consistent: they know better.

At first, by day, she thought the locals were waiting for a haircut. Then, she noticed that it never seemed to be their turn. Finally, she realized that what they liked was a warm room to hang out in, with free magazines and a captive audience. It was a sort of day care center for bigots which also offered haircuts.

Vidal Sassoon supposedly said that with a small pair of scissors, he could make a woman cry for a week. Imagine what Joan could do with telekinetic powers.

She decided to blow the salon right out of the ground. It went flying through the air like a burning asteroid and burst apart when it hit the ground. When it was just mere pieces across the fiery pavilion, Joan was left a lot less satisfied than she thought she would be. She moved on slowly.

As she walked, she began to think. So many years wasted to torment. So many years she could have exacted her revenge and been treated like a normal person. So many years thinking she was just a useless, scarred waste of skin, as her peers in school had spent six years of her life reminding her.

She still heard them all the time, their voices in her head telling her how wretched, hideous, and scary she was. She tried to drown them out by concentrating on school work and prayers, but the smallest thing could bring them crashing back in. Just the thought of the shower incident—how familiar it all felt—brought on a fresh wave of memories of poisoned words and scornful laughter.

It all started when she was ten. Year 6. She had brought a Bible to school and prayed with it in the cafeteria during lunch. Everyone thought it was hilarious and she couldn’t live it down for the rest of Primary School.

And then she was eleven and in Year 7. Secondary School. And up until that school year, she was mainly ignored by her peers or picked on simply because of the whole Bible incident. But then gym class and changing in front of other girls became a thing, and they all saw the way her ribs would weirdly press out against her skin and how her stomach was sunken too far in for her skinny hips. That was the day she learned what the word “emaciated” meant. It also kickstarted hell on earth for the next five years of her life.

The rest of Year 7 was spent with her being bombarded by food and the constant question of if she was hungry. She even started being called anorexic when a few of the kids figured out what that meant and would be asked if she needed someone to jam their fingers down their throat whenever she would go to the bathroom. She also distinctly remembered a boy giving her a tub of rotten meat with maggots in it one day.

Year 8 rolled around. Mama said that the bullying would go away after the break, but when Joan turned up to the school when she was twelve, she was only met with familiar evil faces and fresh bouts of teasing. The anorexic jokes became more extreme, but those were probably the least awful things she was met with because her peers grew enough balls over the break to start getting physical with her. That school year quickly became the year of being tripped, shoved, and slammed against walls. She had even been pushed down one of the staircases when she was going to get a drink of water and broke her arm. She still remembered how horrified and sick the culprits had looked when they heard the awful crunching and cracking sounds of her bones breaking, like they hadn't meant to do that much damage. Instead of helping her, they left her in the stairwell, where she cried on the floor for an hour, immobilized by pain, until class ended and she was found by dozens of students. She finished that year with a cast that got slurs written on it when bullies would pin her down and forcefully write whatever they wanted.

When she turned thirteen, she begged her mother to take her out of school before Year 9 started, but Mama refused and Joan had to live through another year of ridicule and harassment. That was the first time she got her head dunked in a toilet and fingers smashed in a door.

Year 10 was the worst, in her opinion. High school. On the second day, her so-called friends abandoned her and scribbled on her homeroom desk statements such as “Go home”, “Drop dead”, and “Freak”. All her peers seemed to spread the news of her weirdness like wildfire to the higher grades, turning people she didn’t even know against her. Older kids and kids her age alike would beat her and threaten her with knives they would sneak to school just so they could snatch whatever snack she bought from the cafeteria and turn anyone she may have befriended against her. Students in her class would beg the teacher to let them be with someone else if they were partnered with her, always making sure to do so in earshot of her. They would laugh at her during presentations and throw things at her and make fun of her when she messed up. They mimicked her stutter and nervous ticks, held her down and dripped hot glue on her skin, put staples in her ears and fingernails, and poised sharp objects too close to her eyeballs just to hear how loud she would squeal. And the entire time, no adults did anything. They all turned a blind eye to her treatment, even when she had the burns and scars and bruises to prove what had been happening to her.

She soon realized that it wasn’t that they didn’t see what was going on.

They just didn’t care.

Nobody ever cared.

She turned fifteen at a summer camp she hadn’t been allowed to go to, but sneaked off to, anyway. The break had been lonely and dreary- Joan wanted friends so badly that she dared to go against her mother’s wishes and ran off to the camp to try and be with kids that would mock her.

But, like everyone else in her life, they did.

When she cheerily told them that it was her birthday, they called her a witch instead of singing to her. A large group of the cruelest campers, some being seventeen, some being only nine, dragged her out to the nearby river and repeatedly dunked her in the water until she began to drown, all while they chanted “Drown the witch! Drown the witch! Drown the witch!” over and over and over again. It still echoed in her ears to this day.

Her mother punished her severely when she got home and didn’t even care when Joan cried to her about what the kids did to her, saying that she deserved it.

Joan became deathly afraid of water after that.

And then, there was Year 11. The cycle of abuse and torture and torment continued. The shower incident happened. Seemingly all was lost.

But not anymore.

Never again will she cower beneath them. Any of them.

She was an angel of wrath, and she would spread her fury unto them all.

A black G-Wagen stopped at a red light up ahead. Even from the distance between the two, Joan could tell who the driver was.

The car roared forward, not waiting for the overhead light to turn green. Joan lumbered slowly, while the car sped at her full speed. She could see Anne Boleyn, now, her face twisted with rage. Next to her, a dark skinned woman Joan didn’t know was yelling something in a panic. Joan twitched her head to the side and the dark skinned woman’s neck snapped to the side. Anne screamed and lost control of the car in shock. Joan gave it a gentle nudge and sent it tumbling across the street in a cacophony of cracks and crashes and shatters.

Joan stopped and watched the car roll wildly before finally coming to a halt in front of her. Every side of the vehicle was crumpled and crushed, metal scraped and folded, black paint streaked with silver slashes. One of the doors was dangling open and barely hanging onto its hinges. Anne was sprawled out beside it after she had been thrown from the open door in the crash. She jarred awake from a momentary dip of unconsciousness and gasped sharply, looking around wildly.

“Cathy?” She croaked. She looked up and saw the dark-skinned woman slumped in the passenger’s seat. She was very, very dead, if not by her neck wrung backwards, then by the gaping red horror opened up in her chest cavity. “CATHY!!”

Anne tried to get up and run to the woman, Cathy, to try and rouse her despite her injuries, to beg her to wake up, but couldn’t.

Because she was missing the entire lower half of her body.

Anne choked on a scream when she looked back and realized her legs were no longer attached to the rest of her. She may have vomited if her stomach hadn’t been ruptured; Joan could see the contents, mainly alcohol-mixed bile and chunks of a hamburger she had for lunch earlier that day, drooling out from a slice in the lining that was opened up like a ziplock bag.

During the crash, when Anne had been thrown out of the car, the open door rolled over her midsection, cleanly cutting her in half. Dark red intestines are stretched across the pavement like dying snakes. Stringy tendons dangled from the curve of her back, frayed and numb, no longer connected to any bone. Her spine was sticking out into the open air, bright white against all the blood. Organs poured out of the maw of the wound, shimmering in sheens of pink and scarlet. The shirt she’s wearing may have originally been dark green, but it was currently swamped by a flood of glistening gore. Her legs were a few feet away, bleeding heavily.

Joan sidled around the girl slowly and stepped into her field of vision. Anne looked up at her, gasping and spitting up blood. Tears were streaming from her eyes.

“Y-you--” She choked on her words.

Joan tilted her head like a confused puppy. Anne continued to sputter and wheeze below her.

“J-Joan--”

Anne barely managed to move her arms and grappled onto Joan’s right ankle. With whatever strength and feeling she had left in her body, she pulled herself forward to Joan. Her intestines slither and slide across the ground, leaving streaks of blood. She coughed up another bout of red.

“Joan--”

What did she want? Mercy?

Joan reached up and slowly pulled out the glass that was still stuck in her cheeks, then stuck it underneath Anne’s jaw. Anne gasped and spewed blood all over her legs.

“Y-you bi--” The glass pierced her tongue. She wasn’t going to be able to talk very well. Or do anything anymore, really. “Y-you--f-fucking--mon--monst--er.”

Joan stood up straight, turned around, and continued her walk down the street. Anne tried to follow her, crawl after her, but her head fell heavily and the shard of glass was jammed up further into her head when her chin connected with the ground. She frothed and foamed at the mouth helplessly, struggling to stay conscious.

Joan wondered how long she lived. She wondered if it was quick or if she suffered.

She hoped she did.

Joan’s jaw began to ache. She could now feel the thin cuts in her cheek and felt like she was gulping down tiny pieces of glass whenever she swallowed. Awareness was slowly returning to her the closer and closer she got to her house.

She wanted her Mama.

Withered brown leaves rustled in the ghostly wind. The night was almost silent, if not for the wailing gust, the crackle of fronds, and the wailing of sirens in the distance. Bloodied shoes trampled over the dead blades of branches, the crunching of their filaments accompanying Joan’s every step. A frigid breeze cut across her face like a frozen knife, drawing red to her sallow cheeks. She shivered. The blood coating her body had gone cold.

She really, really needed her Mama right now.

Joan hobbled into her neighborhood, passing house after house, so much nicer than her own, until she finally came to the Seymour bungalow. Something inside of her fluttered and she staggered towards it as fast as her weak legs could take her, hands doing desperate grabby hands.

“Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy--” She sobbed over and over again.

She stumbled through the front door, nearly tripping on the rug, and careened into the den. Everything was as she left it- completely trashed. Crosses were hanging at angles, the couch was tipped over, chairs and tables and lamps were strewn all across the floor. The only thing that was still in its original place was Mama’s velvet throne chair in the living room.

But where was Mama?

“Mama?” Joan called out. “M-Mama?”

No answer.

Joan stepped forward, and all the furniture and items on the floor pulled away from her, as if they were offended by her dirty presence.

“Mama? Mommy?”

Nothing.

Where was her Mama?

She remembered that Mama had left the house earlier that evening. What if she never came back?

Tears filled Joan’s eyes. She couldn’t be alone. Not after what happened tonight. She desperately needed her Mama.

She walked up the stairs, falling to her hands and knees halfway up and continuing the climb like a blood soaked animal that barely managed to get away from a hunter. She looked around the upstairs part of the house, crawling to Mama’s bedroom and peeking inside, leaving streaks of red across the hardwood floor. Mama’s bed was made, but she thought the blankets looked a little wrinkled on one side.

“Mama?” She called out again, a brief expression of hope flitting across her face.

No reply.

Joan’s bottom lip began to quiver. The movement hurt her cheeks even more and she whimpered sharply. The smell of rancid blood wafting around her was starting to make her stomach churn.

“Mommy?” She tried one more time, and when she got no answer, she retrieved fresh clothes from her bedroom and then locked herself in the bathroom.

An unseen force cranked the hot water nozzle on the faucet, filling the tub up with steaming water. Joan could barely lift her own arms, so she used her telekinesis to worm the dress off of her for her. It was a clumsy process, but she eventually was free from the bloody fabric. When she looked down, she saw that the blood had soaked all the way into her bra and underwear and even her pale skin, streaking down her chest and belly and arms and legs in dark red stripes. She quickly got into the bathtub.

The water was way too hot, but she didn’t bother turning the cold nozzle, even though she easily could with just a simple flex of her mind. She melted into the heat, sucking in a sharp breath and easing her lungs. When she slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position, she saw that the water around her was tainted a light red color. She splashed her face, thinking maybe she was just seeing things, but then she looked down at her hands and saw how stained they were.

She had been hoping it wasn’t real, that it was just all in her imagination, but something about seeing the blood now wet on her hands cemented it all as true.

It was true.

It all really happened.

Joan’s breathing began to pick up to the point where her lungs begged for air. She turned her hands over, staring at the palms and then the backs. Blood trailed lazily over the scars.

“No--” She gasped. She splashed her face again, wetting the blood and making it run down into her eyes and over her cheeks. “No, no, no--”

She splashed and splashed and splashed, then began to scrub and scrub and scrub when she realized just how stained her shoulders and chest were. Her hands smeared the blood into awful shapes, so she hooked her nails into claws and began scratching viciously until even more blood was drawn out. The entire process was messy and clumsy and had her weeping out loud like a lamb that had lost its mother.

Where was her mother?

Joan dunked her head under the water and held it there, clawing her nails through her hair. The locks were stiff and dried with blood and released clouds of red through the bathtub when scoured so roughly. The natural platinum blonde color doesn’t come back easily and she nearly drowned herself trying to get all the blood out.

(o Mama Mama where are you i need you o Mama please come back)

Joan hugged her knees and rocked back and forth, sloshing the red water around her. Her skin stung from the heat, but she didn’t care. She found that she wasn’t caring about a lot of things at that moment.

The room was dark, blue shadows leaked out of the cracks between the tiles. Maybe it’s mold, maybe it’s just a fancy design; they’ve been there for as long as Joan can remember. Ghostly whispers flooded her ears. She slid down the smooth, spattered ceramic and held her breath until her eardrums were about to burst; this is a coping mechanism of sorts, she thinks. She might fall asleep underwater one day, peaceful and careless.

(Mama)

A thick, soapy wave splashes out of the tub as Joan sat up, gasping and hyperventilating, slapping her palms against the surface. She’s angry all of a sudden, she barely suppressed her scream as the shelf with all the shampoos and shower gels comes crashing down, bottles scatter across the floor.

At first, Joan thought that the devil was finally coming for her soul. Then, she thinks that it was an earthquake; the water was sloshing around the bathtub like a reddened poison. But, when Joan wiped the foam off her face, she realized that she’s the only one that’s quivering.

There’s a vibration racking through her body, muscles tensed, and wet hair full of electricity as if she’s about to cause a short circuit.

The shelf is lying on the tiles now, broken in two.

Joan whimpered. She leaned her temple against the edge of the bathtub and wept. Glittering silver tears dripped silently into bloody water. The smell of blood began to permeate through the air again. Joan dragged her body out of the water eventually, shivering and sniffling.

The house was eerily silent when Joan hobbled out of the bathroom. She’s dressed in a plain white nightgown and her hair is dripping freely all over her back and chest. It’s still slightly tinted red.

“Mama?” She whispered.

Like all the other times, there was no reply.

(please please please)

“Mama?” Louder this time.

(please please please please)

A creak in the floorboards.

Joan whirled around.

And there was her Mama, like an angel in the hallway, illuminated by a flickering red candle. Her hair was neatly combed and she was dressed in a dark blue dress she had sewn herself. Her golden brown eyes were warm and tender, sucking Joan in with their soft gaze, and Joan couldn’t help but burst into a fresh set of tears.

“Mama?” Joan squeaked weakly.

“Oh, my girl,” Mama murmured. “My sweet, sweet girl…”

“Mama, you were right!” Joan sobbed. “They all laughed at me!” The tears were falling faster, now. She could hear the laughter echoing loudly in her ears.

“Oh my poor angel…”

Joan nearly choked on a sob, feeling her throat constrict. She raised her arms, doing desperate grabby hands at her mother.

“Mama, please hold me,” She begged.

Mama obliged, sweeping her up into her warm, strong arms that made Joan melt upon contact. Her weak little body crumpled, knees buckling together, and Mama carefully lowered her to the ground, not letting go for even a second.

“Shh, shh,” Mama murmured, stroking her wet hair. “It’s okay… I’m here. I’m here now, your Mama’s here.”

“They all laughed at me,” Joan wept. She smothered her face in her mother’s chest, clinging like a drowning woman to the back of her dress. She couldn’t handle being let go right now. She just wanted to curl up in Mama’s arms and stay there forever.

“I knew they’d hurt my little girl.” Mama growled lowly.

Joan replied with a whimpering sob. She didn’t have enough air to properly answer, so she just continued to cry and cry, shaking like a newborn baby goat in her Mama’s embrace.

Several minutes of silence, aside from Joan’s crying, passed. Joan realized that she couldn’t hear any sirens anymore. Maybe things had finally calmed down and would be okay again, like they were before the blood.

“I should have killed myself when he put it in me.”

Joan tensed up like she had just been struck by lightning.

“We slept in the same bed,” Mama went on, “Lived together sinlessly.” Her strong hand was rubbing firmly against Joan’s upper back, near the nape of her neck. “And then, one night, I saw him look at me in that way and we got down on our knees and prayed for strength. And that’s when he took me.”

“No, Mama--” Joan whimpered. She didn’t want to hear this. Not right now. Not after everything that has happened. “No, Mama, I don’t want to hear it--”

Mama leaned Joan back and stroked her tear stained face. “And I liked it.”

“No, Mama, no--” Joan shook her head, fresh tears pouring out of her eyes.

“I should have given you to God when you were born.” Mama said. “But I was weak. And I loved you so much.”

A smile twitched on Joan’s lip, weak and thin and shaky, but real. Those words sent butterflies fluttering through her stomach.

“And I said, ‘God, let me keep my little girl. Let me keep her.’” Mama said, and Joan’s smile became a little bit bigger. Maybe things would be okay after all. “Let us pray.”

Joan nodded, almost eagerly. “Yes, Mama,” She said, craving Mama’s soothing touch and silky words. “Yes, we’ll pray.” She nuzzled in closer to Mama’s warmth, breathing out a soft sigh of relief.

“I’ll be the preacher,” Mama said, “you be my congregation.”

Joan nodded again, smiling giddily. She closed her eyes and murmured along with Mama when she began to recite the prayer.

“Our Father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy Name,

thy kingdom come,

thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.”

Mama’s voice was like honey, slithering warmly from her lips. Joan was drawn to it no matter what happened, no matter what Mama did. Because Mama, despite her actions and flaws, loved her.

“Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those

who trespass against us.”

And wanted her.

“And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.”

And needed her.

“For thine is the kingdom,

and the power, and the glory,

for ever and ever. Amen.”

And--

And there was a sharp pain.

Joan’s eyes popped open wide and she gasped as all the air rushed out from her lungs. There was a sharp pain in her back, below her left shoulder, and then a rush of warmth across her nightgown. She looked up with a whimper and saw that Mama’s eyes were solemnly cold and crackling, like embers flickering in a winter wind. Her arm was reached around Joan, holding something in place, and Joan realized she had a knife in her back.

“Mama--” She croaked, blood dripping from her lips.

Something around the two of them crackled, like the air was charged with electricity, and they burst apart from each other like the similar charges of a magnet. Mama went flying down into the hallway, while Joan ricocheted off the staircase railing and then tumbled down the stairs, hitting the back wall with a magnificent splattering of blood before teetering over the remaining few steps. There on the ground, gasping for breath, she lay sprawled like a broken doll. Her jaw ached fiercely with every sharp intake of oxygen she took, while her back felt as though a bruise had just been slashed open and now all her tendons were being pulled out one by one. She whimpered at the pain, barely able to move her arm without it feeling like it was being torn off.

The staircase creaked; Mama was there, holding the stained butcher knife and primed for blood.

Joan scrambled backwards. Her body crumpled almost instantly, crushed by the weight of her wound, so she had to drag herself with one arm across the floor. Mama advanced on her slowly, menacingly, like a lioness stalking its injured prey.

“N-no, Mama--” Joan begged. “Mama, no, please-- Please no--”

“This isn’t your fault, Joan,” Mama said. “It’s mine.”

“Mommy, this isn’t right--”

“Don’t you know that the Devil never dies?” Mama went on. Her eyes were shining and she was drooling slightly, lost in her daze. “So you have to keep killing them. Over--”

“No, no--”

“--and over again.”

Mama stabbed the knife down.

Joan rolled away just in time. A lock of hair got caught under the blade and tore free with a burning sensation across her scalp, but she could hardly care. She rolled over onto her stomach and tried to get up, and then crawl away when she wasn’t able to stand. Mama pursued her, grabbing her by the leg and slashing the back of her ankle. Joan screamed in pain and jerked onto her back. The stab wound throbbed, but she barely felt it through the rush of adrenaline spurting through her. She barely jerked her head in time before she was stabbed.

Her fingers, so spindly and bony, wrapped around Mama’s on the hilt of the knife and she wrestled with her over the weapon. Mama was bigger and much stronger, easily ripping her hands free from her grasp. She cut Joan across the arm when she shielded her face from another blow.

“Stop it, Mama!” Joan cried. She wiggled beneath her mother and managed to get one leg free. She kicked Mama in the stomach and took the chance to scamper away when Mama recoiled backwards in pain.

“YOU DEVIL!!” Mama roared.

Joan heard the uneven shuffling of footsteps behind her, then felt the sharp pain of the tip of the knife pricking her in the leg. She kicked again, only to have the blade streak across her exposed belly and make her howl in agony.

“No, Mama!” Joan shrieked. Her head was starting to become fuzzy. She felt so tired all of a sudden. “No, no!!”

Mama practically pounced on her, looking hungry. Joan struggled wildly beneath her like a captured animal. Her little body was slippery with blood and Mama had a hard time getting a good grip, so she gave up after a moment and cleaved the knife down on Joan’s head with a bellowing battlecry.

But that was the one blow Joan didn’t feel.

Joan looked up, gasping for air, and saw that the knife was hovering mere inches away from her face. Mama’s hand was frozen, ensnared by a telekinetic force much stronger than she was. Joan flexed her mind and suspended Mama in the air, then called upon every possible sharp object in the house- knives and needles, shattered glass and broken chair legs, box cutters and scissors. They all hovered around Mama, poised and waiting.

“Joan…” Mama whispered in horror, tears trickling down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” Joan whimpered.

“JOAN!!!”

Joan wailed and sent the object upon her mother.

The butcher’s knife pierced Mama’s heart and sent her flying backwards against the wall. A pair of wickedly sharp meat shears pinned one hand against the plaster, while a seam ripper wedged itself in the flesh of the other. Dozens of knives stabbed themselves into her stomach. A boxcutter smashed into her shoulder and a screwdriver embedded itself deep into her waist. She took a shard of glass to the thigh and a ruler to the torso and a ice pick to the collarbone, and Joan commanded them all to do so, watching with tears streaming down her cheeks.

Mama, stretched out like Jesus on the wall, stopped moaning and groaning after a moment and her head slumped forward. Joan blinked her glassy eyes and tilted her head like a confused puppy.

“M-Mama?” She squeaked.

Like when she first got into the house that night, there was no answer.

Joan weakly crawled across the blood-spattered floor and shook one of Mama’s legs.

“Mommy?”

No answer.

Joan’s bottom lip began to quiver. She shook Mama’s leg harder, then wrapped her arms around it, looking up at Mama with big, shining eyes.

“Mommy, please answer me,” She begged.

Her Mommy did not.

Joan stood up and nearly blacked out from blood loss. Her head spun and she tottered on her feet, feeling sharp starbursts of pain exploding from the slash on her ankle, then steadied herself. She grasped onto Mama’s body and began to pull out all the sharp objects, whimpering out apologies as she did so.

First the ruler in her torso, then the meat shears, then the seap ripper. Mama’s body, no longer held up by anything, came crashing down and nearly crushed Joan. She clumsily fell to the ground, stumbling with Mama slumped in her arms.

“Mama?” She nudged Mama, who lay sprawled in her lap, motionless and bleeding. “I’m sorry, Mama… I’m so, so sorry…”

She felt selfish for crying. No closure comes, only more misery. An unfathomable weight on her chest pressed down on her lungs until they nearly burst. The dam that long protected her heart ruptured at the pressure and a whimper bubbled to her lips, morphing into a full-throated outcry of grief.

A cry for the life she’ll never get back. For her Mama in her arms. For all the lives she ruined. For the fates of the people at the prom.

Only the unfeeling moon slipping in through a window attended her outburst. She knew that it wouldn't lament her in her time of sorrow, only spotlighting her lost soul under a cold and tyrannical white light.

------

Katherine entered a bloody scene that would haunt her forever.

She found her in the ruined living room, under a beam of silver moonlight, like heaven itself was spotlighting her sinfulness. She was holding Jane Seymour’s corpse in her arms, rocking back and forth and sobbing. Katherine could see streaks of blood all over her tattered nightgown. She was hurt.

“Joan?” She called softly.

Joan’s head snapped up. Her eyes were as pale and wide as the moon outside.

“Let me help you, Joan,” Katherine approached slowly, as if she were actually trying to corner a scared stray kitten.

Joan bared her teeth for a moment, then looked down at her mother again and burst into a fresh set of tears. Her entire little body shook with the weight of her sobs.

“Why couldn’t you have just left me alone?” She said, her voice nasally and wavering from crying. “N-none of this would have happened if you hadn’t… M-my Mama…” She uttered a long, keening whine that was reminiscent of a dying puppy.

“I—” Katherine faltered. “I’m sorry.”

Joan’s body shuddered and she grit her teeth. An unseen force coiled around Katherine’s body and suspended her in the air tightly. Her breath hitched in shock and she couldn’t breathe. It felt as if the atmosphere was crushing her.

“Look what you turned me into.” Joan whispered.

“P-please don’t hurt me,” Katherine begged.

“Why not?” Joan asked, and a pained smile tugged on her bloody lips. Tears start to roll down her cheeks again. “I’ve been hurt my whole life.”

Katherine stared at her in horror, realizing it was true. The girl before her had been hurt more than she ever had been in her entire eighteen years of life.

How has Joan lived with so much pain inflicted on her tiny little body?

Joan released Katherine from whatever had been holding her, then bent over her mother and whimpered against her bloody shirt. She kept nuzzling into her chest, keening softly, and then looking up at her mother’s face, as if she was hoping her affection and presence would wake her up. When it didn’t work, she tried again and again and again, and it was the saddest thing Katherine had ever seen in her entire life.

“I killed my mama,” Joan whispered. “I want her back!”

It was awful to see a child bound to such a witch of a woman. Katherine knew this lady had hurt Joan severely, and yet Joan still loved her.

A crack suddenly zigzagged through the wall. Katherine jerked her head around to see several other cobwebs of crevices splinter through the walls around them. The wood holding up the house creaked and then began to shake ominously like an erupting volcano.

“Joan!” Katherine cried. “We need to leave!”

“No.” Joan held firmly to her mother’s corpse, curling against it loyally. “I’m not leaving.”

“Joan, please!” Katherine begged. “I can’t lose you, too!”

That made Joan look up.

For just a moment, Katherine felt a glimmer of hope when Joan sat up slightly, but then she looked back down at the corpse and her body covered in blood and crumpled right back into a fetal position. Katherine then realized that she didn’t just want to stay with her dead mother—she was immobilized by pain and grief and trauma.

Joan wanted to die.

And there was nothing Katherine could do to stop her.

Except--

Katherine took a small step forward. The entire house rumbled. The walls were starting to break themselves into tiny pieces. Chunks of the ceiling were falling loose and Katherine barely managed to duck away before some rubble smashed into her skull.

“Joan--”

She grabbed Joan and scooped her into her arms.

Joan jolted and then screeched in a fit of outrage instantly. She kicked and squirmed and clawed at Katherine's face, but she was much too little and much too weak to get free. Katherine ran outside with the screaming girl as the house began to crumble.

The walls folded inwards like a collapsed tower of cards, and then the roof came crashing down. The earth shifted and opened into a wide sinkhole that swallowed the house, devouring the walls and the floors and the furniture and all those awful crucifixes Katherine had seen hanging up until there was nothing left to mourn. Dirt and rubble poured down into the abyss, sending a tidal wave of dust crashing into Katherine and Joan.

“MAMA!!!!” Joan shrieked. She fought Katherine even harder, sending them both toppling to the grass. She tried to scramble forward and nearly got caught in a piece of sinking debris, but Katherine grappled onto her dress and yanked her back into her arms. “MAMA! MAMA, NO!!”

She squirmed and struggled, reaching one arm out to the destruction. Her movements were starting to slow down, but her screaming and crying did not seize.

“I’m scared!” Joan wailed. She looked up at Katherine, eye shimmering with tears, and she suddenly looked a lot younger. “I-I hurt! I want my Mama!”

“Shh, shh,” Katherine pulled her closer and rocked her gently, like you would a fussy baby. “It’s going to be okay, Joan. I’ve got you. I’m here.”

Joan opened her mouth again, and Katherine expected her to scream once more, but all that came out was a moan. It was only then that Katherine realized just how badly she was wounded.

“Oh god, Joan…”

There was a cut across her right arm and up her stomach, as well as one on her left ankle, a small prick on her back, and slits in her cheeks, but the worst injury was the stab wound in her back, which was still gushing out blood. Katherine ripped off her jacket and pressed it to the injury on her back, which elicited a flinched and a whimper of pain.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Katherine murmured, holding Joan’s head close to her chest. She gently stroked her unruly hair. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Hurts…” Joan mumbled. Her eyes were suddenly very cloudy and rapidly losing focus. “Mama…?”

“No, Joan.” Katherine said. “It’s Katherine. Katherine Howard. I’m going to help you, okay? You’re going to be alright.”

But Joan’s body was slowly depleting itself of strength and becoming limp in Katherine’s arms. She was losing too much blood.

“Mama.” Joan decided and sluggishly snuggled her head closer to Katherine. Her face was twisted in pain and she was still crying, but Katherine swore she looked just a little happy being held in someone’s arms.

“I’m so sorry, Joan,” Katherine whispered. “Oh, sweetie… I’m so sorry.”

Joan was much too dazed to answer, although her mouth was half open like she wanted to. Her eyes were glazed over, distant, and looked like glass orbs in their sockets, leaking out jewel drops of silver tears. Katherine got choked up just looking at her.

“It’s going to be okay, it’s all going to be okay,” She wept, pressing her head against Joan’s and rocking her back and forth again. “I promise, sweetie. It’s going to be okay soon.”

Joan’s head lolled and Katherine kept it firmly in place, even as the rest of her body when limp and cold. Still, she cradled the little girl, crying into the night, lying to Joan and herself over and over again because nothing would ever be okay ever again.

And then, a blindingly bright beam of light hit her and she flinched. The body in her arms was cold and then burning hot and then not there at all. Everything around her melted into nothingness.

“Name, please.”

“...”

“State your full name.”

“You already know my name, it's Katherine! Katherine Howard. Can you turn down that light? I can't see.”

“Tell us about the night of May 28th. About the occurrences that led up to the alleged event.”

“Alleged event? Why are you asking me the same thing over and over again? Are you trying to catch me in a lie? Is that it?”

“We want the truth.”

“I've already told you the truth! How many times do we have to go through this?”

“Until we understand.”

“What you need to understand is that we were just kids! Kids trying to do our best. We were kids...who made a mistake.”

Nineteen year old Katherine Howard leaned back in her chair, arms crossed firmly over her chest, eyes set on the detective in front of her. She was a sharply dressed woman named Victoria Green, with hawk-like facial features, pinned back strawberry blonde hair, and mossy green eyes. Like all adults nowadays, she looked at Katherine like she wanted to open up her brain and read through all her thoughts and memories.

Katherine finally came full circle into an ever-repeating loop of nightmares.

“What can you tell me about Joan Seymour?”

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taetaespeaches · 4 years

Text

“Do you think that house can be seen from space?”

Taehyung x Reader genre: fluff word count: 2K

a/n: Here is the fourth fic in my little Christmas universe series. I hope you all enjoy! It’s just Tae being a cutie and looking at Christmas lights with his partner. This is a continuation of the couple in my last Tae fic “I’m pretty sure we just smashed your cowboy hat” in which Tae and his friend hook up after going to a club together. So if you haven’t read that fic, well it’s not crucial, but it does mention it in here. Anyways, thanks for reading, lovelies! :))

YOU sat in the passenger seat of Taehyung’s car, amused as you watched your boyfriend jog around the vehicle, nearly slipping on a patch of ice, worriedly checking the thermos of hot chocolate in his hands for any spills. Finding no spillage, he shot you a thumbs up through the windshield.

You were both giggling when he climbed into the driver seat, clicking his seatbelt before turning to look at you with a sweet close-mouthed grin and a slight blush on his cheeks.

“Are you ready to check out some Christmas lights?” He asked you happily as you beamed at him, clapping your hands excitedly. “And I made a playlist full of Christmas songs to set the mood,” he joked, plugging his phone into the car’s usb port.

“Oh wow, you’re so prepared,” you smiled fondly at your boyfriend. Leaning across the console, you grabbed his face between your hands and kissed him soft and slow. “You’re amazing,” you whispered against his lips, resting your forehead against his.

Taehyung’s eyes bounced around your features as his tongue slipped between his lips. George Ezra’s version of “White Christmas” filled the warm car as Taehyung kissed you once more. Leaning back just the slightest bit, he said, “I’m so happy you think so.”

With a boop on his nose, you smiled sweetly at him, a wide boxy smile of his own spreading across his face.

It had been a little over two months since you and Taehyung had officially begun your relationship. After a night out to the club, which led to, well, your first time having sex, you both decided to stop with the tension filled friendship and just be together. The transition from being friends to lovers was relatively easy, both of you falling into the role of romantic partners naturally.

The night you went to the club, you were sure that if you weren’t in love with him already, you would be soon. Now, nearing the end of December, you knew you were in love with him, and you didn’t know how much longer you could look at his handsome sweet face without telling him.

“Check the console,” he told you with a nod of his head, gesturing to the compartment.

Raising your eyebrows in surprise, you slowly lifted the hatch, peeking inside to find a small wrapped gift. “Baby,” you started. “What is this?” You pulled out the present, shooting him a warning glare.

“It’s for you, Peaches,” he smirked. “And I don’t care if that annoys you.”

“You’re so obnoxious,” you groaned, holding back a fond grin.

He hummed in agreement before adding, “Yeah, but I’m also amazing, remember?” Your grin broke through a bit as you simply shook your head at him.

“Open it,” he smiled, a little too coolly. Cocky bitch.

Digging into the wrapping paper, you exposed a small cardboard jewelry box. Opening the box, inside was a silver necklace with a little round pendant on it.

With wide eyes, you scooped it out by the chain and held it in front of your eyesight. The pendant had a small hand-drawn heart engraved on it with an “L+E” in the middle of the heart, clearly Tae’s handwriting.

“Baby, oh my god,” you gasped, tears filling your eyes. “You drew this?”

“Here,” he gestured to the necklace. Turning away from him, you allowed him to place the necklace around your neck, the pendant sitting just below your collar bones as he latched the hook. “You get it right?” He asked nervously as you turned around and pouted at him.

“Of course, Lucy,” your lips turned upwards a bit. “This is so special, you are so special.”

“Thank you for being my Ethel,” he smiled bashfully. Leaning towards him, you kissed him eagerly before you reluctantly sat back against the heated seat, your fingers feeling at the pendant against your chest.

Taehyung swiped his tongue across his lips before he visibly made an effort to compose himself, peeling his eyes from you as he pulled the car out onto the street.

Driving through the residential neighborhoods, you and Taehyung made light conversation as you looked at the different light displays, each reflecting the tastes of the different families. As you excitedly looked from the lights to Tae, a big smile on your face as you pointed out specific lights and decoration, Taehyung felt the overwhelming desire to tell you how he felt about you. He found it increasingly difficult to keep his eyes on the road, much preferring to watch you as you smiled and basked in the festive glow of the night.

“Is Yoongi bringing a date tonight?” You randomly wondered, knowingly. Tae had told you about catching Yoongi cuddling his best friend at the dorm a couple months back.

Taehyung lowered his chin, shooting you a knowing look. “Of course, he’s bringing someone.”

“Ahhh, of course he is. Just as friends though,” you added. “Of course.”

“Look at that house,” he changed the topic suddenly, directing your attention to a house that was especially bright and colorful, not a single piece of the siding untouched by lights and decorations. “Do you think that house can be seen from space?”

You didn’t see the smiley look on his face as he posed the question as you stared out the window. Humming in thought, you responded with, “I hope so.”

“I wonder if it serves as a beacon for the aliens,” he pondered.

Cocking your head, you looked back at Tae. “Which planet’s aliens?” Tae’s eyes popped open wider at your question, lowering his head to look out your window at the house.

“I bet their electric bill is massive,” he pointed out.

You giggled in response, and as you watched the house’s lights flicker and flash, Tae was watching you. The lights reflected off the pendant hanging on your chest, making his heart swell.

Stopping the car at the stop sign at the end of the street, he brought his hand to stroke your cheek, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. You leaned your head into his touch as you cast your gaze on him.

The affection in his eyes that met your own adoring orbs was intense. You both felt it. You both knew the words that were at the tips of both of your tongues.

Taehyung opened his mouth to speak when, suddenly, the car engine sputtered just before it shut off, right in the middle of the snow packed road.

“What,” Taehyung looked at the display behind the steering wheel, “the fuck?”

“Did the car just die?” You asked him in shock, looking over the console to look at the display as he pressed the start button.

He paused a moment before sighing loudly, slumping into his seat. “It’s out of gas.” The pout on his lips was prominent, making him look like a wounded little boy. Taehyung had everything so well plotted for this evening, and you knew he was beating himself up for forgetting to check the gas tank. However, it felt so utterly Taehyung that it made you heart pound against your chest in adoration.

You stared at him for a moment before looking out your window, setting your gaze on the bright house.

“Do you think we could beckon some aliens to beam us over to Jin’s?” You asked to lighten your boyfriend’s mood. A few seconds passed by, his face still solemn until his eyes crinkled, turning into crescents as a boxy grin overtook his features, and and adorable giggle slipping out.

Another moment went by before Tae sighed. “Ah, I guess we better call for more reliable help. We don’t know what those aliens want.”

Giggling, you nodded, already calling your best friend. “Mr. Park and future Mrs. Park to the rescue.”

“Well, we’re out of hot chocolate,” Tae pouted from the other side of the console, his body turned so he could face you as you both waited for your ride.

“These are officially the end times,” you shook your head.

Tae giggled as She & Him’s rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” soothed through the car, unspoken words weighing heavy on your hearts. You watched as Tae slowly picked up a pen that sat in the cubby next to the cup holders, immediately grabbing your wrist and pushing your sleeve up your forearm.

Positioning your arm flat against the console, he licked his lips nervously. You observed his features, curiously but with admiration, as he wrote something along your wrist. Lifting the pen off your skin, he looked up at you with a nervous smile. As you leaned closer to the console to take a look at the words, Tae kissed your temple, letting his lips linger.

Momentarily distracted, you turned your face towards Tae’s, allowing him to kiss you passionately just as Jimin’s car pulled up beside you, both of your friends waving obnoxiously at you and Tae. Startled, your boyfriend jumped at the sudden presence, quickly pulling down your sleeve. With a groan and a small head shake, he stuck the pen behind his ear and mumbled something about preparing yourselves for the teasing.

After being brutally made fun of by your best friends and moving the gasless car over to the side of the road, you and Tae crawled into the back seat of Jimin’s car, your Secret Santa presents in hand, shivering from the freezing temperature outside. You all talked for a bit before Jimin and his girlfriend turned the conversation into an argument about some wrapping paper duel.

Settling into Taehyung’s side, your head resting against his shoulder and his hand on your thigh, you signed in contentment. You watched Tae’s hand as he traced patterns on your leg.

Clamping your hand over top his when it started to tickle, he intertwined your fingers, lifting your hand to his lips. As he placed sweet kisses along the knuckles, you lifted your head off his shoulder to steal a glance at him.

He smiled sweetly just before nuzzling his nose against your cheek, leaving a quick kiss. He trailed his lips across your cheek until they hovered over your ear.

You listened to his light breathing as he placed a barely there kiss to your lobe. “You’re my best friend,” he suddenly whispered, sending shivers across your skin and making your heart skip a beat. Turning towards him, his lips dragged along your face, just barely brushing over your forehead as he pressed a sweet kiss to the spot.

Pulling away to look into his gaze, you felt it again, and suddenly you remembered the unread words on your wrist. Untwining your hand with his and pulling your sleeve up your arm, you squinted your eyes to make out the letters in the dark car. Your body filled with relief and butterflies as you read the words, “I’m in love with you.”

You locked your eyes with his, the silent exchange deafening in the car. Your friends’ bickering faded away as you reached up, taking the pen out from behind his ear, your lips curving into a blissful smile as you did so, Taehyung reciprocating the expression.

Quickly, you wrote along his wrist, and as Tae bowed his head to read it, you set your lips to the back of his skull, kissing his soft strands of hair. The street lights just barely illuminated the confession, “And I’m in love with you.”

He looked up at you wearing a wide, childlike, toothy smile, locking his gaze on yours as you brought his forearm to your lips, pressing a kiss to the words. He grasped the back of your head, resting is forehead against your own, pressing a small but meaningful kiss to your lips and purposely nudging your nose with his cutely.

Even with your friends still bickering in the front seat about the fairness of their strange little wrapping paper battle, all you could hear was the silent confession of love being relayed between you and your boyfriend. He was everything in that moment. He was always everything.

#taehyung #taehyung fluff #taehyung imagine #taehyung imagines #taehyung drabble #taehyung fic #taehyung drabbles #taehyung fics #bts #bts v #v #bts fics #bts fic #bts imagines #bts imagine #bts fluff #bts drabble #bts drabbles #christmas fics

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emrysarthurpendragon · 4 years

Text

Breath in, breath out

Merlin sat anxiously in their car. A couple of days had passed since they first met Arthur and now, they were heading to the hospital together. The lady Morgana dialled his mum and told them Arthur was alive and ready to have visitors. Still, one thing was bothering the little boy… Arthur was going to live with that woman. He hated her. He found Arthur and he wanted him to stay with them, in their domain with plenty of rooms and even ONE domestic! Since his parents told him the news, Merlin had been pouting on his sit and mumbling about life being unfair. His parent’s chatters broke the silence until they parked not far from the hospital. Merlin jumped from the vehicle and took his father’s hand from one side, his mother’s from the other. They walked together to a desk where a kind woman shows them to where Arthur’s room was. In an attempt to ease the boy’s fears, they let him stay in the children service, where Merlin stopped for a moment, next to an activity room filled with various sick kids of all ages. A teenager with long brown hair and sparkling eyes. He was playing guitar before he noticed his new spectator and wink to him.

There was music there in the derriere

Like a language that we all could understand

I remember the day that I earned my first pay

When I played in a small pick-up band

There I spent my youth, and to tell you the truth

I was sad to leave it all behind me

For I learned about life, and I found a wife

In the town I loved so well

Merlin blushed when the older boy knelt in front of him. Something was happening … they both felt it. Merlin wanted to cry, because he missed this boy so much … and it was stupid, because they never met!

But when I returned, how my eyes have burned

To see how a town could be brought to its knees

By the armoured cars and the bombed-out bars

And the gas that hangs on to every breeze

Now the army’s installed by that old gas-yard wall

And the damned barbed wire gets higher and higher

With their tanks and their guns, oh my God, what have they done

To the town I loved so well

Now the music’s gone but they carry on

For their spirits been bruised, never broken

They will not forget but their hearts are set

On tomorrow and peace once again

For what’s done is done and what’s won is won

And what’s lost is lost and gone for ever

I can only pray for a bright, brand new day

In the town I love so well

Scenes from a long-forgotten battle made him shiver and Merlin stepped back. These were from his nightmares, the one he had since forever. The ones he talked of with his grandpa Gaius, who never judge him or call him crazy. He shared them with his parents too, and they sent him to a doctor. A kind man who let him draw on many papers. The other day, he drew a big Dragon with yellow scales! His name was… Kikigarah!

“Merlin, what’s wrong?” his mother’s called and Merlin shook his head. If he started being weird again, the doctor will make him take yucky medicine. Instead, the boy smile and pointed to the musician.

“I like music! Can he play for Arthur?” he asked, and notice how the teenager chuckled when Merlin made decision without asking him first.

“Who is Arthur?” the stranger asked, standing again so he can greet young Merlin parents properly. From his place, Merlin still wondered where he met that boy before. “I’m Gwaine, I play for the kids when I don’t have school,” he explained.

“What’s that smell?” a huge man asked, and an older Merlin stared at the direction the smell came from.

“Gwaine! Pull these feet of your back into your boots! We’re all going to die!” he yelled, throwing a rock at him.

“Ouch! It hurts!” the Gwaine from the fake world.

“Well, you hurt our noses!”

The moment vanished. What if it were true, Merlin wondered? He had to protect Arthur from dangerous scent. Just in case. Maybe with some tissues or with a hug, so he can hide his face in his hair and smell his shampoo. His favourite with strawberries and apples!

“Arthur is my friend!” Merlin claimed, “He does not know it yet, that’s all!”

Both adults and Gwaine laughed at the claim. Still, the little boy was not done yet. Gwaine asked who Arthur was and, of course, he had a duty to be as precise as possible.

“His bad daddy killed his mummy and now, he’s hurt. But my mum and dad are nice and kiss a lot! It’s not all parents, I promise!” he said, “And Morgana killed the bad daddy, so now Arthur is safe and I want to…”

“Merlin, stop. You can’t tell these things to Gwaine. You’ll make him uncomfortable.” Balinor said. Merlin lowered his head and whispered a quick ‘sorry’. He just wanted to answer properly, and as a six-year-old, he didn’t realise some things were private. Except his parents’ bedroom. He knew not to break in when there were giggles from his parents in it. They were trying to make him a little sister, even if Merlin couldn’t fathom how laughing in a bedroom was going to help them. Maybe they did not know they had to ask Santa. Instead of rummaging his thoughts, Merlin took off when he noticed chamber number 28, where Arthur was supposedly waiting for them. With a happy squeal, Merlin pushed the door open and barely avoid colliding with Morgana. The beautiful woman laughed when she saw him but earned nothing from Merlin, except a disdainful glare.

“I don’t like you,” the child murmured. He turned his gaze to the bed, where Arthur blinked lazily. “You’re awake!” Merlin yelped, not even noticing he was the one who woke the other boy. There was a strange mask on his face, making him look like a fish but the oblivious child just ignores it as he sat on the bed.

“Hi Arthur! I’m Merlin! You remember me?”

Arthur nodded, still slightly confused. He stopped crying about his mum a couple of days ago, but he never expected to meet Merlin again. Still, he seemed more friendly than strange now, and it eased the blond orphan. Merlin acted as a friend and with no such thing as pity in his eyes.

“Dada told me you’re going to live with Morgana. If you don’t want, just tell me so I adopt you! I can! I just have to write it on a paper!”

“I… I like ‘Gana…” Arthur whispered, confused by Merlin’s words. He also felt touch by the way the brunet kindly offered to give him a new home.

“What? But … but she’s old!” Merlin pointed, like it was some huge con. Only then did he notice all the adults were staring at them with a mix of annoyance and amusement. “Can you all go outside, please? It’s between and Arthur and I! Except Gwaine, we want the music!” he ordered. The ‘olds’ laughed, not even bothered by how Merlin talked because they knew he was a good child deep inside. Gwaine took a sit next to the two six-year-old with his guitar still in hands.

“You know, kids, I think we are quite the trio,” the teenage boy laughed. “Arthur, Merlin and Gwaine, all from the round table. Do you want a song about King Arthur and his merry companions?”

“The merry companions are with Robin Hood!” the two kids corrected, exchanging a smile while Merlin cuddled with Arthur. Merlin who was always so scared around other kids most of the time, felt at home here.

“So, this is a song about King Arthur and his Queen, Guinevere.”

“I don’t like it,” Merlin pouted.

“You did not even let me start!”

“Arthur loves Merlin and Merlin loves Arthur. Like mummy and daddy,” the younger boy claimed. “Grandpa Gaius says it’s okay for boys to love boys and girls love girls. Grandpa is always right. I say Merlin and Arthur are married!”

Behind him, Arthur blushed. Merlin realized he probably think the wrong things and they both turned red while Gwaine laughed. In another life, the teenager would have teased them but now, he just shook his head and let his finger started a lullaby about a beloved King and his lands. A land of magic, with mighty knights and flying dragons. It took a minute before Merlin’s rubbed his eyes and sucked his thumb. Arthur started dozing off too, his breathing slowing down under his oxygen mask. The one he wore since he first came here and struggled to breathe with his broken ribs.

Gwaine smiled at the two sleeping forms. Something inside him wanted to protect these children, like an older brother. Arthur, with his bruises covered body. Merlin and his good nature. With much care, the teenager left the room, where he met the adults.

“They fell asleep. I uh… I should go home. I have works to do … well … uh … goodbye?” Gwaine murmured.

“It was nice meeting you, Gwaine. Feel free to come again later,” offered the woman he thought was Arthur’s guardian. Morgana, was it?

“I will,” he promised with a bright smile.

They were all going to meet again. Maybe not now. Maybe in a couple of weeks, months or years. He felt like something was about to happen. A change they all needed. Something about Merlin and Arthur, even if they were far too young to change the world.

#whumptober2020 #no.13 #oxygen mask #merlinbbc #fic #sfw

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blog-sliverofjade · 3 years

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Of Doms & Subs 1: Can't Stop Here, This is Wolf Country

Pairing: Angus Hopper x OFC

Summary: What's a submissive female to do when she fights her nature and goes on the run as a Lone wolf to avoid being assimilated into a pack?

Word count: 6238

Master List

“Please, please, please let me get as far as Tacoma,” I begged the flagging gas gauge of my trusty old lime green Jeep. Experience told me that it was wishful thinking because traffic was bound to hit before Everett. There was undoubtedly a Seattle pack and the fewer the stops in their area, the smaller the chance of getting picked up by the local werewolves.

A schoolbus drew parallel to me in the left lane so a giant cartoon lupine mascot filled my peripheral vision. “Can’t stop here, this is wolf country,” I muttered.

If I barrelled through, gas up in Tacoma, then I could avoid the dreaded I-5 parking lot in both Seattle and Portland on the Friday of a long weekend. Even though I started out in the British Columbia Rockies my destination was the central Oregon Cascade mountains, it was faster to cut across lower British Columbia, down the I-5 corridor, and then back across the Willamette Valley.

This route also happened to avoid the territory of the famous Adam Hauptmann and his pack. Oh sure, he was the perfect gentleman in the media and his wolves were seemingly well-behaved, but you know what they say about things that are too good to be true. I was submissive and had no delusions about where I’d end up in the hierarchy. Hell, humans had taught me that long before I was Changed two weeks ago. And female werewolves were inevitably absorbed into a pack because some old grand high poobah declared that we couldn’t fly solo.

So why was I zigzagging all over the Pacific Northwest instead of rolling over like a good little bitch? Having been submissive for over thirty years, I’d long ago learned avoidance is the best way to avoid conflict. When that didn’t work, an acerbic tongue and short temper kept most people from getting too close to abuse that aspect of my personality. Too many people think that passivity is a synonym for doormat.

My luck, or rather fuel tank, ran out in the U District. Red and blue lights lit up the rearview mirror just as I squeezed through a yellow light towards a gas station. “Please don’t be for me, please don’t be for me,” I chanted as I pulled into the lot.

“Of course not, when has everything gone your way on this godsforsaken trip.” I lowered my window, plastered a meekly congenial if slightly vapid look on my face, and gripped my license and registration in a sweaty fist.

“Good evening.” The officer bent to look in the window. We both stilled the instinct we caught the other’s scent. I dropped my eyes immediately, partly to avoid staring at the scar that marred his face, and offered the documentation. Please don’t ask any questions, I prayed silently.

“Are you traveling by yourself, Ms. Jones?” Whatever deities that haven’t been listening to me can go shove it.

“Yessir. I’m headin’ back home to Oregon from visitin’ family.” Mostly the truth. I did stop in Vancouver to visit my brother. I put the Southern drawl on fairly heavy. The twang and the manners to go with often smooth the way with people in uniform, even if I hadn’t lived South of the 44th parallel in fifteen years.

“Oh, you have family here?” Must remain calm. Normal, even breaths will help control the heartrate.

“Vancouver,” I smiled. So what if it was Vancouver, Washington and not Vancouver, British Columbia?

“BC?”

“Yessir.” His eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly at the blithe lie.

“You must be a member of the Portland pack,” he said, eyeing my ID a little too closely for comfort now.

“Yessir.”

“I’m just gonna go run these.” My dad was a cop and his face would go blank like that whenever he was gathering evidence of my brother’s or my misdeeds. This was so many flavours of not good.

The wolf watched him walk back to his car. She liked the way he smelled. Familiar and right. Like family. If she could, she would have trotted right at his heels. At that thought, the human half kicked in and started up the engine, slammed her into gear, and peeled back out towards the onramp.

“Smart. Real smart, what’re we gonna do now?” I tapped the steering wheel in a staccato rhythm with my thumbs in time to the rock blaring from the sound system. “No license, no registration, he called your plates in before saying hi, he has your address and…” I grabbed my phone and shut it off. If the conspiracy theorists were right, they could track me via the phone. Is it paranoia if they really are out to get you?

I crossed over to the 405 and stopped in Bellevue for gas, otherwise I’d be making my getaway on foot. I leaned against the Jeep, ignoring the damp that seeped from the cold metal through my clothing, and debated the merits of taking the really scenic route of 101. Or would they expect me to leave I-5 and thus making it the safer choice by hiding in plain sight? My head was starting to hurt from trying to outthink them.

The gas fumes seared my nose so I couldn’t smell the driver of the Mazda 3 that pulled up behind me until he approached the squeegee station between us. Studiously avoiding eye contact, I screwed the cap back on and nestled the nozzle back in its hook. Slowly, no sudden moves.

I slid behind the wheel and as the engine turned over a cop car blazed into the station to block me against the Mazda. It looks cool in the movies. Less so if you’re the one trapped. I shut off the engine, folded my arms, and leaned back in a huff. My license and registration slipped through the three-inch gap at the top of the window. I snatched them up and tossed them in my purse without pausing in my attempt to mentally set his car on fire. Unfortunately, lycanthropy didn’t come with pyrokinesis. In the movies fiery explosions usually follow when there are confrontations in gas stations. Too bad life wasn’t imitating art in this case.

“I take it you know the law.” The scarred officer was not referring to any statutes written by man. “You can either come and meet our Alpha or I can arrest you and then you can meet him.” There was no threat in his words. He sounded as if he were inviting me over for dinner, which might actually be the case. I resisted the urge to hit the steering wheel. It would likely crumple now that I had preternatural strength.

“Fine. So where am I following you to meet your lord and master?”

“Matt here will be your driver,” he gestured to the guy who’d blocked me in. Mazda Matt leaned against his car door with his arms folded across his chest, watching the exchange with a slight smirk. “Shane will follow in your car.” A third man I hadn’t noticed before was mirroring Matt’s pose on the other side of the car.

I sighed and glanced at my phone. Even if they let me use it, who would I call? Hi big bro, I’m being kidnapped by werewolves. Please send in the National Guard. Tanks work against werewolves, right? I kicked open the door, forcing the cop to quickly sidestep. With a snarl on my lips, I chucked the heavy mass of keys attached to a carabiner at Shane. Damned werewolf reflexes. If he’d been human they’d have struck his temple and probably dropped him like a stone.

Matt came forward as if to take my elbow and escort me. “Touch me and I break your scaphoid. They’re a bitch to heal even with regeneration,” I snapped. Just because my wolf was happy about getting taken to meet their leader didn’t mean I had to be. He drew back his hand, but he did open the door for me and waited till I buckled up before shutting the door. Why buckle up if I could survive a trip through the windshield? It’d still hurt like hell.

“So I heard you’re from Portland,” Matt said as we merged back onto 405 in an attempt to fill the silence that was thick with my seething.

“Look, I’m no doubt about to get grilled on all this anyway, so let’s skip the twenty questions, ok?” He shrugged and didn’t seem put out by my rudeness.

Eventually he turned on the radio. I fiddled with it until finally settling on 107 the End. I tried to suppress a smirk at his frown. Judging by his pre-sets he liked the music just fine. Not so much me taking control of it. If some strange wolf was driving my Jeep, Mazda Matt could suck it up. He should be glad I didn’t put it on country out of sheer spite.

Thirty minutes later, due to traffic as opposed to distance, we pulled up in front of an expansive house partially obscured by trees. I shuddered to think of the market value for the area. They seemed to be having a party due to the sheer number of vehicles parked beside the house. Shane pulled up as I trailed behind Matt to the door.

The door opened to a large mudroom with hooks for coats and cubbies for shoes. About half of them were in use. Curiously, there were two utilitarian shower stalls that would have looked right at home in a locker room. I followed Matt’s and Shane’s examples and removed my shoes, tucking them into one of the shelves.

“We’re having a barbecue on Saturday, so a bunch of us are already here to watch the game,” Shane explained from behind me as I followed Matt down the hallway. The sounds of men cheering or jeering at a TV screen echoed up from the basement. My human half was worried about being in a house with a bunch of strange men. My wolf on the other hand was curious and delighted by the mixture of scents that spoke of wolves.

How to play this? Be a general pain in the ass and risk the consequences? Or be a good little submissive female and not only risk being assimilated, but also subordinate to everyone else. I always believed in playing to one’s strengths, which meant plan A was go. Besides, I’d never been accused of having the sense God gave a squirrel.

Matt stopped by an open doorway and gestured for me to enter. The man standing behind the desk was certainly not what I was expecting of an Alpha. For starters, he didn’t look like an arrogant asshole. Secondly, he was maybe an inch taller than me, and I was considered fairly short. Underneath his wine, or perhaps blood-red dress shirt he was thin. The only hint to his status was the intelligence lurking behind his dark eyes, which I merely glimpsed before lowering my own.

“Welcome, Eleanor,” he came around to shake my hand. I didn’t know if it was proper protocol or if he somehow knew that I was recently Changed and was sticking to familiar, human customs. His grip was firm, not crushing like some men, and not too gentle as if he was afraid of breaking me. It was a bit startling to actually be able to shake his hand properly instead of my hand simply being engulfed by his as was the case with most men.

“I am Angus Hopper, Alpha of the Emerald City Pack. You’ve made good time considering you left Revelstoke early this morning.” Oh that was neatly done, putting me in my place by hinting that he knew more than I suspected, but not exactly how much. “Have a seat,” he leaned his backside against the desk and gestured to one of the comfortable looking chairs. It was an order, not an invitation. And why was I reminded of being called to the principal’s office as written in a Penthouse letter? Shoving aside x-rated thoughts involving school uniforms and corporal punishment, I tried to look as non-threatening as possible.

“Been sittin’ in a car so long I’d rather stand if’s all the same.” Eyes down, properly polite, and heavy on the Southern accent to hide any attitude.

“I imagine,” he said with a small smile. “So tell me how you came to be living in Portland, a city currently without a pack.” Crap on a cracker, there’s no lying my way out of this one. How does a city that size not have a werewolf pack?

“I was Changed two-weeks ago,” I sighed and sat in the other chair in defeat, the one he had not indicated, forcing him to shift slightly to face me. If he didn’t want small acts of defiance, then he shouldn’t have multiple options available. “I was solo hikin’ in Glacier National Park an’ doin’ a little boulderin’. One slip an’ I ended up with a broken spinal column at the bottom of a ravine. By the time John found me, it was Change or die. Chose what I thought was the lesser o’ two evils. Stayed with him through the full moon an’ then headed home.”

“Does John have a last name?” Angus asked with a frown. My wolf worried that he was displeased with us. I worried what that might mean for us if he was.

“He said he’s old an’ the old ones don’t like to give their last names.” I had to consciously square my shoulders, which had subconsciously rounded under his frown. He nodded as if the answer wasn’t a surprise to him.

“And he was willing to let you go so soon?” he asked with an arch of an eyebrow. It really should be illegal for such a simple gesture to lend an irresistible quality when he was already handsome. Or that could have just been my imagination because it was hard to read expressions from peripheral vision.

“Not as such no,” I admitted reluctantly. “I waited till he went out huntin’ then I booked it back down the mountain.”

“Why did you feel the need to run?” he asked softly. Even if I was brave enough to look him in the face I doubted that it would give any clue as to what that tone was in his voice. I wasn’t necessarily a coward, but I was never comfortable discussing my personal life, let alone with strangers. Focusing on the rug, or the bookcase, was easier than looking at him.

“I got a job to get back to an’ I really wasn’t fond o’ the idea o’ bein’ stuck in the backwoods with a crazy old mountain man who’s also a werewolf.” He was silent, obviously waiting for me to continue. “I got the feelin’ that even if I was fully in control he wouldn’t let me leave.”

Angus folded his arms in thought. “Do you know where John lives?”

“There’s a map in my glove box. I could show ya the route to the cabin we stayed at. There’re no roads, an’ it’s a bit of a hike in.” Despite my best intentions to the contrary, I was cooperating. I blamed my wolf, who was eager for his approval. The Alpha obviously did not like what he was hearing, but it was rapidly becoming apparent that I was not his quarry so I was more than happy to keep him on that trail. He caught the attention of either Shane or Matt behind me, and a moment later a door shut. “But I did get the feelin’ that he moves around a lot.”

“Eleanor,” he began.

“Ellie, please.” Angus did frown at the interruption, but hearing my horrible legal name, which the cop must have told him, was like having my fur rubbed the wrong way.

“Ellie, you’re not in any trouble,” he said soothingly, as if I were a startled horse that might bolt. Perhaps that analogy wasn’t too far off the mark considering I was practically vibrating with the need to run for the Jeep. “The manner of your Change was highly unusual, bordering even on breaking our laws.”

“The law says that no one may be Changed without their explicit permission. I was coherent enough to give it.” Ha, that caught him off guard. That’s right, the newbie knows the rules of the game. I might not remember anything else around the accident, but things like a weird, hairy mountain man offering to save your life by turning you into a monster tends to stick in a person’s memory.

“That is true, yes. However, the second law is that before someone is Changed they must undergo rigorous counseling and testing to determine whether they can become stable wolves,” the Alpha explained. I forgot for a moment and stared into his dark eyes in shock that someone would make the choice deliberately rather than out of desperation. I quickly looked away once the surprise faded.

“A newly Changed wolf lacks control for their first few full moons and requires supervision for the first year,” he continued as if there was no breach of protocol. “A pack is necessary to guide new wolves.” He sounded like he had given this speech many times before. Luckily, he didn’t succumb to dry monotones.

“Which’s why I was goin’ to pack up an’ move somewhere rural enough I could run off a little steam,” I countered. “Nurses are always needed everywhere.”

“This is not just a ‘little steam,’ pup.” I suppressed a flinch at his growl, as well as a snarl of my own at being called ‘pup.’ He took a deep breath, whether to calm himself or to continue his lecture I didn’t know because the sound of the door opening interrupted. Shane handed Angus the familiar map, folded in my own fashion that in no way resembled its original creases. Those things are impossible to refold properly, anyway. After carefully moving a few items, he unfolded the map over his desk and handed me a pencil.

“Here’s the trail head.” I pointed to the circle already marking the spot on Highway 1. “He follows the main trail through this valley.” I pointed at the trail, which was already marked from my planning before the trip from hell. The accent softened as I talked and forgot to maintain it. “At about here he branches off at different angles each time so that his trail, not being well worn, is hard to pick up until you’re further out and know what you’re looking for.” I marked an X where I’d gotten lost and decided to just keep following the river down until I found either a trail, humans, or the highway. “Follow the river up and at the very edge of the park he’s got a cabin right about here.” I drew a paw print on the spot. “With the climb in elevation, it would’ve taken me about two days before… before. Downhill with a light pack, I made it in around eight hours.”

“Does that say ‘Dogtooth Range’?” Shane asked with a hint of a wry smile.

“Could’ve been worse. He could’ve gone for the really obvious with either Grey Fang or Fang Rock,” I smirked and pointed out the so named peaks on the other side of the park. He snorted a chuckle.

“You didn’t go to the authorities.” It was a statement, not a question.

“And end up in a secret government facility?” I scoffed. “No thank you.”

“Where did you stop to rest?” asked Angus.

“I didn’t.”

“Fatigue can be as dangerous as alcohol,” he frowned.

“Have caffeine, will travel,” I quipped.

“Even though your endurance has improved, you still need rest. Exhaustion erodes control.” And back into lecture mode.

“Like I said, I’m a nurse. Pulling doubles, even triples, isn’t unusual,” I countered.

“You passed through the territories of four different packs.” Someone had probably pulled my credit card history to follow my route in retrospect. That was fast work, and most definitely illegal. “How did you avoid detection?”

“Didn’t stop more’n absolutely necessary,” I shrugged. “And when I did, I tried to not get out of the car. Drive-thru, avoided pumping my own gas where I could.”

With a few taps Angus called someone on his cellphone. He had to swipe his fingerprint to unlock it, first. It even had one of those heavy-duty cases, which was probably a good investment for a werewolf. “Hello, Angus.” It was still weird how much my hearing had improved, especially back in civilization.

“Hello, Bran.” Aw, son of a biscuit. I really did not want to show up on the Marrock’s radar. Angus gave a concise report of everything that had happened to me since the accident, as far as he knew, including the pathetic getaway attempt. I sat back down for the uncomfortable reprise.

“Send me the map and I’ll have Charles look into it.” I wasn’t certain how I felt about having just signed John’s death warrant. The old werewolf wasn’t too specific when he talked about the Grand High Poobah of North America, but he was clear that any time the Marrock sent someone blood was spilled. “How is she getting on with your pack?”

“She’s a touch overwhelmed so I thought it best to wait before introducing them en masse.” I glared at Angus from under lowered lashes, which is harder to do than you would think without looking coy or drunk.

“If she chooses, escort her to Eugene. Otherwise I will send someone to fetch her here until she decides where to settle,” Bran said. My scowl deepened and I opened my mouth to tell them exactly what I thought of their plans. Shane shook his head almost imperceptibly in warning, though there was more empathy than condemnation in the movement.

“Please give my greetings to Anna and Charles.”

“I will.” The call abruptly ended from the other end. Our King of the Werewolves was not one for drawn out goodbyes. Angus took a couple of pictures of the map and sent them off with thumbs flying across the screen fast enough to make a teenager jealous. Then he did the most supernatural act I’d seen out of a werewolf yet: he carefully folded the map along the original fold lines before handing it back to me.

I doubled it over and shoved it in my back pocket as I stood. “If you’ll excuse me, I would like to make it home in time for my shift tomorrow night.” Although I kept my eyes on the bookshelf, I could feel his stare boring through me till my knees threatened to turn to Jell-O. Locking one’s knees is a surefire way to eventually pass out, but is effective in the short term.

“I’m afraid that you will have to change careers. Even old wolves can have problems around so much blood and the vulnerable.” The bastard actually managed to sound regretful.

“I have neither the money nor the inclination to go back to school. Not to mention I’m a little old for that.” Must not growl at the Alpha, I mentally chanted for the benefit of my human half.

“Loans can be arranged, and I’ve known werewolves who were alive when the Magna Carta was signed and earned their doctorate two or three times over.” He sounded so cool and collected as if we weren’t discussing what was the beginning of what was theoretically to be my extremely long life. “The more immediate issue is how much control you have.”

“If I don’t get my act together by this time next year I’m put down.” Don’t know why I spared him when it would have been so much more fun to watch him squirm.

“Not only that, but you must be able to shift form and back at will.” People go through that much pain willingly? “New wolves need a pack to teach them control and to prevent unnecessary bloodshed when the wolf takes over until control is regained. We cannot afford one mistake lest we all disappear into secret government facilities at best, or hunted down and exterminated at worst.” Angus’ voice achieved a deeper timbre that coiled through the room like some living thing as he seemed to be losing patience. “You will stay the night here. In the morning Shane and Matt will escort you to Eugene to be presented to the pack there.” Ooh, presented like a gift. Who could resist such a command? Oddly enough, my wolf did not like this plan either, but not because of the authoritarianism.

“And if I don’t want to join a pack?” It’s difficult to arch an eyebrow effectively while avoiding eye contact. But not impossible.

“That is not an option,” he shook his head. “Even if you were not so new, our females are so rare they not allowed to become lone wolves.” That’s what John had said, but I hoped that it was a lie to keep me from leaving. The whole damn lot of them were so possessive it’s a wonder they even realized they were in the 21st century. And I didn’t belong to anyone. Not any more.

“Fine. But I’ve driven from here to Eugene many times so I think we can dispense with the escort.” I waved vaguely over my shoulder to where Shane still lurked by the door.

“That is non-negotiable. As a dominant male and even more so as an Alpha I have a responsibility to see a submissive female delivered safely to another pack.” Oh bloody hell. John was right. They could tell from one’s energy, no matter how much I tried to hide behind my sass. “Not all dominants that you might meet along the way would be as tolerant of your attitude as I am.”

“More arbitrary rules from on high,” I said flatly and folded my arms. “Tell me, is His Furriness one of those at the signing of the Magna Carta? No wonder ya’ll’s thinking’s so medieval.”

Angus grabbed me by the back of the neck and snarled in my face. Reflexively, I stiffened and closed my eyes to avoid looking at him. His grip was tight, but not painful. One quick twist and he could snap my neck. I was pretty sure that was one injury from which there was no recovery.

“The Marrock set down our laws for reasons you cannot yet comprehend. You don’t have to understand our ways yet, but before God you will show respect,” he snarled. There wasn’t anything I could say to that, so with an involuntary shudder I went limp in his grasp as my wolf temporarily took over. Well, there were things I could say, but self-preservation and my wolf stayed my tongue. After a minute, he released me, stepped away, and turned his back. The strength I had just experienced first hand was evident in the taut lines of his wiry shoulders.

My heart pounded in my throat while in the back of my head my wolf howled her anguish at having been chastised. As a result, my self-preservation went right out the window. “My respect is earned, not freely given. If I’d realized that my choices consisted of which pack I was going to be the lowest bitch in, I’d have told John to bugger off.” At least he’d have made sure that it was quick and clean.

The Alpha breathed deeply and was quiet for exactly ten seconds. Basic relaxation techniques to manage the beast within? And they thought they could teach me something in that area? When he was done, but not noticeably calmer, he turned around to lean against the desk again. “We have a rigorous screening process to avoid situations like this. Dominant lone wolves are the last people who should be teaching pack structure to a submissive female.”

“Please stop using that term.”

“‘Female’?”

“Used as an adjective, it refers to a person. As a noun, it denotes something less than human. An animal.” Like breeding pairs. Good thing I never wanted to procreate anyway.

“Get used to the terminology.” If he were human, he’d have developed a new frown line from this conversation alone. “In the constant struggles for dominance, females and submissives are the center of a pack since they do not rise in rank, except for when their mate does in the case of females.” If I didn’t like ‘female,’ I despised ‘mate,’ which seemed a ridiculous term for a species that couldn’t bear children. “With submissives, dominants don’t have to constantly watch their back. And the pack will unite to protect these weaker members.” Oh if he thought I was weak, he had another thing coming. “Female submissives are so valued that any pack would welcome you.” ‘Submissive’ as a noun was definitely not an improvement. “But none would tolerate your disrespect for long.”

“That’s exactly why I should just be on my merry way,” I said brightly. “I’m really more trouble than I’m worth.”

“Nice try,” he smirked. “Dinner is in thirty minutes. You’ll want to freshen up.” True to my nature I wanted to deny hunger despite not having eaten since well before the border crossing. I’d worn the same clothes for the past twenty-four hours straight, which included a frantic run down a mountain through unfamiliar woods, and my hands still smelled like gasoline.

I was still noticing just how many interesting smells I was covered in when a tall, perky blonde swept through the door. She must have practically been listening down the hallway, not that, that was necessary. Everyone in the house had probably heard me mouthing off. I’d forgotten about that. Great first impression.

“Please show Ellie to the guest suite.” Mickayla gave a sloppy salute, earning a scowl from her fearless leader, then cocked her head in silent invitation to follow her.

“You’re up on the second floor,” she said as she led me upstairs. “Hopefully you’re not afraid of heights after your accident,” she grinned.

“Are you kidding? I’ve always wanted to try free climbing, but was too scared. Now I totally want to,” I said.

“Don’t mention that to any of the guys or they’ll have kittens.” Her golden laugh bounced through the stairway.

“Now I’m picturing a bunch of them at the base of a cliff with a giant trampoline like in cartoons when there’s a fire,” I chuckled and she joined me.

“This is you,” she waved a welcoming arm through an open doorway. “Matt already brought your backpack and duffel up.” My bags were indeed sitting on a low, wide dresser against the nearest wall. The queen bed with its elegant down comforter faced the door. A door on the right led to a bathroom, although I had no idea how I was going to be able to do my business in a house full of people who could hear through walls.

“Thanks.”

“No worries. You need anything you just give a shout. Wait, you’re new. No actual shouting necessary, just a sort of ‘hey’ so we know you’re not talking to yourself,” she winked.

“Um, Mickayla?” She turned back to me. “What’s it like being in a pack?”

She stepped into the room with a small smile and shut the door behind her, for all the good that would do. “I don’t know this John, but sometimes wolves go lone because they can’t handle being in a pack.”

“Yeah, he did seem more than a little biased.” I dug out the Ziploc of toiletries and the bundle that was the last clean outfit I’d originally saved for the last day of the drive home, but didn’t dare stop long enough along the way to change.

“Think of a healthy pack more as one big family.” Mickayla flopped onto the bed with one leg tucked up under her, yet kept her voice low enough to not carry. “Complete with the usual amount of dysfunction and bickering. They’re really like a bunch of brothers, uncles, and cousins who are all trying to protect the little sister.”

As she talked, I leaned against the bathroom doorway and started to brush my teeth. They had fuzzy sweaters from the energy drinks I’d downed to stay awake. “But then again, I’m married,” she continued. “If you’re single then the unmated ones will all come sniffing around. It’s not that bad!” she laughed at my expression of dawning horror. “Even if any of them would push their luck and call down the wrath of their Alpha, the closest dom would thrash them, or if they couldn’t, tag someone in who could. Mind you, I’m only talking about the Emerald City Pack. I was Changed two years ago because my mate, Matt, was already a wolf. Before that there were no other girls for I don’t know how long.”

“They weren’t kidding when they said that women are rare,” I said around the toothbrush and foam that probably made me look rabid. She laughed again, although it was hard to tell whether it was at my surprise or the toothpaste.

“We’re more functional than not here. But there are some stories out there of Alphas who went bad. I don’t know much about the Eugene pack, but I haven’t heard any horror stories either,” she shrugged. “You know, it’s funny, women are supposed to be huge gossips, but most werewolves are men and we all gossip worse than any housewife.” I laughed and promptly choked, so I shut the bathroom door and started the shower as I finished brushing.

“You’re going to need to get over that modesty.” Mickayla’s voice was easily heard through the door and over the running water.

“Oh?” I asked archly. She couldn’t see the glare through the door as I undressed.

“It’s incredibly painful to shift while wearing clothes. So pack runs, full moons…”

“I’ve just been told I have to switch careers, move to a new city, am no longer allowed to leave town without a babysitter, and when it comes to my place in a pack my only option is which one do I want to be at the bottom of the pecking order in. Oh, and all the single guys will be eyeing me like a juicy steak. Now you’re telling me I have to become an exhibitionist? No thank you, I’m going to maintain whatever little control over my life I have left.” It took all my willpower to not punch something. If I had to move and look for work there was no way I could afford to replace anything in this bathroom, too.

“If the pack’s good, you’ll be on a pedestal, more or less, not the low man on the totem pole.”

“Great, I always wanted to be Princess Peach stuck in the castle,” I muttered sarcastically. “I’ll see you downstairs.”

“Ellie, I promise that it’s not as bad as it seems,” she said before leaving.

I stood lost in thought in my office for some time after she left, bathed in the complex layers of smells that confirmed her story. Mountain air, evergreens, sweat both old and nervous, gasoline, fast food, and no small amount of stress. Amidst the melange was a thread of fear. If it was any stronger, I would have called Alan, the pack’s only submissive, to come and help calm her before everyone got riled up trying to fix whatever upset her. But under the circumstances, her fear was to be expected. And he was working tonight.

Tension had been running high in the pack ever since we went public. Another submissive to ease the strain would be a boon, and a second medic would not go amiss. Her presence would stir up a rash of dominance fights among the unmated males until she starting seeing someone. That is, if she could be housebroken. Time would show whether her defiance was born of ignorance or emotional pressure. Her knowledge of our primary laws would suggest the latter, though I preferred to avoid premature conclusions.

A younger wolf, or one who wasn’t as high in the hierarchy, might find such calculations cold, especially in regards to a submissive female whose Change had been particularly traumatic. But you don’t get to be an old Alpha without assessing the strengths and weaknesses of your pack members and determining how they can best be used for the betterment of the whole.

As much as I was loath to let her leave, even if the Marrock hadn’t mandated, protocol and courtesy demanded that the Eugene pack have right of first refusal. Appropriate that Eugene was also referred to as the Emerald City, but we had claimed the name before the Portland pack had relocated there. Ordinarily I would have my second, Tom, call to arrange things with the other pack, but the unique situation and the fact that he was on duty called for a personal touch, even if my third, Shane, wasn’t preparing for the trip. Besides, their Alpha, Colin, would be pissed if I dropped this grenade, no matter how attractive or useful she was, in his lap without warning. No, not a bomb. Panicked ferret, maybe. Still not pleasant, but not as disastrous. And they could be cute, when they weren’t baring their teeth.

Stifling a sigh, I found Colin’s cell number in my phone and called him up.

Notes: This was written two years ago and was my first fan fiction and my first attempt at writing over 10 years.

Matt and Shane live in Redmond, thus why they were able to carpool so quickly. It was sheer luck that they spotted the lime green, mud-splattered Jeep as they headed down the 405 after Tom asked them to try and track her while he covered I-5 South. Of course, Ellie didn't know that, nor does she think it's lucky at all.

Ellie was hiking along the easterly side of Glacier National Park of Canada in BC, not too far from Revelstoke, which has some great hot springs, by the way.

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surveys-at-your-service · 3 years

Text

Survey #288

“i never believed the devil was real, but god couldn’t make someone filthy as you”

When was the last time you drove or travelled for over an hour? Where did you go? Around a month back, I rode with Mom and my sister to my mom’s doc appointment. When you get old, are you going to let your hair go gray or dye it instead? Haha, I don’t see my desire to dye my hair wild colors ever fading. What genre was the last book you read? Was it any good? Fantasy. It was very good. Did you ever wear braces on your teeth? Yes. What’s your favorite condiment to have with sausages or hot dogs (or the vegetarian equivalent)? I just have ketchup and mustard. Which fictional character can you relate to the most? Is this a character from film, TV or a book? I dunno, there’s just so many to dig through. I’ve never felt a *strong* connection to any. Do you groom your eyebrows? If so, how? Not really anymore. Do you own any photo albums? Are they dedicated to special occasions or just a random selection of photos? We have old ones stored in a cabinet somewhere. I haven’t looked at them in a long time, but I think they’re loosely bound by time periods. What’s your favorite meal of the day - breakfast, lunch, or dinner? Breakfast, for sure. Who was the last person you texted? How do you know that person? Sara. She’s my best friend. What was the reason behind the last time you shouted or raised your voice? It wasn’t severe at all, but I raised my voice to tell Roman to stop clawing at the carpet. Are you a citizen of more than one country? Would you ever use that advantage to move abroad? No. Have you ever read any of John Green’s books? If so, which one is your favorite? I barely started The Fault in Our Stars, and that’s it. I’m quite sure I would if I actually read them, though. Are you a protective person? UM ONLY JUST SLIGHTLY. Have you ever experienced an earthquake? No. There’s been very, very mild ones here, and the one “big” one (which, mind you, was only big enough to make the pool water barely tremble) that’s happened in my lifetime I wasn’t even home for; I was hours away at the zoo. According to Facebook outrage much more recently, my area experienced a teeny-tiny one, but I sure didn’t feel it. Are you a fan of penguins? Omg yes, such darlings. So intelligent, too. I particularly love emperor penguins. Has anyone ever sang to you? Yes. Are you a good painter? I’ve been told so. Before buying a car, do you usually test drive it? I’ve never been in this position. When was the last time you met someone for the first time? Ummm I dunno. Maybe Nicole’s ex? Have you ever cooked with crab or lobster? Could you ever bring yourself to kill a live lobster/crab? No and no. I hate the taste of both. Squishy and just… ew. Which fast food restaurant do you go to the most? What do you tend to order when you go there? Being the cheapest, probably McDonald’s? I usually get a double cheeseburger and small or medium fry. Does it bother you when dogs jump up at you? Does it bother you less if it’s a smaller dog? Nah. I mean their claws can hurt, but it’s all worth a dog’s love, haha. What kind of animal did you touch last? Was this animal one of your pets? I pet my cat Roman last. How would you describe your sense of humor? Have you ever offended someone when you were only joking? Seeing as I don’t even find myself funny, idk how to answer that. I don’t believe I’ve ever offended anyone with a joke. When was the last time you cried - what caused it? It was literally last night when I was really deeply thinking about stuff I’ve been running from. What’s your favorite flavor of potato chip? You can’t beat the original ruffled kind, imo. Do you prefer fruit or vegetable juice? What kind of flavors do you like? I love fruit juice, but you’ll never see me even try vegetable juice. I enjoy lots of fruit ones: mango (my favorite), pineapple, strawberry, watermelon, orange, apple… Who was the last person you spoke to on the phone? How did you meet this person? If you mean via a call and not texting, that would be my psychiatrist. I met him during my partial hospitalization. He helped save my life. Who was your first celebrity crush? Which celebrity do you like now? Jesse McCartney /swoons. Now I’m a l l about Mark Fischbach like jesus fucking Christ lord- Do you usually sleep with your closet door open or closed? It’s closed. What’s your favorite love movie? The Notebook. Afraid of heights? Kinda, yeah. Do you take a vitamin daily? Not daily, no, but I have to take Vitamin D once a week. Wal-Mart, Target, or K-Mart? Wal-Mart. Is K-Mart even still around? Cheetos Or Fritos? Cheetos; I don’t really like the latter. Are you patient? N O P E, not unless it’s really called for. Which are better black or green olives? I hate olives. Black aren’t as awful, though. Who was your high school crush? Ha, Jason surpassed “crush” by a lighyear. Have you ever had your computer or e-mail hacked? Did anything bad happen as a result? No to both, but I’ve had my Facebook hacked. Nothing too bad happened. Do you prefer the company of people or animals? Animals, for sure. I need human company sometimes too, though. When was the last time you went to the beach? What did you do there? A few years ago when Colleen and I were still friends. The water felt fucking incredible, so I swam a lot, and then I just chilled with her, her husband, and their then-infant son under the umbrella. I still got insane sun poisoning, though. What kind of milk do you prefer to drink (if you drink it at all)? 1-2%. Skim is gross and whole is too thick. When was the last time you wore some kind of fancy dress? That witchy photoshoot I mentioned in I think the last survey. Do you enjoy dressing up (ie. in suits or smart clothing)? When was the last time you did so? Ugh, no. Too much effort and usually not very comfortable. See above answer for the second part. What’s worse - being overdressed or underdressed? I think the latter would embarrass me more. What do you think would be the worst thing about being stuck in solitary confinement? Being alone with only your head for “sound.” And if you’re in solitary, odds are your head isn’t in a good place, so it just makes it worse. How old were you when you learned to tie your shoelaces? Idk, but I know I learned it the “wrong” way first from Dad. It always annoyed Mom because they weren’t tight enough, apparently. Do you enjoy decorating for the holidays? For the most part, honestly not really. I love SEEING places decorated, but hate doing it myself. So much effort for sometimes not even a month’s worth of enjoyment. Would you rather go into a restaurant or just go via the drive-thru? I prefer the drive-thru. Do you like having your teeth cleaned at the dentist? Yeah, even if there may be a bit of pain here and there. It feels nice afterwards. Have you ever had a gun drawn on you before? YIKES, NO. When was the last time you went to a petting zoo? I probably haven’t since I was a baby. How old were you when you first started using Tumblr? Have you had the same blog all that time? Idr, but I know I was waaaay late to the party. I’ve had the same since the start, though. Are you a fan of Reddit? What are some of your favorite subreddits? I’ve never used it. Have you ever watched those YouTube videos of people popping their own spots or zits? Do you find them gross or fascinating? EW EW EW EW NO. They gross me the FUCK out. What’s a food you hated as a kid but love now? How about vice versa? Hmmm… I only know vice-versa, really. I loved peas as a baby, but now it’s a “fuck no” from me, man. Do you prefer socks, shoes or going bare foot? Bare feet, at least where it makes sense. Are you currently in the second story of a building? No; my house doesn't have a second floor. Who was the last music artist you listened to a song by? Ozzy. Have you ever written or drew something on a dollar bill? No. What was your favorite childhood game to play with your friends? We played lots of things, but I guess "Categories" in the pool probably wins. Basically the person on one end of the pool had to guess somebody on the other side's favorite in a certain topic, and if they guessed it right, you raced the other person to the opposite side. Whoever got there fastest was the next guesser. Where did you get your favorite pet from? My favorite pet of all time, my old dog Teddy, we got as a puppy from a friend of a friend. Her cocker spaniel had a massive litter and adopted the babies out. Have you ever called animal control on anyone? Not me personally, no. I think my mom did when our childhood neighbor's two rottweilers got loose and killed at least one of our kittens of the time; she was livid because it wasn't the first time they got out and attacked our cats, and of course us kids were absolutely devastated. I think they got off with a warning. Do you prefer wearing hoodies to coats? Yeah, especially slightly oversized. Is there anything written on the shirt you are wearing? No, it's just a black tank top. Have you ever been to another continent? No. Do you ever go out of your way to avoid someone? Not really. What was your last voicemail about? I don't even have a voicemail set up, so. Are you currently wearing a belt?I haven't worn belts since high school. How much was gas the last time you looked? I think $1.99. Is there someone who would support you no matter what? My mom, probably. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?I REALLY don't want to think about this one. Do you still get carded when you try and buy things you’re old enough to? I very rarely order one, but I don't really get carded for drinks at restaurants anymore. Do you know anyone fluent in a really uncommon language? Not that I know of. Do you kiss on the first date? This would depend on a lot of things. Odds are though, no. When was the last time you slept on something other than a bed? I've got no clue. How do you feel about the last person you shared a kiss with? I love her. Describe your current mood: Hopeless. Confused. Aimless. Exasperated. Just depressed. Do you think we were put on this earth for a reason? I mean, somewhat, but also not really. I don't believe life exists by chance, so whoever/whatever made that decision obviously had some reason - but not for each person in particular, I believe. I highly doubt something/someone thought out extravagant stories for every single thing that lives. I believe we give ourselves a reason. What is something you have done this year you’re proud of? Absolutely nothing, off the top of my head. What were you doing 10 years ago? I woulda been 14, almost 15... so starting high school. I was in school with actual goals and confidence I'd do great in life, despite my depression being in full swing. Did you ever have a MySpace? Yup... Still remember Natasha Bedingfield's "Pocketful of Sunshine" was the song on my meerkat-slathered page too, haha. Do you think breaks are toxic in a relationship? I don't believe in breaks, period. You don't turn love on and off. Do you have a YouTube channel? If no, would you create one? If yes, what’s your content? Yeah, but it's not one that seriously produces content. Its primary purpose is just to like, favorite, and rarely comment on stuff while having recommendations catered to my interests. I used to make GMV/AMV-type things and mostly Meerkat Manor tributes, as well as various MEP parts because BOY could I only accomplish very short videos. I no longer have "professional" video editing software (I'd always pirated it before, anyway...) nor the necessary motivation and patience to make them anymore. Are you a math person? Heeeeeeeell no. Have you been ghosted before? Would you ghost someone? No to both. When do you think things will be normal again? Who the fuck knows. It'll probably be a couple years, at least. Do you watch anime? If I'm watching television, yeah, I like some animes. Do you like TikTok? Never used it. Do you ever miss Vine? YO Vine was fuckin FUNNY If you're in school, are you doing it on Zoom or in class? I'm not in school, so. But if I was and in-person classes were expected, guess who the fuck isn't going with how serious I am about social distancing. Lives come before education. Would you ever have a pet rat? I've had a handful, but I don't think I will again. Their cages require so much cleaning, and they need more socialization than I'm able to provide. I fucking adore them, though. Favorite memory with your best friend? It's weird, we've "seen" each other for only like, a month's collective time, and I'm not sure of my answer because there's so many. Have you ever dated someone more than twice your age? No. Have you ever “dined and dashed”? No, I never could. Have you ever been cut off by a bartender because you were too drunk? No. Have you ever borrowed money from your mom & lied about why you needed it? I don't think so. Have you ever dated someone just because they had money? Fuck no. Have you ever lied to your spouse about the money you spent shopping? N/A, but I wouldn't. Have you ever flirted with a cop to get out of a ticket? No. Have you ever lied during a job interview? Me? Social? People person? Well duh, of course I am. Have you ever switched tags on an item to pay less for it? No, that's awful. Have you taken any pics of yourself that you wouldn't want your parents to see? Actually no. Did you ever get fired and tell someone you were laid off? No. Have you ever turned in a school paper that someone else wrote for you? Absolutely not. I liked writing papers anyway and am very serious about creative honesty. Do you feel accepted by your BF/GF’s family? N/A If you were an employer, would you hire someone with your exact work ethic? Well, what's the job? Have you ever trashed your ex’s car after an argument? No. The only thing I ever did to his car was decorate it for his birthday lmao. Have you ever done something because of peer pressure you are ashamed of? I don't think so, no. Have you ever been embarrassed to introduce your parents to anyone? No. Would you leave a note on a car claiming responsibility if you damaged it? Yes. The guilt otherwise would be unbearable. Have you ever used someone's handicapped parking pass to get a parking spot? Ew, no. Have you ever held back a well-deserved compliment because you were jealous? I wouldn't put me past it lately. For yourself, would you rather have a perfect body or high IQ? I hate my body so fuckin much that I'll take the first, please. Have you ever used a false ID? Nope. Are you embarrassed to tell people your job? I'm embarrassed to admit I don't HAVE a job. If you ran over an animal would you keep driving? Oh my god no, I'd have to stop to break the fuck down. Ever lie about you (or your kids') age to get a discount? Ha, I'm sure my parents would sometimes at restaurants when I was young. Do you really care about saving the planet for future generations? A LOT. Have you gotten close to anyone recently? Not really. Do you remember the first conversation you had with the person you have feelings for? No, but I can assure you it probably wasn't nice lmao. Have you ever gotten a D or F on your report card? Not until college. If you had twins, would you give them rhyming names? No. What are you listening to? "Radio" by Rammstein is on atm. Have you ever fallen into a mud puddle? Maybe as a kid. But that might'a been on purpose, lol. Are you scared of spiders? To a degree. Like, I want a few tarantulas but will scream and jump five feet the moment I see a huge spider beside me unexpectantly. I think they are very, very fascinating and important, but I also prefer to give them distance. Unless I have a camera in hand, haha. Do you think that crying is a form of weakness? Absolutely not. Have you ever slept on a couch with someone? Yeah. Last person to call you? Some number from Mississippi??????????? Ever feel like you have been replaced? Oh yes.

#survey #surveys #quiz #questions #lyrics: ''slutgarden'' by marilyn manson

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